The road to world socialism

 

Only world socialism can give us peace and security. The capitalist world constantly totters on the brink of self-destruction. The capitalist parties are as rotten and bankrupt as the system they uphold. They can maintain the system today only by piling additional burdens upon the people. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism. The only road is the road to world socialism and freedom: the overturn of the putrid capitalist system in all lands. Capitalism is founded upon production for profit. Socialism is postulated upon production for use. We, socialists, oppose the reformists leading the workers into the camp of capitalism. The working class that must overthrow capitalism. Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary red banner unfurled.

Our opponents accuse us of sectarianism and with “dividing” the working class. To divide the workers implies preceding unity, and this never existed. Instead of dividing them, we are arousing them from their servile submission to capitalist subjugation. Better a thousand times that labour is divided fighting for freedom than united in the bonds of slavery. Our aim has always been to unite all workers within one socialist party for the achievement of their emancipation. The prevailing economic system can only be abolished in two ways; namely, by securing control of government or by violent insurrection. No sane person prefers violent to peaceful measures, and hence the Socialist Party relies upon a united class-conscious ballot to accomplish their end. Economic freedom can result only from common ownership, and upon this vital principle the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. Between private ownership and collective ownership there can be no compromise, no concessions. One produces for profit, the other for use. The Socialist Party make no pretence of attempting to serve both capitalists and workers. That is a political sophistry which socialism leaves a monopoly in the hands of the political spokesmen of capitalism. The present structure of society — capitalism — with its pretensions to democracy on the one hand, and its commercial rivalries on the other, is all based on the exploitation of the working class and the division of the loot.

Ours is a world of unlimited natural wealth. We have allowed our rich resources, the common heritage of all the people, to be monopolised by a privileged few, who claim the right of exclusive ownership of our vial industries and pretend to manage them as trustee for the benefit of all. They have betrayed their trust. They have operated the industries solely with a view to their personal enrichment and in total disregard of the needs of the people. They have operated them without plan, system, or responsibility in wild competition and speculation, in disorder and chaos, and they have run them into ruin and destruction. They have paralysed production, spread misery, and deprived millions of workers of their means of life. Those much vaunted captains of industry have proved themselves as incompetent as they are unscrupulous. If capitalism spells anarchy and chaos, it also means class hatred and war. We socialists demand that they surrender the means of production and distribution to the people. We propose that the people reclaim their common heritage from the usurping owning classes and reorganise the economic life of the country for the common good. What the world needs is not a few threadbare patches on the outwork and tattered outer garment of the capitalist system, but a remodelled, new, sane and equitable social order. Liberals and progressive” will not fulfil the crying needs of the time — it is a confused agglomeration of superficial political views, radical in phrases and token gestures, without sound economic foundation, without definite programme, without organisation, and without power or will to act.

Socialism alone offers a reasonable and effective way out. Socialist campaigns are not made to catch votes. Our purpose should be to state principles of the party clearly to the people. Reformists view that the class struggle can be won step by step concessions wrested from the state by means of “constructive” reform and social legislation; each concession would act as a rung in the ladder of Social Revolution, upon which the workers could climb step by step, until finally, some bright, sunny morning, the peoples would awake to find the cooperative commonwealth functioning. Workers organisations actively competed for votes, on the basis of social reforms, with the bourgeois-liberal political parties. And so they catered to the ignorance and prejudices of the workers, trading promises of immediate reforms for votes. Claiming that they are victories for socialism when, as a matter of fact, the object of these master class measures is to prevent the growing class consciousness of the workers, and to divert them from their revolutionary aim.