In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Sep 1993 20:58:45 -0400 (EDT)
International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party
See file Where.We.Are in pub/Politics/International.Socialists for addresses of
the IS/SWP tendency in your country.
WHERE WE STAND
Workers' Power
--------------
We stand for the principles of socialism from below - for the direct and
democratic control of society by the working class.
Although workers create society's wealth, they have no control over its
production and distribution. A socialist society can only be built when
workers collectively seize control of that wealth and democratically plan its
production and distribution according to human needs instead of profit.
The working class, both blue-collar and white-collar, is the vast majority of
society and is the key to the fight for socialism. Liberation can only be won
through the struggles of workers themselves, organized independently of all
other classes and fighting for real workers' power.
We support trade unions as essential to the fight for workers' economic and
political rights. To make the unions fight for workers' interests,
rank-and-file workers must organize themselves independent of the union
officials.
Revolution Not Reform
---------------------
Reforms within the capitalist system cannot put an end to oppression and
exploitation. Capitalism must be overthrown.
The structures of the present government--parliaments, the army, the police
and the judiciary--cannot be taken over and used by the working class. They
grew up under capitalism and are designed to protect the ruling class against
workers.
We do not support candidates of capitalist parties like the Democrats or the
Republicans in the USA, the Liberals or the Tories in Canada, or the Liberals
in Australia.
The working class needs an entirely different kind of state--a workers' state
based on councils of workers' delegates and a workers' militia. These councils
based on elected delegates from the workplaces and the neighbourhoods will
become the ultimate decision-making body in society. As in the Paris Commune
and Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, they will be organs of direct
democracy whose delegates can be recalled by the electors. Combining political
and economic functions, workers' councils will allow direct participation in
the running of society by the working masses.
At most parliamentary activity can be used to make propaganda against the
present system.
Internationalism
----------------
The struggle for socialism is part of a worldwide struggle. We campaign for
solidarity with workers in other countries. We oppose everything that turns
the workers of one country against those of another country.
We oppose imperialism and support all genuine national liberation movements.
We oppose all immigration controls and policies which divide workers of
different countries.
The experience of Russia demonstrates that a socialist revolution
cannot survive in one country. China and Cuba, like the former Soviet Union
and Eastern Bloc, have nothing to do with socialism. They are state
capitalist regimes which oppress and exploit workers. We support the
struggle of workers in these countries against the bureaucratic ruling
class.
Full Equality and Liberation
----------------------------
Capitalism divides the working class-- pitting sections of workers against
one another, men against women, race against race, straights against gays and
lesbians.
We oppose racism in all its forms. We support the right of aboriginal
peoples, blacks and other oppressed groups to organize for their rights
and in their own defense.
Black liberation, women's liberation and lesbian and gay liberation are
essential to socialist revolution and impossible without it.
We fight for real, social, economic and political equality for women and for
an end to discrimination against lesbians and gays, and youth. We support the
struggles of all oppressed groups against any form of discrimination.
The Revolutionary Party
-----------------------
To achieve socialism, the most militant workers must be organized into a
revolutionary socialist party to provide the political leadership and
organization essential to a successful revolution.
The International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party are taking
the first steps towards the building of such international revolutionary
socialist parties--rooted in the workplace and able to provide political
direction within the working-class movement. As revolutionaries, we help to
build every struggle that strengthens the self-confidence, organization and
socialist consciousness of workers and the oppressed. The revolutionary
socialist party can only be built through the involvement of socialists in the
daily struggles of workers and the oppressed.
We urge all of those who agree with our politics to join us in the struggle
to build a revolutionary party.
