Protest for the "Impossible"

We can take some heart from popular demonstrations . It is heartening to see so many , united in common voice - it reveals the workers can be mobilised around issues they feel are important. Our class is once again on the move, fighting to protect its interests, and talking about its future. This is a very good thing. We welcome any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. People power is in evidence everywhere and more and more we see individuals and groups standing up for their "rights". These workers are members of our class, their problems are ours, their losses and gains are ours. Our future is inseparable from theirs, and in wishing them every success in their efforts to better their conditions of life, we trust that through the sharpening conflict of the days to come they will rapidly gain a firm grasp of the final and permanent solution to the whole of their troubles – in the abolition of the wages system.

Protests may demonstrate great strength of feeling but they will also demonstrate a great weakness and this is the lack of control of those who take part and their dependence on the decisions and actions of present power structures. Because of this, protesters can become victims of a seductive but deadly process. The capitalist system constantly throws up issues that demand action amongst those who are concerned and by many people who think of themselves as socialists. As a result, protest tends to become a demand for an “improved” kind of capitalism which leaves the long-term reasons for protest intact. This has been the history of protest. In this sense, protest tends to set a stage for further protest and further demonstrations. Though the issues may vary the message stays the same: “We demand that governments do this, that or the other!” The spectacle of thousands demanding that governments act on their behalf is a most reassuring signal to those in power that their positions of control are secure. In this way, repeated demonstrations do little more than confirm the continuity of the system. Demonstrations are displays of necessity, in that the state is reminded that it needs the support of those who are demonstrating.

Protests often claimed to be about opposition to capitalism but they were actually much more focused upon a particular element within capitalism. The point is to change society, not to appeal to the doubtful better nature of its power structures. It is a question of cause and effect; we can demonstrate against all kinds of things that we consider ‘unfair’ but unless we recognise and tackle their cause the problem will only remain. Demonstrators can at best hope to alleviate a problem, but the respite is only temporary. The world cannot be made ‘fair’. We must seek to stop the skirmishes by winning the class war, and thereby ending it. This is only possible if the capitalist class is dispossessed of its wealth and power. That means that the working class as a whole must understand the issues, and organise and fight for these ends themselves – by organising a political party for the conquest of state power that will convert the means of production into the common property of the whole community.

Worryingly, protest and dissent have themselves been criminalised, with police violence becoming more or less the norm, with prominent resisters being arrested on trumped-up charges and so kept out of the way during demonstrations, and with all civil disobedience being equated with violence. Demonstrators have been provoked and terrorised by armed police, ‘kettled’ for hours on freezing cold streets without access to food, water or toilet facilities, and then savagely beaten with truncheons. No one is spared this state thuggery. But surely in Britain, we live in a free society with the right to protest? It’s a democracy after all. We can demonstrate until we are blue in the face, but as long as the government keeps a firm hand on the state (the police and army), they will get their way in the end. When it is in the interest of the capitalist class for the state to appear strong in order to deter workers from taking action, then the full force of the state is put into operation. Socialist hold that democratically elected governments, when feeling threatened, will react as brutally as dictatorships. Nor do laws prohibiting certain acts of violence or infringing on civil liberties inhibit them.

Well-meaning people will protest their outrage at government policies. We advise demonstrators to invest in a sturdy banner and settle down to a life of campaigning. Demanding change from institutions whose sole function is to serve the interests of profit is like asking a hungry shark to consider a vegetarian diet. Protest endlessly or start campaigning for a new world of common ownership, democratic control, peace and human welfare.

It is only with the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialist society that worker servitude everywhere will end. This is achievable not by demonstrating for reforms to institutions of capitalist society. It is not enough to be "anti-capitalist". We must go far beyond mere protests, organise to abolish the profit system and replace it with a world of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for needs. We're not saying you are wrong. We're not suggesting you are demanding too much - in truth, you are not demanding enough! We are here today to urge you to stop belittling yourself and your class by making the same age-old demands of the master class. It is now no utopian fantasy – but a practical, revolutionary proposition – to suggest we can live in a world without waste or want or war, in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. Demand what until now has been considered "the impossible"!