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Editorial
The Disarming Truth
Fifty years ago this Easter the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was
effectively born from demonstrations held outside the Atomic Weapons
Research Establishment at Aldermaston, Twenty-five years on from Easter
1958, CND (and similar movements) had risen again, able to mobilise
millions onto the streets of capital cities throughout Western Europe
in response to a return to cold war US/USSR rhetoric.
During the 50 years of CND's history some things have changed: Trident
has replaced Polaris and Faslane submarine base has replaced Greenham
Common cruise missile base as the focus for protest. Meanwhile the
global nuclear stockpile is now double what it was in 1958, and the
number of nuclear states has also more than doubled.
And it wasn't just the badges with the distinctive CND logo that were
recycled from the 60s to the 80s: the same kilogrammes of uranium or
plutonium from scrapped and ageing warheads have been thoughtfully
reused ten years later in the next generation of killing technology.
Despite the laudable aims then – as embodied in their title – the
reality of CND is that it has been a front: a cover for the
little-known CPPTSRNP (Campaign for Possible Partial, Temporary and
Reversible Slowing of the Rate of Nuclear Proliferation). A bit more
accurate, if a little clumsy when put on a banner, and hardly a good
rallying cry for supporters of course. But CND has, by whatever measure
you wish to use, failed. Not through lack of effort of course – no
other issue dominated politics throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s.
The parties of the World Socialist Movement are unique in opposing all
war – not just certain types of war or certain situations. This is
based on a recognition that the interests of the working women and men
who usually make up the cannon-fodder and collateral damage of war can
never be aligned with states and governments. We oppose the monopoly
that the global owning class have over ownership of the Earth's
productive resources that are the usual spoils of armed conflict. We
see little value therefore in pleading with our rulers to continue
their capitalist battles, but to request that they use only this or
that weapon.
In the Socialist Party we were sometimes told by CND supporters that
there just wasn't enough time to work for socialism: there were only
weeks or months left to stop nuclear annihilation and that objective
had to be the priority. Thankfully that prediction proved to not be the
case. But it is a common objection to the case for socialism, that
there is some immediate more pressing campaign that – with just one
final shove – will be won, and only then can we start to look to
changing the basis of society.
The history of movements to reform one part or another of capitalism
has been a history of failure in the main part. We can choose to tinker
at the margins or to get to grips with the problem. We can complain
about the symptoms, plead with our rulers, or make the decision to
address the cause. The history of CND should give us no confidence that
reformism is fit for purpose – certainly not with regard to trying to
do away with weapons.
We predict that unless the war machine that is capitalism is
politically challenged by a majority – armed with nothing more or less
than an understanding of how it works – then in another 50 years we
will still have wars raging round the globe, with ever more
sophisticated weaponry. And of course, we will still have CND. The
choice is between a world to win and a world to lose.
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Introducing
the
Socialist Party
The Socialist Party is like no other political party in Britain.
It is made up of people who have joined together because we want to get
rid of the profit system and establish real socialism.
Our aim is to persuade others to become socialist and act for
themselves, organising democratically and without leaders, to bring
about the kind of society that we are advocating in this
journal.
We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists
for socialism.
We are not a reformist party with a programme of
policies to patch up capitalism.
We use every possible opportunity to make new socialists. We publish
pamphlets and books, as well as CDs, DVDs and various other informative
material.
We also give talks and take part in debates; attend rallies, meetings
and demos; run educational conferences;
host internet discussion forums, make films presenting our ideas, and
contest elections when practical. Socialist literature is available in
Arabic, Bengali, Dutch,
Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and
Turkish as well as
English.
The more of you who join the Socialist Party the more we will be able
to get our ideas across, the more experiences we will be able to draw
on and greater will be the new ideas for building
the movement which you will be able to bring us.
The Socialist Party is an organisation of equals. There is no leader
and there are no followers.
So, if you are going to join we want you to be sure that you agree
fully with what we stand for and that we are satisfied that you
understand the case for
socialism. |
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