REVISIONISM - a current hostile to Marxism in the labor movement arose during the period of transition of pre-monopoly capitalism to its imperialist stage, when Marxism became the generally accepted teaching of the proletariat and defeated all other ideologies of the labor movement.
Revisionism emerged as a formal movement in the late 90s. in Germany, where the former Marxist Bernstein gave a name to this movement, coming up with a number of “amendments” to Marx, with a “revision” of Marxism. In articles in Neue Zeit in 1896, and then in the book “Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy” published by him in 1899, Bernstein renounces Marxism and “revises” Marx on the main issues of philosophy, political economy and the politics of Marxism.
In the field of political economy, revisionism took up arms against Marx's theory of concentration, in particular, in the field of agrarian relations against the theory of the impoverishment of the proletariat. Revisionism tried to argue that monopoly capitalism brings with it the democratization of capitalist property (joint-stock companies), destroys capitalist competition, weakens crises, dulls and softens class contradictions. Thus, Marx’s theory of crises and collapse of capitalism was rejected.
In the field of politics, revisionism rejects the theory of revolution, the violent seizure of power by the proletariat, the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, contrasting them with the path of peaceful development, the growth of capitalism into socialism, and the extinction of the class struggle. Revisionism was a movement that “demanded the renunciation of revolution, socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat.” [History of the CPSU(b). Edited by the Commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1938, p. 37]
The socio-economic basis of revisionism is the labor aristocracy, fed by the bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeois fellow travelers, party and trade union bosses. Revisionism also relied on more backward elements of the working class, on new “recruits” of the movement who had not yet broken away from petty-bourgeois ideology.
Revisionism is an international phenomenon that manifested itself with greater or less force in all parties of the 2nd International, taking various forms in connection with different historical situations. In France, the ideologist of revisionism was Jaurès, its practical exponent was Millerand, who put into practice the theory of class cooperation with the bourgeoisie. “What the “new” direction consists of, which is “critical” of the “old, dogmatic” Marxism, is with sufficient certainty said Bernstein and showed Millerand." (Lenin, Soch., vol. IV, p. 367) “French Millerandism,” Lenin points out, “is the largest experience in the application of revisionist political tactics on a broad, truly national scale.” (Lenin, Works, vol. XII, p. 188)
Revisionism took on unique forms in Austria, where it bore the character of so-called Austro-Marxism, the most subtle and veiled form of revision of Marxism.
In Russia, revisionism, changing its appearance, followed the same path as in Western Europe. “Legal Marxism” (Struve, Bulgakov), “economism” (Prokopovich, Kuskova, Martynov) defended the same views as Bernsteinism, being its Russian variety. Menshevism and Trotskyism were a further stage in the development of revisionism on Russian soil; they revised the ideological, tactical and organizational principles of Marxism. The years of reaction in Russia gave rise to and intensified new attempts to revise Marxism. The banner of revisionism was also taken up by those movements that for many years openly fought against Marxism, and which, under the conditions of Marxism’s hegemony in the labor movement, tried to adapt to Marxism, “correcting” it. “Revolutionary syndicalists” (Lagardelle, Sorel, Labriola) “quite often appeal from Marx misunderstood to Marx correctly understood.” (Lenin, ibid., p. 189)
The attitude towards revisionism, as an ideological and theoretical cover for opportunism, was the litmus test that revealed the true nature of various trends in the labor movement and historically tested them. Plekhanov's struggle, R. Luxembourg, Fr. Meringa against Bernsteinism belongs to the best pages of their activity. Plekhanov defended materialist dialectics against the idealistic stew of Bernstein, K. Schmidt and others. Rosa Luxemburg and the left German Social Democrats revealed the bourgeois character of revisionism. But both Plekhanov and Rosa Luxemburg avoided the most important issues raised by Bernstein. Plekhanov passed over in silence the problem of the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and did nothing to expose Bernstein’s falsification of Marx’s views on these issues.
R. Luxemburg's brilliant and sharply shaped articles reflected her own mistakes, the theory of the automatic collapse of capitalism, and the theory of spontaneity. It also avoided the issue of the dictatorship of the proletariat and gave in to revisionism on the issue of the violent seizure of power by the proletariat. Luxemburg and others were unable to reveal the class roots of revisionism and did not wage a genuine struggle for a complete and final disengagement with it.
Bebel, at the Hanover Congress of 1899 and the Dresden Congress of 1903, defended Marxist views, declaring that the party would remain in its previous positions and adhere to the old proven tactics, but the fight against revisionism was not raised by him to the proper ideological and political heights. Having condemned revisionism, the German Social Democracy not only did not make any organizational conclusions, but provided Bernstein with complete opportunity to propagate his views. Revisionism is becoming a legitimate trend in the ranks of socialist parties, and a conciliatory attitude towards revisionism has become a characteristic phenomenon for the entire 2nd International. Its most striking exponent was Kautsky. Having started a polemic with Bernstein against his will, under pressure from Bebel and R. Luxemburg, Kautsky, while defending Marxism in words, in reality surrendered one position after another to revisionism. As Lenin showed, Kautsky, in his polemics with Bernstein, directly avoided the question of proletarian dictatorship, without exposing the Bernsteinian distortion of Marx in the question that the proletariat cannot simply take possession of a ready-made state machine. He avoided this issue in his work “The Path to Power” (1909). Kautsky’s conciliatory attitude was clearly reflected in the resolution he introduced at the Paris Congress of the 2nd International regarding the “Millérand incident.” The “rubber” resolution essentially justified Millerandism, leaving a loophole for all revisionists.
