Build the Social Revolution!

The debate of revolutionary or reformist approaches to social change have been argued through the ages. After several years of capitalist crisis and the imposition of anti-working class austerity, socialism still seems as far from the political agenda as it has ever been. We live at a time when resistance to capitalism and the struggle for a better world are almost totally detached from any striving for socialism. Instead we hear the calls for the British Left either to “reclaim Labour” or to build a new “Labour” party (e.g. Left Unity.) The capitalism versus socialism distinction is largely irrelevant for many political campaigners who see socialism as constituting neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for overcoming the specific injustice they happen to be concerned about. This is also true of many that call themselves “socialists” but who we can label as Left reformists. While they may still believe in a vague and distant vision of socialism, this vision is so vague and distant that it makes no material difference to their conception of political action and who are willing to make whatever compromises are deemed necessary for the realisation of immediate demands. "Reformism", in short, has replaced socialism; and paradoxically, the most militant protests of today are fought for the cause of "reformism" rather than of socialism. The fact that protests or struggles today are informed not by socialism but by "reformism" makes the contemporary period rather unique in the history of capitalism, since from the days of the "utopian socialists" right until late into the last century, capitalism had always been haunted by the spectre of socialism. The vanishing of this spectre therefore makes the contemporary period quite unprecedented. At present, the working class movement is clearly dominated by reformist forces, trade unions and “social-democratic” parties that are not oriented towards overcoming of capitalism. The prevailing narrative is that there is no alternative to "reformism" and a virtue is made out of necessity by pretending that "reformism" also works, that it is in fact the only thing that works. The danger of reformism is clear for all see, with any social democratic or labour party that has ever been in existence being dragged to the right by the flawed idea that by creating a catch-all broad front based on reforming capitalism, with socialism as some 'abstract' distant goal. Trying to create a mass movement of people united against austerity attacks is one that must be supported, however not providing a clear and detailed path towards a socialist society to that mass movement, and trying to convince them of socialism as a "long term aim" is a mistake. A party without a clear commitment towards socialism will be mired in long term reformism. We don't need to wait until sometime in the future, the time has arrived a long time ago.

It must be recognised that reformism is a cancer to the socialist movement, and its only cure is a principled objective towards a socialist society that is under the democratic control of the working class. Perhaps one of the most difficult things many have in understanding the Socialist Party’s almost unique political position is our attitude towards the practice of reformism and actual reforms, which we differentiate between. There is an essential difference between practical struggles for reforms and the ideology of reformism. Although reformism partly grew out of the struggle for reforms, there is a difference. To contrast socialism with "reformism" is not to run down the reforms in which the "reformists" are interested.  Socialists too are in most cases interested in struggling for those very "reforms". The point is not the "reforms" as such but the context and perspective within which the struggle for them is carried out.  And here the contrast between socialists and "reformists" could not be sharper. Surprisingly, Stalin before Stalinism expresses a broadly similar attitude to our own.

“Reformism regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more, and actually repudiates the socialist revolution …Reformism advocates not class struggle, but class collaboration.” (Anarchism or Socialism, 1907)

The struggle for reforms is a much more mundane aspect of capitalist society. Capitalism is in a constant process of change. These changes generate innumerable and continually varying conflicts which underpin a diversity of social movements for change within the system. Though these movements are typically reformist in scope, it is perhaps of more importance that they move. Workers are brought up to believe that capitalism is normal. Society tells us that anyone who believes the status quo can be changed is simply extremist, utopian or unrealistic. This leads people to believe that capitalism cannot be brought down by working class people, and that we have to rely on reformism.

Socialists and left reformists differ not merely in their methods but in their very goals. Left reformism often involves a state-led, top-down conception of social transformation and frequently does not aim at a genuine form of socialism at all. Left reformists intend merely to take over and transform the existing state into a form of “state capitalism”. Left reformists suggest that a government that is not committed to a socialist perspective can be induced to enact a series of radical reforms which seriously undermine capitalism and galvanise a revolutionary challenge against it, holding to a mistaken view of the neutrality of the capitalist state, totally ignoring the constraints which entail that “realistic” politics is restricted to change within the system and in line with the perceived imperatives of the system. States are capitalist institutions and act as conduits for capitalist “common sense” by constraining the parameters of the reforms considered reasonable. Reformist politicians quickly shift from leading movements to acting as a brake on their further radicalisation if they dare to place unrealizable demands within the limits of the system. The tragedy of reformism is that it tends to become a prisoner of capitalism. It leaves the essentials untouched and doesn’t challenge deeper economic relations. The assumption underlying "reformism" is that an improvement in the condition of the people is possible within the system, and that successful struggles for "incremental" improvements can cumulate to an overall change that constitutes the achievement of a noticeably better world.  What this assumption overlooks is that capitalism is not a malleable but a self-driven system which is governed by its own immanent tendencies. The "normal" role of the capitalist State is to facilitate or aid its development and progress by hastening changes or removing impediments to it.

