[PEN-L:28270] Re: citation on reforms

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Burford wrote:

> "Marxism alone precisely and correctly defines the relation between
> reform and revolution. Marx was able to see this realtion only from
> one aspect, namely in the conditions preceding the first to any extent
> permanent and prolonged victory of the proletariat, if only in one
> countrey. In those conditions, the basis fo the proper relation was:
> reform is the by-prdouct of the revolutionary class struggle of the
> proletariat............Before the victory of the proletariat, reforms
> are a by-product of the revolutionary class struggle."
>
> I believe I recall Louis Proyect asserting that we would not get very
> far by quoting Lenin, but I cannot remember the context. However if he
> wishes to assert that real Marxists are not in favour of reforms, he
> might strengthen his position by citing a source, otherwise it might
> just appear a loaded assertion as to who is a real Marxist and who is
> an unreal marxist.

I went ahead and consulted the Collected Lenin to put the above quote in
context. A month later, Lenin wrote an article titled "Let there be no
Confusion" that expanded on the relationship between reform and
revolution. He wrote:

"Comrade Vzyanikov appears in his muddle-headed way to have fallen off
the three-legged stool whose leftmost leg he sawed off himself chasing
after European decadent opportunist trends. Ptooey, I say. When I say
reforms, I mean specifically and unalterably and to a moral certainty
that this does not include junkets by bourgeois imperialist oppressors
and their bootlicking 'friends' in the middle-class, especially Mario
del Bono, that renegade from Marxism who tossed principles aside to
justify capitalist exploitation in the Levantine. When del Bono told
Figaro that the introduction of ice-making machinery into the Upper
Volta was a sign of progress, any revolutionary-minded worker would have
raised his fist in agreement with the hoary Russian oath: "A chazer
bleibt a chazer".

(Collected Works, V. 23, p. 457)

--

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org