A look at Russian history

The Socialist Party views its primary role under the current circumstances it faces today as one of education - of making socialists. Our case has always been that understanding is a necessary condition for socialism, not desperation and despair.

Capitalism will always throw up situations where an escalation of class struggle towards socialism is possible, but the more workers there are who are consciously aware of the alternative to capitalism, the greater the likelihood there is of actually getting rid of the system. Upsurges in class struggle and periods of crisis in capitalism provide a potential revolutionary springboard. The contradictions, class relationships and miseries inherent to capitalism inevitably lead the workers to confront capital and when this happens there is, of course the potential for revolutionary consciousness to grow through the realisation of class position and the nature of capitalism. As the current recession within capitalism continues, squeezing and stamping down upon the working class ever more relentlessly, alongside the growing realisation of the failure of all forms of running the system; then there is definitely a growing potential for the escalation of struggle towards the overthrow of the system. However, how many times has the potential been there in past moments of escalated struggle and capitalist crisis only to disappear or to be channelled into reformist, pro-capitalist directions? Discontent over wages or conditions can be a catalyst for socialist understanding but so can many other things such as concern about the environment or war or bad housing or the just the general culture of capitalism

Nor is there any reason in our interactions with capitalism that dictates that fellow-workers must necessarily become revolutionary socialists. Experience could just as easily turn them towards the right as in the case of the rust states becoming Trump-supporters or Brexiteers, here in the UK.

 Paul Mattick said rather pessimistically:
“There is no evidence that the last hundred years of labour strife have led to the revolutionizing of the working class in the sense of a growing willingness to do away with the capitalist system…In times of depression no less in than these of prosperity, the continuing confrontations of labor and capital have led not to an political radicalization of the working class, but to an intensified insistence upon better accommodations within the capitalist system…No matter how much he [the worker] may emancipate himself ideologically, for all practical purposes he must proceed as if he were still under the sway of bourgeois ideology. He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions, but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual. It is this situation, rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalism. He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions, but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual. It is this situation, rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalist ideology, that makes the workers reluctant to express and to act upon their anti-capitalist attitudes” - "Marxism, Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie"

Another apt observation is from Murray Bookchin in his "Anarchism , Marxism and the Future of the Left":

"...human beings cannot be free - except under very rare conditions, such as during revolutions and for limited periods of time; even then, they must still leave the barricades and return to work to satisfy their needs and those of their families. They have to eat , if you please..." 

Bookchin gave this example: "...In May 1937 in Barcelona, the workers had to conquer the Stalinist counterrevolution then and there. But they delayed, and after four days they had to leave the streets to obtain food..."

The Marxist case is that no force can cut short the natural development of society until it is ready for change.

Studies of 1905 and 1917 revolutions have differentiated between the creation of the soviets of those respective periods?

Although the February 1917 strikes were completely spontaneous, the soviets did not arise directly out of them as they had done in 1905. This time they resulted from the combined efforts of politicians and workers' leaders, the politicians of the Duma Committee and the members of the Workers' Group sitting on the Central Committee for the War Industries (an employers' and State organisation), attempted to organise elections in Petrograd for a Central Soviet. The impetus for this came from the latter group, which installed itself in the Tauride Palace on 27 February and set up a provisional executive committee of the council of workers' delegates, to which committee several socialist leaders and members of parliament attached themselves. It was this committee which called upon workers and soldiers to elect their representatives. This explains why, when the first Provisional Soviet met that very evening, it still contained no factory delegates.

The political parties saw them as a springboard to power, they manipulated and engaged in all sort of chicanery which explains why the intellectuals acquired decisive influence in the Petrograd Soviet and why this soviet so rapidly lost contact with the masses. They became the scene of factional and party in-fighting. The soviets proved to be the dispensable means to an end for the Bolsheviks.

 Once Bolshevik power was established the soviets simply became an emasculated rubber stamp for party rule. As early as December 1917, Maxim Gorky was able to write in the newspaper Novaia Zizn (No.195, 7 December 1917) that the revolution was not attributable to the soviets, and that the new republic was not one of councils, but of peoples' commissars.