Lenin and the Bolshevik Party led by him consistently led the revolutionary struggle against revisionism. From the very first steps of his revolutionary activity, Lenin, long before Plekhanov, began to fight against the Russian variety of revisionism, against “legal Marxism,” against Struve. In the famous “Protest” directed against the program document of Russian “economism” “Credo”, Lenin gives a political assessment of revisionism: “The notorious Bernsteiniad ... means an attempt to narrow the theory of Marxism, an attempt to turn a revolutionary workers’ party into a reformist one.” (Lenin, Soch., vol. II, p. 481)
In "What to do?" Lenin launched a struggle against revisionism, both Russian and international, and showed its unity, its international character. “At the present time (now this is clearly visible) the English Fabians, the French ministerialists, the German Bernsteinians, the Russian critics are all one family, they all praise each other, learn from each other and take up arms together against “dogmatic” Marxism.” (Lenin, Soch., vol. IV, p. 366) Lenin also fought against revisionism when discussing the Iskra program. Thanks to Lenin’s insistence, for the first time since Marx and Engels, the issue of the dictatorship of the proletariat was included in the program of the RSDLP. “The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is raised in this program clearly and definitely, and, moreover, it is raised precisely in connection with the struggle against Bernstein, against opportunism.” (Lenin, Soch., vol. XXV, p. 431) Lenin showed the inadequacy of the fight against revisionism on the part of the leaders of the 2nd International. He showed the face of revisionism as disguised bourgeois liberalism and revealed its class roots. Lenin persistently and systematically pursued a line of split with revisionism and its conciliators both within the RSDLP and in the 2nd International. Lenin closely linked the ideological and political struggle against revisionism with the class struggle of the proletariat.
At the same time as Lenin, Stalin was fighting against revisionism. “In a decisive and irreconcilable struggle against Georgian “legal Marxism”, against the majority of “Mesame-Dasi”, led by N. Zhordania, the revolutionary Leninist-Iskra social democratic Bolshevik organization in Transcaucasia was born, took shape and grew under the leadership of Comrade Stalin.” (Beria L., On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia, 5th ed., 1939, p. 23) Along with “legal Marxism,” Stalin fought against “economism” and Menshevism. A number of Stalin’s remarkable articles “Anarchism or Socialism” are devoted to the struggle against revisionism, as well as against anarchism.
In the struggle against revisionism, both Russian (Menshevism, Trotskyism, otzovism, liquidationism), and international, with conciliation towards it, with centrism, Lenin and Stalin forged a party of a new type, armed with the theory of revolutionary Marxism. During this struggle, Lenin and Stalin raised Marx's theory to new heights. Brilliantly and prophetically, Lenin foresaw that “the ideological struggle of revolutionary Marxism with revisionism at the end of the 19th century is only the threshold of the great revolutionary battles of the proletariat, moving forward to the complete victory of its cause despite all the vacillations and weaknesses of the philistinism.” (Lenin, Soch., vol. XII, p. 189) This Leninist position was brilliantly justified. During the period of the general crisis of capitalism, the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, revisionism, which became the official ideology of the 2nd International, appears as an openly hostile movement to Marxism, rejecting the ideological, theoretical, programmatic and political foundations of Marxism.
Revisionism opposed not only the political and economic views of Marx and Engels, but under the banner of revision and “correction” it opposed the philosophical basis of Marxism-Leninism - against dialectical materialism.
The most widespread currents of philosophical revisionism were: neo-Kantianism (Bernstein, Max Adler, Vorländer, Kautsky, etc.), Machism (Friedrich Adler, Otto Bauer, etc.), and more recently - neo-Hegelianism (Siegfried Mark) in Western Europe, and in Russia - “legal Marxism”, neo-Kantianism (Struve, Bulgakov, Berdyaev), Machism-empirio-criticism (Bogdanov, Bazarov, Yushkevich, etc.) and, finally, Menshevik idealism and mechanism. The revisionists spoke out against Marxism in different ways, but from a united standpoint. This unity consisted in turning the philosophy of Marxism into Kantianism, Machism, idealism, mysticism and priesthood, in order to theoretically disarm the working class and poison its consciousness with bourgeois “theories” of reconciliation with capitalism.
The campaign against the philosophy of Marxism took shape in the 90s of the last century, when Marxism and dialectical materialism completed their victory over all ideologies hostile to the working class. The remnants of these ideologies hostile to Marxism continued the struggle against Marxism, changing the methods and forms of this struggle. The enemies of Marxism, under the guise of correcting and supplementing it, tried to dilute its revolutionary content. Those elements that had previously taken a clear anti-Marxist position now acted on the basis of victorious Marxism as its revisionists. Revisionism was a convenient form of cover and camouflage for the enemies of Marxism. In 1913, in the article “The Historical Fate of the Teachings of Karl Marx,” Lenin wrote: “The dialectics of history is such that the theoretical victory of Marxism forces its enemies change clothes Marxists." (Lenin, Works, vol. XVI, p. 332)
The revisionists “recognized” Marxism and Marx’s philosophical materialism, but this recognition was intended to undermine Marxism from within, in order to use its authority, under the flag of Marxism, to push through reactionary theories hostile to the proletarian movement. They were conductors of bourgeois influence on the proletariat. In their struggle against Marxism, the revisionists, declaring “agreement” with the philosophical foundations of Marxism, “corrected” Marxism in such a way that this led to the abandonment of Marxism, to its distortion for the sake of idealism, clericalism, for the sake of the reactionary classes. The revision of the theoretical foundations of Marxism began Ed. Bernstein. He began his revision of Marxism by accusing Marxists of Hegelianism and by proving the inconsistency of dialectics. “Dialectics,” he wrote, “is a traitor, it is an ambush on the way to a correct judgment about things.”
Dialectics as development based on the struggle of opposites, as development with leaps, catastrophes, transitions from old to new, revolutions in nature and society, evokes wild anger and hatred on the part of revisionists. Dialectics among the revisionists is replaced by the vulgar theory of evolution, which considers movement as a simple process of growth, where slow, gradual development and quantitative change do not lead to qualitative changes, to leaps. ““The ultimate goal is nothing, movement is everything,” this catchphrase of Bernstein,” wrote Lenin, “expresses the essence of revisionism better than many long arguments.” (Lenin, Soch., vol. XII, p. 188) The doctrine of evolution is a theoretical justification for the denial of the revolution of the proletariat, a justification for the peaceful cooperation of classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The general desire of philosophical revisionists is to destroy materialist dialectics, since this worldview gives an objective, real idea of the course of development of nature and human society, since this worldview contributes to the awareness of the historical role of the proletariat. These lackeys of the bourgeoisie tried to distract the masses from materialism and poison their consciousness with idealism and religion. All revisionists appeal to Kant, arguing for the need to combine Marx with Kant. Vorländer develops the idea that Marxism lacks the ethical justification for socialism, supposedly justified and developed by Kant. He believes that "Kant's categorical imperative revives Marx in our time."
Another Kantian, Max Adler, argued that Marx did not have his own philosophy, but only a materialist understanding of history. Kant's theory of pure reason and its a priori forms, about which Kant himself said that in it he limited reason in order to give place to faith, Adler considers it necessary to combine with the materialist understanding of history. To please the bourgeoisie, all philosophical revisionists slander materialism, calling it metaphysics and mysticism.