The argument against "reformism" can also be put as follows. The proposition that the condition of the workers can be improved under capitalism through "reformist" struggles assumes that an advance made by any segment of the oppressed is a durable one over time, that the system will remain "frozen" in the new state where this advance will become incorporated into it, and that from this state a further advance can be made. "Reformism" in short believes in incremental improvements where each improvement is irreversible, and sets the stage for the next improvement; it visualises a sequence of ever shifting, ever forward-moving "equilibrium" states.  But the immanent tendencies of capitalism entail that from each improvement there is a "spontaneous" slide-back towards the pre-improvement situation, unless the balance of class forces is such that the improvement is defended and further extended as part of the dialectics of subversion of the logic of capital, which must be prepared to transcend capitalism and move on to socialism. There exists no possibility of a "frozen" state or "equilibrium", let alone an "equilibrium" from which we advance to another, the next higher one.  Nothing is irreversible, as we witness in the rolling back of the Welfare State, and there is a continuous struggle between moving ahead and moving back. What we see in these times of austerity is that to sustain the initial improvements, more and more intensive intervention by workers in the class struggle becomes necessary, which, if not effected, leads to a slide-back. In times of boom capitalism might concede small demands to workers, but in times of bust bosses always try to claw back their profits by attacking workers.

Is it never possible then for the workers under capitalism to improve their condition within this system? To argue from an absence of class-struggles that such struggles are unnecessary, that the system that prevents the building up of resistance is benign enough to effect improvements even in the absence of such resistance, is spurious.  Because the system has successfully insulated itself against resistance and has successfully blunted working class action, its transcendence becomes all the more necessary.  Even the capitalist is not the hero of the capitalist system acting on the basis of his own free will but an economic agent coerced by the system into behaving in a certain manner. Under capitalism it is economics that drives politics which makes democracy in capitalism hollow.  The "individual" who is supposed to arrive under capitalism undertakes actions not of his or her own volition but under the coercion of the system and hence becomes devoid of "subjectivity".  The "people", far from being the "subjects" as is claimed under bourgeois democracy, i.e. democracy in its capitalist integument, become mere "objects", victims of the inherent tendencies of a system over which they have little control. In fact the objective of socialism is to transform people from being "objects" to becoming "subjects" who collectively take charge of their lives and destiny through political action, under a system where politics drives economics rather than the other way around.  It follows then that authentic democracy can get realized only under socialism. Social ownership of the means of production, which simultaneously entails the end of labour-power as a commodity, puts an end to competition, and hence to the immanent tendencies that originated from it.  Social ownership therefore is a necessary condition for socialism and the realisation of authentic democracy and freedom. Socialism necessarily entails the creation of a new "community". Socialism is essential for the authentic realisation of democracy then democracy too is essential for the authentic realisation of socialism. Socialism, it follows, is not a happening that takes place on the morrow of a revolution.

The Socialist Party  believe that fostering independent working class political activity is of fundamentally greater value to the socialist project than winning parliamentary elections or engaging in “united fronts” coalitions in which socialists work alongside non-socialists to offer a left electoral alternative to mainstream parties importantly there exists different goals. By winning parliamentary elections The Socialist Party’s aim is to achieve socialism. By contrast, the best reformists can hope for by gaining political office is an improved version of the status quo. Reformists play an important role for the capitalist class in that they help to propagate capitalist ideas among the workers and to implement the employers interests. They politically tie the working class to the prospering of their own capital and their own national state. The influence of reformism will not diminish even in periods of revolutionary upheavals. On the contrary, reformist organisations will play a key role because of their traditional roots within the working class in appeasing and preventing revolutions.

James Connolly once said "The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system, it must go." His words ring true more so now than they ever did. The Socialist Party fully understands the fact that revolutions are not made, but that they come, that capitalism itself is bound to create the revolutionary crisis that will ultimately set the working class into motion. It holds, therefore, that it is the duty of a bona fide party of socialism always to hold the issue of the abolition of wage slavery up before the workers and to expose reforms as temporary respite where they are not concealed measures of reaction.

Why be moderate? Demand the World!