{"id":3968,"date":"2021-12-22T00:13:22","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T00:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/?p=3968"},"modified":"2021-12-22T00:13:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T00:13:24","slug":"what-is-the-wsm-2-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/what-is-the-wsm-2-3\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the WSM 2\/3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is <\/strong>not the socialist “party” that Marx had envisaged, that is, the working class as a whole organised politically for socialism. This will come later. For the moment, the WSM can be described as only socialist advocates or an educational organisation and it can’t be anything else (and nor would it try to be) at the moment. Possibly, we hope the WSM might be the embryo of the future mass “socialist party” but there’s no guarantee that it will be (more likely it will be just a contributing element.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some stage, for whatever reason, socialist consciousness will reach a “critical mass”, at which point it will snowball and carry people along with it. It may even come about without people actually giving it the label of socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The World Socialist Movement cannot be described as  Social Democrat 2nd Internationalist, Leninist 3rd Internationalist, or Trotskyist 4th Internationalist political organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The socialists who formed the WSM accused the 2nd International of being non-socialist, throwing cold water over the 2nd International when the Kautskys and Lenins of the world were still extolling the mistaken strategies and tactics. When the First World War broke out and the resulting rush to patriotism, the Impossiblist socialist parties didn\u2019t have to depart the 2nd International because they were never in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The failure of the 2nd International only confirmed the WSM\u00a0case that understanding is a necessary condition for socialism, not desperation and despair. There is no easier road to socialism than the education of the workers in socialism and their organisation to establish it by democratic methods. Shortcuts have proved to be dead ends.

The World Socialist Movement\u00a0share in common with the\u00a0Industrial Workers of the World\u00a0the view that labour unions should not be used as a vehicle for political parties. The WSM\u00a0has always insisted that there will be a separation and that no political party should, or can successfully use, unions as an economic wing until a time very much closer to the revolution when there are substantial and sufficient numbers of socialist conscious workers. And that\u00a0is not in the foreseeable future. Yet for Leninism, Trotskyism and Maoism, all activity should be mediated by the Party including union activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


When a worker acquires revolutionary consciousness, the World Socialist Movement acknowledges that it is still necessary to engage in the non-revolutionary struggle of everyday life. But it is NOT advocating the idea that THROUGH a policy or programme of reforms that the workers’ situation can somehow be intrinsically improved or that it can progress towards the establishment of a socialist society.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wage-workers depend upon their pay and it is not determined by legal law, but by the economic law of supply and demand. Working conditions are determined by the progress of the development of technology, the concentration of capital, the proportion of the unemployed industrial reserve army. Social realities that are outside the remit of parliaments. Although the permanent betterment of the conditions of existence by way of political reform is impossible, it is not the same as regards the conditions of fighting. To distinguish between the conditions of fighting and the conditions of existence is not to split hairs. There is a real difference. Some reforms would render the struggle of the proletariat more powerful, weakening capitalism – the right to strike and the right to picket, for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The WSM\u00a0reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the immense majority have come to want and understand it. This is why we advocate using parliament. Not to try to reform capitalism but for the single revolutionary purpose of abolishing capitalism.\u00a0What our capitalist opponents consequently do when the majority prevails will determine our subsequent actions. If they accept defeat, well and good. If they choose not to accept the verdict of the majority which is given through their own institutions and contest that verdict by force, then the workers will answer\u00a0in kind, with the legitimacy and the authority of a democratic mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who know of the World Socialist Movement will\u00a0have noted\u00a0that it\u00a0doesn’t go out of its\u00a0way to sign-up\u00a0members. Some would say we do just the opposite. At first sight, we seem to have an odd approach to recruitment of any political party in existence – we actually have a test for membership.\u00a0The WSM\u00a0will not allow a person to join it until the applicant has convinced the companion party applied to it that she or he is a conscious socialist. Surely,\u00a0it must put some people off? Well, that may be, but it can’t be helped. There would be no point in a socialist organisation giving full democratic rights to those who, in any significant way, disagreed with the socialist case. The outcome of that would be entirely predictable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