Lenin’s own view on soviets had changed little from his attitude towards them after 1905:
"...if Social-Democratic activities among the proletarian masses are properly, effectively and widely organised, such institutions may actually become superfluous...that a most determined struggle must be waged against all disruptive and demagogic attempts to weaken the R.S.D.L.P. from within or to utilise it for the purpose of substituting non-party political, proletarian organisations for the Social-Democratic Party...that Social-Democratic Party organisations may, in case of necessity, participate in inter-party Soviets of Workers’ Delegates, Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, and in congresses of representatives of these organisations, and may organise such institutions, provided this is done on strict Party lines for the purpose of developing and strengthening the Social-Democratic Labour Party " - Draft Resolutions for the Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/5thdraft/6.htm

Trotsky said in History of the Russian Revolution that "The party set the soviets in motion, the soviets set in motion the workers, soldiers, and to some extent the peasantry." In other words, the soviets existed to allow the party to influence the workers. And we subsequently saw what happened if the workers in the soviets rejected the decisions of the Bolsheviks.

The essence of this debate is fairly simple. Did the Bolsheviks desire the working class to control its own destiny or did they use the working class as stepping stones to political power and a totally different agenda from one of workers self-management?

Once having assumed the reins of government, Lenin found himself in the position of having to preside over -- and, in fact, to organise -- the accumulation of capital. But, as capital is accumulated out of surplus value and surplus value is obtained by exploiting wage-labour, this inevitably brought them into conflict with the workers who, equally inevitably, sought to limit their exploitation.

Lenin justified opposing and suppressing these workers' struggles on the ground that the Bolsheviks represented the longer-term interests of the workers. Lenin never really advanced much beyond the idea of self-appointed liberators leading (willing or otherwise) the mass of people to freedom. He remained, in theory as well as practice, essentially a bourgeois revolutionary. The New Economic Policy was the outcome. Ignored was this on-the-scene appraisal by fellow-socialist Bill Casey:

"Production was in a straight-jacket, lethargy and indifference permeated the whole economy; the people were entirely lacking in a sense of time. Without the normal industrial development of production and some measure of buying and selling (war-communism was the order of the day) drift and indifference would gradually strangle the economy of the Soviet".

These observations were greeted with disgust and dismay by the other delegates. However, before Casey left Moscow, Lenin introduced  NEP which, in essence, provided for the very things which Casey recognised was needed to stabilise the Russian economy. In contrast to their hostile reception of Casey’s prognostications, the "yes-men" cheered and echoed Lenin’s belated pronouncements

Stalin did twist Marxism into the conservative ideology of a state-capitalist ruling class, but he was merely building upon Lenin's previous contortions of Marxism into the ideology of that same class while it was struggling for power.

We are not saying that the majority of Petrograd workers and soldiers didn't support the idea of a “soviet government”. They did. But they always viewed it as a coalition of sorts of all the workers' parties. Something Lenin only paid lip-service to.

Worth reading is
'Soviet State myths and realities 1917-21'
http://libcom.org/library/radical-tradition-one

"The history of the Russian Revolution as told in Soviet textbooks takes place in two phases: the rising of the masses against tsarist oppression, then against Kerensky's bourgeois democracy, engendered a process of radicalization of which the Bolsheviks were both inspirers and spokesmen, preparing the ground for the second phase of the revolution, October 1917. In other words, the communists perceive an historical and theoretical continuity between the autonomous origins of the councils and the Leninist theory of the State, a view which is held even by the anti-Stalinist Marxist-Leninists. This misrepresentation of the true course of events was essential in order to paper over the divergences between the masses and Bolshevik policy insofar as the Bolsheviks claimed, and still do claim, to incarnate the dictatorship of the proletariat."

Another useful source is

http://libcom.org/library/menshevik-comeback-vladimir-brovkin

"The heart of the matter was that the Mensheviks and SRs were winning in the elections to the soviets in addition to regaining control of local trade unions and dumas. The process of the Menshevik-SR electoral victories threatened Bolshevik power. That is why in the course of Spring and Summer of 1918, the soviet assemblies were disbanded in most cities and villages. To stay in power, the Bolsheviks had to destroy the soviets. Local power was handed over to ExComs, the Cheka, the military, and special emissaries with "unlimited dictatorial power". These steps generated a far-reaching transformation in the soviet system, which remained "soviet" in name only..."

Martov put forward a resolution demanding that the Bolsheviks form a coalition government with other left-wing parties. The resolution was about to receive almost total endorsement from the soviet representatives thus showing that the representatives in the soviet did NOT believe in all power to the Bolsheviks but then the majority of SR and Menshevik delegates made a far-reaching tactical error when they unadvisedly left the congress in protest over the Bolshevik coup.

