Reform
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Let’s discuss the socialist position on reform. Let’s take for example the issue of free school meals. Suppose there’s a General Election and we can vote for a candidate whose party promises free school meals or a party that opposes free school meals.
Now it’s obvious that free school meals is a reform, and that voting for it isn’t going to result in food for everyone according to need. But when it comes to the ballot box, do we disavow the party that promises to feed the children?
Given our limited option – we can choose between between voting Green/Labour/SNP and not voting at all – or letting the Tory Party keep grinding our children into poverty.
Voting in a General Election isn’t going to achieve socialism of course – but can I suggest that voting in it, for a reformist party isn’t going to actually impede socialism.
Paula
In regard to reform and reformism this is what our pamphlet of Rosa Luxembourg says:
The reform–revolution issue
In his essay Indifference to Politics, written in 1873, Marx castigated those who looked upon workers’ struggles against the constant encroachments of capital as contrary to revolutionary principles. However, there is a fine but an all-important line between practical everyday action that is consistent with socialist principles and goal, and reformism which negates or contradicts those principles and obscures the goal, as Rosa Luxemburg wrote:
“But if we begin to chase after what is ‘possible’ according to the principles of opportunism, unconcerned with our own principles, and by means of statesmanlike barter, then we will soon find ourselves in the same situation as the hunter who has not only failed to slay the deer but has also lost his gun in the process” (15).
She observed: “From the viewpoint of a movement for socialism, the trade union struggle and our parliamentary practice are vastly important in so far as they make socialistic the awareness, the consciousness of the proletariat and help to organise it as a class. But once they are considered as instruments of the direct socialisation of capitalist economy they lose not only their usual effectiveness but cease being means of preparing the working class for the conquest of power” (16).
An important discussion took place in the German Social-Democratic Party when Eduard Bernstein, who enjoyed the prestige of being Engels’ literary executor, argued that reforms were all that should be aspired to: “that which is generally called the ultimate aim of socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything” (17). This was partly because Bernstein considered that some of the unpredictability of production under capitalism could be mitigated by the provision of credit and the founding of employers’ organisations (cartels and trusts). He also envisaged reformist politics and trade unions as gradually eliminating capitalist exploitation and ushering in socialism. One of Bernstein’s main critics at the time was Rosa Luxemburg. Damning his work as opportunist, she pointed out that trade unions could only limit exploitation, not abolish it, and claimed that his views were tantamount to abandoning socialism. Certainly, we can agree with her that reforming capitalism will not turn it into socialism.
Eduard Bernstein had written Evolutionary Socialism in 1899, presenting arguments which came to be known as ‘revisionism’. He held that Marx’s theories had to be modified on the grounds that capitalism had not developed along the lines that Marx had anticipated. He held, for example, that the ‘middle class’ and the capitalist class were not decreasing, but were increasing both in numbers and in the amount of wealth that they owned. He also argued that the theory of the recurring cycle of industrial crises was wrong. Bernstein produced statistics, based on income tax returns, to show that at one period there were more millionaires than at a slightly earlier period. This, he claimed, was a flat contradiction of the theory that wealth was becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. What he seemed unable to grasp was that in a period of rapid capitalist expansion the capitalist class could increase in number and wealth without affecting the concentration of wealth into fewer hands. Nor did he connect the fact of an increase in the number of millionaires with a possible decrease in the number of smaller capitalists. Similarly, what he mistook for a middle class growing in numbers and security was a growing army of relatively well-paid salaried workers and officials who were brought into existence by capitalism’s development.
Bernstein’s ‘revisionism’ was in the first place due to his failure to interpret modern tendencies in the light of Marxian teachings; and, secondly, to the anti-Marxist influences of the British labour movement. He was lavish in his praise for the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and held the ‘progressive reformism’ of these organisations as being suitable for Germany. He advocated compensation for the capitalists, and stated that to expropriate the capitalist class without compensation was robbery.
Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution appeared in 1900 with the aim to expose the weakness in the case of Eduard Bernstein which claimed that the German Social Democratic Party should abandon all idea of a revolutionary transformation of society and aim to improve the status of the working class by means of the winning of reforms. Bernstein held the view that reforms themselves, if continuously enacted, would gradually make an inroad into capitalism, with the result that socialism would slowly arrive. Two factions formed themselves in the Social Democratic Party; one group, led by Rosa Luxemburg, Wilhelm Liebknecht and Karl Kautsky, still called itself Marxist; the other which gathered around Bernstein advocated gradualism or reformism.