Lenin exposed the reactionary, bourgeois essence of the revisionists, who “reject some more or less essential aspects of Marx’s teaching, and, for example, in philosophy take the side not of dialectical materialism, but of neo-Kantianism.” (Lenin, Soch., vol. III, p. 499) Almost all revisionists in their criticism of Marxism aligned themselves with neo-Kantianism, this official philosophy of social democracy. In Russia, the slogan “back to Kant” was put forward in the 1890-900s as a direct slogan for the fight against Marxism and the revolutionary workers’ movement. the then “legal Marxists” Struve, Bulgakov, Berdyaev. The entire political meaning of “legal Marxism” and its philosophy was to emasculate the revolutionary content of Marxism and adapt it to the police regime of the Russian autocracy. Lenin revealed the Kantian foundations of “legal Marxism” (Struvism), showing the complete reactionary nature of this movement. After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, “the offensive of the counter-revolution also took place on the ideological front. A whole horde of fashionable writers appeared who “criticized” and “destroyed” Marxism, spat on the revolution, mocked it, glorified betrayal, and sang sexual depravity under the guise of a “cult of personality.” In the field of philosophy, attempts at “criticism” and revision of Marxism intensified, and all sorts of religious movements appeared, covered with supposedly “scientific” arguments.” [History of the CPSU(b). Ed. Commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1938, pp. 96-97]
Bogdanov, Bazarov, Yushkevich, Lunacharsky and others criticized Marxism. “This criticism differed from ordinary criticism in that it was conducted not openly and honestly, but in a veiled and hypocritical manner under the banner of “defense” of the basic positions of Marxism. We, they said, are basically Marxists, but we would like to “improve” Marxism, to free it from some of its basic tenets. In fact, they were hostile to Marxism, because they tried to undermine the theoretical foundations of Marxism, although in words they hypocritically denied their hostility to Marxism and continued to double-dealingly call themselves Marxists.” (ibid., p. 97)
Lenin and the Bolsheviks hoped that Plekhanov would speak out against the “new” revisionism, but these expectations were not realized. Plekhanov did more to get rid of empirio-critics than to deal with them. He wrote a number of feuilleton articles, but did not give substantive criticism. Lenin accomplished this task in his famous book “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.” Having revealed the class and epistemological roots of empirio-criticism, Lenin showed that its representatives, “united - despite sharp differences in political views - by hostility against dialectical materialism, at the same time claim to be Marxists in philosophy! Engels’s dialectics is “mysticism,” says Berman, Engels’s views are “outdated,” Bazarov throws out in passing, as if it were a matter of course, “materialism turns out to be refuted by our brave warriors who proudly refer to the “modern theory of knowledge,” to the “latest philosophy" (or "modern positivism"), to "philosophy of modern natural science" or even "philosophy of natural science of the 20th century." (Lenin, Works, vol. XIII, p. 11)
In 1906-09, in connection with the growth of philosophical reaction, Stalin wrote a number of theoretical articles in which he exposed the revisionists and showed all their hostility to Marxism. (see L. Beria, On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia). In these articles, Stalin gives a profound presentation of the foundations of dialectical materialism, presents them in unity with the urgent tasks of the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat. Lenin and Stalin always connected the philosophical and theoretical struggle with political trends in the party and the working class, with the main issues of the revolution. Nevertheless, forms of philosophical revisionism, one way or another, are characterized by a separation of theory from practice, a separation of the political ideas of Marxism from the philosophical basis, eclecticism, sophistry, etc. The partisanship of philosophy is rejected by everyone. Bernstein insisted on a strict separation between the field of science and practice. Kautsky contrasts Marx's scientific socialism with “pure science.” Plekhanov also did not understand the principle of partisanship in philosophy. The denial of partisanship in philosophy is also characteristic of varieties of modern philosophical revisionism - mechanism and Menshevik idealism.
Lenin gave the most complete and profound characterization of revisionism. “In the field of philosophy,” he wrote, “revisionism walked in the tail of bourgeois professorial “science.” The professors went “back to Kant” - and revisionism trailed behind the neo-Kantians, the professors repeated the priestly platitudes against philosophical materialism that had been said a thousand times - and the revisionists, smiling indulgently, muttered... that materialism had long been “refuted”; the professors treated Hegel like a “dead dog,” and, preaching an idealism that was only a thousand times shallower and more vulgar than Hegel’s, shrugged their shoulders contemptuously about dialectics—and the revisionists followed them into the swamp of the philosophical vulgarization of science, replacing the “cunning "(and revolutionary) dialectics by "simple" (and calm) "evolution"; professors worked off their government salaries, adjusting both their idealistic and “critical” systems to the dominant medieval “philosophy” (i.e., theology) - and the revisionists moved closer to them, trying to make religion a “private matter” not in relation to the modern state , but in relation to the party of the advanced class.
What real class significance such “amendments” to Marx had, there is no need to talk about this - the matter is clear by itself.” (Lenin, Soch., vol. XII, pp. 184-185) Lenin shows that all types of philosophical revisionism are nourished by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologies hostile to Marxism.
The philosophy of dialectical materialism, as an inextricable component of a single holistic worldview of Marxism-Leninism, as the theoretical foundation of communism, was forged in the struggle against revisionism - against idealism and against vulgar, mechanical materialism. Marx and Engels fought both against the idealistic views of Proudhon, etc., and against the mechanical materialism and eclecticism of Dühring and others, and the vulgarization of the Buchner-Vogt-Moleschott school. Lenin showed us classic examples of a consistent, irreconcilable struggle against revisionism against the subjective method in the sociology of the Narodniks, against Kantianism and Struve’s objectivism, against the Machism of Bogdanov and others, against mechanistic tendencies in the materialist camp, against Plekhanov’s deviations from the philosophy of Marxism.
