Our Party Conference and The War

THE SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain seizes the opportunity of its Annual Conference to endorse the action of the Party Executive with regard to the thieves’ quarrel known as the European Crisis.

While the International Master Class—the only enemy of the Working Class—has almost succeeded in obscuring the greater war—the Class Struggle—this Conference affirms that the Party has maintained, and is maintaining, the Socialist position through the crucial period, and has clearly and boldly pushed forward on every possible occasion Working-Class interests as opposed to those of the Masters.

The flood of light resulting from Socialist knowledge shows clearly to the student how this war is but a logical result of the workings of Capitalism, and is being waged in the interests of the Master Class. The laboured and tortuous attempts to place the cause of the war on this, that or the other detail or side issue, are seen in their full futility when it is realised that it is impossible to have vast opposing interests operating within certain bounds without those interests, sooner or later, coming into conflict. In this conflict the Working Class have nothing to gain from the defeat or victory of any of the nations engaged. The lot of the Workers at the end of this war will be one of greater poverty, misery, and enslavement. THE SOCIALIST PARTY, therefore, unanimously opposes the war, as it unanimously opposes all capitalist machinations along with Capitalism itself.

In view, therefore, of the unanimity of the Party, this Conference makes the following pronouncement, and with fraternal greetings sends it out to the Workers of all lands:

WHEREAS the capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the question of the control of trade routes and the world’s markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political ignorance and blind passions of the Working Class of their respective countries in order to induce the said Workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters’ quarrel, and

WHEREAS further, the pseudo-Socialists and labour “leaders” of this country, in common with their fellows on the Continent, have again betrayed the working-class position, either through their ignorance of it, their cowardice, or worse, and are assisting the Master Class to confuse the minds of the Workers and turn their attention from the Class Struggle,

THE SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain reaffirms the Socialist position, which is as follows :

That Society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living by the Capitalist or Master Class, and the consequent enslavement of the Working Class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

That in Society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a CLASS WAR, between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

That the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exist only to conserve the monopoly by the Capitalist Class of the wealth taken from the Workers.

These armed forces, therefore, will only be set in motion to further the interests of the class who control them— the Master Class—and as the Workers interests are not bound up in the struggle for markets wherein their masters may dispose of the wealth they have stolen from the workers, but in the struggle to end the system under which they are robbed, they are not concerned with the present European struggle, which is already known as the ” BUSINESS ‘ War.

WAGE WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS, YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN!—Marx