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This article is about the contemporary political movement. For historical use of the term reform, see Reformism (historical). For other uses, see Reform (disambiguation).
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Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution.[1]

Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can eventually lead to fundamental changes in a society's political and economic systems. Reformism as a political tendency and hypothesis of social change grew out of opposition to revolutionary socialism, which contends that revolutionary upheaval is a necessary precondition for the structural changes necessary to transform a capitalist system into a qualitatively different socialist system. Responding to a pejorative conception of reformism as non-transformational, philosopher André Gorz conceived non-reformist reform in 1987 to prioritize human needs over capitalist needs.[2]

As a political doctrine, centre-left reformism is distinguished[citation needed] from centre-right or pragmatic reform, which instead aims to safeguard and permeate the status quo by preventing fundamental structural changes to it. Leftist reformism posits that an accumulation of reforms can eventually lead to the emergence of entirely different economic and political systems than those of present-day capitalism and bureaucracy.[3]

Religious reformism has variously affected (for example) Judaism,[4][5] Christianity[6] and Islam[7] since time immemorial, sometimes occasioning heresies, sectarian schisms and entirely new denominations.

Overview

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There are two types of reformism. One has no intention of bringing about socialism or fundamental economic change to society and is used to oppose such structural changes. The other is based on the assumption that while reforms are not socialist in themselves, they can help rally supporters to the cause of revolution by popularizing the cause of socialism to the working class.[8]

The debate on the ability of social democratic reformism to lead to a socialist transformation of society is over a century old. Reformism is criticized for being paradoxical as it seeks to overcome the existing economic system of capitalism while trying to improve the conditions of capitalism, thereby making it appear more tolerable to society. According to Rosa Luxemburg, capitalism is not overthrown, "but is on the contrary strengthened by the development of social reforms".[9] In a similar vein, Stan Parker of the Socialist Party of Great Britain argues that reforms are a diversion of energy for socialists and are limited because they must adhere to the logic of capitalism.[8]

French social theorist Andre Gorz criticized reformism by advocating a third alternative to reformism and social revolution that he called "non-reformist reforms", specifically focused on structural changes to capitalism as opposed to reforms to improve living conditions within capitalism or to prop it up through economic interventionism.[10]

In modern times, some reformists are seen as centre-right. For example, the historical Reform Party of Canada advocated structural changes to government to counter what they believed was the disenfranchisement of Western Canadians.[11] Some social democratic parties such as the aforementioned Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Canadian New Democratic Party are still considered to be reformist and are seen as centre-left.[12]

Socialism

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The first modern socialists of the 19th century followed utopian socialism.[13] Rather than advocating for revolution, thinkers such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen believed they could convince the governments and ruling classes in England and France to adopt their schemes through persuasion.[13] Reformism has expressed itself in socialism through a willingness to challenge revolutionary tenets of Marxist orthodoxy and through objections to aspects of scientific socialism, being broadly labeled as reformist socialism or progressive socialism. 19th century economist G.A. Kleene referred to progressive socialism as containing Eduard Bernstein’s position against “‘Old-School’ Marxism."[14] Reformist willingness to challenge scientific socialism, such as through critique to the law of increasing misery, has been historically connected to the concept of progressive socialism
.[15]

In 1875, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) adopted a Lassallist orientation in its Gotha Program, which proposed "every lawful means" on a way to a "socialist society" and was criticized by Karl Marx, who considered communist revolution a required step. One of the delegates to the SPD congress was Bernstein, who later expanded on the concept, proposing what he termed "evolutionary socialism." Bernstein’s "revisionism" was quickly targeted by revolutionary socialists. Rosa Luxemburg condemned Bernstein's evolutionary socialism in her 1900 essay Social Reform or Revolution? and the orthodox Marxist Karl Kautsky sharply criticized Bernstein’s framework in his 1909 work Road to Power.[16][17] After Luxemburg died in the German Revolution, reformists in the SPD soon found themselves contending with the Bolsheviks and their satellite communist parties for the support of intellectuals and the working class. In 1959, the Godesberg Program (signed at a party convention in Bad Godesberg in the West German capital of Bonn) marked the shift of the SPD from an orthodox Marxist program espousing an end to the capitalist system to a reformist one focused on social reform.[18]