Comrade Stalin every day shows us classic examples of the struggle against opportunism and revisionism for the party line on the philosophical front, for the purification and honing of the theoretical weapons of the proletariat, building communism. “The history of the party teaches... that without an irreconcilable struggle against the opportunists in its own ranks, without the defeat of the capitulators in its own midst, the party of the working class cannot maintain the unity and discipline of its ranks, cannot fulfill its role as the organizer and leader of the proletarian revolution, cannot fulfill its role as a builder of a new, socialist society. The history of the development of the internal life of our party is the history of the struggle and defeat of opportunist groups within the party - the “economists”, Mensheviks, Trotskyists, Bukharinites, national deviationists.” [History of the CPSU(b). Ed. Commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1938, p. 343]
Lit.: Lenin V.I., Soch., 3rd ed., vol. I (The economic content of populism and its criticism in the book of Mr. Struve, chapter II); vol. II (More on the question of the theory of implementation, p. 411); vol. III (Uncritical criticism, pp. 500-501); Vol. IV (What to do? [section] I); Vol. XII (Marxism and Revisionism); vol. XIII (Materialism and empirio-criticism, pp. 11-12); vol. XV (Differences in the European labor movement, On some features of the history of the development of Marxism); vol. XXI (State and Revolution, pp. 382-383); vol. XXVIII ([Letters], pp. 20, 25, 39-40); t. XXX; Stalin I., Questions of Leninism II ed., [M.], 1939; Beria L., On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia, [M.], 1939; Plekhanov G., Soch., 3rd ed., vol. XI, M.-L., 1928 (see articles against Bernstein, articles against K. Schmidt, articles against P. Struve); Luxemburg R., Selected works, vol. I - Against reformism, part 1, M.-L., 1928, part 2, M., 1930.
TSB, 1st ed., vol. 48, room 363-370
Revisionism - A political movement that asserts the need for revision - revision (2) - of the basic provisions of something. theory, smb. teachings, smb. views.
The meaning of the word Revisionism according to Ozhegov:
Revisionism - An opportunist current in the labor movement hostile to Marxism-Leninism, which, under the guise of a revision of Marxism-Leninism, distorts it, rejecting the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party and the hegemony of the working class in the liberation movement (right-wing revisionism) or hiding behind ultra-revolutionary phrases, based on incorrect assessment of reality, leads to political sectarianism (left-wing revisionism)
Revisionism in the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
Definition of the word "Revisionism" according to TSB:
Revisionism— anti-scientific revision of the provisions of Marxism-Leninism. an opportunist trend within the revolutionary workers' movement, which, under the pretext of a creative understanding of new phenomena of reality, carries out a revision of the fundamental provisions of Marxist theory, confirmed by practice (see Opportunism).
There is a distinction between R. on the right, which replaces Marxist positions with bourgeois reformist views, and R. “on the left,” which replaces them with anarchist, Blanquist, and voluntarist attitudes. By its origin, revolution is the result of petty-bourgeois and bourgeois influence on the revolutionary labor movement, and by its class nature it is one of the forms of ideology of the petty bourgeoisie, the labor aristocracy, and the middle strata. It reflects the social position of these social groups, which are dual in nature, adjoining either the working class or the bourgeoisie. According to its social function, labor acts as a conductor of the influence of the bourgeoisie in the revolutionary labor movement. The methodological basis of R. is an eclectic mixture of subjectivism, dogmatism, mechanistic materialism, as well as schematism and one-sidedness.
R. arose in the late 70s. 19th century in the German Social Democratic Party, which took the position of Marxism. I. Höchberg, E. Bernstein and K. Schramm came out in 1879 with a revision of the basic principles of revolutionary theory. K. Marx and F. Engels in a special letter addressed to A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, W. Bracke and others.
(“Circular Letter”) gave a decisive rebuff to this first attack by the revisionists. As a direction, R. took shape after the death of Marx and Engels, when in the 90s. Bernstein, having come up with an integral program for the revision of Marxism, gave a name to this movement (see Bernsteinism). At the beginning of the 20th century. R. spread in the social democratic movement of Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia and other countries (K. Kautsky, O. Bauer, E. Vandervelde, F. Scheidemann, K. Legin, S. Prokopovich, L. Martov, L. Trotsky and others).
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. R. came up with a revision of all the components of Marx’s teachings. In the field of philosophy, the revisionists did not recognize the scientific nature of dialectical materialism and tried to combine scientific socialism with Kantianism, Berkeleyanism and Machism. In economic theory, citing new data on economic development, they argued that the displacement of small-scale production by large-scale production has slowed down, and in agriculture is not happening at all, that trusts and cartels allow capitalism to eliminate crises, and therefore calculations for the collapse of capitalism are not realistic, because . there is a tendency to soften its contradictions. In the political field, absolutizing the significance of new phenomena of social life, the revisionists revised the Marxist doctrine of class struggle and its goals - the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the power of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the construction of socialism and communism. They declared that political freedom, democracy, and universal suffrage were destroying the basis for class struggle. The revisionists considered the task of the labor movement to be the struggle for partial reforms of capitalism.
“...The ultimate goal is nothing, movement is everything, this catchphrase of Bernstein,” wrote Lenin, “expresses the essence of revisionism better than many long arguments” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 17, p. 24). At the beginning of the 20th century. Along with the right R., R. also showed himself in the revolutionary labor movement.
“on the left,” which at that time spread in the Roman countries as “revolutionary syndicalism” and which, as V.I. Lenin noted, “... also adapts to Marxism, correcting it...” (ibid., p. 25).
V. I. Lenin gave scientifically grounded, deep criticism of R. Detailed criticism of R. is also contained in a number of works by G. V. Plekhanov, R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht, F. Mehring, K. Zetkin and others.
After the collapse of the 2nd International (1914), caused by the growth of opportunism, the labor movement split into a right-wing, social-reformist part and a left-wing, revolutionary part, which later developed into the international communist movement. After the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in the international communist movement in the 20-40s. showed himself to be right-wing (right-wing deviation in some communist parties) and
“left” (“left communism”) R. A very massive attempt to revise Marxism-Leninism was undertaken within the communist movement in the 50s. Speculating on new post-war phenomena and processes that had not yet received a scientific Marxist explanation, and some difficulties in the development of the communist movement, in the late 50s. R. spread widely on the right, trying to push the revolutionary labor movement onto the social reformist path [A. Lefebvre, P. Herve (France), J. Gates, A. Bittelman (USA), A. Giolitti (Italy), M. Djilas (Yugoslavia), R. Zimand, L. Kolakowski (Poland), E. Bloch (GDR) ) etc.]. The revisionist group of I. Nagy and G. Losonczy in Hungary posed a particular danger, which paved the way for the counter-revolutionary uprising of 1956 in Hungary.
