Reformism

[spartan]

Is Reformism reactionary, or is it a case of heart in the right place but going about things the wrong way?

No one can doubt that Reformists have done some good for the working class, though I, and I am sure many of you, dont feel that they go far enough.

Hell most former Reformists are now proud card carrying members of Social Democratic parties who have embraced the free market, but I still feel that Reformism in the right hands can be a useful tool for the workers in times of relative prosperity and peace in a nation.

What do you think?

[mario_buda]

Reform is a means to make capitalism easier to swallow and therefore prolongs it. Reformists thus do a great service to capital and set back everything they supposedly stand for.

The longer we play by the rules, the longer the rules remain, etc.

[RNK]

Its neither, really. Well, maybe it's the second case... we'll all agree that through reformism, there is very little that can be done to overthrow capitalism and attain communism; however, the socialist transitional period will require reformism in one degree or another.

[Faux Real]

Karl Kautsky. Look him up.

If workers were ever to gain a stronghold in a bourgeoisie state there would be no peace, and sure as hell not prosperity, because I highly doubt a large worker's party would emerge without a lengthy recession and/or depression.

[Coggeh]

Is Reformism reactionary, or is it a case of heart in the right place but going about things the wrong way?

No one can doubt that Reformists have done some good for the working class, though I, and I am sure many of you, dont feel that they go far enough.

Hell most former Reformists are now proud card carrying members of Social Democratic parties who have embraced the free market, but I still feel that Reformism in the right hands can be a useful tool for the workers in times of relative prosperity and peace in a nation.

What do you think?
I disagree , but i think we should fight for any reform we can get within capitalism but that should not be our end goal . Reformism just turns you into a basic capitalist after a certain time , most reformists just focus on elections, but they then turn their eyes on just winning elections and thus there polices become less and less radical until their one and the same with other right wing parties . I.E new labour .

[Taboo Tongue]

Depends where the reformism originates. If a person comes to conclusion that reformism is the best way after seeing radical [direct action] change then it is reactionary; as it is responding to progressive change. If it comes from seeing the deplorable conditions in which workers work, live, are educated, etc. then it is not reactionary; as it is not reacting to progressive change, but is in fact that change..

[Red_or_Dead]

No one can doubt that Reformists have done some good for the working class, though I, and I am sure many of you, dont feel that they go far enough.


I think that reformism has benefited the working class on a very short-term basis. Like mario_buda said:


The longer we play by the rules, the longer the rules remain, etc.

And I think we all agree that the current rules are not good for the working class. What reformism did is that it just changed them a little bit to make them more tolerable for the working class. Looking at it that way, I would go as far as condeming reformism as a tool of the bourgeoisie, since all it does is just to make things just so good, as to prevent people from rising up. Reformism is counter-revolutionary, and as such deserves to be condemed, just like any bourgeoisie idea.

Then there is the idea that communism can achieved by reformism, which is completely wrong. The whole system of bourgeois democracy is made in such a way as to prevent any revolutionary change of the system.

[BIG BROTHER]

I think reforms are good, for short-term solutions, like lets say raising the minimun wage, issues like that, in that way they can benefit the working class, but like coggy said that shouldn't be our final goal.

[Niccolò Rossi]

To quote Marx from the Manifesto:
In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

This is of course a view held by each and every Communist, but it seems not to be applied at all times.

If it is in the interests of the Proletariat to fight for higher wages, more rights and other reformist measures within the capitalist system it should be done.

No Communist should hold the view that reforms should be rejected. Reformism most certainly help in the short term despite our final goal of socialist revolution, and should be perused where ever possible.

To the comment made by "mario_buda", one can definitely see this point of view but it is not constructive. How can the communist movement hope to gain support unless it stands for the interests of the proletariat, that which benefits the proletariat as whole. The communists can not stand against the interests of the whole proletariat, we are the proletariat and must further the interests of the workers everywhere and at every time, whether that means short-term reformism or not!

[Black Cross]

It's conservative socialism and, as other's stated, it prolongs capitalism by making the proletariat docile and complacent. The more we reform rather than rebel, the easier it will be for the government to keep us in line.

[spartan]

The more we reform rather than rebel, the easier it will be for the government to keep us in line.

Yes but is it not our duty as Communists to fight for workers rights whenever they are trampled on?

How are we to build a relationship with our fellow workers if we just say "Let them suffer and they will embrace Communism as a liberating force".

