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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

William who?

Socialists do not want to abolish the monarchy. Socialists are much more ambitious: we desire nothing less than a global classless commonwealth. Until that glorious day we will do our best to ignore the latest royal pantomime. You might think that those of us existing in republics such as Austria, Romania, Russia or South Korea might suffer less exposure but no, papers in these countries soon carried the 'news' that a worker on an English Channel ferry had failed to recognise one William Windsor! Unbelievable! And possibly something which might elicit a passing smile from even a veteran class warrior. There should be no doubt, however, that Socialists seek to replace pomp and privilege for the few with peace and plenty for all, as the following gems show...

"...The King as such is a nonentity, a dummy, a convenient cloak behind which the capitalist class carry on their operations of robbing the workers of the fruits of their toil. As a private individual, the landlord of vast estates, George Wettin may make himself feared, but no one trembles at his royal word, or quakes at the thunder of his anointed brow. If the great ones of the capitalist world bow and scrape before him, it is only because he is the incarnation of capitalism, the symbol of the domination of a class of parasites and thieves, the image of themselves triumphant. They know that while the workers will flock in millions to cheer this straw man of theirs, dragged through the streets like a fifth of November guy, they and their plunder are safe. Hence they set the example of deification, knowing well they will be followed by their sheep..."

No doubt this parasite was totally oblivious to the fact that one of the craftsmen who helped create the new coronation chair was F.C Watts, a founder member of the Socialist Party! Truly, the capitalist class reigns over the workers only with their support!

The Socialist Standard has been printed monthly without interruption for over one hundred years: Indeed, this is all the more impressive considering periods of press censorship and the unilateral action of printing firms, the latter leading to the removal of an article concerning the death of George VI:

One year later, there was a new figurehead for the same old rotten system:

Years can pass between such articles appearing in our journal, an appropriately contemptuous lack of interest which is possibly only bettered at branch level:

"Islington branch of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, on this eightieth birthday of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, hereby resolves to express its hostility to the existence of a monarchy and the parasitic class it represents. In an age when one third of the world's population suffers from malnutrition, when millions throughout the world face the indignity of the dole queue, when 53,000 families in Britain are homeless, when health facilities are cut back while money spent on nuclear warheads, for the workers of this country to be ecstatic that an aristocrat has survived to be eighty is distasteful in the extreme: The concern of our party remains with the wealth producers of the world, including those who face old age in poverty with the threat of hypothermia. Let Kings and Queens be left to the history books; let working people create a better society for ourselves." (4 August 1980)
RS

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