Foreign Studies on Marxism and Socialism Serires

Xu Chongwen, Edidor in Chief

Comment and Analysis on the Principle of Democratic Socialism

By Xu Chongwen
Chongqing Publishing House, Chongqing Publishing Group
2007 edition

The book Comment and Analysis on the Principle of Democratic Socialism was first
published in 1995 and later re edited and additions were made in 2006 . It makes
comments and analyses on the basic aspects of democratic socialism such as its
origin, its political, economic and ideological program as well as its model and show
window-Swedish Model and the role it played in the great changes of Eastern Europe
and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book is intended to draw a clear dividing
line between scientific socialism and democratic socialism in terms of basic principles
so as to facilitate people to recognize the fundamental differences between them.
Recently, some people argued that “only democratic socialism can save China”. In
this context, the author has written another 6 articles such as Different Meanings and
Principles between Socialism in China and Democratic Socialism and included them
into the 2007 enlarged edition of this book as the last chapter, expecting to help
people recognize that characteristics of Socialism in China and Democratic Socialism
are vehicles on totally different tracks, so as to help people acquire a clear
understanding of the true color of democratic socialism, thus enhancing their
confidence and determination in taking the road of Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics

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 To Develop Marxism by Studying Modern Trends of Thoughts
——Written for the publication of Foreign Studies on Marxism and Socialism Series

By Xu Chongwen
The 13 National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party pointed out that the
th

development of socialism from fantasy to science, from theory to practice, from one
country to many countries and from construction to reform “is the expansion and
deepening of our understanding of socialism and is a combination of the Theory of
Scientific Socialism with practices in various countries and the progress of times”; it
also stated that “New and great development should be made to Marxism, which is
the trend of our modern times”.
To adapt to this trend, the theorists of Marxism in China must study various
trends of thoughts in modern times while studying the practices. That is to say, we
should study new changes and various trends of thoughts in the modern world and
take in and summarize the latest achievements in all scientific fields with critical
thinking.
Why should we study various trends of modern thoughts while studying the
practices to develop Marxism?
Because it is decided by the nature of Marxism: Marxism is an open system.
Over the past years, Marxism has won historical significance in the world because it
has absorbed and reformed all the valuable elements of ideological and cultural
progress of human beings in the past two thousand years. Today when the world is
undergoing great changes and people are having an increasingly intensive
understanding of the nature, social history and the thinking of human beings and are
proposing various new theories, thoughts and concepts in their latest explorations,
studying various trends of modern thoughts and taking in all the valuable elements in
them are apparently conducive to the development of Marxism.
Even the bourgeois ideological trends, although appear in distorted forms of
modern idealism, has put forward a series of questions produced in the practice and
some practical and pressing scientific questions. If we integrate these questions into
our theoretical studies on Marxism and find out solutions to them, we can make
Marxism develop at the same pace with the times and practice and take in ideological
nutrition from the practice.
Today a new round of technological revolution is spreading worldwide. It makes

2
the global problems increasingly prominent and put the interest of human being to
survive on the top agenda. This requires the people to change their traditional values
and ways of thinking so as to face and solve these problems properly. In this context,
it is of great significance for us to study various trends of modern thoughts so as to
develop Marxism.
Among various studies on trends of modern thoughts, the studies and
observations on ideological trends of Marxism and socialism are of special
importance to the development of Marxism. The reasons are: first, all of them take
Marxism and socialism as the subject of their studies; second, they carry out studies in
different social, historical, ideological and cultural backgrounds under the guidance of
different world outlooks, thus the identity of their subjects and variety of their
viewpoints are unified, which makes them helpful for us to understand the essential
spirit of Marxism comprehensively and correctly in communication and confrontation
with the various trends of modern thoughts, and correct the dogmatic interpretations
of Marxism and the wrong ideas under the name of Marxism so as to develop
Marxism in the practice of billions of people.
Take Marx’ philosophical view of the world as an example, it has been under a
hot discussion over a long time. The Marxist philosophy of Soviet Union Model takes
the world as a system operating according to its own laws without any connection
with the practice of human beings. It believes that the revolutionary changes achieved
by Marx in philosophical field are that he introduced practice into epistemology and
considered the changes made by human beings to the objective world is the
foundation of their cognition; while the various schools of humanistic trends in
“Western Marxism” hold that the world gets the media through the subject, and
therefore, according to Marx, the concreteness of social practice, instead of the
abstractness of materials, is the real object and foundation of materialistic theory.
In studying and understanding the spirit of Marx’ works by taking into
consideration all these modern trends of thoughts, we can find out without any
difficulty that Marx’ philosophical view of world involves the following two basic
aspects: one the one hand, it introduced practice into substantialism and emphasized
that we should understand things from the part of subject, namely, we should take
things as the perceptual activities and practices of human beings, and that the
continuous perceptual activities of human beings are the deep foundation of the
existing perceptual world; one the other hand, it always gave priority to the outside
nature and held that the practice of human beings were limited by the nature at
different levels.
These two aspects are interrelated and cannot be separated from each other.
However, the Soviet Model of Marxist philosophy has ignored the first basic aspect
——to take things as the practice from the part of the subject——although it has
emphasized the second aspect——the priority of the outside nature. This makes it
difficult to distinguish it from the old materialism and it can be only considered as a
one-sided Marxist philosophy at best. In contrast, the various schools of humanistic
trends in “Western Marxism” has ignored and even negated the second aspect,
although it has stressed the first one. Therefore, it has in fact distorted Marxist
philosophy in the opposite direction with Soviet Model and fall into the category of
idealism.
It can be seen from the communication and clash with various trends of modern
thoughts that both the Marxist philosophy of Soviet Model and the philosophy of
various schools of humanistic trends in “Western Marxism” has failed to understand
the Marxist philosophical view of the world by combing the above two basic aspects,

3
thus become the incidental components of Marxism. We should draw upon lessons
from them by restoring the true colors of Marxist philosophical view of the world,
understand its deep meaning according to the modern practice of human beings and
develop it in the process of building up socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Just for this purpose, Foreign Studies on Marxism and Socialism Series is
published with the full support of Chongqing Press.
This series covers both Eastern and Western studies. But given that few
theoretical studies on Marxism and socialism in the West have been introduced to
China for a long time, the materials selected in the series focus on Western studies.
Comrade Deng Xiaoping once said: “all the political forces striving for social
progress in the capitalist countries are endeavoring to study and advocate socialism.
They are struggling to get rid of the unfair and illegitimate phenomena in the capitalist
society and to finally realize socialism. So we should introduce the advanced and
useful elements in the capitalist countries to the people, especially the young people
while criticizing the reactionary and corruptive elements.” (Page 154, Selected Works
of Deng Xiaoping)
In compiling this series of books, we are trying to make it open. That is to say, on
the one hand, we’ll select certain books to be translated or to be written, choose the
competent translators and writers to complete the books and publish them in batches;
on the other hand, we sincerely welcome you to recommend relevant list of books,
subjects, translators and writers and give critics and suggestions on the published
works of this series.
We hope that in this way the series can offer a bit of help to reflect the demands
and requirements of the broad readers in China, to establish a team of researchers on
the theory of Marxism within the Party and the whole country, to study and enrich
Marxism in the practice and to build up socialism with Chinese characteristics.

November 1988

Preface to the Second Edition

My book——Comment and Analysis on the Principle of Democratic Socialism
was published first in 1995.
It was the time when great changes were taking place in East Europe and when

4
the former Soviet Union was collapsing. Based on historical comparison and
international observations, people realized that the Theory of Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics which was put forward and developed by Chinese Communist Party
after drawing upon lessons and learning successful experience from both Chinese and
other countries’ socialist development is correct and can meet the interests and
aspirations of the people. The theory has for the first time answered a series of
questions such as how to build, consolidate and develop socialism in such a country
as China with backward economic and cultural development and it has carried on and
enriched Marxism with new thoughts and outlooks. Meanwhile, the Theory of
Socialism with Chinese Characteristics should be further improved at a time when we
were reviewing the experience and lessons during the process of socialist
development in the 20th century and predicting the new situations and development
trend that socialism will face in the 21st century.
The reason why I chose this subject of Comment and Analysis on the Principle of
Democratic Socialism was that social democracy——democratic socialism is a trend
of thought coexisting and developing with scientific socialism while fighting against
it. On the one hand, there is a clear dividing line between them in every aspect; on the
other hand, some misunderstandings were growing within a certain limits and have
blurred the dividing line, such as “democratic socialism has the same source or origin
with scientific socialism”, and “it is even a ‘variant name’ of scientific socialism”;
“democratic socialism is a combination of democracy and socialism”; “democratic
socialism is the development approach to socialism for developed countries” and so
on. All these misunderstandings made it very important for us to analyze democratic
socialism and draw a clear dividing line between democratic socialism and scientific
socialism with Marxism while studying and researching the theory of scientific
socialism in the great practice of building up socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The book Comment and Analysis on the Principle of Democratic Socialism was
written in this context and it makes comments and analyses on the basic aspects of
democratic socialism such as its origin, its political, economic and ideological
program, its model and show window——Swedish Model and the role it played in the
great change of East Europe and collapse of the Soviet Union. Being intended to draw
a clear dividing line between scientific socialism and democratic socialism in terms of
basic principles, these comments and analyses don’t discuss secondary problems and
details. For example, in discussing the political program of democratic socialism, the
book focuses on its understanding of the two basic problems of what is socialism and
how to realize socialism. Democratic socialism takes democracy and human rights as
the essence of purpose of socialism and believes that the precondition of following the
reformism path is accepting and supporting the so-called neutral and supra-class
modern capitalist countries, therefore, the book focuses its analyses and comments on
the viewpoints of democratic socialism on human rights, democracy and the state
while leaving other problems aside.
However, drawing a clear line between scientific socialism and democratic
socialism does not mean a complete negation of democratic socialism. Facts has
proved that in capitalist countries ruled by social democratic parties with democratic
socialism as their guidelines, lots of achievements have been made in terms of
developing economy, improving people’s living conditions and promoting the
democratization of social life. What we want to emphasize in the book is the historical
role of democratic socialism in maintaining and consolidating the capitalist system,
just as a doctor or nurse by the sickbed of the system; and only by realizing this, can
we discuss other problems.

5
 Toward various policies and measures advocated by democratic socialism, we
should also adopt an attitude of seeking truth from facts by accepting what should be
accepted while negating what should be negated. For example, as for the so-called
participatory democracy, industrial democracy and economic democracy about
participation of workers in decision-making and management in the economic
program of democratic socialism, on the one hand, it is no doubt we should make it
known that in a capitalist society where production goods are privately owned, it
cannot change the fact that the working people are in the position of being exploited;
on the other hand, we should remember that “in order to win comparative advantages
over capitalism, we should boldly take in all fruits of human civilization and learn all
the management models and methods reflecting modern production laws from other
countries including developed capitalist countries” and take the participatory
democracy as “the management models and methods reflecting modern production
laws”. The reason of doing this is that when we view participatory democracy from
the perspective of public ownership of socialism instead of from the perspective of
private ownership of capitalism, from the perspective of human relations in a socialist
enterprise instead of in a capitalist enterprise, we will find that participatory
democracy is no doubt helpful to handle the relationship between the entrepreneurs
and laborers and make it better reflect the nature of a socialist enterprise where
laborers are the masters, and it is helpful to stabilize our society, to give more
initiatives to people in different sectors of an enterprise, to develop socialist economy,
to give full play to our socialist system and finally to win comparative advantages
over capitalism.
However, today when 12 years has passed and when the Party Central Committee
under the leadership of President Hu Jintao is carrying on the Deng Xiaoping Theory
and the theory of “Three Represents”, when it is following the guiding principle of
scientific development approach which is human-centric and emphasizes all-around,
coordinated and sustainable development, when Chinese people are grasping the
strategic period in the new century to build up a well-off society and when it is urgent
for the Party Central Committee to unify people’s thoughts and ask them to
concentrate on building up a well-off society, some people claim that “only
democratic socialism can save China” and misinterpret the history and reality of
international labor movement and world socialist movement in an all-around way and
misinterpret the development history of Marxism. They even preach the propositions
and functions of democratic socialism by blinking the facts and are attempting to
impose it on socialism with Chinese characteristics. For example, they say “in the era
of Marx and Engels, social democratic party was the orthodox Marxist party
representing the interests of working class and engaging in socialist movements”;
“Marx and Engels were democratic socialists in their later years of life and were the
initiators of ‘peaceful evolution to socialism’ and democratic socialism is the
orthodox of Marxism”; “Bernstein is just repeating what Engels had said”; “Lenin,
Stalin and Mao Zedong were actually the biggest revisionists”; “the democratic
socialist system represented by Sweden has transformed capitalism and communism
and it has affected the whole western world, changed the development direction of
human history and is changing the whole world. It carries the hope of human beings”,
“the social democrats has successfully created a path of peaceful transition from
developed capitalist countries to socialism within the framework of democracy”, “the
social democratic party of Sweden is the model of democratic socialism and its
experience is universally valuable and is a great contribution to human civilization”;
“only democratic socialism is the theme and greatest achievement of Marxism

6
because it has eradicated the impractical elements in Marxism and turned Marxism
from fantasy into reality”, “what is written on the banner of modern Marxism is
democratic socialism, so to continue upholding Marxism is to persist in democratic
socialism ”, “The reason why China could avoid collapsing during the period when
Eastern European countries and former Soviet Union witnessed great changes is that
Deng Xiaoping had introduced a series of reform and opening up policies which were
actually democratic socialist policies, but they were called ‘road of socialism with
Chinese characteristics’ in order not to be labeled as ‘revisionism’”.
All these misinterpretations show that my book——Comment and Analysis on
the Principle of Democratic Socialism which was written twelve years ago grasped
the correct guiding principle to draw a clear dividing line between scientific socialism
and democratic socialism. Meanwhile, they make it an urgent and serious task for us
theorists to reveal the truth about the history and theory of democratic socialism and
make objective and accurate analyses and comments on its real role in both capitalist
and socialist societies and its difference from Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.
For all the above reasons, I put aside my work at hand and wrote the following
articles: Different Meanings and the Principle Dividing Line between Socialism with
Chinese Characteristics and Democratic Socialism, Social Democracy and
Democratic Socialism——History, Theory and Reality, Have a Correct
Understanding of Marx’ and Engels’ Works in Their Later Life, Lenin to Bernstein:
Who on Earth Revised Marxism?, Crisis of Western Social Welfare System and ‘the
Third Way’ of Blair and Giddens and How to Understand the Swedish Model of
Democratic Socialism?, etc.. These articles have not only emphasized and reiterated
the historical and theoretical scenarios, experience and lessons in order to tell the truth
and distinguish between right and wrong, but also identified the development trend of
democratic socialism according to its historical development over the past decade.
These articles are now incorporated into my book——Comment and Analysis on the
Principle of Democratic Socialism as Chapter 7 with the title of Clarify the
theoretical Problems about Democratic Socialism in this second edition. Hereby, I’d
like to dedicate it to the readers and hope that it will play an active role in clarifying
important theoretical problems of democratic socialism and strengthening our belief
in taking the road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics unshakably.

Xu Chongwen

June 2007 at Yangxin Garden

7
 Contents
To Develop Marxism by Studying Modern Trends of Thoughts 1
——Written for the publication of Foreign Studies on Marxism and Socialism Series
…………………………………………………………………………Xu Chongwen
Introduction of the Second Edition

Chapter 1 Origin of Democratic Socialism....................................................................

Section 1 The Predecessor of Socialist International...................................................................
Section 2 From Social Democracy to Democratic Socialism....................................................
1. The Guideline of First International is Communism Instead of Socialist Democracy....
2. Origin of Social Democracy.............................................................................................
3. Attitude of Marx and Engels towards the Concept of Social Democracy........................
4. Arguments proposed by Lenin to Discard the Name of Social Democrats......................
5. The Inversion of Social Democracy in Name: Democratic Socialism.............................
Section 3 Ideological Source of Democratic Socialism...............................................................
1. Proudhonism.....................................................................................................................
2. Reformist Thoughts of Anarcho-Syndicalism and Fabian Society..................................
3. Lassalleanism....................................................................................................................
4. Bernstainism......................................................................................................................
5. Kautzkyism.......................................................................................................................
Section 4 Democratic Socialism is a Social Reformism in the Capitalist Society.......................
1. Reform and Reformism....................................................................................................
2. Social Reformism and Reasons for Its Emergence..........................................................
3. Features and Functions of Modern Social Reformism.....................................................
4. The Dividing Line between Scientific Socialism and Democratic Socialism in
Principle on the Issue of Reform..........................................................................................
5. Modern Social Reformism Confines Reform to the Pursuit of a Higher Quality of Life
6. The Dividing Line between Reform and Revolution is Flexible and Changeable..........
7. Review the Political Achievements of Social Democratic Party during its Ruling
Period in a Practical and Realistic Way................................................................................
Section 5 Democratic Socialism Is Opposed to Communism......................................................
Chapter 2 Political Program of Democratic Socialism.........................................................................
Section 1 View of Democratic Socialism on Democracy.............................................................
1. Maintaining Bourgeois Democracy and Opposing Proletarian Dictatorship by
Proceeding from the Abstract Contradiction between Democracy and Dictatorship..........
2. Confining the Struggle of Proletariat for Socialism to the Framework of Bourgeois
Democracy............................................................................................................................
3. Preaching that Bourgeois Democracy Can Transform and Eliminate Capitalism...........
4. Dissolve and Resolve Socialism into Bourgeois Democracy..........................................
5. Taking Bourgeois Democracy as a Tool to Infiltrate and Transform Socialist Countries
Section 2 View of Democratic Socialism on Human Rights........................................................
1. Basic Viewpoints of Democratic Socialism on Human Rights........................................
2. Evaluation of Democratic Socialism on Human Right Conditions in the
Contemporary World.............................................................................................................
3. Democratic Socialism Takes Human Right Issues as a Tool of Intervening in the
Internal Affairs of Other Countries and Peacefully Transforming Socialist Countries.......
Section 3 Democratic Socialists’ View of the State......................................................................
1. The Issue of State in the Program of Socialist Democratic Party....................................
2． “A State Is a System for Mankind to Realize Development to Freedom”...................
3. “A State Is a Cooperative of the Poor Classes”................................................................
4. Equating the Marxist View on the State with Anarchism.................................................
5. Preaching the Replacement of Revolutionary Struggle by Struggle for Suffrage...........
6. “The Parliament Should Be the Centre of a State’s Political Activities”.........................
7. “In a Democratic Republic, It Is Unnecessary for the Proletariat to Destroy the
Bourgeois Sate Apparatus”...................................................................................................
8. “State Machine Can Change its Nature Because of Democracy”....................................

8
 9. “The Factor of Social Forces Decides Distribution of Powers”.......................................
10. “Laski’s Reformist View of the State”............................................................................
11. Theory of Welfare State..................................................................................................
Chapter 3 Economic Program of Democratic Socialism......................................................................
Section 1 Replace Public Ownership of Socialism with Mixed Economy..................................
1. Two Changes in the Attitude of Socialist Democrats toward Socialist Public
Ownership.............................................................................................................................
2. Democratic Socialism Advocates Mixed Economy........................................................
3. Basic Arguments of Democratic Socialism against the Necessity of Socialist Public
Ownership.............................................................................................................................
4. Emergence, Development and Nature of Mixed Economy.............................................
Section 2 Economic Democracy with Worker’s Participation in Decision-making and
Management..................................................................................................................................
1. The Problem of Economic Democracy in the Program of Socialist Democratic Party...
2. The Joint Consultation Model of the British Labor Party................................................
3. Mitbestimmung (Co-determination) Model of the Former Federal Republic of
Germany................................................................................................................................
4. Other Models of Economic Democracy...........................................................................
5. Comment and Analysis on Democratic Socialist Theory of Economic Democracy.......
Section 3 Ideas and Policies of Social Welfare.............................................................................
1. Social Welfare Problem in Social Democratic Party’s Program......................................
2. “Welfare State” Implemented by British Labor Government..........................................
3. Origin of Welfarism and Reasons for Its Wide Development..........................................
4. Analysis on the Social Welfare Theory of Democratic Socialism...................................
Chapter 4 Ideological Program of Democratic Socialism...................................................................
1. World-outlook Neutrality Is the New Characteristic of Democratic Socialism...............
2. The Wave of De-ideologicalization and Its Influence on Social Democratic Party.........
3. The Attitudes of Various Factions within the Social Democratic Party toward
Marxism during the Period of De-ideologicalization...........................................................
4. Re-ideologicalization and Its Influence on Social Democratic Parties............................
5. The Reflection of Re-ideologicalization in the Program of Socialist Democratic
Parties....................................................................................................................................
6. Influence of the Theory of Post-Industrial Society on Democratic Socialism.................
Section 2 Democratic Socialism and Ethical Socialism...............................................................
1. The Programs of Socialist Parties Take Ethical Socialism as Its Philosophical Basis.....
2. Kant and His “Categorical Imperatives” Which “Takes Man as Purpose”......................
3. Ethical Socialism of Neo-Kantianism..............................................................................
4. Social Reformism Closely Follows Neo-Kantianism.......................................................
5. Dividing Line in Principle between Marxism and Ethical Socialism..............................
Section 3 Democratic Socialism and Abstract Humanitarian.......................................................
1. Democratic Socialism Regards Freedom, Equality and Fraternity as the Basic Values
of Socialism...........................................................................................................................
2. Social Democrats Turn Marxism into Abstract Humanitarian.........................................
3. Declaration and Program of the “Democratic and Humanistic Socialism”.....................
Section 4 Democratic Socialism and Critical-Rationalism..........................................................
1. Popper and His Critical-Rationalism............................................................................
2. The Epistemology of Critical-Rationalism.......................................................................
3. Sociopolitical Philosophy of Critical-Rationalism...........................................................
Chapter 5 The Model and Show Window of Democratic Socialism——Swedish Model..................
Section 1 Welfare Socialism.........................................................................................................
Section 2 Functional Socialism.....................................................................................................
Section 3 Fund Socialism..............................................................................................................
Section 4 The Experiences and Lessons of the Swedish Model..................................................
Chapter 6 Democratic Socialism and the Drastic Changes in Eastern Europe, the Collapse of the
Soviet Union..........................................................................................................................................
Section1 The Transformation from Scientific Socialism to Democratic Socialism in the
Soviet Union and Eastern European Socialist countries..............................................................

9
 1 The continuously slowdown economy in the Soviet Union and Gorbachev’s attempts
of finding a way out from the transformation of reform between 1970’s -1980’s...............
2. Great efforts made by Gorbachev to push on the self-smear , self-denying of
socialism, and the transformation to a humanitarian, democratic socialism........................
3. The humanitarian and democratic socialism advocated by Gorbachev—another
version for the democratic socialism of the social democratic parties.................................
4. The sale of Democratic Socialism by Gorbachev to Eastern European Countries..........
Section 2 The dramatic changes of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union
caused by resorting to democratic socialism................................................................................
1. The process of the collapse of Eastern European and the Soviet Union..........................
2 One of the reasons for the collapse: self-smear and self-denial of socialism in a
vigorous way.........................................................................................................................
3 The second reason for the collapse: openness, democratization and social pluralism
that invite anti-communism to overturn the leadership of communist.................................
Section 3 The clear definition of the regaining position by socialist parties in some Eastern
European countries........................................................................................................................
1 The situations of socialist parties who regained positions in some Eastern European
countries................................................................................................................................
2. The economic, political and social situations in the Soviet Union and Eastern
European countries after the collapse...................................................................................
3 The emergence and spread of reminiscent mood among the people of the Soviet Union
and Eastern European countries............................................................................................
4 The fundamental changes from communist parties to socialist parties.............................
Chapter 7 Clarifying the Theoretical Problems about Democratic Socialism.....................................
Section 1 Different meanings and principles between Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
and Democratic Socialism............................................................................................................
1 Determining different meanings of these two ideological concepts.................................
2 As two different political roads, the principle dividing line in the first aspect between
socialism with Chinese characteristics and Democratic Socialism is how to deal with
Scientific Socialism and the existing socialist countries......................................................
3 As two political roads, the principle dividing line in the second aspect between
socialism with Chinese characteristics and democratic socialism is how to deal with
capitalism..............................................................................................................................
4 As two political Roads, the principle dividing line in the third aspect between
socialism with Chinese characteristics and democratic socialism is how to deal with
Marxism................................................................................................................................
5 The claim that socialism with Chinese characteristics belongs to democratic socialism
is groundless..........................................................................................................................
Section2 Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism: history, theory and status quo.............
1 The origin and development of Social Democracy and Democratic.................................
Socialism...............................................................................................................................
2 T h e p r o p o s i t i o n s o f S o c i a l D e m o c r a c y a n d D e m o c r a t i c S o c i a l i s m .....
3 A n a l y s i s o f s o c i a l d e m o c r a c y a n d d e m o c r a t i c s o c i a l i s m .........................
Section 3 Correct understanding of Marx and Engels’ works in their twilight years..................
1 No peaceful transition from capitalist joint-stock companies to socialism.......................
2 In capitalist society, the separation of ownership and the operating right has brought
two kinds of change: “hostile takeover” and the attempt of “operators capitalism” to
replace “owners capitalism”.................................................................................................
3 Engels’s Introduction in 1895 adjusted the strategy of the proletarian revolutionary
struggle..................................................................................................................................
4. Engels is the opponent of “absolute legalism” and the naysay of “the theory of
peaceful growth of socialism ”.............................................................................................
Section 4 Lenin VS Bernstein: Who amended Marxism in the end.............................................
1 Bernstein was not repeating the words of Engels, but rather made a comprehensive
amendment to the basic theories of Marxism.......................................................................
2The theory for one country to build socialism is not contrary to Marxist theory, but the
promotion of Marxism through the times.............................................................................

10
 3 To restore the name of the Communist Party, Lenin is not creating something
unconventional, but rather restoring the original title of Marxism......................................
Section 5 Crisis in the Western Social Welfare System and Blair – Giddens’s “Third Way”.....
1 The crisis of Western social welfare system since1970’s..................................................
2 Western countries’ strategies in response to the crisis of the social welfare system.........
3 The concept and practice of the reform of “Third Way” on social welfare system..........
Section 6 How to Understand the Swedish Model of Democratic Socialism..............................
1 Welfare socialism: “the socialism of social democrats is welfare policy”........................
2 Functional socialism: re-summarizing the Swedish model from the perspective of
public ownership of means of production............................................................................
3 Fund socialism: an unsuccessful attempt of the establishment of an employee
collective ownership in capitalist countries..........................................................................
4 Three fundamental lessons learned....................................................................................
Research Data Series on Marxism and Socialism Abroad...................................................................

Chapter 1 Origin of Democratic Socialism

Democratic socialism is the ideological system of Socialist International. Now

there are 160 labor parties, socialist parties and social democratic parties with over
4,000 members in the world (especially in Europe) and all of them take democratic
socialism as their guiding principle. Then what kind of ideological system is

11
democratic socialism? Given that Socialist International always associates itself with
First International established by Marx in ideology and organization, it is quite
necessary for us to clarify the nature of democratic socialism, its relationship with
scientific socialism and its origin.

Section 1 The Predecessor of Socialist International

In 1951, The First Congress of Socialist International was held. While publishing
The Aim and Task of Democratic Socialism, its Secretary-General Braunthal said that
Socialist International was absolutely not a new international organization, instead, it
was only “a new stage of the international organization established by Karl Marx in
London 87 years ago (1864) ”.
In September 1964 when the Ninth Congress of Socialist International was held,
the Centenary Declaration of Socialist International was issued to commemorate the
100 anniversary of Socialist International.
In April 1983, the 16th Congress of Socialist International was held and it called
the International Workingmen’s Association (namely, the First International) as its
“predecessor” in the Albufeira Declaration.
In June 1989, the 18th Congress of Socialist International was held and reiterated
that it was established in 1864 and reestablished in 1951 in The Declaration of
Principles issued in Stockholm.
All these clearly indicate that Socialist International is trying to describe itself as
the direct continuity of the First International.
However, facts show that Socialist International is no continuity of the First
International both in organization and in ideological system.
Socialist International claimed that it was founded in order to “coordinate the
worldwide struggle of democratic socialist movements for social justice, human
dignity and democracy” (Declaration of Principles, the 18th Congress of Socialist
International, Stockholm). However, what the First International coordinates is
absolutely not the so-called “worldwide struggle” of democratic socialist movements.
The International Workingmen’s Association (namely, the First International) was
founded in London in 1864 during the decade following the failure of 1848 revolution
in some European countries against the background that with the rapid development
of capitalist economy and increase of proletarian forces, the international workers’
movement experienced a new upsurge and the proletariat in various countries pressed
for international unity.
Therefore, in working out the Inaugural Address of the International Working
Men’s Association for International Workingmen’s Association, Marx expressed the
basic viewpoints of Communist Manifesto in a form that could be accepted by the
then workers movements at various levels. He pointed out in these two documents:
“That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working
classes themselves” instead of counting on the wisdom and kindness of the ruling
class, and “that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a
struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the
abolition of all class rule;”. Because “the economical subjection of the man of labor to
the monopolizer of the means of labor — that is, the source of life — lies at the
bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and
political dependence”, “the economical emancipation of the working classes is

12
therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as
a means”. “Seizing power has become the great task of working class”, and once
again called on the “Proletarians of all countries, unite!”1
After that, Marx and Engels carried out struggles against bogus socialism within
the First International: they defeated Proudhonism, disclosed and cracked down on the
Lassalleanism，anarcho-syndicalism and Bakuninism.
But unfortunately, after the failure of Paris Commune in 1871, the First
International couldn’t operate regularly because of the external persecution from the
bourgeois government and the internal separatist activities of the Bakuninism. In
addition, the European Workers Movement had stepped into a new stage when it was
necessary for the proletariat of various countries to establish an independent party to
carry out daily struggle, therefore, according to the suggestions from Marx, the
General Council of the First International officially announced the dissolution of the
First International on July 15, 1876 after the last Congress was held in Philadelphia,
America.
During the decade following the dissolution of the First International, socialist
parties were established in many countries with wide spread of Marxism and the
workers’ aspiration for consolidate international unity to jointly fight against the
capitalist enslavement were increasing. Against this background, the Marxists in
German Socialist Democratic Party and French Labour Party held the International
Socialist Congress under the direct guidance of Engels in Paris on July 14, 1889 and
established the Second International; meanwhile, the “Possibilists” in the French
Labour Party and British League for Democracy also held International Socialist
Congress in Paris. These two organizations officially merged in 1891.
At its early stage, the Second International settled with anarchism and widely
spread Marxism. It also worked out principles and policies about workers movement.
As a result, the mass organizations and party organizations of the working class were
increasing and expanding. However, because the Second International conducted
activities during a peaceful period and workers movement were carried out in a
horizontal manner and the relevant parties neglected the struggle against Right
opportunism while fighting against anarchism, Right opportunism began to grow and
develop increasingly. Just under this circumstances, Engels published the book
Critique of the Gotha Programme by Marx which had been concealed for as long as
15 years, and his own books——The Problems of French and German Peasants so as
to fight against the Right opportunism.
After Engels passed away in 1895, the Right opportunists within the parties of
various countries accelerated their reformist activities. Most of the parties within the
Second International fell into the quagmire of legalism and opportunism and finally
the Bernstainism appeared in 1899. The Second International was immediately split
into the Leftist, Eclectic and Rightist. Moreover, after the break-out of the Second
World War in August 1914, most of the parties in the Second International
degenerated into social chauvinists and incited the proletariat in various countries to
kill each other for the interests of the bourgeoisie in their own countries, hence the
Second International collapsed ideologically and politically.
In order to reverse this disadvantageous situation faced by the proletariat across
the world, Lenin united the revolutionary leftist in the Second International and held
the first Congress of the Communist International in Moscow in March 1919, which
decided to establish Communist International, also called Third International.
Prior to the establishment of the “Third International” by Lenin, the Rightists in
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels 1995, Second Edition (same below), Volume No.2 Page609,606,608

13
the previous Second International, with British Labor Party and the Social Democratic
Party of Germany, Sweden and Holland as their major forces, held an international
congress in Berne, Switzerland in February 1919 and restored the Second
International, also called “Berne International”
The neutralists within the previous Second International, especially the European
Socialist Democrats rallying closely around the Party Program written by Adler, the
representative of “Austrian Marxism”, and Longge, a French Socialist, held a meeting
in Vienna in February 1921 and established “Vienna International”, also called the
“Second-and-a-Half International” because of its neutralist stand.
In February 1923, the Second International and the Second-and-a-Half
International merged in Hamburg, Germany and established “Labor and Socialist
International” made up of 35 labor parties, socialist parties and socialist democratic
parties.
In 1933 when Hitler seized power in Germany and started invasion, many
socialist democrats suffered suppression and stopped their actions. But some of them
threw themselves to the lap of Fascists, for example, the leaders of social democratic
parties in Belgium, Holland and Denmark became members of the Quisling
administration, leading to the re-paralysis of the Labor and Socialist International.
When Brussels where the headquarter of the International was located was occupied
by Hitler in 1940, a committee of the International which had escaped to London
continued to keep contact with its members, the activists in the social democrat
parities of European countries who had escaped to Sweden established “Stockholm
Small International”.
After the Second World War, under the suggestion from British Labor Party, the
socialist parties and socialist democratic parties in various European countries, mainly
France, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland held the 8th Congress of the
International Socialist Parties in Frankfurt, Germany in 1951 and officially passed a
resolution which announced the establishment of Socialist International and take this
congress as its first congress.
It can be seen from the above review that the Socialist International isn’t the
continuity of First International established by Marx in 1864 as it calls itself. As a
matter of fact, it is the continuity of the Rightist and Neutralist deviated from the
Second International after the death of Engels in 1895 and the continuity of Berne
International, Vienna International and Labor and Socialist International later
established by them.

