In
1975 Robert Barltrop wrote a book about the Socialist
Party called The Monument. It was a highly entertaining
read but heavily anecdotal (sometimes rather dubiously
so). While it was primarily a positive account, the sneer that
the Party is “a monument” is one that has often been
repeated by our political opponents before and since. It fails
to take into account the distinctive contributions the
Socialist Party has made to revolutionary theory and
practice since our foundation. For the record, we list some
of the most significant here:
oú That the socialist revolution has to be majoritarianParty called The Monument. It was a highly entertaining
read but heavily anecdotal (sometimes rather dubiously
so). While it was primarily a positive account, the sneer that
the Party is “a monument” is one that has often been
repeated by our political opponents before and since. It fails
to take into account the distinctive contributions the
Socialist Party has made to revolutionary theory and
practice since our foundation. For the record, we list some
of the most significant here:
and must involve removing the capitalist class’s
stranglehold on the machinery of government, thus denying them control
over the state’s coercive apparatus and removing their claims to democratic
legitimacy.
Islington election meeting 1987
oú That the socialist revolution (and subsequent operation
of socialist society)requires the conscious political
understanding and democratic action of the majority of the working class
rather than organisation by a political leadership with a set of
passive followers.
oú That the socialist movement itself must be fully
democratic, with all members having equal opportunity
to participate in the Party’s affairs; by the same token,
political secrecy is unnecessary and potentially
dangerous – instead, all Party meetings should be open
to members of the public.
oú That the advocacy of reforms to gain support
(reformism) is a pointless and potentially dangerous
approach as reforms cannot succeed in making
capitalism run in the interest of the working class and
will only attract people to the socialist movement who
are primarily interested in reforms rather than
socialism.
oú That the socialist political party must be fiercely
independent from – and hostile to – all the parties of
capitalism, with socialists refusing to take the platform of
opposing parties except to state their case in
opposition.
continued in next column
oú That the socialist revolution can only be international,
creating a world-wide society where production is carried
out solely to meet the needs and desires of its inhabitants.
oú That there can be nothing progressive about wars in
the modern world; socialists oppose all wars as their
ultimate cause is the competitive struggle between
sections of the owning class over resources, trade
routes, markets and the strategic positions necessary to
protect them.ú
oú That nationalisation of the economy (even under so called
workers’ control, as was claimed in Soviet Russia)
is state-run capitalism, leaving intact capital accumulation
from the surplus value extracted from the workers,
class division, production for markets, etc.
oú That taxation is ultimately a burden
on the owning class rather than the
working class and that therefore
political disputes about taxation are a
matter of interest for the capitalist class
and their political representatives but
are an unnecessary diversion for the class of wage and
salary earners.
oúThat economic crises and slumps are inevitable under
capitalism but that no crisis can of itself be fatal for the
system without the conscious political action of the
working class.
oúThat the attempt through Keynesian economic
theories to prevent economic crises by, among other
strategies, a relaxed monetary policy led to a persistent
(and ongoing) inflation of the currency across much of
the world; this being caused by an excess issue of
inconvertible paper currency far in excess of that
required by the levels of production and trade in the
economy.
oúThat the creation of the so-called ‘welfare state’
would not solve the problems of the working class but
was the product of a series of measures designed to
stave off discontent by removing some of the worst
excesses of capitalism while, at the same time, creating
a more efficient and productive workforce.
oúThat socialism can be an ecologically sustainable
society that is decentralised and responsive to people’s
needs and desires, in distinction to visions of the new
system of society being organised on the basis of a vast
and inflexible ‘central plan’ of production.