10.07.1997

Down with capitalism!

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, July 5 1917

The triumph of the Russian Revolution and the progress of republicanism, ... destined probably to encompass the Kaiser powers at no remote date, denotes the close of an historical epoch and the commencement of a new era of human progress.

The political systems which correspond with capitalist production are now almost everywhere the prevailing institutions, and where parliamentary government or a republic is not in command the surviving forms of sovereignty have been successful in conforming to the requirements of capitalism.

All the world over the great nations have modified or else revolutionised their political forms in response to the altered methods of wealth production. The British, French and American examples have almost everywhere been followed ... The whole world rings with the watchwords of the capitalist class; their philosophy and their institutions have gained universal acceptance and application. Yet whilst everywhere capitalism is in power, everywhere there are the most obvious signs of its approaching collapse.

The unscrupulous scramble for concessions and markets carried on in the darkness of a furtive and secret diplomacy; the frequent tariff wars and panic measures for naval and military preparation which preceded the war; the German plan for a Central European Customs Union ... answered by the Allies in the Paris proposals; the seizure of the German colonies and the partition of Turkey in Asia; the formation of trade banks, great monopoly corporations, and capitalist associations of producers - all of them the surest evidence that capitalism can no longer find an adequate outlet for the tremendous volume of production which alone will permit the maintenance of a satisfactory return upon investments.

Imperialism, by means of which capitalism has kept going so long and by using which it has gained ever new leases of life, has begun to fail it. The nations have grappled with each other in a struggle to the death. In the midst of war their imperialist frenzy has increased and now they are plunging hopelessly to the social cataclysm which was the only possible outcome of the capitalist competitive struggle. This is the meaning of this war and of all the terror and slaughter which is girdling the earth in blood and misery. The world is going whither Marx foretold it would go. Capitalist society is rushing to the social revolution. This is the twilight of the bourgeoisie ...

The rank and file of the socialist and labour movement, and above all those who have in hand the formation and direction of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council and the organisation of the revolutionary forces in this country, must take firm hold of this idea and shape their policy in the certainty that capitalist civilisation is doomed - meaning thereby not only its economic structure but also the institutions and theories which are the political and ideological counterparts of capitalism ...

From this hour onwards our sole objective must be to conquer political and economic power for the working class with the single idea of abolishing capitalism. From now onwards for all of us there must be one aim, and to be content with less than that must be unthinkable for all who have set out upon this mighty quest - the dictatorship of the proletariat!

JT Walton Newbold MP