Revisionism
Revisionism, or right-opportunism, 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. Communist 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 Revisionists commonly seek to make core Marxist theory superfluous by erroneously claiming it is obsolete relative to modern conditions, or they may make deviations under the guise of applying theory to local circumstances (e.g. Socialism with Chinese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.
Development
Vladimir Lenin first defined Revisionism saying that Revisionism is a modification of a correct concept in Marxism, or revision, revisionism.[2] Mao later expanded on the concept in the years when the Soviet Revisionists came to power stating the following:
Revisionism, or Right opportunism, is a bourgeois trend of thought that is even more dangerous than dogmatism. The revisionists, the Right opportunists, pay lip-service to Marxism; they too attack ‘dogmatism’. But what they are really attacking is the quintessence of Marxism. They oppose or distort materialism and dialectics, oppose or try to weaken the people’s democratic dictatorship and the leading role of the Communist Party, and oppose or try to weaken socialist transformation and socialist construction. After the basic victory of the socialist revolution in our country, there are still a number of people who vainly hope to restore the capitalist system and fight the working class on every front, including the ideological one. And their right-hand men in this struggle are the revisionists. –Mao, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Mao also said that the rise of revisionism in power would inevitably lead to a rise of the Bourgeoisie,[3] a hypothesis proven correct by the Soviet Union's turn to revisionism, and subsequently, Capitalism and Social-imperialism. Through these observations Mao also came to the conclusion that Class Struggle will continue under Socialism due to internal threats of Revisionism and the Bourgeoisie.
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.[4]
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.[5]
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.[4] 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.
Examples
Khrushchev A well known Soviet revisionist was denounced by Mao Zedong for denouncing Comrade Stalin and revising key parts of Marxism. At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev's clique fully developed their Revisionism by discarding multiple Marxist positions and instead opted for, "peaceful coexistence", and "peaceful transition", and also announcing an absurd position that the Soviet Union was a "state of the whole people" and the "party of the entire people". And stating that class struggle no longer existed in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev also was responsible for cultivating the Cuban state to become a sugar colony and helping to make the Soviet Union a social-imperialist power.[6][7]
Lin Biao, a well-known Chinese revisionist tried to coup Mao however failed and tried to flee to the Soviet Union by plane which crashed. Lin Biao's revisionism was made clear when instead of saying war is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions, he introduced his own Confucianist view of war explaining it with "Human nature" negating the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory of war. Chairman Mao in his work, "On Protracted War" said that there are two types of wars, Just and Unjust wars:
History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Communists oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Communists not oppose just wars, we actively participate in them. —Mao, On Protracted War
Lin Biao rejected this formulation instead opting for supporting the slogan of, "He who relies on virtue will thrive and he who relies on force will perish" a Confucianist and Menciusist idea, attempting to vilify the revolutionary violence of the revolutionary class. And going against the idea that revolutionary violence is needed for revolutionary change. Lin Biao and his followers put on a mask and started denouncing all wars citing the horrors of war and maligned all wars as ”disasters” of mankind, regardless of their nature. Of course they just used this as an excuse to denounce just wars and favoring unjust ones, hypocritically while Lin Biao denounced just wars for, "killing people indiscriminately" he planned to assassinate Mao and tried to launch a coup which failed.[8]
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.
- ↑ Lenin, Marxism and Revisionism
- ↑ Peking Review, No 17. April 24th, 1970
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 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.
- ↑ Mao, On Khrushchov’s Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World
- ↑ Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. Cuba: The Evaporation of a Myth
- ↑ Peking Review, Uphold the Marxist View of War, Criticize Lin Piao’s Revisionist View. No 8, February 21, 1975.