Social Reform or Revolution
Encyclopedia
Reform or Revolution is the title of a pamphlet
written by Rosa Luxemburg
in 1900. It was published to confront the revisionist ideology beginning to emerge in Europe shortly after the internal conflicts amongst Marxist
s at the Second International
.
Reform or Revolution has experienced an upswing in popularity lately due to conflicts amongst contemporary Marxists regarding this very same issue. While a detailed critique of the thinking of Eduard Bernstein
it includes a short and devastating critique of marginalism
and identifies credit
and the stock market
as things that will drive capitalism into crisis.
When Polish-born socialist Rosa Luxemburg moved to Germany
in 1898, it was the center of socialist thought and home to the largest socialist party in the world--the Social Democratic Party
(SPD). But within the SPD, a debate was raging.
On the one side were the revolutionaries--Marxists who believed that socialism can only be achieved through the self-emancipation of the working class
. On the other side were the reformists, or revisionists, who argued that capitalism
had reached a stage in which it was no longer necessary to call for revolution, but that enough reforms could be put into place--more democratic rights, more social welfare programs--that socialism would evolve over time.
The revisionists, led by leading German socialist Eduard Bernstein, were gaining ground. This wasn't a new debate for the socialist movement. Some early socialist figures like Ferdinand Lasalle argued that socialism would be achieved through parliamentary means.
In 1878, Germany's chancellor Otto von Bismarck
imposed anti-socialist laws
. As a result, thousands were arrested and hundreds exiled, political newspapers were closed, and all political activity except elections was made illegal. During this period, the SPD declared itself to be revolutionary and repudiated the parliamentary road to socialism.
The SPD's platform gave expression to the concerns of the urban working class in Germany, and its share of the vote grew from 312,000 in 1881 to more than 1.4 million in 1890. In 1890, the anti-socialist laws were lifted, and a wave of strikes and trade union
militancy followed.
Fearing that the strikes would "scare off" conservative members or that repression might return, SPD leaders renounced the more revolutionary aspects of their program. So at the 1891 Erfurt Congress, the party program enshrined Marxism--and the overthrow of capitalism--as the "official" thinking of the SPD, but argued for practical tasks appropriate for a time when revolution wasn't on the immediate agenda.
The party's campaign of opposition to the government won them a growing number of votes in elections. But a schism
was developing within the party about how far to carry out this opposition.
Between 1896-98, Bernstein wrote a series of articles on the "Problems of Socialism" and later a book. Luxemburg's response was published in full in the 1908 pamphlet Reform or Revolution.
If anyone suspected her of counterposing the two, Luxemburg sets the record straight in the first paragraph: "Can we oppose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, its final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not.
"The practical daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class struggle and working in the direction of the final goal--the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor. For Socialist Democracy, there is an indissoluble tie between social reforms and revolution. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its goal."
Actually, it was Bernstein who counterposed the two, arguing, "The final aim of socialism, whatever it may be, means nothing to me; it is the movement itself which is everything." Seeing around him a period of capitalist prosperity in which workers were winning greater reforms, Bernstein argued that capitalism had created new mechanisms--such as trade unions, and electoral and legal reforms--that would make an evolution of society toward socialism possible.
Luxemburg challenged Bernstein's arguments. She pointed out that Bernstein was little more than a utopian if he believed that socialism could be reformed into existence. Like the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier
's "scheme of changing, by means of a system of phalansteries, the water of all the seas into tasty lemonade," Bernstein proposed changing "the sea of capitalist bitterness into a sea of socialist sweetness, by progressively pouring into it bottles of social reformist lemonade," Luxemburg wrote.
Luxemburg's explanation of the role of trade unions, elections and struggles in winning reforms--and sowing the seeds of revolutionary change--remain relevant 100 years later. The importance of unions, she argued, is that they are the body by which workers come together and understand that they are part of a class. Through struggles for reforms, they realize their class power.
Not only do workers realize their ability to win reforms, but they also learn the limitations of reforms--and the need for the actual conquest of power. Luxemburg likened union struggles to the "labor of Sisyphus
"--the mythical figure who was condemned to push a stone up a hill over and over again. The same applies to reforms won through the ballot box.
