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p The ideological activity of the reactionary Right-Socialist leaders is doing the international working-class movement much harm. They style themselves as Socialists, but in fact help to smuggle bourgeois ideology into the midst of the working people, spreading the illusion that capitalism is being “transformed”, that a “welfare state” over and above classes is being established, defending capitalism, fighting against real socialism, and substituting for it illusory “ethical socialism” or a “new humanism”.

p The theory that “world outlook is neutral” is a demagogic platform which the reformist leaders and theorists have 302 adopted in place of scientific socialism and the proletarian ideology of Marxism-Leninism. It is a theory which is presented as spiritual freedom which gives members of the Social-Democratic parties the chance to opt for any system of views, whether scientific or religious, any system of ideas. This principle has been written into the documents of the Socialist International and into the programmes of many Right Socialist parties.

p What are the reformists’ arguments in favour of this theory?

p The reformist leaders say that any outlook is subjective and even individual, which is why no party can claim to express an outlook which is common to all its members. This argument completely ignores the materialist, dialectics of social development, and consequently, the truth of life itself. Social being is objectively reflected in men’s minds and in a society divided into classes appears in the form of class consciousness. Refusal to recognise the class character of world outlook in fact helps to cover up the reformists’ adoption of bourgeois ideology.

p Another reformist argument in favour of the neutralism of world outlook is that socialism as an ideal is a common goal of all men, one which is accepted by men from different walks of life. This is an effort to obliterate the distinction between broad democratic circles who take a positive view of socialist ideals (frequently without duly understanding them) and the revolutionary vanguard which cannot win in the struggle for socialism unless it has a theory of scientific socialism, namely, the Marxist-Leninist outlook.

p The reformist concept of the “transformation” of capitalism falls in with the bourgeois theories of “transformation”. Whereas bourgeois ideologists say that this “transformation” will gradually result (or has already resulted) in the establishment of a “mass consumption society”, an “affluent society”, a “technocratic system”, a “formed society”, etc., the reformist theorists declared that it is resulting (or has already resulted) in the establishment of a “democratic” or “humanistic” socialism.

p A great many books have been written since the war by Right Socialist leaders and theorists, among them British Labour theorists John Strachey (The Modern Capitalism, 1956), C.A.R. Crosland (The Future of Socialism, 1956), G. D. H. Cole (Capitalism in the Modern World, 1957), 303 French Right Socialists Georges Bourgin and Pierre Rimbert (Le Socialisme, 1962), all trying to prove that capitalism has been “growing” into socialism, and that Marxism has, in consequence, been “outdated” and that the theory of socialist revolution and proletarian dictatorship should be discarded.

p They differ in their interpretation of the alleged “transformation” of capitalism into socialism mainly in assessing the extent to which capitalism has gone through this process. Thus, Benedikt Kautsky, the main writer of the Programme of the Socialist Party of Austria, says that capitalism has already become democratic socialism, while others say that capitalism is at various other stages of its transformation.

p All their arguments designed to back up this thesis are based on a distorted characteristic of capitalism, above all, of its productive forces and relations of production, which are said to be undergoing a “second industrial revolution”. They also make great play of state ownership and joint-stock companies.

p What is this theory of “second industrial revolution”?

p Bourgeois sociologists and reformist theorists see it not only as a scientific and technical revolution (something the Marxists do not deny) but also as an automatic transformation of capitalism as a result of it into “neocapitalism”, or, as the reformists insist, socialism. This is an attempt to throw a false light on the social consequences of technical progress in the capitalist countries. Some insist—like Harold Wilson at the 63rd Congress of the British Labour Party at Scarborough in 1963—that a third industrial revolution is already on its way. The third industrial revolution characterised by the use of automation, atomic energy, electronic machines, etc., is to combine with “socialist planning”, and this, Wilson believes, will bring triumph to the cause of “democratic socialism”. The leader of the Austrian Right Socialists, Karl Czernetz, said that Wilson “outlined the concept of a new scientific socialism” for the whole international working-class movement.  [303•1 

p Mankind has indeed entered a period of the greatest scientific and technical change connected with the mastering of nuclear energy, exploration of outer space, development of chemistry and automation of production. However, the 304 relations of production under capitalism are too narrow for the scientific and technical revolution, which can be fully used, with the fruits going to the whole of society, only under socialism.