“Modern revisionism,” said the 1957 Declaration of the Meeting of Representatives of Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries, “is trying to discredit the great teaching of Marxism-Leninism, declaring it obsolete and supposedly having lost its significance for social development. The revisionists seek to corrode the revolutionary soul of Marxism and undermine the faith of the working class and working people in socialism. They oppose the historical necessity of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the transition from capitalism to socialism, deny the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party, deny the principles of proletarian internationalism, demand the abandonment of the basic Leninist principles of party building and, above all, democratic centralism, demand the transformation of the communist party from militant revolutionary organization into a kind of discussion club"
(“Program documents of the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism”, M., 1961, p. 15). The international communist movement condemned right-wing R. as the main danger, subjected it to comprehensive criticism, and gradually cleared its ranks of active supporters of R.
Throughout the 60s and early 70s. In the communist movement, R. showed himself to be “on the left.” Maoism, a petty-bourgeois chauvinist anti-Soviet doctrine, makes especially widespread use of left-wing revisionist ideology. In theoretical terms, Maoism carries out a revision of all the components of Marxism-Leninism. it represents an unprincipled eclectic combination of a number of vulgarized Marxist positions with Trotskyism and nationalism. From a right-wing revisionist position in the late 60s and early 70s. O. Shik, N. Svitak and others performed.
The German philosopher Karl Marx is considered the father of communist ideology, who developed his own model of building society, based on the principle of equality of classes and the extermination of the bourgeoisie as an exploitative layer.
Marx's teachings as the basis of communism
The basis for the birth of Marxist ideology was the industrial revolution in Europe, as a result of which the issue of the rights and freedoms of the working class became acute. The ideas of socialism existed long before Marx, but he believed that the existing socialist principles are nothing more than a means of manipulating the proletariat artificially created by the bourgeoisie.
Marx and his followers considered their own theory about the social structure of society to be scientifically substantiated, and as evidence of this they renamed it communism. Communist ideology is virtually identical to socialism; its dogma is the denial of private property and the economic equality of all people.
The teachings of Karl Marx became the main engine of socialist revolutions, the organizers of which pursued utopian ideas to create a class-equal society.
According to the teachings of Marxism, an ideal, superior person is a person who has found the strength to renounce material wealth, guided in life by the highest ideals of social justice, and to devote his entire existence and work exclusively to the public good.
In many ways, K. Marx's ideas about the ideal communist are reminiscent of the views of his contemporary Friedrich Nietzsche about the superman. The followers of both philosophers tried their best to realize the dreams of their ideological inspirers at the beginning of the 20th century.
Revisionism and social democracy
The concept of revisionism entered philosophical teachings as a consequence of criticism of the theory of K. Marx. The first revisionists, among whom was the famous politician E. Bernstein, believed that Marx’s teachings were radical and did not contain any democratic principles.
Instead of destroying the bourgeois class as a phenomenon, the revisionists defended the position of cooperation with the wealthy strata, which would have a positive effect on the development and strengthening of the proletariat. A striking example of a return to revisionist theory is the policy of N. Khrushchev, who tried in every possible way to give communism a more democratic coloring.
At the beginning of the 20th century, on the basis of Marxist teachings, a social democratic political movement emerged, which represented two directions: revolutionary radical (V. Lenin, R. Luxemburg) and reformist (E. Bernstein, K. Kautsky).
Exactly reformist movement became the basis for the formation of classical European social democracy, which focused on improving the life of the working class, but sharply rejected revolutionary methods in achieving its goals.
The main task of these social democrats was to create an equal class society by taxing the wealthy, but not by destroying the latter.
Unlike revolutionary radical forces, who seized power in Russia back in 1917, the Social Democrats took leadership positions much later - at the height of the Great Depression. Thanks to their liberal, sedate policies, representatives of reform socialism were able not only to gain authority in the political arena, but also to gain a foothold in it for a long time.
With the advent of the industrial era and the growing dynamism of social processes, socio-political science constantly sought to comprehend the logic of changes in the social structure of society and to determine the role of its constituent groups in historical development.
Marxism, revisionism and social democracy
Back in the 19th century, many thinkers, among them A. Saint-Simon (1760--1825), C. Fourier (1772--1837), R. Owen (1771--1858) and others, drew attention to the contradictions of their contemporary society . Social polarization, the growing number of poor and disadvantaged, and periodic crises of overproduction, from their point of view, evidenced the imperfection of social relations.
These thinkers paid special attention to what the ideal organization of society should be. They constructed speculative projects that went down in the history of social science as a product of utopian socialism. Thus, Saint-Simon assumed that a transition to a system of planned production and distribution, the creation of associations where everyone would be engaged in one or another type of socially useful labor, was necessary. R. Owen believed that society should consist of self-governing communes, whose members jointly own property and jointly use the produced product. Equality in the view of the utopians does not contradict freedom; on the contrary, it is a condition for its acquisition. At the same time, achieving the ideal was not associated with violence; it was assumed that the dissemination of ideas about a perfect society would become a strong enough incentive for their implementation.
The emphasis on the problem of egalitarianism (equality) was also characteristic of the doctrine that had a great influence on the development of the socio-political life of many countries in the 20th century - Marxism.
The teachings of K. Marx and the labor movement. K. Marx (1818--1883) and F. Engels (1820--1895), sharing many of the views of utopian socialists, linked the achievement of equality with the prospect of social revolution, the preconditions of which, in their opinion, matured with the development of capitalism and the growth of industrial production .
The Marxist forecast for the development of the social structure of society assumed that with the development of the factory industry, the number of hired workers, deprived of property, living from hand to mouth and because of this forced to sell their labor power (proletarians), would constantly increase in number. All other social groups - the peasantry, small owners of towns and villages, those who do not use or only limitedly use hired labor, and employees - were predicted to have an insignificant social role.
It was expected that the working class, faced with a sharp deterioration in its position, especially during periods of crisis, would be able to move from putting forward demands of an economic nature and spontaneous riots to a conscious struggle for a radical restructuring of society. The condition for this, K. Marx and F. Engels considered the creation of a political organization, a party capable of introducing revolutionary ideas into the proletarian masses and leading them in the struggle to gain political power. Having become proletarian, the state had to ensure the socialization of property and suppress the resistance of supporters of the old order. In the future, the state was supposed to wither away, replaced by a system of self-governing communes realizing the ideal of universal equality and social justice.
