Why is revisionism/pragmatism a bad thing?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I have noticed that many leftists on these boards ascribe to strong 'anti-revisionism' of marxist applications and are wholeheartedly against pragmatism. Why, though? Is not the entire point of socialism to adapt to the conditions of the current socio-economic climate?

I'm not a liberal; I don't ascribe to universal values and programmes that must always be carried out in any scenario. What I ask is, what's wrong with revisionism? Sure, reformist revisionism is pretty bad, and revisionism for the sole sake of revisionism sucks too, but why is the adaption of a programme to 'fit in with the times' a bad thing?

Note that I'm not supporting 21st century market socialism or any of that collaberationist crap. I'm just wondering why so many comrades seem to have a phobia of change and criticism.

[Hit The North]

Revisionism tends to describe various moments when socialists abandon class struggle in favour of collaboration of various forms as the royal road to socialism.

Tony Cliff was fond of saying that revolutionaries should only hold on to a limited amount of principles such as opposition to the bourgeois state and that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the class itself. The rest, he claimed, was strategy and tactics.

Revolutionaries who cling to a long list of principles tend to come from a lifestyle or identity direction. Revolutionaries who embrace pragmatic political action (like Lenin) tend to be activists.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Revisionism tends to describe various moments when socialists abandon class struggle in favour of collaboration of various forms as the royal road to socialism.

Tony Cliff was fond of saying that revolutionaries should only hold on to a limited amount of principles such as opposition to the bourgeois state and that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the class itself. The rest, he claimed, was strategy and tactics.

Revolutionaries who cling to a long list of principles tend to come from a lifestyle or identity direction. Revolutionaries who embrace pragmatic political action (like Lenin) tend to be activists.

Ah, alright. I may have had the wrong understanding of the word revisionism.

Damnit! Why can't these labels actually describe what they represent!? I was confused enough with objectivism and liberalism as it was!

[ComradeOm]

Revisionism is a slur and one that says a great deal about just how ossifying much of Marxism's intellectual history has been. It's notable that the great crime of the original 'revisionist' Bernstein wasn't proposing what was essentially reformism (which the SPD were more than happy with) but couching this in language that openly 'revised' Marx's scriptures

Unfortunately this love of orthodoxy - this insistence that we can say that THIS IS MARXISM (AND NOT THAT) - outlived the Second International. Even State and Revolution, probably the most important Marxist text of the past century and a genuinely seismic break with what had come before, was an appeal to the alter of St Karl and liberally supported with quotes; this was Lenin charging the rest of the Marxist world with 'revisionism'. Unsurprisingly, later Soviet debates revolved around who was deviating from or revising the theoretical orthodoxy of the day

You can still see this today: a fun (read: depressing) drinking game would be to do a shot whenever some eejit on RevLeft accuses someone of being "un-Marxist". These days, I think it's simply intellectual immaturity or an appeal to authority

This is all despite the fact that the real Marxist innovators, whatever the language used, were not afraid to tackle orthodoxies or to challenge Marx's precepts. Radek used to joke that, "as a true Marxist, Lenin makes his decisions on the basis of facts, and only then builds his theories explaining those decisions of his"

[cb9's_unity]

I actually just posted about this in another thread, but I'll take this on from a somewhat different angle.

I don't think most people, even self-proclaimed Marxists, understand just how explosive the writings of Marx were to how we go about understanding and engaging with society. It actually would have been impossible for Marx himself to understand what his thoughts would do to help us comprehend how social relations have changed in the 20th and 21st centuries. The idea of reducing all of this influence to a single canonical Marxism, to believe there is one true Marxist way of interpreting all of the developments of the world around us, should be plainly fucking absurd.

The point shouldn't be that Marx himself is absolutely irreproachable, but very simply that his thought is so much better than any previous intellectual that it is basically reckless to not at least consult his thinking when trying to understand the world.

Marx's method of understanding capitalism is incomplete. But without using his concepts, or concepts people derived from his writing, one basically has to rely on concepts from the pro-capitalist liberal tradition. Sometimes that tradition does provide useful theory and information, but I have yet to find information of that sort that conflicts with my understanding of Marxism. So far the only other writer from the past 150 years that I have found that rejects liberalism, isn't influenced by the Marxist tradition, and has writings deeply important to understand our condition is Nietzsche (I think he has some important existential and specifically aesthetic ideas that, when combined with Marxist analysis, reveal the unique aesthetic-social dimensions that were so important to the last 100 or so years).

Anti-revisionism can only make any sense to a person if they have an extremely narrow vision of what Marx's writings mean.

