How the SPGB is Different

The SPGB and our companion parties in the WSM say that:

• socialism will be a moneyless, stateless worldwide society of common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution
• there is no need for a “transition period”
• socialism cannot be established by gradual implementation
• reforms of capitalism can never lead to socialism
• socialism must be established by a large conscious majority, preferably via a parliamentary mandate,
• socialism cannot be established by some minority vanguard or leadership group
• socialists should oppose all capitalist wars and that socialism will end war, including the class war
• the former USSR, China, Cuba and other so-called “socialist countries” were never socialist, but instead, state capitalist

Other groups which may use the terms ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’

There are some groups, for example left communists and some anarchists, who agree with some of the above but not all. In Britain what’s called the Left is generally made up of groups which don’t have socialism as we describe it as an immediate (or even distant) goal, and instead aim at a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ with themselves in charge. These are the groups which follow Lenin and/or Trotsky. Below we list some of the biggest differences.