The Bolsheviks did make what appeared to be gestures towards cooperation. On October 25th, the presidium was elected on the basis of 14 Bolsheviks, 7 Social-Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviks and a single Internationalist. The Bolsheviks then trooped out their worker-candidates Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and so on. When it came to forming a government, Kamenev read out a Bolshevik Central Committee proposal for a Soviet of People's Commissars, whereby "control over the activities of the government is vested in the Congress of Soviets and its Central Executive Committee". Seven Bolsheviks from the party's central committee were nominated, and thus Lenin and Trotsky came to sit at the top. 

The "workers' government" was now composed of professional revolutionaries and members of the intelligensia ranging from the aristocratic, like Chicherin and Kollontai, to the bureaucratic, like Lenin, via the landed bourgeois (Smilga), the commercial bourgeois (Yoffe) and the industrial bourgeois (Pyatakov). These were the sort of people who were accustomed to being a ruling class.

The management of production by the workers was one of the goals of the struggle, proclaimed by the Military Revolutionary Committee on 25 October 1917. That same day, the Second Congress of the Soviets solemnly approved the decision to establish workers control while specifying, however, that this meant controlling the capitalists and not confiscating their factories.

The Bolsheviks effectively re-defined "proletarian power" to mean the power of the party whose ideology was believed a priori to represent workers interests. "Who is to seize the power? That is now of no importance. Let the Military Revolutionary Committee take it, or 'some other institution', which will declare that it will surrender the power only to the genuine representatives of the interests of the people.'' Not "the people", not the "representatives of the people", but "the genuine representatives of the interests of the people" and that would be, of course, the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin. [my emphasis] Substitution of the party for the class. A take-over, not a revolution.

The SPGB is often asked the hypothetical question - "What would you have done in 1917?"

Well, broadly speaking, the role of a revolutionary organisation in a pre-revolutionary situation is to ensure the growth of proletarian power and the defence of the class. The Bolsheviks failed to do so, emasculating what workers organisations existed, sacrificing their independence and strength to the altar of their One Party Rule. From 1917 all vestiges of democratic self-reliance by the working class was removed piece by piece. "Soviet power" became a sham, and Bolshevik party functionaries took total control. I think we can understand Leninism more by accepting that they made choices that other Marxists were not prepared to make. The SPGB argue that Lenin despite his claims that he was the first to see the trend of conditions and adapt himself to these conditions, he was far from changing the course of history, it was, in fact, the course of history which changed him. Lenin made a great miscalculation. He believed that the working masses of the western world were so war weary that upon the call from one of the combatants they would rise and force their various governments to negotiate peace. Unfortunately these masses had neither the knowledge nor the organisation necessary for such a movement, and no response was given to the call. A read of contemporary Socialist Standards show that the SPGB also saw the events of 1919 as a false dawn.

There is no doubting the Bolsheviks sincerity, only their judgement. the Bolshevik leaders really did believe at this time that they were turning “Russia into a socialist country” can be gauged from a passage in an article included in this book that Zinoviev later wrote on his “Twelve Days in Germany”: “We are approaching a time when we shall do away with all money. We are paying wages in kind, we are introducing free tramways, we have free schools, a free dinner, perhaps for the time being unsatisfactory free housing, light, etc.”

In 1920, Zinoviev claimed, “the beginning of the proletarian revolution can be clearly seen...I am convinced that in two or three years, it will be said that this was the beginning of a new era. The proletarian revolution has a great chance in England.”

It was Martov argued that the workers in Europe were certainly discontented but that this was not an expression of socialist consciousness but of despair. Martov said that the Bolshevik party had “conquered state power in a country with a proletariat that was numerically insignificant, a country with an insignificant productivity of labour, with a complete lack of the basic economic and cultural preconditions for the organisation of socialist production - and these objective conditions presented the Bolsheviks with an insurmountable obstacle for the realisation of their ideals.” He went on to point out that “the development of the revolution in the West…is not going as quickly as the Bolshevik party had reckoned when it obtained state power through a fortunate confluence of circumstances and then used this power in an attempt to turn Russia into a socialist country by a radically accelerated path.” ( quoted by Lars Lih, I think)

The Bolsheviks had basically three options

(1) To share power with bourgeois parties.

(2) to entrench themselves in intransigent opposition and decline the responsibilities of power

(3) to try to seize power by force.

The last option was the Bolshevik solution. It failed to produce socialism and necessarily failed to do so because even in power and ruling by dictat, the commissars of the people, still found themselves face-to-face with hard economic reality, denying them the possibility of immediate establishment of socialism.