[Ismail]

Revisionism is a slur and one that says a great deal about just how ossifying much of Marxism's intellectual history has been. It's notable that the great crime of the original 'revisionist' Bernstein wasn't proposing what was essentially reformism (which the SPD were more than happy with) but couching this in language that openly 'revised' Marx's scripturesRecall that Soviet revisionism did, in fact, couch itself in the language of Marxism-Leninism. Khrushchev and his successors continuously said that their policies of peaceful coexistence were merely Lenin's own policies carried out under new conditions, and you could find plenty of Soviet works denouncing revisionism (whether of the Bernstein or Kautsky-esque variety or of the Maoist variety.) In fact the whole Soviet ideological apparatus after 1956 was fixated on a so-called "return to Leninist norms," "Leninist legality," the struggle against the "distortions brought on by the cult of the individual," etc.

What matters is the policies being advocated and whose interests they serve. Kautsky's own early opportunism around the time of Bernstein (which Lenin noted in due time) was later transformed into a "defense of Marxism" against the "barbaric," "terroristic," etc. Bolsheviks and this, of course, led to the road of him becoming an anti-communist by the 30's. There was a logical line linking up successively right-wing policies, which was also apparent in China, the USSR from Khrushchev onwards, etc.

@Yoseph Bananas, revisionism has nothing to do with being "afraid" of change or anything of the sort. Hoxha and other Albanian figures noted that Albania's revolution and its socialist construction had specific features due to the material conditions at work in the country.

There's creative development and then there's "creative development." Kim Il Sung, after all, attacked "flunkeyism," i.e. blindly following other countries' paths. Instead he decided to mix Neo-Confucianism into Soviet-style "Marxism-Leninism" with a few Maoist concepts thrown in, and this eventually led to the road of coming to the "scientific" conclusion that the army is the real vanguard all along, among various other ridiculous, metaphysical, and all-around blatantly un-Marxist doctrines.

The Yugoslavs denounced "dogmatism" quite loudly. They said that the definition of socialist had become too narrow, and that one must work with social-democratic parties as fellow and fraternal working-class parties, that the New Deal and other Western programs were "organically" leading to the development of socialist societies, etc. Their system was one of "market socialism" and ended in massive debts and genocide.

In Poland the struggle against "Stalinism" was proclaimed from 1956 onwards and a defense of "genuine Marxism" and Polish "national traditions" put into the spotlight. In line with this "creative development of socialism," religion was taught in schools and 80%+ of Polish agriculture was in private hands, among other right-wing policies.

In China Mao criticized Stalin for his "dogmatism" and the result was first the rightist "Hundred Flowers Campaign," then the ultra-leftist "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" years later, and in line with Mao's vacillating policies came the de facto alliance with US imperialism which logically followed from his course of zig-zags and opportunism. Deng later decided, like Gorby in the USSR, that all this opposition to "dogmatism" just wasn't enough and that things were still dogmatic, and we all know how that turned out.

Then of course you have all the "non-aligned" states like India, Egypt under Nasser, Iraq under the Ba'athists, etc. who all had their avowedly non-Marxist forms of "socialism," which the Soviet revisionists declared were engaging in "non-capitalist development," another term they borrowed and bastardized from Lenin.

To quote Hoxha: "Marxism-Leninism is a great and universal truth. It is not a dogma, hence the truths of Marxism-Leninism cannot be misused according to the whims of this or that person or group, hiding behind the correct slogan, 'to apply them according to the time and place'. Marxism-Leninism is a guide to action for every party. Every party can and should apply Marxism Leninism in the conditions and circumstances of its own country, but the compass shows the cardinal points unerringly. But if you try to make it show the north in the south and the west in the east, no matter how loud you may shout that you have a compass in your hand, it may be anything but a compass. This is also the case with the correct application of the universal laws of Marxism. The teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin cannot be the monopoly of certain parties. They are the heritage of mankind, of all the communists." (Selected Works Vol. III, p. 754)

On another occasion Hoxha noted, "There is nothing unknown about what socialism is, what it represents and what it brings about, how it is achieved and how socialist society is built. A theory and practice of scientific socialism exists. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin teach us this theory. We find the practice of it in that rich experience of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union in the time of Lenin and Stalin, and we find it today in Albania, where the new society is being built according to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism. Of course, as Lenin said, socialism will look different and will have its own special features in different countries as a result of the differing socio-economic conditions, the way in which the revolution is carried out, the traditions, the international circumstances, etc. But the basic principles and the universal laws of socialism remain unshakeable and are essential for all countries." (Selected Works Vol. VI, p. 447.)

Revisionism negates the revolution and the scientific nature of Marxism. That is what is meant by the word. Under the cover of "opposing dogmatism" or the "objective conditions" or "creative development" it promotes subjective, idealist, and otherwise reactionary policies and analyses.

