A Bit of History

 

Shortly before the founding of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Socialist Labour Party also broke away from the Social Democratic Federation and they too were described as "Impossibilists". Springing from similar roots, it is understandable, that there was an overlap of the respective critiques of society. We would agree with William Paul, when he explained that:

“The revolutionary socialist denies that state ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism…Socialism will require no political state because there will be neither a privileged property class nor a downtrodden propertyless class…”

 And his conclusion Paul :

 “In the last analysis state ownership is more a means of controlling and regimenting the workers…”

 

In “Socialism. Its Revolutionary Aims and Methods” written by William Paul when he was an early activist for the British Socialist Labour Party there was much in it which the Socialist Party would concur. We share the same analysis that raises the importance of political action in addition to industrial action to achieve our socialist objective - one of the defining factors that separates us from the anarchists and syndicalists and led to the American SLP departing the Industrial Workers of the World to form its own socialist industrial union.

 

“The constructive element in the social revolution will be the the action of the Industrial Unions seizing the means of production in order to administer the wants of the community...Thus Industrial Unionism is the constructive weapon in the coming social revolution...In order to facilitate the work of industrial organisation it is absolutely imperative for the workers to disarm the capitalist class by wrenching from it its power over the political State...by destroying the capitalist control of the State, makes possible a peaceful social revolution...the work of the political weapon is purely destructive, to destroy the capitalist system." William Paul, The State . Its Origins and Function,1917.

Although we may have reservations on the actual economic organisation i.e. industrial unions , William Paul was much in accord with the SPGB as later expressed.

"...The Socialist Party, in aiming for the control of the State, is a political party in the immediate sense, but we have an economic purpose in view, namely, the conversion of the means of living into the common property of society. Therefore, the question necessarily arises whether an economic organisation acting in conjunction with the political is vital to our task. We have on more than one occasion pronounced ourselves in agreement with the need for such an organisation, and in so doing have flatly denied the charge that the Socialist Party of Great Britain is "nothing but a pure and simple political party of Socialism." 

 Socialist Standard, 1937

 

It would be worthwhile if we once again drew attention to the similarities rather than emphasis the differences.

 

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL ACTION

ITS DESTRUCTIVE FUNCTION

I. THE ATTITUDE OF THE S.L.P. DEFINED
THE Socialist Labour Party is a revolutionary political organisation which seeks to educate the workers in order that they may organise to combat Capitalism in every field of its activity. Capitalism is the most cunningly organised social system ever known, and the capitalist class is the most powerfully enthroned ruling power known to history. Therefore, the S.L.P. declares, Capitalism must be fought in every avenue of social action. In keeping with that attitude we have outlined a policy regarding the press, education, industrial organisation, and political action. Our policy is distinguished in so far as we have given a lead to Labour to control its press and its educational activities ; and our tactics demonstrate the need for industrial unionism which covers the economic sphere of Labour's activity. But we also emphatically insist that Capitalism's control of the political machine—i.e., the State and the armed Force of the Nation—must be challenged at the ballot box.

Capitalism is a social system which breeds conflicts. It is a seething jungle of struggles wherein individuals, classes, nations, and empires fight against each other. Individual wage-earners vie with each other for jobs ; capitalists outbid one another for markets ; classes struggle against each other in the economic and political arenas ; and nations are prepared to wipe each other off the map for the sake of imperial conquest. But the struggle, international in its extent, which looms larger than all others, is the conflict between Capital and Labour. In this struggle the former fights with ability and consciousness of aim, while the latter fights with great confusion and without a knowledge of its own strength.

We intend to examine one phase of the class struggle here— the great weapon which the masters wield through their control of the political State. The capitalist class clearly understands that, in addition to its economic dominion over Labour—through its ownership of the means of life—it is necessary to be able to crush the workers should they dare revolt or refuse to produce profits. In order, therefore, to strengthen its economic power, the rulers have left no stone unturned to capture political power—the State—which gives it control over the armed force of society. With this political power in its hand Capital is able to enforce its domination over Labour. In other words, the capitalist class looks upon political power as an important weapon to be used in its conflict with the working class. The political power of the masters is one of its chief fortresses against the rebellious workers. Thus Capital has used its political supremacy to intimidate and to murder those wage-earners who endangered its profits. The use of troops at Featherstone, Tonypandy, Belfast, and Dublin are only a few instances. And Asquith, a few years ago, warned the railwaymen that if they struck work the powers of the State would be placed at the disposal of the railroad magnates. The political power of Capital was energetically used in 1914 by enforcing new laws which sought to smash the rights of industrial organisation and the possibility of Labour striking for higher wages. Deportations, imprisonments, munition tribunals, and industrial conscription are vivid illustrations of how Capital strengthened its economic power by its political control of the machinery of Government.

