Image by Democracy Chronicles via Flickr
Originally published May 6, 2008
From the SPGB’s 1998 pamphlet, From Capitalism To Socialism… how we live and how we could live (pdf)
NO MINORITIES
Socialism can only be established when a great majority of workers understand and want it. It would be absurd for a minority of conscious socialists to try to take over power and impose the new system on an unwilling majority. Such a strategy would certainly fail, with the armed forces, controlled by the majority-backed government, being used to defeat the rebels. The idea is heroic fantasy at best and would lead to a bloody tragedy at worst. And even if such a method of ‘revolution’ were successful-if a determined minority should seize political power in an attempt to introduce socialism on behalf of the working class-there would be no prospect of it resulting in a socialist society. It would not be possible to run a society in which everybody contributed co-operatively according their abilities and took freely according to their needs unless the great majority of people understood the arrangement and wanted it. It would not be possible to establish and maintain a society based upon conscious democratic control unless the great majority were prepared to exert that democratic control. If the population did not want to participate in social decision-making and were prepared to leave it to a particular minority, that minority would be forced to become the exclusive decision makers themselves and would eventually become a new ruling class. But in the final analysis, the very fact that a minority wanted it would show that they did not understand the full implications of socialism themselves, and so were not really socialists. Continue reading
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