After Joseph Stalin consolidated power in the Soviet Union, the Comintern launched a campaign against the reformist movement by denouncing them as "social fascists." According to The God that Failed by Arthur Koestler, a former member of the Communist Party of Germany, the largest communist party in Western Europe in the interwar period, communists aligned with the Soviet Union continued to consider the SPD to be the real enemy in Germany even after the Nazi Party had gotten into power.[19]

In Italy during the onslaught of Italian fascism, Carlo Rosselli broadly concurred with Bernstein's revisionist and reformist assessment of orthodox Marxism, endorsing the perspective that socialism ought to be the democratic successor of liberalism and emphasizing anti-fascism. Both Rosselli and Bernstein dismissed the rigorous historical materialism and deterministic perspective of class struggle intrinsic to traditional Marxism, instead endorsing a pragmatic, ethical, and political approach to social democracy within the framework of existing liberal-democratic institutions (which Rosselli worked into his framework of liberal socialism).[20]

Reformism is not directly synonymous with gradualism. However, Fabianism in the United Kingdom, while not a direct parallel of the Marxist reformism associated with Bernstein and the German SPD, is noted as having "undoubtedly done much toward the permeation of public opinion with a progressive evolutionary socialism" and being a gradualist tendency within progressive socialism or reformist socialism.[21] Reformism was applied to elements within the British Labour Party in the 1950s and subsequently on the party's right wing.[citation needed] Anthony Crosland wrote The Future of Socialism (1956) as a personal manifesto arguing for a reformulation of the term.[citation needed] For Crosland, the relevance of nationalization, or public ownership, for socialists was much reduced as a consequence of contemporary full employment, Keynesian management of the economy and reduced capitalist exploitation.[citation needed] After the third successive defeat of his party in the 1959 general election, Hugh Gaitskell attempted to reformulate the original wording of Clause IV in the party's constitution, but proved unsuccessful.[citation needed] Some of the younger followers of Gaitskell, principally Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, left the Labour Party in 1981 to found the Social Democratic Party, but the central objective of the Gaitskellites was eventually achieved by Tony Blair in his successful attempt to rewrite Clause IV in 1995.[citation needed]