II. OBJECTIONS TO POLITICAL ACTION.
Because the political weapon is used by the capitalist class against Labour, and because the political State is a machine to maintain class rule, there are many workers who contend that working class political action is futile, if not dangerous. The S.L.P, declares that as political power is used by Capital to enforce its economic power, for that very reason the workers must meet Capital on the political field. In the class war the workers dare not allow the capitalists to hold any fortress without laying siege to it with a view to capturing it. We may ignore the political fortress, as our anti-political friends would have us do, but neither the class war, nor any kind of war, can be waged successfully by ignoring any stronghold of the enemy. To ignore the insuperable advantage which the political machine gives to Capital would be tantamount to closing our eyes when the enemy aimed a blow at us with a dangerous weapon. Sanity demands that we must tear the weapon from the grasp of the foe.

But, argues the anti-political, what is the use of returning members to Parliament—they always betray their class interests ? What the critic of political action has in his mind are the betrayals of Labour by such creatures as Hodge, Thorne, Barnes, Henderson, etc. Let it be noted that we have exposed the treacheries of these political tricksters time after time. Nevertheless, we deny most emphatically that these men ever represented the interests of the working class. And we further assert that these betrayers of Labour learned the art of treachery before they entered Parliament ; they were educated in that art on the industrial field. Our anti-political friends wish us to devote our energies to the industrial arena because they imagine that the workers are sold when they enter politics. But the workers can be betrayed industrially as well as politically. The history of the trade union leaders since the war began indicates this point. Until the working class is conscious of its own interests—until it clearly realises what it wants and how to get it—then they are the tools of the Labour fakir and the political charlatan. The moment that the wage-earners understand their class interests they will not be betrayed either industrially or politically. Because "leaders" are only able to act treacherously when the rank and file is ignorant and confused.

It is argued that the workers are easily misled on the political field. Here again we beg to point out the fact that Labour can only be misled politically so long as it can be betrayed industrially. The political field is where the conflicts of economic interests are fought out. If the working class does not realise its economic interests it will be sold in Parliament; and if it does not realise its class interests it will be sold out in the workshop. Thus every argument which can be urged against political action can be used against industrial action. They react upon each other. There is nothing inherently dangerous in political action. All the arguments brought against it prove that the Socialist movement has neglected its educational work; it has paid insufficient attention to the creation of a revolutionary press; it has not sought to industrially organise Labour as a class; and the result is that these weaknesses are glaringly reflected on the political field. When our anti-political friends contend that the political field makes for the confusion of Labour they are unconsciously passing censure on every other field of Socialist activity. The critic of political action, unable to perceive the law of causation, which links together the various weaknesses operating in the different channels of the Labour movement, places all the blame on the political field. He therefore decides to ignore political faction. But by doing so he ignores the whole problem.

III. PARLIAMENTARY ACTION.
Many of the arguments against revolutionary political action are in reality criticisms of parliamentary action. The two spheres of activity must not be confused. Parliamentary action believes that by placing a series of reforms upon the Statute Book— " steps at a time " they are called—the economic position of the workers can be improved, and that they will be finally emancipated by such State measures. Such a line of activity is the aim of the " reformers" (who, since recent events in Russia, have mouthed revolutionary phrases) or State Socialists. This course of action is best represented by the pre-war literature of the I.L.P., although a healthy minority of the younger element is now in revolt against it. The attitude of the reform party means that it can throw open its ranks to those who do not believe in Socialism—but in " something now." (See " Labour Leader "—27th September, 1917—which admits this regarding the entrance of Mr Dunstand to the I.L.P.) In brief, the logical outcome of parliamentary action, by seeking to show Chancellors of the Exchequer how to bring in Budgets, etc., is State Socialism. The S.L.P.—as the columns of the " Socialist " can testify—repudiates parliamentary action. We deny' that it is the political function of the Socialist movement to show the capitalist class how to legislate for Capitalism or administer its laws. The S.L.P. does not aim at trying to outdo the capitalist politicians in the sinister game of Statesmanship. We hold that the purpose of political action is the destruction of the capitalist State. It would be the duty of revolutionary Socialists in Parliament to criticise every measure that came before the House of Commons, and to seek, by every means, to undermine the prestige of the capitalist class by exposing every one of its political manoeuvres. Thus the debate on the credits would furnish the fearless S.L.P.-er with an opportunity of demonstrating his uncompromising antagonism to militarism by voting against them. We are aware that the pacifist I.L.P. members of Parliament refuse to vote against the war credits because, as Mr. Brace Glaiser has explained, they represent voters who are not Socialists. This, of course, is simply a damning admission that I.L.P. candidates do not make Socialism the only issue during electoral contests. If anyone cares to look up the election addresses of any of the I.L.P. members of Parliament, it will be found that the voters were asked to vote for Free Trade, and other capitalist patches, but not for Socialism alone. The consequence of such an attitude is that these members dare not and cannot act as Socialists once they are returned to Parliament.

