Socialist Standard May, 2006 Vol No.102: No.1221 website www.worldsocialism.org/spgb
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NO SOCIALISM IN RUSSIA
It is very important to the Socialist Party of Great Britain that there should be no confusion about the state of affairs in Russia. The aim of the S.P.G.B. is to see Socialism established everywhere but our propaganda for Socialism is hampered by the belief, held by some people, that Socialism means the kind of social arrangements that existed in Russia under Stalin and exist still. There is no truth in this whatsoever. There is no Socialism (or Communism) in Russia, nor has there ever been.
What Russia has is a régime of dictatorship, administering what can best be described as a largely State Capitalist social system. The State apparatus is controlled by the Communist Party of Russia, the only political party that is allowed to exist in that country. Farcical so-called elections are held, but, as the workers of Russia are not allowed to form political parties of their own choice, only members of the Communist Party and those approved by them are permitted to stand at election and be elected. This is an issue by which to assess the recent talk of changed conditions in Russia. Stalin is dead and some of his actions have been repudiated but it is still the case that no political party is allowed to exist in Russia except the Communist Party. It was over 20 years ago that Stalin had to admit to some visiting Americans that in Russia “only one party, the party of the workers, the Communist Party, enjoys legality.” (“Interviews with Foreign Workers’ Delegates”. Published in Moscow 1934, p.13.)
The same idea had been pithily put still earlier by Bukharin, who declared that in Russia there is room for any number of political parties, as long as one is in power and the others in prison.
The British Communist Party has just reaffirmed its confidence in the Communist Party of Russia. Let it clearly be understood that this is a renewed declaration of support by the British Communist Party for a regime that suppresses all independent working class political activity. While this condition remains it is idle to pretend that the new rulers of Russia are showing evidence of a changeover from dictatorship to more democratic arrangements.
In asserting that there never has been Socialism in Russia the S.P.G.B. is not making a late discovery. Right from 1917 when the Communists were able to get power in Russia it has been emphasised by the S.P.G.B. that Socialism has not been established in that country.
(From editorial, Socialist Standard, May 1956) |
Our
Object and Declaration of Principles (click
on link for explanation with each one)
This declaration is the basis of our organisation and, because it is also an important historical document dating from the formation of the party in 1904, its original language has been retained.
Object
The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.
Declaration of Principles
The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds
1. That society as at present constituted is
based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories,
railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class,and the consequent
enslavement
of the working class,
by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of
interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who
possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.
3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation
of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the
conversion into the common property of society of the means of
production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole
people.
4. That as in the order of social evolution the
working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the
emancipation of the workingclass will involve the
emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.
5.That this emancipation must
be the
work of the working class itself.
6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed
forces of the nation,
exists only to conserve the monopoly by the
capitalist class
of the wealth taken from the workers, the working
class
must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the
powers of government, national
and local, in order that this machinery,
including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of
oppression into
the agent of emancipation and
the overthrow of
privilege,
aristocratic and plutocratic.
7. That as all political parties are but the
expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class
is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of all
sections of the the master class, the party seeking working class
emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters
the field of political action determined to wage war against all other
political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and
calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster
under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to
the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that
poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery
to freedom.
Socialist Standard May 2006 Page 18