To readers from overseas (1978)

Party News from the August 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard is the journal of the Socialist Party of Great Britain but this does not mean that it is concerned exclusively with what goes on in Britain. Just the opposite in fact. It is our view that the social problems that affect wage and salary earners in a particular country cannot be solved within that countries borders.

Capitalism is the cause of these problems and capitalism is world-wide, existing not only in obviously capitalist countries like Britain or France or Germany but also, in the form of state capitalism, in countries like Russia, China, Cuba or Yugoslavia. Because capitalism is world-wide so too must be Socialism, the system which will replace it and whose common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use will provide the framework within which today’s social problems can finally be solved.

This is why we sometimes refer to our object as “world socialism”, making it absolutely clear that we reject all nationalism and all national approaches to working-class problems. It is also why we are linked with Companion Parties in other parts of the world, with the same objective and the same principles as us and which exist in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Austria, Ireland and Australia.

We have also published leaflets in various other languages — French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Esperanto so far — while our Companion Parties and sympathising groups produce regular journals in German, French and Swedish. If you are from Europe and would like to contact socialists there in any of these languages you can write to the following addresses:

• GERMANY and AUSTRIA: Bund Demokratischer Sozialisten, Gussriegelstrasse 50, 100 WIEN, Austria.
• FRANCE and BENELUX: Socialisme Mondiale, B.P. 1578, 1000 BRUXELLES, Belgium.
• SCANDINAVIA: Varldssocialism, c/o Ake Spross, Bergsbrunna Villavag 58, 75256 UPPSALA, Sweden.