Answers to Correspondents: Can the Workers be Won Over by Socialism? (1939)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

J. J. T. R. (Carlisle) doubts “the possibility of converting the masses to Socialism . . . when we consider the barrage of capitalist propaganda in its many forms.”

The case for Socialism rests upon the fact that the evils which the working class has to endure cannot be ended within capitalist society.

Therefore, capitalism itself, by its very helplessness, forces the working class to turn to Socialism. So far the number of Socialists is small. However, these few Socialists are not necessarily more intelligent than other workers. To-day, workers run capitalist industry from top to bottom. A class which is intelligent enough to do that, is intelligent enough to understand Socialism.

As time goes on, the working class will grow tired of supporting capitalist parties, of demanding reforms which still leave them in poverty; they will give more serious” attention to studying the solution of their problems.

At first the movement for Socialism grows slowly. Still, it DOES grow, and it will gradually gather more and more momentum.

Capitalist propaganda will not permanently stand in the way, for it cannot change the exploiting nature of capitalism, it cannot end poverty, it cannot prevent the class struggle breaking out into full view again and again.

C. A.