Editorial from the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard
The Socialist Party of Great Britain has often been asked why they have
not drawn up a programme of measures for the partial redress of those
evils which most immediately affect the position of the working class.
“Should we not strive to palliate the existing misery”? “Should we not
seek to foster the sectional differences existing among the capitalists
so that we may use them in the interests of the working class"? “Should
we not temporarily support, or form temporary alliances with, other
political parties while working for common ends”? These and other
questions of like import are constantly being put to us by non-members
of our party. We now propose to answer them.
The basis of modern society is, economically, the holding by one section
of the community of the means necessary for producing and distributing
the means of living of the whole of the community, i.e., the
ownership by a class of the whole wealth of society. As against them
there is the vast mass of the people owning nothing but their
"labour-power,” their power of working.
The worker being compelled to sell this power of working on the labour
market, in return for his means of livelihood, has interests
diametrically opposed to those of the employer who buys his activity.
Hence two classes with conflicting interests, constantly meeting on the
labour market, must necessarily engage in a struggle in which each
combatant can gain only at the expense of the other. Such a struggle
between classes forms a class war.
Economically, the working class are impotent so long as the employing
class has possession of political power. Therefore, the class struggle
must manifest itself as a political struggle for class supremacy. The
working class can only gain their ends by taking possession of the
political machine and using it so as to gain their own economic
emancipation. This can be done only by themselves, and the struggle in
which they must take part to secure this is a class war—the working
class against the employing class.
The basis of a Socialist Party in any country must, therefore, be a
recognition of the fact that the material interests of the working class
are in entire opposition to those of the employing class, that is, the
recognition of the class war. Any party which declares that no class war
exists rules itself, by virtue of that declaration, out of court as a
Socialist party. It is, necessary, therefore, in forming and organising a
Socialist party to have a clearly defined class war basis, and in every
action of the party to always keep the class-conscious character of the
party clearly to the front. Any action tending to obscure this
position, any position keeping the class struggle in the background, is a
virtual betrayal of Socialist principles, serving only to confuse the
issues in the minds of the workers and to make it more difficult for
them to understand their class position and the reasons for it, and to
see the road which must be followed if they are to achieve their
emancipation—serving only, in brief, to retard the development of their
class consciousness.
Any alliance, either permanent or temporary, with a party which does not
recognise the class war is therefore out of the question. For does not
every such alliance, whether openly avowed or tacitly understood, make
less clear the class opposition which exists between the various
political parties? How can we claim to be essentially distinct and, in
fact, diametrically opposed to all other political parties, if we can
find sufficient common objects to make possible any common ground of
working? We think that the teaching of our principles is hindered by
every such concession to the anti-class war parties, and is, therefore,
opposed to the true interests of Socialism. We, therefore, avow
ourselves in hostility to all other political parties, and can have
nothing in common with them.
And this has been tho experience of the Socialist parties of other
countries. Wherever those parties have maintained an attitude of open
hostility to all other political parties they are strongly organised.
Whenever any of those parties, strong or weak, have formed temporary
alliances, as they did, for instance, in Belgium, with the Liberal
Party, for the purpose of securing universal suffrage, they lost
strength, and remain as far from securing their desired reform as ever
they were. Thus, then, is our first objection that such action confuses
the issues and hinders our success.
Our next objection lies in the fact that any such dependence upon other
political parties for their assistance assumes the maintenance of a
majority of members on our legislative bodies who are not class
conscious representatives of the working class. So long as that remains
the case, so long will the legislature be controlled by middle class
men, by capitalists. Every such capitalistically controlled legislature
secures the control of the administrative and judicial functions by the
capitalists.
The result of this is that every measure carried through Parliament is
carried through by those whose position makes it necessary that these
enactments should be piecemeal and ineffective. They will, therefore,
endeavour to reduce every concession to the point of impotency except in
cases where they think to maintain their power by greater concessions.
In this latter case they know they can depend upon their second line of
defence—the administration of those laws which will cause the laws to
remain a dead letter.
