Genuine Revolutionary Socialism

 

The Socialist Party is often told, “Your ideas are excellent but the word socialism has so many unfortunate associations that distance people.”

 The word socialism conjures up negative connotations. To many working people the word socialism means the same thing as the Communist Party dictatorship which ruled in Russia.

It is because of the confusion attached to the word socialism that our critics take great delight in flourishing the term wherever and whenever they can. We of the Socialist Party have nothing to do with such brands of so-called “socialism” or “communism.” We are Marxists because we know that Marxism is the only revolutionary socialism of the working class, and that is the only genuine socialism. History has demonstrated the spuriousness of every other brand. Socialism will not fall from the skies. Neither will it be gained by any appeals to the goodwill and compassion of the capitalist exploiters.  Socialism can be realised only as of the outcome of the class struggle of the workers. The class struggle is the motive force of history. Politics has no serious meaning except as the expression of conflicting class interests. Marx and Engels asserted, and we repeat after them, that there is an irreconcilable conflict of class interests between the workers and their capitalist exploiters. 

Capitalism robs the toilers of what they produce.  Socialism marks the birth of the era of prosperity for the workers. Under capitalism everywhere, wealth piles up automatically in the hands of the parasitic owners of the industries, while the masses of actual producers live barely at subsistence level.

When we say we will establish the cooperative commonwealth they still call us socialists. Whenever revolutionary socialists discuss the socialist road for their own country, they talk in terms of a worldwide struggle. Socialism, and only socialism, will create a true world commonwealth, a world without national barriers, without international rivalries, without masters and slaves. This global administration will not be a government of a dominant economic class but will be a decision-making body of all the peoples that inhabit the planet. Its primary duty will be to conduct the affairs of the world with the aim of eliminating poverty, hunger and general insecurity. Its sole criterion would be the needs of the people.

 The only possible remedy is the abolition of the private ownership of productive wealth. Socialism will destroy tile root evil of modern society, i.e., the private ownership of the means of production, the factories, mines, mills, machinery and land, which produce the necessities of life.  With socialism, the instruments of production will become the property of society, owned in common, producing for use, for the general welfare of the people as a whole. With the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life and with profit as the prime motive of production, the divisions of society between nations and classes will disappear. Then, and only then, will society be in a position to become a social order of abundance and plenty for all, for socialism will create a new world of genuine cooperation and collaboration between the peoples of the earth?

In abolishing classes in society, socialism will transform the form and type of governments that exist today. Governments will change into administrative bodies regulating production and consumption. They will not be the weapon of the capitalist class, i.e., capitalist governments whose main reason for existence is to guarantee the political and the economic rule of Big Business, their profits, their private ownership of the instruments of production, and the conduct of war in the economic and political interests of this class.

Socialism will solve the problem of poverty by abolishing capitalism. Socialism will not concern itself with profits but with providing decent housing for all the people. Socialism will create a system of health care in which the physical constitution and improvement of humanity will be the paramount consideration.  The aim of socialism is not the increased exploitation and intensification of labour, but to apply technology, science and invention to diminish toil, to create time in which to permit all the people to enjoy the benefits of social progress. Our world contains all that is necessary for socialism. All around us we see elaborate establishments containing the equipment and machinery which could produce the goods of life in abundance. Mankind has developed a marvellous technology to create a fruitful life of abundance. Only socialism can place automation and robots where it properly belongs: in the service of the people.

 People have a choice to make. Either we continue on the path of capitalism, one full of chaos, war and poverty or we take the socialist road toward a society of plenty for all which would end the exploitation of man by man for all time.