One People - One Home

Across Europe and elsewhere, we have witnessed an explosive mixture of economic collapse and a resurgent nationalism. The political virus of nationalism is spreading. This feeds on historical divisions and the need of the new ruling classes in alliance with the remnants of the old to legitimise their rule through appeals to xenophobia and racism. These ideologies gain their strength through the hard struggle for survival experienced by workers in everyday life under state capitalism, and these struggles are set to become even harsher.


Nationalist independence is a capitalist business. Feuding factions of the self-same class that win and control territories for profit, their politicians, media chiefs and paid hacks. Politically, nationalism is ambiguous, in that it can take on a "rightwing" or a "leftwing" form. The Socialist Party urges fellow-workers t\to forget the crumbs from the dishes of their masters’ feast, but instead organise to take the whole feast for themselves by replacing the capitalist logo: "One Nation—One State" with the socialist one: "One World—One People". The obstacle only lies in our minds—the "fear of freedom". Remove fear. Be free to be one to the Movement. Don’t feel you need to be led by the nose. When the workers understand socialism they will take the direct and simple steps necessary to give them control of the political machinery of society for the purpose of introducing socialism. Until that time, the only useful action possible is the act of speaking and writing about socialism. The strike is the workers’ only weapon under capitalism, a useful weapon but strictly limited when it meets the power of those who control the State. The emancipation of the working class will not come by industrial action but only by gaining control of the machinery of government, through the vote, for the purpose of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. We recognise that there is no reason for deluding the workers into the belief that nationalism is anything but a capitalist movement.  Those organisations in this country which support any nationalist movement are deceiving the workers if not themselves, and are demonstrating their unfitness to claim to speak in the name of socialism. Let Scottish and English capitalists quarrel about their profit-seeking interests. Let British workers set an example to their fellows in all lands by proclaiming that the interest of the working class is in internationalism.


It will be argued that Marx and Engels supported nationalist movements and that therefore Socialists should do so today. Such an assertion is based on a faulty understanding of the materialist conception of history. Marx and Engels were living in an era when the bourgeoisie was engaged in a struggle to assert itself against the old feudal regimes. The victory of this class was a historically progressive step at that time in that it brought about the re-organization of society on a capitalist basis, the essential precondition for the establishment of Socialism; and it created an urban proletariat, the only class which can bring about socialism. This was why Marx supported the rising capitalist class in their bid to capture political power. However, once capitalism reaches the point where Socialism is a practical proposition, there is no need for socialists to advocate the capitalist industrialization of every corner of the globe; they can concentrate fully on the task of establishing socialism. Hence we give no support to any nationalist group, and in place of the opportunism and hypocrisy of the myriad groupings in advocating "national self-determination".

Socialism is a global solution to a global problem. The problem is that the Earth and all its abundant resources belong to the minority, not to the human community as a whole. The minority abuse the planet Earth for the purpose of making profits. Socialism will end minority ownership and control, place the world in the hands of everyone and produce goods and services solely for need. This will require global organisation and not national fragmentation. Socialism will put an end to every border; nation-states will be abolished immediately.

The working class has no countries. The British do not own Britain any more than the Scots own Scotland. We, who produce the world’s wealth, must cast off the chains of nationalist illusion. We have a world to win.

The message of the Socialist Party is world-wide. It reaches across the artificial national boundaries erected by man. Despite its shameless perversion by a robber class the great impulse to human solidarity is by no means dead.  Even the hellish system of capitalist individualism, with its doctrine of every person for oneself and the devil take the hindmost, has been unable to kill the struggle for the the great principle of human solidarity.
The Socialist Party raises the rallying cry of Marx and Engels, "Workers of All Countries, Unite!" That is our hope and aspiration. For the present, however, we are surrounded by the horrors of exploitation, added to the horror of war and famine while subjected to the operation of open repression as well as to the arts of hypocrisy and fraud. With the weakening power of religion to keep the workers obedient, the false cult of nationality and patriotism is being exploited to the full. Like religion, patriotism has its vestments, its ceremonies, its sacred emblems, its sacred hymns and inspired music; all of which are called in aid of the class interests of our masters, and utilised desperately to lure millions to the shambles for their benefit and the furtherance of the damnable policy of the slave-holding class: to divide and rule.

Capitalism on the road to extinction

The Socialist Party is the political expression of what is known as the class struggle. This struggle is an economic fact as old as history itself, but it is only within recent generations that it has become a conscious and well-organised political fact. As long as this struggle was confined to its economic aspect the ruling classes had nothing to fear, as, being in control of all the means and agencies of government, they were always able to use their power effectively to suppress uprisings either of chattel slaves, feudal serfs, or free-born and politically equal capitalist wage-workers. But now that the struggle has definitely entered the political field it assumes for the present ruling class a new and sinister aspect. With the whole power of the state -- the military, the courts, the police -- in possession of the working class by virtue of its victory at the polls, the death knell of capitalist private property and wage slavery is sounded. This does not mean, however, that the workers will wrest control of government from the capitalist class simply for the purpose of continuing the class struggle on a new plane, as has been the case in all previous political revolutions when one class has superseded another in the control of government. It does not mean that the workers and capitalists will merely change places, as many poorly informed persons undoubtedly still believe. It means the inauguration of an entirely new system of industry, in which the exploitation of man by man will have no place. It means the establishment of a new economic motive for production and distribution. Instead of profit being the ruling motive of industry, as at present, all production and distribution will be for use. As a consequence, the class struggle and economic class antagonisms as we now know them will entirely disappear. If the Socialist Party did not have any higher political ideal than the victory of one class over another it would not be worthy of a moment’s support from any right-thinking individual. It would, indeed, be impossible for the party to gain any strength or prestige. It is the worth of its ideals that attracts adherents to the World Socialist Movement even from the ranks of the capitalist class.

The capitalist was originally a socially useful individual, but the evolution of our economic system has rendered him a parasite, an entirely useless functionary that must be eliminated if civilization is to endure. He is no longer useful. He is now merely an obstacle to social progress and must be abolished, just as the feudal lord and chattel slave-owner have been abolished. From the point of view of the corporation owners, the workers are simply an extension of the machine of profit production. The workers are not regarded as having human attributes. Their labour is trafficked in as a commodity, like iron and steel, and the only interest the capitalist retains in production receiving his dividends. Society can get along without the capitalist; it refuses longer to support him in idleness and luxury.  Industrial and commerce has now evolved an organization, co-operative in character, whereby industry may be carried on without friction for the benefit of the whole people instead of for the profit of the individual capitalist. It is not the mission of the Socialist Party to speculate concerning the manner in which the workers will conduct their affairs when they have come into possession of their inheritance which the ages have prepared for them but there exist ample indicators on how enterprises will be democratically administered and decisions made. “Without rights there shall be no duties; without duties no rights.” What will be the practical interpretation of this Socialist axiom? Obviously, social parasitism must cease; every man must be a producer or perform some socially useful function, in order to procure title to any share in the product of the collective industry. The only citizenship held honourable will be economic citizenship or comradeship in production and in the sharing of product. Is there is a single thing you can think of that cannot be produced in abundance? The spectacle of strong men walking the streets idle and hungry, vainly begging for a chance to work for the pittance that will suffice to ward off starvation from themselves and their loved ones, will be no more. The cruelty of children of tender years being forced hungry to school will disappear. No longer will there be a problem of the unemployed. The class struggle must necessarily cease, for there will be no classes. Each individual will be his or her own economic master, and all will be servants of the collectivity.