“... just four days after seizing power, the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars (CPC or Sovnarkom) "unilaterally arrogated to itself legislative power simply by promulgating a decree to this effect. This was, effectively, a Bolshevik coup d'etat that made clear the government's (and party's) pre-eminence over the soviets and their executive organ. Increasingly, the Bolsheviks relied upon the appointment from above of commissars with plenipotentiary powers, and they split up and reconstituted fractious Soviets and intimidated political opponents."

Neil Harding, 'Leninism' quoted at the Anarchism FAQ http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append41.html#app8

Trotsky said:

“Could the Communist Party succeed, during the preparatory epoch, in pushing all other parties out of the ranks of the workers by uniting under its banner the overwhelming majority of workers, then there would be no need whatever for soviets..."

This confirms the observation of Martov:

“The idea that the "Soviet system" is equal to a definitive break with all the former, bourgeois, forms of revolution, therefore, serves as a screen behind which - imposed by exterior factors and the inner conformation of the proletariat - there are again set in motion methods that have featured the bourgeois revolutions. And those revolutions have always been accomplished by transferring the power of a "conscious minority, supporting itself on an unconscious majority," to another minority finding itself in an identical situation."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/martov/1921/xx/decomp.htm

Just to end with this quote from Peter Tkachev, sometimes known as "the First Bolshevik" as his views is something they inherited, said:

“Neither now nor in the future is the people left to itself, capable of accomplishing the social revolution. Only we, the revolutionary minority, can and must accomplish the revolution and as soon as possible...The people cannot help itself. The people cannot direct its own fate to suit its own needs. It cannot give body and life to the ideas of the social revolution...This role and mission belong unquestionably to the revolutionary minority.”

Cited in Rudolf Sprenger's very useful pamphlet 'Bolshevism'

https://www.marxists.org/archive/wagner/1939/bolshevism.htm

Marxism Means All Humanity is Liberated

We have had a class war against the capitalists lasting many generations with many defeats. Marx never promised victories. All that he predicted was that there was going to be a struggle between classes and which should – if civilization did not in the meantime collapse into barbarism – lead to the dissolution of capitalism and the emergence of socialism. Marx wrote that where the struggle of the classes does not end in a ‘revolutionary change in the whole structure of society’, it ends ‘in the common ruin of the contending classes’ He also foresaw in parallel with this that there has also been a mobilisation of all the forces of reaction and the counter-revolution of the status quo. Marxism is the anathema of the ruling class. What Marxism means has been interpreted by literally thousands of writers on the subject, sympathetic supporters as well as virulent opponents.

Marx himself made clear what he considered his own central thought in 1852 a letter to Georg Weydemeyer:

“... as for myself, no credit is due me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historic phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

The phrase ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ has long ago been understandably and wisely discarded by socialists. It had acquired connotations with the Bolshevik and similar regimes, which was nothing but a dictatorship over the proletariat. The basis of Marxism is political and economic democracy. 

We are not among those who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. Marxism, above all, is a call for sharing and caring, and a product of our solidarity and affinity for other people. Regards the environment, Marxists do not rape the planet and do not worship efficiency at the expense of people and nature. The kind of economy we live in determines the nature and level of our laws, government, culture, ideas, feelings and ethics. The competitive, jungle warfare system of capitalist production produces a destructive, anti-human science and culture. Socialism is infused with equality, fraternity and liberty. Scarcity and privation need not be the future. There is a better way for suffering humanity – to go forward together to establish the democratic common ownership of the means of producing life’s necessities.

In Capital, Marx developed the labour theory of value which proved “…the value of every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time spent in its production.” From this, Marx revealed the creation of surplus value as the basis of capitalist exploitation of workers. The worker spends one part of the day covering the cost of maintaining oneself and his or her family (wages), while the other part of the day the worker toils without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus value, the source of profit, the source of wealth of the capitalist class. The doctrine of surplus value is the cornerstone of Marx’s economic theory.

On the streets in Scotland

With twice as many deaths as elsewhere in Britain, Scotland is in the throes of a homelessness crisis. Some blame the system, while others point to rampant drug abuse. Whatever the cause, a solution is urgently needed. 

Scotland is a country caught in a homelessness crisis. Against a backdrop of austerity and biting cuts to local government budgets, the numbers of those lacking permanent accommodation  have crept up in recent years.

The Scottish Government has committed to ending homelessness for good, but new statistics paint a worrying picture. In 2018, there were almost 200 homeless fatalities, a year-on-year rise of 19%. The death rate in Scotland is now double that of England. The true number might be higher.

