p What are the main features of the present-day ideology of reformism?

p Compared with the first few decades of the 20th century, the ideology of reformism has now moved further to the Right, having abandoned Marxism not only in deed, but also in word. The main policy-making documents of the Socialist International and its parties openly repudiate Marxism and the traditional socialist demands of the working-class movement.

p In a speech at a symposium in Trier in May 1968, to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, Julius Braunthal, a one-time Secretary of the Socialist International and a theorist of Right-wing Social-Democracy, declared that Marxism used to be the predominant ideology of the Second International. He added: “In the Socialist International which came into being again after the Second World War, Reformism became the predominant ideology. Almost all its Member Parties had entered into government after the war, either governing alone, or sharing power in coalition with bourgeois parties. . .. The ideology which guided the policies ... was based on Reformism—the theory of a gradual development of the social order through the nationalisation of key industries, through a system of social planning and control of productivity to ensure full employment and through a comprehensive system of social security. Therefore, in the European democracies, Marxism is no longer a really effective force as a theory of the proletarian class struggle and the social revolution. . .. But it is no longer the theory of Marxism—the theory of class warfare as a conscious struggle for a classless society—which inspires the workers and their intellectual leaders. ... But it is the theory of evolutionary Socialism and not revolutionary Marxism which guides these endeavours.”  [297•1 

p We find the theorists of reformism openly acknowledging their break with Marxism. The Programme of the CPSU says: “The Right wing of Social-Democracy has completely 298 broken with Marxism and contraposed so-called democratic socialism to scientific socialism. Its adherents deny the existence of antagonistic classes and the class struggle in bourgeois society; they forcefully deny the necessity of the proletarian revolution and oppose the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. They assert that capitalism is being ’transformed’ into socialism.

p “The Right-wing Socialists began by advocating social reforms in place of the socialist revolution and went as far as to defend state-monopoly capitalism. In the past they impressed on the minds of the proletariat that their differences with revolutionary Marxism bore not so much on the ultimate goal of the working-class movement as on the ways of achieving it. Now they openly renounce socialism. Formerly the Right-wing Socialists refused to recognise the class struggle to the point of recognising the dictatorship of the proletariat. Today they deny, not only the existence of the class struggle in bourgeois society, but also the very existence of antagonistic classes. ... Even when reformist parties come to power they limit themselves to partial reforms that do not affect the rule of the monopoly bourgeoisie.”  [298•1 

p It is this class, socio-economic content of present-day Right Socialist opportunism that makes it necessary to criticise its ideology and policies.

p What are the most general features of present-day reformism?

p First, it is abandonment of Marxism under the pretext that it is “obsolete” and “irrelevant” to the realities of the day, marking the final switch by reformist ideology to criticism of Marxism from bourgeois positions. This abandonment of Marxism goes hand in hand with attempts to formulate the subtlest and most refined anti-communist line of argument claiming championship of man’s interests and spiritual values.

p Second, it is abandonment of the basic social demands, specifically the socialisation of the means of production, and the switch to the bourgeois theory of the “mixed economy”, which is supplemented by a view of the bourgeois state as being a “supra-class” organ.

p Third, it is the reformist form of anti-communism which, for all its specifics, is a direct continuation and species of bourgeois imperialist anti-communism, and which has the 299 I same functions of deceiving men and keeping their minds fettered by bourgeois lies.

p Fourth, it is the reformists’ attitude on a number of vital political problems (disintegration of the colonial system, analysis of the problems of war and peace, etc.) which fully suits the imperialists (like the proposal to extend peaceful coexistence between countries with different social systems to ideology; attempts to present aggressive imperialist blocs as “peaceable” and “democratic” agencies of so-called Atlantic solidarity, etc.).

p Despite the proclaimed neutrality on world outlook, the reformists have in fact fully adopted the bourgeois ideology, and bourgeois social science: in economics—bourgeois Keynesianism and neoliberalism, in sociology—the bourgeois theory of “deproletarisation”; in constitutional law—the mechanism of power of state-monopoly capitalism; in morals and ethics—fideism and clericalism; in international affairs —anti-communism, anti-Sovietism, militarism and neocolonialism.