IV. REVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL ACTION.
The S.L.P. takes the political field with one plank upon its programme—Socialism. It emphasises that only Socialists must vote for its candidates. It realises that its candidates may not get returned to Parliament yet awhile. But it knows that if there are only 200 class-conscious Socialists in any constituency, that must be the extent of its poll. Every other vote is useless and dangerous. Alliances, compromises, and arrangements with the Liberal Party may easily mean the return of a candidate, but not of a Socialist candidate. We are convinced that Socialists are only strong by themselves. Our political declaration is to aim at the capture of the political machine in order to tear the State, with its armed force, out of the hands of the capitalist class, thus removing the murderous power which Capitalism looks to in its final conflict with Labour. In a word, the revolutionary value of political action lies in its being the instrument specially fashioned to destroy Capitalism. Just as industrial unionism is necessary to construct Socialism.

But political action is further necessary in so far as it is its work to demand the right of free speech and of press. It must be used to combat the capitalist class in its attempt to filch away the rights of industrial action and other civil liberties. Political action, too, brings the propaganda of Socialism into the daylight and lifts the revolutionary movement beyond that of being a secret conspiracy. Political action, by insisting on free speech, prevents the capitalist class from forcing the movement underground—because once there the State would crush it. And, above all, the political method by bringing revolutionary Socialism upon the political field places it on that ground of social action where all conflicts tend to be settled peacefully. If Socialism is ushered in by violent means it will be because the capitalist class repudiated the civilised or political method, or because the Socialist movement failed to wrench the armed force of the State away from the control of the masters.

V. THE IMPERIALIST STATE.
The war has shewn an additional need for revolutionary political action. Since 1914 the tendency of Capitalism is towards an intensified concentration of Capital. This need has been urged upon each national capitalist class in order to promote its economic security and profit. But with the concentration of Capital there has also sprung up closer, and sinister, relations between the State and Capital. The advent of modern Imperialism has made this necessary for two reasons—(1) the necessity for economic expansion abroad, and (2) the need for the better control of Labour at home. These two tendencies will appear in the form of an intensified Nationalism which will be the will be the sentimental lever to force the workers to increase output and to hate the foreign workers. Plans are now being prepared by the State to further speed up production in order to satisfy the British imperialists' lust for profits. The capitalists, in conjunction with the State, have their schemes already organised. These will be put in operation immediately peace is declared. We see, therefore, that the capitalist class realises the value of controlling the political State.

The British capitalist class understands the need of political action. It intends to be prepared in order to crush the attempts of awakening Labour seeking to organise its forces. The workers will be confronted by the whole economic force of Capital in alliance with its political force—the State.

Can Socialists, therefore, neglect the political field, which is at present one of Capital's strongest forts ? The S.L.P. says no. We dare not leave the enemy entrenched in any position from which it can threaten Labour. Revolutionary political action has not failed for the simple reason that it has never been used. There has been plenty of Labour electioneering and parliamentary reformism, but that is not revolutionary political action. The time has now arrived for the Labour movement in this country to define clearly its attitude towards political action. Many are opposed to political action for no other reason than that they have not realised all that it means.

The S.L.P. believes in the political weapon as the instrument by means of which the workers can capture the State in order to uproot it. The S.L.P. advocates political action because it is the destructive arm of Labour which will overthrow Capitalism. And for these reasons the S.L.P. permits only those who believe in the efficacy of political action to enter its ranks.

(Chapter 4 of Scientific Socialism. Its Revolutionary Aims and Methods by William Paul, 1918)
Transcribed by A Buick

It is regrettable that Paul like many others became distracted by the Russian Revolution and subsequently chose the path of Lenin and Bolshevism .