Several solutions have been mooted: decriminalizing personal possession to prevent the downward spiral of a prison sentence; introducing "safe consumption rooms'" so addicts can be professionally supervised while using; and increasing the prescription of substitute drugs like methadone.   

But the root causes go beyond that. Behind both substance abuse and homelessness, there is almost always personal trauma. "A lot of them need treatment for various things. A lot have mental health issues," says "Paul McMillan", a volunteer with See The Invisibles, a Glasgow-based community group.

Every week, he and a handful of others tour the streets with homeless provisions: clothes, food, sleeping bags. Providing protection from the elements is their primary aim, but by interacting with those they come across, the group offers relief from another enemy: isolation and loneliness.

"Folks just like that you treat them normal, that you treat them nice. A lot of them can't believe that you're wanting to hand out stuff and help them," McMillan says.

Kind gestures can only go so far, however. Getting rough-sleepers into accommodation is vitally important to prevent further deaths. While many do have access to temporary shelters provided by local authorities, these halfway houses can be treacherous places. Reports of violence, rampant drug use, and revolting conditions are widespread.  Genuinely "sheltered" accommodation has to be supplied. That means breaking the cycle of desperation and drug use by offering homes away from other addicts. Robust mental health support must also be available: a small but significant number of 2018's deaths — 12% — were due to suicide.

Scotland's housing laws are among the world's most progressive. Every rough-sleeper has the right to make a homelessness application, and while the paperwork is going through, they're entitled to temporary shelter.   Sadly, many people fall through the cracks.

For Shelter Scotland such cases are unforgivable. "It's a problem that there's no mechanism for the government to compel local authorities to follow the law. There needs to be a form of sanction against the local authorities," Graeme Brown, the group's director said.

Glasgow City Council admitted that its homelessness services "need to evolve" as demand increases. Accordingly, an alliance to end homelessness, made up of voluntary sector and private groups, has been launched. A 75% reduction in rough-sleeping by next year is the immediate goal, with a total end to homelessness by 2030.   

https://www.dw.com/en/scotlands-shameful-record-homelessness-fuels-highest-drug-death-rate-in-europe/a-52659386

Making the Co-operative Commonwealth

The Socialist Party is not a reform party, but a revolutionary party. It does not propose to modify the capitalist system, but abolish it. The Socialist Party stands for the common ownership and control of all the means of wealth production and distribution — in a word, socialism. The Socialist Party is necessarily a worldwide party. It is everywhere and always the same. . It refuses to be flattered, bribed, stampeded, or otherwise deflected from the straight course mapped out for it by Marx and Engels.

The Socialist Party teaches that the state, its apparatus as a whole, is the executive committee of the dominant class in society, the task of which is to maintain existing social relations, and thereby to ensure the rule of the class whose state it is. This applies to the capitalist state, whose task is to maintain capitalism and the rule of the capitalists. The task of the Socialist Party is to eliminate the bourgeoisie as a class, and guide the transition to a socialist, class-free society. The political aim of the revolutionary movement, consequently, is not to “reform” capitalism, not to “take over” the capitalist state. All reformist parties – no matter how grandiose their verbal allegiance to “socialism” and socialist ideals – conceive of their political aims as lying within the framework of the capitalist state: as winning reforms from capitalism, winning a majority in the capitalist government, or even as “transforming” the capitalist government into a “socialist government” (i.e., requesting the capitalist state to commit suicide). All reformist parties act in all crucial situations as an agent of the ruling class within the working class. A reformist party is powerless to defeat either war or end poverty. The reason is obvious: a reformist party will not overthrow capitalism, since it functions within the framework of capitalism; and consequently it cannot stop war or solve the poverty problem, both of which follow necessarily from the continuance of capitalism. A reformist party, is not merely non-revolutionary, but anti-revolutionary. It is a device for preserving capitalism, not a means for its overthrow. It is an obstacle in the path of the revolutionary movement, not a way forward.

 The Socialist Party has expressed over and over again the futility of socialists wasting their time in palliative measures. As socialists we base our political policy on the class struggle of the workers, because we know that the self-interest of the workers lies our way. That the self-interest may sometimes be base does not affect the correctness of our position. The constructive work of the Socialist Party is to develop the class consciousness upon which depends the overthrow of capitalism.