p The reformist theory of the “second industrial revolution” clearly follows in the wake of bourgeois theories which tend to absolutise the role of technical progress, and regard technology outside the social context, irrespective of the system of social relations. Among the more prominent bourgeois theorists in this area is the French economist Jean Fourastie, who ignores the actual relations under capitalism, whose motive force is profit. He declares the main purpose of technical progress to be the raising of living standards and boosting of the purchasing power of wages. Accordingly, he denies the existence of surplus value and the exploitation of labour by capital.

p Right Socialist theorists, following bourgeois sociologists, like Jean Fourastie, Helmut Schelsky, Peter Drucker and John Diebold, claim technical progress to be a means of overcoming all the contradictions of capitalism. Thus, Carlo Schmid says, for instance, that technical progress in modern production amounts to a “second industrial revolution” which will result in the transformation of capitalism into a socialist system.  [304•1 

p The Programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, adopted at Bad Godesberg, says: “The second industrial revolution creates unprecedented prerequisites for raising the general standards of living and eliminating poverty and need.”  [304•2 

p In actual fact, however, technical progress and the automation of production under the sway of monopoly capital run against the working class, increasing unemployment, and pressing down the working people’s living standards. Technical progress in the capitalist countries results in a sharpening of all the social contradictions and does not, as the ideologists of reformism say, lead to their moderation, let alone their solution.

p Why is it wrong to designate the present scientific and 305 technical revolution in the capitalist countries as a second or third industrial revolution? The first industrial revolution, which marked the ripening of the bourgeois mode of production within the entrails of feudalism, was not only a technical but also a social revolution characteristic of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This was a very natural course of development, because feudalism and capitalism are similar-type formations. Socialist relations of production cannot take shape spontaneously within the entrails of capitalism. In this sense, technical progress cannot of itself or automatically transform the moribund capitalist system into a new social system. This transformation requires not only a scientific and technical revolution, but also a revolution in social relations, that is, it requires a socialist revolution and a victory for the dictatorship of the working class.

p The reformist theorists do not confine themselves to distorting the consequences of technical progress. Their “concept” of “transformation” of capitalism into socialism also includes the story that capitalist relations of production are being fundamentally transformed and that private property is being converted into “public” and “collective” property which allegedly emerges on the basis of joint-stock companies. They say that the economic functions of the capitalist state are the lever through which private property is converted into “public” and “collective” property. Two French Right Socialist theorists say: “The state economy is a stage on the way to socialism.... In effect, it transforms private property into public property.”  [305•1 

p Actually, however, this amounts to no more than a development of state-monopoly capitalism which has nothing in common with social property.

p The theorists of reformism insist that socialism as a system emerges entirely within the entrails of capitalism: “Capitalism having led to joint-stock companies lays the foundation of socialism, the collective form of property.... Thus, the socialist economy is clearly outlined within the entrails of capitalism itself.”  [305•2 

p This praise of “socialisation” of capital and the economic functions of the state by the reformist theorists has been clearly borrowed from the bourgeois theorists who advocate 306 a “people’s capitalism”, notably, the well-known bourgeois sociologist Joseph A. Schumpeter, whose book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, was openly advertised in an official pamphlet issued by the French Socialist Party, Decline and Succession of Capitalism.  [306•1  In a preface to the pamphlet, this party’s leader, Guy Mollet, said the book was “a fundamental work” which would play its role by becoming a standard work for every activist of the Socialist Party. What did Guy Mollet find in Schumpeter’s book that was so valuable? He says: “Having made a study of the USA, a country of free enterprise, Schumpeter arrived at the conclusion that it was moving towards socialism.” The same view was spread by La Revue socialiste, the theoretical organ of the French Socialist Party. It said: “The first stage of the socialist formation is not a gross collapse of capitalist society.... It is a complete realisation of capitalism ... limited, planned and under the constant control of the masses. The United States gives us an illustration of this theory which has been fundamentally formulated by the liberal Schumpeter, among others.”  [306•2 

