Reform to the revolution?
Today I was at the Left Student Union, as per usual, and listened to a talk about Venezuela. While the discussion was at times erratic, one thing caught my eye. What makes someone, or something (a Party, a state, a movement) revolutionary or reformist? I once met a Syndicalist who claimed that SUF was reformist, because most of their actions consisted in defending or advancing the working class movement through reforms (an odd remark for someone knowing their rhetoric and extraparliamentary methods). While this might be true, it is an odd way in which to state the matter. Aren't reforms something bound to the parliaments and the trade unions?
To go further; what makes someone a revolutionary or a reformist? Are these categories at all useful anymore? Is Venezuela and Hugo Chavez reformist? Many Communist parties are as reformist as the Social Democratic parties that can still, in some way, be called socialist. Things get even more difficult when you consider a subjective factor and an objective one: was Lenin a reformist until the moment when the Bolshevik Party stormed the Winter Palace? Was he a reformist until he illegally returned to Russia from the exile? Was Stalin a revolutionary until he became a bureaucratic-counterrevolutionary? Was he a latent counterrevolutionary? Were the radical Social Democrats in Sweden revolutionaries through revolutionary reforms, or were the reforms of the Cultural Revolution, well, revolutionary?
In short: are these terms so hopelessly bungled that they are useless? Well, yes. And no. There is a subjective factor that is often forgotten. To put it in Lenin's words (albeit paraphrased): sometimes the entire state of the labour movement, for decades to come, rests on a single sentence in a party program.
The wish to overthrow the existing order must be partly made through reforms, until a radical break at least. To call yourself a revolutionary is pointless in itself, but not pointless in context. When the Communist Parties split the international labour movement with the reformist Social Democrats it had a distinctive meaning: much in the same manner that other splits, battles, etc. had in other times. What seems from the outside petty squabbling over trivialities can hide immense conflicts, only articulated through certain gestures. This is as much true of movements and Parties as it is over intrapersonal conflicts: a man leaving his socks on the floor day after day despite appeals from his wife can make no sense of her infuriated protests, but to her it probably contains a far greater meaning in a gender role conflict (for example).
This is, of course, not to say that there is no way in which we cannot step back and observe certain specifics in a more sober manner. Often, it is precisely what we need. However, the explosive potential in words, actions and gestures in a given situation (context) should never be underestimated.
To summarize this in some way, I would like to make the point that I believe there to be genuinely revolutionary reforms. These are characterised by a shift in hegemony and power: such as what is happening in many parts of Venezuela. Reformists often pride themselves on practical work for the bettering of ordinary people's everyday situation. This is something to learn from, but above all, to also remember that revolutionary action must focus on the ultimate break from capitalist society (as much an action of subjective realization of power: the knowledge for-itself that the working class occupies a specific place in the social totality, and that it must/is breaking it's bonds and becoming free through the overthrow of the burgeoise). A last, and most important, component in revolutionary reforms (on a larger scale with many components) must be the transferral of power to the working class, a movement from below upwards. The debate over if socialism can be given through reforms is a huge one, but even if it can, it must completely involve the very people it seeks to represent.
As a last point to make is simply this: in the long, bloody history of the modern class struggle there have been many, many mistakes. Many have been horrific, some unforgiveable. But to believe that the world can be absolved through no faults, no mistakes and no errors by the millions (billions!) hurled into the class struggle, in a melee obscured by ideology and propaganda, assaulted violently by lackeys of the upper classes and hung out in imperialist press is a grave, grave mistake. There are no perfect revolutions, no Party that offers a program magnificiently balanced and no leaders without blemishes. To criticise your neighbour for not building a fence right and not giving a helping hand is arrogant: to watch your own apartment bloc burn to the ground and complain over the way the fire is fought is dazzlingly stupid. Our liberation must be our own.
To go further; what makes someone a revolutionary or a reformist? Are these categories at all useful anymore? Is Venezuela and Hugo Chavez reformist? Many Communist parties are as reformist as the Social Democratic parties that can still, in some way, be called socialist. Things get even more difficult when you consider a subjective factor and an objective one: was Lenin a reformist until the moment when the Bolshevik Party stormed the Winter Palace? Was he a reformist until he illegally returned to Russia from the exile? Was Stalin a revolutionary until he became a bureaucratic-counterrevolutionary? Was he a latent counterrevolutionary? Were the radical Social Democrats in Sweden revolutionaries through revolutionary reforms, or were the reforms of the Cultural Revolution, well, revolutionary?
In short: are these terms so hopelessly bungled that they are useless? Well, yes. And no. There is a subjective factor that is often forgotten. To put it in Lenin's words (albeit paraphrased): sometimes the entire state of the labour movement, for decades to come, rests on a single sentence in a party program.
The wish to overthrow the existing order must be partly made through reforms, until a radical break at least. To call yourself a revolutionary is pointless in itself, but not pointless in context. When the Communist Parties split the international labour movement with the reformist Social Democrats it had a distinctive meaning: much in the same manner that other splits, battles, etc. had in other times. What seems from the outside petty squabbling over trivialities can hide immense conflicts, only articulated through certain gestures. This is as much true of movements and Parties as it is over intrapersonal conflicts: a man leaving his socks on the floor day after day despite appeals from his wife can make no sense of her infuriated protests, but to her it probably contains a far greater meaning in a gender role conflict (for example).
This is, of course, not to say that there is no way in which we cannot step back and observe certain specifics in a more sober manner. Often, it is precisely what we need. However, the explosive potential in words, actions and gestures in a given situation (context) should never be underestimated.
To summarize this in some way, I would like to make the point that I believe there to be genuinely revolutionary reforms. These are characterised by a shift in hegemony and power: such as what is happening in many parts of Venezuela. Reformists often pride themselves on practical work for the bettering of ordinary people's everyday situation. This is something to learn from, but above all, to also remember that revolutionary action must focus on the ultimate break from capitalist society (as much an action of subjective realization of power: the knowledge for-itself that the working class occupies a specific place in the social totality, and that it must/is breaking it's bonds and becoming free through the overthrow of the burgeoise). A last, and most important, component in revolutionary reforms (on a larger scale with many components) must be the transferral of power to the working class, a movement from below upwards. The debate over if socialism can be given through reforms is a huge one, but even if it can, it must completely involve the very people it seeks to represent.
As a last point to make is simply this: in the long, bloody history of the modern class struggle there have been many, many mistakes. Many have been horrific, some unforgiveable. But to believe that the world can be absolved through no faults, no mistakes and no errors by the millions (billions!) hurled into the class struggle, in a melee obscured by ideology and propaganda, assaulted violently by lackeys of the upper classes and hung out in imperialist press is a grave, grave mistake. There are no perfect revolutions, no Party that offers a program magnificiently balanced and no leaders without blemishes. To criticise your neighbour for not building a fence right and not giving a helping hand is arrogant: to watch your own apartment bloc burn to the ground and complain over the way the fire is fought is dazzlingly stupid. Our liberation must be our own.
Labels: reformism, revolution, socialism, Venezuela
posted by Björn at 12:42 AM
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