Have we got Marxism all wrong?

[spartan]

I was led to thinking this after recently reading up on Marxism.

What caught my eye was when, just before his death in 1883, Marx wrote a letter to the French Workers' Party leader Jules Guesde and his own son-in-law Paul Lafargue, where he accused them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggles.

This exchange was the source of Marx's famous remark, reported by Friedrich Engels: "What is certain is that [if they are Marxists, then] I myself am not a Marxist" often wrongly translated to "If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist".

Anyway what caught my eye especially was the reformist remark (which I have highlighted) which really intrigued me (as I have never heard it before).

What did Marx mean by this exactly?

In closing the American Marx scholar Hal Draper once remarked about Marx that "there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike."

I am not advocating reformism or anything (just thought that I would point that out before someone started to cry foul), I just found this and thought that it was intresting considering how reformism is looked down upon by most Marxists here (with alot even disowning it completely instead of using it to win short-term gains and weaken capitalism in tandem with a revolutionary approach).

Oh yeah sorry for the overdramatic thread title, what I really meant was "Have we got certain aspects of Marxism all wrong?" (like in how we approach solving the day to day struggles of the working class).

[redSHARP]

interesting. i always thought most marxist that i know, always chanted revolution but had no idea about why, how, and what after

[JimmyJazz]

Foul!! Oh, damn.

Seriously though, how do reforms "weaken capitalism"? I tend to agree with FDR that his New Deal saved capitalism in America.

[spartan]

Seriously though, how do reforms "weaken capitalism"? I tend to agree with FDR that his New Deal saved capitalism in America.

On it's own yes Reformism does save capitalism as it pacifys the workers into accepting it, becoming apathetic and eventually abandoning socialism (which leads to the capitalists eventually abandoning the reforms brought in by the reformists, and bring in privatisation and free market policies, think Thatcher and New Labour, which is what makes reformism on it's own completely redundant in the fight against capitalism).

Reformism in tandem with a revolutionary approach however, can be used tactically to weaken certain aspects of capitalism in a time of crises (the capitalists will agree to demands which further weaken their own position in the hope that it will pacify the workers, but if the workers are smart they will just use this to further strengthen their own position and still push for revolution to smash the system).

[JimmyJazz]

If you're talking about political reforms, yes perhaps. I usually think of economic concessions when I hear the term "reformism".

[spartan]

If you're talking about political reforms, yes perhaps. I usually think of economic concessions when I hear the term "reformism".
I suppose what I mean is if using reformism in certain situations is bad then what the hell was Marx on about when he criticised Guesde and Lafargue for "denying the value of reformist struggles"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Spartan, you may be interested in these threads (and perhaps even posting there):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/program-new-type-t83818/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/non-reformist-reforms-t86845/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/32-hour-workweek-t88097/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/worker-buyouts-t88629/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/discussion-imperialism-world-t87730/index.html?p=1231256


Yet, the idea that minimum demands were the same demands as the demands of today's bourgeois Labour parties made me also denounce the minimum-program... until I saw that Marx', Engels' and Lenin's minimum-demands were entirely different. They were more radical than the demands of social-chauvinists and "progressive" liberals. Of course I support both transitional demands and the "maximum-program". It's not that I'm a simple reformist or something like that.

Some reforms should be promoted, others merely supported, and still others dropped altogether.

[Philosophical Materialist]

Marx did consider reformist struggles worthwhile. He believed that the British Chartists' struggle for manhood suffrage within Britain's parliamentary system to be a fruitful cause. He even thought that if British working class men had the vote, they would be a short step away from enacting socialism. But he did not anticipate the strength of the bourgeoisie to split the working class movement through its regime of knowledge, its media, its security-military apparatus, its appeal to Imperial sentiment, appeals to nationalism and religion. These things helped to negate the numerical superiority of the working class as a means to take power.

Lenin too also believed that reformist struggle was worthwhile, with the Bolsheviks using parliamentarianism alongside their revolutionary activities. In 1920, Lenin called on the newly-formed CPGB to work within the social imperialist Labour Party since he thought that reformist struggle was a worthwhile tactic alongside extra-parliamentary revolutionary activities.

I feel as revolutionaries we should not reject any reformist struggle out of hand, but just be very wary of their limitations, and see them as a means to a revolutionary end and not a replacement for revolutionary practice.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The idea is that workers will not change over-night from passive stooges to well-drilled revolutionaries. Fighting for reforms in a system that cannot really afford to deliver them is a way of 1) training workers and revolutionaries alike, 2) showing that revolutionaries are the best fighters and have the best ideas, 3) exposing genuine reformists and their rehtoric, and 4) revealing the limitatiations in the system (among other things).

So, fighting for reforms is not for reforms' sake, but has other aims.

[Tower of Bebel]

According to MIA (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm) this is the context of Marx's claim:
Whereas Marx saw this as a practical means of agitation around demands that were achievable within the framework of capitalism, Guesde took a very different view: “Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical programme of struggle, but simply ... as bait with which to lure the workers from Radicalism.” The rejection of these reforms would, Guesde believed, “free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers ’89.” Accusing Guesde and Lafargue of “revolutionary phrase-mongering” and of denying the value of reformist struggles, Marx made his famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, “ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste” (“what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist”).


The idea is that workers will not change over-night from passive stooges to well-drilled revolutionaries. Fighting for reforms in a system that cannot really afford to deliver them is a way of 1) training workers and revolutionaries alike, 2) showing that revolutionaries are the best fighters and have the best ideas, 3) exposing genuine reformists and their rehtoric, and 4) revealing the limitatiations in the system (among other things).