This does not mean that the WSM has set itself up as an intellectual elite into which only those well versed in Marxist scholarship may enter. The WSM has good reason to ensure that only conscious socialists enter its ranks, for, once admitted, all members are equal and it would clearly not be in the interest of the Party to offer equality of power to those who are not able to demonstrate equality of basic socialist understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Once a member, that individual\u00a0has\u00a0the exact same rights\u00a0and status\u00a0as the longest\u00a0member to sit on any committee, vote, speak, and have access to all information. Thanks to the test all members are conscious socialists and there is genuine internal democracy, and of that, we are fiercely proud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Consider for a moment what happens when people join other political groups which don’t have this test.\u00a0The new applicant has to meet the other members’\u00a0approval\u00a0as being\u00a0“all right”.\u00a0The individual is therefore judged by the group according to a range of what might be called\u00a0“credential indicators”.\u00a0Commitment usually in the task of\u00a0paper selling and obedience to more senior Party-officials by new members is the main criterion of trustworthiness in the organisation. In these hierarchical,\u00a0“top-down”\u00a0groups the leaders strive at all costs to remain as the leader and reward only those with proven dedication to the\u00a0“party line”\u00a0with preferential treatment, more responsibility and more say. New members who present the wrong indicators remain peripheral to the party structure and find themselves unable to influence decision-making at any level, eventually, give up and leave, often embittered by the hard work they put in and the hollowness of the party’s claims of equality and democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WSM\u00a0hostility clause,” to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist”\u00a0is certainly unique and even within the WSM\u00a0it has always been subject to regular debate. Concerning the hostility clause, it is one issue that can justifiably put down to the 19th century our social democrat roots since it arose\u00a0from the experience of the Social Democratic Federation\u00a0and the Socialist League. William Morris together with Eleanor Marx,\u00a0Edward Aveling,\u00a0Belfort Bax and some other members of the SDF, resigned and issued a statement giving their reasons, for\u00a0“a body independent of the Social Democratic Federation”. Yet they added\u00a0the caveat,\u00a0“We have therefore set on foot an independent organisation, the Socialist League, with no intention of acting in hostility to the Social Democratic Federation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main weakness, as some saw it, of the Socialist League, was that it\u00a0“had no intention of acting in hostility”\u00a0to the SDF. When the Socialist Party was formed, its members made certain that their Declaration of Principles would include a hostility clause against all other parties such as the SDF who advocated palliatives, not socialism. Given the context when it was drawn up that the early members of the SDF breakaway envisaged the party developing fairly rapidly into a mass party, not remaining the small educational group that it has done up to the present, what it says is that when the working class form a socialist party this party is not going to do any election or parliamentary deals with any other political party, either to get elected or to get reforms. Basically, the hostility clause applies to political parties, organisations aiming at winning control of political power. In fact, in the eyes of those who drew it up, it was about the attitude that a mass socialist party (such as along the lines of the German Social Democratic Party was then seen to be albeit with its warts and all) should take towards other political parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Importantly, the hostility clause doesn’t mean that we are hostile to everything. There are a whole range of non-socialist organisations out there, ranging from trade unions to claimants unions to environmentalist and community groups to which we are not opposed. It does not mean that if you are not with the WSM, somehow you are automatically anti-socialist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Of course, there are, and always, have been socialists outside the party in the sense of people who want to see established, like us, a class-free, state-free, money-free\u00a0world\u00a0based on common ownership and democratic control with production solely for use, not profit. The WSM\u00a0has always recognised this, right from the start, seeing some other groups as socialists with a mistaken view of how to get there. Clearly, such people and such groups are not in the same category as openly pro-capitalist groups. Of course,\u00a0there are socialists outside the WSM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0That doesn’t mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with their proposed method of getting rid of capitalism rather than because of the hostility clause. That opposition doesn’t have to go as far as hostility. Our attitude to them is to try to convince them that the tactic they propose to get socialism is not the correct approach\u00a0and invite them to join us in building up a strong socialist party. If we think that the tactic they advocate (such as minority action by an\u00a0uprising or a general strike involving\u00a0non-socialists) is dangerous to the working-class interest then we say so loudly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Socialist Movement does not claim that socialist consciousness will come to dominate the working-class outlook simply as a result of the activity of socialists. The movement for socialism must be a\u00a0class movement\u00a0of working people. It must depend upon the working class vitality and intelligence and strength. Until the knowledge and experience of the working class are equal to the task of the revolution there can be no emancipation. Our task in the WSM is to shorten the time, to speed up the process – to act as a catalyst. This contrasts with those who seek to substitute the party for the class or who see the party as a vanguard that must undertake alone the sectarian task of leading the witless masses forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. We don’t suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don’t necessarily claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group such as ourselves, but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is all about understanding limitations and they will be subject to change when conditions change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main purpose of the WSM at the moment is to <\/p>\n\n\n\n