We are the socialists

Throughout the capitalist world, without exception, the picture is one of increasing chaos and crisis. Capitalism, based upon the private ownership of industry and land and the exploitation of the toiling masses, has exhausted its social role. Out of the welter of crises mass miseries and wars, a new social system will be born, based upon the common ownership of the means of production and the carrying on of production for social use. The system of private ownership and production for profit generates the whole series of contradictions and conflicts—economic, political and social—which torment present day society, causing disruption in the economic life and violent struggles between individual capitalists, between social classes and between capitalist states.

Under capitalism the policy of the ruling class is to try to find a way out of the crisis by throwing its burden upon the shoulders of the working class. Austerity is the order of the day in all capitalist countries. The Socialist Party does not oppose trade union struggles nor does its members refuse to participate in them. It is very essential for workers to organise and help one another to fight for their day-to-day demands. Because, it is only in the course of these fights, that the workers learn about the system of capitalist exploitation and the need to abolish it. Trade union struggles are necessary to educate the workers. What is wrong is to stop at that stage, limiting ourselves always to trade union struggles. Workers, at some stage, must go forward to transform the economic struggle into a political struggle for the capture of power by the working class without sinking into the morass of reformism. They must go further to abolish the wage system itself.

Hunger, misery, disease, and death is the daily lot of our fellow-workers. Too often the workers of the world are fighting each other at their masters’ command. When you fight capitalism you are doing what is right and just from the point of view of your class interests and of the future of humanity. You are fighting to forever abolish exploitation. It is the task of the Socialist Party to abolish private property in the means of production and to establish socialist production and distribution. As soon as private property is abolished, as soon as the industrial society has become socialised, exploitation of man by man ceases to exist. That means freedom and the road will be open for economic and cultural progress undreamed of under capitalism. The rule “let each person work according to ability; let each person receive from the common stock of goods according to needs.” is established. This is socialism. Mankind is free, forever. We no longer need the State. Masters of their own society, working people manage their affairs without the State.

The Socialist Party scorns to hide its aims. Under capitalist society it exists to fight against the exploitation of those who toil by hand and brain, to strengthen the working-class organisation and political understanding of the need of ending capitalism and establishing socialism. We have always regarded the struggle for socialism and the fight for peace as one struggle, a struggle which must be waged incessantly against those who spread misery and want and who continuously prepare for war. For war is not only a question of butchery on battlefields. War is inevitable under the capitalist system. It is an economic question. The Socialist Party is blunt: If you, fellow-worker, desire to abolish war, we say: Abolish capitalism with all its misery and replace it with a system of production for use and not for profit all over the world. War calls for a radical cure, not a palliative salve to soothe the ulcer and retain the body of capitalism.

The workers represent the decisive force in our society but they, however, fail to recognise this elementary fact. The Labour Party betray the true interests of the working class. They pretend that because they were of us they will be for us, and for our interests. Yet they urge us to help their masters—pay and benefit freezes, stagnating social services. For they believe the future as a future of recovered capitalism, and not as a future under the new world of socialism. The Socialist Party represent the vision of the future. We present the conception of socialism of the future. We urge no more pessimism. Let there be no more sense of frustration. The future is ours. We stand for the end impoverishment and to free the Earth from the fear of war. We seek a world in which the exploitation of man by man shall cease and peace and prosperity shall be enjoyed by all. The capitalist system which produces misery and disasters. We are never more optimistic, never more certain, never more determined to achieve the goal of socialism.

The capitalist class live in great splendour by exploiting the working class through the daily robbery of the enormous wealth the workers produce. In contrast to this, intense exploitation, oppression, poverty and misery characterise the lives of the working class. The fundamental contradiction between private appropriation and social production gives rise to the anarchy of production, its unplanned essence. Each capitalist or group of capitalists produces without knowing how much demand or need there is for their product. Driven by their need for maximum profits and by their competition with each other, the capitalists are forced to throw the greatest possible amount of commodities on the market. Working people have the power in its hands to forge a new socialist society.