The Revolutionary Vote

The Socialist Party view its function to be to make socialists, to propagate socialism, and to point out to fellow workers that they must achieve their own emancipation. The abolition of capitalism MUST entail organisation without leaders or leadership. The abolition of capitalist society requires knowledge on the part of the individual as to what it is that is responsible for his or her enslavement. Without that knowledge s/he can only blunder and make mistakes that leave their class just where they were in the beginning, still enslaved. That knowledge must precede intelligent action. And intelligent action means intelligent organisation . The working class must want and understand a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control.We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party , a mass party that has yet to emerge , not a small educational and propagandist group such as the SPGB . This future party will neutralise the state and its repressive forces and there is no question of forming a government and "taking office". It will then proceed to take over the means of production for which the working class have already simultaniously also organised themselves to do at their places of work. This done, the repressive state is disbanded and its remaining administrative and service features, re-structured on a democratic basis and merged with the organisations which have been formed ,workers councils or whatever, to take over and run production, to form the democratic administrative structure of the stateless society of common ownership that socialism will be.

However , before we are labelled by some pure and simple parliamentarians , “capturing” Parliament is only a measure of acceptance of socialism and a coup de grace to capitalist rule. The real revolution in social relations will be made in our lives and by ourselves, not Parliament. What really matters is a conscious socialist majority outside parliament, ready and organised, to take over and run industry and society. Electing a socialist majority in parliament is essentially just a reflection of this. It is not parliament that establishes socialism, but the socialist working-class majority outside parliament and they do this, not by their votes, but by their active participating beyond this in the transformation of society.

The SPGB has never held that a merely formal majority at the polls will give the workers power to achieve socialism. It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, will be decisive.We have always emphasised that such a majority must be educated in the essentials of socialist principles and have a party democratically organised.

In our Declaration of Principles we stress the necessity of capturing the machinery of government including the armed forces. That is the fundamental thing. The method, though important, is second to this. The attitude of fetishism which some so-called radicals show towards "armed struggle" , and their advocacy of street warfare against overwhelming odds only serves to make more difficult this socialist education and the organisation of the workers. Direct action or party political work through the electoral system has always divided anarchists and socialists. Some now argue that both forms of resistance not only complement each other but are also essential in the pursuit of class struggle.

The easiest and surest way and the most bloodless way for a socialist majority to gain control of political power in order to establish socialism is to use the existing electoral machinery to send a majority of mandated socialist delegates to the various parliaments of the world. This is why we advocate using Parliament; not to try to reform capitalism (the only way Parliaments have been used up till now ), but for the single revolutionary purpose of abolishing capitalism. At the same time, the working class will also be organising itself, at the various places of work and in their communities , in order to keep production going, but nothing can be effectively and successfully done here until the machinery of coercion which is the state has been taken out of the hands of the capitalist class by political action.

As the SPGB said in as long ago as 1915
"The workers must prepare themselves for their emancipation by class-conscious organisation on both the political and the economic fields,the first to gain control of the forces with which the masters maintain their dominance, the second to carry on production in the new order of things."

Political democracy is not, or is not just only , a trick whereby the capitalist class get the working class to endorse their rule. It is a potential instrument that the working class can turn into a weapon to use in ending capitalism and class rule. The ballot box is a tactical but never a strategic (or the only) option. However , the working class is the key political class, and whoever wins its support wins the day, hence why the factions of the capitalist party in this election vie for our votes.

The capitalist class are the dominant class today because they control the State (the machinery of government). And they control the State because a majority of the population allow them to by their everyday attitudes, but importantly, also by voting for for those pro-capitalism parties at election times and returning a pro-capitalism majority to Parliament, so ensuring that any government emerging from Parliament will be a pro-capitalism one .

If the workers are to establish socialism they must first take this control of the State (including the armed forces) out of the hands of the capitalist class, so that it can be used to uproot capitalism and usher in socialism. The SPGB has always said that, in countries where there exist more or less free elections the working class can do this by sending a majority of mandated delegates to the legislative body. Just as today a pro-capitalism majority in Parliament reflects the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population wants or accepts capitalism, so a socialist majority in Parliament would reflect the fact that a majority outside Parliament wanted socialism.

The SPGB contest elections making no promises and offering no reforms except for using parliament as a tool for the abolition of capitalism.Our policy is actually telling the electorate NOT to vote for us if they do not support and understand our case for socialism .
Those who oppose the use of existing methods of universal suffrage have to envisage some other means of expressing the popular will/public demand than a parliament elected by and responsible to a socialist majority amongst the population. But what, exactly? It would have to be something like a Congress of Industrial Unions and Workers Councils or a Confederation of Communes. These bodies or similar most likely will exist at the timein some shapre or form , but would they be more efficient and more effective or even more democratic in controlling the State/central administrative machinery than a socialist majority elected to Parliament by universal suffrage in a secret ballot.Nor is it conceivable that when there is a significant number of the population who are socialist-minded , that at election times they will not decide to put up candidates against those favouring capitalism.What would be the point of boycotting elections? There would be nothing to gain and in fact there could be some advantages for the class struggle to lose.

No-one can be exactly sure which form the revolutionary process will take but the SPGB has always held that the potential use of parliament as part of a revolutionary process may prove vitally important in neutralising the ruling class's hold on state power. For us, this is the most effective way of abolishing the state and ushering in the revolutionary society .

A SPGB member who stands election has to subscribe to our Party rule "Candidates elected to a Political office shall be pledged to act on the instructions of their Branches locally, and by the Executive Committee nationally". We would therefore expect a candidate who reneges on this rule to lose the support of the constituency who then may well take whatever appropriate measures they deem necessary to express their disapproval and and demonstrate his illegitimacy as their MP .