The struggle for working class emancipation, which finds its expression through the Socialist Party, must continue and will increase in intensity until either the ruling class completely subjugates the working class, or until the working class entirely absorbs the capitalist class. There is no middle ground possible, and it is this fact that makes ludicrous those sporadic reform movements.  It is so easy to agree with the ignorant majority. It is so easy to make the people applaud an empty platitude. It takes some courage to face that majority, and tell the truth to their faces. Nature’s storehouse is full to the surface of the earth. All of the raw materials are deposited here in abundance. We have the most marvelous machinery the world has ever known. Mankind has long since become master of the natural forces and made them work for us. Now we need only to touch a button and the wheels begin to spin and the machinery to whirr, and wealth is produced on every hand in increasing abundance. Why should any man, woman or child suffer for food, clothing or shelter? Why? Don’t tell us that some are too lazy to work. Suppose they are too lazy to work, what do you think of a social system that produces men too lazy to work? If a man is too lazy to work don’t treat him with contempt. Don’t look down upon him with scorn as if you were a superior being. If there is a man too lazy to work there is something the matter with him, He wasn’t born right or he was perverted in this system. You could not, if you tried, keep a normal person sloth-like and inactive, and if you did he or she would go stark raving mad. Go to any jail and you will find the convicts there begging for the privilege of doing prison-work.

The material foundation of society determines the character of all social institutions—political, educational, ethical and spiritual. In proportion as the economic foundation of society changes the character of social institutions changes to correspond. Half of America was in favour of chattel slavery, and half was opposed to it, geographically speaking. Why was the church of the South in favour of chattel slavery? Why was the church of the Northern states opposed to chattel slavery? The Northern capitalist wasn’t a bit more opposed to chattel slavery from any morality than was the Southern plantation owner. The South produced cotton for the market by the hand labour of black slaves. On the other hand, the North wasn’t dependent upon cotton—could raise no cotton. In the North it was the small capitalist at the beginning of capitalism, who, with the machine, had begun to manufacture, and wanted cheap labour; and the sharper the competition the cheaper he could buy his labour. Now, chattel slavery to the Southern plantation owner was the source of his wealth. He had to have slaves, and what the plantation owner had to have in economics the preacher had to justify in religion. As long as chattel slavery was necessary to the Southern plantation owner, as long as that stage of the economic condition lasted, the preachers stood up in the pulpits of the South and said that slavery was ordained of God, and proved it by the Bible. (We don’t know of any crime that the oppressors have not proven by the Bible.) The free soilers came to Kansas, despised, hated and were persecuted. They were the enemies of the human race. Why? Because they looked with pity upon the black slave who received his wages in lashes applied to his naked back; who saw his crying wife torn from him and his children, pleading, snatched from his side and sold into slavery, while the great mass looked on just as the great mass is looking on today, and the preachers stood up in their pulpits and said: “It is all right. God knows best.” And whenever an abolitionist raised his head he was hounded as if he had been a wild beast. All of the slave catchers and holders, all of the oppressors of man, all of the enemies of the humanity, all have spoken in the name of the Great God and the Holy Bible.

We are today the abolitionists, intent upon ending wage-slavery. Our conduct is determined largely by our economic relations. If you and I must fight each other to exist, we will not love each other very hard. Socialists propose that society in its collective capacity shall produce, not for profit, but in abundance to satisfy all human wants. According to the American Declaration of Independence, man has the inalienable right to life. If that be true it follows that he has also the inalienable right to work. If you have no right to work you have no right to life because you can only live by work. And if you live in a system that deprives you of the right to work, that system denies you the right to live. Now men and women have a right to life because we are here. That is sufficient proof, and if he or she has the right to life, it follows that he or she has the right to all the means that sustain life. But how is it in this outgrown capitalist system? A worker can only work on condition that he or she finds somebody who will give him or her permission to work for just enough of what his or her labour produces to keep him or her in working order.

No man can be for labor without being against capital. No man can be for capital without being against labor. Here is the capitalist; here are the workers. Here is the capitalist who owns the mines; here are the miners who work in the mines. There is so much coal produced. There is a quarrel between them over a division of the product. Each wants all he can get. Here we have the class struggle. Now. is it possible to be for the capitalist without being against the worker. Are their interest not diametrically opposite? If you increase the share of the capitalist don’t you decrease the share of the workers? Can a door be both open and shut at the same time? Can you increase both the workers’ and the capitalist’s share at the same time? There is just so much produced, and in the present system it has to be divided between the capitalists and the workers, and both sides are fighting for all they can get. and this is the historic class struggle.

There is one fact, and a very important one, that the Socialist Party would impress upon you, and that is the necessity for revolutionary working class political action. No one will attempt to dispute the fact that our interests as workers are identical. If our interests are identical, then we ought to unite. We ought to unite within the same organization, and if there is a strike we should all strike, and if there is a boycott all of us ought to engage in it. If our interests are identical, it follows that we ought to belong to the same party as well as to the same economic organization. What is politics? It is simply the reflex of economics. What is a party? It is the expression politically of certain material class interests. You belong to that party that you believe will promote your material welfare. Is not that a fact? If you find yourself in a party that attacks your pocket do you not quit that party? Now, if you are in a party that opposes your interests it is because you don’t have intelligence enough to understand your interests. That is where the capitalists have the better of you. As a rule, they are intelligent., and shrewd. They understand their material interests and how to .protect them. You find the capitalists as a rule belonging only to capitalist parties. They don’t join a working-class party and they don’t vote for the Socialist Party. They know enough to know that socialists oppose their economic interests. The inequality question, which is really the question of all humanity, will never be solved until it is solved by the working class. It will never be solved for you by the capitalists. It will never be solved for you by the politicians. It will remain unsolved until you yourselves solve it. As long as you can stand and are willing to stand these conditions, these conditions will remain; but when you unite all over the land, when you present a solid class-conscious phalanx, economically and politically, there is no power on this earth that can stand between you and complete emancipation. As individuals you are helpless, but united you are an irresistible power.

