Revisionism

Image of Nikita Khrushchev, a major revisionist figure.

Revisionism refers to the introduction of bourgeois and anti-Marxist ideas into the revolutionary movement and corruption of its principles in favor of capitalist, chauvinist, reformist, and other opportunist ideas, often with the aim of liquidating working class organizations, parties, and socialist states. Examples of past and present revisionist trends include Kautskyism, Browderism, left-communism, Khrushchevism, Maoism, Hoxhaism, and Dengism. Marxist–Leninist opposition to revisionism is known as anti-revisionism.

Revisionism takes on many manifestations based upon the condition of the revolutionary movement. Revisionists commonly seek to make core Marxist theory superfluous by erroneously claiming it is obsolete relative to modern conditions, or they may make deviations under the guise of applying theory to local circumstances (e.g. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics or Juche). Regardless of what form revisionism takes, it always serves the interests of the bourgeoisie and is a tool on their side against the proletariat in class struggle.

Characteristics

"The dialectics of history were such that the theoretical victory of Marxism compelled its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists." – Vladimir Lenin, The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx

Rejection of class struggle

See also: Class collaboration

Revisionists have often undermined and rejected and nature of class struggle as an inherent aspect of the capitalist system and lower stage of socialism, or suggest that the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat can be ultimately resolved with a class truce, peace, and collaboration instead of expropriation of the capitalists. The revisionist have often employed nationalism to support these stances in favor of class collaboration. For instance, Chinese revisionist Mao Zedong stated:

“The contradiction between the national bourgeoisie and the working class is one between exploiter and exploited, and is by nature antagonistic. But in the concrete conditions of China, this antagonistic contradiction between the two classes, if properly handled, can be transformed into a non-antagonistic one and be resolved by peaceful methods. However, the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie will change into a contradiction between ourselves and the enemy if we do not handle it properly and do not follow the policy of uniting with, criticizing and educating the national bourgeoisie, or if the national bourgeoisie does not accept this policy of ours.” [Emphasis added]

Other instances of this include Nikita Khrushchev's concepts of "peaceful co-existence" and the "peaceful transition to socialism," which omitted the inherent antagonisms between socialist and imperialist states and propagated reformist, counter-revolutionary stances.

Denial of the role of the proletariat and vanguard party

Revisionists have denied the leading role of the proletariat in the struggle for socialism and the need for a working class vanguard party and dictatorship of the proletariat. They have sought to strip from the proletariat its political and organizational independence and to make it subservient to capitalist interests. An example of this would include Earl Browder's liquidation of the Communist Party of the United States and its replacement with the Communist Political Association in 1944. On a wider basis, this also includes Nikita Khrushchev's dissolution of the Soviet proletarian dictatorship and its replacement by the so-called "socialist state of the whole people" as well as Mao Zedong's concept of "new democracy," both of which denied the role of leadership to the proletariat and instead empowered the bourgeoisie.

Deviations from socialist construction

Many revisionists ideologues and states such as the revisionist Soviet Union and People's Republic of China have concocted various justifications for their restoration of capitalism and deviation from the construction of socialism. One of which is the "theory of the productive forces," which asserts that the primary factor for the transition to socialism from capitalism is the degree of the development of the productive forces, with little reference to class struggle or social revolution. In China, such train of thought was used to justify the so-called "reform and opening-up." Similar events took place in other revisionist countries, such as Đổi Mới reforms in Vietnam and the New Economic Mechanism in Laos.

Manifestations

See also: Category:Revisionism

Soviet revisionism

Main article: Soviet revisionism

Soviet revisionism was a movement spawned with the revived Soviet bourgeoisie to restore capitalism in the USSR. The turning of the USSR into a revisionist state was put in place upon the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. At that point, Nikita Khrushchev took power and started tearing away at the foundations of Marxism–Leninism along with liquidating the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism.

Chinese revisionism

Main article: Chinese revisionism

Chinese revisionism encompasses the bourgeois deviations of the revisionist Communist Party of China and other movements within the People's Republic of China and its predecessor states. Revisionists in China rose to power during the bourgeois democratic revolution led by Mao Zedong and the formation of modern China in 1949. Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the Communist Party of China was taken over by an explicitly capitalist faction under Deng Xiaoping, and revisionist governance continues to this day under Xi Jinping. The main tendencies of Chinese revisionism include Mao Zedong Thought and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The deviations of Mao were adopted globally in the form of Maoism.

See also

• Opportunism
• Adventurism
• Social-imperialism

Further reading

• Marxism and Revisionism (1908) by Vladimir Lenin