In Defence of Marxism

The events of the past year have awakened millions of Americans to the bitter reality of life under capitalism. To many, the entire planet appears to have gone insane. The world has been shaken from top to bottom by natural disasters, wars, famines, political crises, riots, and revolutionary uprisings. This is a graphic reflection of the impasse of capitalism in the epoch of its decay and decline: an era of wars, revolutions, and counter-revolutions. Instability is now the norm, and it is precisely this constant uncertainty as to what tomorrow will bring that has forced open the eyes of millions of American workers. A growing crisis of confidence in the political institutions of the country and the very system these are based on is inherent in the situation.  

You can feel it in the air - there is a rumbling beneath the surface of American society, and it is clear that sooner rather than later, all the pent up pressure and frustration will burst onto the surface. Most people do not learn from books: they must go through the school of hard knocks called capitalism. It is their own experience that finally forces them to realize that the existence of capitalism and the existence of humanity are no longer compatible. The destruction and poisoning of the environment has gone so far that if something isn’t done soon, it may be too late to reverse the damage. In the coming decades, the fate of humanity will be decided one way or another: socialism or barbarism.  

Life teaches. With each new shock, the American working class is gradually coming to the conclusion that only we can stop Bush and the system he defends. Sooner or later, a “tipping point” in consciousness will be reached, and then there will be no stopping the American working class. Our task as the Workers International League is to build a revolutionary organization which, drawing on the lessons and experiences of the past, fights shoulder to shoulder with our class to end the exploitative system of capitalism once and for all. 

We are still a relatively small organization: but it is the power of our ideas, perspectives, and methods that will ensure our continued growth and development. Let’s not forget: 150 years ago, the abolitionists were a small, persecuted minority.  Theirs was a crusade against an unjust, exploitative, inhuman, and oppressive economic system: chattel slavery.   

Given the age they lived in, it is understandable that they approached it above all from a moral and religious perspective, and not from a materialist understanding of class society. And yet in the historical, economic, and political conditions of the times, they reflected the historical necessity for fundamental, revolutionary change. Their ideas and activities were the spark that lit up the second American Revolution: the American Civil War. This was a revolutionary struggle to abolish slavery, and it cleared the historical decks for the development of capitalism, which in turn has prepared the material basis for socialism. 

Today, we too have our own unjust, exploitative, inhuman, and oppressive system to fight against: world capitalism.  Today we too are a small, persecuted minority.  But we are armed with a clear understanding of the class nature of society and the tasks before us and our class. Based on the conditions prevailing today in society, our ideas and activity can and will be the spark that lights up the 3rd American Revolution: the Socialist Revolution.  

The revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system by the conscious and organized working class will clear the historical decks for the building of world socialism, and will open a new horizon for the whole of humanity: a world without war, misery, poverty, ignorance, oppression, discrimination, and degradation.  A world in which the wonders of technology are used to improve our lives, instead of further enslaving and impoverishing us. A world where art and culture can truly flourish, and where every individual can reach their fullest potential. A world in which production, distribution, and exchange are democratically controlled by the whole of society in the interests of the whole of society, in harmony with the environment. A world called Socialism. 

Armed with the dialectical-materialist ideas of revolutionary Marxism and the methods of Bolshevism, we can and will end the misery of the capitalist system forever.  Forward!