Today we live in a world of rapidly increasing danger to humanity and much of life on Earth. However, this moment in history also contains enormous possibilities. Humanity has the prospect of using all the advances of human knowledge for the benefit of all, engaging the creative potential of each person on the planet, and building a society organized in a conscious fashion.
But we see the world moving in the opposite direction, driven by capitalism, resulting in an increasingly irreversible rush to climate catastrophe, economic disaster, misery and famine for part of humanity, and the risk of pandemics. These crises show the inability of the existing social and political system to protect our lives. This has created a world ruled by prejudice and fear, a world of widespread violence and war, where exploitation and oppression are the rule, and the many are dominated by the few.
The Force for Change Exists Today
Everywhere, working people’s labor makes society run. This fact is dismissed and denied by the ruling class, which serves to hide from workers their own class interests and potential power. It is the exploitation of labor that generates profit, which is at the heart of capitalism. Working people have the power to end this system of exploitation and bring about the changes needed to save and transform our lives.
Like slavery, feudalism, and other systems that enriched the minority at the expense of the majority, capitalism’s removal is long overdue.
We Stand for Socialism
- A world based on peaceful collaboration and international cooperation of working-class people — not the exploiters who rule today.
- The common ownership and sharing of the world’s resources and productive capacity under the democratic control of the world’s peoples.
- An economy organized to guarantee the health and well-being of every person, and to provide the resources and tools to develop all their talents and capacities no matter where or to whom they are born.
- An egalitarian and democratic government, organized and controlled from the bottom up, which facilitates people’s active participation in making decisions about how society is run.
- Protection of the world’s ecological systems, putting science to work to sustain life, not destroy it.
- A society where human relations are based on respect, equality and dignity of all peoples, not racism, sexism, homophobia, or other prejudices.
Our Political Heritage
We base our perspective and our approach to political activity on the communist legacy of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky, and on the example of the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the working class took power and began to reorganize society. We stand in the tradition of the international Left Opposition, and Trotsky’s Fourth International against Stalinism – the bureaucratic degeneration of the Russian Revolution and its global consequences. We reject the identification of communism and socialism with authoritarian rule and nationalism – this is the legacy of Stalinism, not communism or socialism.
We Must Go Beyond Reforms
We support the struggles of those who are fighting against the oppression caused by capitalism, even if the goals of those struggles are not aimed at replacing the capitalist order. We support the right of nations to self-determination, to throw off the forces of imperialism — be it the domination of corporations, the World Bank, the IMF, military forces or other agents of imperialism. We fight against racist and gender-based discrimination and violence. We fight against attacks on the standard of living of working people — wage and benefit cuts, attacks on health care, education, housing and other basic needs. We fight to prevent climate catastrophe, an existential crisis facing humanity.
Socialism cannot come through a reform of the existing system. It is not a matter of replacing corrupt politicians or union officials with those who are more honest or more willing to see a greater portion of society’s resources shared with the poor. Nor is it a matter of getting better contracts or laws. We must remove the capitalist system of exploitation and replace it with a fundamentally different system: socialism.
What Is Needed to Bring This Change About?
It will take a massive social struggle, a revolution, by the majority, the workers and poor of the world, led by the working class, taking power and reorganizing society.
It will take the development of revolutionary parties around the world, based in the working class, tested in struggle, and chosen by the workers as their representatives. It will take the construction of a revolutionary leadership – an international party of socialist revolution.
Our work to contribute to the construction of a revolutionary party in the U.S., the richest capitalist country in the world and the most powerful imperialist state, is an essential component of this overall task.
The fate of the world depends on building such an organization, though today it is represented only by some individuals or small groups with varying degrees of influence who share those goals.
Humanity’s fate hangs in the balance. The enormous crises caused by capitalism make our perspective more relevant than ever. The decisions made by a few individuals today may decide the course of history. Even a small group of people who are ready to start acting on these ideas can play a significant role in determining whether future working-class movements take a revolutionary socialist path.
We in Speak Out Now are ready to collaborate with other groups who fight on the side of the working class to build revolutionary workers’ parties and a workers’ revolutionary socialist international.
Who We Are
Speak Out Now/Revolutionary Workers Group is a revolutionary socialist group. We believe that a socialist world is possible and can be brought into being by the active struggles of the majority of the people of the world. We believe the international working class is the social force that can transform society and create a new world. But to do so, revolutionary organizations must be built in the working class. For this reason our group aims its activity primarily at large workplaces. Our newsletters are distributed at several workplaces every two weeks.
We think it is important to both analyze the current world situation as well as to know and understand the history of past struggles. We have forums on current events and political topics and we organize Marxist discussions and classes. We have pamphlets on past working class struggles, the revolutionary movements around the world and the current problems we face. We organize with others around many issues – racism, immigrant rights, climate change, police brutality, and more.
If you’re interested to find out more, contact us at:
San Francisco Bay Area: bayarea [at] speakoutsocialists [dot] org
Phone: (510) 343-9105
New York: nyc [at] speakoutsocialists [dot] org
New Jersey: newjersey [at] speakoutsocialists [dot] org
Baltimore: baltimore [at] speakoutsocialists [dot] org