On Saturday 16 November TAS will be holding an in-person meeting in central Manchester, from 11am – 5pm, to discuss “Why we need a new Socialist/Communist Party.
If you’re interested in attending then email us at info@talkingaboutsocialism.org or call Nick Wrack on 07812 063 409.
We hope to Live Stream it, so if you can’t make it join us online.
Read our motivation below. And read the TAS Statement ‘Who we are and the ideas that guide us’
“Talking About Socialism…from a Marxist point of view” is a group of Marxists who want to work with others to create the basis of a new mass, democratic Socialist/Communist Party.
For us, Socialism and Communism are two words that describe the same thing.
We urgently need a coherent alternative to the disasters facing the international working class.
Capitalism must be abolished.
Capitalism means poverty, inequality, austerity, wars and climate catastrophe. The capitalist profit system not only kills large numbers of people through starvation, lack of access to clean water, disease and wars, it is literally killing the planet and the vegetation and animal life on it.
Around the world we see the election of authoritarian governments, destroying democratic rights won through struggle. The continuation of capitalism is incompatible with even the limited democracy we have now.
In Britain we see families surviving on foodbanks, children going to school hungry, and people not being able to obtain dental treatment. All the reforms that were won in the past have been taken away or are in the process of being destroyed.
For billions around the world life is far, far worse.
A new society must be created in which such horrors no longer exist. We need a society in which the needs of all are met, in which production is democratically planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the environment.
This new society is called Socialism, or Communism.
It will be a society without exploitation, discrimination or oppression. It will be a society without classes, for when everyone works there will be no class of owners. It will be a society in which each will contribute according to their ability, and each will receive what they need.
This requires the majority class – the international working class – to win power from its exploiters.
We need a mass Socialist/Communist party to help us achieve that. The working class has the numbers and power to change things. But it needs a party to organise and channel its power; to learn the lessons of past and present struggles; to be the memory of the class; to agitate, educate and to organise; to distil the experience of the international working class; to share ideas and, most importantly, to act as a united unstoppable force.
We reject the programme of social-democracy, which is based on the idea that capitalism can be ‘reformed’ into something that acts in the interests of the working class. The interests of the capitalist class to make a profit are incompatible with the interests of the working class who must fight to end their own exploitation to make that profit.
Taxing the rich is not enough. So long we have a class of owners of industry whose sole aim is to make a profit from the workers they exploit, capitalism will continue to make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us.
We therefore aim to abolish capitalism, not to manage it. We need a fundamental break with capitalism. We need to expropriate the capitalist class.
We stand for the common ownership of the means of production – the land, its minerals, the waters, factories, transport, science and technology. The resources of the planet must be democratically owned and controlled, managed and planned by all, to meet the needs of all.
The new party we call for would unashamedly proclaim this aim. We will not hide our aim. We call for the expropriation of the capitalist class and for the resources they have used for their own gain to be used for the benefit of everyone.
The new party will fight here and now, and always, against all attempts by capitalist governments of all types to make the working class worse off or to restrict even further the limited democracy we have won.
But only a genuinely socialist/communist society will end the need for the present constant struggle and protest. Only a socialist/communist society will guarantee full democracy for all, extending it into all aspects of society, including first and foremost by establishing the democratic shared ownership of the world’s resources.
The new party will stand against nationalism, racism and xenophobia. It will stand for international solidarity with workers and oppressed people across the world. Socialism/Communism cannot be achieved in one country. It requires a global struggle to achieve fundamental global change.
We must play our part in that struggle by building the party we need here in Britain and do what we can to help others do the same internationally. It must be a party in which differences are debated and decided democratically.
We in Talking About Socialism do not see ourselves as this new party. Nor do we think we can create this new party on our own. We would like to see all socialists/communists who share our goal in the same united party. We want to work with others to help to bring this about.
Let’s work together to make this new Socialist/Communist Party a reality.