"And Therein Lies Our Strength." (1924)

From the March 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

From a pamphlet issued by the Independent Labour Party, entitled “All About the I.L.P.,” we learn the following:

  “It is sometimes charged against the I.L.P. that it has never formulated its theory of Socialism. That is true, and therein lies its strength.”—Page 5, third para.

Now, one of the fundamental. truths which a study of Socialism teaches, and it is a basic principle, is the existence of the class struggle. This class struggle is based upon the antagonism of interests between the propertyless working class, who are forced to sell their energy in order to live, and the property-owning master class. The Independent Labour Party have always denied the existence of this class struggle. And why? Because it would mean antagonising their respectable radical and self-styled democratic petty bourgeois following, who supply in the main the funds of the Party,  "and therein lies its strength.”

After all, organising the workers for Socialism is a pretty profitless job; extracting the coppers from their pockets for this object—and this object alone—we have found to be a very stiff job.

For further evidence of I.L.P. confusion and treachery, we commend our readers to peruse pages 6, 7, 8 of our Party Manifesto. Therein they will also read the object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, together with the Declaration of Principles which act as the guide for the attainment of that object. We stand or fall by these declarations . . . "and therein lies our strength."

O. C. I.