HCH , you now shift your
HCH , you now shift your position from criticising the SPGB claim to be leader-less and lack of support for the class struggle, deciding not to challenge or refute our defence, to an attack on our position on reformism. Once again, members of the SPGB engage in the struggle to stop cuts to their jobs , to their kids schools closing , to their university courses fees rising, to their hospitals shutting , as individuals and as local community members but we don’t parachute in as an organisation to create and control such resistance – we do not offer ourselves up as the leaders of it. We do not seek to lead such struggles but limit ourselves to urging workers to organise any particular struggle in a democratic way under the control of those directly involved. (members,btw, were on the march leafletting and selling our magazine and we are fully aware of the existance of the TUSC and the constant in-fighting within it for party partisan dominance). There are two kinds of reformism. One has no intention of bringing about revolutionary change. The other being the one you appear to favour, HCH, that cherishes the mistaken belief that successful reforms will somehow prepare the ground for revolution are to be seen as necessary first steps on the long road to eventual revolution. That socialist consciousness will develop out of the struggle for reforms within capitalism: when workers realise that they can’t get the reforms they have been campaigning for they will turn to the “cadres” of the Fourth International for leadership. Quite apart from the fact that this has never happened, this argument is more of a rationalisation by shamefaced reformists who imagine that they are revolutionaries. “The movement is everything, the goal nothing” sums up it. The ‘Left’ may claim that it enjoys the best of both worlds by both supporting reforms and advocating revolution. But in fact its revolutionary posturing. Left reformists always claim how much better everything would be if only they were in power. Everything would be better: the NHS, the environment, the economy, education. And how is all this to be achieved? By two old Leftist illusions; taxing the rich and nationalisation disguised as public or social ownership. The aim of the Left has always been to establish state capitalism, the profit system planned centrally by a miracle-performing state. Yet the source of the wealth would still be the surplus value wrung from the working class. Lacking an honest revolutionary stance for a new society, the Left becomes caught in a pointless circular battle with an economic system that is based on exploitation. As long as the accumulation of capital takes precedence, either in the hands of the individual capitalist or state institutions, the primary concern of exploitation of labour and making profit will take precedence over the concerns of human need. The Left downplays the idea of directly challenging the system and organising an alternative political economy and is working instead on the terrain of capitalism.“Socialist activists” have claimed impressive “successes” and “victories” in every field except one. History have proven beyond any shadow of doubt that they have not remotely convinced the workers of the need for socialism. From the activities carried on in the name of socialism, the one thing conspicuous by its absence has been any mention of the socialist case. The efforts of “socialist activists” has been geared to an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism.The Left-winger behaves as if he was Moses, laying down the commandments in stone for ignorant followers to obey. Left -wing propaganda offering leadership presents the worker as an inferior incapable of thinking, organising and acting and imbues further the master-and-servant mentality of the worker. Left organisations start from the premise that workers are too stupid to understand or want socialism by their own volition. Therefore, revolutionary ideas have to be introduced from outside the working class by all-knowing “professional revolutionaries” who will lead workers to the promised land. The Socialist Party is not on “The Left”. There is no such manipulation or dishonesty. We have always been opponents of nationalisation. We do not advocate that the working class should experience the disillusionment of yet another Labour government to realise that it would be once again anti-working class. As an aside, it is interesting how small the memberships of the other so-called revolutionary parties are. It makes a shambles of the misconception that the SPGB is small because of our procedures or lack of participation in “the struggle”, or our “unsound” or that favourite criticism for being “dogmatic and sectarian” that we lost members and influence. This is a historic and social phenomenon. The myriad parties of the Left all have serious declines in membership. It can be ascribed to a public’s apathy that arises when high hopes raised by social reform programs only lead to disillusionment.HCH, you admonish us for not being part of the TUSC. Are socialists supposed to unite with those who want to reform and administer capitalism? Or do we unite with those who claim socialism can be established by a well meaning leadership without a class-conscious working class? Do we unite with those who see socialism as a system based on state control and state ownership of industry: and lastly, do we unite with those who refuse to recognise the parliamentary road to socialism? Revolutionaries must reject this appeal if they are to remain revolutionaries. If there is no common ground upon which agreement can be reached then there can be no unity. Our analysis of the Left is not based upon some narrow sectarianism—it’s based upon principle. We do not, nor have we ever, supported capitalist parties, especially those that dress up in revolutionary garb in order to hoodwink the workers. The Left is an expression of all the political mistakes made by the working class last century—from the Labour Party to the Soviet Union. We do not doubt that well-meaning individuals get caught up in such chicanery for no other reason than a desire to see a better world. However, sentiment can never be a substitute. “Unity” has no meaning unless based on the common realisation that its sole object is to introduce socialism. A socialist organisation will get nowhere without a firm grasp of democracy, sound Marxist principle, a disdain to conceal its socialist objective, and a membership in full possession of the facts about current society and the revolutionary alternative. Unlike the Left we openly advocate common ownership and democratic control. It is not the wish of the Socialist Party to be separate for the sake of being so. It is ridiculous to think of a rivalry between socialist parties competing to emancipate the workers. If another socialist organisation appeared on the scene, then the only possible action that we could take would be to make immediate overtures for a merger. We would offer them the open arms of comradely greetings and unity. But the position is that we cannot be a popular reform party attempting to mop up immediate problems, and revolutionary at the same time. We cannot have a half-way house; nor can we accommodate the more timid members of our class who abhor what they describe as “impractical” or “impossible” policies, and spend their time looking for compromises. We do oppose all the so-called working-class parties which compromise with capitalism and do not uphold the socialist case. The socialist case is so fundamentally different, involving as it does the literal transformation of society, that we must expect mental resistance before socialist ideas have finally become consolidated in the mind.We have seen a century of cruelly extinguished hopes of those who heaped praise upon the state-capitalist hell-holes which posed as “socialist states” which pseudo-socialists promoted. We have witnessed a system which has persistently spat the hope of humane capitalism back in the face of its advocates. The progressive enthusiasm of millions has been stamped out in this way. How different it could have been if all that work which has gone into trying to reform capitalism had gone into struggling to abolish it ? Historically, reform activities have dissipated the earnest energies of so-called socialists from doing any socialist work, whatsoever. The need for reforms is an all-time job. The SPGB is not going to do anything for the working class except to arouse their fervor, determination and enthusiasm for socialist objectives. Working-class understanding is at a very low ebb, therefore the membership in the SPGB is puny. Apart from the feeble voices of the Socialist Party, the great mass of the workers are not exposed to socialist fundamentals. Nevertheless, the greatest teacher of all is experience. Eventually, all the groping and mistaken diversions into futile efforts of reforming and administering capitalism will run their course. People learn from their mistakes. Necessity is the latent strength of socialism. Truth and science are on the side of socialism. Socialism is no fanciful utopia, but the crying need of the times; and that we, as socialists, are catalytic agents, acting on our fellow workers and all others to do something about it as speedily as possible, the triggering agent that transforms majority ideas from bourgeois into revolutionary ones. The seeming failures, the disappointments and discouragements, the slow growth, only indicate that socialist work is not an easy task. What makes socialist work stirring and inspiring is not that there are short cuts , but that there is nothing else worth a tinker’s damn.