The Socialist Party is not afraid of being isolated. There are times when to remain true to our principles, have no other alternative. We have endured smears and slander. We survived. We retract nothing and repent nothing. We will move towards becoming a  mass socialist party when conditions open the way for such a step, bringing to it all our heritage and all our ideas. With our tradition, we urge all workers to add their energies to ours in a common struggle to build a potent party of socialism. 

The Socialist Party today remains more than ever the rallying point for all those who have remained faithful to socialism. We look to the working class as the major force in the modern world with the power to transform the existing disorder and create a new social order on a planet-wide basis, to meet the needs of all humanity – all, that is, except the tiny number who profit from the exploitation and oppression of the vast majority. Because we see the working class as the force for fundamental change in society, we carefully observe what is happening to working people and how they respond to their conditions of life and labour. We reaffirm that a mass socialist party is required to challenge the most powerful ruling class in the world. There are many parties today striving to be the party of the coming revolution or claiming to represent the best interests of workers. They are all competing with each other for influence in the working class. We are socialists, wishful above all things to advance socialism, and by socialism we mean the common  ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system, and the conducting of all productions relations on a co-operative basis.

Trust in yourselves

The Socialist Party shows that the master class are able to maintain and continue their rule in society because they control political power. The centre of this power is Parliament. Here the laws are made and the forces (Army, Navy, Police, etc.) are authorised and supported for the purpose of enforcing those laws, the wishes of the master class. This political power is placed in the masters' hands by the workers, as the latter possess the majority of the votes. At every election the candidates depend upon receiving a certain number of votes in every area before being elected. Except for two or three special constituencies the workers have the majority of votes in every area. Hence the necessity for the masters to obtain these votes either for themselves or for their agents, at each election.

Once in control of political power the masters can crush any attempted use of force by the workers, whether such attempt be through economic organisations or secret societies.

The only solution in line with the facts of life around us is for the workers to use the franchise to obtain political power for the purpose of achieving their emancipation. Equally clear is it that, until a majority of the workers understand their slave position and desire to alter it, they will allow the masters to continue to rule by voting them into control of political power. Hence the stupidity of fancying that a "minority" can carry through a revolution. Therefore the Socialist Party must be opposed to organisations that preach such futile methods.

"Trust us," they tell us, "we will look after you." But to give complete power and authority to any individual or group is to give them something they can and may sell out to the class enemy. The only safeguard the working class has in its fight for emancipation is to keep control and power in its own hands. Executive committees, organisers, officials, etc., must all be servants of the working class, taking their instructions from, and carrying out their orders under the control of that class.

Socialism means the social ownership of the means of life. Hence the majority of society must not only be convinced of the necessity for socialism before it can be established, but they must keep control in their own hands if social ownership is to continue.

Chaos, chaos and more Chaos.

Chaos, chaos and more chaos, describes the state of the world at present - floods, fires, droughts, coronavirus, stock markets tumbling and wacko's going off fully cocked shooting people, way to go capitalism. Here in Canada we have our own unfair share of chaos which is known as Blockade. Starting in B.C. the federal government wanted to put the Coastal GasLink Pipeline project on the land of the Wet'suwet'en Indians. The $6.2 billion dollar pipeline is intended to deliver natural gas across northern B.C., where it will be prepared for global markets by converting it into a liquid state. Some but not all indians have objected, knowing full well what happens when the government take, or use, their land. This has caused blockades of freight and passenger rail lines all over Canada as indians and their sympathisers have squatted down on the tracks. On Feb. 26 they caused commuter lines to be blocked in Southern Ontario, which left thousands stranded at Toronto's Union Station. Manufacturing capitalists have been unable to get materials and, since they are unable to produce, have laid workers off. Farmers are unable to get their produce to market nor can they get feed for their animals. At the time of writing, Feb. 28., there is no end in sight. Prime Minister Trudeau is negotiating but has made no progress. To learn more one is advised to check the internet. And to think that for years apologists for capitalism told me a socialist society would degenerate into chaos!
S.P.C. Members.

Crazy Crazy Capitalism.

Canada's cannabis industry has seen a wave of lay-offs this year, including 500 at Aurora Cannabis and 140 at Tilray Inc. as they struggle to make profit. Canopy Growth Corp. says it’s planning cuts because it lost $124.17 million in 2019. It lost 35 cents per share in the quarter ending Dec.31. CEO David Klein said the company has taken steps to reduce the stockbased compensation and implemented tighter cost controls, but still has a lot of work to do. And this is the industry Canada's government legalized! Crazy Crazy capitalism.
S.P.C. Members.