Marxist Education
Program of the Revolutionary Socialist Party
Preamble
Part I. The Capitalist World System
Section 1. The capitalist system, its contradictions and development
- The stage of monopoly capitalism (imperialism)
- The role and character of the state under capitalism
- Imperialism and the struggle for socialism
- From the first to the second stage of the general crisis of capitalism
Constitution of the Revolutionary Socialist Party
[Adopted by the First Congress of the RSP, June 6-9, 2009.]
Preamble
The Revolutionary Socialist Party is a revolutionary Marxist party, based on a definite program, whose central aim is to organise and lead the working class and its allies to overthrow the rule of the capitalist class and to build a socialist society. All of the party’s activities, methods and internal organisation are subordinate to this aim and designed to serve it.
Capitalist Economic Crisis & Finance Capital
By Doug Lorimer
[Talk presented to January RSP Marxism education conference.]
In a December 1915 introduction to Bolshevik theorist Nikolai Bukharin’s book Imperialism and World Economy, Lenin wrote:
“There had been an epoch of a comparatively ‘peaceful capitalism’, when it had overcome feudalism in the advanced countries of Europe and was in a position to develop comparatively tranquilly and harmoniously, ‘peacefully’ spreading over tremendous areas of still unoccupied lands, and of countries not yet finally drawn into the capitalist vortex. Of course, even in that epoch, marked approximately by the years 1871 and 1914, ‘peaceful’ capitalism created conditions of life that were very far from being really peaceful both in the military and in a general class sense. For nine-tenths of the population of the advanced countries, for hundreds of millions of peoples in the colonies and in the backward countries this epoch was not one of ‘peace’ but of oppression, tortures, horrors that seemed the more terrifying since they appeared to be without end. This epoch has gone forever. It has been followed by a new epoch, comparatively more impetuous, full of abrupt changes, catastrophes, conflicts, an epoch that no longer appears to the toiling masses as horror without end but is an end full of horrors.
Why capitalism can’t save the environment
By Allen Myers
[Talk presented to RSP Marxist Education conference January 2-5, 2010]
The 19th century US writer and humorist Mark Twain said that everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. He was able to make that joke because nobody at that time realised how capitalism was changing the weather. On the other hand, Twain’s remark has an unexpected relevance today: it could be a commentary on the Copenhagen meeting, where hundreds of heads of government talked about the weather but did nothing about preventing further changes.
How to make a revolution in the United States (1969)
By Peter Camejo
Revolutionary socialists have been accused for many years of wanting to overthrow the US government by force and violence. When they accuse us of this, what they are really trying to do is to imply that we want to abolish capitalism with a minority, that we want to force the will of the minority on the majority. The opposite is the truth. We believe we can win a majority of the people in this country to support a change in the system. It will be necessary to make a revolution precisely because the ruling powers will not peacefully accept a majority rule which wants a basic change.
Marxist Economic Definitions – A handbook of basic definitions
By Allen Myers
Nearly 150 years after its first publication, Karl Marx’s epoch-making analysis of capitalism and its workings retains its relevance for all those who seek to understand the modern world and, even more so, for those who seek to change it.
This pamphlet presents in outline the basic concepts and terms of Marxist economics. It is intended both as an aid to the study of Capital and as a clarification of ideas and phrases from Marx’s great work that are encountered in the modern labour movement. Socialists who have read part or all of Capital and socialists who have not yet done so can both benefit from this logically arranged collection of definitions.