[Grenzer]

It's notable that the great crime of the original 'revisionist' Bernstein wasn't proposing what was essentially reformism (which the SPD were more than happy with) but couching this in language that openly 'revised' Marx's scriptures

This is complete fiction.

Bernsteinism was in fact a much maligned minority current within the SPD until it dropped proletarian class independence in 1906 and opened up and tried to appeal to the middle class, absorbing class-alien elements.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Revisionism is cool. Marxism is an approach to social science, not a religion.

[Ismail]

Revisionism is cool. Marxism is an approach to social science, not a religion.Let's hear about those cool approaches the Kims, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. made to Marxism then.

There was also a certain other revisionist who likewise was quite adamant about respecting what other countries and parties did in the name of different material conditions.

"I met with Comrade Tito just as an old soldier. We had a cordial talk and agreed to forget the past and look to the future. This is the attitude we adopted when we resumed relations with other East European parties and countries; we take the present as a fresh starting point from which to develop friendly, cooperative relations. Of course, it's still worthwhile to analyse events of the past. But I think the most important thing is that each party, whether it is big, small or medium, should respect the experience of the others and the choices they have made and refrain from criticizing the way the other parties and countries conduct their affairs. This should be our attitude not only towards parties in power but also towards those that are not in power. When we had talks with representatives of the Communist parties of France and Italy, we expressed this view that we should respect their experience and their choices. If they have made mistakes, it is up to them to correct them. Likewise, they should take the same attitude towards us, allowing us to make mistakes and correct them. Every country and every party has its own experience, which differs from that of the others in a thousand and one ways."
(Deng Xiaoping. Fundamental Issues in Present-Day China. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. 1987. p. 186.)

[Yuppie Grinder]

Those people all had the same approach to Marxism as your beloved Stalin and Hoxha. They theoligized it.

[Let's Get Free]

I agree with Brodiga. Stalin, for one, explicitly argued that Leninism was the fullest development of Marxism and that the study of Marx's texts could be dispensed with. This clearly served the ideological purposes of avoiding too close a scrutiny of the relation between capitalism and socialism, especially the similarities of state repression and working-class struggles in both systems.

With Mao Tse-tung, Marx was an often evoked but unstudied authority. In his place stood Chairman Mao whose essays, pamphlets, and quotations, rather than Marx's writings, provided ideology for the masses. As a result of such development, reference to Marx became primarily a religious gesture.

[Ismail]

Those people all had the same approach to Marxism as your beloved Stalin and Hoxha. They theoligized it.Really? Deng Xiaoping wrote about China's experiences that, "Ours is an entirely new endeavor, one that was never mentioned by Marx, never undertaken by our predecessors and never attempted by any other socialist country. So there are no precedents for us to learn from. We can only learn from practice, feeling our way as we go."

In fact the line of all the revisionists was that Marxism is a science, ergo it could be "creatively developed" in just about whatever way it pleased this or that revisionist. Thus Pol Pot called on his cadre to learn not mechanically from the Chinese or the Soviets, but from the material realities at work in good ol' Democratic Kampuchea, and this led to the analysis that the Khmer Rouge could begin the glorious march towards communism through a shortcut.

What sort of "theologizing" did Tito carry out? Or Castro?


With Mao Tse-tung, Marx was an often evoked but unstudied authority. In his place stood Chairman Mao whose essays, pamphlets, and quotations, rather than Marx's writings, provided ideology for the masses. As a result of such development, reference to Marx became primarily a religious gesture.Well yes, Mao was a revisionist, in his struggles against "dogmatism" he had his own ideology informally known as me-ism, just as the Kims have it as well. That's not "theologizing" Marxism; that's not being a Marxist and instead declaring all that came before him either irrelevant because they didn't live in or carry out their work in China, or that the circumstances in which they carried out their policies had "passed" somehow.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Your responses to things are so dull and predictable. You can never expect anything other than the correct, orthodox anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist line on any issue from Ismail.

[Grenzer]

I agree with Brodiga. Stalin, for one, explicitly argued that Leninism was the fullest development of Marxism and that the study of Marx's texts could be dispensed with.

Really? Where did he argue that?

As far as I'm aware, he stated that Leninism was the highest qualitative advance of Marxist though to date. Nowhere did he say that Marxism achieved the highest stage of development that it would ever reach with Lenin's death. I'm also curious as to where he said "Ok guys, we can just start burning our copies of Kapital now since Lenin was such a genius that we don't need them". We can see that this was not the case at all, and that Soviet scholars even into the Gorbachev era had a decent working knowledge of Marx's texts(even if one could argue, as I do, that they didn't really understand them).

I'm not a fan of Stalin, but I also don't see much of a need to make fabrications about what he did and didn't say. There are plenty of actual legitimate statements and actions of his that can be condemned and criticized as it is.