This isnt always the case as the workers will see that we Communists arent doing anything to help them and will thus think "Well Communism obviously isnt the liberating force we thought it was then seeing how they wont even help those that they aim to liberate".

The fact is in times of economic hardship right wing Capitalists have often enjoyed the mass support of the workers (Mussolini, Hitler, Reagan and Thatcher to name a few) whilst we have lost that support which was, at times, in a crucial period of histroy which could have turned Capitalism on its head!

I am sure some of you will respond by saying "Starting a revolution and getting to Communism will give the workers all the rights they need" but the chances of a mass revolution in the first world are slim to say the least in our current times (At least in the first world).

I am in no way a Reformist, but i can see that we revolutionary Communists are a minority in first world politics with little influence on the majority of people, except maybe in political history, whilst self described Reformist Social Democratic politicians are in and out of power every decade and enjoy mass support!

Perhaps a bit of Trotskyist Entryism is in order?:D

[Die Neue Zeit]

Karl Kautsky. Look him up.

If workers were ever to gain a stronghold in a bourgeoisie state there would be no peace, and sure as hell not prosperity, because I highly doubt a large worker's party would emerge without a lengthy recession and/or depression.

Wrong guy (Bernstein's the guy comrades should look up (http://www.revleft.com/vb/real-revisionist-kautsky-t71380/index.html)) :glare:


No Communist should hold the view that reforms should be rejected. Reformism most certainly help in the short term despite our final goal of socialist revolution, and should be perused where ever possible.

There are two words that describe the notion that any sort of reform should be rejected: reductionist and sectarian.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/minimum-and-maximum-t71845/index.html

There are minimum demands that should be pursued first within the system. Then, there are reformist demands that could be achieved within a bourgeois system under pressure, but most aren't because of resistance by the bourgeoisie. Like RNK above said, these demands have to be fulfilled one way or another after the revolution.

Then, above all, there are revolutionary demands (for some reason I can only think of the demand for proletocracy as being a revolutionary demand) - those that CANNOT be achieved even within a bourgeois system under pressure.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Sometimes I feel that those Communists and anarchists who push for reform and/or social democracy are somewhat akin to those in the US who complain that third party candidates never get any attention or votes, and then proceed to vote for one of the two major parties.

[Random Precision]

There was one time in 1912 the tsarist Duma (which the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had a handful each of deputies in) passed two insurance laws for workers regarding industrial accidents and injuries. The purpose the Tsarists and Kadets who supported this law had was to defuse the rising revolutionary fervor of the masses by granting them some concessions. The actual laws passed were a small step forward, but still quite unsatisfactory: no workers in home industry, enterprises with less than twenty people, agricultural workers, construction workers, workers in the Siberian and Central Asian provinces, invalids, the old and unemployed were disqualified. Only about 20% of industrial workers qualified for the law!

Now it may seem at this juncture that the Bolsheviks would have been right to spit on the piecemeal concessions by the feudal state. But in fact, they supported the law's passage, and once it was enacted, made sure to explain the exact terms of the legislation to the workers so they could extract the most benefit from it by putting daily articles in Pravda on the subject and calling meetings on it at which all workers could attend. They also took a lead role in gathering contributions for the workers' part of the insurance fund, and their deputies in the Duma agitated for a higher degree of worker control over the fund. The party itself agitated for extension of the law and even founded a journal called The Problems of Insurance, which Lenin himself frequently wrote for. Using these methods, the insurance issue, which the government had intended to use as a way to stabilize itself, was turned into a means for mobilizing the class-conscious proletariat against it! The Bolsheviks organized strikes and demonstrations on the issue, and during the imperialist war the insurance funds had 2 million worker members, among whom the influence of the Bolsheviks was immense.

I think that the Bolsheviks' approach to the insurance issue sets a model for how revolutionaries should deal with reforms. As Lenin said:


... any movement of the proletariat, however small, however modest he may be at the start, however slight its occasion, inevitably threatens to outgrow its immediate aims and to develop into a force irreconcilable to the entire old order and destructive of it. The movement of the proletariat, by reason of the essential peculiarities of the position of this class under capitalism, has a marked tendency to develop into a desperate, all-out struggle, a struggle for complete victory over all the dark forces of exploitation and oppression.

Revolutionaries must remember how important reforms are, especially in the current period of reaction. Of course, we must recognize, and tell the workers, as the Bolsheviks did, that reforms must not be pursued for their own sake as they are no fundamental change for the lot of workers. This fundamental change can only come through revolution, and the workers must understand and appreciate this.