In the modern day, progressive or reformist socialism may be associated with the left-wing of social democracy, or the moderate or "mainstream" wing of democratic socialism, and liberal socialism.[22][23][24][25][26]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Reformism". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins Publishers. Retrieved 26 December 2019. [Reformism is] a doctrine or movement advocating reform, esp[ecially] political or religious reform, rather than abolition.
  2. ^ Gorz, André (1987). "Strategy for Labor". In Larson, Simeon; Nissen, Bruce (eds.). Theories of the Labor Movement. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 102. ISBN 9780814318164.
  3. ^ Blackledge, Paul (4 July 2013). "Left reformism, the state and the problem of socialist politics today". International Socialist Journal (139). Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  4. ^ For example: Fensham, F. Charles (24 February 1983). "Historical Background". The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 9781467422987. Retrieved 29 January 2024. One may envisage the events according to the traditional view as follows. Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in 458 with the sole aim — and by order of the Persian king — to promulgate a religious reform. [...] Presumably, after his reforms Ezra returned to Susa. [...] During Nehemiah's twelve-year stay in Jerusalem Ezra returned and supported Nehemiah's attempts to carry through his reforms. [...] the temple had been rebuilt, the wall of Jerusalem restored, the cultic activities properly organized, and the purity of the religion preserved.
  5. ^ Monroe, Lauren A. S. (1 June 2011). "Herem Ideology and the politics of Destruction: Josiah's Reform in Deuteronomistic Perspective". Josiah's Reform and the Dynamics of Defilement: Israelite Rites of Violence and the Making of a Biblical Text. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199775361. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  6. ^ Not just in the shape of Calvinism's Reformed Church, but also due to Luther, Wesley and sundry others – see Reformation as well as Counter-Reformation.
  7. ^ Haddad, Mohamed (28 February 2021). Muslim Reformism – A Critical History: Is Islamic Religious Reform Possible?. Volume 11 of Philosophy and Politics – Critical Explorations. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783030367763. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  8. ^ a b Parker, Stan (March 2002). "Reformism – or socialism?". Socialist Standard. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  9. ^ Hallas, Duncan (January 1973). "Do We Support Reformist Demands?". Controversy: Do We Support Reformist Demands?. International Socialism. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  10. ^ Clifton, Lois (November 2011). "Do we need reform of revolution?". Socialist Review. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  11. ^ "Reform Party of Canada". The Canadian Encyclopedia. 7 February 2006. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  12. ^ Dowson, Ross (13 January 2006). "The Socialist Vanguard and the New Democratic Party – The NDP is a reformist party". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  13. ^ a b Sydney Frank Markham (1930). A History of Socialism. A. & C. Black, Limited. pp. 20–21.
  14. ^ G.A. Kleene (1915) [November, 1901]. Edwin Clyde Robbins (ed.). Socialism - The Handbook Series. New York, NY: H.W. Wilson Company. p. 107. Retrieved 2025-12-25. Within the past few years, however, Marxism, as a theory and a political method, has entered upon a crisis that perhaps indicates its dissolution, while in the movement represented by Bernstein, the editor and biographer of Lassalle, but long known as a Marxist, there has come to the front a Socialism that bears closer resemblance to that of Lassalle than to that of Marx. Lassalle is not invoked as its leader; the cry 'Back to Lassalle' has not been raised, but there is, nevertheless, a turning from Marxian materialism to idealism, from marxian dislike of patriotism and the national spirit to an acknowledgment of the importance of national interests, from Marxian hatred of the present state to a recognition of what governments, as organized today, have done and can do for the laboring class.
  15. ^ James Edward Le Rossignol (1921). What is Socialism? An Explanation and Criticism of the Doctrines and Proposals of "scientific Socialism". New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowley Company. p. 98. Retrieved December 25, 2025. Kautsky said at the Lübeck Congress of 1901: 'Increasing misery is to be understood only as a tendency, and not as an unconditional truth.' In reply to him, Dr. David, a progressive socialist, said: 'If one alters one's opinion one should have the courage and strength to say, 'We made a mistake.'
  16. ^ Luxemburg, Rosa (1900). Social Reform Or Revolution?.
  17. ^ Kautsky, Karl (1909). The Road to Power. Translated by A.M. Simons. Germany: Bloch – via Marxists Internet Archive.
  18. ^ Berman, Sheri (2006). The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 190. ISBN 9780521817998.
  19. ^ Koestler, Arthur. Crossman, Richard (ed.). The God That Failed (10th ed.). Bantam Matrix. pp. 41–42.
  20. ^ Carlo Rosselli (1930). Nadia Urbinati (ed.). Liberal Socialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 59. Retrieved December 25, 2025. From Marxism the road leads to revisionism, and from revisionism to liberalism. This progression is inevitable. Thirty years ago Bernstein let it be understood that this would be the conclusion. The socialist movement means everything, he said, and the end means nothing...This was the formulation of a liberal socialist. At the time it caused a scandal. Today it is on the way to becoming the characteristic point of view of the entire new socialist generation.
  21. ^ Thomas Kirkup (1909). A History of Socialism. London: A & C Black. p. 330. Retrieved December 25, 2025. By its popular lectures and discussions, by its tracts and its articles in the monthly reviews, as well as by its activity in the press, the Fabian Society has undoubtedly done much toward the permeation of public opinion with a progressive evolutionary socialism.
  22. ^ Rooksby, Ed (2013-10-07). ""Left Reformism" and socialist strategy". International Socialism. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  23. ^ Sunkara, Bhaskar; McKowen, Kelly (June 3, 2019). "The Social Democratic Road to Socialism: An Interview with Bhaskar Sunkara". EuropeNow. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  24. ^ "Moderation Wins in Mid‐Europe". The New York Times. October 12, 1971. p. 42. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  25. ^ Kamenka, Eugene (1989). "Bureaucracy". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  26. ^ McManus, Matthew (February 20, 2024). "Liberal socialism now". Aeon. Melbourne: Aeon Media Group Ltd. Retrieved December 25, 2025.
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