The arguments of Reform or Revolution, though sound in the main, were not accepted by the majority of the German SDP. Bernstein’s reformism was preferred. The question arises, “Why did a party which claimed to still be Marxist reject Rosa Luxemburg’s teaching and adopt that of Bernstein?” The answer is that the SDP, while declaring socialism to be its aim, entered the political arena from the first with a programme of demands for immediate reforms. Consequently, despite the wishes of many of the founders, adherents were gained who were interested only in the reforms offered rather than in the socialist objective. The party became overwhelmed with reformists. As Liebknecht said in his No Compromise – No Political Trading, written around the same time as Reform or Revolution: “When once the thin end of the opportunist wedge has forced itself into the policy of the party, the thick end soon follows” (18).
The German capitalist class lost its terror of the SDP with a number of them joining it and thus the class basis of the party was gone. The unsound basis of the party was again revealed in 1914 when it supported its own national group of capitalists in the war just as the British Labour Party supported the British capitalists. Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution had been powerless against the strong support for reformism within the SDP.
The lesson to be learned is clear: when organising for socialism, the policy of offering reforms on the party programme spells ruin. Many may flock into the party but they are more interested in the reform of capitalism, not in its abolition, and these members swamp the socialist element. Here is a definite answer to the leftists who urge socialists to join the Labour Party. History has proved, in the case of the German SDP, that socialists inside a reformist organisation cannot convert it and bring it on to the socialist path. The only logical thing they can do is to break with the reformists and organise on the clear-cut programme of socialism. Says Liebknecht, “Once… we have started upon the inclined plane of compromise, there is no stopping” (19).
The basic question of the socialist movement has always been how to bring its immediate practical activity into agreement with its ultimate goal. The various schools of socialism are differentiated according to their various solutions to this problem. The Socialist Party limits its usage of the word ‘reformist’ to those who advocate that socialism can be established gradually by a long series of reform measures. But even these days this may be too narrow as reformist parties go on to suffer a further degeneration and drop even the pretence that socialism is the long-term goal, and end up just advocating reforms to capitalism as an end in itself. In other words, the link between ‘reformism’ and ‘socialism’ is completely broken. In practice, we’ve more or less accepted this evolution of the word ‘reformism’ and apply it to parties such as the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Greens which have never even claimed to be socialist.
But even Luxemburg did not oppose reforms. She never argued that a socialist party should not advocate reforms at all. In fact, she agreed with the SPD’s tactic on reforms: that the working class should be encouraged to struggle for them or against specific capitalist measures in order to prepare itself for the eventual capture of political power for socialism. When, in the decade or so up to 1914, she came to realise how reformism in the SPD was not confined just to Bernstein and the revisionists but also permeated the thinking of the whole leadership, she blamed it for concentrating on getting reforms through Parliament. She did not blame advocating reforms as such and, in fact, her answer to the danger of reformism was to involve the mass of the workers themselves instead of just a few MPs in the reform struggle by means of the ‘mass strike’. This was a tactic she had picked up from the Russian Revolution of 1905:
“Can Social-Democracy be against reforms? Can we contrapose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, our final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal — the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labour. Between social reforms and revolution there exists for Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means: the social revolution, its aim” (20).
And she made no real attempt to relate reformist policies to the final goal, other than in statements such as: “…as a result of its trade union and parliamentary struggles, the proletariat becomes convinced of the impossibility of accomplishing a fundamental social change through such activity and arrives at the understanding that the conquest of power is unavoidable” (21). This, however, offers no reason why a revolutionary organisation should advocate reforms.
When Luxemburg wrote her pamphlet the SPD had become reformist. Its voters and most of its members wanted social reforms and political democracy in Germany, not socialism. Her mistake was not to realise this and to assume that it was a mass socialist party. Rosa was still tied to the SPD’s reform policy and did not fully appreciate the danger, in terms of attracting non-socialist support and becoming its prisoner, of a socialist party advocating reforms. In the long run, of course, Luxemburg’s strategic unity of reformism and revolution was destined to fracture.
A mass, genuinely socialist party would not neglect the position of workers under capitalism while this lasted. After all, even The Socialist Party can countenance its MPs and local councillors when they are a minority voting for reforms or other pro-worker measures under some circumstances. One thing we have to be clear upon and what Luxemburg explicitly explains – the SPD will only be the party of opposition. Her attitude to reforms was that the struggle for them cannot alter the slave position of the working class. Instead it ends by bringing indifference and disappointment to the workers who are looking to reforms for emancipation. Her view that “social reforms can only offer an empty promise, the logical consequence of such a programme must necessarily be disillusionment” (22) is one we can accept.
She explains and goes out of her way to emphasise that, although she stands for revolution – the capture of political power by the working class – she is not against the SPD or the working class struggling for reforms – measures aimed at bettering the condition of workers within capitalism – as well. In other words, she didn’t take up the same position on this question as us, but she held the classic SPD position of a socialist party having a maximum (socialism) and a minimum (reforms under capitalism) programme. On the other hand, she put a powerful case against the idea that capitalism can be gradually reformed into socialism which is why some have been receptive to her Reform or Revolution pamphlet.