By proposing that trade unions or electoral reforms are enough to achieve a kind of socialism, Bernstein and the revisionists missed the importance of struggle in achieving reforms. They saw unions as the means of suppressing the contradictions in capitalism between the workers and bosses.
Socialists, on the other hand, see unions as one means by which these contradictions can be pushed into the open and organized around. The truth is that struggles for reform, by their very nature, can launch an offensive against the attacks of the profit system, but not the profit system itself.
In the end, Luxemburg concluded, Bernstein wasn't simply arguing for a "more realistic" way to socialism, but had thrown out the prospect of socialism. "That is why people who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal," Luxemburg wrote.
"Our program becomes not the realization of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the wage labor system but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of suppression of capitalism itself."
Rather than diminish the importance of the struggle for reforms, Luxemburg argued that these struggles are central. "In a word," she wrote, "democracy is indispensable not because it renders superfluous the conquest of political power by the proletariat but because it renders this conquest of power both necessary and possible."
Today, in struggles that socialists are involved in, we meet people grappling with what kind of change is necessary. There are two potential stumbling blocks for socialists--one is to ignore the opportunities that exist; the other is to recognize them, but never try to take advantage of them.
The first danger discounts the value of reforms completely, abstaining from struggles to win limited changes that benefit working people. By setting themselves apart from issues that people are fighting for, socialists can relegate themselves to the sidelines of movements, remaining pure in their convictions, yet with little influence over anyone.
On the other hand, if socialists throw themselves into fights for reforms without thinking about what the next step in the struggle is--about the next argument that could persuade others from simply viewing the future as a succession of reforms--they run the risk of never convincing anyone of the need to get rid of capitalism. They risk coming to believe, like Bernstein, that the "movement is the only thing."
A key part of this--and a question that Luxemburg didn't arrive at until much later--is the role of a revolutionary socialist organization in convincing others that they should join the fight for a socialist world.
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
written by Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
in 1900. It was published to confront the revisionist ideology beginning to emerge in Europe shortly after the internal conflicts amongst Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
s at the Second International
Socialist International
The Socialist International is a worldwide organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...
.
Reform or Revolution has experienced an upswing in popularity lately due to conflicts amongst contemporary Marxists regarding this very same issue. While a detailed critique of the thinking of Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic theoretician and politician, a member of the SPD, and the founder of evolutionary socialism and revisionism.- Life :...
it includes a short and devastating critique of marginalism
Marginalism
Marginalism refers to the use of marginal concepts in economic theory. Marginalism is associated with arguments concerning changes in the quantity used of a good or service, as opposed to some notion of the over-all significance of that class of good or service, or of some total quantity...
and identifies credit
Credit (finance)
Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...
and the stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
as things that will drive capitalism into crisis.
When Polish-born socialist Rosa Luxemburg moved to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1898, it was the center of socialist thought and home to the largest socialist party in the world--the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
(SPD). But within the SPD, a debate was raging.
On the one side were the revolutionaries--Marxists who believed that socialism can only be achieved through the self-emancipation of the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
. On the other side were the reformists, or revisionists, who argued that capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
had reached a stage in which it was no longer necessary to call for revolution, but that enough reforms could be put into place--more democratic rights, more social welfare programs--that socialism would evolve over time.
The revisionists, led by leading German socialist Eduard Bernstein, were gaining ground. This wasn't a new debate for the socialist movement. Some early socialist figures like Ferdinand Lasalle argued that socialism would be achieved through parliamentary means.
In 1878, Germany's chancellor Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
imposed anti-socialist laws
Anti-Socialist Laws
The Anti-Socialist Laws or Socialist Laws were a series of acts, the first of which was passed on October 19, 1878 by the German Reichstag lasting till March 31, 1881, and extended 4 times...
. As a result, thousands were arrested and hundreds exiled, political newspapers were closed, and all political activity except elections was made illegal. During this period, the SPD declared itself to be revolutionary and repudiated the parliamentary road to socialism.
The SPD's platform gave expression to the concerns of the urban working class in Germany, and its share of the vote grew from 312,000 in 1881 to more than 1.4 million in 1890. In 1890, the anti-socialist laws were lifted, and a wave of strikes and trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
militancy followed.