K. Marx and F. Engels did not limit themselves to developing the theory, they tried to put it into practice. In 1848 they wrote a program document for a revolutionary organization, the League of Communists, which aspired to become the international party of the proletarian revolution. In 1864, with their direct participation, a new organization was formed - the First International, which included representatives of various currents of socialist thought. The greatest influence was enjoyed by Marxism, which became the ideological platform of the social democratic parties that emerged in many countries (one of the first such parties arose in Germany in 1869). They created a new international organization in 1889 - the Second International.
At the beginning of the 20th century, parties representing the working class operated legally in most industrialized countries. In Great Britain, the Labor Representation Committee was created in 1900 to bring representatives of the labor movement into parliament. In 1906, the Labor (Labor) Party was created on its basis. In the USA, the Socialist Party was formed in 1901, in France - in 1905.
Marxism as a scientific theory and Marxism as an ideology, which absorbed individual provisions of the theory, which became political, programmatic guidelines and, as such, were adopted by many followers of K. Marx, were very different from each other. Marxism as an ideology served as a justification for political activity directed by leaders and party functionaries who determined their attitude to the original ideas of Marxism and attempts to scientifically rethink them on the basis of their own experience and the current interests of their parties.
Revisionism in the parties of the Second International. Changes in the appearance of society at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the growing influence of social democratic parties in Germany, England, France and Italy required theoretical understanding. This implied a revision (revision) of a number of the starting points of Marxism.
Revisionism took shape as a direction of socialist thought in the 1890s. in the works of the theorist of German social democracy E. Bernstein, which gained popularity in the majority of socialist and social democratic parties of the Second International. Such trends of revisionism as Austro-Marxism and economic Marxism appeared.
Revisionist theorists (K. Kautsky in Germany, O. Bauer in Austria-Hungary, L. Martov in Russia) believed that universal laws of social development, similar to the laws of nature, which Marxism claimed to discover, do not exist. The greatest doubts were raised by the conclusion that the aggravation of the contradictions of capitalism was inevitable. Thus, when analyzing the processes of economic development, the revisionists put forward a hypothesis that the concentration and centralization of capital, the formation of monopolistic associations (trusts, cartels) lead to overcoming the anarchy of free competition and allow, if not eliminating crises, then mitigating their consequences. Politically, it was emphasized that as suffrage becomes universal, the need for revolutionary struggle and revolutionary violence to achieve the goals of the labor movement disappears.
Indeed, Marxist theory was created in conditions when power in most European countries still belonged to the aristocracy, and where parliaments existed, due to the system of qualifications (settlement, property, age, lack of voting rights for women), 80-90% of the population did not had voting rights. In such a situation, only owners were represented in the highest legislative body, parliament. The state primarily responded to the demands of the wealthy segments of the population. This left the poor with only one way to protect their interests - putting forward demands on entrepreneurs and the state, threatening a transition to revolutionary struggle. However, with the introduction of universal suffrage, parties representing the interests of wage earners had the opportunity to gain strong positions in parliaments. Under these conditions, it was quite logical to connect the goals of social democracy with the struggle for reforms conducted within the framework of the existing government system without violating democratic legal norms.
According to E. Bernstein, socialism as a doctrine that presupposes the possibility of building a society of universal justice cannot be fully considered scientific, since it has not been tested and proven in practice and in this sense remains a utopia. As for the social democratic movement, it is the product of very specific interests, towards the satisfaction of which it should direct its efforts, without setting utopian super goals.
Social democracy and ideas of V.I. Lenin. The revisionism of the majority of social democratic theorists was opposed by the radical wing of the labor movement (in Russia it was represented by the Bolshevik faction led by V.I. Lenin, in Germany by a group of “leftists” whose leaders were K. Zetkin, R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht ). Radical factions believed that the labor movement should first of all strive to destroy the system of wage labor and entrepreneurship, and the expropriation of capital. The struggle for reform was recognized as a means of mobilizing the masses for subsequent revolutionary actions, but not as a goal of independent significance.
According to the views of V.I. Lenin, formulated in its final form during the First World War, a new stage in the development of capitalism, imperialism, is characterized by a sharp aggravation of all the contradictions of capitalist society. The concentration of production and capital was seen as evidence of the extreme aggravation of the need for their socialization. The perspective of capitalism V.I. Lenin considered only stagnation in the development of the productive forces, the growing destructiveness of crises, military conflicts between the imperialist powers due to the redivision of the world.
V.I. Lenin was characterized by the conviction that the material prerequisites for the transition to socialism exist almost everywhere. Lenin believed that the main reason why capitalism managed to prolong its existence was the unwillingness of the working masses to rise up in the revolutionary struggle. To change this situation, that is, to free the working class from the influence of the reformists, it should be led, according to Lenin and his supporters, by a party of a new type, focused not so much on parliamentary activity, but on preparing a revolution, a violent seizure of power.
Lenin's ideas about imperialism as the highest and final stage of capitalism initially did not attract much attention from Western European social democrats. Many theorists have written about the contradictions of the new era and the reasons for their aggravation. In particular, the English economist D. Hobson argued at the beginning of the century that the creation of colonial empires enriched narrow groups of oligarchy, stimulated the outflow of capital from the metropolises, and aggravated relations between them. The theorist of German Social Democracy R. Hilferding analyzed in detail the consequences of the increased concentration and centralization of production and capital, and the formation of monopolies. The idea of a “new type” party initially remained unclear in the legally operating social democratic parties of Western Europe.
Creation of the Comintern. At the beginning of the 20th century, most social democratic parties represented both revisionist and radical views. There was no insurmountable barrier between them. Thus, K. Kautsky in his early works polemicized with E. Bernstein, and later agreed with many of his views.
The program documents of legally operating social democratic parties included a mention of socialism as the ultimate goal of their activities. At the same time, the commitment of these parties to the methods of changing society and its institutions through reforms, in compliance with the procedure provided for by the constitution, was emphasized.
Left Social Democrats were forced to put up with the reformist orientation of party programs, justifying it by the fact that the mention of violence and revolutionary means of struggle would give the authorities a reason for repression against socialists. Only in social democratic parties operating in illegal or semi-legal conditions (in Russia, Bulgaria) did an organizational demarcation occur between the reformist and revolutionary currents in social democracy.