Section 2 From Social Democracy to Democratic Socialism

In terms of ideological system, the democratic socialism of the Socialist

International isn’t the continuity of those ideas expressed by Marx in the Inaugural
Address and General Rules of the First International, but the continuity of social
democracy, and the continuity of the social democracy interpreted by the Rightists
and Neutralists such as Berstein and Kautsky in the later period of the Second
International.

1. The Guideline of First International is Communism Instead of Socialist Democracy

What is the Guideline of First International? To answer this question, we have to

14
trace it back to the “Communist League” founded by Marx and Engels in June 1847.
“Communist League” was a secret international workers’ organization which held its
first Congress in London in November 1847. Marx and Engels were commissioned by
the League at the Congress to draw up a specific party program on both theory and
practice which was going to be published. That led to the birth of the famous
Communist Manifesto published in February 1848. Marx and Engels called their
ideological system Communism in the Manifesto instead of Social Democracy. Soon
after the Communist Case had happened in Cologne, the Communist League
announced its dissolution on November 17, 1852 according to Marx’ suggestion.
On September 28, 1864 when the International Working Men’s Association was
held in St. Martin’ Hall, London, Marx was again elected as a member of its leading
office——Interim Council (later called “Central Council” and “General Council”) and
a member of the Association’s framework document Drafting Committee appointed
by the first Congress of the Association. At the beginning, this drafting committee
drafted the declaration and rules in the absence of Marx. Later Marx was critical of
the two documents after he reviewed them. And then being commissioned by the
drafting committee, he worked out Inaugural Address and General Rules of the
International Working Men’s Association which were later approved unanimously by
the Interim Committee on November 1, 1864.
As mentioned above, the Inaugural Address and the General Rules in fact
expressed the basic viewpoints of the Communist Manifesto in a form which could be
accepted by the then workers’ movement at various levels. Later, the First
International carried out activities and struggles against all kinds of opportunism and
reformism in accordance with these basic viewpoints. Therefore, the ideological
system of the First International is in fact Communism instead of Social Democracy.

2. Origin of Social Democracy

Then what on earth does this social democracy come from? And what ideological
trend does it stand for?
According to one of the explanations, the name of social democracy was made up
of “social” and “democrats” which was a very popular political term at that time. The
prefix “social” was added here to stress the difference between the traditional
bourgeois democrats and the “new” democrats or the socialists: the former only cared
for some political aspects of democracy, such as universal suffrage and free election,
etc.; the latter accepted all the achievements of the bourgeois democracy and at the
same time expanded this democracy in a radical manner and enriched it with new
social content, which means that the complete and real democracy can only be
realized in a society where exploitation and classes are eliminated, the right to labor is
ensured and social equality is achieved (the traditional bourgeois democrats only
cared about the equality of citizens in legal form). Moreover, the former focuses its
attention more on the people as citizens and consumers while the latter gave priority
to the fate of the people as producers.
The above explanation stresses the differences between social democracy and the
traditional bourgeois democracy, but it fails to analyze the concept of social
democracy from the perspective of the intention of the its initiators and the its
evolution and development.
Materials on the ideological history of socialism tell us that: those who first
advocated the establishment of socialist economic theory didn’t associate the reform
that they advocated with the thought of democracy, instead, they associate socialism

15
with the thoughts of Revelationism，traditionalism and functionalism. For example,
the great Utopian socialists in the 18th century——Saint Simon, Owen and Fourier
were not democrats.
From the revolution period between 1830 and 1848, some people in west Europe
believed that socialists must try to impose influence on the state and give restrictions
to citizens by democratic political system. For example, in the 1830s, the British
Chartism believed that obtaining various political rights and universal suffrage was
the only way to ensure the redistribution of wealth; the French Louis Blanc held that
the state should establish National Workshop to eliminate the exploitation of
capitalists and should guarantee the operation of National Workshop. But to this end,
the state should be reformed through general election so that it could represent
citizens. He believed people could find out the aspiration of the state for democracy
from the root of a socialist state.
Later, some called themselves Social Democrats. In France, they referred to
“democratic republican bearing more or less, lasting but uncertain sympathy with the
working class”, for example, people like Ledru-Rollin in 1848; in Germany, and they
were Lassallean.1
Why did these people call themselves “social democrats”?
Let’s first review the situation in France.
In his article 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Marx, in analyzing the situations
after the 1848 Revolution in France, wrote: “As against the coalesced bourgeoisie, a
coalition between petty bourgeois and workers had been formed, the so-called Social-
Democratic party. The petty bourgeois saw that they were badly rewarded after the
June days of 1848, that their material interests were imperiled, and that the democratic
guarantees which were to insure the effectuation of these interests were called in
question by the counterrevolution. Accordingly they came closer to the workers”.
Meanwhile, as the parliamentary representatives of petty bourgeois, people like
Ledru-Rollin, thrust aside during the dictatorship of the bourgeois republicans, had in
the last half of the period of the Constituent Assembly regained its lost popularity
through the struggle with Bonaparte and the royalist ministers. It had concluded an
alliance with the socialist leaders. In February 1849, banquets were held to celebrate
the reconciliation. A joint program was drafted, joint election committees were set up
and joint candidates were put forward. As a result, “The revolutionary point was
broken off and a democratic turn given to the social demands of the proletariat; the
purely political form was stripped off the democratic claims of the petty bourgeoisie
and their socialist point thrust forward, thus social democracts came into being.” Marx
stressed that: “The peculiar character of social-democracy is epitomized in the fact
that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as a means, not of doing away
with two extremes, capital and wage labor, but of weakening their antagonism and
transforming it into harmony. However different the means proposed for the
attainment of this end may be, however much it may be trimmed with more or less
revolutionary notions, the content remains the same. This content is the
transformation of society in a democratic way, but a transformation within the bounds
of the petty bourgeoisie.”2
In his article The Class Struggles in France between 1848 and 1850, Marx
pointed out the socialism advocated by these social democrats was in fact a kind of
utopian and doctrinaire socialism “ which subordinates the total movement to one of
its stages, puts in place of common social production the brainwork of individual

1 Complete Work of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 489-490.

2 Selected Work of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 613-614.

16
pedants and, above all, in fantasy does away with the revolutionary struggle of the
classes and its requirements by small conjurers' tricks or great sentimentality, while
this doctrinaire socialism, which at bottom only idealizes present society, takes a
picture of it without shadows, and wants to achieve its ideal regardless of the realities
of present society”1
Then, why did the Lassallean in Germany call themselves social democrats?
The reason is that although Lassalle is engaged in the socialist movement of
workers, his political thoughts were based on the prerequisite of democracy.
According to western scholars who focuses their studies on Lassalle’s political
thoughts, “in order to oppose the political, economic and social monopoly of the
grand seigneurs, Lassalle attempted to launch a democratic movement which could
change the existing system”; “in the opinion of Lassalle, because the various classes
at the bottom of society aspire to change the fate of people as a whole, their personal
interests are in the long run in line with the development of democracy. Democracy
means the people’s government that operates through the general election. The
struggle against privilege and abuse of power is the struggle carried out by oppressed
majority to fight against the privileged minority and their abuse of power, therefore, it
is the struggle for democracy”; “in the opinion of Lassalle, democracy means social
democracy. That’s why the new journal of German Working Men’s Association was
named Newspaper of Social Democrats”2.
From these programs and propositions of the people who called themselves
“social democrats” in France and Germany, it can be seen that social democracy is a
trend of thought which is different from Marx’ s communism in principle because
“communism”, or “revolutionary socialism”, “is the declaration of the permanence of
the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to
the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of
production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that
correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that
result from these social relations ”3

3. Attitude of Marx and Engels towards the Concept of Social Democracy

So what attitude did Marx and Engels adopt toward the concept of social
democracy?
According to one of the opinions, Marx and Engels criticized the Rightists in the
petty bourgeois of the republican who called themselves socialists or social
democrats, and gave revolutionary and proletarian meaning to the term “social
democrats” in March 1850.
The “March 1850” mentioned here refers to the Address of the Central
Committee to the Communist League written by Marx and Engels in March 1850. It is
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 461-462.
2 Mastellone, Salvo: History of Democracy in Europe: from Montesquieu to Kelsen, Social Sciences Academic
Press, 1990, Page 158-159.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 462.

17
true that Marx and Engels mentioned the term “social democrats” and “social
democracy” many times in the Address, but they used the term as one side of the
contradiction to point out the difference between the petty bourgeois in the social
democrats and communist party in terms of their ideological programs. They didn’t
give them the proletarian and revolutionary meaning.
Marx and Engels said that the democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to
transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only
aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as
tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible. They hope to bribe the workers
with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength
by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable. They want to bring the revolution to
an end as quickly as possible, achieving at most the aims already mentioned.
Apparently, here exists the basic antagonism between the permanent revolution theory
of the proletariat and the stopping revolution halfway theory of the democratic petty
bourgeois. Therefore, Marx and Engels pointed out that the dividing line in principle
between communists and these democratic petty bourgeois lines in that: “it is our
interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less
propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat
has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed
sufficiently far – not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world –
that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the
decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers. Our
concern cannot simply be to modify private property, but to abolish it, not to hush up
class antagonisms but to abolish classes, not to improve the existing society but to
found a new one.”1
Just for this reason, Marx and Engels call themselves communists rather than
social democrats. In his preface to the reprinting of his book Collection of Theses on
International Issues in “People and State Newspaper”, Engels said when reviewing
his attitude toward the concept of social democrats: “in all these articles, especially in
the last article, I called myself communist instead of social democrats because at that
time those who didn’t write the slogan of returning all the production goods to society
into their banner called themselves social democrats in that country”, although “many
of them became deeply aware of the necessity of returning production goods to the
society and be publicly owned, the producers cooperative sponsored by the State and
advocated by Lassalle was the only thing that was officially acknowledged by their
program. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for Marx and me to use this term to
express our unique viewpoints2”.
In addition, Engels also gave similar explanation to the situation at that time in
his preface to the 1888 English version and 1890 German version of Manifesto of the
Communist Party: “when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist
manifesto” because in 1847 the so-called socialists were understood on the one hand
the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in
France, both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually
dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner
of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of
social grievances. In both cases they were those who stood outside the working-class
movement, and resorted rather to the “educated” classes for support. Some people in
the working class believed pure political changes were insufficient and the whole

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 368.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 489-490.

18
society should be changed fundamentally and they called themselves communists.
From this we can see that “in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement,
communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least,
“respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very
beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working
class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take.
Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.” 1
However, the situation was at that time very complicated. That is, there was a
special situation in the development process of international workers movement,
especially after the failure of Paris Commune and they required the party of workers
to train the masses to learn to compromise in their daily struggles and subject to the
unions. They shouldn’t avoid election, nor should they give up parliamentary
struggles. This situation enabled the concept of social democracy to become popular
rapidly among the workers of international movement. For example, many parties of
workers in West Europe called themselves social democratic parties; On the other
hand, the widespread of Marxism in the workers movement enabled those who called
themselves social democrats accept the basic principles of communism, or scientific
socialism. The situation at that time was just as what Julius Braunthal, the then
secretary general of the Socialist International described: “the great majority of parties
within the Second International based their programs on the ideological system of
Marx and his philosophical historical views, theories of economics, class struggle,
state and revolution. Therefore, Second International is a revolutionary International
ideologically”2.
Given this situation, Marx and Engels adjusted their attitude toward the concept
of “social democrats”. Just as what Engels said in his Preface to the Pamphlet
Internationales aus dem "Volksstaat" (1871-1875): “Now since the situation becomes
different, this term is probably tolerable. Although it is still not accurate for a party
whose program is not only socialist but communist and whose ultimate political goal
is to eliminate the whole state and hence eliminate democracy, for a real party, its
name is not always suitable because the name doesn’t change with the party’s
development.”3
This attitude of Marx and Engels toward the name of “social democrats” was
described by Lenin as temporary “tolerance”. At the Congress of Russian Social-
Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) in Petrograd Lenin said: “the name of ‘social
democrat’ is not appropriate and it’s not correct scientifically, which was mentioned
by Marx and Engels many times. The reason why they ‘tolerated’ it is that a unique
situation came into being after 1871: they had to educate the masses and the
revolution was not put on the agenda”. 4
Examples of this “tolerant” attitude can be seen in works of Marx and Engels at
that time.
Later, in his work The State and Revolution, Lenin analyzed the description of
Engels about his attitude toward the name of “social democrat” according to situation
in that period of the international workers movement. Lenin explained that what
Engels wants to say is: “both Marx and I had found out a good and scientifically
suitable name for the party, but there was not a real political party of proletariat at that
time. Now (the late 19th century) the real party does exist, but its name is not correct
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 21, Page 407-408, and see Volume 22, Page 67-68.
2 Braunthal: History of the International, Volume 1, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1985, Page 291.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 490.
4 Complete Works of Lenin, 2nd edition, People’s Publishing House, Volume 29, Page 241 (all the complete works
of Lenin cited by this book belong to this edition, which will not be mentioned in the notes hereinafter)

19
scientifically. But this doesn’t matter, ‘it can be tolerated’ so long as the party
progresses and is aware the incorrectness of its name without allowing this to be an
obstacle to its development in the right direction.1
It is evident that the adjustment of Marx and Engels to their attitude toward the
name of “social democrat” is closely related to the above changes in its contents.
After the passing away of Engels, the content of the name experienced new
changes which started in the 4th Congress of the Second International held in between
July and August 1896 in London. Although this London Congress reiterated the
party’s goal is “to change the capitalist ownership and mode of production into
socialist ones”, it summarized the measures that should be taken to seize the political
power into a series of demands for universal suffrage. Furthermore, following the
emergence of Bernstainism, the Rightists and Neutralists within the Second
International even interpreted social democracy into a theory opposed to proletarian
revolution and dictatorship and advocating the evolution of capitalism to socialism
through peaceful and legitimate parliamentary channel within the framework of
capitalist system and turning social democratic party into a party engaged in social
reform within the framework of capitalist system. Therefore, with the Second
International degenerating to the association speaking in defense of national
chauvinism during the First World War, social democracy was turned into social
reformism and opportunism.
It is apparent that this new change in the content of the term “social democrat”
required Marxists to change their attitude toward it correspondingly. In this context,
Lenin put forward his proposition of “giving up the name of ‘Social-Democrats’,
which has been besmirched and degraded” by the Rightists and neutralists in the
Second International, “and returning to the old Marxist name of Communists”2 in his
article A German Voice on the War published on December 5, 1914.

4. Arguments proposed by Lenin to Discard the Name of Social Democrats

In May 1917, Lenin gave specific arguments on replacing the name of “social-
democrat” with the name of “communist” in The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our
Revolution (Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party).
Lenin put forward the question of “what should be the name of our party” on the
basis of “one that will be correct scientifically and help to clarify the mind of the
proletariat politically”. He said that since we are Marxists and that we take as our
basis the Communist Manifesto, we should call ourselves communist instead of social
democrats——just as Marx and Engels called themselves because the social
democrats has distorted and betrayed the Communist Manifesto on its two main
points: (1) the working men have no country: “defense of the fatherland” in an
imperialist war is a betrayal of socialism; and (2) the Marxist doctrine of the state has
been distorted by the Second International. Based on this, Lenin came up with four
arguments to support his proposition of replacing the name of social democrat with
the name of communist. Although these arguments were put forward against the
specific historical background, they involved deep analysis on the ideological trend of
social democracy.
The first argument put forward by Lenin was: “The name ‘Social-Democracy’ is
scientifically incorrect”, because it fails to reflect the view of proletarian party on the
prospect of our human social development and the fails to indicate the revolutionary
ideal and goal of the proletarian party. It believes that mankind can pass directly from

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 31, Page 77

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 26, Page 97

20
capitalism only to socialism, i.e., to the public ownership of the means of production
and the distribution of products according to the amount of work performed by each
individual. But the proletarian party looks farther ahead: socialism must inevitably
evolve gradually into communism, upon the banner of which is inscribed the motto,
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. “Marx frequently
pointed out this, in particular, in the Critique of the Gotha Programme in 1875, and
Engels re-affirmed it in a more popular form in 1894.”
The second argument was: “the second part of the name of our Party (Social-
Democrats) is also scientifically incorrect. Democracy is a form of state, whereas we
Marxists are opposed to every kind of state”. But this doesn’t mean the Marxism is
equal to anarchism, but means that: Marxism differs from anarchism which denies all
kinds of state in that it recognizes the need for a state for the purpose of the transition
to socialism; but not a state of the type of the usual parliamentary bourgeois-
democratic republic, but a state like the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Soviets of
Workers’ Deputies of 1905 and 1917.
The third argument was: “living reality, the revolution, has already actually
established in our country, albeit in a weak and embryonic form, precisely this new
type of “state”, which is not a state in the proper sense of the word”. The state in the
proper sense of the term is domination over the people by contingents of armed men
divorced from the people; But our emerging new state is no longer a state in the
proper sense of the term, for in some parts of Russia these contingents of armed men
are the masses themselves, the entire people, and not certain privileged persons placed
over the people, and divorced from the people, and for all practical purposes
undisplaceable. The same it true for the problem of democracy: the usual bourgeois
type of democracy consolidated the rule of the bourgeoisie with the aid of the old,
monarchist organs of administration, the police, the army and the bureaucracy; in
contrast, the emerging new democracy is already ceasing to be a democracy, for
democracy means the domination of the people, and the armed people cannot
dominate themselves. Therefore, Lenin emphasized that: “The term democracy is not
only scientifically incorrect when applied to a Communist Party; it has now, since
March 1917, simply become blinders put on the eyes of the revolutionary people and
preventing them from boldly and freely, on their own initiative, building up the new:
the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’, and all other Deputies, as the sole power in the
“state” and as the harbinger of the “withering away” of the state in every form.
The fourth argument of Lenin was: “we must reckon with the actual situation in
which socialism finds itself internationally”. To illustrate this, he made a comparison
between the situation of 1917 and the situation from 1871 to 1914. He also pointed
out that Marx and Engels knowingly put up with the inaccurate, opportunist term
“Social-Democracy” in those days after the defeat of Paris Commune because of the
world situation at that time: the worker of Britain corrupted by imperialist profits, the
Commune defeated in Paris, the recent (1871) triumph of the bourgeois national
movement in Germany, the age-long sleep of semi-feudal Russia. Being different
from anarchism, Marx and Engels gauged the times accurately and understood the
world situation correctly. They believed that history was putting the task of organizing
and educating the people on the agenda and the task of social revolution should be
carried out slowly. However, the situation in the year of 1917 was quite different: the
objective inevitability of capitalism which grew into imperialism brought about the
imperialist war. The war has brought mankind to the brink of a precipice, to the brink
of the destruction of civilization, of the brutalization and destruction of more millions,
countless millions, of human beings. The only way out is through a proletarian

21
revolution. But at the very moment when such a revolution is beginning, the majority
of the “Social-Democratic” leaders, of the “Social-Democratic” parliamentarians, of
the “Social-Democratic” newspaper have deserted socialism, have betrayed socialism
and have gone over to the side of “their own” national bourgeoisie. The people have
been confused, led astray and deceived by these leaders. In this situation, “if we retain
the old and out-of-date Party name, which is as decayed as the Second International,
we shall aid and encourage that deception” because “the old name of our Party makes
it easier to fool the people and impedes the onward march; for at every step, in every
paper, in every parliamentary group, the masses see leaders, i.e., people whose voices
carry farthest and whose actions are most conspicuous; yet they are all ‘would-be
Social-Democrats’, they are all ‘for unity’ with the betrayers of socialism, with the
social-chauvinists; and they are all presenting for payment the old bills issued by
‘Social-Democracy’. . .”
At last, Lenin emphasized that “it is time to cast off the soiled shirt and to put on
clean linen”1
Since the Russian social democratic party and the Leftists in various member
states of Second International changed their names of “social democratic party” into
“communist party” under the leadership of Lenin, communist has differentiated itself
clearly from social democracy which hence became a term exclusively for the
ideological trend of opportunism of the Rightists and reformism of the Neutralists in
the Second International. The ideological system of Socialist International——
democratic socialism originates from these social democracy.

5. The Inversion of Social Democracy in Name: Democratic Socialism

Then, why did Socialist International change its ideological system from social
democracy into democratic socialism in its inaugural Congress of 1951? The change
is nothing but an inversion of the adjective and the noun both in English and in
Chinese, namely, inversion of social democracy to democratic socialism. Then what’s
the necessity of this inversion?
It should be noted that this question have been constantly raised within the social
democratic party. For example, in compiling the book Social Democracy and the
Future which includes the letters and speeches of Brandt, Kreisky, Palme——leaders
of the Socialist International in the 1970s and publishing it as the series of
Democratic Socialism in Theory and Practice, the editor pointed out in the preface to
this book: “the 1959 Godesberg Program (of German Democratic Socialist Party) was
hesitating between ‘social democracy’ and ‘democratic socialism’——when the new
party members raised this question, the answer they got was that they were the same
concept and had no difference generally”, even in the “letters and speeches of the
three authorities of Socialist Democratic Party” which are included in the book,
there’s no established theory that can be taken as the final interpretation of the term
democratic socialism”2
What’s the reason of this inversion?
One statement holds that we should judge the meaning of “democratic socialism”
from identity of the people who use this term and the domain related to the context of
the term. According to this opinion, William Liebknecht is the initiator of the term
democratic socialism, for he said in his article On the Political Position of Social
Democracy, Its Position on the Congress in Particular written in 1888: “the
democratic socialism is fully convinced that political problems are closely related to

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 29, Page 178-182.

2 Brandt, Kreisky, Palme: Social Democracy and the Future, Chongqing Publishing House, 1990 edition, page 4

22
social problems and hence it proudly refuses to compromise with the existing system
and tries to strive for a democratic country for the society to be organized by the
socialist principles”1. He uses the term of democratic socialism as the synonym of
scientific socialism. However, Bernstein put forward the idea of turning Social
Democratic Party into a “democratic, socialist and reformist party” in 1899, and
Kautsky said in 1927 that “as all the roads of Christianity lead to Rome in the Middle
Ages, today the all the roads of proletariat lead to democracy and democratic
socialism”. The democratic socialism they mentioned here is actually social
reformism in nature.
Apparently, this statement cannot explain why the Socialist International changed
social democracy into democratic socialism in Frankfurt Declaration in 1951, nor can
it explain if there are any other differences between social democracy and democratic
socialism apart from continuity.
There is another statement which is going too far. It believes that the term
“democratic socialism”, just as the term of social democracy, didn’t bear the meaning
of reformism at the very beginning, instead, it is one of the resounding slogans of the
proletariat in the political struggle. The leaders of French and German workers used
this term in 1869 and 1888. Later, it is Henry de Man in the Belgian Labor Party and
Otto Bauer in Austria who used this term in the sense of modern reformism. They
used it to discuss the thoughts of social reformist in 1919 and 1920 respectively.
This statement also fails to explain why the Socialist International inverted the
term of social democracy into democratic socialism.
From this we can see that both statements cannot answer the question by
discussing who first use the term of democratic socialism, who later used it and what
connotation they conferred to it.
To this question, we should find the answer in the changes of the Socialist
International’s Program.
In February 1919, Berne International (the Second International restored after the
First World War) said in the part of “Democracy and Dictatorship” of its resolution on
International Socialism and World Peace: “the Congress of Berne International give
congratulations on the great changes took place in Russia, German and Austria and
call on workers of all countries to establish revolutionary political system in a
democratic way and political reform should be carried out within this scope”.
In February 1921, Vienna International (Second-and-a-Half International) pointed
out in its resolution on Friedrich Adler’s report On the Methods and Organizations of
Class Struggle: “Vienna International shouldn’t follow the lead of the Second
International by only allowing the proletariat to carry out struggles in a democratic
way”; nor should it follow the lead of the Third International by requiring the
proletariat to imitate the workers and peasants’ revolution in Russian.”
In May 1923, the Labor and Socialist International, which was a combination of
Berne International and Vienna International, required in its resolution “that ‘republic
democracy’ should be taken as a basic means of the peaceful struggle for socialism”.
Berne International “congratulated” on “the great changed happened in Russian,
Germany and Austria”, Vienna International called the October Revolution of Russia
“Workers and Peasants’ Revolution in Russia”. What does this mean? Berne
International put emphasis on “establishing a revolutionary political system in
democratic way” and the Labor and Socialist International required that “‘republic
democracy’ should be taken as a basic means of the peaceful struggle for socialism”.
What does this mean?
1 Liebknecht: No Compromise, SDX joint publishing company, Page 19.

23
 All this mans that although there was at that time a basic antagonism between the
Second International, the Second-and-a-Half-International, the Labor and Socialist
International and the Third International and between the socialist democrats and the
communists in the problem of whether they should take the road of revolution or
reform, although there were big differences of opinions between them in the problem
of whether they could realize socialism in a democratic and peaceful way, they took
socialism as their basic goal on the whole.
However, fundamental changes happened after the Second World War.
The Socialist International said in the Frankfurt Declaration in 1951:
“Communism falsely claims a share in the Socialist tradition. In fact it has distorted
that tradition beyond recognition”, and “democracy is the highest form of socialism”.
It later pointed out in its Declaration on Refusing to Cooperate with Communist Party
in 1956: “Socialism has by no means anything in common with Communism.
Communists have completely distorted the thoughts of socialism”, “we believe in
democracy while they don’t”.
These utterances of the Socialist International in its declaration on attacking
communism clearly show that democratic socialism is a new stage of the development
of social democracy. At this new stage, the socialist democrats’ view of democracy
changed: before the Second World War, socialist democrats only took democracy as a
unique way to achieve the goal of socialism, but after the War, they had already taken
it as a major component and basic character of socialism and as the goal itself. This
change of their view on democracy had direct influence on their view of socialism and
their basic difference from communists: before the Second World War, their
differences from the communists were only reflected by the different road and method
they took to realize the same goal of socialism, but after the War, this difference had
become the complete difference in their goal of socialism. They call their ideological
system “democratic socialism” in order to indicate that what they advocate is
“democratic” socialism which is completely different from the socialism of the
communists who advocate dictatorship of the proletariat.
After the Socialist International published the Frankfurt Declaration, a western
scholar Richard Lowenthal once published his article Principles of Western Socialism
which indicated that the meaning of the Declaration lies in that from then on “the
conflict between democratic socialism and communism will no longer be reflected on
their discord in the ways and methods to achieve the same goal, but on the
conflict/dispute on their basic goals”1. Thomas Meyer, a theorist of German Social
Democratic Party, pointed out in his book Democratic socialism in 36 theses: “the
major difference between democratic socialism and Marxism and Leninism is: the
former believes that democracy has value in itself and the aim of socialism is to
expand democracy to every aspect of the society; while the latter believes that the
dictatorship of proletariat is necessary until classes are finally abolished.”
The Socialist International turned bourgeois democracy from the means of achieving
socialism into the important component and basic character of socialism. This
undoubtedly marked a backslide/retreat in its view of socialism. PribichVeitch, a
Yugoslavian scholar, pointed out in his book Socialism as a World Process:
“democratic socialism means a step backward in the development of socialist theory,
squeezing out and diluted the socialist elements that have so far appeared in various
forms in the concept of socialism. Anyhow, the above ideological and political
program cannot become the foundation of fundamental socialist transformation”.2

1 The Twentieth Century Magazine, Issue No.150.

2 Pribich Veitch: Socialism as a World Process, Xinhua Press, 1984, Page 350.

24
And this is an important meaning of change in the ideological system of Socialist
International from social democracy to democratic socialism.

Section 3 Ideological Source of Democratic Socialism

In its Frankfurt Declaration, the Socialist International once advocated its
doctrine of “neutral view of the world” and “pluralism in ideology”: “Socialism is an
international movement which does not demand a rigid uniformity of approach.
Whether Socialists build their faith on Marxist or other methods of analyzing society,
whether they are inspired by religious or humanitarian principles, they all strive for
the same goal — a system of social justice, better living, freedom and world peace.”
However, democratic socialism is in fact mainly originated from some
ideological trends of reformism and revisionism in the history of international
workers movement. In this sense, not all of their views of the world are really
“neutral” and their ideology is not really “pluralist”.
Democratic socialism is originated from the following five trends of thoughts.
1. Proudhonism
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) was born into a petty private owner’s family
in France. His father was a peasant and brewer's cooper. His family went bankrupt
and lost its land as a result of the capitalist development and he had to work as a hire
labor in a hotel at the age of 12. Then, with the help of his friend, he went to middle
school and studied there for several years. But he had to work as a compositor in a
printing house. Later, he once ran a small printing house as a partner, but soon went
bankruptcy as a result of the lack of money. The above experience enabled him to
understand the status of petty private owners in the continuously developing capitalist
society while the books he read during his self-study in the spare time made him
deeply influenced by the bourgeois and petty bourgeois thoughts.
In his book What is Property published in 1840, he once criticized capitalist
society and praised socialism. He believed that in the capitalist society, “property is
stealing”. But he failed to disclose the evil nature of capitalist system from the social
and economic perspective; instead, he only expressed his indignation and criticism at
inequality in the capitalist society from the perspective of morality and legal rights. In
the autumn of 1846, he published a book named System of Economic Contradictions,
or The Philosophy of Poverty which advocates idealist view of history and social and
economic theory of the reformism in a systematic way. He considered the capitalist
production relations as being permanent and unshakable while considered the socialist
history as the history of abstract ideas. He even attempts to replace the real social
movement and class struggle with the movements in his mind. He divides the entire
economic category into good aspect and bad aspect mechanically and believes that the
good aspects should be uncovered by the economists while the bad aspect should be
disclosed by the socialists and he can create various solutions to social reform to
eliminate the bad aspect of capitalism while retaining the good aspect. His thought
reflected the aspiration of petty private owner to not only eliminate the disasters
brought about by capitalist development but also retain private ownership of capital
goods and wage labor system. In 1864 when the First International was established,
Proudhonists disseminated among the workers the ideas of opposing proletarian
revolution and dictatorship, opposing all forms of organizations and states and asking
for absolute freedom of individuals. They preached the establishment of cooperatives
and “bank of exchange” to realize socialism and attempted to seize the leadership of
the Fist International.

25
 The reformist thoughts of Proudhon inherited by the democratic socialism focus
on the following two points:
Firstly, it believes that all the evils of capitalist society can be eliminated by
organizing production, sales and credit cooperatives, etc. especially by establishing
production cooperatives and “banks of exchange” without changing the basic system
of capitalism. As to this viewpoints, Marx pointed out explicitly in the Inaugural
Address and General Rules of the First International that the cooperative movement,
as a form of fighting against capitalism, was meaningful to a certain degree, but it
couldn’t transform capitalist society by itself. The historical experience of the
international workers movement proved that, “however, excellent in principle and
however useful in practice, co-operative labor, if kept within the narrow circle of the
casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in
geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly
lighten the burden of their miseries”1
Marx pointed out with emphasis that the overall social revolution and
emancipation of the working class “can be achieved only by transferring the social
and organized power, namely, the state political power, from the capitalists and
landlords to the hands of producers themselves”2. The resolution on political struggle
passed in the second Congress of the First International held in Lausanne, Switzerland
in September 1867 indicated that Marx had gained victory over Proudhonism on the
issue of what roads should be taken to the emancipation of the proletariat.
Secondly, it attempts to retain the private system for petty private owners and its
ownership of commercial production and opposing Marx’s principles on the
socialization of all capital goods while fighting against the disasters brought about by
capitalist production. As for this viewpoint, Marx criticized it ironically in his book
On Capital that : “Proudhon makes the permanent laws of the ownership of
commodity production contradictory to the capitalist ownership in order to eliminate
capitalist ownership. I have to be astonished by his wisdom”3 because to retain the
private ownership permanently simply means to retain capitalism permanently. The
Brussels Congress of the First International held in September 1868 criticized
Proudhonists who believed that the private ownership was sacrosanct while attacking
public ownership by calling it “brutal communism” and passed by a majority a
resolution supporting the pubic ownership of capital goods. Soon after the Congress,
the Left Wing represented by Varlin who later became the Committee member of
Paris Commune gradually abandoned their Proudhonist thoughts and were inclined to
Marxism; while the Rightist Proudhonists, like Tolain, degenerated into the
accessories of those who suppressed the Paris Commune and were finally expelled by
the First International. Therefore, Engels said Paris Commune “is also the tomb of
Proudhonist socialism” 4
However, the democratic socialism digged out these reformist ideas of Proudhon
and took them as standards. For example, even today, the Socialists of France respect
and admire Proudhonism and believe that the combination of idealist socialism
presented by Fourier and Proudhon and Marxism has become the unique socialist road
in France; the Italian Socialist Bettino Craxi also once quoted Proudhonism to attack
Leninism.

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 606.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 16, Page 219.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 23, Page 644, Note 24.
4 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 11.

26
2. Reformist Thoughts of Anarcho-Syndicalism and Fabian Society
Anarcho-Syndicalism is a reformist trend of thought appeared in workers
movement of the mid 19th century after the decline of British Chartist Movement. It
is called “Anarcho-Syndicalism” because it appeared originally in the British Labor
Union.
Anarcho-Syndicalism preaches cooperation and harmony between classes while
opposing revolutionary wars. It holds that labor unions should carry out movements to
strive for universal suffrage and labor legislation and at the same time is opposed to
working classes’ struggle to overthrow the capitalist system. It regards the increase of
workers’ wages, shortening of working time and improvement of working conditions
as the only goal of workers movement. It put forward the slogan of “A fair day's wage
for a fair day's work” and proposed to settle the conflicts between workers and
capitalists through legal negotiation and consultation, taking negotiation as the basic
means of class struggle.
Given this trend of Anarcho-Syndicalist thoughts, Marx highlighted that it was
very important for the proletariat and its organizations of labor unions to overthrow
the capitalist system and take this as their great task. He pointed out in the Inaugural
Address and General Rules of the Fist International that: “To conquer political power
has become the great duty of the working classes”1. Marx and Engels fully
acknowledged that it is necessary for the working class to carry out daily struggles for
temporarily improving their own conditions. But they also pointed out that: “the
working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these
everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not
with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but
not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady”.
“They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the
present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms
necessary for an economic reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative
motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner
the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!”2 In fact, “it is never
impossible to for the workers and capitalists to reach an agreement under fair terms,
even if under the fair terms in a society where there is an antagonism between
ownership of living and laboring materials and the live productive forces”3
“Fabian Society” refers to the group made up of some British bourgeois
intellectuals in 1884. It was named “Fabian Society” in honor of the Roman general
Quintus Fabius Maximus (nicknamed “Cunctator”, meaning “the Delayer”) who’s
famous for his tactics of harassment and attrition rather than head-on battles in the 3rd
Century B.C. to express its political propositions. Its chief leaders were Sidney Webb
(1859-1947) and George Bernard Shaw(1856-1950).
Fabian Society saw the evils of capitalist society and felt that social reform was
inevitable. It also felt the threat of powerful forces of proletarian revolution. Hence it
attempted to place the proletariat under its leadership so as to avoid the danger
brought about by the violent revolution of overthrowing the bourgeois ruling and at
the same time to satisfy their political desire. Although sometimes some workers were
allowed to join in their leading organization, they could only play the role of minority
for ever. Engels once said, Fabian Society “is a group made up of various bourgeois
‘socialists’ ranging from thrusters to emotional socialists and charitarian who united

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 606, 612.

2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 97.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 16, Page 219-220.

27
for fear that the workers would obtain the power and tried to prevent this danger by
sparing no efforts to guarantee their or ‘the educated’ people’s leadership”1 In
politics, Fabian Society preached a mild and progressive socialism under the guidance
of the principle of opposing revolution and held that the transition from capitalism to
socialism should be conducted peacefully through trivial reforms. It opposed
proletarian class struggle against the bourgeoisie and returning all means of
production to the society through revolution while trying to “influence the capitalists
by emotional sermon; at the same time, it proposed to establish autonomous local
administrations through democratic election and then expand their ownership of some
sectors of pubic utilities so as to carry out socialism “in drops”. Engels pointed out the
aim of these propositions of Fabian Society “was to enable the bourgeoisie to be
converted to socialism so as to realize socialism in a peaceful and constitutional
manner”2 He also said: “the reason why they are wildly hostile to Marxism and all of
us is the problem of class struggle” 3
The thoughts of Anarcho-Syndicalism and the reformism of Fabian Society have
had great influence on the British Labor Party. For example, the series of policies
introduced by McDonald government and Attlee government of the British Labor
Party were based on above theories and the reformist program proposed by Cole in his
book Fabian Socialism had special influence on the social reformist policies of
Attlee’s Labor Party government.

3. Lassalleanism
Lassalle came from a prosperous Jewish family in Breslau, Germany and his
father was a silk-merchant. Due to his family influence, he was eager to stand out
among others, but his ambition couldn’t be realized because of the discrimination he
received from the Junker aristocracy and big bourgeoisie on his family background.
Then he took part in the revolution in 1848. After the failure of the revolution, he was
arrested and sentenced to be imprisoned for six months. He lost his confidence in
revolution after getting out of the prison. When another upsurge appears in German
revolutionary movement in the early 1860s, he once again participated in the workers
movement and began to introduce the opportunist ideas.
In the spring of 1862, Lassalle published a pamphlet entitled the On Special
Relationship between the Present Historical Period and Workers’ Hierarchical
Thoughts which preached that socialism could be realized so long as the workers
obtained the universal suffrage and established production cooperatives with the help
of the state. Based on this, he proposed that the ethics and view of the state of the
“fourth estate” or the “workers estate” were in opposition to those of the bourgeoisie.
He said that the ethics of bourgeoisie were nothing but to ensure the full play of every
individual’s ability without any limitations. But there were differences between
individuals and this would certainly lead to serious wrongdoings: the more powerful,
smarter and wealthier would exploit and oppress the poor and the weak. Based on
this, the bourgeois view of the state was simply to assume the state to be a night
watchman to prevent theft, namely, they believed the state should specially protect the
freedom and property of individuals.
In contrast, Lassalle argued that the ethics of the workers’ estate is that it’s not
enough to ensure the free development of individuals’ personality without any

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 38, Page 443.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 37, Page 351.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 718.

28
limitation; more should be done to increase the consensus of interests, commonness
and mutuality in development within a rationally organized body. The view of the
workers’ estate on the state was that history was the struggle against nature and the
struggle against hardship, ignorance, poverty, powerlessness and various kinds of
comfortlessness experienced by mankind in the early period of historical
development. Hence constantly overcoming this status of being powerless was the
free development displayed by history. If mankind only struggle for their own
interests individually, they could not advance at all. The function of the state was to
fulfill this free development of mankind. Since a state is a unity of individuals in an
ethical entirety, its task was definitely to help the individuals achieve the development
which wouldn’t be achieved by themselves through the unification of all people.
Therefore, “the aim of a state is to achieve the positive development and constant
improvement of the human nature, in other words, to fulfill the duty of mankind, or to
realize the aim of cultural state within the reach of their ability, which is education
and freedom of mankind”.
On March 1, 1863, in his Open letter answering the Central Committee on the
convening of a General German Workers’ Congress in Leipzig, Lassalle asked the
working class to take the strive for “universal, equal, and direct suffrage” as their
political program and take the establishment of production cooperatives with the
support of the state as the only means to improve their financial conditions and realize
socialism. He also spoke strongly against the strike movement of workers and all
kinds of revolutionary struggles under the name of the so-called “iron law of wages”.
Soon, Lassalle became the chairman of the General German Workers’ Association
founded in the Leipzig Congress, attempting to make the German workers movement
develop in the reformist direction according to his proposal.1
As early as before Lassalle preached his reformist road in pubic, Marx had
“explained and ‘illustrated’ to him that: the socialist interference by ‘Prussian State’
was absolutely nonsense”2. Later, Marx repeatedly criticized these reformist ideas:
Firstly, “the aid from the government of Prussian Kingdom to the cooperatives
——all those who understand the situations in Prussia can predict that the scale of this
kind of aid must be very small——even zero as economic measures. Meanwhile, this
kind of aid would expand the guardianship system, bribe some of the workers in the
working class and frustrate the workers movement.” Therefore, “if the political parties
of workers imagine that the gold apple will drop to their mouth as a grace from the
king during the times of Bismarck and any other times of Prussia; they will make a
fool of themselves. Undoubtedly, Lassalle’ unfortunate imagination about the
‘socialist interference’ by the Prussian government will let them down. That is the
inevitable and logical result”3
Secondly, “ ‘general laboring socialist organization’ ” was not ‘formed’ in the
process of social revolution, but in the ‘national aid’ given by the state to the
production cooperatives which were ‘established’ by the state instead of workers. This
deserves to be called Lassalle’s imagination: to establish a new society with national
credits, just as easy as to build a new railway.”4
Thirdly, the “core of Lassalle’s agitation: national aid in opposition to self-aid…is
nothing but a repetition of the slogan put forward by Bisher, a French leader of
Catholic Socialism in 1843 and the following years in order to opposing the real

1 Speeches of Lassalle, SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1976 edition, Page 38-74, Page 113-143.
2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 566.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 31, Page 77-78.
4 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 312.

29
workers movement in France.1
The opportunist road and ideas of Lassalle once had a deep influence on people
like Bernstain, the founder of revisionism, and it is still having great influence on
Socialist Democratic Party of German (SPD) today. For instance, Hans-Jochen Vogel,
the chairman of the SPD, believes that Lassalle’s view of the state can indicate far
more clearly the relationship of social democratic workers movements with the state
in their political practice than Marx and Engels’ view of the state.2 At the centennial of
the First International, Carlo Schmidt described the positive attitude of Lassalle
toward a democratic state as an “antidote” of Marxism’s reduction of the state and
negation of the national morality and justice.

4. Bernstainism
Compared with the above three ideological trends of reformism and opportunism,
Berstainism is the more comprehensive and important ideological source of
democratic socialism.
Bernstain (1850-1932) Bernstein was born into a Jewish worker’s family in Berlin.
His father was a blacksmith and a locomotive engineer, and his uncle Aaron Bernstein
was a bourgeois liberalist and the founder of the newspaper Berliner Volks-Zeitung.
Bernstain dropped out of school at the age of 16 and went to work at a bank as a
trainee. In 1872, he joined the Eisenach Group of Social Democratic Party of
Germany. In 1875, he attended the party Congress held in Gotha as a representative.
In 1878 when the Bismarck Government issued the Anti-Socialist Law, Bernstain was
introduced by Schramm to Karl Hochberg as his literary secretary in Zurich,
Switzerland.
In 1878, Hochberg, Schramm and Berstain wrote an article entitled The Socialist
Movement in Germany in Retrospect in the Yearbook for Socialist Science and
Politics published by Hochberg. The article held that they shouldn’t be against the
bourgeoisie, instead, they should be subject to the leadership of the bourgeoisie; it
also asked the social democratic party to turn from a “one-sided” workers’ political
party into an all-sided political party led by the “educated” and “really benevolent”
people; it proclaimed that the Party would take a “legal and reformist road” rather
than the “violent, bloody and revolutionary road”; it asked the Party not to put on the
top of the agenda the ultimate goal that couldn’t be achieved by only one generation
and to spare no effort to realize minor reforms and amendments and slow down the
realization of the Program; It blamed the Party for the Anti-Socialist Law worked out
by Bismarck, “because it (the Party) has unnecessarily increased the hatred of
Bourgeoisie” and “this (the Law) is the whip it (Party) has asked for itself ”.
After Marx and Engels had read this article, they immediately wrote a letter of
announcement to the five leaders of the social democratic party of German including
August Bebel and Wilhelm Bracke and pointed out that “the three Zürichers group”
“is the representatives of the petty bourgeoisie who are here presenting themselves,
full of anxiety that the proletariat, under the pressure of its revolutionary position,
may ‘go too far.’ It is not the decided political opposition, but general compromise;
not the struggle against the government and the bourgeoisie, but an attempt to win and
to persuade; not defiant resistance to ill-treatment from above, but a humble
submission and a confession that the punishment was deserved”. The letter criticized

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 582.

2 Vogel: The Legacy of Lassalle and Present Task of Democratic Socialism, published in New Society magazine,
1987 (6).

30
that the above article “hushed up, diluted, attenuated” class struggle and “when the
class struggle is pushed on one side as a disagreeable ‘crude’ phenomenon, nothing
remains as a basis for socialism but ‘true love of humanity’ and empty phraseology
about ‘justice’ ”. The letter required that the Party leaders break with them: “How the
Party can tolerate the authors of this article in its midst any longer is
incomprehensible to us.” “As for ourselves, in view of our whole past, there is only
one path open to us. For the recent forty years we have stressed the class struggle as
the immediate driving force of history, and in particular the class struggle between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat as the great lever of the modern social revolution; it is
therefore impossible for us to co-operate with people who wish to expunge this class
struggle from the movement. When the International was formed we expressly
formulated the battle-cry: the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by
the working class itself. We cannot therefore co-operate with people who say that the
workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from
above by philanthropic bourgeois and petty bourgeois.” 1
After this, Bernstain restrained his arrogance temporarily. From 1881 he became
the editor of the newspaper of Social Democrat and then in 1888 moved to London
along with the newspaper office and settled there. In 1890 when the Anti-Socialism
Law was abolished and the Social Democrat stopped publication, Bernstain became a
journalist of Vorwärts (means Forward in English), the central organ of the SPD, to
London and wrote regularly for Die Neue Zeit ("The New Times"), a theoretical
journal of the SPD. During this period, being deeply influenced by the Anarcho-
Syndicalism and Fabian Society in Britain, his opportunist ideas once again came up
and he began to write articles to spread his opportunist thoughts secretly.
After 1895 when Engels Passed away, Bernstain went from bad to worse: he
made more public speeches to attack the basic principles of Marxism. For example,
after October 1896 he published a series of articles under the general title of Problems
of Socialism, opposing the clear dividing line between the capitalist society and the
socialist one, denying the transition from the former to the latter should be realized
through sudden changes; preaching compromise with the bourgeoisie and believing
that the capitalist development had moderated the class struggles and there was a
reduced possibility of economic crisis that would lead to revolution, and even no
possibility at all. To this end, he called on the Party to change its strategy by putting
forward the formula of “The movement is everything, the final goal nothing”.
In 1899, Bernstain published his book The Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks
of Social Democracy which gave a systematic and comprehensive description of his
reformist ideas, launching an open attack on the arguments of socialism on the basis
of objective necessity and claimed that: the victory of socialism didn’t depend on the
internal economic inevitability, so it is both impossible and unnecessary to provide
pure materialistic arguments for socialism; the appearance of Cartel and Trust enable
the capitalism to gain the adaptive capacity, hence the economic crisis could be
prevented and essentially eradicated and the conflicts in the capitalist society tended
to become eased instead of becoming intense; with the development of technology
and social organizations, people in the middle class were increasing, the social
relations wouldn’t become as worsening as what was described in the Communist
Manifesto and the economic collapse of the capitalist economy would be impossible;
the political freedom, democracy and universal suffrage had caused the foundation of
class struggle to diminish gradually because: democracy meant the elimination of
class ruling and the working class could gain the political power by universal
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 34, Page 381-384.

31
suffrage. With the increase of the number of workers and their knowledge, universal
suffrage could serve as a tool to turn the people’s representatives from people’s master
into their real servants while class dictatorship belonged to a culture at a lower level
and was an atavism in politics; the Marx’s doctrine on violent revolution of the
proletariat had become out of date and the reform which could be realized only by
bloody revolution one hundred years ago now could be achieved by voting,
demonstration and other means of threatening; the whole practice of social democratic
party should be summarized as creating favorable conditions to facilitate and
guarantee the transformation of the modern social system into a social system at a
higher level without convulsive outbreaks, namely, transforming the capitalism into
socialism through improvement; to this end, the social democratic party should
change its nature and become a party striving for the realization of socialist reform of
the society by means of democratic reform and economic reform.1
After the emergence of Bernstainism, the Leftists within the SPD carried out
struggles against it while the Neutralists represented by Kautsky adopted a
conciliationist attitude in order to cover up the conflicts, remove disagreements and
protect the Rightists. During the First World War, Bernstain, as a member of the
Reichstag, voted for war credits in favor of the imperialist war and hence degenerated
to a social chauvinist. After the victory of the October Revolution of Russia, he
criticized the bolsheviki for “overestimating the creativity of brutal violence”, and
called the dictatorship of the proletariat “one-party system”. Meanwhile, it described
the revolution of November 1918 in Germany, the leadership of which was usurped
by the Rightists, as a typical example of his doctrine of “peaceful evolution to
socialism”.
As early as before the emergence of Bernstainism, many people such as Malone,
Bruce, Milelan and Jaures in Franc, Turati in Italy, Fabianists in Britain and Vollmar
in Germany had preached the theory of capitalism’s peaceful evolution to socialism,
but Berstainism was a comprehensive and systematic description of this theory.
Therefore, it has long been an important source of the ideological trend of the
democratic socialism and social reformism of the social democrats.
Meyer said in his book Constructive Socialism of Bernstain: “the basic structure
of Bernstain’s understanding of socialism has become (consciously or unconsciously)
the foundation of the program of social democratic parties in most western European
countries”2 In 1979 when the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the
publication of Godesberg Program was held, Brandt, chairman of the Socialist
International and leader of the SPD, acknowledged openly that Bernstain was the
father of the Program3. When the economic crisis in capitalist society in the 1970s
made a large proportion of the social democrats give up their illusion that capitalism
could be changed, the “restoration of Bernstainism” was put forward by leaders of the
SPD for the purpose of overcome the ideological crisis within the Party and provide
theoretical grounds for the social reformism. They compiled, distributed and discuss
the excerpts from Bernstain’s famous works and tried to prove that the legacy of
Bernstain could be taken as the foundation in drafting effective political strategies for
democratic socialist movement.

1 Bernstain: The Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy, SDX Joint Publishing Company,
1973 edition.
2 Meyer: Constructive Socialism of Bernstain, 1977 edition, Page 4.
3 See Iring Fetscher: Entrusted History——Collected Speeches by Willy Brandt on the History of Workers
Movement, 1981 edition, Page 321.

32
5. Kautzkyism
Karl Kautsky （1854-1939）was born in Prague of artistic middle-class parents,
his father being a painter and his mother, a novelist and actress. The family moved to
Vienna when he was 9 years old. He was studying history, economics and law at the
University of Vienna in 1874, and became a member of the Social Democratic Party
of Austria (SPÖ) in 1875. In 1880 he was invited by Karl Höchberg to Zurich to write
for his magazine and there he made the acquaintance of Bernstain. In 1883, Kautsky
founded the monthly Die Neue Zeit ("The New Times"), the first theoretical magazine
of the workers’ political party and was its chief editor and began to take part in
activities of the leading organizations of the SPD. He co-authored the Erfurt Program
and attended the congress of the Second International as a representative of the SPD.
Kautsky’s showed his infatuation with the bourgeois society in his early works
and considered that bourgeois society served the interests of various classes and even
said that parliamentary struggle was the most powerful force that could upgrade the
proletariat and help them to get rid of economic, social and spiritual humiliation. He
turned to opportunism during the period between 1910 and 1911 and became a
complete opportunist during the period between 1914 and 1916. After this conversion,
he began to propagate the “theory of ultra-imperialism”, believing that the conflicts of
the capitalism can be softened and then an “era of ultra-imperialism” would come
when a combination of international financial capitals would replace struggles and
conflicts. He asked the working class to wait and not to seize the political power until
this era came and also threatened them by saying that, if they seize the power by
violence, the revolution would be bound to end with the ruling like Cromwell or
Napoleon. He attacked the dictatorship of the proletariat and considered it as the one-
party system within the proletarian class. He also advocated democracy against
dictatorship and talked glibly about the general democracy and pure democracy which
not only meant the ruling by the majority, but also the protection of the minority. He
said that dictatorship meant the elimination of democracy literally and meant the
dictatorship of an individual and the “original sin” of Bolsheviks was replacing
democracy with dictatorship. He asserted that the world revolution would be achieved
through democracy and humanity instead of dictatorship. He also preached that the
universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage must be achieved. Later, he even called on
openly the enemies of the Soviet Russia both within and out of country to jointly
overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism. He said that a road
to prosperity can be created in both Russia and Europe if Bolshevism was expelled
and replaced by a democratic system1.
Lenin seriously refuted various viewpoints of Kautsky after pointing out that
“Kautskyism is not fortuitous; it is the social product of the contradictions within the
Second International, a blend of loyalty to Marxism in word and subordination to
opportunism in deed”2.
Aiming at Kautsky’s doctrine of “the way of democracy is in complete opposition
against the way of dictatorship”, Lenin stressed that: “If we are not to mock at
common sense and history, it is obvious that we cannot speak of pure democracy” as
long as different classes exist; we can only speak of class democracy” and “ ‘Pure
democracy’ is the mendacious phrase of a liberal who wants to fool the workers.”;
although “Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison
with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain,
restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and

1 Speeches of Kautsky, SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1973.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 230.

33
deception for the exploited, for the poor”; “Even in the most democratic bourgeois
state the oppressed people at every step encounter the crying contradiction between
the formal equality proclaimed by the “democracy” of the capitalists and the
thousands of real limitations and subterfuges which turn the proletarians into wage-
slaves.”
Lenin argued that in contrast with this, “Proletarian democracy has brought a
development and expansion of democracy unprecedented in the world, for the vast
majority of the population, for the exploited and working people.”, therefore,
“Proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic than any bourgeois
democracy”1. He further pointed out that proletarian dictatorship was necessary
because in every profound revolution, the exploiters who for a number of years had
retained important practical advantages over the exploited would continue their
prolonged, stubborn and desperate resistance”; “The indispensable characteristic, the
necessary condition of dictatorship is the forcible suppression of the exploiters as a
class, and, consequently, the infringement of “pure democracy”, i.e., of equality and
freedom, in regard to that class”2.
Aiming at the fairy tales of Kautsky such as democracy was the protection of the
minority, Lenin disclosed the law of bourgeois democratic system: “the ruling party in
a bourgeois democracy extends the protection of the minority only to another
bourgeois party, while the proletariat, on all serious, profound and fundamental issues,
gets martial law or pogroms, instead of the “protection of the minority”. The more
highly developed a democracy is, the more imminent are pogroms or civil war in
connection with any profound political divergence which is dangerous to the
bourgeoisie.”3
Kautsky had an enormous influence on the formation and development of the
social democratic parties in West Europe. His book the Proletarian Revolution and Its
Program written in 1922 was the foundation of the 1925 Heidelberg Program of the
SPD; his doctrine that “the approach of democracy is in complete opposition against
the approach of dictatorship” was an important theoretical pillar for the Socialist
International to replace the opposition between revolution and reform with the
opposition between democracy and dictatorship and to replace social democracy with
democratic socialism.
From the above ideological sources of democratic socialism, we can see that it is
opposite to scientific socialism from its source and that basic theoretical viewpoints
constituting this ideological trend have been sharply refuted by classical Marxist
writers. Therefore, the basic principles and methods of Marxism has always been a
powerful weapon for us today when we analyze the ideological trend of democratic
socialism and differentiate it from scientific socialism by studying the new situations
and problems crop up in our times.

Section 4 Democratic Socialism is a Social Reformism in the Capitalist Society

In the capitalist society, democratic socialism is an ideological system of social
reformism, which is not only widely recognized by people all over the world, but also

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 243-244, Page 247-248.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 255, 257.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 246-247.

34
publicly stated by members of labor parties, socialist parties and socialist democratic
parties.
Gustav Heinemann, social democrats of Germany and former president of The
Federal Republic of Germany, once said: “the social democratic party of Germany is a
reformist party and its task is to work out future-oriented policies which will take our
unstable times into the orbit of evolution.”1
Kreisky, vice chairman of the Socialist International and chairman of the Socialist
Party of Austria, stated that: “wherever there is a modern industrial society, the social
development will not depend on revolution. Revolution isn’t a political domain that
has realistic meaning, so we must frankly admit that only continuous reform can
transform our society.”2 He also pointed out that: “the social democratic party is not a
revolutionary force in the traditional conception; instead, it is a high-level reformist
movement.”3
Palme, vice chairman of the Socialist International and chairman of the Social
Democratic Party of Sweden, said: “we haven’t time to play violent games of the
opportunism, instead, we educate all the members of our society in the spirit of being
loyal to and confident in the peaceful coexistence based on democracy. Reformism
——…is an important tool of transforming the society”; “by taking the reformist
road, we have made greater achievements than other countries which take the road of
revolution”4.
Crossman, British Labor Party theorist, in talking about the goal of British labor
movement, said that: “the real goal of labor movement is never to seize the political
power dramatically by the working class, nor is it to destroy a economic system
violently and replace it with another one”5

1. Reform and Reformism

Then, what’s the meaning of the so-called reform?

Reform is a step or stage leading to improvement. In the class society, reform is
comparative with revolution. Reform means the ruling class makes compromise with
the ruled class or the ruled class strives for compromise from the ruling class while
revolution means overthrowing the old ruling class. In the workers’ movement of the
capitalist society, reform and revolution are originally connected with the two
different roads, methods or means of changing the capitalist system.
Palme, leader of the Socialist Party of Sweden, once said that on the issue of
changing the capitalist society and advancing to a better social system, originally
“people agreed with each other, but have big disagreement on the issue of what road
to take: some groups planed to completely break down the old social system and made
effort to attain it. Revolution can help them seize the political power and build up a
new society on the ruins of the old society. Some other groups wanted to change the
society in a peaceful way by emphasizing patience and responsibility and at the same
time they advocated reform and the courage and resolution to achieve their goal” 6 the
1 Heinemann: Fantasy of Human Rights——Several Explanations About the Problem of Where the Social
Democrats of Germany Will Go, in the Special Issue of New Society magazine, in 1968, Page 4.
2 Der Spiegel, (The Mirror) a German weekly magazine, Feb. 28, 1973.
3 The Letter of Kreisky to Palme and Brandt on May 8, 1973, published in Social Democracy and The Future,
Page 42.
4 Palme: Looking Forward to the Future, the 1974 edition, Stockholm, Page 31, 37.
5 New Fabian Essays, the 1970 edition, London, Page 26.
6 Palme’s letter to Brandt and Kreisky on August 17, 1972, published in Social Democracy and the Future, Page
12.

35
former was a revolutionary road while the latter a reformist one. Those who took the
former road were revolutionists in labor movement while those who stuck to the latter
road were reformists in labor movement.
However, in the capitalist society, reformism originally appeared as a ruling
method used by the bourgeoisie. As the ruling class, the bourgeoisie usually adopts
two ways of management alternatively or together, namely, two struggling methods of
protecting their own interests and safeguarding their ruling position: one is the way of
violence, the way of refusing to make any compromise with the workers movement,
the way of maintaining all the old and corrupt systems and the way of strongly
opposing reform; the other one is the way of “liberalism”, which tends to expand the
political rights of people, implement reform and make compromise. With
development of capitalism and rapid growth of workers’ movement in all the
development capitalist countries, great changes have taken place in the attitude of the
bourgeoisie toward proletariat and their management methods and ruling methods.
In the past, the bourgeoisie in Europe and America, in order to maintain the
absolutely inviolable private ownership and free competition, used to launch open and
direct struggles against basic principles of socialism through their ideologists and
politicians. But later, they tended to adopt the second way of management and ruling,
oppose social revolution by social reform and remedy the capitalist system partially
while opposing overthrowing bourgeois political power by revolution.
Especially when capitalism entered into the stage of state monopoly capitalism,
the bourgeoisie strengthened the function of state in an unprecedented manner in
order to overcome the anarchic development of capitalism and mitigate the violent
class confrontation. They, on the one hand, carried out a package of anti-risk measures
through the state, and on the other hand, made a series of great compromise with
workers’ movement and restructured the internal mechanism of the functions of
capitalist society until the reformist leaders within the workers’ movement were
allowed to organize the Cabinet to manage the capitalist society.

2. Social Reformism and Reasons for Its Emergence

However, reformism also emerged as a model of action adopted by the reformists
within the workers’ movement. In this case, it is a social reformism not only different
from but also corresponding to the bourgeois reformism. The characteristic of this
social reformism lies in that it advocates gradual, minor and smattery social reforms
without touching the capitalist system.
About the nature of this social reformism, Lenin had once made the following
analysis:
“Reformism is nothing but to ask the ruling class to make a compromise instead
of overthrowing it, nothing but to ask the ruling class to make a compromise under
precondition of maintaining the political power of the ruling class”; 1
“Reformism is to confine the people to changes without abolishing the
foundations of the old ruling class, namely, to encourage changes consistent with this
foundation”2
“The harm of reformism lies in its strategy of focusing on partial improvement
and replace revolution by partial improvement”.3
Reform, 1 though partial or insignificant, should bring about a certain

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 32, Page 310

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 23, Page 87
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 24, Page 53

36
improvement to the material interests of working people within the capitalist society,
and may accelerate the transformation of obsolete forms of capital such as federation
and slavery into modern ones. 2 However, in capitalist society, the ruling class make
compromise or agree to make compromise only for the purpose of preventing,
undermining or putting down the revolution, distracting the attention of the
revolutionary class and confusing them; for the purpose of enslaving the workers by
these reforms, separating them into single groups and securing the employment and
slavery system permanently. Therefore, in the capitalist society, all the reforms
have dual characters. And the reformism, which confines intention and activities of
the proletariat to the scope of reform, separates the working class’ struggle for reform
from revolutionary struggle and attempts to divide and deceive workers by petty
favors, is no doubt the spreader of bourgeois thoughts in the proletarian class and a
tool used by the bourgeoisie to deprave and undermine the working class.
This social reformism became popular in Britain and France in the mid 19th
century where the capitalism has been firstly developed and class struggles became
increasingly intense. It was then represented by anarcho-syndicalism and Fabianism
in Britain and Proudhonism in France. With the formation of monopolistic capital and
development of international workers’ movement, it is widely spread into other
capitalist countries, for example, Lassalleanism in Germany and economicsmism in
Russia, etc. The reformist measures vary with different historical conditions in
different countries. Nevertheless, they have the same basic propositions and
viewpoints——advocating peaceful evolution of capitalism into socialism by
peaceful, progressive and slow transformation. In its development process, social
reformism seriously depraved the Second International and various parties within it in
the later stage and finally at the end of the 19th century, led to the appearance of
Bernstainism with universal popularity. As mentioned above, the democratic
socialism advocated by the Socialist International originally came from this social
reformism in the later stage of the Second Internaional.
Social reformism that spread bourgeois influence constantly appeared within the
workers’ movement. This seems to be a reflection of the weakness and powerlessness
of the workers’ movement, but as a matter of fact, this is a phenomena appeared in the
progress and development of workers’ movement: at the very beginning when
socialism was struggling for its own survival, the bourgeoisie protected their own
economic and political views of liberalism in a fully confident, determined and bold
manner, but later when socialism grew up and gained and maintained their right to
survival in the whole civilized world and began to fight for the political power, the
bourgeoisie started to change their strategies of struggles in a large scale and tried to
use their partial and hypocritical compromise to soften the increasingly sharp class
confrontation and secure their political power in the new situation.
Lenin once said: “The intensification of the struggle of reformism against
revolutionary Social-Democracy within the working-class movement is an absolutely
inevitable result of the changes in the entire economic and political situation
throughout the civilized world. The growth of the working-class movement
necessarily attracts to its ranks a certain number of petty-bourgeois elements, people
who are under the spell of bourgeois ideology, who find it difficult to rid themselves
of that ideology and continually lapse back into it. We can not conceive of the social
revolution being accomplished by the proletariat without this struggle, without clear
demarcation in principle between the socialist Mountain and the socialist Gironde
prior to this revolution, and without a complete break between the opportunist, petty-
bourgeois elements and the proletarian, revolutionary elements of the new historic

37
force during this revolution.”1
In his works such as Differences in the European Labor Movement, Lenin
concentrated more on analyzing the causes of the frequent appearances of reformism
within the workers’ movement. Generally speaking, there were four reasons:
First, the very growth of the labor movement. With the upsurge of workers’
movement, larger and larger numbers of new “recruits”, new sections of working
people were involved in the movement, this must inevitably lead to waverings in the
sphere of theory and tactics, repetitions of old mistakes and a temporary reversion to
antiquated views and antiquated methods, and so forth.
Second, the rate at which capitalism develops varies in different countries and in
different spheres of the national economy. Economic relations which are backward, or
which lag in their development, constantly lead to the appearance of supporters of the
labor movement who assimilate only certain aspects of Marxism, only certain parts of
the new world outlook, or individual slogans and demands, being unable to make a
determined break with all the traditions of the bourgeois world outlook in general and
the bourgeois-democratic world outlook in particular.
Third, the dialectical nature of social development which proceeds in
contradictions and through contradictions caused those who couldn’t break away
completely with the bourgeois world outlook to often exaggerate some characteristics
or lessons in the capitalist development and develop them into one-sided system of
tactics. They seized upon one aspect of the labor movement, elevate one-sidedness to
a theory, and declare mutually exclusive those tendencies or features of this
movement that are a specific peculiarity of a given period, of given conditions of
working-class activity.
From the epistemological perspective, the causes that give rise to the social
reformism are that they cannot see the wood for the trees; they only see the flashy
appearance of the bourgeois parliamentary system while failing to see the cruel class
struggle in the capitalist society. They also fail to see that although this class struggle
can be conducted on the foundation of the capitalist system within a certain historical
period, ultimately the face-to-face fighting will be inevitable. Therefore, they sacrifice
the fundamental interests of the movement for the immediate and superficial interests.
Fourth, the bourgeoisie change their ruling tactics from one to another. When the
bourgeoisie change their violent ruling method to the method of concession and
reform, the reformists within the workers’ movement tend to take the driving forces of
social progress as the spirit of unity of all those have realized the “imperfectness” of a
certain system, hence to replace class struggle with class harmony and class
concession.

3. Features and Functions of Modern Social Reformism

Compared with various social reformisms in the history of workers’ movement,
democratic socialism, as a contemporary social reformism, has an important
characteristic: against the background that the bourgeoisie are adjusting the internal
mechanism of the capitalist social function and asking the reformists in the workers’
movement to manage the capitalist society, the social democratic parties in many
countries not only participate in the bourgeois cabinet and assume high positions such
as ministers, as what the previous reformists did, but also seize the power and become
the ruling party by directly leading the social democratic party, organize the cabinet
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 20, Page 308.

38
independently or together with other bourgeois political parties and implement its
social reformist policies mainly by the means of the state.
The social reformism implemented by the social democratic parties which have
gained the ruling position is different from the state capitalist policies advocated by
the bourgeoisie. Social reformism relies more on the mechanisms of state capitalism
while the bourgeoisie tries to restrict the use of these mechanisms and adopt these
measures selectively so as to leave more room of freedom for private enterprises and
other intrinsic elements of capitalism; the social reformism attaches great importance
to the direct supervision, planning and guidance for the major investment programs
and foreign trade, etc. while the bourgeoisie paying much attention to indirect state
intervention through credit and monetary policies; the social reformism support the
collection of accumulated personal income taxes, which has touched the high income
of some citizens, although doesn’t touch the undistributed profit which has been
taking an increasingly bigger proportion in the total income of property while the
bourgeoisie pay attention to the various forms of indirect taxes which is obviously not
conducive to the interests of labor class.
Although social reformisms take various forms in different times and countries,
their basic social functions are almost the same. If Marxism called on the
revolutionary class to become the grave digger of capitalist system, it can be said that
the social reformism just plays the opposite role: “nurse of capitalism”. Lenin once
pointed out sharply that: since the reformists “are only confined to reform”, “they
degenerated into becoming the ‘nurse of capitalism’ completely”.
Even the social democrats themselves frankly admitted this social function of
reformism.
On May 25, 1975 when Brandt, chairman of the Socialist International, and
Palme, vice chairman of the Socialist International, were invited to Vienna by
Kreisky, another vice chairman of the Socialist International, to exchange their
opinions, Kreisky once cited the speech made by a German socialist democrat Fritz
Tarnow who called the social democratic party “the doctor beside the sickbed of
capitalism” at the Party Congress in Leipzig 1931. He said:
“This speech which has gone down in history” , “although is strongly opposed by
all the Leftists, it is hence to the point”. 1
It should be noted that to act as “a doctor beside the sickbed of capitalism” is
not only the personal ambition of Kreisky, but the common aspiration of the leaders of
social democratic parties, for it is just the most important function of democratic
socialism as a kind of contemporary social reformism. Just for this reason, Palme, a
Swedish, also said during the same talk with Kreisky that “we socialists are actually
coexisting with capitalism to a certain degree”, “People need the basic facilities of
industrial society. The modern crisis of capitalism is at the same time the crisis of
industrial society. Thus to save the industrial society has become our task”. He
believed that “the antiquate slogan of ‘abolishing capitalism’ has had nothing
attractive, and now we cannot simply say such words as ‘we’ll abolish capitalism’”.2
In order to provide arguments for this function of social reformism and justify it,
the social democrats always oppose reformism completely against revolution. They
raise questions in this way: either give up revolution and carry out reforms or it is
impossible to carry out any reforms; either carry out reformist political movement, or
refuse all kinds of reforms.
This makes it very important to illustrate Marxist attitude toward reform correctly

1 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 115.

2 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 113-114.

39
and draw a clear dividing line in principle between scientific socialism and
democratic socialism in their attitudes toward the issue of reforms.

4. The Dividing Line between Scientific Socialism and Democratic Socialism in

Principle on the Issue of Reform

It is no doubt that revolution and reform are two opposite ways of transforming
society. Scientific socialism advocates the transformation of capitalist society by
revolutionary method and firmly believes that only the revolutionary method can
transform capitalist society into socialist society effectively, but this doesn’t mean that
it excludes all kinds of reforms. No, it doesn’t. Instead, the dividing line between
scientific socialism and democratic socialism in principle on the issue of reform lies
in other aspects:
1. Scientific socialism doesn’t deny partial reform and its advantages, but it
believes that reform is only the by-product of revolutionary struggle and requires that
the struggle for reform should be combined with revolutionary struggle.
2. Marxists has always believed that it is absolutely wrong for the proletariat to
think that they may or should give up struggles for reform in order to carry out
revolutionary struggles for socialism. The reason is that before the arrival of
revolutionary situation, the proletariat has no idea about when the revolution will gain
victory and when the objective conditions allow the arrival of the revolution. Under
this circumstance, it is apparent that the proletariat and its pioneers should support any
kind of improvement and the real improvements in people’s economic, political and
cultural conditions. This improvement doesn’t exclude revolution; instead, all the real
improvements and enlargement of the scope of the proletarian activities,
organizational foundations and freedom of activities will greatly increase the power of
the proletariat and expand the scale of revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.
Therefore, the proletariat shouldn’t neglect any smallest possibilities of reform that
can be made use of. On this issue, the dividing line between Marxism and reformism,
between scientific socialism and democratic socialism lies in that the former takes
reform as the by-product of revolution while the latter takes the strive for reform as its
only task and excludes revolution by reform.
Why is reform the by-product of revolutionary struggle?
Lenin once said: “according to socialist theory, or the Marxist theory (the non-
Marxist socialism is unworthy of careful discussion now), the true force of history is
revolutionary struggles between various classes; reform is the by-product of these
struggles because it reflects the unsuccessful trials of those who want to undermine
and mitigate these struggles.”1
In real practice, the liberal bourgeoisie always carry out reform on the one hand
and withdraw this reform on the other hand and makes it diminish quickly. There are
neither stable nor great reforms under the conditions that capitalism still exists.
Therefore, the dialectic of development is that: the reformist tactics confined to
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 18, Page 263.

40
reform and taking reform as its only task cannot actually guarantee the
implementation of reform and realize reform instead because it undermines the
independency, steadiness and strength of the revolutionary ranks.
On the contrary, if they take reform as the by-product of revolutionary struggles,
combining it with revolutionary struggles and subject it to revolutionary struggles,
just as the scientific socialism proposed, if they only put forward the reformist slogans
that are helpful to the revolutionary struggles, to increase the independency,
consciousness and fighting strength of the proletariat, they can avoid the harmful
result brought about by the incomplete and delusive reforms which was always the
traps set beforehand by the bourgeoisie or their police. As a matter of fact, it is just the
revolutionary class struggle, its independency, strong forces of the masses and their
staunch spirit that forces the bourgeoisie to carry out reforms. This is “just because the
large scale of the movement and downright slogan have guaranteed a force which will
bring about byproducts such as concessions, reforms, ease of restrictions and at least
the upper class’ temporary tolerance of the activities of the lower class”1. Meanwhile,
“There is no permanent, authentic and careful reform without the support of
revolutionary and mass struggles”2
Therefore, the choices that the working class is faced with are not like what the
reformists said: “either to give up revolution and carry out reforms, or it is impossible
to carry out any reforms”. No. Historical experience tells us that their choices should
be: either carry out revolutionary class struggles while taking reforms as the by-
product of class struggles in the situation that complete success is not won by
revolution; or taking the strive for by-product as their own task and hence fall into the
wallow of liberal bourgeois reformism.
2. Scientific socialism holds that the proletariat shouldn’t strive for reform by any
means; instead, they should strive for the reform which can strengthen the
revolutionary awareness of the masses and the struggling capacity of the working
class by the means of revolution.
According to Marxism, because reform is the by-product of revolutionary
struggle, the proletarian party, while integrating struggles for reforms into their scope
of activities, should subject the partial struggles for reforms to the whole
revolutionary struggle for socialism. Lenin pointed out that “Revolutionaries, of
course, will never reject the struggle for reforms, the struggle to capture even minor
and unimportant enemy positions, if these will serve to strengthen the attack and help
to achieve full victory. But they will never forget that sometimes the enemy himself
surrenders a certain position in order to disunite the attacking party and thus to defeat
it more easily. They will never forget that only by constantly having the “ultimate
aim in view, only by appraising every step of the “movement” and every reform from
the point of view of the general revolutionary struggle, is it possible to guard the
movement against false steps and shameful mistakes.” 3
“Appraising every reform from the point of view of the general revolutionary
struggle” means that the proletarian party should not strive for reform by any means,
especially under the corruptive conditions; instead, it should strive for the reform
which can strengthen the capacity of the proletariat to carry out class struggles. That is
to say, it should strive for the reforms that will not weaken the political consciousness
of the working class, will not bring the working class under the surveillance of police,
will not set workers to work at a fixed place and make them enslaved by the

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 22, Page 370.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 27, Page 89.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 5, Page 58.

41
“welldoers” and will not insult the dignity of workers. In short, the proletarian party
should utilize reform to strength revolutionary consciousness of the masses, expand
their revolutionary struggles and implement the principle of revolutionary struggles
throughout the whole process of reform.
3. Scientific socialism thinks that the demarcation between reformist changes and
non-reformist changes lies in whether the changes are partial or general and essential,
whether they damage the major foundation of the ruling class or not and whether they
transfer the political power from the previous ruling class to the new class or not;
while the reformism only asks the ruling class to make some concessions under the
preconditions of maintaining their ruling position and at the same time preaches that
these partial and minor reforms can solve the problems revolutionarily raised by
historical and political situations and believes reform is the partial realization of
socialism.
Lenin once said: “capitalism itself created its grave-diggers and the elements of
the new system, but at the same time, without the ‘leaps’, these single elements
cannot change the whole situation and touch the rule of capitalism at all.” 1 On the
contrary, the Right Wing leaders within the social democratic party believes that every
reform involves elements changing the existing capitalist system, many minor steps
taken on the road of reform altogether constitute the revolution, which are more stable
than the great leaps of revolution adopted by some countries.
Based on this, disputes have taken place within the socialist parties of some West
European countries and between the Left Wing and Right Wing on whether to adopt
the reform of “stabilizing (or maintaining) the system” or to adopt the reform of
“changing the system”. Some young representatives of Left Wing within the social
democratic parties hold that the Right Wing leaders of the party have merely adopted
some reforms to maintain (or stabilize) the system instead of reforms to change the
system. However, only the latter kind of reforms can boost the development of
socialist causes. They strongly believe that such reforms should be carried out: “they
are aimed to realize self-determination and participation of mankind in all the fields of
social life, to eliminate alienation and the poverty of society and human spirit, and
establish a system where one is not allowed to dominate others and the power is
controlled in a democratic way and where the government functions are reduced to
the minimum”; meanwhile they think that the reformism should be “abandoned”
which only takes the direction of integrating social adjustment and improving the
function and efficiency of the existing system”2.
In this case, in order to stabilize the situation, the Right Wing leaders of the social
democratic party have to make their points one after another.
For example, Helmut Schmidt, one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party
of Germany (SPD), said: “the only reasonable possibility is to change the society in a
systematic and progressive manner through a series of specific reforms”, “the current
debate on differentiating the reform of ‘stabilizing the system’ from the reform of
‘changing the system’ within the SPD must be abandoned, for every kind of social
reform is changing the society, and hence is changing the system”3.
Brandt said: “I view the differences between the two (‘the reform of changing the
system’ and ‘the reform of stabilizing the system’ as the artificial ones, for both
reforms include free space, further deepened reform and a factor of system change)”4
Kreisky said: “the social democratic party will conduct reforms in all the fields
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 20, Page 64.
2 New Society magazine, 1975 (7), Page 585.
3 Critical Rationalism and Social Democracy, 1975edition, Berlin-Bonn, Page 13.
4 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 7.

42
where it thinks it necessary to carry out reforms transcending the general scope, which
means it must make effort in principle to carry out the reform of changing the system
in those fields which it thinks necessary out of social and political considerations. It is
then quite natural to raise such a question: what is the demarcation between the
reform of maintaining the system and the reform of changing the system? As to this
question I have a quite simple answer which derives from the traditional dialectics:
the scale of reform or the depth of some reform is not completely decided by the
quantity, but the quantity may switch to quality at any time.”1
Then, what is on earth the truth? Has the reform carried out by the social
democratic party really turned the capitalist society “progressively” into a socialist
one? Are the differences between the reform of stabilizing the system and the reform
of changing the system artificial ones? Has the reform of stabilizing (or maintaining)
the system changed the capitalist system from quantity to quality at any time? In a
word, can the reform preached by the social reformists change capitalism into
socialism? Let’s look at the answer offered by the social democrats themselves.
To this question, the statement of the Socialist International has experienced a
process of changes.
In 1951 when the Socialist International was founded, the participants of
socialists from different countries were enchanted by achievements made by British
Labor Party in implementing the policy of nationalization and welfare system after the
Second World War and this misled them to thinking that this reform had changed
capitalism into socialism in Britain. Therefore, the Frankfurt Declaration passed by
the conference stated that: “in some countries, the foundation of a socialist society has
been laid, hence the evils of capitalism are disappearing in those countries and new
vitalities have been produced”; “in many countries, the uncontrolled capitalism is
giving place to an economy which allows state intervention and collective ownership
to limit the scope of activities of the private capitalists”; “in the places with strong
socialist forces, important steps have been taken to establish a new social order”.
However, 32 years later when the 16th Congress of the Socialist Internal review
the reality it is faced with, it had to revise its above utterances and acknowledged that
what they are implementing is partial reform which hasn’t changed capitalism into
socialism. In the Albufeira Declaration it stated, “we once had an ecstatic illusion that
the capitalism had been transformed and the idyl that the economic would grow to no
end and it seems that this endless growth of economy would increasingly bring justice
within and between various countries and there would be no need to face the great
inconveniences brought about by the careful and great reforms of the system. At that
time we over-universalized the experience of the 1950s and 1960s and we are in a
wild confusion today”.

5. Modern Social Reformism Confines Reform to the Pursuit of a Higher Quality of

Life
One year after Brandt described the differences between the reform of changing
the system and the reform of maintaining the system as artificial ones in 1972, he
wrote a letter to Kreisky and Palme on July 30, 1973, on which he said: “the reform
should focus on the prominent problems in people’s daily life and bring about higher
quality of life in the effect of practical implementation”, and praised Palme that: “in
1 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 41.

43
order to continuously improve the quality of people’s welfare, we must go down to
the details of their daily life”1.
Then, what is the “quality of life”?
The “quality of life” is a concept that came into being in the 1960s and it reflects
satisfaction with the quality of life style and satisfaction of people with the quality of
their material and cultural needs. To make it specific, the so-called quality of life
involves quality of foods, quality and style of clothes, comfort level of houses, health
care, quality of health care, education and services, quality of living and working
environment, formation of leisure time, satisfaction of the needs for the substantial
communicative activities, scientific knowledge and creative work, mental strain and
structure of immigrants, etc. However, since people attempt to give unique ideologies
to this concept, it is also a quite ambiguous concept in the eyes of the bourgeois
ideologists. For example, the pessimism futurologists attempt to interpret the “the new
quality of life” as “letting the working people live in a severely economical and poor
environment” whereas the bourgeois spokespersons integrate the so-called “justice,
freedom of citizens, participation of individuals into social life and other democratic
values in the bourgeois legal system into the most important markers of life quality”.
On the other hand, while talk glibly about the quality of life, they completely avoid or
only talk slightly about the problems of unemployment, drop of workers’ actual wages
and the social and political positions of young people, women and foreign workers.
Generally speaking, in the capitalist society the concept of quality of life has two
sides. On the one hand, the raise of this concept helps people ask for the change of
one-sided capitalist principle of economic development into the principle of satisfying
people’s needs; on the other hand, this concept treat the social problems in an abstract
and non-class manner and what it cares is not the problem of material production but
the consumption field of material and spiritual values and the fields of living and
recreation.
On the issue that modern social reformism confines reform to the pursuit of a
higher quality of life, we should make the following comments: on the one hand, we
should admit that it is helpful to the overall improvement of people’s material and
spiritual life; on the other hand, we must note that this in fact is aimed to put the
reform within the limit of maintaining the capitalist system without any changes, and
this is just an important marker of the reform of “maintaining (stabilizing) the
system”, which has hence negated Brandt’s statement that the differences between the
reform of changing the system and the reform of maintaining the system are only
“artificial” ones.

6. The Dividing Line between Reform and Revolution is Flexible and Changeable
Marxism has drawn a clear dividing line in principle between reform and
revolution and believes that those who forget or blur this dividing line will commit
most serious mistakes in concluding all the historical problems. However, Marxism
also believes that the opposition between reform and revolution is not absolute and
that the dividing line between them is not necessarily rigid but flexible and
changeable. It requires the proletarian parties to identify this dividing line according
to the specific conditions.
For example, in 1921 when the Soviet Union implemented its new economic
policy, Lenin took the theory of relativity between revolution and reform as evidence
to prove the necessity and correctness of the new economic policy. He said that the
1 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 61.

44
new thing of the soviet revolution at that time was: on the basic problem of economic
construction, “we must adopt a reformist, gradual and prudent method of actions”.
“Since the spring of 1921 we have come up with another method which is a reformist
one to substitute the original method, plan and system. The so-called reformist
method means revitalizing the business, small enterprises and capitalism and get
control of them in a prudent and gradual manner or bring them under the adjustment
by the state with their growth without destroying the old social and economic
structure——business, small economy, small enterprises and capitalism”. Compared
with the previous revolution, this is a reformist method (revolution is a basic and
fundamental transformation of old things instead of prudent, slow and gradual
transformation of old things with least damage).” “Someone asks: ‘after you tried the
revolutionary method, you admitted that it failed and changed to the reformist
method, …does this mean you shouldn’t start from revolution but from reform and
take reform as the only method？’ ”
To this question, Lenin’s answer was: “to a real revolutionary, the biggest danger, or
maybe even the only danger is exaggerating the revolution and forgetting the limit
and conditions for using revolutionary method properly and successfully. If a real
revolutionary talks about the word ‘revolution’ from the very beginning and thinks it
has the vast magic power, if he loses wits and fails to consider, weigh and review
when, in what environment and at what occasion he should turn to the reformist
actions in the most calm and sober way, he is likely to be badly beaten up.” But this
doesn’t mean the October Revolution was a mistake and the reformism of the Second
International was correct at all.
Lenin stressed: “only Marxism can specify the relation between reform and
revolution accurately and correctly. However, Marx can only see this relation when
the proletariat hasn’t won the first victory which is slightly consolidated and lasting in
any country. In this case, the foundation of the correct relation is taking reform as the
by-product of revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat.” and “the leaders of the
Second International who turned traitors for personal gains and the half-pedantic and
half-mincing knights within the Second-and-a-half International, however, distorted
and removed this common sense. After the proletariat wined victory even in one
country, something new has appeared in the relation between reform and revolution.
In principle, the situation remains the same as before, but the form of this relation has
changed. Since Marx himself couldn’t predict this change, we can realize it only
according to the philosophy and political theory of Marxism. … We have advanced
quite far and still have the room for retreat.” The change mentioned by Lenin is
mainly reflected in that: “before the victory of the proletariat, reform was the by-
product of revolutionary class struggles and after the victory, reform is still a ‘by-
product’, but to a country which has just won the victory after the extremely intense
struggles, it obviously doesn’t have enough strength to conduct the transition by
revolutionary means, then reform can be taken as a necessary and reasonable chance
to take a breath.” 1

7. Review the Political Achievements of Social Democratic Party during its Ruling
Period in a Practical and Realistic Way
In 1951 when the Socialist International was established, it had 34 member
parties with 9,780,000 party members and 43,530,000 voters; and in the 1980s, it had
more than 80 member parties with over 20,000,000 party members and nearly
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 42, Page 250-251.

45
200,000,000 voters; at present, these figures increased to 160, over 40,000,000 and
300,000,000 respectively and its member parties in 50 countries are in power or
participating in the management of political affairs. The members of the
Confederations of Free Trade Union associated with social democratic parties reached
52,000,000, which is 70% of the total number of the trade union members in
developed capitalist countries. Why has social reformism of the democratic socialism
gained such a wide popularity in western capitalist countries, especially in West
Europe?
To answer this question, we should carry out practical, objective and
comprehensive analysis. Firstly, the socialist democratic party has put forward in its
Program the policy propositions to improve working people’s living conditions,
especially in the practice of the government of social democratic parties who are in
power, achievements have been made in improving the material living conditions of
the working people in the capitalist countries, which have promoted the development
of people’s rights from civil rights to economic and social rights, including labor,
medical care, old-age pensions and welfare for people with disabilities, child
protection, family support subsidies, equal chance of education, unemployment
insurance and social security etc. Moreover, from the comparison and analysis
conducted by some sociologists in western countries on the governments of social
democratic parties and governments of the Bourgeois Rightists in 21 countries, we
can see that in places where the social democratic party is in power, there’re more
state appropriations used to meet the social needs and a better quality of social
security and health care.
Secondly, the theory and practice of the socialist democratic parties have boosted
the further democratization of social life in capitalist countries. On this basis, they, on
the one hand, make use of the strong aspiration of workers and people in capitalist
countries to improve their conditions without civil war and social unrest; on the other
hand, make use of the mistakes and misplays of the socialist countries in their
development process in order to dress up the social reformism as “the third way”——
democratic and humane socialism which is opposite not only to capitalism but also to
socialism.
However, although the social democrats has made undeniable achievements in
the above two aspects, although they are trying to disguise themselves, what they are
preaching is a reformist road after all. This determines that they don’t and can’t make
any achievements in changing capitalism into socialism, which is not only unwillingly
admitted by the Albufeira Declaration at the 16th Congress of the Socialist
International but also by people of vision all over the world no matter what ideology
they have.
For example, Roy Medvedev, a political dissident of the Soviet Union, once
said in his book Leninism and Western Socialism published in London: “the social
democratic movement hasn’t made any achievement so far in the real process of
constructing a socialist society”, although he acknowledged that: “this movement
has done a lot of work for the democratization of social life”1.
In his article What is Social Democracy, the Japanese scholar Okazaki Saburo
said: “there are quite a lot of examples to show that over the past 100 years, the social
democratic parties have been the absolute majority in the parliament and organized
the governments independently which have lasted a long time. These governments
have made many practical achievements in terms of accelerating the nationalization of
industries and financial institutions and establishing social security systems, but they
1 Medvedev: Leninism and Western Socialism, London Edition, Chapter 2.

46
still have a long way to go reach their goal of turning the capitalist private ownership
of productive means into socialist public ownership and eliminating class antagonism.
Britain and France are still capitalist countries.1
Predrag Vranicki, a Yugoslavian theorist, said in his book Marxism and
Socialism: “the reformist policy has deviated from Marxist principles because it has
absolutized the practices which Marxism believes shouldn’t be absolutized in any
way. Especially when there are contradictions, tensions and unpredictable future, this
reformist practice will certainly lead to arbitrary interpretations of some important
categories of Marxism such as revolution, proletarian dictatorship, democracy, etc.”
He said the socialists and social democrats “have basically given up the form of
revolutionary struggles and gradually got used to the democratic conditions of the
bourgeois parliamentary system. Even though most of the democratic parties have
come to power, they only carry out activities within the limit of the old order to a
large extent” 2
Another Yugoslavian theorist and statesman Aleksandar Grlickov said: “in the
political strategy of the socialists and social democrats, this choice basically bears the
brand of the traditional reformism, which thus make them come to a crisis together
with the crisis of the existing system when working out strategies. The reason why the
political strategy of ‘democratic socialism’ has suffered crisis is that it has used up all
of its energy in excluding the socialist elements and lost its own socialist quality over
the long period.” He believed that “ the strategy of the socialist democratic parties has
dedicated too much time and attention on such a problem: to what extent can
capitalism be used to improve the material conditions of their fellowmen without
being really changed or abolished. This problem has increasingly become their
strategic burden which is difficult to get rid of”; “most members within the socialist
parties and the social democratic parties become more and more confident that in the
places where the social democratic party is in power, the reformist strategy now can
no longer play its dual function in West Europe, namely, not only manage the existing
social system and the social structures that it has established effectively but also
become the major representatives of the working class to restore their interests except
economic ones”3.
Pellicani, publisher of the Italian magazine Workers’ World and a professor of
political sociology, also said that social democratic party “can make capitalism
‘civilized’ and make the society based on market economy less brutal and less
inhuman” , “although the strategy of social democratic party will definitely not bring
us socialist society”4.

Section 5 Democratic Socialism Is Opposed to Communism

Democratic Socialism is not only opposed to scientific socialism as a social
1 Japanese magazine Materialist Conception of History, 1985, Issue No.2..
2 Vranicki: Marxism and Socialism, People’s Publishing House, 1982, Page 93, 182.
3 Grlickov: Modern World and Socialism, SDX joint publishing company, 1984, Page 149, 150, 175.
4 See Gorbachev and Brandt: Socialism in the Future, Central Compilation & Translation Press (CCTP), 1994,
Page 205.

47
reformism, but also guides the Socialist International to strongly oppose communism,
communist parties and socialist countries as a guiding principle. Moreover, it also
adopted the policy of peaceful evolution to socialist countries in 1989 when dramatic
changes took place in East Europe.
As early as in the Frankfurt Declaration passed by the Socialist International in
1951, the socialist democrats drew a dividing line between democratic socialism and
scientific socialism according to their basic principle of opposing communism:
“Communism falsely claims a share in the Socialist tradition. In fact it has
distorted that tradition beyond recognition. It has built up a rigid theology which is
incompatible with the critical spirit of Marxism.” “International Communism is the
instrument of a new imperialism. Wherever it has achieved power it has destroyed
freedom or the chance of gaining freedom. It is based on a militarist bureaucracy and
a terrorist police. By producing glaring contrasts of wealth and privilege it has created
a new class society. Forced labor plays an important part in its economic
organization.”
In the Resolution on International Situation passed by the conference of the
international council of the Socialist International in Paris 1953, the socialist
democrats even bracketed communism with Fascism and described it as one of the
two forms of “totalitarianism”. They also claimed to oppose “the political and
economic enslavement imposed by communism”. At the 4th congress of the Socialist
International in 1955, the socialist democrats again followed this thought and pointed
out: “totalitarianism, no matter it is a Fascist one or a communist one, belongs to the
old-fashioned tyranny”.
After the Communist Party of the Soviet Union proposed the principle of “all the
ranks of working class coming closer and cooperating” and “re-evaluating the
socialist democratic parties” in its 12th Congress in 1956, the International Council of
Socialist International held a conference in Zurich on March 24, 1956 and
immediately issued the Declaration of the Socialist International on its Relationship
with Other Political Forces which pointed out: “the tactical changes of the communist
party appeared in the Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union cannot
prove real changes have taken place in the principle and policy of kaiserism by the
communist party”; “therefore, they failed to provide any evidence to show that the
democratic socialism has retreated from its position. And the position of the
democratic socialism is stoutly refusing to join in any united front or any forms of
political cooperation together with the autocratic party”.
On April 7, 1956, the International Executive Bureau of the Socialist International
specially issued at its meeting in London the Declaration about Socialism and
Communism which pointed out:
“Socialism has nothing in common with communism at all. The communists
have completely distorted the socialist ideology. In places where they are in power,
they have distorted all the rights to freedom, all the rights of workers, all the political
achievements and all the human values that has been won by socialists through
several generations of struggles.” “We believe in democracy while they don’t. We
believe in human rights while they laugh at it. This situation hasn’t been changed with
the criticism of Stalinism.” “The criticism of Stalinism hasn’t changed the basic
nature of political power of the communist party. Even though there is collective
leadership, it is still an autocratic political power and what they called ‘Leninism’ is
merely the previous version of the wrong ideas and evil actions of Stalinism.”
Socialists’ View of the World Today issued by the International Council of the
Socialist International at its meeting in Oslo 1962 also criticized that “the

48
Communism” “squeezes surplus value by terrorist means to and carries out
industrialization at a dangerous speed by sacrificing people’s needs, especially by
sacrificing agricultural development”; criticized that the communism, like the
capitalism, “is a reversion to the era when people were taken as raw materials instead
of the source and goal of all the efforts”. It gave special criticism to China that
although “China has made progresses in industrialization”, “it is ruled by totalitarian
and rigid disciplines”, and “has posed threat to other Asian countries”. It also
criticized that “the totalitarian control of individuals, the state and social development
advocated by the communist parties doesn’t comply with human nature, state
functions and evolution of human society”. It argued that “for the communists, they
can achieve their goals by hook or by crook so long as they are right and there are
always contradictions between their words and actions”: for instance, they call
themselves peace lovers while “their practice of use military forces has aggravated the
world tension”; “they strongly oppose colonialism with the sharpest languages while
they themselves are enslaving thousands of people”; “they abuse the word socialism
and their one-party system is in fact a reflection of tyranny and a denial of the essence
of a democratic society, namely, freedom of speech, religion, criticism, voluntary
association and contact with the outside world”.
In 1963 when the Socialist International held its 8th congress in Amsterdam and
discussed its relationship with the communist parties, many socialists of its member
countries except those from Japan, Finland, France and Canada were still opposed to
cooperation with communist parties.
In 1965, seeing that representatives of Japanese socialist party visited such places
as Moscow and Beijing, the International Executive Bureau of the Socialist
International specially issued a declaration at its meeting in London which imposed
restrictions on its member parties by the relevant clauses of the Frankfurt Declaration:
“according to this declaration, individual members of our brother socialist parties,
especially the members of the Socialist International, are not allowed to identify with
the policies, goals and organizations of communism and other forms of dictatorship.”
In 1969, the Socialist International held its 11th Congress in Eastbourne and
passed the Resolution on the Development of Communist Countries and Communist
Parties, which shouted cheerfully that “the communist camp has been attacked by
ideological trends which criticize the totalitarian and bureaucracy of communism”,
and “they represent a re-recognition of the human personality suppressed by the
totalitarian of communism” and that “the communist camp has been torn apart”, “the
common idea of communism has no longer existed”; at the same time, they claimed
“the principle of Socialist International and its democratic socialist party members are
correct and infrangible”, “all the communist parties can’t tolerate those who have
opposite opinions and claim that their own totalitarian ideology is the only workable
social philosophy”, “the purpose of the people’s front of communist parties is to make
use of the participation of democratic forces to eliminate their position as an
independent entity”.
In April 1972, at the strong request of socialist parties in some countries, the
International Executive Bureau of Socialist International passed a resolution at its
special meeting in Amsterdam where it was forced to change its practice of
prohibiting its member parties from establishing relations with communist parties and
decided “the members of the Socialist International have the right to establish bilateral
relations with any parties”. In June of the same year, Bruno Pittermann, president of
the Socialist International, once again stated that “the member parties should be
allowed to establish bilateral relations with other parties including communist parties

49
according to their own free decision”.
Since the 1980s, the socialists and communists have together founded the left
wing coalition or restored dialogues between them in such countries as France, Italy
and Spain, etc. They also formed coalition government for joint ruling in such
countries as Finland, France and San Marino. In March 1986, the socialist party and
communist party in Portugal held their first meeting at the highest level since the
breakup of their relations over many years. Particularly, since the French socialist
party established relations with Chinese communist party in 1981, dozens of labor
parties, socialist parties and social democratic parties in such countries as Britain,
Germany, Spain, Mexico and San Marino have established friendly relations with
Chinese Communist Party at various levels.
Socialists and communists within a capitalist country have established coalition
and restored dialogues between them, which means they have adopted the attitude and
principle of seeking common grounds while setting aside differences with coordinated
actions in their struggle for democracy, progress and protection of world peace and
against oligarch; meanwhile, the socialist parties in capitalist countries have
established friendly relations with communist parties in socialist countries, which
means that socialist parties and communist parties have had many things in common
in terms of mitigating international tension, opposing arms races and maintaining
world peace and development, therefore, they can transcend their differences in
ideology and seek mutual understanding and cooperation. However, all this doesn’t
mean the dividing line in principle between democratic socialism and scientific
socialism has disappeared. Brandt, president of the Socialist International once said
that it shouldn’t be considered that the policy of “coming to accord with the eastern
countries” and the policy of ease the relations with communist parties that he
introduced when he was the Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany
would reduce the ideological differences between the two sides and in fact, the
socialist democratic party of Germany was trying to argue for its oriental policy just
“by clearly drawing the dividing line in ideology”.
Facts have proved this. In 1986 the Socialist International held its 17 th congress in
Lima and passed Lima Mandate （ 利 马 委 托 书 ） which reiterated: “we abandon
dictatorship of all classes and also abandon all classes of dictatorship”.
In 1989 when social unrest took place in East Europe, the Socialist International
sure enough turned its consistent ideological stand and principles of opposing
communism into actions against socialist countries by peaceful evolution.
In June 1989, Socialist International held its 18th congress in Stockholm and
issued the Declaration of Principles which says: “The Socialist International supports
all efforts aimed at the transformation of communist societies through liberalization
and democratization”. At this congress, President Brandt stated that “those countries
which had a hot debate on democratic socialism in the past are now accepting such a
thought: without democratic socialism, no achievements will be made, or there in fact
will be no socialism”.
From November 2 to 3, 1989, chief leaders of socialist parties in 23 European
countries met with Brandt, president of the Socialist International in Milan, Italy and
expressed their understanding of and attitude to the changes which had happened in
East Europe. They “believe that an unusual era of changes has started, the new
progress appeared in various Eastern European countries has broken the rigid
communist system, blazed a trail for new ideas, new forces and new possibilities and
opened up a new world for democratic and free socialism”. “These changes in East
Europe are of great significance not only to the Socialist International and its member

50
parties but also to the unification and cooperation process of Europe”. Meanwhile,
they also “believe that although the old communist system has fallen into crisis, the
foundation and structure on which a new system grows does not exist yet”. Therefore,
the socialists adopted the following principles toward the changes in east Europe:
1. “warmly welcome the changes happened in East Europe by implementing
opening up policies to the new democratic forces in East Europe and carrying
out cooperation with them”;
2. “hope that the reform carried out by Gorbachev will be a success instead of a
failure”.
3. “hope that countries in the European Community will cooperate with other
European countries and international organizations to solve the problem of
East Europe and all of them will play active roles”.
4. “exert influence on eastern European countries in an active and prudent way”,
“advance the political change of East Europe in the direction of democracy
and freedom and inject new vitality into the reform of East Europe so as to
accelerate the reform process”.
In one word, “it should be the duty of socialist party to make people recognize
that the only way for East Europe to get out of the communist crisis is to advance
along the road of socialist party and implement its propositions”.
From November 23-24, 1989, the International Council of the Socialist
International held a meeting in Geneva and passed the Document about Position on
East Europe which reiterated: “The Socialist International supports all efforts aimed
at the transformation of communist societies through liberalization and
democratization”, cheerfully shouted that “the viewpoints of socialist democratic
parties in Europe, especially those about democracy, human right and moderating
cooperation with Europe, have become the gratifying criteria for the organizations
that are engaged in the implementation of reform and abandoning of the previous
form of reigning”, at the same time, “sincerely hope to see the reform initiated by
Gorbachev will continue and win success”.
Without making any comment, the author gives the above account which is a
display of the words and actions of the Socialist International in opposing
communism and implementing peaceful evolution targeted at socialist countries
according to chronological order over the past 40 years. The purpose of doing this is
to help the reader recognize the true colors of democratic socialism in opposing
communism through the words and actions of Socialist International and fully
understand the whole development process of this ideological trend of democratic
socialism from a faction advocating social reform in the international workers
movement into a force opposing communism and implementing peaceful evolution to
socialist countries so as to clean up various misunderstandings which has blurred or
removed the dividing line in principle between scientific socialism and democratic
socialism.
The socialist parties originally expected that after the dramatic changes in East
Europe, democratic socialism would enjoy a great development there. However, the
development of situations there cruelly broke their dream because the great changes in
East Europe and the collapse of the former Soviet Union under their support have
greatly encouraged and facilitated the growth of the Ultra-Right forces in West
Europe and led to peoples’ questioning of the “socialism” brand of the socialists. Thus
the socialists began to lose its power and influence gradually in western European
countries. For this reason, an Italian communist Archilles Occhiuto （阿奇尔 ·奥奇
托） said emotionally at the forum of the Left Wing Parties of West Europe held in

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Madrid, at the end of spring in 1992: “The changes in East Europe are taken as a
victory of democracy over socialism by West European people while the Left Wing
parties in West Europe become the victims of these social changes.” The French
newspaper Liberation published an article entitled Fluster of the European Socialists
which made an analysis: “since the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany
Hans Vogel said in 1989 that ‘social democracy is increasingly filtering into people’s
minds in Europe’, it seems that the good times of social democratic parties has gone
for ever.” At that time in Europe, there were only 9 countries independently ruled or
jointly ruled by socialists and in 1993, the number was reduced to 6, which showed
the socialist parties are shrinking in full scale. Why? The article answered: “the fiasco
of the ‘real socialism’ of communism hasn’t brought any benefit to ‘democratic
socialism’, instead, it has brought disasters to it and it seems that the word ‘socialism’
has pushed the voters into the embrace of the Conservatives”. Meanwhile, new
scientific and technological development has turned the demands of socialist
democratic parties into “outdated slogans”. “The social democratic doctrines
including full employment, social security and reforms based on state intervention and
forces of trade unions can’t basically solve the emerging problems such as increase of
unemployment, environmental deterioration and separation of people in some classes
from the society, etc.”1.

1 French newspaper Liberation, April 13, 1993.

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Chapter 2 Political Program of Democratic Socialism

The political program of democratic socialism is based on two essential

questions: what is socialism? How to realize socialism?
On the question of what is socialism, democratic socialism takes democracy and
human right as the very substance of the socialist ends; on the question of how to
realize socialism, it takes the acknowledgement and support for the so-called neutral
and super-class modern capitalist countries as the prerequisite of taking the reformist
road. Therefore, the views of democratic socialism on democracy, human rights and
state are at the centre of its political program.

Section 1 View of Democratic Socialism on Democracy

In the ideological trend of democratic socialism, democracy takes a predominant
place because this trend gives “democracy” a decisive significance. For example, in
the Declaration of Principles passed at its 18th congress in Stockholm in 1989, the
Socialist International clearly stated that democracy “is not simply political means to
socialist ends but the very substance of those ends - a democratic economy and
society.”, meanwhile, it claimed: “The Socialist International supports all efforts
aimed at the transformation of communist societies through liberalization and
democratization”. In fact, as early as in 1951 when its first congress was held, the
Socialist International issued the Frankfurt Declaration and changed the name of its
ideological system from “social democracy” in the time of the Second International to
the present “democratic socialism”. The purpose of this is to show that the
“socialism” it preaches is a “democratic” one and is different from the scientific
socialism with “proletarian dictatorship”. Just because of this special position of the
view of democracy in the ideological trend of democratic socialism, to clearly
understand the basic content of this view of democracy becomes extremely important
for us in understanding the substance of this trend and identifying the dividing line in
principle between democratic socialism and scientific socialism.

1. Maintaining Bourgeois Democracy and Opposing Proletarian Dictatorship by

Proceeding from the Abstract Contradiction between Democracy and Dictatorship

Democracy and dictatorship are two different aspects of the political power of a
state. At any times and in any countries, all the ruling classes use democratic method
to solve the conflicts within themselves and the conflicts with their allies while using
the method of dictatorship to settle their conflicts with the ruled classes so as to unite
itself and suppress the ruled classes. Here the pure democracy without dictatorship
doesn’t exist, nor does the pure dictatorship without democracy. However, in order to

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maintain its ruling position, the ruling class deliberately separate democracy from
dictatorship, not only denying its dictatorship over the proletariat and the masses, but
also criticizing the proletarian dictatorship for the lack of democracy.
Kautsky, leader of the Second International attempted to replace the real conflicts
between capitalism and socialism by his “new discovery” of basic opposition between
the method of democracy and the method of dictatorship so as to maintain the
bourgeois democracy and oppose proletarian dictatorship. In his works including the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat, “the antagonism between these two socialist factions”
of Bolshevik and non-Bolshevik “is the clashing of two fundamentally distinct
methods, that of democracy and that of dictatorship”. He believed that “Taken
literally, the word (dictatorship) signifies the suspension of democracy. But taken
literally it also means the sovereignty of a single person, who is bound by no laws”.
Based on this, he believed that: “The dictatorship of one of the proletarian parties is
then no longer in any sense the dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship of one
part of the proletariat over the other”. He also believed that “In the opinion of Marx
and Engels, the most important purpose of destroying the centralized state structure is
only to build up democracy”1.
In response to Kautsky’s doctrine of abstract antagonism between democracy and
dictatorship and his doctrine of “pure democracy”, Lenin refuted it sharply:
“If we are not to mock at common sense and history, it is obvious that we cannot
speak of pure democracy” as long as different classes exist; we can only speak of
class democracy” and “ ‘Pure democracy’ is the mendacious phrase of a liberal who
wants to fool the workers.”2. “The concept of ‘democracy in general’ and ‘general
dictatorship’ are used without mentioning what class the democracy and dictatorship
belong to. This is a public mockery at the basic doctrine of socialism——the doctrine
of class struggle because he raised the question from the non-class or super-class and
seemingly the whole nation’s standpoint.”3 “talking the ‘democracy in general’ in
order to maintain the bourgeois democracy and criticizing ‘general dictatorship’ in
order to strongly oppose the proletarian dictatorship, this is an open betrayal of
socialism and in fact a submission to the bourgeoisie and a denial of the right of the
proletariat to carry out proletarian revolution.”4
Democratic socialism continued to utilize Kautsky doctrine of abstract
antagonism between democracy and dictatorship to maintain bourgeois democracy
and oppose proletarian dictatorship. For example:
Declaration about Socialism and Communism issued by the International
Executive Bureau of Socialist International at its meeting in London on April 1956
said: “socialism has nothing in common with communism”, “we believe in democracy
while they don’t”.
Socialists’ View of the World Today issued by the International Council of the
Socialist International at its meeting in Oslo on June 1962 also criticized that the
communists “abuse the word socialism and their one-party system is in fact a
reflection of tyranny and a denial of the essence of a democratic society, namely,
freedom of speech, religion, criticism, voluntary association and contact with the
outside world”.
Lima Mandate (委托书) passed at the 17th Congress of the Socialist International
in June 1986 said: “no mater it is in a country or in a world, democratic system is an
indispensable mechanism to enable the people to control their own economic and
1 Speeches of Kautsky, Page 258-305.
2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 343.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 485.
4 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 486.

54
social conditions” and “democratic system is the indispensable foundation of people’s
rights, hence we abandon the dictatorship of all classes and also abandon all classes of
dictatorship”.
The Godesberg Program passed at the special conference of the Socialist
Democratic Party of Germany in November 1959 also said: “we are opposed to any
dictatorship and any totalitarian and authoritative rule, for they ignore human dignity,
eliminate people’s freedom and destroy the rule of law”, “whereas the communists
make use of social division to establish their one-party dictatorship”.
Although this doctrine of abstract antagonism between democracy and
dictatorship has been carried on over the past decades from Kautsky to modern
democratic socialists, the method and viewpoint they used to observe problems cannot
stand at all. For instance, on the problem of democracy, this method and viewpoint
has separated its form from its substance by taking the form as the whole.
Lenin once said: “Democracy is a state form, and one of the state forms.
Therefore, just as any states, it conducts violence on people systematically on the one
hand; one the other hand, democracy means admitting that all the citizens are equal in
form and have the equal right to decide the state system and manage the state.”1
Since democracy is a form of state, the type of democracy will necessarily change
with the change of ruling classes. Therefore, there exist the bourgeois democracy,
socialist democracy instead of “democracy in general” and “pure democracy”;
moreover, since any democracy conducts violence on people systematically, the
bourgeois democracy should only be the dictatorship of bourgeoisie over the
proletariat and the masses while the socialist democracy should be the dictatorship of
the proletariat and the masses over the minority of exploiting class and reactionaries.
The admission of people’s equal rights to decide the state system and manage the state
is only the form of democracy which reflects the substance of democracy (in the case
of bourgeois democracy, it tries to cover up this substance) and is restricted by this
substance. One of the mistakes of the view of democratic socialism on democracy is
that it puts aside the substance of democracy while infinitely exaggerating its form;
and denying the historical and class character of democracy while giving absolute and
super-class content to it.
The substance of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which are a minority of the
population, over the proletariat and the masses which are a large majority of the
population is realized by the form of admitting all the citizens are equal. Just because
of this existing contradiction, the bourgeoisie and reformists attempt to cover up the
substance of their dictatorship in the form of democracy, which leads to various
misconceptions among people.
Then why is it necessary and possible to realize bourgeois rule by bourgeois
democracy with formal equality instead of the strict caste system used by the feudal
rulers? This depends on the survival conditions of the bourgeoisie. Because the
bourgeois development requires not only the break-down of numerous barriers erected
by the feudal caste system, but also the equality of workers in legal form as one of the
contracting parties which can enable them to sell their labor freely. Here, the equality
in legal form is based on the exchange of exchange-values that the capitalist
development relies on. If the exchanges in economic forms established the overall
equality between different subjects, the content, or the personal materials and materiel
enabling people to carry out exchanges, established the freedom. Therefore, equality
and freedom are respected in the exchanges based on change-values, and the
exchanges of exchange-values are the real basis of all equalities and freedoms. Marx
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 31, Page 96.

55
once pointed out: “As pure ideas, equality and freedom are merely the idealized
expressions of exchanges of exchange values; as developed in juridical, political,
social relations, they are merely this basis to a higher power” 1
However, because the bourgeois rule is in fact the rule of exploiters as the
minority over the vast majority of masses, this kind of rule will find it difficult to
survive if the freedom and equality preached by the bourgeoisie are really
implemented among the masses. Therefore, the equality and freedom preached by the
bourgeoisie have to remain literal and formal. But just for this reason, the bourgeois
democracy cannot cover up its nature of dictatorship after all. This nature of
dictatorship is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:
1) The bourgeoisie apply legal equality to people who can’t enjoy equality in
possessing means of production, which leads to the inequality in reality and the
pecuniary privilege of the bourgeoisie as minority over the vast majority of the
exploited people.
After the bourgeoisie replaced the feudal lords and come to power, they embarked
on eliminating the old differences between the various existing classes within the
country, cancelled all the privileges and immunities gained by autocracy while taking
the principle of election as the foundation of their rule and admitting equality in
principle; they also lifted the restriction of newspapers imposed by the book and
newspaper inspectors under the feudal system and introduced jury system in order get
rid of the restriction from the judge class which had formed an independent kingdom
within the country, … In terms of this, the bourgeoisies are actually like the real
democrats. However, as a mater of fact, all these bourgeois reforms are intended to
replace the personal and hereditary privileges of the feudal lords by pecuniary
privileges because the power of the bourgeoisie completely depends on money, what
they have done after they seized the power is intended to integrate turn the privileges
and monopoly in the feudal society into a big pecuniary privilege and monopoly.
Therefore, in places where bourgeois democracy is implemented, “the principle of
equality is written off because it is only confined to the ‘legal equality’ which means
the equality under the precondition of inequality between the rich and the poor,
namely, the equality confined to the scope of the existing inequality, or in brief, it is to
call the inequality equality”2. For example, in the field of circulation, the exchanges
between the owners of currency and owners of labor are conducted according to the
value of labor equivalently and hence are free and equal, but once entering into the
field of production, this relation becomes the bourgeois dictatorship over the workers
and their free possession of surplus values created by workers which are far more than
the values of their labor, and hence is not free and equal virtually.
In terms of civil rights, although bourgeois democracy admits formally that all
citizens are equal and the bourgeois law prescribed the freedom of speech, freedom of
the press and freedom of assembly, in fact, the freedom of the press is only the
privilege of the bourgeoisie because both publication and purchase of books need
money, the same is true with freedom of assembly. In a word, the equal right that is
given by bourgeois law to each individual is nourished by materials, but in the case of
private ownership of production means under the bourgeois system, what the masses
need is just these materials needed to nourish their equal rights. “Only a small portion
of the aspiration for happiness can be satisfied by the ideal right while the large
portion can only be realized by the material means, but because what the capitalism
cares is to enable the vast majority of people who have the equal rights to only have

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 46, Page 197.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 648.

56
the most necessary items to support their life, the respect given by capitalism to the
equal rights of the vast majority to pursuing happiness is no more than that given by
the slavery system or serfdom, though generally a little more.” 1
2) The bourgeoisie, on the one hand, declare that all citizens have various
absolutely inviolable rights in the human right declarations and constitutions, on the
other hand, deprive the oppressed people of their chances to enjoy these rights in
various excuses.
Article 1 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of France in
1789 prescribed: “Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights” However,
the first Constitution in the history of France divided its citizens into “active
citizens” and “passive citizens” according to their property qualifications, which
immediately led to 22 million “passive citizens” and women (out of the 26million
citizens in France) losing their rights to vote and only 15% of the citizens having the
right to participate in the “election”!
The Declaration of Independence of America in 1776 declared that “all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. However,
millions of black slaves were excluded from the “all men”. The slavery system of
America was not abolished until 1865 after the Civil War and the black people
gained their rights to vote until 1970 after the removal of various restrictions and
barriers. It can be seen from this that as the first country which has admitted human
rights, America at the same time accepted the colored race slavery system over quite
a long period in its history by sanctifying the racial privilege.
The freedom of speech and freedom of the press are also described by the
bourgeoisie as unalienable political freedoms. The Declaration of Independence of
America even declared that the people have the right to abolish their government so
as to set up new security for their future safety. However, in interpreting the cases
about violation of the Constitution, the United States Federal Courthouse said: “the
application of the freedom of speech should be restricted to not impeding the
provision of the other articles of the Constitution and any right to publication should
be within the limit of not venomously slandering the government or not attempting
to subvert the existing government.” Here the bourgeoisie once again proved by their
own actions the sharp satire of Marx at bourgeois democracy: “each section of the
bourgeois constitution contains its own opposite and its own Upper House and
Lower House: preaches freedom in general terms while abolishes freedom in its
proviso”2. As a matter of fact, in the most democratic bourgeois countries, the
oppressed people can encounter such an amazing contradiction at any time: the
formal equality preached by the bourgeoisie on one side, and the various facts that
the masses cannot enjoy this equality on the other side.
The bourgeois democracy on the one hand admits formally that all citizens are
equal, on the other hand, the bourgeoisie publicly deprive the rights of the exploited
people, or make the legally affirmed rights only formal ones which cannot be
realized to the working people. Doesn’t all this show that the nature of bourgeois
democracy is in fact bourgeois dictatorship over the masses?
3) When the foundation of bourgeois rule is threatened, the bourgeoisie will
replace freedom, equality and humanity by infantry, cavalry and artillery without
hesitation. In addition, the more developed the bourgeois democracy is, the more
possibly the bloody massacre or civil war will take place when there’s any deep-

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 21, Page 332

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 8, Page 135.

57
 rooted political discord threatening the foundation of bourgeois rule.

In France where the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was
issued, the bourgeoisie created white terror after the defeat of workers’ uprising of
June 1848 in Paris, massacring 11,000 wounded insurrectionary soldiers, arresting
25,000 persons, and exiling 35,000 people without putting them to trials; after the
Paris Commune failed in May 1871, they even killed 30,000 people by shooting,
imprisoned and exiled 35,000 people and forced millions of people into exile aboard,
with the trial of the military court lasting for four years. The same is true in other
developed capitalist countries. For example, in England, the Ireland and Ulster Event
once took place and English bourgeoisies suppressed Irish struggle against English
rule bloodily; in America, once happened the brutal massacre of strikers by the
mercenary army of the bourgeoisie, lynch law was imposed on negroes and
internationalists and large scale massacres were conducted to negroes in their
resistant struggles for many times. On these occasions, the hypocrisy of bourgeois
democracy and ugly face of bourgeois dictatorship was barely revealed.
Western newspapers always boast that the United States could pull its President
Nixon off his presidency and Japan could send its Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei
who had involved in the Lockheed Incident to the court for trial. They often take this
as evidence to prove the realness of bourgeois democracy. However, what these
examples display is not that the masses can really enjoy the right of democracy
equally with the bourgeoisie, but that the bourgeoisie, in order to consolidate their
rule, permit and even ask the various political parties, factions and groups to disclose
their scandals mutually and all the incidents threatening their long-term and
fundamental interests so as to coordinate the internal conflicts within the ruling
groups or to give power to the parties, factions or groups which can better maintain
the bourgeois rule. If it is not so, why isn’t there a single example to show that the
bourgeois rule is replaced by the rule of the vast majority of masses in a country
after such political scandals of the bourgeoisie were disclosed and when both the
number of high officials involved in such kind of scandals and the amount of
briberies are dramatically increasing?
It is no doubt that since the Second World War, the bourgeoisie have reduced the
frequency of using violent suppression over the people, but this in no way means
that the bourgeois dictatorship has disappeared. Instead, this means that because the
operational mechanism of the capitalist system has changed, the bourgeoisie
nowadays take more economic means to force people to engage in alienated labor
for alienated consumption.
On this new situation emerging in the development capitalist countries, the
Western scholar Marcus once made an analysis in his book One-Dimensional Man:
“the contemporary advanced capitalist society is a totalitarian society which
transforms man into malformed critter by using non-terrorist means and economic and
technological advances. It requires that the instinct, spirit and social life of man
should be subject to it. Here, science and technology become the positivist rationality
for the bourgeois society to repress personality and men are deprived of their
initiative, creativity and purposiveness of labor and become slaves of material
conditions. Hence, it is a modern slavery system in the name of rationality. In this
society, although the personal demand and the satisfaction of this demand are greatly
increased, this demand is not the primitive demand of men; instead, it is imposed on
men by the consumption model of the ideology in a dominating position. The
capitalist society, by creating and satisfying this false demand, slows down the crisis

58
of over-production on one hand and makes a person have the illusion of freedom,
democracy and equality on the other hand, so as to make people obedient and blunt
their awareness. He believed that what the advanced capitalist totalitarian society
produces is not material shortage but the control of the satisfaction with material
demands, which makes men tightly wedged between the alienated occupational labor
and commercialized leisure-time activities, completely become the objects of
management from sense to feeling and produce and reproduce passively the goals,
values, lies and ideological paradise of this system, whereas the real and universal
enslavement over the masses exists behind the system. Although the views and ways
adopted by Marcuse in observing problems are different from those of scientific
socialism, his vivid and incisive disclosure of the contemporary advanced capitalist
society clearly indicates that: although the operational mechanism of capitalism
system has changed in contemporary times, its nature of bourgeois democratic
dictatorship hasn’t changes at all.
Moreover, in contemporary times, when the foundation of the bourgeois rule is
threatened, the bourgeoisie will replace freedom, equality and humanity by infantry,
cavalry and artillery without hesitation. The “May Storm” in France is just a case in
point: From May to June in 1968, thousands of students and workers in France
launched the “May Storm”, opposing that decision-making power was centralized in
the hands of a small number of elite while the masses were experiencing the anomie
and alienation in the stage of state monopoly capitalism. The De Gaulle
administration assembled tens of thousands of gendarme and policemen and ordered
the tanks and paratroops to march to the suburbs of Paris, and even planed to
withdraw the French army from Germany to suppress the students and workers. Later
the situation didn’t develop into a civil war only because the psychological attack of
“fighting for the president” launched by the Right Wing leaders disrupted the “May
Storm”.
All these show clearly that bourgeois democracy is closely connected with
bourgeois dictatorship at any time and in any context and what is concealed behind
the form of admitting equality of all citizens is its nature of organizational and
systematic dictatorship over the majority of the exploited people. It isn’t “pure
democracy” and “democracy in general” at all. The so-called “we abandon
dictatorship of all classes and all classes of dictatorship” is merely a fig leaf which is
used to put a good face on its bourgeois dictatorship, for if you “believe in” the
bourgeois democratic system, you should necessarily believe in bourgeois
dictatorship; conversely, if you abandon bourgeois dictatorship, you have to abandon
bourgeois democracy at the same time.
In the same way, the proletarian dictatorship isn’t the tyranny that denies
democracy, just like what the democratic socialists describe. Nay, just as the
bourgeois democracy and bourgeois dictatorship are the two sides of a bourgeois state
power, the proletarian dictatorship is closely connected with socialist democracy. Mao
Zedong once said: “Our dictatorship is the people's democratic dictatorship led by the
working class and based on the worker-peasant alliance. That is to say, democracy
operates within the ranks of the people, while the working class, uniting with all
others enjoying civil rights, and in the first place with the peasantry, enforces
dictatorship over the reactionary classes and elements and all those who resist
socialist transformation and oppose socialist construction.”1 Therefore, proletarian
dictatorship doesn’t deny all the democracies and what it denies is only the bourgeois
democracy. Meanwhile, it implements socialist democracy among the masses. Deng
1 Mao Tse-tung: On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.

59
Xiaoping once said: “the dictatorship of the proletariat means socialist democracy for
the people, democracy enjoyed by the workers, peasants, intellectuals and other
working people, the broadest democracy that has ever existed in history.” , moreover,
“The more socialism develops, the more must democracy develop”1.

2. Confining the Struggle of Proletariat for Socialism to the Framework of Bourgeois

Democracy
Another aspect of the democratic socialism’s view of democracy is to confine the
struggle of proletariat for socialism to the framework of bourgeois democracy.
The resolution of the Socialist International on the political situations passed at its
13th congress in November 1976 once stated: “there will be no socialism without
democracy”. Scientific socialism also has always put emphasis on the importance of
democracy to socialism. Let’s not discuss the past here, in the modern times, Deng
Xiaoping once stressed: “Without democracy there can be no socialism and no
socialist modernization”. 2 Then, what is the dividing line in principle between
scientific socialism and democratic socialism on this problem?
Discussions in a series of programmatic documents of the socialist democratic
parties about the relationship between democracy and socialism provide the clearest
interpretation for the meaning of the so-called “there will be no socialism without
democracy” by democratic socialism.
The Frankfurt Declaration of the Socialist International issued at its 1st congress
in 1951 said: “Socialists strive to build a new society in freedom and by democratic
means.” and “Socialism can be achieved only through democracy”.
The Declaration about Socialism and Communism issued at the London
Conference of the International Executive Bureau of the Socialist International in
April 1956 reiterated: “Socialism can be achieved only through democracy”.
Lima Mandate (委托书) of the Socialist International issued at its 17th congress in
June 1986 further pointed out: “Socialism is a movement striving for the
emancipation of mankind by means of democratization of political, economical, social
and cultural structures of both domestic and international societies”.
The Godesberg Program passed by the special congress of the socialist
democratic party of Germany in November 1959 also said: “Socialism can be
achieved only through democracy”.
Obviously, the programmatic slogan of “there will be no socialism without
democracy” means that irrational worship of the bourgeois democratic system by the
democratic socialism which believes that socialism can be realized only through
bourgeois democratic system; and the democratic socialism persists in confining the
struggle of proletariat for socialism completely to the framework of bourgeois
democracy.
However, it is in fact completely impossible to achieve socialism within the
framework of bourgeois democracy. Therefore, even some bourgeois scholars believe
that the democratic socialism falls into a “dilemma” in this regard. For example, Peter
Gay in Columbia University of the United States believes that “from the very
beginning, revisionism has been faced with a dilemma which is always faced by all
the democratic movements taking drastic social reforms as their goal: by what means

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 2, Page 168.

2 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 2, Page 168.

60
should they achieve their goal?” He says that revisionism is a democratic socialist
movement and it should take discussion, competition for vote and parliamentary
politics as its weapons instead of terrorist means, violence and revolution. On the one
hand, if it is loyal to its principle of democracy, it will not win the political power and
even if it has won the political power by chance, it will not maintain its power. This
will result in the continuous political incompetence of a party. On the other hand, if it
gives up (even temporarily) its principle of democracy and win the political power by
violence, it “will definitely contain the possibility of a tragedy, for the democratic
movement which achieves its goals by resorting to the method of dictatorship will not
remain as a democratic movement for a long time”.1
By contrast, toward bourgeois democracy, scientific socialism adopts an attitude
of seeking truth from facts.
Scientific socialism believes that the form of bourgeois democracy decides that
the proletariat can and must make use of this democracy to make preparation for the
proletarian revolution within the scope of bourgeois countries by training and
organizing the proletarian forces. Lenin once said: “the solution of Marxism to the
problem of democracy is that the proletariat carrying out class struggles should make
use of all the democratic facilities and anti-bourgeois intentions to make a good
preparation for winning victory over bourgeoisie and overthrow bourgeois rule”,
“make use of bourgeois democratic system to organize the proletariat and opposing
the bourgeoisie and opportunism in a socialist and complete democratic way. There’re
no other ways and none of the other “ways” is a way out.”2 Obviously, if no
preparation is made for the socialist revolution in the democratic struggle, socialist
revolution will not be realized. In response to various concerns of those comrades
who dared not make use of bourgeois democracy to carry out proletarian struggle,
Lenin repeatedly stressed that: “the proletariat can win victory only through the
democratic system, that is to say, by fully realizing democracy and connecting their
demand for the most complete democracy with every step of their struggles.” “we
should combine the anti-capitalist revolutionary struggles with the revolutionary
program and tactics of satisfying all demands for democracy; these demands for
democracy include the establishment of a democratic republic, implementation of
militiaman system, election of officials by people, equality between men and women
and national self-determination, etc.” “It is unimaginable for the proletariat, as a
historical class, to gain victory over the bourgeoisie without undergoing the most
complete and stern training of the revolutionary democracy.”3 “It is completely wrong
to believe that the struggle for democracy will make the proletariat deviate from
socialist revolution, or cover up, shut out or block socialist revolution. On the
contrary, just as socialism cannot win victory without achieving full democracy, the
proletariat cannot make a good preparation for its victory over bourgeoisie without
carrying out comprehensive and thorough revolutionary struggles for democracy.”4
However, scientific socialism believes that the nature of bourgeois democracy
decided that the proletariat, in making use of bourgeois democracy, shouldn’t forget
the bourgeois character of this democracy at every minute and its limitations,
especially when the class struggle is developed into a decisive battle, the proletariat
shouldn’t confine itself to the scope of this democracy. Lenin once pointed out:
“Marxism instruct the workers: you should make use of bourgeois democracy and
realize that it is a great progress in history compared with the feudal system, but you
1 Peter Gay: The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's Challenge to Marx, Page 302.
2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 28, Page 112, 113-114.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 27, Page 78.
4 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 27, Page 255.

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shouldn’t forget the bourgeois character of this democracy in every minute and its
historical conditions and limitations.”1 “We mention it again that no matter in what
situations, it is arbitrarily narrowing and vulgarizing the concept of workers’ socialism
to take the peaceful “democratization” as the only way of the proletarian activities.”2
Especially “now that we have reached the stage of “decisive battles”, to confine the
proletariat to this framework means betraying the cause of the proletariat, means
being a renegade.”3; “it will be utterly absurd to believe that the most profound
revolution in the history of mankind, the revolution which first transfers the political
power from the minority of the exploiters to the hands of the majority of the exploited
people can take place within the old framework of outdated democracy, or the
bourgeois parliamentary democracy without drastic changes and without the
establishment of a new form of democracy and new institutions reflecting the new
conditions of applying democracy.”4
It can be considered that the discussion of Engels on bourgeois democratic
republic has provided typical examples for the basic standpoint of the scientific
socialism that the proletariat should not only make use of bourgeois democracy but
also not confine itself to it. In his letter to Paul Lafargue on March 6, 1894, Engels
wrote: “for the proletariat, the difference between a republic and a monarchy only lies
in that: “a republic is a ready-made political form for the proletarian domination in the
future”. But at the same time, he stressed that “like any other political system, the
republic depends on its content. When it still takes the form of bourgeois rule, it is
antagonistic to us, as the monarchy does (regardless of their ways of being
antagonistic). Therefore, it is a delusion to take it as a form of socialism in nature or
entrust it with the task of socialism when it is still in the hands of the bourgeoisie. We
can force it to make some concessions, but we can never entrust our work to it, even if
we can supervise it through a minority which is strong enough to turn itself into the
majority within one day”5.
Therefore, on the question of making use of bourgeois democracy, the dividing
line in principle between scientific socialism and democratic socialism is not whether
to make use of bourgeois democracy but how to view and make use of bourgeois
democracy; that is to say, whether to put the use of bourgeois democracy above the
goal of socialism or to take it as one of the means to achieve socialism?
In the eyes of scientific socialism, the programmatic slogan “without democracy
there can be no socialism” has a completely different meaning from that of the
democratic socialism. Lenin once said: “without democracy there can be no
socialism” which contains two meanings: (1) if the proletariat don’t make a good
preparation for its socialist revolution through the struggle for democracy, it cannot
achieve this revolution; (2) if the socialism which has won victory doesn’t implement
full democracy, it cannot maintain this victory and lead the mankind to the withering
away of the state.”6 Therefore, “without democracy where can be no socialism” said
by the scientific socialism means that the proletariat should make use of bourgeois
democracy in their revolutionary struggles within the capitalist society so as to make a
preparation for the socialist revolution whereas they should not be confined to
bourgeois democracy. Instead, after the proletariat win victory in the revolution and
establish their dictatorship, they should take people’s democratic dictatorship as the

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 384-385.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 4, Page 231.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 263.
4 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 492.
5 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 39, Page 209-210.
6 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 28, Page 168.

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essential requirement and intrinsic character of socialism, carry out socialist
democracy widely among the masses which takes place of the narrow, hypocrite and
deceptive bourgeois democracy, and at the same time inherit and absorb all the fine
achievements of human civilization within the bourgeois democracy so as to build and
develop socialist democracy which is at a higher level than bourgeois democracy.

3. Preaching that Bourgeois Democracy Can Transform and Eliminate Capitalism

To achieve the aim of confining the proletarian struggle for socialism to the
framework of bourgeois democracy, democratic socialists spare no effort to
apotheosize bourgeois democracy and exaggerate it into something that can change
and eliminate capitalist system. In this regard, the most typical example can be found
in the book Modern Capitalism written by Strachey, a British labor party theorist. In
this book, Strachey wrote:
“The ultimate product of our various democratic procedures and systems
definitely should be a democratic atmosphere of public opinion including and
infiltrating everything. Once each of our systems is infiltrated by this overwhelming
media, it will become something completely different.” “If the democratic system is
maintained, in fact it will certainly eliminate the capitalism at the final stage.”1
This doctrine of democratic socialism is groundless. The class nature of the
bourgeois democracy decides that it can only serve the bourgeois rule and cannot
change and eliminate capitalism and serve as a bridge of transition from capitalism to
socialism.
From bourgeois democracy enjoyed by the minority to socialist democracy
enjoyed by the majority, it seems that there is merely a change in number, but in fact
this process involves the most profound change in the history of mankind. Lenin once
said: “democracy will not, as the liberal professors and petty bourgeois opportunists
have expected, develop forward from this capitalist democracy which is inevitably
narrow, exclusive of the poor secretly and hence completely hypocritical and
deceptive to the ‘increasingly complete democracy’ in a simple, straight and steady
manner. Nay, to develop forward means to develop toward communism, which must
undergo proletarian dictatorship instead of other way, for there’s no other person and
other way that can defeat the resistance of the exploiters and capitalists.”2 It is
obviously an impractical delusion to suppose that this change can take place within
the scope of bourgeois democracy without undergoing drastic reforms and
establishing new a form of democracy. Only by turning the bourgeois democracy
enjoyed by the minority of exploiters into the socialist democracy enjoyed by the
majority of the exploited masses through revolution, can we talk about the problem of
“the complete democracy turning into socialism and at the same time demand the
implementation of socialism”. “Here ‘quantity is transformed into quality’, for the
democracy at such a high level is associated with jumping out of the framework of
bourgeois society and starting the socialist transformation of the society.”
The practical ruling experience of socialist democratic parties indicates that the
upholding of bourgeois democracy in practical life only lead to confusion of the
dividing line between capitalism and socialism and taking capitalism as socialism
instead of the real transition from capitalism to socialism. It should be noted that the
Socialist International has quite a lot lessons to draw upon from in this regard.3
As early as in the 1950s after the British Labor Party had made some

1 Strachey: Contemporary Capitalism, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1965, Page 185,266.
2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 31, Page 84.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 31, Page 96.

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achievements, the Socialist International announced immediately in its Frankfurt
Declaration: “In some countries the foundations of a Socialist society have already
been laid. Here the evils of capitalism are disappearing and the community has
developed new vigor. The principles of Socialism are proving their worth in action.”
Here the Socialist International obviously took the bourgeois nationalization carried
out by the British Labor Party government for socialism. Therefore, with the
reoccurrence of the capitalist economic crisis, the policies carried out by the British
Labor Party were repeatedly frustrated and the Socialist International had to admit in
its Albufeira Declaration: “we once had an ecstatic illusion that the capitalism had
been transformed and the idyl that the economic would grow to no end and it seems
that this endless growth of economy would increasingly bring justice within and
between various countries and there would be no need to face the great
inconveniences brought about by the careful and great reforms of the system. At that
time we over-universalized the experience of the 1950s and 1960s and today we are in
a wild confusion.”
In 1962, the Socialist International announced in its Oslo Declaration: “even in
the countries where the democratic socialists are opposition parties, their rivals,
usually being awed by pressure of public opinions, are forced to adopt socialist
methods to solve the problems of employment and social welfare. In the United
States, the pressures from the labor party and other advanced social forces have also
produced perceptible influences in this regard.” Here the “rivals” of democratic
socialists refer to the bourgeois political parties, and the “the socialist methods” refer
to the social welfare policies implemented by the capitalist countries. It is apparent
that here the Socialist International took the social welfare policies of the capitalist
countries as socialism. However, these social welfare policies are in fact not
socialism, and even have no relations with bourgeois democracy. Instead, they are the
reformist policies adopted by the bourgeoisie to mitigate the class contradictions,
maintain social stability and consolidate bourgeois rule by reducing polarization of
rich and poor.
However, by saying that bourgeois democracy cannot change and eliminate
capitalism, we don’t mean the bourgeois democracy can’t play a role in real life. Nay,
just because this democracy is achieved through the form of admitting the equality of
all citizens, though multilated, narrow-minded and hypocritical, it also has the
function of manipulating and controlling the ideology of the oppressed class.
Therefore, while disclosing the nature of bourgeois democracy, we must take
seriously its function of mitigating class contradictions and consolidating bourgeois
rule in the real life.
In the context that the crisis of capitalist system triggered the First World War,
that the October Revolution of Russia gained victory and the Hohenzollern and
Hapsburg disappeared, some communists in western countries once confused the
historical period of imperialism and proletarian revolution with the specific historical
opportunity for the breakout of revolution in a country in this period by taking it for
granted that since it was the revolutionary period, the proletarian revolution had the
universal actuality, the task of the proletariat to seize power had been put on the top
agenda of every capitalist-imperialist country and the only correct strategy is
aggressive strategy. Hence from 1918 to 1923, a series of revolutions and uprisings
broke out in European countries. However, these revolutions didn’t win victory as it
did in Russia; instead, they were defeated one by one. Especially the uprising in
central Germany in March 1921 was brutally repressed by the class enemies, with
4,000 soldiers being sentenced and the number of communists (350,000) being

64
reduced to half within several weeks.
Why could the proletarian revolution win victory in Russia while being defeated
continuously in West Europe under the same historical condition of the general crisis
of the capitalist system? On this question, many communists in western countries
have reflected for a long time. Among them, Gramsci, a leader of Italian communist
party, said in his Prison Notebooks which was written when he was in the fascist
prison that the reason is that the political power structure of the western countries is
different from that of Russia.
The different political power structures here mean: Russia was a semi-feudal
military and bureaucratic country where the domination of the ruling class over the
ruled class was mainly based on violent repression. Hence once encountered the
disastrous economic crisis, the oppressed rise up immediately and attack it and finally
overthrew this political power; on the contrary, in those countries where bourgeois
democracy was implemented, the domination of the ruling class over the ruled class
was not only based on violence but also on the “agreement” given by the ruled class
through election. This enabled the ruling class to gain the “leadership in ideology and
culture” over the ruled class and set up a protective barrier for these bourgeois
countries so that they could resist “the aggression of economic crisis”.
Gramsci said: “In Russia the State was everything; civil society was primordial
and gelatinous. In the West, there was a proper relation between state and civil
society. When the State trembles, a sturdy structure of civil society was at once
revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful
system of fortresses and earthworks.” In western countries, “the huge structure of
modern democratic politics, no matter as the state organization or as the complex of
various social groups and associations in the civil society, is the ‘ditch’ and permanent
fortification for political art”. “It seems that a violent gunfire attack has already
destroyed the whole defense system of the enemy, but in fact, it has only destroyed its
appearance; when they march forward and launch attack, they will find what they
meet is still an effective defense line. The same thing is happening in politics during
the period of great economic crisis.” 1
Why can the bourgeois democratic election play such a big role? The reason is
that for most of the working people, although the nature of this election is deciding
once several years that who in the oppressing class can oppress and represent them in
the parliament, when tens of millions of people are mobilized to attend this election,
no matter whom they are voting for, it indicates that they participate in the game of
election held by the bourgeoisie for the purpose of consolidating their domination,
and that the bourgeois domination is based on the “agreement” give by the election
and voting which involve the participation of the ruled class, and hence has
“legitimacy”. Based on this, the bourgeoisie settle the conflicts between various
classes, factions and groups by making some concessions within the narrow limit of
legal procedures recorded by votes. Even in the economic crisis when the social
foundation is shaken, the ruled class hence still takes the bourgeois state, law and
economy as their only possible living environment and imagines solving their
problems through bourgeois democratic procedures including election.
Here, things just go as what Engels mentioned: “the possessing class rules
directly by means of universal suffrage. As long as the oppressed class - in our case,
therefore, the proletariat - is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will it, in its
majority, recognize the existing order of society as the only possible one and remain

1 Gramsci: Prison Notebooks(selected), London, 1971, Page 238, 243, 235.

65
politically the tail of the capitalist class, its extreme left wing.”1 Of course, with the
sharpening of contradictions in the capitalist society, and with the proletariat maturing
towards its self-emancipation, the bourgeois democracy will gradually lose its
capacity of manipulating and controlling the ideology of the oppressed class. On that
day the thermometer of universal suffrage will either shows boiling-point among the
workers or simply be abandoned by the proletarian revolutions. But before that day,
the proletariat must take seriously this function of bourgeois democracy so as to do a
good preparation for the arrival of that day.

4. Dissolve and Resolve Socialism into Bourgeois Democracy

The democratic socialism, in getting out of the “dilemma” of confining its goal of
socialism to its means of bourgeois democracy, as mentioned above, doesn’t change
its means to achieve its goal; instead, it changes its goal to suit its means and tries to
find a way out. This is dissolving and resolving socialism into bourgeois democracy.
On this question, the British labor party theorist Strachey wrote in his book Modern
Capitalism: “if we’ve learn any lessons from our times, it is the deep relations
between means and goals. There are essential differences between the achievement of
socialism by democratic means and that by the oppression of dictatorship.” 2
Scientific socialism has always believed that democracy is only the means of
achieving socialism and is not the end itself. Engels, in his letter to Bernstain on
March 24, 1884, wrote: “the proletariat also needs the form of democracy to seize
political power, but for the proletariat, this form, just as all the other political forms, is
only a means”. He also sharply criticized the wrong idea of “taking democracy as
ends”. 3
In the Bernstain period, the socialist democrats’ view on the relation between this
means and end was marked by “the movement is everything, the final goal nothing”.
Then in the later development, they further dissolved this final goal into the means
and movements, and simply called the means and movements the final goal.
For example, the Program of Swedish Socialist Democratic Party in 1944 said:
“for the social democratic party, legal and political democracy is not merely a weapon
for social democratic reform, but also an end itself, for it constitutes an inalienable
part of a democratic society.”
The Statement of Principles of the French Socialist Party in 1946 said: “the
extensive and fully developed democratic freedom is an important element of a
socialist society.”
The Basic Value of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1984 said:
“socialism is the democracy to the end of our imagination and socialism is the
democracy applied in society and economics.”
The Socialist International has repeatedly advocated its idea of dissolving and
resolving socialism into bourgeois democracy through its documents:
In 1951, the Frankfurt Declaration of Socialist International at its first congress
said: “democracy is the highest form of socialism”;
In 1983, the Albufeira Declaration at its 16th congress stated: “freedom and
democracy are the nature of socialist ideal”;
In 1987, the Lima Mandate (委托书) at its 17th congress said: “Socialism is the
most profound, comprehensive and international reflection of democracy”;

1 Complete Works of Marks and Engels, Volume 21, Page 197.

2 Strachey: Modern Capitalism, Page 291.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 36, Page 131.

66
 In 1989, the Stockholm Statement of Principles at its 18th congress said:
“democracy and human rights are not simply political means to socialist ends but the
very substance of those ends - a democratic economy and society.”
The leaders of the Socialist International also spare no effort to preach their idea
that socialism is democracy. For example, Kreisky said: “socialism is independent
political, economic and social democracy; socialism is letter perfect democracy”.
Palme, another vice-president of the Socialist International, said: “to achieve
democracy in various fields of society and replace the exercise of power by
democratic working style and democratic federation was and still is the core of
democratic socialism”. Brandt, president of the Socialist International, also stressed
that “for us, democracy embodies both means and ends”1.
When describing the experience of the concept of bourgeois democracy within
the Socialist Democratic Party, Claudine said: “in the socialist democratic party”, “the
value of democracy has been given greater attention, both in theory and in political
practice. The concept of ‘bourgeois democracy’ has even been included in the
vocabulary of the social democratic party”; “in their ideology and practice, the
concept of ‘bourgeois democracy’ used to show limitations now has disappeared with
time going by while democracy itself without any modifier becoming a kind of value,
namely, the necessary (though not the only) precondition of any social progress”2.
However, the idea of dissolving and resolving socialism into democracy is
groundless from whatever perspective it is viewed.
If the so-called democracy refers to the bourgeois democracy desired by
democratic socialists, it also has another name of bourgeois dictatorship, so it is not
equal to socialism and is even antagonistic to socialism. As is mentioned above, under
the bourgeois democracy, the bourgeoisie apply legal equality to people who can’t
enjoy equality in possession of means of production, which leads to the pecuniary
privilege of the minority of the bourgeoisie over the vast majority of the exploited
people; or they admit the equality of all citizens in legal form while openly exploiting
the rights of the oppressed people under various pretexts; or they make the rights
prescribed by the law a mere formality for the working people and unable to be
realized. How can they dissolve and resolve the ideal socialism pursued by the
oppressed people for thousands of years into such a thing?
If the so-called democracy refers to socialist democracy (this is of course an
assumption because democratic socialists basically deny the existence of socialist
democracy which is different from bourgeois democracy, and moreover, it is
impossible for socialist democracy to exist before a capitalist society is transformed
into a socialist society), it is indeed the essential requirement and intrinsic character
of socialism. However, socialism and democracy are two different things after all.
Socialism not only includes socialist democracy and proletarian dictatorship within
the superstructure but also the emancipation and development of productive forces,
elimination of exploitation and polarization and ultimate achievement of common
prosperity belonging to economic foundation. Doesn’t it mean the elimination and
negation of these basic tasks and characters of socialism in its economic foundation to
dissolve and resolve socialism into democracy, even if it is the social democracy? (89)
Therefore, the democratic socialism’s idea of dissolving and resolving socialism
into democracy doesn’t mean that it can really lead the bourgeois democracy to
socialist democracy, nor does it mean that it can turn bourgeois democracy into
socialist democracy suddenly, instead, it only means that it has completely abandoned

1 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 19, 11, 100.

2 Gorbachev and Brandt, etc.: Socialism in the Future, Page 128, 130.

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the socialist ideal and goals of Marxism and replace socialism by capitalism.

5. Taking Bourgeois Democracy as a Tool to Infiltrate and Transform Socialist

Countries
The speeches of democratic socialism preaching that bourgeois democracy can
change and eliminate capitalism haven’t touched capitalism in real life at all; on the
contrary, during the great changes in East Europe and collapse of the Soviet Union,
democratic socialism, together with international bourgeoisie, took bourgeois
democracy as a tool to infiltrate and transform socialism countries. This is discussed
at the end of section 5, chapter 1 of this book.
So, how does democratic socialism take bourgeois democracy as a tool to
infiltrate and transform socialist countries? Under the banner of bourgeois democracy,
it preaches multi-party system in politics so as to abolish communist leadership and
proletarian dictatorship; it preaches the diversification of guiding principles in
ideology so as to negate the guiding position of Marxism and spread bourgeois
ideology and national nihilism; it preaches abolishment of public ownership of means
of production so as to carry out private ownership and transform socialism into
capitalism.
It should be pointed out that the fundamental reason for great changes in East
Europe and collapse of the Soviet Union was primarily an internal reason instead of
external one. The most important reason was that the rigid model in the economic
system of these countries couldn’t meet the demand of the development of social
productive forces. Because of this rigid model, there wasn’t a clear division of
responsibilities between government management and enterprise operations, which
resulted in serious segmentation in work. The state government exercised too much
control over enterprises while neglecting the role of commodity production, value law
and the market. There also existed a serious equalitarianism in distribution. As a
result, there was a lack of autonomy for enterprises which ate from the same “big pot”
of the state and the employees ate from the “big pot” of enterprises. The initiative and
creativity of enterprises and their employees were seriously suppressed and the
socialism which should be vigorous lost its vitality to a large extent and was gradually
losing its advantages over capitalism. Meanwhile, this economic model was not
conducive to absorbing the latest scientific and technological achievements,
promoting scientific and technological progresses and creating new productive forces;
furthermore, it led to the economic degradation which greatly impacted people’s
living conditions and hence aroused strong dissatisfaction among the masses. This
situation forced the former socialist countries to seek a way out from reform.
However, the reform must have an orientation. “In the course of reform it is very
important for us to maintain our socialist orientation”1. To make it specific, the
question was: whether to differentiate the specific methods of building up socialism
from the basic system of socialism, to take reform as the self-improvement and self-
development of socialism and to adhere to socialist system while reforming the rigid
model, or to confuse the specific methods of building up socialism with the basic
system of socialism, to attribute the malady of the rigid model to the basic system of
socialism and to turn reform into the abolishment of socialism and a backslide to
capitalism? Just in this regard, the infiltration and transformation conducted by the
democratic socialism and international bourgeoisie by using the tool of bourgeois
democracy played an extremely important role in overthrowing these socialist

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page 138.

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countries.
The democratic socialism attributed all the errors caused by the rigid model to the
basic socialist system and regarded bourgeois democracy as a remedy for all illnesses.
It turned the nature of reform into the implementation of this bourgeois democracy
used “complete democratization” to correct the rigid model, which make people to
have illusion that the bourgeois democracy will bring new vitality to the society, and
this finally resulted in a disaster. Just as Deng Xiaoping stressed: “if we did not adhere
to socialism, implement the policies of reform and opening to the outside world,
develop the economy and raise people’s living standards, we would find ourselves in a
blind alley.”1
However, the great changes in East Europe and the collapse of Soviet Union
nailed the various lies about bourgeois democracy told by democratic socialists and
international bourgeoisie because the change of social systems and political powers in
these countries didn’t brought material welfare and western-style consumption as
what they had preached, instead, it brought about disastrous economic situation,
poverty of the masses, increase of unemployment rate, general degradation of living
conditions, rise of nationalism and social explosion. Kenneth Auchincloss, an
American writer, published articles on this issue and pointed out: “the concept of
democracy has been romanticized to such a dangerous degree that no one can
recognize it”. He said that the year 1990 taught people three lessons and warn them
not to fall into the three misunderstandings of democracy. The so-called three
misunderstandings were: “democracy is not an outstanding teacher of economics”,
“democracy is not always producing new blood”, “in East European countries where
‘democracy’ has been realized, even a constitutional monarchy may be reestablished”;
the so-called three misunderstandings of democracy were: “democracy will certainly
bring prosperity”, “democracy will bring stability” and “democracy means rule of
majority”2.
Therefore, the success in infiltrating and transforming socialist countries can’t
last long and can’t reverse the trend of social development; instead, it will enable the
people to draw upon lessons from the past and achieve socialist development in a
healthier way.

Section 2 View of Democratic Socialism on Human Rights

In the political program of democratic socialism, besides its view of democracy,
the other important problem is human right. It takes democracy and human right as
“the very substance of the socialist ends”, and repeatedly reiterates that it is
“dedicated to the cause of human right” and “loyal to the principle of maintaining
basic human right” as well as preaches that “to protect, promote and expand human
right is of essential significance to democratic socialist movement” and “only
democratic socialism can maintain and guarantee human right”.

1. Basic Viewpoints of Democratic Socialism on Human Rights

Generally speaking, the democratic socialist view of human right can be divided

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page 370.

2 Kenneth Auchincloss: The Age of Anxiety and The limits of Democracy, Newsweek (international), March 1991
and January 1992.

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into three interrelated aspects, among which, the first one is its basic viewpoints on
the origin, variety and priority of human right.
What is human right? What is the origin and basis of human right?
To this question, the General Resolution of the 14th congress of SI in November
1978 answered: “human right originated from the basic needs of mankind which
include the right to live, the right to work, the right to housing and the right to
education.” The indispensable civil rights include “the freedom of speech, the
freedom of association and assembly, the freedom of migration and the freedom of
participation in political activities”. It stressed that “the democratic socialism is
engaged in recognizing, protecting and strengthening these basic rights”.
What are the “basic needs of mankind” that are considered by democratic
socialism as the origin and basis of human right?
These needs refer to natural needs of mankind for something to maintain their
lives and continue their races during the racial development process and a kind of
material need to improve their substantial and spiritual lives in their social life.
Therefore, among the “basic needs of mankind”, there are not only natural needs
belonging to natural elements and human nature, but also social needs which are
considered as the second nature of mankind developed in the history. All these needs,
especially the satisfaction of these needs, not only have historical and epochal
characters but also have class characters in the class society.
In terms of historical and epochal characters, the needs for clothes, foods, housing
and other items and the production of materials to satisfy these needs, namely, the
production and material life themselves, are always the basic needs of mankind with
no exceptions in any society. However, they cannot form human right in all the times.
Within the clanship of primitive society, there’s no difference between rights and
duties because the right in legal sense didn’t exist at this stage of social development.
In the slave and feudal society, the ruling ideology was the admission of poverty,
inequality and oppression, and the fondness of enslavement, excruciation and the
cruelty and tyranny in time of war. The ancient people must think it crazy to believe
that both Greeks and barbarians, free men and slaves, citizens and the protected, the
Roman citizens and Roman subjects can demand equal political positions. The
rampage of Teutons in West Europe even abolished the concept of equality for several
centuries in history. It is the bourgeoisie who first put forward the question of human
right systematically in its struggle against feudal system and strive for the
development of commodity production. Therefore, Marx pointed out: “the trend
toward equality is the special feature of our times. However, to say that the previous
centuries and their different needs and means of productions were obedience to the
fate decreed by God so as to achieve equality is firstly taking the people and means of
production in our times as those in the previous centuries and denying the movements
by generations of people to constantly change the achievements made by our
ancestors.” 1
These great changes of human right situations under different social forms
clearly indicate that it is groundless for the democratic socialism to believe the origin
and basis of human right is “the basic needs of mankind”.
In terms of the class character of human right in class society, especially in
capitalist society, although the needs for clothes, foods, housing and other items and
the production of materials to satisfy these needs, namely, the production and material
life themselves, are always the basic needs of mankind with no exceptions in any
society, because different classes have different social positions and different relations
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 153.

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with the existing world, their demands for human right based on the same basic needs
are quite different. In this regard, Marx and Engels described quite vividly in : “In the
real world where individuals have needs, they thereby already have a vocation and
task”, “The proletarian, for example, who like every human being has the vocation of
satisfying his needs and who is not in a position to satisfy even the needs that he has
in common with all human beings, the proletarian whom the necessity to work a 14-
hour day debases to the level of a beast of burden”, “this proletarian is, if only for
these reasons, confronted with the real task of revolutionizing his conditions.”. “when
for example the bourgeois tells the proletarian that his, the proletarian’s, human task is
to work fourteen hours a day, the proletarian is quite justified in replying in the same
language that on the contrary his task is to overthrow the entire bourgeois system” 1. In
Capital, Marx also pointed out that the capitalists always attempted to break the moral
limits of the working day and the pure physical limits in order to pursue more surplus-
values whereas the workers carried out dogged struggles for the limit of working day
and “substitute” such splendid words as “inalienable human right” for “the simple
Great Charter that legally limits the working day”2.
The above discussion proves from another perspective that it is groundless for the
democratic socialism to take “the basic needs of mankind” as the origin and basis of
human right.
Marxism believes that rights can never exceed the economic structure and the
cultural development of a society that is limited by its economic structure. Human
right, as the most general form of rights, should seek its origin and basis from the
material production relations of a society. If the privilege in feudal society is
considered to comply with the private ownership related to hierarchy, rights including
human right first put forward systematically by the bourgeoisie can be considered to
comply with the state of competition and free private ownership: the exchange based
on exchange values is the real basis of all the equal and free productions, and as pure
ideas, equality and freedom are merely an idealized expression of the exchange of
exchange values. Therefore, the acknowledgement of human right by modern
bourgeois states has the same meaning with the acknowledgement of slave system by
ancient states. They “have acknowledged their own natural basis through universal
human right” and “have acknowledged their own birth place and basis by the methods
of declaring human right”3.
On the contrary, the democratic socialism believes the origin and basis of human
right is the “basic needs” which are deprived of their historical, epochal and class
characters. This is in fact turning the human right eternal and abstract, as the
bourgeoisie do. When democratic socialism takes this eternalized and abstract human
right, together with democracy as the “very substance of socialist ends”, it has turned
“socialism” into a bunkum that can be completely accepted by the bourgeoisie.
Apart from this, it’s one-sided for the democratic socialism to take “basic needs
of mankind” as the origin and basis of human right because “need” is at best the basis
for people to raise their human right demands in some aspects. But the focus of the
problem is that human right demands alone are not enough to form human right
because apart from people’s human right demands, human right also includes relation
of duties and rights among people and the latter is decided by people’s social positions
and their relation with the state instead of by people’s “needs”.
On the problem of priority of human right, the Socialist International said in its

1 Complete Works of Marks and Engels, Volume 3, Page 326-327.

2 Complete Works of Marks and Engels, Volume 23, Page 335.
3 Complete Works of Marks and Engels, Volume 2, Page 145.

71
Stockholm Declaration of Principles at the 18th congress in June 1989 that “Individual
rights are fundamental to the values of socialism”. Although here democratic
socialism dressed its individual rights in “socialism”, in fact it is no different from the
human right outlook of the bourgeoisie.
Someone said that bourgeoisie respect individual human right while Marxism
focuses on collective human right. This opinion is groundless. In Provisional Rules of
the International Working Men’s Association, Marx clearly pointed out: “one has the
responsibility to require human right and civil right not only for himself but also for
everyone who is fulfilling his duty.”1 This indicates that the dividing line in principle
between Marxist view of human right and bourgeois view of human right is not
whether they recognize human right of an individual but what standpoints proceed
from to discuss human right.
The bourgeoisie put forward human right of an individual from the standpoint of
“civil society” because the “man” mentioned here is the one who is isolated and
enclosed in its own factor; and the human right referred to by bourgeoisie is the
individual human right built up on the separation of individuals. With this kind of
human right, an individual is not a social one; instead, “society appears as a
framework external to the individuals, as a restriction of their original independence.”
Therefore, “None of the so-called rights of man, therefore, go beyond egoistic man,
beyond man as a member of civil society – that is, an individual withdrawn into
himself, into the confines of his private interests and private caprice, and separated
from the community.”2
The philosophical basis of this bourgeois view of human right is the ultra-
individualism from sophism to Hobbes in the western history of philosophy.
According to the social philosophy of this ultra-individualism, the man, any
individual man, is born free and entitled all the rights and the rights to do what they
can. Since this will certainly lead to comprehensive war and antagonism, a contract
should be signed to restrict each other. An individual man submits his right to the
community organized by the contract——the state. In the community, people give
human rights to each other, namely, civil right. The human right announced solemnly
by the French Constitution in 1971 and 1973 and Declaration of the Rights of Man
and of the Citizen is just the right of this egoist man separated from others and this
community. This philosophy also takes civil life and political community as a means
to maintain this so-called human right. Just for this reason, it regards the rights of an
individual as the foundation; however, mankind cannot gain emancipation by relying
on this kind of human right.
On the contrary, Marx viewed the right of an individual from the standpoint of
“human society” or “social mankind”: Man is really a social animal whose
independence is only in society. An individual man is a social existence. On the one
hand, “Only in the collective can the individual find the way to the full development
of one’s talents, that is to say, the individual freedom can only be achieved in the
collective”3; on the other hand, “each one’s free development is the condition of the
free development for the whole people”4. Therefore, in talking about individual
human right, Marx always had always related an individual closely to class and
society. In his Contribution To The Critique Of Hegel's Philosophy Of Right, when
Marx discuss that “the positive possibility of a German emancipation”, lies “in the
formulation of a class with radical chains”, he clearly pointed out that “a sphere which
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 16, Page 16.
2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 439.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 84.
4 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 294.

