No government wants war, and yet all are preparing for it. Socialists know that war is the final arbiter in the bitter struggle between rival capitalist groups. So long as capitalism remains, the threat of war is ever-present, casting a dark and dreadful shadow over the happiness and peace of mind of millions of human beings. The only effective measure would be the rapid growth of socialist knowledge among the workers of the world, so that capitalism may be replaced by socialism, and international rivalry abolished.
It is never “us” which is the potential aggressor, but always “the other side.” Of course, the governments of the UK, United States, Russia, France, Germany, etc., are busy telling their own workers the self-same story.
Do you get fed up with the threat of war with the promises of the politicians?
So why not come to grips with society itself? Begin to study the world in which you live. And when you understand it, your position in it, the causes of the problems that worry you, and make you insecure, join with others who know about our present system—capitalism—and with them help to change it to a society free from insecurity, poverty, the threat of war; to establish a socialist world—a class-free, money-free system of society. Why not start now?
All the rottenness doesn’t have to plague us. There are enough men and women who want and have the ability to be—good doctors, nurses, teachers, hospital and school-builders and organisers, to make mankind healthy, happy and secure. Only the capitalist system, which the vast majority of workers support, maintains need amidst potential plenty in every sphere of human life.
Why not vote that system out of existence?
When we say that socialism means revolution and that we are revolutionaries, experience leads us to expect that we shall be misunderstood unless we take care to make our meaning plain. On the one side it will be assumed that we are advocating violence and anti-democratic methods, and on the other side, as we are frequently told by those who do advocate these things, our refusal to do the same stamps us as non-revolutionaries.
What then do we mean by revolution?
We see that the workers are poor as a class because as a class they do not own the machinery of wealth production and distribution.
Nothing will serve to secure the desired end, except the abolition of the private ownership of these instruments. But private property is the corner-stone of the existing laws and the very foundation of capitalist society. So that in order to abolish private ownership, we, the workers, must obtain control of society. Revolution consists in using the power we shall then possess, for the purpose of destroying the present property rights and refashioning society on the basis of common ownership. As our aim, socialism, can be accomplished only by this revolutionary change, we are revolutionaries and our method is revolution.
Socialism, in brief, means the taking over by the working class of all wealth in society and from then on running society in the interests of all. When all wealth is owned in common it will mean that it is no longer possible for houses to stand empty whilst people are homeless. Homes will be built for use.
What is needed to achieve a society where it will be possible to solve the problems of the physical needs of all?
Men and women ready and willing to take the steps necessary to bring it about, fully aware of what the transformation of society requires.
“For the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement . . .” (Marx and Engels, The German Ideology).
The instrument of that movement, the Socialist Party, is ready and eager, it is now up to the reader to investigate further.
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