The society we aim at building in the future is one wherein all will have a free and equal hand in the ordering of affairs. When can such a society be built on foundations such as blind worship of the leaders of a day?
We repeat, therefore, again the lesson we have been repeating for the last 25 years: no leader, however' honest, clever or well intentioned, can lead the workers out of slavery. No man or group of men, however intellectual, can found a new society which depends for its success upon the knowledge and understanding of the bulk of the population. There is no royal road to socialism. It can only be attained by working men and women who know what socialism means and how it is to be obtained. Therefore it is necessary for working men and women to do the comparatively small amount of thinking that is necessary to understand socialism. When they have done so they will know the steps to be taken, and will no longer need to rely on the weak reed of leader ship.
(From an editorial ‘The Communist farce’, Socialist Standard, October 1929.)
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