The Socialist Party remains politically isolated and ineffective. Some on the left blame our alleged sectarianism but there is no easy cure for our woes. The struggle for socialism worldwide is a formidable task, to say the least.
There exists indoctrination of the population that pervades society which includes the educational system, the media, the church, cultural and labour organisations, etc. Fear, suspicion and hysteria are spread throughout by sensationalist news outlets and social media. The result of all this is that the worst of capitalism–consumerism, rampant individualism, jingoism, xenophobia, racism and sexism increasingly prevails. It is entrenched and permeates all facets of cultural life.
Socialism is an imperative if humankind is to avoid the path of barbarism or self-annihilation. War can solve no working-class problem. It cuts across the fundamental identity of interest of the workers of the world, setting sections of this class at enmity with each other in the interests of sections of the capitalist class.
War elevates force into the position of arbiter in place of the common human desire for mutual peace and happiness. Its effect is wholly evil. It depraves all the participants by forcing them to concentrate upon the best methods of producing misery and of annihilating each other. War elevates lying, cheating, maiming and murdering into virtues. It confers medals and decorations upon those who practice these vices most successfully.
Young men and women, in their most impressionable years, have the vile methods of warfare impressed upon them so thoroughly that they lose a balanced outlook on life and are impregnated with the idea that force, with all its baseness, and not reason is the final solution in all problems.
To suggest to the ruling classes of the world that they must abandon the use of force when their interests are at stake is foreign to the nature of capitalism.
Socialism is completely opposed to war and to what war represents. At the same time, it is the only solution to the conditions that breed war. It is a new form of society in which the people of the world will work harmoniously together for their mutual benefit, for there will be neither privilege nor property to cause enmity. With the establishment of socialism, war will disappear and humanity will have taken the first step towards truly civilised behaviour. There is no practical effective internationalism except that which springs strong and self-reliant from the workers' community of interest, sweeping across national frontiers like a cleansing wind blowing away bestial hatreds and fears.
The future of the human race demands the destruction of the national barriers which divide the peoples of the world. Not the defence of national independence but the destruction of capitalism must be the watchword of those who would build for the future of the human race and at the same time help to stem the fear of war in which capitalism threatens to engulf civilisation. The doctrine that each group of workers should rally around their own ruling class in defence of the "national interest" only plays into the hands of the war-mongers in every country.
Our rejection of nationalist delusions ought never to show insensitivity to the valid concerns of oppressed people. Moreover, it strengthens the appeal of socialism to show that in contrast to the imposed uniformity and centralisation of consumerist culture we aim for a way of life that, of its nature, fosters freedom and diversity. Workers' internationalism is not a Utopia.
Technology and digital revolution can help in realising the goals of worker's internationalism guaranteeing peace and prosperity. The forward march of workers based on internationalism is the only way to realise the great goal of global citizenship. We need no national barriers, the interests of the workers can best be promoted by the international fraternity.
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