Parliament
THE
SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN has always insisted on the necessity
for the workers to gain control of the machinery of government before
trying to set up Socialism.
The State is the public power of
coercion. It arose out of the early division of society into classes,
and developed with the development of class conflicts. It is the result
of the desire to 'keep order': order, that is, in the interests of the
class that is supreme; order to allow the ruling class to protect its
property ownership and exploit the rest of the population. Through the
ages the State has been controlled, as a rule, by the class that has
been economically the most important. Through its control of the State
and its power to levy taxes a class that has outgrown its economic
importance can often continue for a time to control social affairs. As
the State grew in size and complexity it became more burdensome, and
the taxes grew with it. This led to quarrels among property owners over
the amount of their contributions. Much of the apparent cleavage
between parties in modern States is at bottom only indicative of a
struggle as to which section of the property owners shall take the
weight of taxation.
In the development of the State the modern
parliamentary system emerged as the most appropriate means for securing
the domination of the capitalist class, the last class to obtain social
control. Parliaments were subjected to modification in the course of
time and the modern product ensures to the capitalist class their
ownership of the means of production and the right legally to exploit
the working class.
As the production and distribution of wealth
developed on a tremendous scale social affairs have become
correspondingly burdensome and complicated. In order to run the State
smoothly and secure the peaceable flow of profit, it became necessary
to alter parliamentary procedure so that the voice of the mass of the
people could be heard; but only in so far as such alterations did not,
in the opinion of their leading thinkers, jeopardise the rule of the
capitalists. Thus, in due course, helped on by the rivalries of
political parties representing sectional propertied interests, each
trying to attract working class support and take the edge off working
class discontent, the electoral machinery was modified until suffrage
became the rule worldwide.
Subject to certain specific
commitments to the European Economic Community, Parliament is the
centre of power in Britain. It makes the laws and provides for their
enforcement Regional and local bodies have certain law-making and
enforcing powers but these are subservient to the central body which is
supreme and which, where required, supplies the local body with any
extra force necessary.
The instruments of power are the army,
navy, air and police forces. The final word for setting these forces in
motion rests with Cabinet ministers. The Cabinet is the executive
council which carries out the will of Parliament. Its members belong to
the majority group, or by arrange¬ment are allowed to function
through
a coalition of parties. In other words, the group that has an absolute
majority in Parliament can put into operation whatever decree it wishes
by means of its control of the executive — the Cabinet. In theory the
Prime Minister is appointed by the Crown (though the selection is
confined within narrow limits) and has a free choice in the selection
of his ministers; but in fact no Cabinet could survive without a
parliamentary majority to sanction its proposals.
Members of
Parliament are elected by adult suffrage, and the vast majority of the
voters are members of the working class. The result is near enough
democratic to ensure that when the mass of the working class understand
and want Socialism they have the means to bring it into being through
parliamentary action.
Up to the present, the mass of the workers
have lacked this political knowledge and have voted for people instead
of principles. They have given their votes to those poli¬ticians
who
made the most alluring promises. As time proved the hollowness of those
promises, the workers turned in disgust from one group of political
leaders to another, and then back again, as the memory of the previous
disappointments faded.
This fact has led some to question the
usefulness of Parliament and to advocate industrial action. But those
who have done this have forgotten that the workers have been as readily
betrayed on the industrial field as they have on the political. They
have forgotten that whenever the workers have placed their trust in
leaders they have almost always been let down. This has not been due to
the field of combat, but to the method adopted. When the workers cease
to regard certain individuals as endowed with some special capacity of
leadership, they will adopt the method of issuing to delegates
instructions that are to be carried out regardless of the delegates'
own views or wishes. The ground will then be cut from under the feet of
those who prosper out of leadership, and such people will no longer
have a saleable article for the capitalist in the shape of a blind
following.
There has not yet been a parliamentary test of the
power of delegates acting on instructions given them by a large body of
workers knowing exactly what they are after and how to get it. In fact
outside of the Socialist Party (and our allied parties abroad) the
method has never really been applied. Time after time the specious
words of some acknowledged leader have diverted groups of workers from
their original aims, generally on the plea of expediency. Expediency
has for generations acted as a useful pretext to cover the compromising
activities of leaders. The foolish belief in leadership has been a
considerable barrier to working class knowledge and progress. The power
and wealth leaders acquire induce them to fortify their positions and
insist on the necessity of leadership as a permanent institution,
accompanied by appropriate means of wire-pulling and mutual bargaining
for position.
Socialism will not be possible until the mass of
the workers understand it and are prepared to vote for it. When the
workers understand Socialism they will know what to expect and what
will be involved in putting it into operation.
