The World Socialist Movement (1999)

From the February 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

• claims that socialism will, and must, be a wageless, moneyless, worldwide society of common (not state) ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution.
• 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).
• claims that there can be no state in a socialist society.
• claims that there can be no classes in a socialist society.
• promotes only socialism, and promotes it as an immediate goal.
• claims that only the vast majority, acting consciously in its own interests, for itself, by itself, can create socialism.
• opposes any vanguardist approach, minority-led movements, and leadership, as inherently undemocratic (among other negative things).
• promotes a peaceful democratic revolution, achieved through force of numbers and understanding.
• neither promotes, nor opposes, reforms to capitalism.
• claims that there is one working class, worldwide.
• 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.
• promotes an historical materialist approach—real understanding.
• claims that religion is a social, not personal, matter and that religion is incompatible with socialist understanding.
• seeks election to facilitate the elimination of capitalism by the vast majority of socialists, not to govern capitalism.
• claims that Leninism is a distortion of Marxian analysis.
• opposes all capitalist war and claims that socialism will inherently end war, including the “war” between the classes.
• noted, in 1918, that the Bolshevik Revolution was not socialist. Had earlier, long noted that Russia was not ready for a socialist revolution.
• the first to recognize that the former USSR, China, Cuba and other so-called “socialist countries” were not socialist, but instead, state capitalist.
• claims a very accurate, consistent analysis since 1904 when the first Companion Party was founded.