 This whole system is based upon the private ownership by the capitalist of the tools and the wage-slavery of the working class, and as long as the tools are privately owned by the capitalists the great mass of workers will be wage-slaves. You may, at times, temporarily better your condition within certain limitations, but you will still remain wage-slaves, and why wage-slaves? For just one reason and no other – you have got to work. To work you have got to have tools, and if you have no tools you have to beg for work, and if you have got to beg for work the man who owns the tools you use will determine the conditions under which you shall work. As long as he owns your tools he owns your job, and if he owns your job he is the master of your fate. You are in no sense a free man. You are subject to his interest and to his will. He decides whether you shall work or not. Therefore, he decides whether you shall live or die. And in that humiliating position any one who tries to persuade you that you are a free man is guilty of insulting your intelligence. You will never be free, you will never stand erect in your own manly self-reliance until you are the master of the tools you work with, and when you are you can freely work without the consent of any master, and when you do work you will get all your labour produces. As it is now the lion’s share goes to the capitalist for which he does nothing, while you get a small fraction to feed, clothe and shelter yourself, and reproduce yourself in the form of labour power. That is all you get out of it and all you ever will get in the capitalist system. Can you be satisfied with your lot? Will you insist that life shall continue a mere struggle for existence and one prolonged misery to which death comes as a blessed relief? How is it with the average worker today? I am not referring to the few who have been favored and who have fared better than the great mass, but I am asking how it is with the average workingman in this system? Admittedly many still possess a job. What assurance has in twenty-four hours? Robotics and automation is conquering every department of activity. It is displacing more and more workers, and not just the unskilled, and making the lot of those who have employment more and more insecure. Admit that a man has a job. What assurance is there that if some workers engage in any industrial action and gains a temporary advantage, that the employer invests in new machinery to make his workers redundant. The moment workers are dismissed they have to hunt for a new buyer for their labour power. They owns no tools; the tools are great machines. There is only one condition under which they can work and that is when they sell their labour power. They are not sold from the block, as was the chattel slave. They sells themselves by the hour, by the day, by the week and by the month in exchange for just enough to keep themselves and their families in that same slavish condition. You are a worker, you live in capitalism, and you have nothing but your labour power, and you don’t know whether you are going to find a buyer or not. It is in the nature of capitalism to turn every human disaster into an opportunity to make profit.

Clydebank's demise

Researchers have identified Clydebank as the perfect case study to demonstrate the impact of globalisation, the shrinking of the welfare state, the decline of manufacturing, unemployment and poor health.

Study author Dr Lisa Garnham, public health research specialist at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH), said “We were interested in exploring what had happened for people and their lives - the loss of industry created unemployment and poverty, so you can see as you look through the history that people who had once had really secure well-paid work and fantastic skills found themselves really struggling financially. Over the coming years lots of publicly funded services that could have protected them were withdrawn or removed or reduced. So the worst effects of poverty were pushed down on people who were living in that area. It is not just Clydebank, it is a similar story across other deindustrialised parts of west central Scotland.”

Garnham said the definition of ‘neoliberalism’ varied, but in this research it was being used as a shorthand for policies seeking to shrink the welfare state – including services such as benefits, social housing and the NHS. There is a reliance on the private market, which is expected to take over providing those services,” she said. “So those who can afford to pay for things like unemployment insurance or private housing or healthcare get better quality services. Those who are struggling financially end up not being able to afford the basics for a decent standard of living. It creates a cycle which perpetuates inequality.”

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15197913.The_Scottish_town_that__39_s_become_a_crucible_for_our_modern_social_ills/

Our world is a shared world

The Socialist Party is opposed to the system of society in which we live today, there are millions upon millions who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under capitalist ethics that man’s business upon earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle. Look after yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilised society. yes, I am my brother’s keeper. What would you think of me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow-beings starving to death? Nature has spread a great table bounteously for all of the children of men. There is room for all, and there is a plate and a place and food for all, and any system of society that denies a single one the right and the opportunity to freely help himself to Nature’s bounties is an unjust and iniquitous system that ought to be abolished in the interest of humanity. In every age of this world’s history the kings and emperors and tsars and the potentates, in alliance with the priests, have sought by all the means at their command to keep the people in darkness, that they might perpetuate the power in which they riot and revel in luxury while the great mass are in a state of slavery and degeneration, and he who has spoken out courageously against the existing order, he who has dared to voice the protest of the oppressed and downtrodden, has had to pay the penalty.

As long as a relatively few men own the transport, the media and the communications; own the oil and the gas and the steel, own, in short, the sources and means of life, they will corrupt our politics, they will enslave the working class, they will impoverish and debase society, they will do all things that are needful to perpetuate their power as the economic masters and the political rulers of the people. Not until the means of production and distribution are owned and operated by the people can the people hope for any material improvement in their social condition. In this system, we have one set who are called capitalists, and another set who are called workers; and they are at war with each other over the division of the product.

Socialists propose that society in its collective capacity shall produce, not for profit, but in abundance to satisfy human wants; that every person shall have the inalienable right to work, and receive the full equivalent of all he or she produces. Every man and every woman can be economically free. They can, without let or hindrance, apply their labour, with the best machinery that can be devised, to all the natural resources, do the work of society and produce for all and then receive in exchange a certificate of value equivalent to that of their production. Then society will improve its institutions in exact proportion to the progress of invention. Whether you work in the city or on a farm, all things productive will be carried forward on a gigantic scale. All industry will be completely organised. Society for the first time will have a scientific foundation. Everyone, by being economically free, will have some time for oneself.

We are not going to abolish private property. We are going to increase private property — all private property that is necessary to house people, to keep them comfort, and to satisfy all their physical wants. Too many people in this world have no property of any kind today. A privileged wealthy few have got it all. They have dispossessed the people, and when we get into power we will dispossess them. We will reduce the workday and give everyone opportunities and a chance. Mankind has many attributes. They are in a latent state. They are not yet developed. When we are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other’s throats when we have stopped enslaving each other, then we will stand together, hands clasped, and we will be friends. We will be comrades, we will be brothers and sisters, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilisation that the humanity has ever known.  

Dispelling the myths

We live in the capitalist system, so-called because it is dominated by the capitalist class. In this system the capitalists are the rulers and the workers the subjects. The capitalists are in a decided minority and yet they rule because of the ignorance of the working class. The capitalists are the upper classes. That is because they are riding on your backs. So long as the workers are divided, economically and politically, they will remain in subjection, exploited of what they produce, and treated with contempt by the parasites who live out of their labour. The Socialist Party is the party of the workers, organised to express in political terms their determination to break their fetters and rise to the dignity of free men. In this party the workers must unite and develop their political power to conquer and abolish the capitalist political state and clear the way for industrial and social democracy. Socialism is merely an extension of the ideal of democracy into the economic field.

 At present, industry is ruled by the owners of the machines of production and distribution, who have literally the power of life and death over the subjects.  If socialism, does not stand staunchly, unflinchingly, and uncompromisingly for the working class and for the exploited and oppressed masses of all lands, then it stands for none and its claim is a false pretence and its profession a delusion and a snare. Let us stand squarely on our revolutionary, working class principles and make our fight openly and uncompromisingly against all our enemies, adopting no cowardly tactics and holding out no false hopes, and our movement will then inspire and arouse the spirit, and develop the fibre that will prevail. Socialism proposes to put industry in control of the people so that they may no longer be dependents on others for a job, so that they may be freed from the tribute of profit, and so that they may manage industry in their own way, as seems best to them. Socialism holds as its great ideal that freedom of action which shall make the making of a living a simple, easy thing, possible to all; and beyond this lies the greater hope of being able to live, to really live.

If Socialism meant the solution of the bread-and-butter problem alone then it would be the most wonderful idea ever, for with all our technological knowledge and with all our machinery we have not yet accomplished this. Modern technology is to civilise the world in spite of itself and make it possible for us all to work together and have competition begin after every animal want is satisfied. Socialism means good to all and evil towards none. If it meant the solution of the bread-and-butter problem only, even then it would surpass all other movements the world has seen, because it would mean an end of the slums and the sweatshops, of child labour, of the worries that kills and the anxiety. But it will mean infinitely more than this. When the bread-and-butter problem is settled and all men and women and children, the world around, are rendered secure from dread of war and fear of want, then the mind and soul will be free to develop as they never were before. We shall have a literature and an art such as the troubled heart and brain of man never before conceived. We shall have beautiful and happy homes such as want could never foster or drudgery secure. The socialist wants a free world making everybody's lives better and sweeter. If the working-people are to be emancipated, they must emancipate themselves. The hour workers unite, that hour they will become the masters of the Earth. Many imagine that socialists are going to take all you have and divide it among the undeserving. We don’t want your paltry little capital. It would do us no good. We want the earth. Do not say that there is a large number who are unwilling to work. If that is so, what do you think of a system that produces a large number who do not like work? It is not work that a man shirks from, it is slavery. No human being is willing to be a slave. He may be apparently submissive, but in his heart of hearts he protests. We workers make everything and the capitalists have everything. 

You argue that you don’t want to throw away your vote for the Socialist Party. That’s right. Don’t vote for freedom — you might not get it. Vote for slavery — it's a cinch you get that. Socialism comes because nothing else can come. The competitive profit system has become disastrous; it was useful, for it paved the way to the socialist cooperative commonwealth. When Socialism comes, we shall not live to work, but work to live; we shall create no surplus value; wage slavery will be abolished, the class struggle will be ended forever. Workers should not and will not be satisfied until they get all they produce. We no more need owners of capital and other great industrial barons than we need a king. There is machinery enough to produce wealth for all. There is no necessity for poverty or the fear of want. Shall this country be owned by the few, or shall it be owned by all and operated in the interest of all? Some people say that we are free-born, but we must work for the man who owns the tools, and the man with the tools is the working-person’s master. Under this system he is no longer a man. He is a “hand” — and he is often reduced to a hand-out. All men, women and children can have all the beautiful things of life if the men, who have the votes, once understand that there is machinery enough to produce all the necessities and luxuries for all. When the working class rules there will be no beautiful thing destroyed. On the contrary, homes will increase in beauty, and the cities that now boast of their attractions will seem poor and ugly when compared with what they are under socialism. There will be no trouble about the necessities of life when the working class takes over the machinery. They will have all the best food they need, the best homes that can be built, the best schools — no child labor, no grinding toil — and all the beautiful things will be for everyone. 

Socialist Standard No. 1352 April 2017

• Editorial: Capitalist Health Warning
• Pathfinders: Don't Be Evil
• Letters: Not the Way to Socialism, & Letter From Zambia
• Russia 1917: As We Saw It
• Cooking the Books: Never Been Tried
• Greasy Pole: New (?) Hope (?) For Labour
• Material World: Feeding the World
• Our Revolution? Speak for Yourself Bernie!
• A Short Guide to Capitalism
• Stephen Hawking: No Anthropologist
• Was Antonio Gramsci a Socialist?
• Support for All
• Cooking the Books: Bill Gates on Robots
• Proper Gander: Peering At The Peers
• Book Reviews: 'The Silk Roads', 'Corbyn. The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics', & 'Hayek vs Keynes'
• Exhibition Review: Strange and Familiar
• 50 Years Ago: Vietnam - A Tragedy?
• Action Replay: Another Club in Financial Crisis
• Party News
• Rear View
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Who owns Scotland?

Scotland’s most expensive sporting estate has been bought by a Russian vodka billionaire after it was put on the market with an asking price of more than £25 million.

The new owner of Tulchan Estate on Speyside, which boasts some of the best salmon fishing in Europe, is Yuri Schefler, who according to Forbes magazine is worth £1.34 billion. Schefler,  is said to divide his time between the UK and Switzerland, owns SPI Group, which produces and sells alcohol under 380 brands in 160 countries, including Stolichnaya vodka. Schefler is understood to have left the Russian army in September 1987 before starting a business career which has included running one of Moscow`s leading shopping malls and heading Vnukovo Airlines.

His new 21,000-acred property was described by the selling agents Savills as the “ultimate utopia for the passionate sportsman” when it was put on the market last year. It has eight miles of double bank salmon fishing on the River Spey as well as exceptional stalking and shooting, including two grouse moors. The property also has snipe and woodcock shooting, five let farms, and produces its own beef and lamb from a commercial herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle.Tulchan lies on the edge of Cairngorm National Park, 40 miles south of Inverness. Formerly owned by Scottish aristocracy and later a London-based financial institution, it was bought in 1993 by the Midlands businessman Leon Litchfield and his wife Gillian, who set up Tulchan Sporting Estates Ltd. It is understood that the new owner of TSEL will continue to operate the estate as a business along similar lines as the Litchfield family and plans to make additional investment and innovation in the business.

The asking price is thought to be the highest seen on the open market for a “whole” Scottish sporting estate. The average price of an estate is under £5 million, although Kinpurnie estate on Tayside was sold in separate lots with a total ticket price of £29 million.

THIS IS ENOUGH! THERE MUST BE CHANGE!

Fellow-Workers, the spirit of our time is revolutionary and growing more so every day. The message of socialism, which, a few years ago was spurned by these people, falls today upon eager ears and receptive minds. Their prejudice has melted away.

