East Anglia
Saturday 23 September, 12 noon to 4pm
12 noon: Informal chat.
1pm: Meal.
2pm to 4pm: Discussion.
The Conservatory, back room of
Rosary Tavern, Rosary Rd, Norwich.
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Manchester
Monday 25 September, 8.15 p.m.
'WHY SOCIALISTS OPPOSE
THE LABOUR PARTY'
Hare and Hounds, Shudehill,
City Centre
(This meeting will take place during the Labour Party Conference in
Manchester, and Labour Party members and others are invited to attend)
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Chiswick
Tuesday 19 September 8pm
FREE SOFTWARE:
DOT.COMMUNISM?
Speaker: Tristan Miller
Committee Room, Chiswick Town Hall,
Heathfield Terrace, W4.
(nearest tube: Chiswick Park)
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What is Behind
the Fight for Suez |
The men at the top see more clearly the economic issues and interests involved but as they need
to rouse the emotions and
win the support of the mass of the people they dress up most of the declarations in the
rabble-rousing language
likely to move their listeners and readers. So
over Suez we have
had from the Western politicians
a spate of talk about law and illegality,
international rights, and wrongs, Fascist acts of plunder, etc., while from
the Middle
East Nasser and his defenders have
worked up themselves and their audiences with passionate speeches about imperialism, oppression, insults to
dignity,
sovereignty and nationhood (
. . .).
To the Socialist
the world is not capable of
being divided into the good and
the bad statesman and the good and bad nations; they are all Capitalist and
all are impelled by the
nature of the social system to struggle for markets for their products, for sources of cheap raw
materials, and for control
of trade routes like Suez and strategic points like Cyprus. These are the things for
which they fight, no matter
what the fine phrases and slogans in which their aims and motives are garbed.
The crux of the
Suez dispute is firstly the oil that exists in abundance in the countries of
the Middle East, and
secondly the Canal through which much of it, as well as other cargoes, is transported. Oil is
now an indispensable fuel
for the motors and tractors, aeroplanes and warships, merchant vessels and factories
of the countries of the
world. With coal production and hydro-electric power failing to keep up with rapidly
growing demand for fuel and
with atomic power only a development of the not very near future, all, countries need oil
and many of
them, including Britain, have
practically none
within their own frontiers (
. . .)
At the time of
writing the discussions between
the Powers have not produced a
settlement though the evident lack
of war-fever among British workers and the disinclination of other Governments to back up Britain and France in forcible action against Egypt have had some effect in restraining the Eden Government and its supporters.
On the other hand
Arab workers, misled by the
belief that nationalisation of the Canal Co. (and eventual nationalisation of the oil
industry) is in their interest,
have been vigorously backing their governments.
This is the real
tragedy of the Suez dispute, that there is no unity among the workers of
the different countries in
opposing the war-talk of their Governments.
(From front page
article, Socialist Standard,
September 1956)
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Object
and
Declaration of
Principles |
This
declaration is the basis of our organisation and,
because it is also an important historical document dating from the
formation of the party in 1904, its original language has been retained. |
Object
The establishment of a system of society
based
upon
the common ownership and democratic control of the means and
instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the
interest of the whole community.
The Socialist Party of Great
Britain holds
1. That society
as at present
constituted is
based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories,
railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class,and the consequent
enslavement of the working class,
by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of
interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who
possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.
3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the
emancipation
of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the
conversion into the common property of society of the means of
production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole
people.
4.
That as in the
order of social
evolution the
working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the
emancipation of the working class will involve the
emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.
5.That
this emancipation
must be the
work of the working class itself.
6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed
forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the
capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working
class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest
of the
powers of government, national and local, in order that this
machinery,
including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of
oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow
of
privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.
7. That as all
political parties are but
the
expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class
is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of all
sections of the the master class, the party seeking working class
emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters
the field of political action determined to wage war against all other
political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and
calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster
under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to
the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that
poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery
to freedom.
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