 

We would also agree with William Paul, when he explained that:

“The revolutionary socialist denies that state ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism…Socialism will require no political state because there will be neither a privileged property class nor a downtrodden propertyless class…”

 And his conclusion Paul tells us:

 “In the last analysis state ownership is more a means of controlling and regimenting the workers…”

Capitalism has stalled the evolution of society

 Capitalists declare that socialism destroys individualism. But when they speak of individualism they have in mind the right to freely exploit the workers. They mean that the anti-social individualism of capitalism will go. With socialism no one will have the right to exploit another; no longer will a profit-hungry employer be able to shut his factory gates and sentence thousands to deprivation; no more will it be possible for a little clique of capitalists and their political henchmen to plunge the world into a blood-bath of war.

Such deadly individualism is doomed. But the revolution will create in its stead a new and better development of the individual. The collectivist society of socialism, by freeing the masses from economic and political slavery will, for the first time in history, give the masses an opportunity to fully develop and express their personalities. Theirs will be an individuality growing out of and harmonising with the interests of all. It will not have the objective of one’s getting rich by robbing the toilers, but will develop itself in the direction of achievement in science, industrial technique, art, sports. The boast of capitalist apologists about the equal opportunity which their society affords, that it is a case of the survival of the fittest, is a tissue of lies. Such appeals to “human nature,” however, must be taken cautiously. By that method of reasoning it would be quite easy to conclude that the rich capitalist who heartlessly casts workers out of his shops penniless and gives no thought as to their future has quite a different “human nature” than the African hunter who, with a high sense of clan solidarity, before eating the kill, calls loudly in the four directions in case perchance there may be another hungry hunter nearby. Changed social conditions develop different “human natures.” Thus competition, a ruinous, anti-social thing under capitalism, becomes, under socialism, highly beneficent. Only socialism can provide equality of opportunity, which means a genuine occasion for the masses to enjoy life and to develop their latent personalities. In socialism the machine will be used on the broadest scale possible to produce the necessities of life in the great industries, transport systems and communication services. It would be the sheerest nonsense and quite impossible not to take advantage of every labour and time-saving device. But socialist society will also know how to develop the variegated and artistic. Where the creative impulses of the masses are not checked by poverty and slavery, where the arts and sciences are not hamstrung by the profit-making motive and where every assistance of the free community is given to the maximum cultivation of the intellectual and artistic powers of the masses—there we need have no fear that society will be robotised by the machine.

The overthrow of capitalism and the development of socialism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution to many great social problems. Some of these originate in capitalism, and others have plagued the human race for scores of centuries. Among them are war, religious superstition, famine, pestilence, crime, poverty, substance abuse, unemployment, race and national chauvinism, the suppression of women, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another. Only a system of world socialism can fully uproot and destroy all these evils.

The objective conditions, in the shape of scientific knowledge and the means of creating material wealth, are already at hand in sufficient measure to do away with these menaces to humanity. But the trouble lies with the subjective factor, the capitalist order of society. Capitalism, based upon human exploitation, stands as the great barrier to social progress. Socialism, by abolishing the capitalist system, liquidates this subjective difficulty. It releases thereby productive forces strong enough to provide plenty for all and it destroys the whole accompanying capitalist baggage of cultivated ignorance, strife and misery. Socialism frees humanity from the stultifying effects of the present essentially animal struggle for existence and opens up before it new horizons of joys and tasks. The day is not so far distant when our children will look back with horror upon capitalism and marvel at how we tolerated it for so long.

Life in a socialist society will be varied and interesting. Individual will vie with individual, as never before, to create the useful and the beautiful. Locality will compete with locality in the beauty of their architecture. The impress of individuality and originality will be upon everything. The world will become a place well worth living in, and what is the most important, its joys will not be the niggardly monopoly of a privileged ruling class but the heritage of the great producing masses. Socialism will initiate changes more rapid and far-reaching than any in the whole experience of mankind. The hundreds of millions of workers and peasants, striking off their age-old chains of slavery, will construct a society of liberty and prosperity and intelligence. Socialism will inaugurate a new era for the human race, the building of a new world.

Fuel Poverty for the Scots

 Scottish Power chief executive, Keith Anderson, said families would find it "extremely difficult" as fuel prices are set to rise again.

Anderson said: "The average wage in Scotland is somewhere between £31,000 and £32,000. If the energy price goes to £2,900, that means every person on an average salary will be defined as being in fuel poverty."

