What Is Reformism?

Revolutionaries aren’t against winning reforms. We want our class to fight as hard as we can for every scrap we can win under capitalism. But reformism is a philosophy that says all we should do is fight for reforms. A reformist believes that capitalism can be slowly changed into a better system.

The revolutionary engages in campaigns on day to day issues to empower the workers involved in those campaigns so that they can start to open up to the idea of a system beyond the current exploitative system. Reformists think that each reform won changes the system. They don’t.

In modern politics, reformism is often associated with Social Democracy - Labour style parties, where the goal is to humanise capitalism through a strong welfare state, workers’ rights, and wealth redistribution. Revolutionaries don’t object to fighting for any of those things. But we know the system will roll them back as soon as struggle drops.

Reformism is the basic thesis of soft left reformist politics and has it’s roots in the working class movement itself, in trade union bureaucracy - not just in the elected chambers. The trade union bureaucracy are paid far more than rank and file workers and they mediate between capital and labour, giving them the illusion of having their feet under the table of power.

They’re being duped by the boss class and its political representatives. The last 40 years, of Thatcherite policies, have been decades of assault on the working class. Previous reforms get rolled back.

Reformism comes in many shapes and sizes - from Robert Owen (who set up a co-operative movement) to the Chartist Movement (workers demanding the vote) and to the enormous Social Democratic Party in Germany, which ended up supporting their ruling class and the madness of the war drive before World War 1.

Most recently we’ve seen the likes of Podemos and Syriza and various Labour Party’s in power across Europe. Every single time they fail to change the system or implement even their most modest proposals. Surely this can’t be just a personal failing on the part of their politicians every single time?

Left reformists believe in limited worker protests and even using strikes to get into government and like to create the illusion that change can come from the top by putting forward sensible proposals and having gentlemens debate with the deep state. But the working class is called upon to back up the reformists when they get into trouble.

For revolutionaries the failure of the Greek radical left party Syriza is the most spectacular, because over 10 years ago Europe was shifting left and the Right2Water movement here in Ireland was pushing back privatisation and in Italy and in Spain workers and communities were fighting back against the police and technocrats (from Brussels).

After 32 general strikes in Greece the Greek workers voted in Syriza in huge numbers, but straight away Syriza formed a government with an anti-immigration party called the Greek Independents, and gave them the Ministry of Defence, like the mistake Allende made in 1973 in Chile, showing his weakness by having General Pinochet at the Cabinet Table.

Europe bullied Syriza into a €9 billion austerity program and they went back to Greece and called a referendum on the package, which put Brussels on the back foot.

The whole of Europes anti-austerity movement held its breath waiting for the referendum results. 61% voted against the cuts proposed by the EU Finance Ministers and the celebrations were wild. Could Syriza be the first reformist party to truly challenge international capitalism and unite Europes workers and radical anti-austerity movements?

No. Syriza pushed through a far worse austerity program (than the one demanded by Brussels) and devastated the hopes of Greek people and international solidarity. You cannot reform capitalism from within. Every time people say it will be different and every time it’s the exact same result.

What are the lessons for workers who put their faith in parties like Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats for change? And how do we revolutionaries relate to the desire for an alternative, to finally have a government in Ireland without Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael?

First off all a government without FF and FG would be a first time historic shift in Irish politics and of course any future Red TD would nominate Mary Lou McDonald for An Taoiseach.

But before that even happens we would have sharp, politically honest debates with SF voters and point out the warning signs of capitulation to the system even before SF forms a government. To make up the numbers they’d require Labour, the Greens and the Soc Dems, none of whom will ever take on the bosses or the state.

The sad and tragic history of failure by reformist parties, in their attempts to manage capitalism, needs to be widely known and applied today. That’s why we would urge the working class to be ready to fight a government that may capitulate even before it enters office. Sinn Féin have already indicated to Davy Stockbrokers their willingness to play the game and we all know what Labour and the Greens will be like.

The deep state (the unelected civil Servants, the Guards and the heads of the Defence Forces) will gut the majority of Sinn Féin’s program before they even take their seats at cabinet. Even if FG and FF are voted out - they will leave behind their senior civil cervants to undermine a SF led government.

Billionaires like Denis O’Brien and Larry Goodman would use their wealth to undermine any left government. Not to mention the vulture funds who want to continue squeezing rental income out of worker here.

I will be honest, we Reds won’t be very popular in expressing our reservations at the reformist limitations of Mary Lou McDonald and Holly Cairns, but unlike the party we resigned from (People Before Profit) we refused to spout the language of, “Everything is possible and we want to be a part of of a Left Government!”

People Before Profit offer a hybrid politics that combines the offer of change from government backed up by strikes by workers. They argue that in defending a left government the workers’ movement could spill over into a challenge to capitalism.

But why that a Sinn Féin government in any way resembles some future “ruptural” government? In reality there are only two options on the PBP path. Either a coalition with some reformists in a parliamentary government, which would see the reformists sabotage any attempt to really challenge capitalism.

Or you suggest a Dáil full of revolutionaries forms a government? But that would indicate such intense radicalisation that the struggle would have escalated anyway. In reality, they’re trying to have their cake and eat it. Talking about ruptural government allows them to tell the public they’d do in with Sinn Féin and to tell their supporters they’re actually still radical.

We Reds believe in working class revolution, where workers strikes and protests lead to the creation of mass assemblies to coordinate struggle and that these mass assemblies lay the skeleton of a new democratic state, rooted in the working class. The capitalist state is a machine to keep workers down, no matter who is running the Dáil.

The best, long term chances of a post-capitalist society is to have workers leading the fight for a planned economy, run by open worker assemblies and democratic decision making. There aren’t two roads to the same route, reformism is a path back to capitalism, demoralisation and defeat. Only the path of revolution actually leads out of capitalism.

If you agree, why not contact us and join the Reds!