The I.L.P’s Confession

  The I.L.P. is certainly not committed to advocating “the overthrow of the Capitalist system.” Its Socialism in Our Time programme (and I think I have done a little to defend it against its critics) is a carefully reasoned out programme which, as the I.L.P. states in its resolution, “aims at the immediate raising of the standard of life of the working classes and the transference of the key sources of power within Capitalism to the community.” That is a line of policy which does not mean the “overthrow of the Capitalist system.”

The Acting Editor of Forward—the I.L.P. journal—writes the above in the issue of July 7th. It is a very candid and timely confession on the part of these gentlemen of the I.L.P. that they do not stand for the overthrow of the Capitalist System. “The immediate raising of the standard of life” is one of those general phrases which will easily fit into any reformer’s programme and means practically nothing.