p This means that reformist ideology today fulfils its old social function, that of carrying bourgeois influence into the working class, even more openly than in the past.

p Characteristically, bourgeois ideologists themselves now regard reformist ideology as a component part of bourgeois ideology. One collection ranks “democratic socialism” together with “conservatism”, “liberalism” and “nationalism” among the main varieties of democratic thought. One author says: “Socialism is detaching itself from its Marxist foundations, and is becoming, in Hook’s phrase, ’a broad movement of social reform’.”  [299•1 

p The philosophical foundations of the reformist view of various pressing problems continue to be abstract, idealistic and metaphysical, and this tends to distort the reflection of reality and inexorably results in the support of positions which are hostile in class terms to the interests of the working people. Thus, the metaphysical and abstract antithesis between democracy and dictatorship, which drains these concepts of their social content, results in an apology of bourgeois democracy; the abstract idealistic view of international and national problems leads to the reactionary condemnation of the true interests of the national independence of the peoples 300 fighting against imperialism and an apology of supra-national policies pursued under the flag of “internationalism” and also in condemnation of true socialist internationalism under the pretext of championing national interests of the socialist countries, it leads to neglect of the qualitative antithesis between the two main socio-economic systems—capitalism and socialism—and results in a denial of the principal contradiction of the present epoch and the main line of social development today.

p The connection between the ideology of reformism and revisionism has assumed a new aspect in the present conditions.

p Let us recall that reformism sprang from revisionism in the international Social-Democratic movement at the end of the 19th century, and that it split and undermined the unity of the working class.

p Today, the reformist parties united under the leadership of the Socialist International constitute the organisational basis for an ideological and political trend which is hostile to Marxism-Leninism and which is essentially a brand of bourgeois socio-political ideology. However, reformist ideology has not severed its ties with revisionism, for it provides ideological fuel for Right-opportunist revisionism within the communist movement now and again interacting with it in the plane of practical politics. The Right-opportunist version of the “new models of socialism” are in many respects directly connected with the notorious “democratic socialism”, while the Right-revisionist interpretation of the “economic models of socialism” reveals reformist sympathies for the anarchy of the capitalist commodity market. In its anti-communist policies aimed against the socialist countries, Right Social Democracy works hand in hand with imperialist anti- communism, specifically its attempts to undermine socialism from inside, attempts based on the hope of eroding communism and bringing nationalist and revisionist elements to the fore.

p Thus, the old splitting function of reformism within the working-class movement is supplemented by the new function of undermining the world socialist community from inside.

p However, the fact that reformist ideology has been moving to the Right does not mean that it has managed to carry with it all the socialist movement, all the working people within 301 the Socialist and Social-Democratic parties united in the Socialist International.

p The truth of life is making its way to the hearts and minds of men despite the obstacles being thrown up in its way by reformist and revisionist propaganda. The social processes developing in capitalist society, the contradictions deepening within capitalism under the impact of the scientific and technical revolution, the growing oppression of the overwhelming majority of the population in the capitalist countries by a handful of monopolies, and—the main thing—the steady development of the socialist community and the growth of its real successes and achievements have been raising to an ever higher level the initiative and energy of the working people of the capitalist countries, and strengthening the progressive tendencies within their midst, their urge for unity, for internationalism, for cohesion in the struggle for their basic class interests and for the radiant socialist future of all mankind. As the Right-wing leaders and theorists of reformism advance in their betrayal of the working-class cause more and more honest men are repelled from them, a process which helps to accelerate the shaping of class consciousness among the broadest masses of people, who constitute the principal and decisive factor of the historical process.

Under the banner of Marxism-Leninism, the working people of the whole world are uniting in the struggle against imperialism, and for peace, national liberation, social progress, democracy and socialism.