A new social system is struggling to surface.  The new system that is to succeed the old is clearly revealed in its spirit of mutualism and its co-operative manifestations. The old economic foundation of society is breaking up and its social fabric is beginning to totter. The capitalist system is doomed. The signs of change confront us everywhere. Social changes are preceded by agitation and unrest among the masses. So long as the present system of capitalism prevails and the few are allowed to own the nation’s industries, the toiling masses will be struggling in the hell of poverty as they are today. Private ownership and competition have had their day. The Socialist Party stands for social ownership and co-operation. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. 

The Socialist Party as the party of the exploited workers in the mills and mines, on the railways and on the farms, in the offices, the workers of both sexes and all races and colours, the working class in a word, constituting a great majority of the people and in fact THE PEOPLE, demands that the world's industries shall be taken over by the workers who shall operate them for the benefit of the whole people. The choice is economic despotism, and the other is economic democracy. We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people.

In the struggle of the working class to free itself from wage slavery it cannot be repeated too often that everything depends upon the working class itself. The simple question is, can the workers fit themselves, by education, organisation, co-operation and self-imposed discipline, to take control of the productive forces and manage industry in the interest of the people and for the benefit of society? That is all there is to it.

The capitalist theory is that labour is, always has been, and always will be, “hands” merely; that it needs a “head,” the head of a capitalist, to hire it, set it to work, boss it, drive it and exploit it, and that without the capitalist “head” labour would be unemployed, helpless, and starve; and, sad to say, a great majority of wage-workers, in their ignorance, share in that opinion. They use their hands only to produce wealth for the capitalist who uses his head only, scarcely conscious that they have heads of their own and that if they only used their heads as well as their hands the capitalist would have to use his hands as well as his head, and then there would be no “bosses” and no “hands,” but men and women instead—free men and women, employing themselves co-operatively under regulations of their own, taking to themselves all the products of their labour and shortening the work day as machinery increased their productive capacity. Such a change would be marvelously beneficial all around. The idle capitalists and brutal bosses would disappear. All would be useful workers, have steady employment, fit houses to live in, plenty to eat and wear, and leisure time enough to enjoy life. That is the theory that the Socialist Party is fighting for. But this is not a mere fanciful theory. It is a vital force in society that is at work like gravity, steadily, unceasingly, transforming society and at the same time preparing the workers for the change.

 All the workers have to do is to recognise this force, get in harmony with it, and fit themselves by self-training and co-operative self-control for industrial mastery and social freedom. This seems simple enough and so it is, yet simple as it is it involves the greatest struggle in history. The idle capitalists who now rule the civilized world and rob the workers of the fruit of their labor will fight to the last ditch and they have numberless hirelings, mercenaries and lickspittles in the form of lawyers, politicians, legislators, judges, office-holders, professors, priests, editors, writers, reformist leaders, soldiers, detectives, etc., etc., to fight their battles for them. All this vast army serves as retainers of and apologists for the idle capitalists by whose grace they hold their jobs, and the entire brood is set solidly against socialism. These servile prostituted puppets all insist that working men and women are “hands” to be worked by capitalists, that they can never be anything else and that socialism is but the devil’s lure which they must shun as they would a deadly viper, and this they are dinning into the ears of the slaves early and late through their media, their pulpits and confessionals, their civic federations and charity balls, and seeking in a thousand other ways, secret and subtle, covert and treacherous, to thwart the efforts of the socialists to open the eyes of the workers that they may see the light and find their way to freedom. 

This task on the part of socialists, who are almost wholly wage-slaves with their brains in working order, is a herculean one and socialists are the very last to underestimate its magnitude. They realise fully what they have undertaken, and how crucially they are to be tested in the struggle, and this has been the making of them and they are today the most fearless, persistent and successful agitators and the most self-possessed and optimistic people in the world. They are not waiting for some so-called “great man” or “good man” to do something for them, but they are preparing to do all things for themselves. The workers are in a great majority and without them every wheel would stop, industry would drop dead, and society would be paralyzed. All they have to do is to unite, think together, act together, strike together, vote together, never for an instant forgetting that they are one, and then the world is theirs. They have but to stretch out their millions of brawny arms and trained co-operative hands and take possession. But to reach this point requires education and organisation—these are the essentials to emancipation.

They must unite in one and the same industrial union and one and the same political party. And the union and the party must be managed and directed by themselves, not from the top down, but from the bottom up. When the head of a “boss” appears it is only to disappear if the workers know their book. Brains are wanted, but not bosses. The workers do not want to be patronized any longer by intellectual “superiors.” They are organized upon the basis of mutual service and the superiority of all, and all are welcome to join upon that basis, the brainier they are the better.

But no bosses! Labor has been bossed for centuries unnumbered and from now on it is going to boss itself. Labor has had all it wants of the “great man,” who condescendingly smiles upon it to have himself lifted up on its shoulders and boosted into prominence, luxury and office. The workers and producers, the builders, the sowers and reapers, the weavers and spinners, the mechanics, artisans and laborers of every kind and sort are the creators of society and the conservators of civilization, and when they come to realize it they will conquer in the struggle for supremacy and people the earth with a race of free men and women.

The Miners' last stand (1972)

From the March 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

A coalface worker from Scotland writes about the strike.

The present struggle of the miners has been a long and complicated one eventually forcing them to strike work. It began as far back as the end of the second world war, when in Britain, as elsewhere in the world, there was a shortage of fuel. There had been no large investments into plant and machinery; coal was still being hewn and drawn by hand. Vast amounts of capital were required to modernise coalmining by introducing mechanisation. Higher coal output was essential to the capitalist class as a whole, but the coalmines were owned by independent capitalists, who were not prepared to invest large amounts into an industry which did not have a secure future. This was the main reason the Labour government nationalised the industry, the usual procedure when the interests of the capitalist class as a whole are being jeopardised commercially by a group which owns a key industry.

From the time of nationalisation, the NUM pursued a policy of moderation, being under the false illusion that nationalisation and the Labour government were in the workers’ interests and would lead to vast improvements eventually. This enabled the NCB to provide coal at prices below those prevailing on the world markets. The miners were just getting over these illusions when in 1956 came the crunch.

Coal, the miners were told, is finished; it cannot compete with other fuels. Governments showed that oil, natural gas, and nuclear power, were cheaper and more efficient than coal, and started to run down coal production. The number of collieries fell from 840 in 1956 to 299 in 1970. The labour force declined from 697,400 in 1956 to 295,650 in 1970. The chairman of the NCB, year after year, asked for productivity, and because of fear of redundancies, the miners responded. Output per man shift in 1956 was 24.8 cwts; in 1970 it was 43.4 cwts. and in 1971 was 46.9 cwts. Earnings, however, did not rise in conjunction with productivity. In 1956 the miner was top of an earnings table of 17 industries, in 1970 he was 13th in the table, 4th from the bottom.

Yet still the industry declined; the mining communities were broken up; villages deserted, many families moving home as many as three or four times. The unemployment rate for miners is over 8 per cent. The miners were treated as capitalism always treats its unwanted, in a callous and degrading manner.