Two other
theories, both of them dangerous and impractical have been put forward
by those who deny the usefulness of parliamentary action to achieve
Socialism. One is that the workers can gain control of the State
without the vote by means of an armed uprising. The other is that the
workers can set up their own machinery of government in opposition to
the capitalist State. The two theories converge because in practice the
capitalist class, controlling the armed forces through their
parliamentary majority, will see to it that no hostile armed force
comes into being to challenge their supremacy.
When the majority
of workers have become socialist there is no need for an armed
uprising. They withdraw their support from capitalist parties and
support the socialist party so that Parliament, which controls the
armed forces, will be composed of socialist delegates. If some
capitalists did try to organise resistance they would reveal themselves
as a small minority, lacking popular support, trying to create chaos in
the furtherance of their sectional interest against the declared will
of society: they would be bound to fail.
However this is not the
situation the advocates of armed uprising or the setting up of a rival
State machine ask us to face. It is not majority action resisted by a
capitalist minority they have in mind but a minority action against the
capitalist State, with the mass of the workers still not
socialist-minded and at most only moved by discontent. This is an
altogether different state of affairs. The capitalist government would
be in a much stronger position, politically as well as militarily, than
the insurgent minority. With the passive backing of most workers, who
after all would have voted them to power in a previous election, they
would be able to denounce the insurrectionists as opponents of
democracy and would-be dictators. Militarily they would have the armed
forces and police to crush the uprising.
Minority action is
suicidal folly and could not lead to Socialism even if successful. For
unless the immense majority of workers want Socialism there is no
possibility of it being established. Even if an insurrectionist
minority managed to get control of political power, it could not alter
the basic problems and processes of capitalism. It would have to
contend with the anti-socialist prejudices of the majority and it might
be overthrown in another insurrection.
Historically, minority
action has been a feature of revolutions which Marx called 'bourgeois',
that is, of revolutions which swept away barriers to the development of
capitalism and led to the rule of the capitalist class. By the end of
the nineteenth century, under the influence of Marx and Engels,
minority action was being rejected as a socialist tactic. But after
1917 the Bolsheviks used the great prestige of the Russian revolution
to put the clock back. A tactic which merely led to a change of rulers
in Russia came to be popularised as the only way for the workers to win
their freedom. But armed uprisings, led by a 'vanguard' party, are a
method of a would-be capitalist ruling class and cannot be used by the
workers. The workers' method can only be democratic political action
based on socialist understanding.
In Britain, Parliament has a
complete and secure grip upon the armed forces, and government
interventions in the strikes and disturbances of past years have shown
on whose side they act. These were a forceful illustration of how
necessary it is for the workers to obtain control of Parliament before
attempting to uproot the existing foundations of society. They further
show that the only way to obtain control is by sending socialist
delegates to Parliament.
It has been suggested that when the
socialist movement was large enough to challenge the position of the
capitalists, the latter would abolish Parliament. The abolition or
suspension of Parliament would, in the first instance, end the right of
workers to combine, and would thus make illegal all forms of
working-class combination, trade union as well as political. But the
cost to the capitalists of the abolition of Parliament would be the end
of their rule nd the beginning of chaos. The State machine would be
unable to function, owing to the conflicting views among civil and
military employees of the government.
The size and complexity of
a modern nation is so great that the time has long since passed when
members of the ruling class could themselves occupy any considerable
number of the administrative posts and manage any appreciable part of
their activities. From top to bottom all departments are filled by paid
or elected officials, and only a very few of these officials are drawn
from the capitalist class itself. Practically all the work of
controlling the activities of society today is performed by peopfe who
depend for their livelihood upon their pay — members of the working
class. The armed forces, including most of the officers, are also
recruited from the working class.
Thousands of functions have
had to be delegated to subsidiary bodies like local councils, statutory
boards and tribunals. Year by year this delegation of function grows.
Circumstances,
therefore, have compelled the capitalists to place administration in
the hands of elected or appointed bodies. If they were to attempt to
end this in the face of a determined socialist majority, they would
bring their house down about their ears.
The importance of
Parliament is quite plainly recognised by the capitalists, and they
give clear evidence of this at election times by the amount of wealth
they spend and the inconvenience they suffer in order to ensure their
control of it.
The attitude of the Socialist Party of Great
Britain on the need to gain control of the political machinery has been
logical and consistent. We hold the same view as Marx as to the
necessity of the workers gaining control of the machinery of government
before they can establish Socialism. We also hold Marx's view that in
the industrially advanced capitalist countries the vote will give that
control. The one way to prevent the capitalists from using political
power against the workers is to refrain from voting them and their
agents into political power. Accordingly we have always urged the
workers not to vote for any candidate who is a supporter of capitalism. |
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