Revisionism
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.[1] Examples of past and present revisionist trends include Kautskyism, Browderism, Trotskyism, left-communism, Khrushchevism, 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 Revisionists commonly seek to make core Marxist theory superfluous by erroneously claiming it is obsolete relative to modern conditions, or they may make deviations under the guise of applying theory to local circumstances (e.g. Socialism with Chinese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.
Theory
Revisionism represents the infiltration of the vanguard party and socialist movement by bourgeois and petite-bourgeois elements who propagate their class interests and seek to undermine the proletarian, revolutionary line of the movement with an opportunist line which accommodates the interests of the bourgeoisie. Revisionist deviations in the party take on many forms, all of which representations of bourgeois ideology, including nationalism, chauvinism, and class collaboration. Revisionism is a movement internal to Marxism, originating from within the movement, and thus revisionists present their deviations as "developments" of Marxism to new conditions which were not considered by Marxist theorists. The ultimate aim of revisionism is to corrupt and divide the proletarian movement with bourgeois ideology, making it impotent and therefore ineffective as a force against capitalism.
"Revisionism, which is capitalism in a new form, the enemy of the unity of peoples, the inciter of reactionary nationalism, of the drive towards and establishment of the most ferocious fascist dictatorship which does not permit even the slightest sign of formal bourgeois democracy. Revisionism is the idea and action which leads the turning of a country from socialism back to capitalism, the turning of a communist party into a fascist party, it is the inspirer of ideological chaos, confusion, corruption, repression, arbitrarily, instability and putting the homeland up for auction." – Enver Hoxha, The Khrushchevites
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
Revisionists have often undermined and rejected and nature of class struggle as an inherent aspect of the capitalist system and lower stage of socialism,[a] 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 revisionists have often employed nationalism to support these stances in favor of class collaboration.[2]
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.[3]
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.[2] 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" which denied the leading role of the proletariat and 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.
Anti-Stalinism
Anti-Stalinism is one of the most prominent forms of revisionism. Most revisionists disavow Stalin and his achievements. In fact, modern revisionism, beginning with Khrushchev, can trace its origins to the death of Stalin. As denial of Stalin's achievements is, by default, denial of Marxism–Leninism, it is also by default, revisionism.
Manifestations
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
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. Revisionism in China gained power in 1976 following the death of Mao Zedong and rise of the social-fascist clique of Deng Xiaoping.
See also
Further reading
- Marxism and Revisionism (1908) by Vladimir Lenin
- Reject the Revisionist Theses of the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Anti-Marxist Stand of Khrushchev's Group! Uphold Marxism–Leninism! (1960) by Enver Hoxha
- Revisionism: An Anti-Working Class Tendency (2025) by the Communist Labor Organization
References
- ↑ Vladimir Lenin (1908). Marxism and Revisionism. From the Marxists Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 William Z. Foster et al. (1946). Marxism–Leninism vs. Revisionism. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive.
- ↑ Nikita Khrushchev (1961). On Peaceful Co-Existence: A Collection. Moscow Foreign Languages Publishing House. Available on the Internet Archive.