In the collieries that remained, mechanisation took over almost completely. 240 HP machines cutting coal into fine power and spewing it out at over 3 tons per minute, creating a permanent cloud of dust at the coalface. This will give miners pneumoconiosis, the dreaded lung disease, and conjunctivitis, the eye disease, much earlier than ever.

In the late 60’s, however, things began to change again. In 1966 the National Power Loading Agreement, was signed. This agreement meant that over the next five years up to 1971, the lower-paid areas, Scotland, South Wales, etc., would be brought up to the same wage level as the higher-paid areas of Notts and Kent. In reality this agreement has meant that the wages in the high-paid areas have practically stood still to allow the low-paid areas to catch up. This has led previously unmilitant areas like Notts to become as militant as the more traditional militant areas of Scotland and South Wales.

Government policies here and abroad in the years 1968-69, of running down coal production, have proved to have been very shortsighted, and have led to the present world-wide shortage of coking coal. This is seen in Britain, by millions of tons of coal being imported from Australia at up to £35 per ton. The N.C.B. are trying to reopen mines, and are surveying for new deposits. In America and Russia vast coalfields are being opened up, but will not be in operation till 1975-76.

The miner sees himself in a better position for bargaining than he has been in for many years. He is not going to let the chance pass as he did in the 1950s. For the first time in their history all the coalfields arc on the same wage level; they are united going for the same thing, £26 surface, £28 under ground, and £35 coalface, with corresponding increases for craftsmen. They are more militant than ever before, as has been seen by the unofficial strikes in 1968-69-70. In a national ballot in October 1970, 55 per cent voted to strike, after rejecting an offer from Lord Robens of £2.50, the highest ever offered in their history. Union rules prevented a strike then by demanding a 66 per cent vote to call a strike. Even so 100,000 miners struck work unofficially, and the offer was increased.

In November 1971, an overtime ban was put into operation, and a national ballot gave the executive the majority to call a strike. The NCB offer of £1.75 to £1.80, was well below the £5 to £9 asked for, the £9 being to bring the lowest paid underground man from £19 to £28. After weeks of talks and no increase in the offer, a strike was called to start on 8 January. After more talks the offer was increased by 10p per week, with some vague talk about extra holidays provided there was extra production. This brought the offer up from a 7.1 per cent increase to 7.8 per cent, keeping it under the government’s ceiling of 8 per cent. This too was rejected.

The miners believe that a lot of other demands they will soon be making depend on the outcome of this strike: A better pension (at present the miner gets £1.50 per week after 50 years service); usually he has some disablement from working over the years in arduous conditions; the re-introduction of the six-hour day, which the miner had after the first war, but lost in the lockouts of the 1920s; three weeks holidays which many industries already have.

The NUM have the backing of the railway unions, the Transport and General Workers Union, and the seamen’s and dockers unions, who refuse to go through miners’ picket lines. This has meant that they have been successful in picketing power stations, and to a lesser degree the docks.

There has been some confusion, however, and unwelcomed publicity about the picketing of coalboard offices. The staff of these offices belong to different unions, the Colliery Officials and Staffs Association, which is affiliated to the NUM and, mainly in the area offices, the Clerical and Administrative Workers Union. The NUM have instructed these unions that there will have to be staff working during the strike, to allow payment of income tax rebates to strikers, sick pay to miners on compensation, and pensions to widows and retired miners. COSA called all its members out saying, “one out, all out”, and the others nearly all worked on. This led to some offices working and some not, and the NCB saying that tax rebates may not be payed out. The NUM made it clear that they would not picket offices, but some misinformed NUM members and striking COSA members picketed some area offices in an angry and vile manner. The TV and press have made great play of this. The NUM have cleared this up, however, by making their pickets go to places that will benefit the strike more.

Despite what the NCB say, in Scotland the NUM have covered safety for personnel underground; they supply winding enginemen, boiler firemen, engineers, blacksmiths and electricians to stand by as long as officials are going underground. They are not, however, in most cases going to supply men to save machinery and equipment, which is more of a worry to the NCB as every day the strike lasts the more this equipment is crushed at the coal face. The price of this electronic and hydraulic face equipment is very expensive and will cost the NCB millions of pounds to replace.

All this is taking place in a country where one coalmine was in operation where only a handful of men went underground, and no one worked at the coalface while the machines were in operation; production was all controlled from the surface. This, however, proved unprofitable due to the high cost and maintenance of the machinery, as coal like every other commodity under capitalism is produced for a profit on the market, and not for social use. Men’s health and lives are available at a cheaper rate than machines.

The miners are struggling to maintain their standard of living under capitalism, and while we support workers in this struggle, we see that at the end of the day workers will still be in the same position; they will still be wage slaves subject to the anarchistic and wasteful economic laws of capitalism.

We, therefore, urge workers to join with us in the political field, to abolish capitalism and set up a worldwide, classless, wageless society, where the wealth of the world is produced for the common use of mankind, and not for profit. Then people like miners will not have to survive from week to week, on the pittance they get for spending a great deal of their time, crawling on their bellies, filling their lungs with dust, at some gas-filled, wet and treacherous coalface.

A. MCG.

The Fenians (1969 book review)

Book Review from the March 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Fenian Movement, Edited by T. W. Moody. Mercier Press, 10s. 6d.

This small, relatively expensive paperback consists of eight essays on the Fenian movement and its leaders. The essays, which are written by prominent historians, concentrate more on the factual events during the years of Fenianism than on its, admittedly diverse, economic ideals.

Fenianism had its origins in the abortive Rising of 1848. Ireland was, at that time, in the grip of a famine, and Landlords were expropriating the food from the peasants so that rents could be realised even if the peasants had not enough left to feed themselves. Some members of the 1848 Rising lived in exile in France. One of them. James Stephens, spent some time among Parisian communist and revolutionary circles. and returned some years later to Ireland, a self-professed revolutionary. He initiated a new secret organisation which, until 1921, was a thorn in the side of the British government. Fenianism, though purely a political movement with an independent Ireland as its ideal, strongly influenced the inception of other nationalist movements, the most notable of which were the Gaelic League and the Land League and also the Irish literary revival, led by Yeats.

The Fenian leaders planned an insurrection for 1865 but postponed it until 1867. The British forces easily suppressed this outbreak and the most notable feature of Rising were the brilliant speeches delivered from the dock by its leaders at the trials which ensued. After that the Fenians pursued a policy of sporadic outbreaks of violence and stood opposed to the constitutional methods of Parnell. In 1916 another insurrection was squashed but the executions which followed antagonised the people; the result was a stronger Republican army which engaged in intense guerrilla warfare with the British forces from 1919 until the Treaty in 1921.