After the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the representations of V.I. Lenin about imperialism as the eve of the socialist revolution became the basis of the ideology of the radical wing of the international social democratic movement. In 1919 it took shape as the Third Communist International. Its adherents focused on violent means of struggle and considered any doubt about the correctness of Lenin’s ideas as a political challenge, a hostile attack against their activities. With the creation of the Comintern, the Social Democratic movement finally split into reformist and radical factions, not only ideologically, but also organizationally.
Documents and materials
From E. Bernstein’s work “Is Scientific Socialism Possible?”:
“Socialism is something more than a simple identification of those demands around which the temporary struggle that the workers are waging with the bourgeoisie in the economic and political field is being waged. As a doctrine, socialism is the theory of this struggle, as a movement - the result of it and the pursuit of a specific goal, namely, the transformation of the capitalist social system into a system based on the principle of collective economic management. But this goal is not predicted by theory alone, its occurrence is not expected with a certain fatalistic faith; its goal is such a supposed or future system and trying to completely subordinate its actions in the present to this goal, socialism is to a certain extent utopian. By this, I do not want to say, of course, that socialism is striving for something impossible or unattainable, I only want to state that. that it contains an element of speculative idealism, a certain amount of what is scientifically unprovable."
From the work of E. Bernstein “Problems of socialism and tasks of social democracy”:
"feudalism with its<...>class institutions were eradicated almost everywhere through violence. The liberal institutions of modern society differ from it precisely in that they are flexible, changeable and capable of development. They do not require their eradication, but only further development. And this requires appropriate organization and energetic actions, but not necessarily a revolutionary dictatorship<...>The dictatorship of the proletariat - where the working class does not yet have a strong economic organization of its own and has not yet achieved a high degree of moral independence through training in the bodies of self-government - is nothing more than the dictatorship of club speakers and scientists<...>A utopia does not cease to be a utopia only because phenomena that supposedly happen in the future are mentally applied to the present. We must take workers as they are. They, firstly, are not at all as impoverished as one could conclude from the “Communist Manifesto”, and secondly, they are far from getting rid of prejudices and weaknesses, as their henchmen would like us to believe.”
From the work of V.I. Lenin "Historical fate of the teachings of Karl Marx":
“Internally rotten liberalism is trying to revive itself in the form of socialist opportunism. They interpret the period of preparing forces for great battles in the sense of abandoning these battles. They explain the improvement of the position of slaves for the fight against wage slavery in the sense of the slaves selling their rights to freedom. They cowardly preach “social peace" (i.e. peace with slavery), renunciation of the class struggle, etc. They have a lot of supporters among socialist parliamentarians, various officials of the labor movement and "sympathetic" intelligentsia."
From the work of R. Luxemburg “Social reform or revolution?”:
“Whoever speaks out for the legal path of reform instead of and in contrast to the conquest of political power and a social revolution, in fact chooses not a calmer, more reliable and slower path to the same goal, but a completely different goal, namely, instead of the implementation of a new social order only minor changes in the old. Thus, the political views of revisionism lead to the same conclusion as its economic theory: in essence, it does not aim at the implementation of the socialist system, but only at the transformation of the capitalist one, not at the destruction of the hiring system, but only at the establishment. more or less exploitation, in a word, to eliminate only the growths of capitalism, but not capitalism itself."
Questions and tasks
- 1. Why do you think the theory created by K. Marx in the 19th century, unlike other utopian teachings, found significant spread in many countries of the world in the 20th century?
- 2. Why was there a revision of a number of provisions of Marxist teaching at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries? Which ones have been the target of the most criticism? What new directions of socialist thought have emerged?
- 3. How can you explain the difference between the concepts: “Marxism as a theory”
and “Marxism as an ideology.”
- 4. Identify the main differences between the reformist and radical trends in the labor movement.
- 5. What role did Lenin’s theory of imperialism play in the international labor movement?
The term belongs to the field of secular social sciences - political science, the history of individual parties and movements. In theology, a similar, to a certain extent, phenomenon is defined by the term “” (from αἵρεσις , choice, opinion), When heretics, without denying the tenets of the doctrine as a whole, they allow deviations from those, developing other approaches and interpretations.
The term “revisionism” in its modern sense was first used in German social democracy in relation to the concept, which declared the need for revision (“revision”) in relation to new historical conditions.
Revisionism in the history of Marxism-Leninism
In relation to Marxism-Leninism, revisionism is defined as a direction within the revolutionary labor movement, which, under the pretext of creative understanding of new phenomena of reality, revises the fundamental provisions of Marxist theory. Since the provisions disputed by the revisionists are not speculative, but are confirmed by practice and have a scientific basis, revisionism itself is considered as anti-scientific direction.
A distinction is made between revisionism on the right, which replaces Marxist positions with bourgeois reformist views, and revisionism on the left, which replaces them with anarchist, Blanquist, voluntarist positions. In my own way origin revisionism is the result of petty-bourgeois and bourgeois influence on the revolutionary labor movement, and by class nature it is one of the forms of ideology of the petty bourgeoisie, the labor aristocracy, and the middle strata. It reflects the social position of these social groups, which are dual in nature, adjoining either the working class or the bourgeoisie. In its own way social function revisionism acts as a conductor of bourgeois influence in the revolutionary labor movement. Methodological basis Revisionism consists of an eclectic mixture of subjectivism, dogmatism, mechanistic materialism, as well as schematism and one-sidedness.
Revisionism emerged in the late 70s. XIX century in the German Social Democratic Party, which took the position of Marxism. I. Höchberg, E. Bernstein and K. Schramm came out in 1879 with a revision of the basic principles of revolutionary theory. K. Marx and F. Engels, in a special letter addressed to A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, W. Bracke and others (“Circular Letter”), gave a decisive rebuff to this first foray of the revisionists. As a movement, revisionism took shape after the death of Marx and Engels, when in the 90s. Bernstein, having come up with an integral program for the revision of Marxism, gave a name to this movement (see Bernsteinism). At the beginning of the 20th century. revisionism spread in the social democratic movement of Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia and other countries (K. Kautsky, O. Bauer, E. Vandervelde, F. Scheidemann, K. Legin, S. Prokopovich, L. Martov, L .Trotsky and others).