72
has a universal character by its universal suffering and claims no particular right
because no particular wrong, but wrong generally, is perpetuated against it; which can
invoke no historical, but only human, title”1.
This Marxist view of individual right is of great significance not only to the
proletariat and socialist countries but also to billions of people in the developing
countries. Being different from the bourgeoisie who tried to obtain individual right
from the feudal system several centuries ago, for these billions of people who has
been emancipated from the colonial rule of imperialism, the most important thing
should be people’s right to survival and the state’s right to independency and
development. If these collective human rights are not guaranteed, their individual
right will be nothing to speak of. Only by winning these collective human rights, can
their individual rights be guaranteed and realized gradually on this basis.
Therefore, the practice of the democratic socialism in taking individual rights as
foundation cannot differentiate itself from the bourgeois view of human right and isn’t
in the fundamental interests of billions of people in the world at all.
In order to indicate their difference from the bourgeois view of human rights, the
Socialist International stressed in its resolution passed at the 15th congress in Nov.
1980: “for us, human rights not only include traditional civil liberties and civil rights
but also economic and social rights”. “The fundamental difference between
democratic socialists and other democratic forces is that we believe the economic and
social rights are equally necessary with the traditional human rights”.
Indeed, when the bourgeoisies first put forward systematically the demand for
human right in fighting against the feudal system and developing commodity
production, the human right it referred to didn’t involve economic and social rights. In
response of this, the proletariat pointed out human rights should not only be applied to
legal field, but also to the social and economic fields: “The proletarians took the
bourgeoisie at its word: equality must not be merely apparent, must not apply merely
to the sphere of the state, but must also be real, must also be extended to the social,
economic sphere. And especially since the French bourgeoisie, from the great
revolution on, brought civil equality to the forefront, the French proletariat has
answered blow for blow with the demand for social, economic equality, and equality
has become the battle-cry particularly of the French proletariat.”2
However, since then human rights in social and economic fields has been
increasingly recognized by the bourgeoisie. For example, among the “four freedoms”
put forward by the U.S. President Roosevelt in 1941, the third “freedom from want”
belongs to the human right in social and economic fields. In 1944, the U.S. issued the
Economic Bill of Rights to specify and supplement the provisions in this regard. In
December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights which clearly provides that the economic, social and
cultural rights, together with civil and political rights, should be included in the scope
of human rights: “Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security
and is entitled to realization of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable
for his dignity and the free development of his personality.”
Therefore, at present, to only “believe that human rights in economic and social
fields are equally necessary with the traditional human rights” is not enough to draw a
clear dividing line from the bourgeois view of human right. In order to draw this
dividing line clearly, the democratic socialism should turn to the standpoint of the
proletariat and turn its identification of human rights in social and economic field into

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 14-15.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 448.

73
clear provisions that admit the necessity of abolishing private ownership of
production means and of abolishing classes. Engels pointed out: “From the moment
when the bourgeois demand for the abolition of class privileges was put forward,
alongside it appeared the proletarian demand for the abolition of the classes
themselves”, “the real content of the proletarian demand for equality is the demand
for the abolition of classes. Any demand for equality which goes beyond that, of
necessity passes into absurdity.”1
However, just on this problem of drawing a clear dividing line from the bourgeois
view of human rights, democratic socialism completely rejected the basic viewpoints
of the proletariat from action to theory. Its representatives either said that “the
ownership of means of production, or the so-called ‘man’ s position in the production
process’ is less important”, or said that “the modern democratic socialism should give
up the illusion that with the popularization of ownership relations and changes in
models, mankind can make a breakthrough of decisive significance and that the
abolition of private possession of production means will automatically produce
greater freedom of mankind”2. The Stockholm Declaration of Principles of the
Socialist International in its 18th congress declared openly: “experience has shown that
while nationalization in some circumstances may be necessary, it is not by itself a
sovereign remedy for social ills.” This indicates that democratic socialism is talking
volubly of human rights in social and economic fields under the precondition that the
bourgeois private ownership of means of production is retained, or under the
condition that the proletariat continues to be in the position of being exploited and
oppressed. Then, what basis can the democratic socialism use to flaunt its “basic
difference” from the bourgeois view of human rights?!

2. Evaluation of Democratic Socialism on Human Right Conditions in the

Contemporary World

The second aspect of the democratic socialism’s view on human rights is its
evaluation on human right conditions in the contemporary world, especially in
countries belonging to two different systems of capitalism and socialism respectively.
Since democratic socialism labels itself as adopting the third way apart from the
capitalist and socialist ways, it always adopts the methods of comparison in
evaluating the human right conditions in capitalist and socialist countries. For
example, in the Frankfurt Declaration of 1951, it said that capitalism “put the rights of
ownership before the rights of man” while communism “wherever it has achieved
power it has destroyed freedom or the chance of gaining freedom”; at the Paris
conference of the International Council of Socialist International in 1953, it said:
“socialists oppose capitalist exploitation”, and also oppose to “the political and
economic slavery on people imposed by the communist totalitarian”; at the 4th
congress of the SI in 1955, it said: “capitalism oppose the principle of social justice
and equality among people” while “the totalitarian of communists” is “the old-
fashioned tyranny”; at the London conference of the International Executive Bureau
of the SI in 1956, it believed that “the communists has completely distorted socialist
ideology”, and one the differences between socialists and communists lies in that “we
believe in human right while they laugh at it”; at the 6th congress of the SI in 1959, it
said: “capitalism exploits people while communism oppresses people”; at Oslo
conference of the Council of SI in 1962, it said: “both communism and capitalism are

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 447-448.

2 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 39, 61.

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the backslide to the times where men are taken as raw materials instead of the source
and goal of all efforts.”, and it criticized “the inhuman tyranny of communism and the
wasteful injustice of capitalism”; at eh 13th congress of the SI in 1976, it said:
“capitalism and communism still appear as the major forms of social oppression in
modern society”; at the 18th congress of SI in 1989, it said: “liberalists and
conservatives mainly put emphasis on individual freedom at the sacrifice of justice
and solidarity whereas communists profess to realize equality and solidarity at the
sacrifice of freedom”, and it specially criticized that communism “persecutes and
violates human rights on a large scale”…
It seems that democratic socialism criticized not only capitalism but also
communism on the question of contemporary human right conditions of the world,
but it in fact tries to uphold capitalism and oppose communism by giving false
evaluations on the human right conditions of both sides which don’t comply with
facts.
In brief, the evaluation of democratic socialism on human right conditions of
capitalist countries is that the capitalism “put the rights of ownership before the rights
of man” which resulted in problems such as exploitation and injustice. However, this
essential evaluation made by the democratic socialism is not correct, for it
underestimates the role of bourgeois private ownership of means of production in its
human right system and the serious and widely violation and persecution it has done
to the human rights of the masses.
In a capitalist society, the bourgeois private ownership of means of production
isn’t something beyond the rights of man, instead, it is the primary right of man which
is centered around by other rights. In his work On Jewish Question, when
commenting on the French Constitution of 1973 which took equality, liberty, security
and property as the natural and imprescriptible rights of man, Marx pointed out: “The
practical application of man’s right to liberty is man’s right to private property”;
“Equality is nothing but the equality of the liberté described above”; and according to
the concept of “security”, “the whole of society exists only in order to guarantee to
each of its members the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property”; and
“The right of man to private property is, therefore, the right to enjoy one’s property
and to dispose of it at one’s discretion (à son gré), without regard to other men,
independently of society”1. In Capital, Marx further pointed out: This sphere where
the sale and purchase of labor-power goes on, is in fact “a very Eden of the innate
rights of man”; “capital is a born equality, that is to say, it requires that conditions of
exploitation of labor-power in all production fields be equal and take this as its
birthright”; “And the first birthright of capital is equal exploitation of labor-power by
all capitalists”2.
The bourgeois private ownership of means of production will definitely persecute
and violate the human right of the masses because the process of creating capital
relations is the process during which a laborer is separated from the ownership of his
labor conditions and which turns means of subsistence and means of production into
capital and at the same time turns the direct producer into wage-workers. This
historical movement which changes the producers into wage-workers, appears, on the
one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds. But,
on the other hand, these new freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they
had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of
existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 438-439.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 23, Page 199, 436, 324.

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expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.
For example, the English Bourgeoisie, in order to reduce peasants and small land-
owners into proletarians, forced them to engage in hard labors under harsh conditions
and once asked the government to formulate laws to punish those who are reluctant to
bear this inhuman treatment and hence become tramps wondering in the streets.
According to the law, those tramps with a strong body should be whipped to bleeding
when they are arrested for the first time and they should bind over to “go back to
work”; when they are arrested for the second time, half of their ear should be cut off
apart from being whipped and parade through the streets; when they are arrested for
the third time, they should be sentenced to death as the enemies of the society. Only in
the short period of the first decades of the 16th century, the English bourgeoisie
executed more than 70,000 “tramps” of this kind.
When slaughtering and persecuting foreign people for the purpose of exploitation
and consolidation of its rule, the violation and persecution of the rights of masses by
bourgeoisie were too numerous to record.
In the capitalist society, the private ownership of means of production is not only
the primary human right, but also the general source of exploitation, oppression and
enslavement of the masses by the bourgeoisie in political, economic and cultural
fields. Just in this sense, Marx pointed out in the General Rules of the International
Workingmen's Association: “That the economical subjection of the man of labor to the
monopolizer of the means of labor — that is, the source of life — lies at the bottom of
servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political
dependence; that the economical emancipation of the working classes is therefore the
great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means.”1
Therefore, the evaluation of the democratic socialism on human right conditions
in capitalist countries, which believed that the capitalism “put the rights of ownership
before the rights of man”, is not in compliance with the facts and is intended to cover
up the wide-raging and serious violation, deprivation and persecution of the rights of
masses conducted by capitalism.
The evaluation of democratic socialism on human right conditions in socialist
countries, which believes that the socialism mocks at, persecutes and violates human
rights and is a totalitarian tyranny, ect., is even an arbitrary vilification going against
the facts.
Since the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, all the newly born socialist
countries were founded on the ruins of capitalism, colonies and semi-colonies. In the
old society, the majority of masses were under the oppression of capitalism or
imperialism, colonialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism; hence they have no
human rights at all. It was not until the socialist countries were founded after the
revolution that the human right conditions of these countries was changed
fundamentally and the people began to enjoy extensive, impartial and true human
rights. However, democratic socialism calls this the mockery, persecution and
violation of human rights; hence it is actually confusing right with wrong and calling
black white.
For instance, in 1959 when our government put down the rebellion of a minority
of serf-owners in Tibet, the London conference of Executive Bureau of SI issued a
resolution to declare that it “stands by the side of the free public opinion of Asia and
shows sympathy to the Tibetan people for the suppression of their rights of freedom”;
at the following conference on maritime law held by the Council of SI, it passed a
resolution to “feel sorry for the Tibetan people whose freedom and personality are
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 609.

76
destroyed by the communist China at a time when colonialism is disappearing” and
“urge (Chinese government) to restore the conventional status of Tibet and enable its
people to go forward in liberty”.
However, the hard facts are that in the old Tibet before the democratic reform was
introduced, 95% of Tibetans were serfs personally dependent on government
authorities, lords and temples and the laws clearly provided various excruciations to
maintain the feudal serfdom with three classes and nine ranks. It was not until the old
system was abolished in the democratic reform that millions of serfs broke the chain
on their body and gained freedom of person and the essential human rights. However,
democratic socialism stood by the side of a handful of serfowners who initiated the
rebellion, called their dream of re-enslaving those millions of previous serfs “right to
liberty” and urged to restore their “conventional status”. Where on earth did they
place the human rights of millions of former serfs in Tibet by doing so?
Why did democratic socialism launch such arbitrary attack and slander on the
socialist countries? One of the reasons was that socialist countries declare clearly to
implement the proletarian dictatorship, namely, the people’s democratic dictatorship,
which is contrary to the bourgeoisie who spares no effort to cover up its true color of
bourgeois dictatorship by employing the hypocritical words “democracy”. The
democratic socialism just follows the suit of the bourgeoisie, creating abstract
antagonism between democracy and dictatorship so as to maintain bourgeois
democracy and oppose proletarian dictatorship. As mentioned above, it claimed: “we
abandon dictatorship of all classes and all classes of dictatorship”.
However, it is groundless and malicious libel to equate the proletarian
dictatorship or people’s democratic dictatorship with the mockery, persecution and
violation of human rights.
What is proletarian dictatorship or people’s democratic dictatorship? Mao Zedong
said: “The combination of these two aspects, democracy for the people and
dictatorship over the reactionaries, is the people's democratic dictatorship.”1
The people’s democratic dictatorship exercise democracy among the
overwhelming majority of masses. Our constitution prescribed that our citizens enjoy
various freedoms such as the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press the freedom
of assembly, association and demonstration and the freedom of religious beliefs, etc.
Besides this, we also adopt democratic method to solve the disputes among people. Of
course, our democracy is socialist democracy instead of the bourgeois democracy
believed in by democratic socialism. This socialist democracy is the implementation
of democratic centralism within the ranks of people instead of a state of anarchy.
Within the ranks of people, democracy is relative to centralism while freedom is
relative to discipline. Under this democratic centralism which is a unity of democracy
and centralism and a unity of freedom and discipline, people are enjoying extensive
democracy and freedom and at the same time they must restrain themselves by
socialist disciplines. In the history of people’s democratic dictatorship, we have
committed mistakes which were not resulted from the people’s democratic
dictatorship, but from the violation of its basic principles and these mistakes were
later corrected by restoring and upholding these basic principles of the people’
democratic dictatorship. Therefore, it becomes quite clear that this socialist
democracy in the proletarian dictatorship or the people’s democratic dictatorship has
nothing to do with the so-called mockery, persecution and violation of human rights.
The attack of democratic socialism on the communists’ totalitarian control over
individual, state and social development is not in compliance with the human nature,
1 Selected Readings From The Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2, Page 682.

77
the function of the state and the evolution of human society. The truth of facts is just
as what Mao Zedong pointed out: “the foreign reactionaries who accuse us of
practicing ‘dictatorship’ or ‘totalitarianism’ are the very persons who practice it. They
practice the dictatorship or totalitarianism of one class, the bourgeoisie, over the
proletariat and the rest of the people.”1 And the democratic socialism merely acts as
their yes-man.
The proletarian dictatorship or the people’s democratic dictatorship indeed
exercises dictatorship over class enemies. Although this means it prohibits those who
are the targets of dictatorship from participating in political life within a certain period
and force them to obey the laws made by government and become a new person after
reformation through labor, it still has nothing to do with what the democratic
socialism called mockery, persecution and violation of human rights because:
Firstly, the reason why the proletarian dictatorship deprives these targets of
dictatorship of their civil rights within a certain period is that they violated and
persecuted the rights of the overwhelming majority of the masses on a large scale by
their privileges in the past. In a class society, so long as there is freedom, democracy
and rights for the exploiting class to exploit and oppress the people, there will not be
any freedom, democracy and human rights for the vast majority of masses to not to be
exploited and oppressed. Therefore, the proletariat adopts the measures of dictatorship
just in order to maintain and guarantee the human rights of the vast majority of
masses.
Secondly, however, even for the targets of dictatorship who are imprisoned, their
due rights during the jail term are protected by the law. For example, according the
law of our country, a criminal shall enjoy the rights to petition and defense, the right
to personal safety, the right to complain and impeach and the right that their dignity
shall not be insulted and their legitimate property shall not be violated and other civil
rights which are not prohibited by the law.
Thirdly, instead of simply publishing the targets of dictatorship, the proletarian
dictatorship tries to organize them to participate in labor, learn laws, knowledge and
techniques so as to transform them into new persons observing disciplines and
obeying laws. Isn’t it true that most of the targets of dictatorship in our country
including the last emperor of Qing Dynasty and the war criminals in history have been
transformed into citizens obeying the law and talents useful to the country?

3. Democratic Socialism Takes Human Right Issues as a Tool of Intervening in the

Internal Affairs of Other Countries and Peacefully Transforming Socialist Countries
Although at its 14th congress in Vancouver in November 1978 the SI declared
solemnly: “to improve human right should be our true purpose instead of being the
tool to gain political interests.” But in fact it has always been making use of human
right issues to force some socialist countries to accept bourgeois values and ideologies
and adopt political system of bourgeois democracy. These constitute the third aspect
of the democratic socialism’s view on human right which is predominantly reflected
in its theories and activities for initiating the campaign for human right.
In terms of theory, the democratic socialism associates human rights closely with
bourgeois democracy, describing human rights as the foundation of bourgeois
democracy while describing bourgeois democracy as the only reliable guarantee of
human rights.
The General Resolution passed at the Helsinki conference of the Council of SI in
1971 claimed that “the socialists still believe human right …is the real foundation of

1 Selected Readings From The Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2, Page 685.

78
democracy”; and the General Resolution passed at the 14th congress of SI in
Vancouver in 1978 claimed that: “the information that the Socialist International seeks
to spread is that the sole channel of realizing human rights lies in the establishment of
free and democratic political, economic and social system”.
The other aspect of the theories proposed by democratic socialism to launch its
human right campaign is that it describes human rights as the very substance of the
socialist ends and accuses communism of distorting the socialist tradition.
The bourgeois political, economic and social system definitely guarantees the basic
human rights of the bourgeoisie, especially their primary human right——capital. But
it’s a pity that these are only the human rights and pecuniary privilege for the minority
of exploiters. As for the human right of the vast majority of masses, the capitalist
system only announce it in form and cares little about it in practice. After a long
period of struggle, the human rights conditions of the working class have been
improved and are better than those at the early period of capitalist society, but the hard
fact is that serious polarization still exists, which makes the poor working people be in
short of essential material means to realizes their rights which are said equal to the
bourgeois rights in form. For example, today in the U.S. 80% of its wealth and 90% of
shares are possessed by only 20% of its population; 60% of the wealth is possessed by
capital oligarch which accounts for only 0.02% of its population and 80% of its shares
are possessed by financial capitalists which accounts for only 0.16% of its population
whereas only 20% of its wealth and 10% of its shares are possessed by 80% of its
population. Under this condition, how can we talk about the real equal rights between
the majority of the masses and the capitalists?!
In a socialist society, since the system of exploitation of man by man is abolished,
the possibility that all the working people can gain the rights of equal economic
development is created for the first time and with the development of socialist
construction and deepening of reform, their human rights has been increasingly fully
achieved. However, it’s groundless for the democratic socialism to summarize the
very substance of socialist ends to human rights. It is clear that according to the
Marxist theory, socialism is a stage in the development of human history and within
this stage mankind will abolish class and class differences on the basis of highly
developed productive forces so as to enter into the communist society where the goal
of “from each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs” will be
attained; on the contrary, if we, like the democratic socialism, adhere to the private
ownership of means of production, take the individual rights as the foundation of
socialist values and then take this view of human right as the very substance of
socialist ends, we will distort socialism and can’t realize our great historical task of
abolishing classes and class differences and make a good preparation for entering into
communism, and moreover, this will only lead to the backslide of socialism to
capitalism. The activities carried out by the democratic socialism in its human right
campaign show that this is just what the human right theories of democratic socialism
want to achieve.
In terms of activities, under the pretext of protecting human rights, democratic
socialism adopts both threats and bribes to require some socialist countries to change
their political system and implement bourgeois democracy. In this regard, the most
typical example is the resolutions and declarations make by the democratic socialism
on the East Europe issue.
As early as in June 1962, the Council of SI passed the Resolution on East Europe
at the Oslo conference which said: “the Council of the Socialist International once
again protests against the autocratic rule of communist parties in East European

79
countries. They don’t allow people have a government in democratic forms, nor do
they give freedom to workers’ movement” and it “asks the countries controlled by
communist parties in East Europe to restore the freedom of association and establish a
government in democratic form”.
In 1989 when there was an unrest in the international situation, the Council of SI
held its Geneva conference and passed a resolution named Position Paper on Eastern
Europe——Problems and Opportunities which publicly declared it “supports all the
effort aimed to reform socialist countries through liberalization and democratization”
and declared cheerfully that its view of human rights “has become an encouraging
criterion for those organizations engaged in reform and abandoning the previous
forms of ruling”.
These activities of democratic socialism clearly indicated that it openly went
against the standard of international law, made use of human right problems to
intervene in the internal affairs of Eastern European countries and imposed political
system of bourgeois democracy on these countries so as to subvert or transform their
government.
In its resolution passed at the Vienna conference held by the Executive Bureau of
SI in Oct. 1985, the SI once indicated that “the role of the United Nations as the major
promoter of human rights and reformer of international law should be resumed”.
However, this activity showed that it was just openly trampling on the basic standard
of non-intervention in internal affairs of other countries provided by the U.N.
documents. What “government in democratic forms” should a country have belongs
to the internal affairs of this country, so it was a complete intervention in the internal
affairs of other countries for the democratic socialism to “support” other countries to
take its view of human rights as their “criterion” to “reform communist societies” and
“implement reform and abandon the previous forms of ruling”.
Clause 7 Article 2 of the U.N. Charter clearly provided that “Nothing contained
in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which
are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state”. Many other documents
passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations also make clear provisions on
non-intervention in internal affairs of other countries by the means of exploitation and
distortion of human right issues. They include: the Declaration on the Inadmissibility
of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their
Independence and Sovereignty, the Declaration on Principles of International Law
Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States in Accordance With
the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of
Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States.
A resolution of the 45th session of the U.N. General Assembly pointed out: “Each
State has the right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and
cultural systems.”; and the resolution of its 46th conference on human rights pointed
out that no single mode of development is applicable to all cultures and peoples.
The Lima Mandate passed at the 17th congress of the SI in 1986 once said that the
socialism should be “taken as a universal human right of self-determination for both
individuals and collectives in the world”. But according to joint-declaration of the SI
and Asian Socialist Party Conference at the 4th congress of SI in 1955, the so-called
“self-determination” means “everyone has the inalienable right to choose his own life
style without violating the same right of others” and “the same is true with the self-
determination of a nation. So long as it doesn’t violate the same right of the other
peoples and do harm to the freedom of other peoples or world peace, it is a basic
principle of the democratic social system and this right is recognized by the Charter o

80
of the United Nations”.
Since the Eastern European countries abandoned the political form of bourgeois
democracy after the Second World War and adopted the political form of socialist
democracy, which neither violated the same right of other peoples, nor threatened the
freedom of other peoples and the world peace, they should gain respect and the
Socialist International had no right to criticize them and force them to take the
democratic socialism’s view of human right as a “criterion” to “implement reform and
abandon the previous form of ruling” and to “reform the communist society”. Isn’t
this a bald-faced trampling on the principle of self-determination?
As a matter of fact, although human right issues have the international aspect
(just based on this aspect, countries in the world recognize and respect the
international documents including Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
participate in international human right activities), they are mainly the problems
within the sovereignty of a country and are under the domestic jurisdiction of a
country in nature. Therefore, human rights should be identified and protected by the
sovereignty state through domestic legislation. Due to the great differences between
various countries in terms of historical, social, economic and cultural conditions, they
have different understanding of human rights and implement human rights in different
ways, therefore, the international society shouldn’t carry out intervention and
international human right protection unless there are activities in these countries
threatening world peace and security such as the brutal human right violations
resulted from colonialism, racialism and foreign aggression and occupation, or serious
incidents such as racial segregation, racial discrimination, genocide, slave trade and
international terrorism. It is definitely a practice of hegemony and power politics that
should be criticized to force other countries to accept one’s ideology, values and social
system under the pretext of human rights. The above activities of Socialist
International were just carried out under the pretext of protecting human rights, aimed
to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries and transform socialist countries
in peaceful way, and hence were completely different from the normal international
human right activities.

Section 3 Democratic Socialists’ View of the State

On the question of how to achieve socialism, one important characteristic of
democratic socialism is nationalism, which means it takes the state as the major
means of social transformation and believes that the present bourgeois states can
become the means and representatives in social reform process. Meanwhile, it
believes the road to new society should be gaining influence and majority in the
parliament and it designs the future society as the nationalization of all the important
functions. Thus the view of the state takes a quite important place in the political
program of democratic socialism.

1. The Issue of State in the Program of Socialist Democratic Party

81
 At the 6th congress of the SI in Hamburg, Germany in July 1959, one of the topics
of discussion was the issue of state. At the congress, Oscar Pollack, an Austrian
socialist gave a report, pointing out that the working class and socialist democrats
shouldn’t treat the present western countries as they treat the bourgeois state power in
the past. He said that the working class had adopted a negative attitude toward the
state system of the bourgeois countries in the past because at that time the working
class were the oppressed class and had no real political rights and possibility to exert
influence on the state; but nowadays the situation has changed and the state not only
belongs to the bourgeois but also to the working class because the working class has
participated in the management of the state and in many cases they “share the right to
management of state with other classes”. Based on this, he said that the workers and
the whole working class should change their attitudes toward state and they should
maintain and utilizing the existing state system to achieve their goals instead of
opposing it1.
In fact, the program of the socialist parties in various European countries adopted
this attitude proposed by Pollack very long ago. Here we just take the Social
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) as an example:
As early as in 1921, the Program of the SPD passed at its Gorlitz congress
pointed out clearly that “any attack on this state form (democratic republic) is
trampling on people’s right to live”.
The program of the SPD in 1952 and 1954 called the Federal Republic of
Germany “the community of national life”.
The Draft Program of the SPD in 1958 said: “the sate should be interpreted as the
community putting people together in frequent communications”.
The Economic and Political Program of the SPD between 1976-1985 gave a
more specific discussion on the topic of state: “for the Social Democratic Party of
Germany, a democratic state under the rule of law provided by the Basic Law is an
indispensable part of our country’s political system”; “to protect this system is a basic
task on the shoulder of the Social Democratic Party of Germany”; “a democratic
society and state (under the rule of law) is the foundation and starting point to further
develop our society in the spirit of democratic socialism”; “the socialist democrats
take democratic state under the rule of law as the system complying with dignity of
mankind, which includes the acknowledgement of the active role the state plays in
shaping social relations bringing benefit to citizens”. In the section of “the role of the
state”, the Program reiterated “state policy isn’t merely the result of pressures from
the partial interests contradictory to each other” because “in the system of democracy,
the decisions of the state depend to a large degree on the intention of the voters and
hence on the intention of the majority of the laborers”; the Program put special
emphasis on “the dependency of the private bourgeois economy on the decisions of
the state and the state’s role in creating and maintaining the political, economic and
social conditions for the survival of the private businesses”, etc.
This view of the state can also be found in the speeches made by the leaders of
social democratic parties.
For example, Pietro Nenni, an Italian socialist, once said: “although the state still
retains the characters of superstructure above the social economy and social public
organizations, as a result of the struggles of working class over the past 100 years, it
doesn’t stand for the dictatorship or monopoly of a certain class any longer, in other
words, the state will not represent the dictatorship or monopoly of the economically
strongest class any longer. Instead, now it represents social equilibrium…the
1 See International Socialist Review, 1960 (1)-(2), Page 3, 4.

82
equilibrium that is maturing in our social life.”1
Brandt, a member of SPD, after quoting the words of Gustav Heinemann, the
former president of the Federal Republic of Germany: “we are the state and the state
is all of us”, pointed out: “we must interpret a civilized and democratic state as the
people’s organized legal group with the task of security, freedom and justice”. He
believed that “the ideological level of democratic socialism” was “to try to make the
state realize the existence of a free person at its best and change the social conditions
opposite to the existence of the free person”, and at the same time “to make new
changes to the modern state in scale and quality” “through social policies”, and this
means to enable the “state to contract its citizens from cradle to tomb”2
This democratic socialism’s view of state is a mixture of the theories about the
state put forward by Lassalle, Bernstain, Kautsky, Bauer and Laski, etc.

2． “A State Is a System for Mankind to Realize Development to Freedom”

Lassalle was the first founder of this view of democratic socialism on state. In his
speech Working Man’s Programme——On the Special Connection between the
Character of the Present Period of History and the Idea of the Working Class,
Lassalle put forward his view of the state that the aim of a state is to educate and
boost the mankind to develop toward freedom, realize the whole virtue of mankind
and actively develop and constantly improve the human nature. Meanwhile, he
opposed the view of state that took the task of a state as the so-called “night-watcher”
preventing robbery and burglary.
In this speech, Lassalle said: “the Bourgeoisie conceive the moral object of the
State to consist solely and exclusively in the protection of the personal freedom and
the property of the individual” and he said: “This is a night-watcher's idea…because it
supposes the Sate itself as a night-watcher whose whole function consists in
preventing robbery and burglary”, “according to it, if there were no such thing as
robbers and thieves, the State itself would be entirely superfluous”. On the contrary,
Lassalle said, the notion of state should be greatly enlarged: “in my opinion it is
possible to enlarge it to the extent that the State should be the organization, in which
the whole virtue of man should be realized” He said: “ History is a struggle with
nature, with the misery, the ignorance, the poverty, the weakness, and consequent
slavery in which we were involved when the human race came upon the scene in the
beginning of history” and “it is the State whose function it is to carry on this
development of freedom, this development of the human race until its freedom is
attained.”; “the State is this unity of individuals into a moral whole, a unity which
increases a million-fold the strength of all the individuals who are comprehended in it,
and multiplies a million times the power which would be at the disposal of them all as
individuals”. “The object of the State, therefore, is not only to protect the personal
freedom and property of the individual…On the contrary, the object of the State is
precisely to place the individuals through this union in a position to make them
capable of acquiring an amount of education, power, and freedom which would have
been wholly unattainable by them as individuals”. “Accordingly the object of the
State is to bring man to positive expansion, and progressive development, in other
words, to bring the destiny of man that is the culture of which the human race is
capable into actual existence; it is the training and development of the human race to

1 See Italian Newspaper Avanti! ("Forward!"), September 5, 1965.

2 Social Democracy and the Future, Page 4-5.

83
freedom”1. In April 1863, he said in his speech On Labor Issue: “all the great civilized
actions must come from the state, … the principle without state intervention can’t
stand”2
However, what can’t stand is this theory of state put forward by Lassalle.
This theory of State raised by Lassalle derived from the idea that the state “is the
actuality of the ethical idea” in Section 257 and the state is “the image and actuality of
ideal” in Section 360 of the Hegel’s book Principle of Law Philosophy. As early as in
his philosophical manuscript an Outline of Character of Reality Specially Observed
According to Hegel Philosophy, Lassalle said: “the state is the realization of moral
will and the self-realization of universal spirit”. In his Manuscript of the History of
Social Development in 1950, he said: “state and law are the same thing, and are the
manifestation of the realization of universal spirit in the outer world such as various
systems, just as the God is the manifestation and realization of the content of these
objectives in the inner world such as feeling and imagination”; “the state is the
realization of the God”; “any state is liberty because only liberty is different from
autocracy”. In between 1844-1845, in his letter to his girlfriend Grocka, he wrote:
“man establish states and draft laws, which shows that he has found his nature in the
universal thing and known his sameness with the universal thing” and “the state and
law are the dwelling place built by the universal nature of mankind for itself: the law
is the universal will already expressed and the state is the universal spirit realized and
translated into action”.
This view of state inherited by Lassalle from Hegel is an idealistic view of the
state which is not in line with the objective reality and state in real life.
In reality, the state has not existed from all eternity. That is to say, although
mankind had reasons and moral ideas at the early stage, there wasn’t such a thing as
state during a long period in the history of mankind before the society was divided
into various classes. The state is the product of society at a certain stage of
development: it appears when society is divided into classes and produces exploiters
and the exploited. If a state appears in a society, it indicates that the society has fallen
into a self-contradiction which cannot be settled and the society has been divided into
opposites that cannot be rid off. In order to prevent these opposites who has
contradictory economic interests from destroying themselves and the society in their
meaningless struggles, a power which is above the society in appearance is needed to
soften class conflicts and bring the conflicts into the control of “order”. This power
produced by the society but is above the society and is breaking away from society is
called state. Therefore, a state is an administrative organ separated from the human
society and is a special compulsory organ which forces the people to be subject to
violence. It is a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class
antagonisms, and is an organ for the oppression of one class by another.
Because the state arose from the need to hold class antagonisms in check, but
because it arose, at the same time, in the midst of the conflict of these classes, it is, as
a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through
the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus
acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. Therefore,
the ancient slavery states were the instrument of the slave owners to suppress slaves,
the feudal states were instruments of monarchs to suppress serfs; likewise, the modern
capitalist state is an instrument of exploitation of wage-labor by capitalists. In all the
typical periods, the state is the state of the ruling class without exception and it is in

1 Speeches of Lassalle, Page 70-71.

2 Speeches of Lassalle, Page 158.

84
nature the instrument to suppress the oppressed and exploited classes in any cases.
Therefore, the facts go against what Lassalle said. The state is not only the night-
watcher preventing robbery and burglary, but also the night-watcher who keeps the
house of the ruling class and suppresses the oppressed and exploited classes. This
isn’t the “bourgeois understanding and imagination” said by Lassalle, but historical
experience and objective reality.
Then, can the concept of the State be enlarged into the system to realize the
whole virtue of mankind, the system to realize the development of mankind toward
freedom and the system to actively develop and constantly improve the human nature,
just as what Lassalle said? No, because if the concept of the State is enlarged at will
according to this illusion of Lassalle, the state will lose its nature and won’t be a state
any longer.
In fact, this illusion of Lassalle was not created without any reasons. It was a
product of his admiration for the false appearance of the bourgeois state. A capitalist
society is in nature a society based on private ownership, power of capital and
complete control of all the proletarian workers and working people. However, since
the rule of capital demand the bourgeoisie who possess capitals and the workers who
possess their labor-power to conduct free exchange according to the values of their
own “commodities” as the commodity owners having the equal rights, the capitalist
society announces that it rules on the basis of freedom. Therefore, although the
bourgeois states have freedom in appearance, in fact it is an instrument used by the
capitalists to control the working class and the poor. The illusion of Lassalle which
took the state as the system to realize the development of mankind to freedom was
just the result of his blind worship for the false appearance of the “freedom” of the
bourgeois state.
Therefore, Marxism believes this view of the Free State of Lassalle is groundless
utterance which exaggerates the conception of democracy in a philistine manner, for
as the apparatus of the ruling class, none of the States are free, even when the
proletariat have overthrown the bourgeois rule and established its own state power,
“and when the proletariat still need the State to suppress their enemies instead of for
freedom and once it is possible to talk about freedom, the State itself does not exist
any longer”1
The State described by Lassalle actually doesn’t exist in our real life. Think about
the State that Lassalle lived in was the Prussian State where the social democratic
party was brutally suppressed by Bismarck, but he even beautified the State into a
something aimed to realize the whole virtue of mankind, boost the mankind to
develop toward freedom and actively development and constantly improve human
nature. So the purpose and social function of Lassalle’s view of the State is open-and-
shut.