So, fighting for reforms is not for reforms' sake, but has other aims.
That seems to be the transitional method. Why did Trotsky need to develop a Transitional Program when you discribe the Minimum Program as already transitional?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Rakunin:


That seems to be the transitional method. Why did Trotsky need to develop a Transitional Program when you discribe the Minimum Program as already transitional?

I neither mentioned nor meant a 'transitional method'. What on earth makes you think so?

[Tower of Bebel]

I neither mentioned nor meant a 'transitional method'. What on earth makes you think so?

I thought of the similarities between this quote:
Insofar as the old, partial, “minimal” demands of the masses clash with the destructive and degrading tendencies of decadent capitalism – and this occurs at each step – the Fourth International advances a system of transitional demands, the essence of which is contained in the fact that ever more openly and decisively they will be directed against the very bases of the bourgeois regime. The old “minimal program” is superseded by the transitional program, the task of which lies in systematic mobilization of the masses for the proletarian revolution.
... and your reply to spartan:
Fighting for reforms in a system that cannot really afford to deliver them is a way of 1) training workers and revolutionaries alike, 2) showing that revolutionaries are the best fighters and have the best ideas, 3) exposing genuine reformists and their rehtoric, and 4) revealing the limitatiations in the system (among other things).

So, fighting for reforms is not for reforms' sake, but has other aims.Anyway, whether or not there is a similarity between both quotes, the preface of The Transitional Program for the Belgian section of the Fourth Internationale was written by the Trotskyist Ernest Mandel who wrote the same thing as your reply. That's why I wrote you explained these minimum demands as if they were transitional demands.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thankyou for that R, but my comments are based on good old-fashioned common sense, not on anything Trotsky or Mandel said (even if they look similar).

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't really get what's so shocking here. Marxists are for reforms that the workers struggle for because achievement of these reforms show the workers the power that they have. I always took that to be obvious.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Yes, I called it common sense.

[black magick hustla]

its a shame marx disliked lafarge. lafarge was a great man.

[Wake Up]

Reformism in tandem with a revolutionary approach however, can be used tactically to weaken certain aspects of capitalism in a time of crises (the capitalists will agree to demands which further weaken their own position in the hope that it will pacify the workers, but if the workers are smart they will just use this to further strengthen their own position and still push for revolution to smash the system).


This is what I have been saying for ages now.

Either reformism or revolution on their own is not going to work. In a country were the bourgeois are weak then sure, but not in the west.

[Demogorgon]

There are a lot of people on this site who misunderstand marx certainly, but I try to optimistically put it down to simply being a quirk of this board and not a problem of Marxists in general. I have to say I do often wonder if many of the people here, particularly the ones who shout so strongly about revolution to the exclusion of all else really know what revolution is. Nor, I think, do they realise that the society revolution brings is the goal, not the act of revolution itself.

To me it is plain common sense that refusing to accept anything less than complete revolution to the point of actually opposing reforms when they come along (as some here seem to do) is even less likely to achieve Communism than writing off revolution as a viable method of change. Big change is generally preceded by small change anyway so pushing for small changes when the big changes aren't possible can very likely help open up the door for them. So yes, there is obviously value in reformist struggle, so long as it is seen as a means to an end and as a supplement to rather than a replacement of revolution.

To anybody who disagrees with me, I would simply ask if they want guaranteed rights to collective bargaining, rights for immigrants, gay rights, gender equality and so on, and if yes as they presumably do, if they don't want them until "the revolution". I doubt anybody would answer yes to that!

[black magick hustla]

To anybody who disagrees with me, I would simply ask if they want guaranteed rights to collective bargaining, rights for immigrants, gay rights, gender equality and so on, and if yes as they presumably do, if they don't want them until "the revolution". I doubt anybody would answer yes to that!

All this rights, atleast the ones that matter (For example, I don't give a shit if there is a proportional amount of black bosses or gay bosses) are won through class action. The simple fact that the american bourgeosie is too afraid of generalizing their terrorism against immigrants (for example, even the republican mccain has "lenient" proposals on immigration) are due to the muscle of the class.

However,if you mean by "little gains" putting the throats of workers in the line in order to fight for the private property of the progressive bourgeosie, I am afraid I disagree with you.

[redarmyfaction38]

All this rights, atleast the ones that matter (For example, I don't give a shit if there is a proportional amount of black bosses or gay bosses) are won through class action. The simple fact that the american bourgeosie is too afraid of generalizing their terrorism against immigrants (for example, even the republican mccain has "lenient" proposals on immigration) are due to the muscle of the class.

However,if you mean by "little gains" putting the throats of workers in the line in order to fight for the private property of the progressive bourgeosie, I am afraid I disagree with you.
i don't think that is what is being suggested at all.
the fact is the majority of workers regardless of colour, racial origin or religious belief have not drawn "revolutionary" conclusions in the face of capitalist "oppression" or the economic "downturn".
what they look for, locked in the predominant ideological and economic system is reform.
a recognition f their contribution to capitalist/ bourgeouise economic and political society and rewards for that contribution rather than blame for the recurrent economic and social crises.
the role of the revolutionary left is to translate those those "reformist" expectations into a "transitional programme", where individual demands might be met under the capitalist economic system but demonstrate the impossibility of carrying through all those demands without challenging the rule of capital.
it also means to draw the "unconscious" "class warriors" into the "conscious" class struggle.
not my best explanation, but, hey ho.

[el_chavista]

In their book "Communisme et question russe", Gilles Dauvé and François Martin wrote:

"...after thousands of years, thanks to the capitalism, the huge expansion of production brings another possibility: the end of exploitation."

"...it is not by accident or error that [Marx] supported the national German bourgeoisie or the labor union leaders or clearly reformist parties: he considered them as agents of the positive change, who finally will bring the communism."