p In actual fact, the various forms of state-monopoly regulation of the economy, which the reformist theorists claim to be socialism,, have done nothing at all to modify the nature of imperialism. State-monopoly capitalism is “far from altering the position of the principal classes in the system of social production, it widens the rift between labour and capital, between the majority of the nation and the monopolies. Attempts at state regulation of the capitalist economy cannot eliminate competition and anarchy of production, cannot ensure the planned development of the economy on a nation-wide scale, because capitalist ownership and exploitation of wage labour remain the basis of production.”  [306•3 

p Of course, the Marxists do not deny that capitalism changes and that the prerequisites of socialism mature within its entrails, but none of these changes are fundamental.

p We should brush aside the tall story that the Marxists hold capitalism to be “immutable”. Neither the founders of Marxism, nor their followers have ever said that capitalism was frozen solid. Marx and Engels gave a profound analysis 307 of the historical process of the emergence and development of capitalism. Lenin continued this analysis and showed the specific features of capitalism at its highest imperialist phase, pointing out that imperialism was the epoch in which monopoly capitalism grew into state-monopoly capitalism.

p Today, capitalism continues to change in that direction, bearing out the objective tendencies of its development as discovered by Marx and Lenin. But for all its changes, capitalism does not lose its qualitative features as a socio-economic formation: it remains an exploitative system, the capitalists continue to derive surplus value by exploiting wage labour, they continue to hold the means of production, while the workers continue to sell their labour-power, the state continues to be an apparatus for oppression, suppression and exploitation in the hands of the ruling class.

p The contradictions of imperialism have accelerated the growing over of monopoly into state-monopoly capital, but this means only that the strength of the capitalist monopolies has increased, and that they have broader opportunities for using the state for their own ends.

p What do the changes in capitalism amount to? They amount to a greater concentration of capital, a growing enrichment of the financial oligarchy, a strengthening of state-monopoly capitalism and a sharpening of the class struggle.

p “The scientific and technical revolution,” says the Main Document issued by the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, “accelerates the socialisation of the economy; under monopoly domination this leads to the reproduction of social antagonisms on a growing scale and in a sharper form. Not only have the long-standing contradictions of capitalism been aggravated, but new ones have arisen as well. This applies, in particular, to the contradictions between the unlimited possibilities opened up by the scientific and technological revolution and the roadblocks raised by capitalism to their utilisation for the benefit of society as a whole. Capitalism squanders national wealth, allocating for war purposes a great proportion of scientific discoveries and immense material resources. This is the contradiction between the social character of present-day production and the state-monopoly nature of its regulation. This is not only the growth of the contradiction between capital and labour, but also the deepening of the antagonism between 308 the interests of the overwhelming majority of the nation and those of the financial oligarchy.”  [308•1 

p All of this shows that the nature of capitalism, the relations of production under capitalism, have not changed. The internal contradictions of capitalism have not relaxed or disappeared, but have on the contrary deepened and sharpened. The basic contradiction of capitalism—the contradiction between social production and private capitalist appropriation—is still there and has become much more acute. So long as it is there, it is fraud, pure and simple, to talk of “a democratisation of the economy”, of “a diffusion of property” and various other demagogic ideas being spread by the reformists to the purpose of undermining the class consciousness and the struggle of the workers.

p The reformist theory of the “transformation” of capitalism is ultimately a new version of the present-day bourgeois “mixed economy” version, which is covered up with demagogy and socialist catchwords. The fundamental flaw both of the bourgeois and of the reformist theory of the “mixed economy” is the idea that it allegedly combines two different, fundamentally distinct types of economy. Actually, both private capitalist economy and bourgeois state economy fall under the same head of capitalist economy, where state property is merely a brand of capitalist property. The reformist theory of the “mixed economy” differs from the bourgeois version in that it presents this economy as evidence that capitalism has been “peacefully growing into socialism”. The combination of so-called free enterprise and elements of state regulation of planning, so characteristic of state-monopoly capitalism is the objective basis reflected by the reformist version of the advocacy of capitalism which is presented as the “transformation” of capitalism into socialism.

p The switch by reformist theorists to the bourgeois view of the “mixed economy” and its spread in the specifically reformist form are closely bound up with another version characteristic of the ideology of present-day reformism, namely, the claim that the class struggle in the capitalist countries has been fading out. This conclusion is naturally covered up with presentations of diverse distortions of the socialist structure of capitalism contained in the writings of bourgeois sociologists.