“The circumstance which divides socialist politics from bourgeois politics is that the socialists are opponents of the entire existing order and must function in a bourgeois parliament fundamentally as an opposition. The most important aim of socialist activity in a parliament, the education of the working class, is achieved by a systematic criticism of the ruling party and its politics. The socialists are too far removed from the bourgeois order to be able to achieve practical and thorough-going reforms of a progressive character. Therefore, principled opposition to the ruling party becomes, for every minority party and above all for the socialists, the only feasible method with which to achieve practical results” (23).
This is what the website SOYMB have published in regard to reform and reformism:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2021/12/13/reforms-and-reformism-1-3/ Reforms and Reformism
ttps://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2021/12/15/reforms-and-reformism-2-3/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2021/12/16/reforms-and-reformism-3-3/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2022/10/21/reformism-a-waste-of-precious-time/ Reformism a waste of precious
https://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2023/02/06/socialism-through-the-ballot-box/. Socialism through the ballot box ?
Was Marx really a reformist ?
The real argument on reforms is not about the reforms themselves but against reformism, the policy of advocating reforms in the belief that this will somehow help the struggle for socialism. It doesn’t and it can’t and it encourages illusions that divert from the struggle for socialism.
“Let’s discuss the socialist position on reform.”
Ok.
“Suppose there’s a General Election and we can vote for a candidate whose party promises free school meals or a party that opposes free school meals.”
But now you’ve started talking about something else.
“Voting in a General Election isn’t going to achieve socialism of course”
But the SPGB case is that you can achieve socialism through this means, so long as there is also a conscious and active socialist majority within the population.
“but can I suggest that voting in it, for a reformist party isn’t going to actually impede socialism”
In the absence of a mass socialist movement how people vote, or not, isn’t of decisive importance. But if a Socialist party was to start campaigning for reforms, or telling people to vote for another party that is proposing reforms, that would be an impedance. The end goal gets forever obscured.
Is the only way that beneficial reforms have come about been through people voting a party into office?
It’s not even a realistic hypothesis:
https://labourlist.org/2023/06/labour-free-school-meals-policy-free-universal-poverty/?amp
The SPGB was created with the belief that voting in elections will achieve socialism, but voting for a reformist party would (and has) impeded it.
While we have nothing against reforms, we are against reformism: that the proletariat should beg the capitalist state for a few more crumbs, when we can, should, and deserve to take the whole bakery.
Where would the money come from to provide children with free school meals? Answer: through taxation.
Where does tax money come from? Answer: from the profits of the capitalist class.
Where do profits come from? Answer: from exploiting the working class who produce the wealth of society.
“While we have nothing against reforms, we are against reformism: that the proletariat should beg the capitalist state for a few more crumbs, when we can, should, and deserve to take the whole bakery.”
Not sure about putting it that way. Sounds like you’re saying reforms are fine so long as you don’t ask for them!
I thought “reformism” referred to the idea that you can gradually get to socialism, or eliminate the problems of capitalism, by the gradual building up of reforms.
DJP
‘Sounds like you’re saying reforms are fine so long as you don’t ask for them!’
That is what I’m saying. For example, the SPGB didn’t advocate the post-war ‘welfare state’ (significantly improving state-benefits & old age pensions, and creating the National Health Service), however, they didn’t complain about it when it was established.
Gradualism is the belief that parliament can slowly & steadily reform capitalism into socialism (that is what the Independent Labour Party wrongly believed).
Reformism is the the belief that parliament can solve the problems caused by capitalism without getting rid of it (that is what the early Labour Party wrongly believed, and the Greens still do).
In most countries around the world government are eliminating or reducing the school meals, and the ones provided at present are very small and a very low quality. The actual tendency is to provide less taxation on the capitalist class, and more austerity for the working class
In some way, the statement presented sounds that we support the lesser evil
“That is what I’m saying.”
Ah, OK. With the “you” meaning the socialist party.
But there must be times when workers, as part of a trade union struggles or residents associations or whatever, do ask for reforms or attempt to defend pre-existing ones. You don’t think the socialist party should say “don’t do that” do you?
We (i.e. the Socialist Party) have nothing against trade unions fighting to defend/improve their real wages & working conditions. To paraphrase Karl Marx: Trade unionism puts the breaks on workers’ exploitation, but doesn’t stop it.
We would just prefer it if the majority of workers became socialists and organised for socialism.
At Stowe we had a boy in our House commit suicide. The House was assembled and asked if anyone could suggest why he was driven to do such a thing. After a few moments reflection a small boy at the front (not me) put his hand up and said: could it have been the food,sir?
School meals are an abomination.
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