Letter to Communist Party Branches (1957)

From the January 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter is being sent to Communist Party branches whose address is known.

Fellow Workers,

In view of the recent tragic happenings in the world, we urge your members to give our case their earnest consideration.

We are Marxists, basing our position on the investigations and conclusions of Marx.

Our sole object is the achievement of Socialism—a social system in which everything that is in or on the earth will be the common possession of all mankind. Everyone will be on an equal footing. There will be no frontiers, no buying and selling, and no privileged groups—except the old, the young, and the infirm.

We hold that Capitalism, the system under which goods are produced by the workers for the profit of a relatively small section of owners of the means of production, is now the system that prevails all over the earth; that it breeds wars, slumps, internecine conflicts, and misery for the mass of the people; that there is a constant class struggle going on between the owners of the means of production, and those that operate them—the working class; that all the reforms put forward and fought for by well-meaning people have not touched the fringe of the problem of working class subjection but, instead, though even unintentionally, have pushed further away the day of emancipation; that, so long as the present system prevails there is no remedy for this state of affairs; the only way out is to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism in its place; that State-ownership is not Socialism, but a particular form of Capitalism; that the workers must organise together internationally to attain their freedom from the conditions that oppress and frustrate them.

We will be glad to send a speaker to your Branch to explain in detail our position, and to answer your questions and criticism. Meantime we enclose two leaflets that may interest your members.

Hoping you will accept our offer to send a speaker.

                                   We remain,

                                         Yours for Socialism, 

                  SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN.