Now Reformism can mean different things to different people in different contexts.
Bad Mouse made a recent video critiquing Electoralism and I agree with most of it. I also refuse to be bullied into voting for the lesser of two evils, but he then ties that into his overall anti-Reformism. You can be an Anti-Reformist who engages in Electoralism, getting allises into the state to help the Revolution from within is a valid strategy. And you can be a Reformist who rejects Electoralism, but even I don’t reject Electoralism entirely, I am willing to vote for someone who isn’t even a fellow Communist, but they have to be advocating for actual meaningful Reforms like the Basic Income or Universal Healthcare, not the mere bandages the Democrats run on.
When Karl Marx famously said about certain Socialist in France "ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas marxiste" ("what is certain is that [if they are Marxists], [then] I myself am not a Marxist"). He was talking about the radical Anti-Reformists, Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue. And their opposition to reformists tactics is exactly what he was objecting to, not any of their policy goals (I very much like and recommend LaFargue’s The Right To Be Lazy).
After the programme was agreed, however, a clash arose between Marx and his French supporters arose over the purpose of the minimum section. Whereas Marx saw this as a practical means of agitation around demands that were achievable within the framework of capitalism, Guesde took a very different view: “Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical programme of struggle, but simply ... as bait with which to lure the workers from Radicalism.” The rejection of these reforms would, Guesde believed, “free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers ’89.” [4.] Bernard H. Moss, The Origins of the French Labour Movement, 1830-1914, 1976, p.107.
Now I’m not the kind of Leftist who thinks Marx was infallible and thus his opinion is all I need. There are in fact some things that I feel History has not vindicated Marx on, however his assessment of the nature of French Anti-Reformists was very vindicated.
During the Dreyfus Affair the Anti-Reformists said that Socialists shouldn't get involved in such internal conflicts of the Bourgeois with the one exception of Jean Allemane, besides him the Socialists actively flocking to oppose the birth of modern Anti-Semitism were the Anti-Reformists like Jean Jaures and the Possibilitists lead by Paul Brousse and Benoit Malon. Honestly it sounds a lot like today where a certain type of Marxist-Leninist sees it as a distraction to get involved with anything that even remotely seems like a “Culture War '' issue or “Identity Politics”.
Wikipedia is very frustrating, the Wiki Pages for some of these Reformist figures I just mentioned have clearly been partially edited by people who just accept at face value that notion that Reformism is itself Non-Marxist even though on other pages Wikipedia itself quotes what Marx said in favor of Reformism.
Modern Anti-Reformist like Bad Mouse love to cite the history of the SPD as a vindication, that their support of entry into WWI and every betrayal of the working class they committed after the German Revolution is the result of them once being well intentioned Marxists who were corrupted by involvement with the State. And the funny thing is these Marxists wind up without realizing it agreeing with the very Kropotkin Anarchist attitude that is the very reason I largely stopped calling myself an anarchist, their very cartoonish “Power corrupts absolutely” worldview.
First of all Germany wasn’t the only country with an established Socialist Party when WWI started. In Italy and Britain and the United States it was the Pro-War Socialists who were the minority forced out of the established Party to start new ones, and those new parties they started became early Fascism or something analogous. And no, those Socialist Parties were not any less engaged in Electoralism and Reformism then the SPD was. The Labor Party had Pro-War elements but no one claims they were ever Marxists.
In France the split the war caused was closer to being 50/50 but it was mostly the surviving Anti-Reformists (with Allemane not being an exception this time) who supported the War and became firmly Nationalists, Guesde, Hubert Lagardelle, Gustave Hervé and they too like other Pro-War Leftists are tied to the origins of French Fascism. Meanwhile the leading French Reformist Jean Jares virulently opposed the War and was Martyred for it, he’s the Rosa Luxemburg of France.
Even Anarchists, the people more Anti-Electoralism than any Marxists back then had a split over the War with even Kropotkin himself supporting it. Lately a lot of MLs on Twitter have been trying to build an “Anarchism to Fascism pipeline” thesis based on how many Italian Anarchist became Fascists, however it was only Pro-War Anarchists who became Fascists and plenty of Pro-War Marxists and even a Leninist became Fascists in Italy.
The problem with painting the SPD’s history as Bad Mouse likes to is that the SPD was founded by Ferdinand Lassale not Marxists, the German Socialists who never even claimed to believe that the State should ever be abolished or wither away. Marxists wound up being in the Party but its leadership was always more Lassalean even if they sometimes paid lip service to Marxist ideas. So they can’t be identified with any internal disagreement between Marxists.
The Reformist Marxists were Kautsky and Bernstein, they were different from each other in a lot of well documented ways, but Kautsky was always a Reformist the claim of Leninists that he betrayed his early ideals while reacting to the Russian Revolution is a lie, he in the 1890s sided with the French Reformists I talked about above. Tristam Pratorius has some Medium articles defending Kautsky and Bernstein, they seem to be more a Bersnteinist while I like Kautsky more but still her articles are good.
One important observation they make is that when Marx and Engles talked about “Bourgeois Democracy” they were being literal not euphemistic, Britain, Germany and even much of the United States still had property requirements on the very right to Vote. It never meant that Communists are supposed to reject anything that a Liberal would recognize as Democratic. Now I do believe we need more Direct Democracy and less Representative Democracy, but even a Representative Democracy as corrupt as ours still can be used.
Let’s take this historical analysis even further back. The Marxist view of history is often oversimplified as making The French Revolution of 1789 the key turning point from Feudalism to Capitalism. And that helps cause some Marxists to think of Reform as futile, if it took a fully blown violent Revolution for Capitalism to overthrow Feudalism then certainly it will have to be the same for the replacement of Capitalism.
The problem is France was closer to being the Last nation to become Capitalist than the first. Marx was born and raised in Prussia then lived in Britain from 1848 till he died. So the Capitalism he knew was Capitalism as it functioned in countries that became that way by Reform not Revolution.
But even France had also been subject to a lot of Capitalist Reforms before 1789 without which the Bourgeois Revolution could not have happened. Anne Robert Jacques Turgot was doing Reaganomics already in the 1770s.
As I explained in a prior post about Basic Income and The New Deal, when the so-called Working Class Party is opposing something obviously helpful to the Working Class on the grounds of “it’s a Capitalist Appeasement” or whatever it alienates the Working Class from that party.
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