If you’re for equality, you are a revolutionary

 

Plenty of people reading this will, no doubt, not consider themselves ‘revolutionaries’ or ‘Marxists’. Indeed, the very idea of revolution probably frightens plenty of people who, nonetheless, would like to change the system. For many on the left the goal is either something called a “socialist government” or a commitment to something called “equality”. They often profess to not only know no theory but see it as an irrelevance. The important thing, they believe, is to fight for and achieve reforms that make the system more equal. Of course, “the revolution” would be nice, but faced with a public that seem largely politically apathetic or worse right leaning, electoral systems that favour the pro-capitalist parties and mass parties on the left such as Labour or the Democrats who long ago abandoned any commitment to socialism, it just seems entirely out of reach. It is only a small minority of people that believe socialist revolution is achievable and they lack both the numbers and the influence to actually make it happen. So the revolutionaries and the reformists form an uneasy alliance and argue about how to take the struggle forward.

Arguments about the goals of socialism and the tactics which socialists should adopt are as old as socialism itself. There is no one true socialism, although until the 1980’s and the fall of the Berlin Wall everybody was engaged in a dialogue with the ghost of Marx. Even today some people profess to be the true inheritors of the Marxist tradition. But, for most people on the left, their activism is spurred on more by a form of moral outrage than a theoretical belief in the inherent contradictions of capitalism. I do not want to push socialist theory down your throat or suggest one formulation is more correct than another but it is possible to look at the past, find parallels today and learn from them. Hence in this article I want to revisit briefly a debate that took place in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century.

In 1899, Rosa Luxemburg wrote a short book called Reform or Revolution in answer to the leader of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German Social Democratic Party) Eduard Bernstein”s booklet called: The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy (1899). In this booklet Bernstein set out a path for the German socialist movement encapsulated in the line: “To me that which is generally called the ultimate aim of socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything.” In short, Bernstein was arguing that it was possible to deliver reforms that would create a form of “capitalist equality” and if this proved to be the case there was no reason to fight for socialism.

In her rebuttal Luxemburg argued that posing the question in this way set up a false dichotomy. She wrote: “The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal – the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labour.” In short she says we must, of course,  engage in the struggle for reforms, but not, as in Bernstein’s formulation, as an end in their own right, but rather as a means to radicalise the workers and bring an end to the social system that enslaves them.

Whilst an argument between two German Marxists over 100 years ago may seem entirely irrelevant and whilst it is unlikely that anybody but academics would today use the same language this debate has dogged the socialist movement and where you stand on it will make a difference to how you act in relation to your commitment to socialism. For many people, socialism is a far-off distant goal. Something to strive for but that they do not expect to actually achieve. Socialism, in this view,  is a word which could so easily be replaced by utopia. And, as we all know, utopia is a place only for dreamers. We can posit against this utopian dream the practical objectives for those calling themselves socialists. Not an unrealistic transformation of society, but rather the achievable aims of winning political power through democratic means, of making workers conditions better through trade union struggle or by ameliorating the worst excesses of poverty by, amongst other things, providing free school meals or extending “universal credit” by £20. 

Bernstein did not want to renounce Marxism altogether, but rather to revise it in the face of evidence of the advances progressive forces appeared to be making in advanced capitalist economies. Luxemburg understood very well that retaining a commitment to socialism, in theory, whilst working day to day on “practical objectives” would have only one outcome. As she puts it: “Either revisionism is correct in its position on the course of capitalist development, and therefore the socialist transformation of society is only a utopia, or socialism is not a utopia, and the theory of “means of adaptation” is false.” By which she means if reform is enough then socialism is utopian, if it is not then reform cannot possibly be enough. For a political movement calling itself socialist to regard socialism as a utopia is to abandon socialism as a goal at all. Is this not what we hear from the majority of Labour MPs who proudly declare themselves ‘socialist’ whilst at the same time telling us ‘socialist policies don’t win elections’. Unlike their predecessors in the SPD today’s revisionists never even had a theory to actually revise, unless you consider “me, me, me” as a theory.

