Socialism of the Future / Future of Socialism

Talking about Britain, Prasad said that they have been the subjects of an experiment in the U.K for last 30 years. A new liberal experiment conducted first of all by Margaret Thatcher, the experiment involved mass privatisation of public utilities and the closure of large parts of British industry, was resulting in mass unemployment. When Tony Blair was elected in 1997, many people in the UK thought that the experiment would end. Rather, the experiment has been taken to a new level with greater neo-liberal policies and with even greater pro-imperialist policies. Tony Blair was acting as a poodle of George Bush and was following him around the world and begging him to start another war. So many people in the UK who had high expectations of a new labour government were feeling absolutely betrayed. But this experiment has also had its costs for the neo-liberals, in that; the results of this experiment have generated a wave of revulsion. The side effects of the experiment were providing socialists in the United Kingdom with some of the best opportunities that we've had for thirty years.

Firstly, a new anti-capitalist movement has developed across Europe and across the world. It has produced a new generation of young activists, many of them teenagers who have begun to question the given assumptions about the world around them. They question why profit is more important than people. They question why a society which was so wealthy could not afford to educate people properly, could not afford to give decent healthcare and they question why the rich seem to be continually becoming wealthier while the poor are reaching greater levels of impoverishment.

This anti-capitalist movement transformed itself, almost seamlessly into an anti-imperialist, anti war movement after the events of September 11. In Britain, the Socialist Workers' Party was able to initiate the 'stop-the-war' coalition. In November 2002, there was a demonstration against the war attended by over 400,000 people earning the distinction of being the single, biggest peace march in the history of the United Kingdom. And now that more than 50 percent of the British were against Britain's involvement in a war against Iraq. So, Tony Blair has no domestic mandate to carry out a war against Iraq.

Another element was that there was disintegration of the base, the working class base of social democracy in the United Kingdom and across Europe. People who had such high expectations not only of the Blair government, but of socialist governments in France, in Spain and in Germany have all been bitterly disappointed because all of those parties have accepted the neo-liberal agenda to some degree or another. The erosion of the working class base has meant that there were many people who previously would have aligned themselves with the British Labour Party and would not have looked beyond it to the left, were now starting to look for an alternative. ‘But, beyond that, there are people who are questioning the whole system and saying that capitalism itself is to blame and saying we need a party that will take us beyond capitalism. This is a minority view but significantly it is a minority, which did not previously exist and therefore is a tremendous advantage to socialists who are currently working in the European context. And in my opinion, and the opinion of my organisation, being free from the legacy of Stalinism, of actually existing socialism, of what we call state capitalism has also been positive in this regard. It was a major barrier for younger people, particularly, in becoming socialists. They would point to Russia and say, is that what you want? I don't want to live under a dictatorship, is that your socialism? Its ceasing to exist rather than being a hindrance has actually allowed many people not to confuse Socialism with Stalinism. And we think that is progressive.”

He said that there was a growing confidence in the working class in Europe and to a degree, there was a growing confidence amongst the working class in the United Kingdom. “Now one is witness to the beginnings of strike action in the UK, which were not seen on a large scale for many years. We are beginning to see general strikes on a regular basis across Europe.”

Concluding his remarks, Prasad said that the WSF, ASF and the ESF movements provided with the best opportunities to revitalise the socialist movement, to reinvigorate it and to fight neo-fascist forces. “Despite the propaganda, despite being misled by social democratic parties, despite thirty years of defeat, we are now entering a period where the Left can act with renewed confidence, certain in the knowledge that we have the wind in our sails; it is time to put the failures behind us and look towards breeding a new generation of socialists,” he appealed.

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