He added: "That is a horrific statistic and that shows you this isn't an issue that is just affecting poor people, it's not an issue just affecting people on benefits. This issue will hurt and be extremely difficult for people on an average salary."

Average wage Scots facing fuel poverty, says energy boss - BBC News

We need revolutionary change

 

We have seen that the capitalists all over the world try to find a way out of the pandemic and global warming or themselves by throwing the burden of the crises upon the workers through wage-cuts, reductions in social insurance, speed-up in industry, lengthening of working hours, and by intensifying their competition against each other through trade wars, etc., and by engaging the world a  blood-bath of wars. The capitalists have developed a whole series of additional “remedies” to cure the economic weaknesses of capitalism and to shield themselves from their effects.

Every new decade a “new capitalism” is hailed as ushering in a new era. Its proponents declared that it provided the way to liquidate the conflict between capitalist production and exchange, and that, consequently, it had solved the tormenting cyclical crisis. The “new capitalism” is to abolish poverty, to do away with the class struggle and to open up an endless perspective of industrial development. Its champions boastfully declare Marx disproved and that there never will be a revolution. What a sad awakening is always in store. The capitalist dreams turn into nightmares. Capitalist recessions and economic crises are upon us again and with more devastating effects than ever before. This  “new capitalism” proves to be very much a part of the old capitalism.  It was all a sham and a delusion. In fact, capitalist economic “plans” are not plans at all, in the sense of a fundamental control of the whole resources and production of society.

The implications of all this are clear: to escape the encroaching capitalist starvation and to emancipate themselves, the workers of the world must and will take the revolutionary way out of the crisis. That is, they will carry out a militant policy now in defence of their daily interests and abolish capitalism and establish socialism  and by “abolition” of capitalism we mean its overthrow.

Capitalists perform no useful function in society. Their rake-off from industry and the land is sheer robbery.  They are a deadly detriment. The first requirement for further social progress is to abolish this class of parasites. The capitalist financier has come to be no better than an idle wheel in the economic mechanism, serving only to take up some of the lubricant. The capitalists, with their program of mass poverty, exploitation and war, are a menace to humanity.

The setting up of a socialist system will greatly increase the productive forces and production itself. By liquidating the contradiction between the modes of production and exchange, it does away with economic crises, with all their waste and loss. Where there is no capitalist class to demand its profit before production and distribution take place, and where the producers as a whole receive the full product of their labour, there can be no economic over-production and crisis.

 Consequently, unemployment, with its terrible misery and suffering, will become a thing of the past. The many millions who now walk the streets unemployed will have fruitful work to do, to the benefit of all society. With the deadly limitations of the capitalist market removed, the road will be opened to a virtually unlimited expansion of industry and mass consumption.

Socialism will result in an enormous increase in industrial and agricultural efficiency. The socialist system of planned production, based upon common ownership of industry and the land, is incomparably more efficient than the anarchic capitalist system founded upon private property, competition and the exploitation of the workers. Socialism will wipe out great waste, inherent in the unplanned, competitive capitalist system. It will liquidate the hundreds of useless and parasitic occupations and whole tiers of government bureaucrats. It will turn into useful social purposes the immense values consumed by these socially useless elements. Capitalism blames crime upon the individual, instead of upon the bad social conditions which produce it. Hence its treatment of crime is essentially one of punishment. But the failure of its prisons, with their terrible sex-starvation, graft, over-crowding, idleness, stupid discipline, ferociously long sentences and general brutality, is overwhelmingly demonstrated by the rapidly mounting numbers of prisoners and the long list of terrible prison riots. Capitalist prisons are actually schools of crime.

Socialism will also conserve the natural resources of the country which are now being ruthlessly degraded in the mad capitalist race for profits. Mankind is by nature a gregarious and friendly animal. We do not make war because we dislike others of our own species, differing in language, religion, geographical location, etc. Wars have always arisen out of struggles over the very material things of wealth and power. This is true, whether humanity has been living in a tribal, slave, feudal or capitalist economy, and whether it has obscured the true cause of his wars with an intense religious garb or with slogans about making the world safe for democracy. The cause of modern war is the policies of the capitalist nations to rob foreign peoples in the world struggle for markets, raw materials and territory. In a society in which there is no private property in industry and land, in which no exploitation of the workers takes place and where plenty is produced for all, there can be no grounds for war. The interests of a socialist society are fundamentally opposed to the murderous and unnatural struggle of international war.