"correction" And "orthodox" Between An Unfinished Debate

During the late19th century and early20th century, as the German SocialDemocratic Party (SPD) made progress in the parliamentary struggle and the tradeunion movement, the reformist mood rise on gradually in the party. As the party’stheorist, Eduard Bernstein noticed that the gap between the theoretical program andpractice of the party was expanding. He maintained that the SPD should change intoa democratic and reformative socialist party instead of a proletarian revolutionaryparty. He also critiqued the basic point view of Marxism comprehensively.As the result, there was a fierce debate on the “Bernstein issue” in the SPDwhich last for many years. There were two schools of view in the SPD, which wereknown as the “revisionists” and the “orthodox Marxists”. Both sides have differentopinion on three issues as follow: the first one is the scientific feature of socialism.For the revisionists, due to the ideal factor included in socialism, it can not be purelyscientific. On the contrary, orthodox Marxists defended the scientific feature ofsocialism resolutely; they maintained that Marx’s argument for socialism is scientific.The second one is the debate on capitalism. The revisionist believed that thedevelopment of capitalist society was not as Marxism might expect, the view of theimminent collapse of capitalism is totally fantasy. The orthodox Marxists believedthat the revisionists were confused by the superficial phenomenon, the developmentof capitalism was leading to the intensification of contradictions, and it was movingtoward collapse. The third one is the debate on the strategies of the realization ofsocialism. The revisionists stressed the meaning of present socialism movement, andthey believed that socialism can be achieved through continuous improvement. Theorthodox Marxists emphasized on the ultimate goal of socialism, they argued that theimprovement is only a foreplay to the revolution; there must be a revolution toachieve socialism.On the basis of sort out and comment on the controversy above, this paper arguesthat Marx’s socialism theory is the unity of science and value, it was Bernstein’smisinterpret of historical materialism that lead to his suspicion of the scientific featureof socialism. The complication of the social stratum structure and the simplification of the social class antagonisms were two trends co-exist in the process of capitalismdevelopment, which directly affects the tactics of the socialist movement. Due to theconstantly adjustment and the strengthened adapt capabilities, the possibility ofsudden collapse of capitalism is less likely, but the self-denial of capitalism in theprocess of self-improvement is more likely. On the realization of “the commonwealthof free people” which advocated by Marx and Engels, reform and revolution are onlymeans, their rationality was depending on their reality. Taking into account therelative autonomy of state power, as well as the plight of the collective action of theproletariat, and the "principal-agent" problem in the socialist movement, socialism inpractice must to extend democracy continuously, to promote the socialization of theeconomic production and the distribution of the economic products, improve thesupervision of the public authority, to guarantee the people’s democratic rights andequal rights in political and economic realms. From the view of the logical evolutionof political and social revolution, the development of human society is a naturalprocess of history; we can not to exaggerate the role of man’s subjective motivation inthe process of the realization of socialism.