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. revisionism came forward with a revision of all the components of Marx's teachings. In the field of philosophy, the revisionists did not recognize the scientific nature of dialectical materialism and tried to combine scientific socialism with Kantianism, Berkeleyanism and Machism. In economic theory, citing new data on economic development, they argued that the displacement of small-scale production by large-scale production has slowed down, and in agriculture is not happening at all, that trusts and cartels allow capitalism to eliminate crises, and therefore calculations for the collapse of capitalism are not realistic, because . there is a tendency to soften its contradictions. In the political field, absolutizing the significance of new phenomena of social life, the revisionists revised the Marxist doctrine of class struggle and its goals - the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the power of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the construction of socialism and communism. They declared that political freedom, democracy, and universal suffrage were destroying the basis for class struggle. The revisionists considered the task of the labor movement to be the struggle for partial reforms of capitalism. “…“The final goal is nothing, movement is everything,” this catchphrase of Bernstein,” wrote Lenin, “expresses the essence of revisionism better than many long arguments” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 17, p. 24 ). At the beginning of the 20th century. Along with right-wing revisionism, “revisionism from the left” also manifested itself in the revolutionary workers’ movement, which at that time spread in the Roman countries as “revolutionary syndicalism” and which, as V.I. Lenin noted, “... also adapts to Marxism, “correcting” him..." (ibid., p. 25).
V.I. Lenin gave a scientifically grounded, deep criticism of revisionism. Detailed criticism of revisionism is also contained in a number of works by G.V. Plekhanov, R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht, F. Mering, K. Zetkin and others.
After the collapse of the 2nd International (1914), caused by the growth of opportunism, the labor movement split into a right-wing, social-reformist part and a left-wing, revolutionary part, which later developed into the international communist movement. After the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in the international communist movement in the 20-40s. Right (right deviation in some communist parties) and “left” (“left communism”) revisionism manifested itself.
A massive attempt to revise Marxism-Leninism was undertaken within the communist movement in the 1950s. Speculating on new post-war phenomena and processes that had not yet received a scientific Marxist explanation, and some difficulties in the development of the communist movement, in the late 1950s. Revisionism on the right became widespread, trying to push the revolutionary labor movement onto the social reformist path [A. Lefebvre, P. Hervé (France), J. Gates, A. Bittelman (USA), A. Giolitti (Italy), M. Djilas (Yugoslavia ), R. Ziemand, L. Kolakovsky (Poland), E. Bloch (GDR), etc.]. The revisionist group of I. Nagy - G. Losonczy in Hungary posed a particular danger, which paved the way for the counter-revolutionary uprising of 1956 in Hungary.
“Modern revisionism,” said the 1957 Declaration of the Meeting of Representatives of Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries, “is trying to discredit the great teaching of Marxism-Leninism, declaring it “obsolete” and supposedly having lost its significance for social development. The revisionists seek to corrode the revolutionary soul of Marxism and undermine the faith of the working class and working people in socialism. They oppose the historical necessity of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the transition from capitalism to socialism, deny the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party, deny the principles of proletarian internationalism, demand the abandonment of the basic Leninist principles of party building and, above all, democratic centralism, demand the transformation of the communist party from militant revolutionary organization into a kind of discussion club” (“Program documents of the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism”, M., 1961, p. 15). The international communist movement condemned the right-wing revolution as the main danger, subjected it to comprehensive criticism, and gradually cleared its ranks of active champions of revisionism.
Throughout the 1960s - early 1970s. Revisionism from the “left” manifested itself in the communist movement. From a right-wing revisionist position in the late 60s and early 70s. O. Schick, N. Svitak and others (Czechoslovakia), R. Garaudy (France), E. Fischer, F. Marek (Austria) and others performed.
In the third quarter of the 20th century, right-wing revisionism, methodologically, opposed Marxist-Leninist teaching along the entire line, essentially rejected the need for revolution and took the position of reforming capitalism, arguing that the modern scientific and technological revolution completely transforms the structure of society, “erodes” class antagonisms . This supposedly leads to the humanistic degeneration of capitalism, the integration of the working class into the capitalist system, to the loss of its revolutionary traditions and the leading role, which passes to the intelligentsia. Right-wing revisionism argued that there was a “stagnation of the gains of socialism” and put forward demands for its “humanization” and the establishment of “socialism with a human face.” Such slogans received real expression in calls for weakening state management of the economy, allowing “free play of political forces”, “alternation of parties in power”, i.e. a return in practice to bourgeois democracy. Right-wing revisionism during these years advocated for the diversity of fundamentally different “models of socialism” and for the pluralism of Marxism.
During the heyday of the USSR and the world system of socialism, the international revolutionary workers' and communist movement waged a determined struggle against revisionism on the right and on the left, which persistently tried to ideologically disarm the working class and instill in it reformist or anarchist views.
After M. S. Gorbachev came to power in the USSR, who took a course towards the so-called. - this term is essentially synonymous with radical revision - opposition to revisionism sharply weakened, which led to the collapse of the power of the people in the Soviet Union and fraternal socialist countries. Along with the anti-Marxist and anti-communist movements, which began to decompose public consciousness on a “legal” basis, the phenomena of revisionism began to grow within the ruling communist and socialist parties. Currently in opposition to one or another ruling bourgeois regime, many of these parties, still called “communist” or “socialist,” in practice adhere to a revisionist course in the classical sense of the term.
Literature
- Marx K., Engels F.[Letter] to A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, W. Bracke and others (“Circular Letter”) dated September 17-18. 1879, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 19.
- Lenin V.I. Marxism and Revisionism, Complete. collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 17.
- Lenin V.I. Disagreements in the European Labor Movement, ibid., vol. 20.
- Lenin V.I. Historical destinies of the teachings of Karl Marx, ibid., vol. 23.
- Lenin V.I. The collapse of the Second International, ibid., vol. 26.
- Lenin V.I. The childhood disease of “leftism” in communism, ibid., vol. 41.
- Program documents of the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism, M., 1961.
- International meeting of communist and workers' parties. Documents and materials, M., 1969.
- Against modern revisionism, M., 1958.
- Butenko A.P. Main features of modern revisionism, M., 1959.
- Butenko A.P. Reformism and right-wing opportunist revisionism, in the book: Ideology of modern reformism, M., 1970.
- Marxism-Leninism - a single international doctrine, vol. 1-3, M., 1968–69.
- Mazur V. N. Revisionism yesterday and today. K., 1973.
- Modern right-wing revisionism, M. - Prague, 1973.