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p However, contrary to the reformist illusions about the class struggle in the capitalist countries fading out, it has in fact become sharper than ever before. This is so because the fundamental basis of the class struggle—the exploitation of the working class—is still there, and because the condition of the working class has been growing worse. It has in fact grown worse in social terms even when wages have nominally grown. The speed-up, industrial accidents, the unemployment which is a permanent feature of capitalism, the working people’s uncertainty in the future, the growing demands on workers as a result of the scientific and technical revolution, which increases the value of labour power but does not increase real wages—all of this is an indication of the worsening of the working people’s social conditions.

p The mounting strike movement shows that there is no “fading out” of the class struggle. In the last few years, the strike movement has been on a sharp upgrade.

p “The instability of the capitalist system has increased. Socio-political crises are breaking out in many countries, in the course of which the working masses are becoming aware of the necessity of deep-going and decisive changes.”  [309•1 

p The reformist concept of the “transformation” of capitalism is most closely connected with the “welfare state” myth, which the reformists have been spreading long and far. On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the First International, one-time Secretary of the Socialist International, J. Braunthal, declared: “Today development everywhere is running from the capitalist state, which is guided by the profit motive, to the social welfare state. The capitalist fabric is shot through with a multiplicity of socialist threads and there is transition from capitalism to a socialist society.”  [309•2  The reformist apology of the bourgeois state leads directly to a denial of the socialist revolution. Andre Philip says: “There is increasingly decisive intervention by the state into the economy.. .. We live in a system . .. which is undergoing a complete transformation. We are no longer in a capitalist system, but neither are we in a socialist system; the successes of planning and public intervention carry us into a society of the transition period, which is in a state of extremely rapid evolution.”  [309•3 

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p All of this merely serves to confirm once again how right Lenin was when he said that it was impossible to work for the release of the working people from bourgeois influence in general and the imperialist bourgeoisie in particular, without fighting the opportunist preconceptions about the state. The idea that the bourgeois state is “above class” is one of the oldest and most entrenched with reformist illusions, which frequently goes hand in hand with peans for the latter. Socialisme, organ of the Belgian Right Socialists, says: “Perhaps the state is an instrument of emancipation serving the working people? In effect, in our Western democracies the state is already no longer at the service of one class. It has become the conciliator of antagonistic interests.”  [310•1 

p The reformist illusions about the “supra-class” nature of the bourgeois state today and about its ability to play the role of arbiter and to establish social harmony are being fed by bourgeois economic conceptions. The US bourgeois economist, J. K. Galbraith, in his book The Affluent Society, presents the bourgeois state precisely as this kind of instrument for balancing out contradictions. The realities of the capitalist countries refute the various inventions about the “welfare state” and the “affluent society”. “Even in the most developed capitalist countries, millions of people suffer the torments of unemployment, want and insecurity. Contrary to assertions about the ’revolution in incomes’ and ’social partnership’, capitalist exploitation is in fact increasing. The rise in wages lags far behind the growth rates of labour productivity and the intensification of labour, behind the social needs and even more so behind the growth of monopoly profits. The position of the small farmers continues to deteriorate and the living conditions of a considerable part of the middle strata are becoming more difficult.”  [310•2 

p As to the role of the state, its economic functions do not at all serve any “supra-class” purposes of promoting “general welfare”, but the interests of monopoly capital. The resources mobilised by the bourgeois state through the exaction of taxes usually go into the pockets of the monopolies, who are awarded major government contracts, mostly arms contracts. State monopoly capitalism combines the strength of the monopolies with that of the state for the purpose of further 311 enriching the monopolies, suppressing the working class and national liberation movement and starting aggressive wars.