Fearing that the strikes would "scare off" conservative members or that repression might return, SPD leaders renounced the more revolutionary aspects of their program. So at the 1891 Erfurt Congress, the party program enshrined Marxism--and the overthrow of capitalism--as the "official" thinking of the SPD, but argued for practical tasks appropriate for a time when revolution wasn't on the immediate agenda.
The party's campaign of opposition to the government won them a growing number of votes in elections. But a schism
Schism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...
was developing within the party about how far to carry out this opposition.
Between 1896-98, Bernstein wrote a series of articles on the "Problems of Socialism" and later a book. Luxemburg's response was published in full in the 1908 pamphlet Reform or Revolution.
If anyone suspected her of counterposing the two, Luxemburg sets the record straight in the first paragraph: "Can we oppose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, its final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not.
"The practical daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class struggle and working in the direction of the final goal--the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor. For Socialist Democracy, there is an indissoluble tie between social reforms and revolution. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its goal."
Actually, it was Bernstein who counterposed the two, arguing, "The final aim of socialism, whatever it may be, means nothing to me; it is the movement itself which is everything." Seeing around him a period of capitalist prosperity in which workers were winning greater reforms, Bernstein argued that capitalism had created new mechanisms--such as trade unions, and electoral and legal reforms--that would make an evolution of society toward socialism possible.
Luxemburg challenged Bernstein's arguments. She pointed out that Bernstein was little more than a utopian if he believed that socialism could be reformed into existence. Like the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
's "scheme of changing, by means of a system of phalansteries, the water of all the seas into tasty lemonade," Bernstein proposed changing "the sea of capitalist bitterness into a sea of socialist sweetness, by progressively pouring into it bottles of social reformist lemonade," Luxemburg wrote.
Luxemburg's explanation of the role of trade unions, elections and struggles in winning reforms--and sowing the seeds of revolutionary change--remain relevant 100 years later. The importance of unions, she argued, is that they are the body by which workers come together and understand that they are part of a class. Through struggles for reforms, they realize their class power.
Not only do workers realize their ability to win reforms, but they also learn the limitations of reforms--and the need for the actual conquest of power. Luxemburg likened union struggles to the "labor of Sisyphus
Sisyphus
In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity...
"--the mythical figure who was condemned to push a stone up a hill over and over again. The same applies to reforms won through the ballot box.
By proposing that trade unions or electoral reforms are enough to achieve a kind of socialism, Bernstein and the revisionists missed the importance of struggle in achieving reforms. They saw unions as the means of suppressing the contradictions in capitalism between the workers and bosses.
Socialists, on the other hand, see unions as one means by which these contradictions can be pushed into the open and organized around. The truth is that struggles for reform, by their very nature, can launch an offensive against the attacks of the profit system, but not the profit system itself.
In the end, Luxemburg concluded, Bernstein wasn't simply arguing for a "more realistic" way to socialism, but had thrown out the prospect of socialism. "That is why people who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal," Luxemburg wrote.
"Our program becomes not the realization of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the wage labor system but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of suppression of capitalism itself."
Rather than diminish the importance of the struggle for reforms, Luxemburg argued that these struggles are central. "In a word," she wrote, "democracy is indispensable not because it renders superfluous the conquest of political power by the proletariat but because it renders this conquest of power both necessary and possible."
Today, in struggles that socialists are involved in, we meet people grappling with what kind of change is necessary. There are two potential stumbling blocks for socialists--one is to ignore the opportunities that exist; the other is to recognize them, but never try to take advantage of them.
The first danger discounts the value of reforms completely, abstaining from struggles to win limited changes that benefit working people. By setting themselves apart from issues that people are fighting for, socialists can relegate themselves to the sidelines of movements, remaining pure in their convictions, yet with little influence over anyone.
On the other hand, if socialists throw themselves into fights for reforms without thinking about what the next step in the struggle is--about the next argument that could persuade others from simply viewing the future as a succession of reforms--they run the risk of never convincing anyone of the need to get rid of capitalism. They risk coming to believe, like Bernstein, that the "movement is the only thing."
A key part of this--and a question that Luxemburg didn't arrive at until much later--is the role of a revolutionary socialist organization in convincing others that they should join the fight for a socialist world.