Our Comrade Overseas (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over the years since the formation of the SPGB, parties with the same Object and Declaration of Principles as ourselves have been established in other parts of the world. We have close contact with these parties in our efforts to put to the working class the necessity for world common ownership and free access. Like the SPGB our companion parties are small, but they are keeping to the fore the aim which can transform the world from its present crisis-ridden state. The contradiction between great wealth and the possibility of production in abundance on one hand, and mass deprivation on the other, grows more startling daily. These contradictions will one day throw up Socialist consciousness in the minds of the working class, like a world-wide volcano.

For this consciousness to arise, the working class will have to drop its adherence to reformist movements which come forward with their bankrupt promises to slay the dragon of capitalism, bit by bit. Capitalism must either be abolished by the deliberate action of workers, or it will remain. It cannot be reformed to work in the interests of the majority. It is up to the working class to free itself from the degradations of capitalism and establish Socialism. The function of the SPGB and its companion parties is to explain to the working class what capitalism is, what Socialism will be, and how workers themselves are the instruments for effecting the transformation. As Engels put it in his Socialism: Utopian and Scientific—

“To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.”

Below is a brief history and guide to our companion parties.

Socialist Party of Canada

The party’s origins go back to 1905, shortly after the inception of the SPGB. However it was a false start. The party, whilst containing Socialists, also attracted a large group of social reformers and its relationship with the SPGB had to be severed. The Russian Revolution exploded the apparent unity of the party, and the few remaining members only managed to struggle on until 1926. However, in 1931 another group of Socialists got together and formed the present party based on the uncompromising demand for immediate world Socialism. In 1933 the party started the journal The Western Socialist. Because of pressure by the wartime government in October 1939 the Western was handed over to the WSP of the US, who have since published it on behalf of both parties. The party is now working overtime in its efforts to spread Socialist understanding in North America. In 1970, having acquired an old offset press, the branch in Victoria started to publish its own leaflets, and their own journal Fulcrum now appears regularly. Recently the French-speaking area of Quebec has been subjected to a battery of Socialist propaganda. The results have been encouraging. In 1973 Socialisme Mondial first appeared; written in French, it is now available in France and Belgium as well as Canada.

World Socialist Party of the United States

The party was founded in Detroit in 1916 and then called, “The Workers’ Socialist Party of the United States”. The party was helped into existence by two members of the SPGB, Moses Baritz and Adolph Kohn, on the run from the British government’s war machine; their energy and drive forced those Socialists in the Detroit area to break away from the Socialist Party of America to form a party based on the Socialist platform only. Because of wartime conditions and the great distances between American cities they reverted to being a “Socialist Education Society” and continued — doing valuable work — in this form until they could re-start the WSP on a solid basis.

In 1929 their first publication appeared, and the present-day WSP was founded on 8th September 1930, with headquarters in New York. It was not until 1939 that a party journal was established on a firm footing. This was the Western Socialist, which the party took over from the Socialist Party of Canada. It is still going strong today. In the 1940s the party’s name was changed to its present name to avoid confusion with one of the numerous Trotskyist organizations in the USA. The party’s main activity now is publishing and distributing The Western Socialist (it goes to libraries and colleges throughout the US), and regular radio and occasional television broadcasts.

Socialist Party of New Zealand

The party was founded in 1930, although prior to that date there had been considerable Socialist propaganda in the country. In 1919 the party’s forefathers, The New Zealand Marxian Association, invited Moses Baritz to the country to do a series of talks. Baritz took the movement over there by storm; in a series of devastating lectures Baritz put the whole pseudo-socialist and pro-Russia movement to flight. Baritz was deported for his pains, but he had given the Socialist movement in New Zealand a great fillip. In 1934 the party’s first journal was produced which ran for five issues, and again in 1944 another journal came out which lasted four years. Now the party’s journal Socialist Viewpoint comes out bi-monthly. The party’s activity apart from Viewpoint is now concentrated round elections. In 1972 the party entered its first candidate in the New Zealand general elections, and intends to contest the 1975 general elections with, it is hoped, at least two candidates.

Socialist Party of Australia

The party was founded in 1928. However, a considerable amount of Socialist activity had taken place before then. Several seamen who had contact with the SPGB were active in Australia. Bill Casey and Barney Kelly, who were among those sailors and others propounding the Socialist analysis after the first World War in Australia, were sent to the Red Trade Union International in Moscow (in about 1921) as delegates of the seamen’s union. On their return the seamen’s journal refused to publish their report because it pointed out that what had taken place in Russia in 1917 was not a Socialist revolution. Moses Baritz (he seemed to get everywhere) also showed up in Australia in the early 1920’s like a Socialist tornado. By the time the party was formed, there was a certain amount of experience of activity to go on. Shortly after the party’s formation, members began to distribute the Socialist Standard. The Labour government of the day demonstrated its commitment to democracy by banning it for some time. In recent years it has been a struggle for the party to keep going. Vast distances between individual members make concerted party action difficult. However, the party distributes companion party journals and issues and distributes leaflets wherever possible. Individual members, as with members of all the Socialist parties, do all they can to put forward the Socialist case.

Bund Demokratischer Sozialisten of Austria

The party was formed in 1959. It emerged out of a loosely-knit group that had previously been operating in Vienna. Almost immediately the party began publishing a stencilled paper then called Das Freie Wort. In 1966 it officially adopted the SPGB Object and Declaration of Principles; now, as Internationales Freies Wort the paper is well established on a quarterly basis. A major influence on the Bund was Rudolf Frank. He had come under the spell of what he called “the SPGB university” prior to 1914 and his enormous experience helped greatly. Until his death, he played a large part in the writing and editing of the party’s publications. As well as distributing their paper, the party has good contacts with youth organizations and tries to spread Socialist understanding in every area possible.

World Socialist Party of Ireland

Formed in 1959, the party had an active and healthy existence until the recent outbreak of violence in north and south Ireland. The branches in Belfast and Dublin which had been doing stirring work distributing the socialist standard and generally pricking the political balloons of the apologists for capitalism, a task begun years earlier by Mick Cullen, (a thorn in the side of all anti-Socialists), have largely gone quiet since the start of the recent troubles. Socialists can only hope that the “normality” of British capitalism’s conditions will soon return to Ireland, to allow our comrades there the chance to take up again the cudgels of Socialism.

Socialist Group in Jamaica

The group was formed in the early 1960s almost entirely as a result of the pioneering efforts of a comrade who had been living in England for some time and having come into contact with the party’s Birmingham branch became a Socialist. When he returned to his home in Jamaica he devoted himself to spreading Socialist understanding. After a considerable struggle, the group managed to obtain a duplicating machine. Their journal Socialist Review now appears whenever possible, and is a credit to the devoted band of Socialists over there. 

Ronnie Warrington