Socialists believe the working class can and must have its own political party, a party that will serve its own interests, not those of the exploiter class. Socialists understand that politics is essentially a war between the two main classes in modern capitalist society: those that work (the working class) and those that exploit those who work (the capitalist class).
Common ground of action to be effectual cannot be furnished by unity conferences, no matter how earnest those attend are. The ghost of all the rivalries and jealousies aroused by the past years of acrimony will arise dashing any hopes of a lasting amalgamation of the existing parties. There are too many leaders. Too many saviours of the working class whose reputations have been built upon disunity; too many petty personal ambitions. The realisation of unity must prove greater than the prejudices or rivalries of the leaders of the Left.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain is pledged to the principles of socialism and is primarily concerned with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. The success of the socialist movement and the rapidity of its progress will depend very largely upon the method of education and the political tactics of the Socialist Party. Mere industrial militancy in itself cannot bring the cooperative commonwealth. The political case of the Socialist Party is essentially constructive. There is no place in it for cataclysmic transformation. Socialism does not advance necessarily in response to or because of great industrial distress. These economic crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different proposition.
The Socialist Party is a party that knows what it wants to get, and how it means to get it. But then there are the others - sham “socialist" parties of opportunism and social reform which are prepared to sacrifice all things for party success or office. That the latter should call themselves socialist we cannot prevent. We have no monopoly of the word. But in the end the cause will know its own. But, nevertheless, the members of the Socialist Party understand and await the real political party of the working class to fully manifest itself.
It is urged by some outside our party that we should encourage alliance with self-styled leftists because they are inclined in our direction. Their advice, if followed, would wreck our party. If our socialist case is the right one, then they should join the Socialist Party. If they are not ready to do this they are not socialists, and hence opposed to socialism and a fusion of groups would result in inevitable disaster. The only object of such fusion would be the securing some sort of political advantage. We are not after political positions. We want socialism. We care nothing about office except in so far as it represents the triumph of socialism. Therefore, be it understood, once for all, that the Socialist Party will not merge with any party that does not stand for genuine socialism, and there will be no departure from this policy. The issue is socialism or reformism.
Socialism is the hope of the workers but the hope will never be attained if the workers are turned aside from their purpose by those whose object it is to whittle away the socialist aim, substituting various temporary reliefs. Nor can we subscribe to any type of organisation where decisions becomes the handing down of decisions by the higher committees to the lower ranks with the air of a royal decree or infallible papal bull.
The confusion on the existing Left is so great there is at least now a chance the existing “Left” movements and its accompanying ideological baggage will disintegrate completely and there will be room for something new and genuinely revolutionary to emerge. The task of the Socialist Party is exposing and undermining the anti-socialism and therefore reactionary ideology of the present “Left”. But we need to at least think about construction at the same time. The aim of criticism is to open the way for a revolutionary workers movement that is fighting for progress and that is quite serious about winning political power to actually implement the social changes it is fighting for, instead of whining about the present rulers of society. Too many “parties” talk about “revolution” and none at all seem to understand what it really means. These days people are rightly cynical about political parties, whether “revolutionary” or not.
We need to go beyond denouncing what the government is doing and start offering constructive alternatives, even though our proposals are bound to be seen half-baked at this stage. Reformists will make constructive proposals as to how the capitalism should deal with problems, with or without a change in the political parties administering the regime.
The Socialist Party simply propose socialism as the solution.
AJJ
Social ownership and democratic control of the collective product of labour is what you want. That's great. But the class struggle taking place is essentially about getting hold of parts of the collective product of labour and some democratic control of it. Why can't you have both? The first could be the strategic goal. The second could be tactical. A class conscious worker cannot be co-opted by reform. Co-optation is for liberal workers.
ReplyDelete"the class struggle taking place is essentially about getting hold of parts of the collective product of labour and some democratic control of it."
ReplyDeleteIs it? Surely the priority of the class struggle is to maintain and advance our day to day standards of living, to defend ourselves against capitalism. You don't need to be a socialist to be fully engaged in the class struggle as we witness everyday. Also how can workers take hold of and hold on to "parts of the collective product of labour". I'm not clear what you mean by this. Socialism is the political expression of the class struggle which is limited to the economic struggle of workers and does not encompass all those outside the work and involved in such struggles as the environment and ohers. Our aim is to emphasise the difference in objectives but also the "unity" of all the single or sectional issues. and simply wait until other workers recognise it too, hopefully helped along a bit by our propaganda.
But the debate between reformism and revolution i don't think will be easily resolved. Our position is - i hate to use the words- the lesser of two evils- because we do not try to discourage workers from achieving reforms or improvements if they can get them, we acknowledge the reality of that struggle - while the reformists do tell revolutionaries to desist and drop their demands.