p The so-called military-industrial complex is increasing its influence in the most advanced capitalist countries. This is an alliance of the leading monopolies and the militarists in the administration, and it makes government policy even more reactionary and aggressive.

p What in that case is the famous “democratic socialism” considering that the reformist theorists have been rehearsing bourgeois conceptions on all the main questions: in assessing the capitalist mode of production, in analysing social processes, in characterising the bourgeois state, and in setting out ideology?

p “Democratic socialism” is defence of capitalism in the guise of socialism. The reformist interpretation of socialism has nothing in common with the scientific view of socialism.

p The reformist repudiation of the objective law of social development and consequently of the scientific concept of socialism as a socio-economic formation is indissolubly connected with the view of socialism as no more than an ethical ideal. The French Right Socialist, Jules Moch, says that = “socialism is morality, almost a lay religion ... an ideal, perhaps, rather than an economic doctrine.”  [311•1  The theoretical journal of the Austrian Right Socialists declares: “Democratic socialism brings to the fore its socio-ethical purposes.”  [311•2  A publication by the reformist Socialist Union also declares socialism to be “socialist ethics applied to the sphere of economic organisation”.  [311•3  They add: “... socialism is at bottom a question of ethics or morals. It has mainly to do with the relationships which should exist between a man and his fellows.”  [311•4  The reformist theorists present class solidarism in the spirit of the same “human” terms. Guy Mollet, for instance, declares: “Our main concern is to promote the evolution of relations within the enterprise, between the employer and his workers.... The regulation of relations between employers and workers helps without any spectacular measures to lay a more solid foundation for social peace.”  [311•5 

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p These views are almost identical with the religious concepts of class solidarism, with the bourgeois sociological theories of “human relations”, of “humanisation of labour”, etc., which are likewise designed to “regulate” relations between employers and workers. In methodological terms, the spreading of the idea of an “ethical socialism” rests on the scientifically flimsy approach which tends to turn one aspect of social life into an absolute. In this instance it is not technology but ethics, which is besides presented in abstract and metaphysical terms. Just as the reformist theorists tend metaphysically to separate technology from relations of production, converting technology into a magic source of “universal welfare”, so they deal with ethics. They fail ,to see the material, socio-economic basis and its concrete historical and class content.

p Human ethics as an ideal is quite attainable, but before this can happen there is need to destroy the system of private property and exploitation. Any calls for the establishment of a universal human ethics without the elimination of the foundations of capitalism amount to a fraud. The famous “democratic socialism” is the same capitalism all over, because the reformists have no intention at all of seeing it changed qualitatively in any way.

p By jettisoning Marxism, the reactionary theorists of reformism have also jettisoned the scientific substantiation of socialism. Erich Ollenhauer told a congress of the SocialDemocratic Party of Germany in Bad Godesberg in 1959: “Our programme is not a scientific document.... Our congress is not a scientific congress.”  [312•1  Their achievement of the “socialist ideal” is not connected with the operation of objective laws but with man’s moral improvement outside the class struggle and the socialist revolution.

p The way to socialism, the reformist theorists declare, does not run through a revolutionary destruction of capitalism—the elimination of private property and exploitation—but through the fostering of men in the spirit of socialism. Consequently, their way does not provide for any change of the social system, but implies that the capitalist order is to remain intact.

p The origins of the term “democratic socialism” go back to the struggle which the old leaders of reformism, Karl Kautsky and Otto Bauer, carried on against the Great October 313 Socialist Revolution, when they contrasted their “democratic socialism” and Leninism, creative revolutionary Marxism. They claimed to stand for socialism, but only without a proletarian dictatorship, because they favoured a “democratic” and not a “dictatorial” socialism. Consequently, from the very outset “democratic socialism” had an anti-communist, anti-Soviet tenor.

The anti-communist orientation of Right Social-Democrats today is a cover for their complete abandonment of socialist aims and their surrender to state-monopoly capitalism.