The point is we must learn from the mistakes of history. Your method of a kind of self-appointed elite who act in what they perceive to be the best interests of the masses in the name of socialism, is doomed to failure. Nobody pretended the road to international socialism would be easy, least of all Marx. Nevertheless, what Marx most detested of all were those self-proclaimed individuals who appropriated his ideas in a way that were the very antithesis of his theories.

It is within this context, that Marx proclaimed: "Please save me from my friends, because I am not a Marxist". Marx was very aware that the only way for socialism to come into being is from 'the bottom up' not 'from above'. We have to take our superior intellectual and rational Marxist theories on to the streets and into the universities, colleges and workplaces of our two great countries in order to counter the false propaganda which, as Gramsci pointed out, has engendered a false consciousness in the mass of the people. We do this by pointing out the internal contradictions that are inherent to capitalism thereby exposing its barbarism and the illusions that underpin it.

Like I said previously, the reformists in pre-revolutionary Russia were adament that they had to concede to the then existing system in order to overthrow it. They had many bitter arguments with the Bolsheviks (democrats) and Lenin with respect to tactics. Luckily, Lenin and his comrades won the battle of ideas and the Bolsheviks led the people to a revolutionary socialist outcome, overthrowing the despotic Tsarist regime. It is for this reason that Russia 1917 was the greatest socialist revolution in history, and moreover, is one of the few revolutions in history that can be described as genuinally socialist. It was truelly a revolution 'of the people, by the people, for the people.

The fact is, is that the historical record shows that deals and concessions cannot be made with those who control the reins of the capitalist system in order to overthrow it, no matter how frustrating it is for people like you and me who want more than anything in this life to bring this barbaric anarchic system to its knees. It is a system that is predicated on eternal warfare, starvation and hunger for the majority of the world's people whilst at the same time a tiny minority live in luxury and comfort.

I, as a sentient human being, can no way think this state of affairs to be acceptable as I sit here typing this in the year 2008. We live in a world of abundance yet people starve for no other reason than they are poor. In other words, productive capacity in society far exceeds the rate of human reproduction, yet people die of hunger because the capitalist system necessarily prioritizes profit over and above that of human need. This is barbarism laid bare.