Letter: Has the S.P.G.B. a Policy? (1958)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Has the S.P.G.B. a Policy?

Leeds.

“Dear Sir,

If you have a constructive policy, and presumably you have one, it does not seem to come through in your columns; at least, I have not been able to find.

“You are excellent at attacking the other parties. In fact, your whole paper seems to me to be largely destructive.

‘‘If you have a policy I should very much like to know what it is. 1 regret I have been unable to find it

“I am not interested in mere platitudes. What are your constructive proposals for Britain and how are you going to put them into effect when you are in power?

Yours truly,

K. Hoyle.

Reply:

This complaint is one we often hear, and one with which we have every sympathy. But it simply is not true that our correspondent and others like him do not know what our “constructive proposals" are. They read our Declaration of Principles, which briefly states our objective —a Socialist system of society—and read, for example, the opening chapter of the pamphlet, “Questions of the Day,” a chapter headed “What Socialism Is,” but they just do not believe us when we say that this is our objective and our only objective. They are the victims of the “double talk” that has become the accepted propaganda of the Labour Party and similar bodies. The Labour Party has a double line of talk—on the one hand it says that its aim is Socialism, though it never defines it; on the other hand it has a set of ever-changing proposals that are claimed to be constructive, but which all boil down to trying to devise ways of enabling this country so to administer capitalism as to be able to survive in a capitalist world. Necessarily the main items in the proposals of any party aiming to do this consist of trying to capture markets for British goods and to gain and hold sources of materials (oil is one that at present holds a prominent place), and at the same time to achieve military security in a world that is driven to conflict and war by that same search for markets, etc.

When therefore readers ask us what are our “constructive” proposals for Britain, what they really want us to do is to say in what respect our proposals in these capitalist, economic and military fields differ from the Labour Party’s. To which our reply is that we have none. We are Socialists and our aim is world Socialism, not the futile and suicidal search for ways of making capitalism work to the benefit of Britain. Our only constructive proposal is Socialism; a new and different social system for the people of the world. The method of putting this aim into effect is that a Socialist majority must gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of refashioning the social system. It is a quite simple aim though hard to achieve. One of the greatest difficulties we have is with people like our correspondent, who do not believe that the aim of Socialists is to achieve Socialism— though what other aim should Socialists have? The proposition is, however, so staggering to non-Socialists. including the membership of the Labour Party, that they cannot easily bring themselves to consider it.

Editorial Committee.