You may not consider yourself a revolutionary, but if you do not think of socialism as a mere utopia; if you believe that it is the social system that is the problem, not the solution; then, by definition you are seeking revolution not evolution, and therefore, even if you have never read a word of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Luxemburg, you are a revolutionary socialist. Which is not to say you favour violence over the ballot box. Very few people, including revolutionary socialists, favour violence. It is just that the ballot box can only change the government not the system.

Samuel Farber, writing for Jacobin Magazine in 2019, summed up why Marxists, but include anybody who believes in socialist revolution, supported the Bernie Sanders vision, but as a means not an end in itself: “For Marxists, Sanders’s progressive agenda is worth fighting for, in as much as it represents a stand against the neoliberal social agenda implemented by Democrats and Republicans alike since the 1970s. Their participation, however, is informed by the distinctive view that, in order to win those struggles, it is necessary to go far beyond the ballot box and take them into the workplaces and neighbourhoods of America, to “socialise” those struggles and turn them into a movement from below, independent of the two parties. Marxist socialism seeks to articulate these and other progressive struggles — against racism and imperialism and for immigrants and refugees — into a long-term view of systemic change: a social revolution that brings down the economic and political system founded on the profit motive, capitalism, and replaces it with a politically and economically democratic one.”

This, surely, is the goal for socialists. Not only a change of government, but a change of culture. For those who believed, as Bernstein came to, that capitalism can be gradually eroded and transformed so that it no longer exists, the rejection of revolution is not a rejection of violence, which they might try to justify it as, but rather a rejection of the very idea of socialism. If you are unfortunate enough to get into a conversation with one of the more rabid right-wingers who populate the Labour Party and dare to suggest that what we need is a total change of the social system, they will not necessarily laugh in your, socially distanced, face, though they might, but more likely give you a pained look that says ‘grow up’. 

Luxemburg, apparently keen on cooking judging by these analogies, answers this puzzlement: “Bernstein settles the question by weighing minutely the good and bad sides of social reform and social revolution. He does it almost in the same manner in which cinnamon or pepper is weighed out in a consumers’ co-operative store...Legislative reform and revolution are not different methods of historic development that can be picked out at the pleasure from the counter of history, just as one chooses hot or cold sausages. Legislative reform and revolution are different factors in the development of class society.”

To be fair, you would be hard pressed to find a right-wing (or as they like to call themselves these days, a centrist) Labour MP who would argue that the goal of ‘socialism’ could be reached by ‘progressive legislative reform’. For this generation of “socialists” the goal is not even ‘progressive reform’ but simply the competent management of a social system that, like a sick parody of Robin Hood, steals from the poor, to make the rich ever more wealthy. In other words, the question of revolution or reform has been settled in favour of neither. 

Part of the issue for modern socialists, still caught in the glare of parliamentary headlights, is to understand that you simply cannot vote away oppression. The idea that we can legislate away racism or sexism in a culture which is institutionally racist and sexist is at best naive and at worst a contributory factor in maintaining the very structures you are supposed to oppose. However, this is not to say that socialists should not support Black Lives Matter or gender equality. Luxemburg, quite rightly, saw such campaigns as essential learning grounds. As Lea Ypi writes in Jacobin magazine: “Reforms, Luxemburg argued, provided crucial learning platforms through which the mass of oppressed people would develop a capacity for autonomous decision-making and prepare for the conquest of political power. Yet such reforms were trials of freedom, they were not freedom itself.”

Martin Luther King Jr is best known for his ‘I have a dream’ speech and is therefore regarded as a leader who above all else wanted equality within capitalism for the black people he represented. What is often forgotten is that King, far from seeking reforms, was a socialist. As he wrote to his then girlfriend Coretta Scott in 1952: “I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic,” concluding that “capitalism has outlived its usefulness.” Matthew Miles Goodrich writes: “Speaking at a staff retreat of the SCLC in 1966, King said that “something is wrong … with capitalism” and “there must be a better distribution of wealth” in the country. “Maybe,” he suggested, “America must move toward a democratic socialism.”” King, who is beloved of latter day centrists and liberals has been, and I use this word ironically, “whitewashed” so that his radical socialism becomes a more passive, and reformist, anti-racism.

