What is a revisionist?

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

What is a revisionist?

Why do some marxists hate them? most of the time it is a maoist who uses the term in a derogatory way.

What do you have to "do" to be a revisionist? And what kind of ideas are revisionist ideas?

thanks

Edited for coherence.

[apathy maybe]

"Revisionist" in history is someone who revises history. Who goes back and has another look at the "official story" and changes it to fit new facts and/or opinions.

See also the Wikipedia article < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist > for some more info on other uses.

[loveme4whoiam]

History IS revision. People who are bracketted as "revisionist" are those who directly challenge the orthodox perspective of whatever. For example, the revisionist historians of the Cold War challenged the orthodox view that the US was a benevolent nation that sought to protect "democracy" wherever they saw it threatened by the evil, expansionist USSR.

Just because they are revisionist does not make them right, just as by the same token orthodox or post-revisionists are not right just because it is them saying it.

I wasn&#39;t aware of any antipathy from the side of Marxists towards revisionists (I may be editting this in an hour, I actually have a lecture on this subject coming up in 45 minutes), but I imagine its because they challenge the "official line" Marxists, or more appropriately Maoists, put out. But history IS revision, so they might as well hate the entire profession :D

[Lamanov]

Within the left spectrum: the expression "Revisionist" is a part of name-calling that red bureaucrats and their "CP" lackeys use when they insult each other, when one group of bureaucrats or "revolutionaries" thinks that it&#39;s more "orthodox" than the other group, and calls that other group "revisionist", and that other group replies by calling the first group "ultra-left", and so on and so on.

:D

[Whitten]

In a more relivent ideological sense, the term revisionist as you are using it, as would be used particuarly by Maoists, refers to the right wing reformists who seized control in the soviet union and then, later, China.

[More Fire for the People]

Revisionism is the "revision" of a particular aspect of Marxism in order to promote an oppurtunistic line. For instnace, the Second International changed the meaning of " But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes." from a revolutionary call to arms to a call for a protracted &#39;struggle&#39; for piecemeal reforms that would win proletarian political power.

[BreadBros]

As others have pointed out, "revisionism" just means revising the orthodox reading of history. Depending on the context it can mean different things to different people. If you are referring to the way Maoists tend to use it (i.e. "Smash the Soviet Revisionists&#33;") then what you are referring to is Soviet revisionism that led to the Sino-Soviet Split http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_Split). Basically "revisionism" here is referring to "de-Stalinization". Stalin and Mao supported each others endeavors in their countries, however when Stalin died and Krushchev denounced Stalin and his policies in his "Secret Speech" it marked a turning point for the USSR that led to greater use of markets, less authoritarianism etc. Mao denounced this as being a "modern revisionists" (referring to a pervious term used for those who focused on consumer instead of industrial goods and did not follow orthodox CP line) and as taking the USSR away from the path to socialism. Thus the term "revisionist" is usually used to denounce those who are seen as not adhering to true Marxist-Leninism and instead wavering into the mixed-economy State heavy economic policies that marked the USSR in the 60s and beyond. Here is a Wikipedia article that mentions several different ways Marxists have used the term before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionism

[Demogorgon]

In practice a Revisionist is anybody a Maoist or Stalinist doesn&#39;t like...

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 08:58 AM
In a more relivent ideological sense, the term revisionist as you are using it, as would be used particuarly by Maoists, refers to the right wing reformists who seized control in the soviet union and then, later, China.
Not necessarily. Some Maoists or "Marxist-Leninists" will tell you there is "left revisionism" and "right revisionism" which are somehow part of the same thing. Anyone who disagrees with them - from any direction - is a "revisionist."

Example: this thread. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=42415)

And literally every tendency claiming to be Marxist has been labelled "revisionist" by some other tendency or tendencies.

So as DJ-TC and Demogorgon have said, it&#39;s just name-calling. Similar to the use of "heretic" by the medieval Church.

***

If you&#39;re reading stuff from the early 20th century - "revisionist" did have an actual, specific meaning then. It referred to the openly reformist wing of social-democracy, represented by writers like Bernstein.