Month after month, year after year, our fellow-workers appear to be satisfied with the capitalist system — or perhaps too apathetic —to want to put an end to it. They seem to look with an almost fatalistic resignation upon its continuance, despite having to suffer the anxieties and indignities of that system. Workers feel powerless to deal with the vital questions affecting their lives and many through their experience of party politics have developed a cynicism about the promises which political leaders constantly pledge to undertake but never fulfil. Unlike our opponents we in the World Socialist Movement (WSM) have no plans for running — or being run by — capitalism.We have no urge for taking over the role of government, nor can we claim that, given the opportunity of taking over the r governments, we could administer capitalism fairly and in the interests of all. On the contrary, we affirm that no political party, irrespective of itssincerity or aspirations, can run a system based upon explotation through the wages-money system for the welfare of all. Our role is the political education of our fellow members of the working class toachieve the understanding of why capitalism must always operate against the well-being of all of us and why we must choose alternative of world socialism — a wage-free, class-free society of production for use. The WSM hopes that the day will soon come —and it cannot come too soon for us—they will decide to abolish capitalism and establish the world socialiscooperative commonwealth. To try and bring that day nearer is the aim and work of the World Socialist Movement.
1. claims that socialism will, and must, be a wage-free, money-free, worldwide society of common (not state) ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution.
2. claims that socialism will be a sharp break with capitalism with no “transition period” or gradual implementation of socialism (although socialism will be a dynamic, changing society once it is established).
3. claims that there can be no state in a socialist society.
4. claims that there can be no classes in a socialist society.
5. promotes only socialism, and promotes it as an immediate goal.
6. claims that only the vast majority, acting consciously in its own interests, for itself, by itself, can create socialism.
7. opposes any vanguardist approach, minority-led movements, and leadership, as inherently undemocratic (among other negative things).
8. promotes a peaceful democratic revolution, achieved through force of numbers and understanding.
9. neither promotes, nor opposes, reforms to capitalism.
10. claims that there is one working class, worldwide.
11. lays out the fundamentals of what socialist society must be, but does not presume to tell the future socialist society how to go about its business.
12. promotes an historical materialist approach—real understanding.
13. claims that religion is a social, not personal, matter and that religion is incompatible with socialist understanding.
14. seeks election to facilitate the elimination of capitalism by the vast majority of socialists, not to govern capitalism.
15. claims that Leninism, Trotskyism and Maoism are distortions of Marxian analysis.
16. opposes all capitalist war and claims that socialism will inherently end war, including the “war” between the classes.
17. noted, in 1918, that the Bolshevik Revolution was not socialist. Had earlier, long noted that Russia was not ready for a socialist revolution.
18. the first to recognise that the former USSR and its satellite states plus China, Cuba and other so-called “socialist countries” were not socialist, but instead, state capitalist.
19. claims a very accurate, consistent analysis.
We are a Marxist organisation. That is to say we base our ideas on history and economics on much of the theories of Karl Marx. On the basis of Marxian economics we have pointed out that there is no solution for booms and slumps as long as capitalism lasts. That booms and slumps are inevitable products of capitalism and will always be a part of it.
We have always insisted upon the capture of political power before any fundamental change in the social system can be achieved. Political power is the centre of the capitalist citadel, though the workers place this power in the capitalists’ hands at election times. But no fundamental change is possible until the majority understand and want it. We have also been opposed to reform policies and have kept unswervingly to the pursuit of socialism as our sole objective.
Finally, just as capitalism has spread all over the world, bringing similar conditions of frustration, poverty and insecurity to all peoples, so also the seeds of discontent and the yearning for something better has become a part of life everywhere. Unfortunately this discontent takes wrong turnings and has led to revolts and nationalist uprisings that, in the long run, have helped nobody but the ruling class of capitalists or budding capitalists. The solution is the same everywhere, for socialism is a global movement involving the workers of the world, whatever their language, colour or nationality. As socialists, knowing full well the nature of capitalism, knowing that that system cannot operate in the interests of the working class, we feel safe in predicting that the problems of the working class, will remain with us whatever the constitutional changes may be made and the re-drawing of frontiers.
We therefore urge the workers of the world to unite in the World Socialist Movement because Socialism is the only solution to the social ills of mankind. Socialism is a system in which there will be no privileged class, as everything that is in and on the earth will be the common and equal possession of all humanity.
For further reading, an e-book has been written by a comrade in the World Socialist Party of the United States which will offer important background material. “A World Torn Apart is a collection of forty articles on diverse topics written from a world-socialist perspective,