We have only to study the legislation of the last half of the nineteenth
century to find that each of those phases of the economic legislation
of the middle class parties plentifully exist. Wo find that the
administration of the law being in the hands of the capitalist class,
will be carried on by them in such a way as not to be dangerous to their
own class interests.
Any “blue-book” dealing with any phase of working class life, will show
instances innumerable of the neglect of the Local Government Board, or
of the Borough Councils, or of the County Councils, in applying the laws
already in existence. Housing Acts and Public Health Acts and Acts for
the prevention of women returning to work at too early a period after
child-birth, and Factory and Workshop Acts are not efficiently carried
out, while powers vested in governing bodies are hardly ever exercised.
Thus we read with regard to the pollution of the atmosphere by smoke,
that:
“There are people in Manchester who systematically pollute the air and pay the fine, finding it much cheaper to do so than to put up new plant. The trial of such cases before benches of magistrates composed of manufacturers, or their friends, creates an atmosphere of sympathy for the accused, and it was alleged that magistrates who had sought to give effect to the law encountered the indifference and sometimes the positive opposition of their colleagues."
Just so! And this is only one case which may be cited from among innumerable others which lie before us.
We have to point out further that sometimes it happens that a reform
asked for by the working class can be granted them without any serious
danger to the capitalist class. In such cases they make graceful
concessions and the working class are usually called upon to hail the
party granting such a "concession” as their truest friends.
Another case is that sometimes a measure is passed which, while
benefiting certain individual workers, proves disastrous to another and
larger section. Such was, for example, the Workman's Compensation Act.
This Act was passed to benefit those workers in certain selected
industries who met with accidents while in the performance of their
duties. It is to be observed that the Act was again the minimum of
possible concession. It benefited those workers who in consequence of
meeting with accidents which disabled them, received compensation where,
before the passing of the Act, they would have obtained nothing. But
while they were benefited, a larger section of the working class were
affected to their detriment. The employing class ever on the watch where
their class interests are concerned, immediately claimed that the old
men they employed, the men over a certain ago, who were rendered infirm
by the hard toil to which they had been subjected, were liable to more
accidents than men in their earlier manhood, and that when they met with
accidents, such accidents were more likely to prove serious or fatal
than if they were younger. These men were in consequence immediately
discharged. And what has happened since? A committee, on which was Mr. George N. Barnes, of the A.S.E., has reported:
"That with reference to the employment of aged, infirm, or maimed persons, amendments should be made to enable the employer to offer work to such persons without incurring undue risk of paying compensation." ,
We are, therefore, forced to tho conclusion that the trying to secure
measures for the palliation of the evils of the existing class-governed
society is useless. The men in control of the legislative,
administrative, and judicial machinery of the community can always dodge
any such partial attacks upon their position, can always find loopholes
to escape from any concession appearing to endanger their position.
The only thing which will secure the alleviation of our misery and our
wage slavery is the propagation of the principles of Socialism and the
building up of a class conscious Socialist party, prepared to wrest at
the earliest possible moment the whole powers of government from the
hands of those who at present control them.
When a strong Socialist party, fighting directly for the establishment
of a Socialist regime, and prepared in their progress to secure any
advantage which will act as a new vantage ground in their further fight
is organised, then the capitalists will be only too ready to offer and
to give each and all of those palliatives as a sop to the growing
Socialist forces in the country.
We have, therefore, to recognise all the time that it is only possible
to secure any real benefit for the people when the people themselves
become class conscious, when behind the Socialists in Parliament and on
other bodies there stands a solid phalanx of men clear in their
knowledge of Socialism and clear in their knowledge that the only way to
secure tho Socialist Commonwealth of the future is to depend only upon
the efforts of themselves and those who have the same class conscious
opinions. Therefore we have no palliative programme. The only palliative
we shall ever secure is the Socialist Society of the future gained by
fighting uncompromisingly at all times and in every season.