Ironically, Bordiga himself would probably have agreed that in 1924, Leninism represented the highest qualitative stage that Marxism had yet been achieved.

[Ismail]

As a note, conflating revisionism with "pragmatism" doesn't really work. Lenin sought trade with the West, as did Stalin and to a lesser extent Hoxha, since obviously neither the USSR or Albania could exist without any trade whatsoever with the outside world. This did not herald any "innovations" in the theoretical field.

As Hoxha once noted, "The capitalists and the revisionists measure isolation with trade. We have traded and continue to trade with all countries, with the exception of the United States of America, the Soviet Union, Israel, and some other states ruled by fascists and racists. But trade is of mutual advantage. The capitalists need our goods, just as we need some of theirs." (Report Submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, 1977, p. 198.)

Compare with this:

"For Marxist-Leninists and for all realistic men it is clear that, under conditions of the division of the world into two opposing systems, there can be no question of any economic, much less political, integration, because it is impossible to imagine one world in which socialism and capitalism are fused together. The world can only be one on a single social basis, either on the basis of capitalism or on that of socialism. There is not and there cannot be any intermediate way. The Yugoslav revisionists deem it possible to create a single world, integrated even today, because in their view the existence of two opposing systems, the socialist and the capitalist, is not something objective, conditioned by the laws of development of human society in the present epoch, but an artificial division into military-political blocs which, as the Program of the LCY states, 'has resulted in the economic division of the world' and 'hinders the process of world integration and the social progress of mankind.'

But one knows that formerly the world was 'one.' There was one world system, that of capitalism. This 'unity' has been breached as a result of the triumph of the socialist revolution in Russia and in a good many other countries and by the creation of the world socialist system....

According to N. Khrushchev's group, peaceful coexistence is 'the general line of foreign policy of the socialist countries'; it is 'the only correct road for solving all the current vital problems of human society.' Thus, according to him, all other tasks and all other problems must be subordinated to peaceful coexistence, namely, world revolution and the national liberation struggle, while the peoples must remain with their arms folded and wait for their national and social liberation through the implementation of the policy of peaceful coexistence....

The anti-Marxist and revisionist conception of N. Khrushchev and his group regarding peaceful coexistence, such as the line of rapprochement with imperialism and of cessation of the struggle against it, is also closely bound to their opportunist preaching on the roads of transition to socialism... [alleging] that the possibility of the peaceful path grows from day to day, and, what is worse, it presents the peaceful path as a purely parliamentary one, as simply the winning of a majority in a bourgeois parliament, and totally neglects the fundamental teaching of Marxism-Leninism on the need to smash the bourgeois state machine and to replace it by organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

N. Khrushchev's propagandists recently have gone so far as to present the state monopoly capitalism of capitalist countries as one of the principal factors in the overthrow of the monopolist bourgeoisie and as almost the first step toward socialism. Thus... the director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the USSR Academy of Sciences, A. Arzumanyan, said inter alia: 'At present, in the third state of the general crisis of capitalism, nationalization cannot be regarded as an ordinary reform. It is bound up with the revolutionary struggle for the liquidation of monopolies, for the overthrow of the power of the financial oligarchy. Through the correct policy of the working class, relying on an upsurge in the struggle of the broad popular masses, it may become a radical means of abolishing the domination of the monopolist bourgeoisie. The nationalization of industry and of the banks is now becoming the slogan of the antimonopolist coalition.' What is the difference between this concept and the well-known, fundamentally opportunist point of view in the Program of the LCY that 'specific forms of capitalist state relations can be the first step toward socialism,' that 'the ever growing impact of state-capitalist tendencies in the capitalist world is the most outstanding proof that mankind is entering every more deeply, in an uncontrollabe manner and in the most varied ways, into the epoch of socialism'? ....

We cannot fail to recall in this connection that in his time V.I. Lenin harshly criticized the bourgeois reformist notion that state monopoly capitalism is a non-capitalist order, a step toward socialism, which is necessary to the opportunist and reformist denial of the inevitability of the socialist revolution and their embellishing of capitalism. V.I. Lenin emphatically stressed that 'steps toward greater monopolism and state control of production are inevitably followed by an increase in the exploitation of the working masses, the intensification of oppression, difficulty in resisting exploiters, and the strengthening of reaction and military despotism. Parallel with this, they result in an extraordinary increase in the profits of the big capitalists to the detriment of all other strata of the population.'"
("Modern Revisionists to the Aid of the Basic Strategy of American Imperialism," Zëri i Popullit, September 19 and 20, 1962. Quoted in William E. Griffith. Albania and the Sino-Soviet Rift. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press. 1963. pp. 376-379.)

Yugoslav and Soviet revisionist stands were not "pragmatic," they were a negation of revolutionary stands.