Send a link to this article

Why you need a party like
Workers World

What are you for?

Are you for an end to poverty? That shouldn't be difficult. Productivity is so high in this country that there's no real excuse for poverty. As we start the 21st century, there is an abundance of food, clothing, housing--everything it takes to be comfortable. Yet millions are barely scraping by. They are locked out by capitalist oppression, whose most extreme form is racism.

Are you for taking positive action to end racist inequality? Are you for putting the power in the hands of the people instead of a brutal state that beats, incarcerates and executes people as it protects the interests of the rich?

Are you for defending women's reproductive choice and social equality? Are you for the right of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people to live and love without fear of repression?

Are you for shutting down the Pentagon death machine and letting the world's people liberate themselves from imperialist domination?

Are you for reorganizing the economy and social life so the environment can be saved and future generations can live in a healthy world?

Then you're for socialism. Capitalism can't do any of these things.

And if you're a militant activist as well as a thinker, you should be in Workers World Party. This is the party that stands for revolutionary struggle of the workers and all oppressed people against this rotten capitalist system.

Capitalism is a failed system

Capitalism is a two-edged sword. It destroys older social systems and brings tempestuous industrial development. It revolutionizes production, thereby eliminating many back-breaking jobs. But its motive force is profit for a small class of owners.

Capitalism has created a world of have and have-not extremes. A few dozen billionaires in the United States, Europe and Japan have assets greater than the 50 poorest countries. And inside each country, including the U.S., the gap between rich and poor widens all the time.

Where there is great inequality there is always great repression. People do not accept exploitation and injustice easily. As the income gap grows, so do the police and military forces that protect the status quo.

Can it be reformed?

Many movements exist to try to reform capitalism. They can win important gains. Workers can improve their conditions if they unite and organize. Progressive laws against racism and sexism and environmental degradation can get passed if there is mass action and resistance.

But as long as the capitalist class remains in power, these gains can be reversed, too. Let the movement slacken and all the old crap comes back. And that has happened, partly because many in the movement have relied on the Democratic Party to defend and extend the reforms won by militant mass struggle in the 1960s and 1970s. But that didn't happen. The Democrats moved to the right and allowed a reactionary agenda to be pushed through Congress.

In recent years, many of the gains won by earlier struggles have been dismantled. Union membership and benefits have dwindled. Welfare is gone. Social Security is on the chopping block. Affirmative action and the right to abortion are being whittled down. Public education is under attack. The Pentagon is intervening more around the world.

Workers World Party has always stood for the independent political organization of the workers and oppressed. It calls on all progressives to break with the Democratic Party and build a real opposition to capitalist politics.

Recession means class struggle

Even in the recent period of prosperity, social programs were cut back. Now the system has entered one of its periodic downturns. No one knows yet how severe it will be.

When millions are unemployed, it affects all workers. There's more competition for jobs. Bosses try to cut wages and benefits. Right-wing demagogues blame the hard times on immigrants, on women, on people of color--on anything except the capitalist system of boom and bust. The militarists try to get a war going to jump-start the economy.

To meet these dangerous challenges, the various movements need to unite and fight back. Where does Workers World Party fit in?

Workers World Party has a long track record of promoting unity within all sectors of the progressive movement. But the party's program is more than a collection of good reforms. It is a program for deep and revolutionary social change. It evaluates every struggle in the context of how to strengthen the overall objective: overthrowing capitalism and building socialism.

Why socialism? Isn't that a failed system too?

The socialist-communist movement that became worldwide after the Russian Revolution took a terrible blow with the downfall of the Soviet Union. But the need for socialism is greater than ever.

The suffering workers in Russia, Poland and other parts of the former Soviet bloc don't need capitalist banks and corporations. The transition to capitalism has been a disaster for them. They need better control over their resources and labor than they had before--not to give them over to Western or homegrown bosses. They need greater equality and more workers' democracy--not the phony capitalist democracy that puts an oil dynasty like the Bushes in power. In other words, they need more socialism, not less.

Workers World Party is the one Marxist party in the United States that defended what was progressive about the Soviet bloc without trying to cover up its political or material weaknesses. All these countries tried to build socialism from a low economic base that was weakened even more by capitalist invasion and war.

Workers World is bullish on communism in the U.S.

The United States is another story. It has had hundreds of years to become highly developed. It is ready-made for social ownership and economic planning. Workers are highly skilled and have great experience organizing a division of labor. The economy is so productive that surpluses exist in everything.

Under socialism, increased productivity would be reason to celebrate because it would mean more leisure time for all, more social investment in culture, in the environment and so on. Under capitalism, however, abundance means layoffs.

Workers fighting for their jobs and livelihoods have to challenge the property laws of capitalism. Whose plant or office is it anyway--the boss who invested money, usually someone else's, or the workers who built it with sweat and toil? Don't the workers have a property right to their jobs?

Workers World Party has over 40 years of experience in uniting workers on the job to fight for their rights. It has promoted class solidarity among different nationalities, genders and sexual expressions. It has fought to build unions, and it has fought to make them fight.

You've seen us many times

Workers World Party has grown up over four decades as a creative, independent voice of Marxism in the U.S. Its members helped organize many of the cutting-edge struggles in this period.

You've seen us trying to stop the executions of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Shaka Sankofa and all the others on death row. You've seen us on countless marches against racist police brutality and the prison-industrial complex.

You've seen us defending women's clinics and the lesbian, gay, bi and trans communities.

You've seen us confronting the police at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Injustice Department.

You've seen us in the front lines of protests against war and sanctions on Iraq and Yugoslavia. You've seen us in solidarity with South Africa, Angola, Cuba, Vietnam and north Korea.

You've walked beside us on strike picket lines and to end sweatshop conditions.

So now join us!

Come to a Workers World Party meeting and you'll see workers and students like yourself--giving reports and analysis, organizing activities, doing the chores of child care and meals and sign-ups. You'll find women, people of color, and lesbian, gay, bi and trans people in the leadership--not to cover up for an anti-woman, ant-gay, racist agenda like the Bush cabinet appointees, but because this is a party that practices what it preaches.

The liberated world we are fighting for begins with the composition of our movement, and especially its leadership.

Get to know Workers World Party and you will find a rich body of literature on the complex and difficult problems facing the revolutionary movement over the last 50 years. You will get to raise your questions and your ideas in classes and meetings. You will broaden your political and organizational abilities as you join forces with comrades in the struggle.

For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org)