V. I.

Lenin

Unlike the anarchists, the Marxists recognise struggle for
reforms, i.e., for measures that improve the conditions of the working
people without destroying the power of the ruling class. At the same time,
however, the Marxists wage a most resolute struggle against the reformists,
who, directly or indirectly, restrict the aims and activities of the
working class to the winning of reforms. Reformism is bourgeois deception
of the workers, who, despite individual improvements, will always remain
wage-slaves, as long as there is the domination of capital.

The liberal bourgeoisie grant reforms with one hand, and with the other
always take them back, reduce them to nought, use them to enslave the
workers, to divide them into separate groups and perpetuate
wage-slavery. For that reason reformism, even when quite sincere, in
practice becomes a weapon by means of which the bourgeoisie corrupt and
weaken the workers. The experience of all countries shows that the workers
who put their trust in the reformists are always fooled.

And conversely, workers who have assimilated Marx’s theory, i.e.,
realised the inevitability of wage-slavery so long as capitalist rule
remains, will not be fooled by any bourgeois reforms. Understanding that
where capitalism continued to exist reforms cannot be either enduring or
far-reaching, the workers fight for better conditions and use them to
intensify the fight against wage-slavery. The reformists try to divide and
deceive the workers, to divert them from the class struggle by petty
concessions. But the workers, having seen through the falsity of reformism,
utilise reforms to develop and broaden their class struggle.

The stronger reformist influence is among the workers the weaker they
are, the greater their dependence on the bourgeoisie, and the easier it is
for the bourgeoisie to nullify reforms by various subterfuges. The more
independent the working-class movement, the deeper and broader its aims,
and the freer it is from reformist narrowness the easier it is for the
workers to retain and utilise improvements.

There are reformists in all countries, for everywhere the bourgeoisie
seek, in one way or another, to corrupt the workers and turn them into
contented slaves who have given up all thought of doing away with
slavery. In Russia, the reformists are liquidators, who renounce our past
and try to lull the workers with dreams of a new, open, legal
party. Recently the St. Petersburg liquidators were forced by Severnaya = Pravda [1] to defend themselves against the charge of reformism. Their arguments
should be carefully analysed in order to clarify an extremely important
question.

We are not reformists, the St. Petersburg liquidators wrote, because we
have not said that reforms are everything and the ultimate goal nothing; we
have spoken of movement to the ultimate goal; we have spoken of advancing
through the struggle for reforms to the fulness of the aims set.

Let us now see how this defence squares with the facts.

First fact. The liquidator Sedov, summarising the statements of all the
liquidators, wrote that of the Marxists’ “three pillars” two are no
longer suitable for our agitation. Sedov retained the demand for an
eight-hour day, which, theoretically, can be realised as a reform. He
deleted, or relegated to the background the very things that go beyond
reforms. Consequently, Sedov relapsed into downright opportunism, following
the very policy expressed in the formula: the ultimate goal is
nothing. When the “ultimate goal” (even in relation to democracy) is
pushed further and further away from our agitation, that is reformism.

Second fact. The celebrated August Conference (last year’s) of the
liquidators likewise pushed non-reformist demands further and further
away—until some special occasion—instead of bringing them closer, into
the heart of our agitation.

Third fact. By denying and disparaging the “old” and dissociating
themselves from it, the liquidators thereby confine themselves to
reformism. In the present situation, the connection between reformism and
the renunciation of the “old” is obvious.

Fourth fact. The workers’ economic movement evokes the wrath and
attacks of the liquidators (who speak of “crazes”, “milling the air”,
etc., etc.) as soon as it adopts slogans that go beyond reformism.

What is the result? In words, the liquidators reject reformism as a
principle, but in practice they adhere to it all along the line. They
assure us, on the one hand, that for them reforms are not the be-all and
end-all, but on the other hand, every time the Marxists go beyond
reformism, the liquidators attack them or voice their contempt.

However, developments in every sector of the working-class movement
show that the Marxists, far, from lagging behind, are definitely in the
lead in making practical use of reforms, and in fighting for them. Take the
Duma elections at the worker curia level—the speeches of our deputies
inside and outside the Duma, the organisation of the workers’ press, the
utilisation of the insurance reform; take the biggest union, the
Metalworkers’ Union, etc.,—everywhere the Marxist workers are ahead of
the liquidators, in the direct, immediate, “day-to-day” activity of
agitation, organisation, fighting for reforms and using them.

The Marxists are working tirelessly, not missing a single
“possibility” of winning and using reforms, and not condemning, but
supporting, painstakingly developing every step beyond reformism in
propaganda, agitation, mass economic struggle, etc. The liquidators, on the
other hand, who have abandoned Marxism, by their attacks on the very
existence of the Marxist body, by their destruction of Marxist discipline
and advocacy of reformism and a liberal-labour policy, are only
disorganising the working-class movement.

Nor, moreover, should the fact be overlooked that in Russia reformism
is manifested also in a peculiar form, in identifying the fundamental
political situation in present-day Russia with that of present-day
Europe. From the liberal’s point of view this identification is legitimate,
for the liberal believes and professes the view that “thank

God, we have a Constitution”. The liberal expresses the interests of the
bourgeoisie when he insists that, after October 17, every step by democracy
beyond reformism is madness, a crime, a sin, etc.

But it is these bourgeois views that are applied in practice by our
liquidators, who constantly and systematically “transplant” to Russia (on
paper) the “open party” and the “struggle for a legal party”, etc. In
other words, like the liberals, they preach the transplanting of the
European constitution to Russia, without the specific path that in
the West led to the adoption of constitutions and their consolidation over
generations, in some cases even over centuries. What the liquidators and
liberals want is to wash the hide without dipping it in water, as the
saying goes.

In Europe, reformism actually means abandoning Marxism and replacing it
by bourgeois “social policy”. In Russia, the reformism of the liquidators
means not only that, it means destroying the Marxist organisation and
abandoning the democratic tasks of the working class, it means replacing
them by a liberal-labour policy.

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Notes:
[1]
See pp. 325–27 of this volume.— Ed .