The Task of Socialists

 

The need of the hour is to re-kindle the former flame—weak and uncertain though it was—of internationalism based on the slowly growing recognition that the interests of the world working-class of all nations are one. We hold that hope for the future lies in the direction of trying to keep alive independent global socialist organisation. We hold that it is the duty of socialists here to continue their work of spreading socialist knowledge confident that socialists in every other country will be doing what they can in face of the difficulties that beset them. At a time when the international fraternity of the working-class is drowned by the roar of guns, we re-affirm our faith that only through international, socialist action can the future peace and well-being of the working-class be attained. 

The task of the Socialist Party is clear and uncompromising; that is, to continue at all times to propagate the cause for which we are organised (the establishment of socialism), whatever the difficulties and however powerful the forces of reaction may be. Let us, then, go forward to the accomplishment of our task, spurred by the memory of activists of former days; cheered by the response to the socialist message in all parts of the capitalist world, and steeled by the difficulties and formidableness of the task confronting us. This, comrades, is a battle worth fighting.

The dislocation caused in people’s lives by the war in Ukraine has set many of them devising plans for making the world a better place to live in when hostilities have ended. Ideas thus generated find expression in schemes for remedying the outstanding evils of which the majority of people are victims. The Socialist Party claims that these evils cannot be remedied within the framework of the existing social order. Nothing less than social revolution offers a sound basis for post-war social reconstruction. The abolition of private ownership of the means and instruments of production and distribution, the end of the wages system, the production of wealth solely for use instead of for profit—this, and nothing else, will provide the foundation for the construction of the social system that we so urgently desire. Any planning for “a brave new world” that does not include these fundamental changes is doomed to bring disappointment to those who hope to experience substantial improvements. 

War, the most colossal of all tragedies, must be ended for all time. Only socialism offers a guarantee of a permanently peaceful future.