The Fenians faced strong opposition from the Catholic Church and were often accused of being communist —mainly because of the strong working-class element within its ranks. It was at all times a minority action movement and much of its finance came from Irish-Americans. Its leaders advocated the “rights of the people" to determine their own political and economic affairs. Some even advocated “rights of labour” and “more equitable distribution of wealth”. But being a minority action movement its role could only have been the establishing of “the rights" of representatives of Irish capitalists to manage their own interests. This is exactly what happened. It is now nearly fifty years since Ireland became independent of British rule but still world capitalism draws off Irish surplus labour, while in Ireland wages are ridiculously low. The Church, which once opposed the Fenians, now, paradoxically, venerates the memory of its leaders. The sad thing is that it was Irish workers who wasted so much life and energy in acquiring a separate parliament which could not possibly manage capitalism in their interests.

Peter George

Willie Gallacher's Political Indigestion (1925)

From the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

We say that when the workers want Socialism they can and must control the political machinery, including Parliament. Mr. W. Gallacher, a Communist leader, who writes a weekly two columns of animated abuse in the Glasgow "Worker," thinks that we err, and offers to put us right (February 21st, 1925). He has read our leaflet "The Socialist and the Vote-catcher," reprinted from the November, 1924, Socialist Standard, and is frankly disgusted with it. He finds that it is not the “brief outline of Socialism" it claims to be; that it "is hard to believe that anyone could write anything so foolish" as its "melancholy conclusion" or that "anyone could be found to hand it out and call it spreading the light." The conclusion he dislikes so much is this:—

"Don’t trust any more to people who are going to bring Utopia here without the least effort on your part, but come into the Socialist Party and work for Socialism. Socialism will come when enough of you want it."

Gallacher says that we do not tell him how Socialism will come. He asks if we are prepared for the possible resistance of the Churchills and Birkenheads, and if they "should take action to prevent our majority operating what do the light-spreaders propose doing about it."

He assumes that our answer would be "Time enough when that happens" to consider the possibility, and proceeds to be very scornful about it. We are further accused of wanting "the workers to go forward blindly without any preparation or any organisation whatever." We are likened to the I.L.P. vote-catchers to whom elections are everything and who must do nothing which might cause them to lose votes.

He thinks that the King or a capitalist minority could defy a Socialist majority in Parliament, because this minority would be backed up by "the overwhelming majority of officers and through these controlling the rank and file." Then "What would the majority do?" he asks.

The real and only way to Socialism, according to Gallacher, is to smash capitalism, a statement with which we are not likely to disagree, but "capitalism won’t smash simply because a majority would like to see it smashed.” Then after bringing us so far, Gallacher suddenly decides not to put us right after all. Instead of telling us how to smash capitalism, he rambles airily about the need “for us who are in earnest . . . to fight against the organised forces of capitalism.” And there he finishes.

In striking contrast with Gallacher’s vagueness, the S.P.G.B. is quite open and definite about the method of obtaining Socialism and of dealing with any resistance there may be. And in face of the plain statement of our position contained in our Declaration of Principles and other literature, not a line of Gallacher's would-be criticism has any bearing on the matter whatever. Instead of dealing with our policy he has the brazen impudence to attack the I.L.P. and the Labour Party, and link us up with their actions. He forgets that it is not the Socialist Party but he, and his own party, the Communists, who urge the workers to vote for those two anti-Socialist bodies.

We state that we want the workers to conquer the powers of government in order to use the political machinery, including the armed forces, for the purpose of overthrowing capitalism. We hold (and let Gallacher dispute it if he disagrees) that Socialism can exist only when the majority of workers want it. We also hold that a Socialist majority organised in the Socialist Party can obtain effective control by using its majority to capture the machinery of government. This disposes of our alleged neglect of organisation. Lastly, we hold that political control will give a Socialist working class control of the armed forces, and they will deal with capitalist minorities who rebel, in the way in which rebels are usually dealt with. Gallacher, be if noted, believes that the workers in the Army will, at such a time, not be influenced to support the Socialist majority either by their loyalty to constitutional authority or by their class sympathies, or by their knowledge of their own interests, but will follow those officers who decide to lead a revolt. He fails, however, to give a single argument in support of this fantastic belief.

So much for Gallacher’s criticism of the S.P.G.B. Now let us examine Gallacher and his party.

The capitalist forces must be fought, and capitalism smashed, he says, but. he leaves us to guess how and by whom. The “Workers' Weekly" (February 24th, 1923) set out to tell us how it was to be done. "The capitalists will resist any change by all means at their disposal. The power of the capitalists must be wrested from them. The workers must set up their own State . . . ." But just when we were about to learn how it was going to happen we find, instead of an answer to the vital question, three little dots and the words "Censored by the printer.” Then they go on to deal with their programme for the period after the capitalists have been disposed of. If the excuse were a true one, the position would be funny enough. These embryo dictators who are going to smash capitalism, and fight the whole forces of the State, cannot even dictate to a little back-street printer. But the excuse is simply a subterfuge to escape answering an awkward question. If they were not afraid to do so, everyone knows they could get their printing done in or out of the country.

And what are Gallacher's credentials for putting us right? He doesn’t believe in Parliament, yet he belongs to a party which advocates. “revolutionary parliamentarianism," and runs candidates. He believes Parliament is useless, and runs for it himself. He doesn’t believe in waiting for a majority, yet he appeals (on a reform programme) to what he dubs “the heterogeneous crowd" in a constituency, for a majority so that he can get into the House. He believes in fighting unceasingly against capitalism, and asks you to vote for I.L.P. and Labour candidates whom he regards as capitalist agents. In the recent Dundee by-election he was canvassing for T. Johnston, just as he had supported his predecessor the late E. D. Morel another anti-Socialist. His appeal was drawn up somewhat as follows:—

“Johnston is an anti-Socialist; all who want Socialism should vote for Johnston! Johnston is a humbug. Long live Johnston. Johnston is a scoundrel. Johnston for ever!”

He was almost in tears when he was falsely charged with having opposed this anti-Socialist. For some unaccountable reason Gallacher's articles are described as “Political Notes.”

He belongs to the party which tells the workers to vote for Thomas, Clynes, MacDonald and the rest of the Labour Party defenders of capitalism. He speaks of Churchill and Birkenhead, and himself supports the party which has the honour of having assisted Churchill into the House at the beginning of his career, and which was not averse from assisting Birkenhead and his party in the prosecution of the late war. He denounces vote-catching; Gallacher, who in a chequered career, has never known from one month to the next where he stood politically, or where he was going; who has drifted and tossed with every wind that blew; who has alternately supported and denounced nearly every pettifogging reform that was every proposed; who still advocates the treacherous communist tactic of giving insincere allegiance to the capitalist principles of the Labour Party, and the anti-Socialist tactic of asking workers to support those men and those principles. This is the man who implies that the S.P.G.B. trims to catch votes. Will Gallacher back up this or any other of his criticisms of the S.P.G.B.?

