We are not and never have been connected with Lenin, Trotsky or Stalin. We are not related in any way to The Scottish Socialist Party, The Socialist Worker's Party, Or The Socialist Labour Party. We've never had any connection with the Communist Party, or any of it's offshoots. We have always been opponents of nationalisation and the idea that capitalism can be reformed away. We are a party that consciously does not have leaders and our members are all members of the working class.

Since 1904 we have published The Socialist Standard , which comes out monthly, and all of the above facts can be checked to have been consistently true as presented in that publication. We're not trying to get a boy scout badge in telling you all this, but merely to tell you exactly who we are as there is so much manipulation, dishonesty, and downright erroneous thinking connected with all the above parties that we would not wish to be associated with them in any way.

This isn't because we're a bunch of goody two shoes, but because we want to see the back of capitalism and the establishment of socialism and often look on in weary frustration as we see the same failed ideas and solutions being proferred for the working class to swallow. In fairness to the above parties, the mainstream capitalist parties also pedal failed ideas and solutions too. Over the year's some of them have used vague socialist mouthings to snare worker's votes, too.

When capitalism is cut to it's essentials there are certain features that are always present:

• The extraction of surplus value(profit) from workers
• The existence of a system of wages and salaries
• The accumulation of capital
• The monopoly ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution by a small minority
• The existence of a State machinery to maintain and enforce that monopoly (armed forces, police, the legal system)
• The exchange of commodities with a view to realising profit (as opposed to meeting need)

Any system having this combination of features is capitalist, no matter what it decides to call itself. This is why The Socialist Party at the time of the Russian Revolution, and ever since,was able to clearly state that Russia had not achieved socialism and wasn't going to as it maintained all the features of capitalism mentioned above. The fact that private capitalists did not have monopoly ownership but a centralised state did was merely a case of changing the boss. It is no surprise that the new capitalist class in Russia and the former Eastern Bloc is partly made up of former communist party nomenklatura, as they had been the priviledged class creaming off all the wealth made by Russian workers. There is more recent evidence that a lot of the nomenklatura "retired" by investing their amassed wealth in property, and now live off the proceeds of their Swiss bank accounts.

From 1906 we always pointed out that the Labour Party would fail in trying to achieve socialism by reform, and in 2000 there is no doubt at all that capitalism has reformed the labour party instead as we predicted. nationalisation was for long enough the cry of the labour party and was often seen as socialist. Of course, this is nonsense. And, as in Russia, merely swopping who's boss isn't socialism and it isn't common ownership of the means of production either.( If common ownership existed it was a very strange version as most Russians lived in poverty and under state terror in a country they supposedly "owned")

Tommy Sheridan (Solidarity) and Arthur Scargill (Socialist Labour Party)both call for nationalisation. They must hope you have short memories, or that time has added a sepia glow to the nostalgic views that older people have. It is ironic that Scargill, perhaps forgetting the miner's strike of 1984, is advocating nationalisation given that the mining industry was a nationalised one (and what wonderful employers they turned out to be!).

 The Scottish Socialist Party is lucky that there isn’t a political equivalent of the Trades Description Act or they could be prosecuted for fraudulently describing what they are trying to sell as “socialism”.Historically, socialism was generally seen as a worldwide system of common ownership and democratic control in which the watchword would be “From each according to ability, to each according to need”. It would mean the end of the wages system along with money, buying and selling and the capital/labour relationship.This has been watered down over the years until even Tony Blair calls himself a socialist. Compare what socialism originally meant with the SSP’s programme of reforms of the capitalist system. The difference between Blair and the SSP is only in the detail – both are all for patching-up capitalism but cannot agree on how this should be done.

Reformist political parties in opposition always claim how much better everything would be if only they were in power and the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is no exception.One of their policy documents tells us they would provide free public transport and that this, on it’s own, would bring fabulous benefits in just about every area of life.

 Everything would be better: the NHS, the environment, the economy, business efficiency, productivity, road safety, more tourists, etc. On top of all this there would be savings of many millions, even billions, of pounds, giving us all more spending power as well as big savings for businesses.And how is all this to be achieved? By two old leftist illusions; taxing the rich and nationalisation (disguised as public or social ownership).

 Apparently, nationalisation would be more efficient and cheaper, despite the evidence of past experience, and taxing the rich must mean that we’ll still have them.

 The source of their riches is the surplus value wrung from the working class but the SSP seem not to have noticed this.We are grateful that the word “socialism” isn’t mentioned once in this document because its contents have nothing whatever to do with socialism. The SSP’s aim is really just the same as all the other reformist parties – they try to solve capitalism’s problems by merely re-organising it.

  If all their proposed reforms were adopted – nationalisation, the multitude of changes in the tax system, defence budget cuts, etc., we’d still be living in a money-driven, buying and selling economy, still working for wages and salaries, still insecure, being hired and fired, in short, in capitalism.Free transport for all can really only be achieved in a worldwide, moneyless, production for use society in which ALL goods and services would be freely available to everyone. That’s what genuine socialists campaign for and what the SSP never does.