Interestingly enough, as Black Lives Matters spilled onto streets around the World following the death of George Floyd in May last year there was a concerted attempt to undermine them by the right-wing media. The main charge was that BLM was a Marxist organisation which sought not just justice but the total overhaul of the social system. Femi Oluwole, a liberal, black activist who spent a good deal of the past 5 years criticising Jeremy Corbyn took to the Big Issue to explain that BLM was not Marxist but was only interested in equality. To be fair Femi is doing quite well out of the current system and just wants the same opportunities as his white friends have. But it is strange that young liberals like Femi feel the need to defend BLM against a charge that it is about more than just “equality”. As he said: “Look at it this way. Marxism is obviously something conservatives don’t like. And yet despite black people constantly saying that #BlackLivesMatter is not about some Marxist organisation and is just about equality, many conservatives insist it is about Marxism.” 

What Femi doesn’t say is what is it about Marxism that Conservatives don’t like. Perhaps it is precisely that Marxists believe in equality. But then if BLM is “just about equality” as he claims shouldn’t they find common cause with Marxism rather than legitimising the hatred Conservatives have of it, and pretending that equality is a realistic prospect within a system that as Martin Luther King Jr said: “It is a well known fact that no social institution can survive when it has outlived its usefulness. This, capitalism has done. It has failed to meet the needs of the masses.” King was clear that racial equality required real and total equality, and that meant that capitalism had to be seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Femi no doubt is sincere in his demand for racial equality, but Femi, privately educated and the son of a paediatrician mother and surgeon father has already done quite well out of the system as it is. He believes that with a few reforms the system can be made to work. But, the problem is that the reforms will leave the basic inequalities in tact. 

Whilst the choice may seem one of fighting inequality in the here and now or putting off everything until after the revolution this has never been the motivation of real socialists. As Lindsay German has written: “Rosa Luxemburg said that the choice facing humanity was between 'socialism or barbarism'. She could not have imagined the barbarism of nuclear war, but her ideas help us in the fight against it. Capitalist competition in the age of imperialism, she argued, takes on more and more the form of military as well as economic competi­tion, which is why the fight against militarism is not the separate or moral fight which the reformists then and today believed it to be, but a fight against the whole capitalist system.” 

The very existence of nuclear weapons coupled with the systematic destruction of the planet renders reforms absolutely useless. If we start to think that ‘revolution’ is something to be ashamed of then we are doomed to repeat the failures of all the socialists of preceding generations who have spent so much time and effort getting people elected only to find that parliament changes them far more than they change parliament.

No socialist worthy of the name would oppose measures that make ordinary people’s lives better. But, at present, the reformist agenda such as it exists at all, relies on elected representatives attempting to pass legislation. When that is not possible we are told that we must work to get more MPs so that the reforms can be passed.  But, it was not a forensic PMQs question that led to the procession of u-turns from the Tories but extra-parliamentary action. So, any organisation emerging from the debris of the five-years spent supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s failed attempt to transform the Labour Party must embrace a bottom-up approach which seeks to use the fight for reforms not as an end in their own right, but as a means for ordinary people to articulate their concerns, and working together come to the same conclusion as Martin Luther King Jr so many years ago. In short, capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It is failing the mass of people, including many of those who think they have a stake in the system because they live in a house that is effectively on loan from a bank.

Fighting for reforms is an important part of our daily struggle toward socialism but it should never become the raison d’etre of the socialist movement. It is a stepping stone bringing more people into the struggle and placing pressure on the system. It is precisely when the pressures for reform cannot be contained that the prospect for radical change can emerge. That is why it was never a case of reform or revolution, but rather a case of reform leading to revolution.

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