In 1920 Gallacher wrote that “any support of the Parliamentary opportunists is simply playing into the hands of the former.” (“Workers’ Dreadnought,” February, 1920). It was true then, and is true now, that he does it. Was there also some truth in his statement that it is the “personal ambition” of the “professional politician” which makes revolutionaries help the enemy in this way? Or would it be kinder and more accurate for us to recognise that Gallacher is the distressed victim of his natural muddle-headedness on the one hand, and on the other of his uncontrolled and uninstructed hatred of a purely mythical “capitalism” created by his imagination? 

Edgar Hardcastle

Spoiling Nature

Lowland raised bogs were among the rarest and most threatened habitats in Europe and took thousands of years to form and so conservationists have criticised councillors for giving the green light to remove millions of cubic metres of peat for compost from Midlothian.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust said it was "incredibly disappointing" peat extraction had been given the go-ahead at Auchencorth Moss, near Penicuik, over the next two decades. The trust said peatlands were important carbon stores and wildlife habitats. It said they could also play an important part in reducing flood risk. Dr Maggie Keegan, Scottish Wildlife Trust's head of policy, said: "It's incredibly disappointing that the destruction of peat bogs continues to be permitted while millions of pounds are being spent on their restoration elsewhere as part of Scotland's commitment to reducing carbon emissions.”

Westland Horticulture is to extract peat from Auchencorth Moss on the Penicuik Estate near Edinburgh. The 3,000-hectare Penicuik Estate has been owned and run by the Clerk family since 1654. An application by estate tenant Westland is seeking to renew a 30-year-old old minerals permission, so can not be rejected. If new conditions are imposed, compensation may be payable. Westland, wants to extract 100,000 cubic metres of peat every year until 2042 from 240 hectares of Auchencorth Moss. Permission was originally given in 1986, and the company is now seeking to renew that under a ‘review of minerals permission’ process. But the process only allows for planning conditions to be updated, and does not permit the original consent to be withdrawn.

A Declaration of Class War

The issue for the Socialist Party is always capitalism versus socialism. The task of the Socialist party is to do battle for the cause of socialism and industrial emancipation. It is all about the question of the right of one class of human beings exploiting another class of human beings to the very point of physical existence. It is a question of human freedom versus human slavery and this question is very old one, but for the first time in human history the issue is stripped of all subterfuge and the exploited class have the political power in their own hands to accomplish by peaceful means their own emancipation. The Socialist Party offers the only remedy, which is socialism. Its advocates are men and women who think for themselves and have convictions of their own and they are in deadly earnest. Do the other parties not all stand for the private ownership of industry and the wage-slavery of the working class? We are not here to play the filthy game of capitalist politics. Capitalism, having its foundation in the slavery and exploitation of the masses, can only rule by corrupt means and its politics are essentially the reflex of its low and debasing economic character. 

The Socialist party as the party of the working class stands squarely upon its principles in making its appeal to the workers. It is not begging for votes, nor seeking for votes, nor bargaining for votes. It is not in the vote market. It wants votes, but only of those who want it - those who recognise it as their party and come to it of their own free will. If its candidates were seeking office for the spoils of office they would be traitors to the Socialist Party and a disgrace to the working class. To be sure, we want all the votes we can get but only as a means of developing the political power of the working class in the struggle for industrial freedom, and not that we may revel in the spoils of office. The workers have never yet developed or made use of their political power. They have played the game of their masters for the benefit of the master class - and now many of them, disgusted with their own blindness are renouncing politics and refusing to see any difference between the capitalist parties financed by the ruling class to perpetuate class rule and the Socialist Party organised and financed by the workers themselves as a means of wresting the control of government and of industry from the capitalists and making the working class the ruling class. 

The aims of the Socialist Party is clearly stated and it is to assist our fellow-workers of the world to shake off their oppressors and exploiters, to put an end to their age-long servitude, and make themselves the masters of the world. To this end the Socialist Party has been organized; to this end it is bending all its energies and devoting all its resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers throughout the world.

In the name of the workers, the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of the new technology it condemns poverty, idleness,and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilisation, it condemns the murder of little children. In the name of enlightenment it condemns ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future, it arraigns the past at the bar of the present, and in the name of humanity, it demands social justice for every man, woman and child. The Socialist Party knows neither colour, creed, sex, nor race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and down-trodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and fighting their battles.It matters not where the slaves of the earth lift their bowed bodies from the dust and seek to shake off their fetters, or lighten the burden that oppresses them, the Socialist party is pledged to encourage and support them to the full extent of its power. It matters not to what union they belong, or if they belong to any union, the Socialist Party which sprang from their struggle, their oppression, and their aspiration, is with them through good and evil report, in trial and defeat, until at last victory is inscribed upon their banner. In all the battles of the workers against their capitalist oppressors, the Socialist Party is freely pledged to render them all the support in its power. These are the battles of the workers in the war of the classes and the battles of the workers, wherever and however fought, are always and everywhere the battles of the Socialist Party. 

The Socialist Party is the only party of the people, the only party opposed to the rule of the plutocracy, the only truly democratic leader-free party in the world. It is the only party in which men and women have equal rights and denies membership to any who refuses to recognise another member as a political equal. The education, organisation and co-operation of our fellow- workers is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the Socialist Party. Persistently, unceasingly and enthusiastically this great work is being accomplished. It is the working class coming into consciousness of itself, and no power on earth can prevail against it in the hour of its complete awakening. The handwriting is upon the wall. Capitalism is breaking down and the new order evolving from it is clearly the socialist cooperative commonwealth, based upon the social ownership of the means of life and the production of wealth for the use of all instead of the private profit of the few. The Socialist Party stands for the peace which will prevail and plenty for all will abound in the land. The brute struggle for existence will have ended, and the millions of exploited poor will be rescued from the skeleton clutches of poverty and famine will be a horror of the past. The social conscience and the social spirit will prevail. Society will have a new birth, and the race a new destiny. There will be work for all, leisure for all, and the joys of life for all. Competition there will be, not in the struggle for existence, but to excel in good work and in social service. Every child will then have an equal chance to grow up in health and vigour of body and mind and an equal chance to rise to its full stature and achieve success in life.

 These are the ideals of the Socialist Party and to these ideals it has dedicated all its energies and all its powers. The members of the Socialist Party are the party and their collective will is the supreme law. The Socialist Party is organised and ruled from the bottom up. There is no boss and there never can be unless the party deserts its principles and ceases to be a Socialist Party. Each member has not only an equal voice but is urged to take an active part in all the party committees. Each branch is an educational centre. The party relies wholly upon the power of education, knowledge, and mutual understanding.