3. “A State Is a Cooperative of the Poor Classes”

In his Open Letter Answering the Central Committee on the Convening of a

General German Workers' Congress in Leipzig in March 1863, Lassalle raised the
idea which decides the nature of a State according to the proportion of various classes
in the State and the idea that the State is the cooperative of the poor classes.
In this Open Letter, Lassalle asked a question and answered himself: “What is a
State on earth? According to statistics, among the population of the Prussian State:
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 34, Page 123.

85
“people whose income exceeds 1,000 talers account for 0.5% of the total population,
people whose income is between 400 and 1000 talers account for 3.25%, people
whose income is between 200 and 400 talers account for 16.75% and people whose
income is below 100 talers account for 72.25%.” “The last two classes who were most
oppressed take up 89% of the population and if the third class who have always been
poor and oppressed and which account for 7.25% of the population is added to them
——it should be added——96.5% of the population are in a state of being poor and
oppressed. Therefore, gentlemen, the State belongs to you, the poor classes instead of
our upper class because it’s made up of you. I have asked: what is a state? Now you
can find out a clearer answer from the above few numbers than from the thick books:
the big cooperative of you poor classes——that is a State!”1
In his Letter to Workers in Berlin——in the Name of the Workers of the General
German Workers’ Association, Lassalle said: “to provide all the people with real
possibility of self-support and self-development through the gigantic and common
state organization in a way that meets the requirement of the times” “is the ultimate
reason and ultimate goal of the State which doesn’t belong to the chancellors or kings,
but exist through and for all the people. This is just the true reason for the existence of
the State and for the difference between mankind and animals which have no social
union and go hither and thither individually.”2
It can be said that this idea of Lassalle——the State belongs to the poor classes
and is a big co-operative of them according to the their largest proportion in the
population of a State——is nothing but a play-game.
It must be pointed out that the nature of a State can never be decided by the
proportion of populations of various classes in the population of the State; otherwise,
only the State of the exploited class will exist for ever in the history of mankind and
it’s impossible for the State of the exploiting class to exist, for the exploiting class has
always been the minority and tiny minority of the population of the State while the
exploited classes are always the majority and the overwhelming majority of the
population in the slavery, feudal and capitalist societies. Therefore, the exploiting
class has always been achieving the domination of the centralized minority on the
scattered majority through the state apparatus.
Then, why have the exploited classes who are the overwhelming majority always
been dominated by the exploiters who are the minority and even the tiny minority of
the population in the history of mankind? One important reason is that at the
preliminary development stage of the State, the rights of citizens were classified
according to their property status in most of the States in history; no matter they were
in Athens or Rome, or the medieval feudal States. There, the political rights of
citizens were ranked according to their estates, and the exploited classes were
deprived of their political rights, not to mention their right of ruling the State! The
classification of the rights of citizens according to their property status directly
declared that the State was the organization used by the minority of the proprietary
classes to protect themselves from the vast majority of the proletariat, instead of the
organization used by the majority of poor classes to dominate the minority of the
exploiting class.
When the society entered into the capitalist stage, at the very beginning the
bourgeois States also imposed restrictions on the rights of citizens to elect according
to their property status. Later, these restrictions of the property differences on citizens’
right to elect gradually disappeared. Hence Lassalle put infinite expectation on “the

1 Speeches of Lassalle, Page 135-137.

2 Speeches of Lassalle, Page 239.

86
universal, equal and direct suffrage” and took this as the sole and absolute means of
conquering the political power by the working class. Lassalle said: “The people must
therefore at all times regard universal and direct suffrage as its indispensable political
weapon, as the most fundamental and important of its demands”, and this is a “basic
social principle, the basic conditions of all the social aids, and the sole means of
improving the material conditions of the working class”. Article 1 of the General
Rules of General German Workers’ Association drafted by Lassalle said: “this
Association is confident that only through universal, equal and direct suffrage, can the
social interests of the German working class be fully represented and the class
antagonism in the society be really eliminated. Based on this belief, this Association is
aimed to carry out activities for the realization of the universal, equal and direct
suffrage by peaceful and legitimate means, especially by winning the belief of the
public” However, in Germany ruled by Bismarck, the universal, equal and direct
suffrage existed for only two years and only two parliamentary elections were held,
which failed to bring the promised millennium to workers, and the workers didn’t
seize the power and issue the decree to give state aid to workers according to the
direction of Lassalle, instead, the General German Workers’ Association founded by
Lassalle was dissolved after Bismarck became the Federal Chancellor. Why?
Engels once made an analysis on Lassalle’s illusion: “and regarding universal
direct suffrage itself, one has only to go to France to realize what tame elections it can
give rise to, if one has only a large and ignorant rural population, a well-organized
bureaucracy, a well-regimented press, associations sufficiently kept down by the
police and no political meetings at all. How many workers' representatives does
universal suffrage send to the French chamber, then? And yet the French proletariat
has the advantage over the German of far greater concentration and longer experience
of struggle and organization…What would be the consequence of universal suffrage
in Germany, where the feudal aristocracy is still a real social and political power and
where there are two agricultural day laborers for every industrial worker?” He
emphasized: “until such time as the rural proletariat is also swept along into the
movement, the urban proletariat cannot and will not achieve anything at all in
Germany and universal suffrage will not be a weapon for the proletariat but a snare”;
“The General Association of German Workers has been dissolved not merely under
the rule of universal suffrage but also precisely because universal suffrage rules”; and
“Universal suffrage was the last nail in the coffin of the General Association of
German Workers”1.
Because of the bankruptcy of Lassalle’s view of the State in face of reality,
Kautsky had to draw a conclusion that Lassalle was “an idealistic Hegel who put his
heads and legs upside down and hasn’t undergo materialistic transformation”, his
view of the State inherited from Hegel “is just the opposite of the present State in
reality”, namely, “the pure concept of the State which, however, allow people to
exclude many characteristics of the real State that they are reluctant to see and
introduce the characteristics of the real State that they are willing to see into the
concept of State. As a result, the final product of this concept becomes the opposite of
the reality.”2

4. Equating the Marxist View on the State with Anarchism

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 16, Page 361-371.

2 Kautsky: Materialist Conception of History, Volume 4, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1964, Page 51, 55.

87
 Another important component of the democratic socialism’s view of the State is
the State theory of Bernstain.
Bernstain essentially inherited Lassalle’s view of the State. For example, in his
speech What is Socialism in December 1918 and his book the Past and Present of
Socialism in 1921, Bernstain described the State as “the combination of a huge nation
as a whole, and a natural protector of the huge common interest”. He puffed up
Lassalle’s theory of “people’s State”: “the people’s State isn’t the instrument of the
upper class and the upper rank, instead, it acquires its nature because most of the
people have the equal suffrage. On this point, Lassalle proves to be right in face of the
history (which I can see)”, and believed that taking the State as “the political
individual organized by each independent nation——a social organization which
realizes its common will by political means” “is a definition of ‘State’ which can
stand long in face of the unselfish judge of history ”1.
The special feature of Bernstein’s view of the State is that it first focuses its
attacks on the Marxist view of the State and confuses it with the Anarchist view of the
State. After his book the Prerequisite of Socialism and the Task of Social Democratic
Party was published, he wrote another book the Past and Present of Socialism and in
Chapter 6 “the Theory of the State and Socialism” he said called the Marxist view of
the State as “critical view of State” and said that Engels “actually believed in his Anti-
Dühring that the State only plays a transitional and provisional role, namely, only has
the power of suppression or repression, which is called by Lassalle the role of the
night-watcher in maintaining the then ruling class”. After that, he began to launch
overall criticisms on Marx’s exposition about the State in the Civil War in France.
“In the third part of this work (the Civil War in France), Marx explains the
significance of the Paris Commune, its profound thoughts and true purpose. To speak
frankly, he is too free in doing so. He describes what is imaginary and uncertain in the
eyes of the Commune activists as the logical development of a leading thought in
clear and definite language.” “What should be noted is that this description is the
same in ideology with the plan put forward by the thesis of Proudhonism on
federalism and by the books of Proudhonism about the political capacity of working
class which was sharply criticized by Marx.” He said that it is acceptable that
Proudhon believed in his political will written at the end of 1864 that the State was
only the power of oppression under the French imperialist system, but “seven years
later, Marx still called the State the parasitic excrescence of the society and the power
of oppression. Just like Proudhon, Marx almost didn’t talk about the lofty mission or
function of the State. But in the opinion of Lassalle, the State is realizing some lofty
cultural mission although he sometimes is reluctant to talk about this. Which side does
the truth on earth stand? In my opinion, the plan raised by Marx completely ignored
the huge impact of economic connections. It is indeed amazing to see this happen to
Marx who has such a deep understanding of the nature and significance of the great
production, and what he expressed here was completely the idea of petty bourgeois”.
Bernstein stressed: “the State is not only the agent of the oppressing organ and
the proprietariats’ causes. To only take the State as this——this is the shelter of all the
anarchism. Such people as Proudon, Bakunin, Stirner and Kropotkin have always
considered the State only as the oppressing and exploiting organ, although it is so in a
long period, it shouldn’t necessarily be so. The State is a form of common life, an
administrative organ and its social and political nature will change with the change of
its social content. If one connects the concept of State closely with the concept of
ruling conditions (under which the State is formed) by the method of abstract
1 Speeches of Bernstein, Page 380, 442, 443.

88
nominalism, he will ignore the possibility of development and changes of facts, and
this, however, is realized together with the State in the historical process.”1
On Lassalle’s view about the lofty mission of the State and that the State is the
form of common life; we have made an analysis in the above paragraphs. Here we’ll
focus our observation on Bernstein’s argument which trickily confusing Marxism with
the Anarchist view of the State.
Is it true that Marx, like Proudhon, called the State the parasitic excrescence of
the society and the power of oppression seven years after Proudhon wrote his political
will at the end of 1864?
No. The fact is that as early as in 1845, Marx and Engels believed that one of the
final end result of proletarian revolution would be the gradual disappearance of the
organization called the State, for the main purpose of this political organization was
always to guarantee the economic oppression on the majority of laborers by the
minority of the rich through armed forces. Therefore, with the disappearance of the
minority of the rich, the necessity of the armed oppressing forces or the power of the
State would also disappear. In his letter to Bernstein on January 28, 1884, Engels
wrote: “if Mr. Von Del Margo or some other person is still saying that we have made
‘concessions’ to the anarchism, we give some examples to show that we have already
declared the disappearance of the State before the existence of any anarchism.”2
The “some examples” mentioned here by Engels firstly refers to the
Poverty of Philosophy written by Marx who pointed out: “The working class,
in the course of its development, will substitute for the old bourgeois society
an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will
be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is
precisely the official expression of class antagonism in the bourgeois society.”3
Secondly, it refers to the Manifesto of Communist Party in which they
stressed: “When, in the course of development, class distinctions have
disappeared,… the public power will lose its political character. Political
power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for
oppressing another”4

Therefore, it was indeed meaningless and boring for Bernstein to repeat

the idea of Marck which had been deadly refuted by Engels decades ago
without providing any new supplementary evidence.

It is even more meaningless and groundless for Bernstein to identify

Marx’ discussion on the State in the Civil War in France with Proudhon’s
thought of federalism. In his book The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of

1 Speeches of Bernstein, Page 439-442.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 36, Page 94.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 197.
4 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 490-491.

89
the Social-Democrats, Bernstein gave a criticism by saying: “In spite of all the
other points of difference between Marx and the ‘petty-bourgeois’ Proudhon,
on these points, their lines of reasoning run as close as could be” Lenin once
sharply refuted this in his work The State and Revolution: “To confuse Marx's
view on the ‘destruction of state power, a parasitic excrescence’ with
Proudhon's federalism is positively monstrous!”; “Marx does not speak here at
all about federalism as opposed to centralism, but about smashing the old
bourgeois state machine which exists in all bourgeois countries”; “Marx
disagreed both with Proudhon and Bakunin precisely on the question of
federalism”; “Only those who are imbued with the philistine ‘superstitious
belief’ in the state can mistake the destruction of the bourgeois state machine
for the destruction of centralism”1. Decades later, Bernstein once again
displayed his same criticism which had already been refuted. Wasn’t he
cheating the readers and the masses by doing so?!

Then, what are the similarities and differences between Marxist view of
the State and the anarchist’s view of the State?

The anarchists agreed with Marxist view on the point that the political
power of the State is merely the power of suppression by one class over
another and hence it will disappear with the disappearance of class
antagonism. As early as in his letter to Marx on August 21, 1851, Engels once
wrote: “I believe Mr. Aiweiber has given Proudhon the Manifesto (of the
Communist Party) that was translated to French by him, and maybe, the
translation of your articles (the Class Struggle in France) in the Comments,
and it is no doubt that many important ideas of them are stolen from there”.2
The “important ideas” here mentioned by Engels is the above ideas of the
nature of the State. Therefore, if Bernstein thought this idea was not correct,
he should refute it by combining theory and practice instead of doing the
opposite by making up the story that Marxism and anarchism were the same in
this regard.

On the same point that the State is a machine of suppression by one class
over another and hence will disappear with the disappearance of class
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 31, Page 49-50.
2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 27, Page 335.

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antagonism, Marxism and anarchism have a series of disagreements in
principle:

Firstly, which is the primary evil in the capitalist society, capital or State?

The anarchism believes that the primary evil that should be eliminated in
the capitalist society is not capital, not the class antagonism between the
capitalists and the wage-workers as a result of social development, but the
State, for it is the State that creates capital and the capitalists possess their
capitals bestowed by the State. Based on this, it comes to a conclusion that the
State should be first abolished and then the capital will die automatically.
Therefore, nothing should be done to maintain the life of the State and all
politics should be completely given up for this reason.

On the contrary, Marxism believes that the state power is merely the
organization established by landowners and capitalists for themselves as the
ruling class to maintain their social privileges. Therefore, it comes to a
conclusion that after the abolition of capital, and the abolition of possession of
all the means of production by the minority of people, the State will collapse
itself. That is to say, this end can be achieved only when the socialist
revolution has abolished the classes, and when the socialism which leads to
the disappearance of the State has been established. It’s absurd to abolish the
State without carrying out social reforms in advance. And the abolition of
capitalism is just a social reform that includes the transformation of all the
means of production.

The differences of ideas result in basic differences in strategies and

tactics. It is obvious that the differences are fundamental here.

Secondly, should the proletariat use the state power to suppress resistance
and organize a new society or destroy the state power immediately after the
victory of their revolution?

Proceeding from the idea that capital is the primary evil in the capitalist
society, Marxists believes that to achieve the aim of future social revolution
and many other aims that are much more important, the working class should
first get control of the organized state power and use this power to suppress

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the resistance of the capitalist class and organized the new society in a new
way. After the 1870s, Marx developed this view of the State on the basis of the
experience of the Paris Commune. He said that after the proletariat won
victory of the revolution, they must completely destroy the old State machine
and replace it with a new and commune-style State machine composed of
armed workers.

On the contrary, the anarchists, proceeding from the idea that the State is
the primary evil in the capitalist society, believes that the proletarian
revolution should start from the destruction and abolition of this political
organization of the State. However, they don’t know by what they can replace
it and how to make use of the revolutionary political power and they even
deny the necessity of using the state power to achieve proletarian dictatorship.
In this regard, Marxists believe that anarchism’s proposition of destroying and
abolishing the State immediately after the victory of the revolution means the
destruction of the only organization of the proletariat to exercise their own
political power that is just obtained, to suppress the resistance of the capitalists
and to implement social and economic revolutions. The experience of the
Paris Commune shows that if the victorious proletariat fails to accomplish
these tasks, the whole victory will once again be turned into a defeat at last
and the workers will suffer large-scale massacres.

Thirdly, to utilize the bourgeois State to prepare for the proletarian

revolution, or to completely give up politics and carry out “social
liquidation”?

Marxists believe that the proletariat should utilize the modern State to
prepare for the proletarian revolution in advance.

On the contrary, anarchists believe that participation in political activities,

the participation in election in particular, is against the principle of abolition of
the State. They held the publicity should be carried out to curse the State and
organize the people and when all the workers, namely the majority of people
stand by their side, they will cancel all the organs of political power and
abolish the State. They called this great action start from the millennium
“social liquidation”. Marxists believe the anarchists’ publicity that the workers

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should give up politics under all circumstances can only push the workers to
the embrace of the bourgeois republicans.

5. Preaching the Replacement of Revolutionary Struggle by Struggle for

Suffrage

Another important feature of Bernstein’s view of the State is taking the

suffrage in the capitalist society as the basic conditions for the emancipation
of the proletariat and preaching the replacement of revolutionary struggle by
struggle for suffrage.

In his speech What is Socialism in Dec. 1918, Bernstein believed:

“democratic suffrage is lever that can be used by the workers to gain greater
rights and implement more measures aimed to transform the society”. He said
it was a weapon that can be obtained by the workers, “it may be on a par with
what the great ancient physicist Archimedes said: ‘give me a place to stand on,
and I can move the earth’. The working class may also say in such a way:
‘give me equal suffrage and the social principles as the basic conditions of
emancipation can be gained.’” In his article Lassalle and Bolshevism in 1919,
he said: “since 1866 when the German workers systematically utilized the
democratic suffrage, it has gained such an obvious social power that Marx and
Engels, the writers of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, can’t belittle it
any longer although they were previously indifferent to it and because of the
achievements made by the German workers, they peak increasingly highly of
it. At last, in his Preface1 to Marx’ the Class Struggle in France before his
death, Engels said that the German workers have already known to turn
suffrage from a means of deception into an instrument of emancipation.” In
his book the Past and Present of Socialism in 1921, he concluded: “when
Marx was writing, workers didn’t have suffrage in any countries and they
must first carry out he struggles for suffrage. Moreover, according to the
situations at that time, it seemed that they could gain this right only through
violent revolution. However, after they gained the suffrage (which is gained
through other means in most countries), entirely different political struggle of
1 It should be the introduction, see the Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 591-612.

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the working class certainly comes into force and this quickly develops
further.”1

As for suffrage, Marx once talked about the abuse of it in the capitalist
society in the Civil War in France and its drafts: it was abused either for the
parliamentary sanction of the Holy State Power, or a play in the hands of the
ruling classes, “only employed by the people to sanction (choose the
instruments of) parliamentary class rule once in many years”2. In the Origin of
Family, Private Property and the State, Engels once again pointed out: “the
possessing class rules directly by means of universal suffrage”. At the
beginning, when the oppressed proletariat is not yet ripe for its self-liberation,
when its majority recognizes the existing order of society as the only possible
one, it remains politically the tall of the capitalist class, its extreme left wing.
But later when it matures towards its self-emancipation, it constitutes itself as
its own party and votes for its own representatives. Just based on this Engels
pointed out: “Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the
working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern
state”3.

Then, did Marx and Engels change their views and evaluations on the
universal suffrage after the working class in Germany had won victory one
after another in the general elections after 1866?

It’s easy to see from the works of Marx and Engels in their later years that
there were aspect that changed and aspect that remained the same.

The aspect that changed refers to their estimate on the possibility of the
utilization of universal suffrage by the working class to strengthen
revolutionary forces.

The words “the German workers have already known to turn suffrage
from a means of deception into an instrument of emancipation” cited by
Bernstein from Engels in fact can not only be found in the introduction by
Engels in March 1895 to Marx’ the Class Struggle in France, but also be

1 Speeches of Bernstein, Page 381, 393 and 428.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 17, Page 589.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 21, Page 197.

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found in the introduction written by Marx to the theoretical part of the
Programme of the French Workers’ Party which was passed at the Congress
held in Le Havre in 1880, which is 15 years earlier. Engels just reported these
words spoken by Marx.

Then what did Marx mean by these words? As early as in the Manifesto
of the Communist Party in 1847, Marx and Engels had already proclaimed the
winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most
important tasks of the militant proletariat. However, being abused by the
bourgeois government, the universal suffrage had acquired a bad reputation
and the workers of the Latin countries had been wont to regard the suffrage as
a snare, as an instrument of government trickery. But later it was different in
Germany: when Bismarck found himself compelled to introduce this franchise
as the only means of interesting the mass of the people in his plans, the
German workers immediately took it in earnest and sent August Bebel to the
first constituent Reichstag. Moreover, they also made use of this suffrage to
gain great interests for themselves. What were these interests? Engels listed
the following five interests:

Firstly, “it allowed us to count our numbers every three years” ;

Secondly, “by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in our

vote it increased in equal measure the workers’ certainty of victory and the
dismay of their opponents, and so became our best means of propaganda”;

Thirdly, “it accurately informed us of our own strength and that of all
opposing parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion
second to none for our actions, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as
much as from untimely foolhardiness”;

Fourthly, “it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch

with the mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all
parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the
people”;

Fifthly, “it provided our representatives in the Reichstag with a platform

from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament and to the

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masses outside, with quite different authority and freedom than in the press or
at meetings”.

Just in this sense, Engels said that the German workers in terms of “how
to make use of universal suffrage”, “supplied their comrades in all countries
with a new weapon, and one of the most potent” and “served as a model to the
workers of all countries”1.

In addition to this, Engels’ detailed discussion on how the working class

had made use of the universal suffrage to gain the great interests of expanding
revolutionary forces in his Introduction (to the Class Struggle in France) was
closely connected with the objective situation and the struggle tactics of the
working class at that time. When direct revolutionary conditions didn’t exist,
German workers would made far more achievements by using legal means
than using illegal means or the method of reforms; by contrast, The parties of
order, as they call themselves, were perishing under the legal conditions
created by themselves. Therefore, they attempted to drive workers into street
fighting which was not good for workers. In this context, the struggle tactic of
the working class should obviously be “utilizing the suffrage to win all posts
accessible to us”, “our main task is to keep this growth going without
interruption until it gets beyond the control of the prevailing governmental
system of itself, not to fritter away this daily increasing shock force in
vanguard skirmishes, but to keep it intact until the decisive day”2.

The so-called aspect that remained the same refers to the proposition that
the struggle for universal suffrage couldn’t take the place of revolutionary
struggle.

Marx and Engels always put emphasis on the limits of universal suffrage
in the capitalist society. Even in the above Introduction where Engels highly
praised the German working class who had won victory one after another in
the suffrage, Engels didn’t forget to point out: “Of course, our foreign
comrades do not in the least renounce their right to revolution. The right to
revolution is, after all, the only really “historical right”, the only right on

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 661-662.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 607, 609.

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which all modern states rest without exception”; and he didn’t forget to point
out that under the situation at that time, the reason why the working class was
asked to win victory one after another in the suffrage was to avoid
unnecessary sacrifice resulting from reckless battle with the bourgeoisie when
the condition was not ripe and “the normal development would be impeded,
the shock force would, perhaps, not be available at the critical moment, the
decisive combat would be delayed, protracted and attended by a heavier toll”1.

Therefore, it’s entirely groundless for Bernstein to attempt to prove his

view of the State which uses universal suffrage to replace revolutionary
struggle by the comments of Marx and Engels on suffrage in their later years.

6. “The Parliament Should Be the Centre of a State’s Political Activities”

Another important component of the democratic socialism’s view of the

State is Kautsky’s theory of the State. The first feature of this theory is the
limitless exaggeration of the role of parliament.

As early as in 1893, Kautsky preached the theory that the centre of

political activities of the modern State was in parliament instead of in the
government. In his Interpretation of the Part of Principles in Erfurt Program,
Kautsky said: “as long as the big modern States exists for a single day, the
centre of its political activities will be in their parliament”. “In fact, in the
States which are actually managed by their parliaments, the exercise of the
State is absolutely dependent on the parliaments”. “Whenever the proletariat
engages in the parliamentary struggles (mainly the election and struggles
within the parliament) as a self-conscious class, parliamentarism begins to
change its character. It ceases to be a mere tool in the hands of the
bourgeoisie. This very participation of the proletariat proves to be the most
effective means of shaking up the hitherto indifferent divisions of the
proletariat and giving them hope and confidence, also a most powerful means
of consolidating the various divisions of the proletariat to form a united
working class. And finally, this participation in the parliamentary struggle is
the most powerful means of exercising influence on the state power by the
proletariat to bend it to the interests of the proletariat and forcing the state
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 608, 609.

97
power to make concessions that can be made under the existing conditions. In
a word, it is the most powerful lever that can be utilized to raise the proletariat
out of its economic, social and moral degradation”1.

In his work the Parliamentarism, People’s Legislation and the Social

Democratic Party published at the same year, Kautsky said: “according to
different levels of economic development and different types of suffrages, the
representative system serves various class interests and takes various special
forms”. “The real parliamentarism should also be the instrument of proletarian
dictatorship, just as it is the instrument of bourgeois dictatorship. This is now
very obvious. The most important task of the working class in their struggle
for political power is not the abolition of representative system, but the
destruction of the government power in the parliament”. “It should especially
expand the suffrage to all the citizens at and above the age of 20 so as to open
a road as wide as possible for the proletariat to the parliament”. “It’s true that
the proletariat cannot completely possess the political power at once wherever
it is. In a State with the real representative system, to win suffrage is the most
important step on the road of proletarian revolution”2.

In his New Tactics in 1912, Kautsky said: “the aim of our political
struggle has always been the same: to conquer the state power by winning the
majority within the parliament and then raising the parliament to the controller
over the government, instead of destroying state power”3.

Marxism has always been different from the anarchism which is not good
at estimating the historical significance of the parliamentarism and completely
refuses to adopt this means of struggle. It believes that the parliamentarism is
a means of enlightening, educating and organizing the proletariat to establish
its independent party, and a means of political struggle for the emancipation of
the working class. Therefore, it holds that the proletariat should make use of
and engage in parliamentary struggles.

However, Marxism is also different from the bourgeoisie and

opportunism which deny class struggle and class character of the modern
1 Speeches of Kautsky, Page 14, 17.
2 Speeches of Kautsky, Page 20, 24.
3 Speeches of Kautsky, Page 133.

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parliamentarism and take parliamentarism as the only normal and legal way of
managing the whole state affairs. It believes that the parlizmentarism only has
relative historical significance. In a State where the bourgeois private
ownership of means of production and bourgeois political power still exist, the
parliamentarism always is and has to be the machine and instrument of
oppression over millions of working classes by a handful of exploiters,
whatever deceptive means the bourgeoisie adopts. The reason is that in all the
bourgeois States, the real class domination was and are conducted outside the
parliament. The bourgeoisie needs the parliamentarism to restrict the
democracy within the limit of democratic election and of sending those who
have the rights to represent the people while suppressing the people to the
parliament. It’s no doubt that the proletariat can and should make use of
parliamentarism to struggle against the bourgeoisie, but the parliamentarism
didn’t and can’t eliminate the nature of the bourgeois State as an organ of
class oppression, nor can it facilitate the elimination of crisis and political
revolution.

Therefore, Marxism believes that the proletariat shouldn’t take

parliamentary struggle as the sole means, and the major means under all
circumstances, of political struggle, instead, it should subject all of its
parliamentary activities unconditionally to the special task of the total interest
of workers’ movement in the present proletarian revolution. Otherwise, they
will become “parliamentary cretinism”. And Kautsky’s theory that the focus
of the political activities should be in the parliament in modern States and
hence the most important task of the proletariat is to expand the coverage of
suffrage and win the majority of the parliament so as to turn the parliament
into the dominator over the government instead of destroying the State is just
a typical example of “parliamentary cretinism”.

In his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx disclosed

parliamentary cretinism by saying: “a peculiar malady since 1848 has raged
all over the Continent, parliamentary cretinism, which holds those infected by
it fast in an imaginary world and robs them of all sense, all memory, all
understanding of the rude external world.”1
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 8, Page 187.

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 Engels disclosed in his work Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany
that the patients of this incurable malady of parliamentary cretinism “are filled
with the solemn conviction that the whole world, its history and future, are
governed and determined by a majority of votes in that particular representative
body which has the honor to count them among its members, and that all and
everything going on outside the walls of their house—wars, revolutions, railway-
constructing, colonizing of whole new continents, California gold discoveries,
Central American canals, Russian armies, and whatever else may have some little
claim to influence upon the destinies of mankind—is nothing compared with the
incommensurable events hinging upon the important question, whatever it may be,
just at that moment occupying the attention of their honorable house”2

What Kautsky displayed was just the various symptoms of the incurable
malady of parliamentary cretinism when he preached his systematic theory
which believes that the focus of political activities of the modern States should
be in the parliament and the related tactics.

7. “In a Democratic Republic, It Is Unnecessary for the Proletariat to Destroy

the Bourgeois Sate Apparatus”

After World War I, the focus of Kautsky’s view of the State was
transferred from advocating the importance of the parliament to opposing the
complete destruction of the bourgeois State apparatus. Because of this, he
began to distort Marxist theory about the complete destruction of the
Bourgeois State apparatus and the theory about the nature and function of the
bourgeois democratic republic.

In the Proletarian Revolution and Its Program published in 1921, Kautsky

said: “Marx never said without breaking the State machine, the proletariat
could never exercise its rule under any circumstance. What Marx denied was a
special form of this institution, namely, the bureaucratic military institution
which was highly developed during the Second Empire of France. And when

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 8, Page 94.

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Marx wrote what we have previously quoted (in The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte), this form of institution had just come into being (The
Eighteenth Brumaire), or had just been overthrown (the Civil War in France
and the Letter to Kugelmann).” However, “since 1871 England has become
more democratic than that time”. “Today there’re only two big States in
Europe, where the real people’s revolution called by Marx exists and it’s
necessary to destroy ‘the terrible parasitic excrescence of bureaucratism and
militarism’. They are France, an empire without the emperor, and Russia, a
Tsarist State without the Tsar”. “The working class cannot simply lay hold of
the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes. The
bureaucratic and military State machines don’t suit these purposes while the
democratic republic is the only one that suits them. Wherever there isn’t a
democratic republic, the victorious proletariat should establish it”. “A
fundamental change has taken place in this regard in recent years. Almost
everywhere in Europe the victorious proletariat has had the established
democratic republic where they needn’t entirely destroy the State organs;
instead, they only need to abolish the residual of the monarchy and the
bureaucratic and military privileges”. “Marx’ opinion on the destruction of
State machine is only targeted at the military monarchies instead of all the
countries, which was frankly declared by Engels in his A Critique of the Draft
Social-Democratic Program of 1891”1.

Kautsky confined Marx’s opinion on the destruction of bourgeois State

machine to the destruction of the bureaucratic and military institutions of the
military monarchies, and to Russia and France at that time. This is evidently
an arbitrary misinterpretation of Marx’s original ideas.

The problem of the destruction of bourgeois State machine was raised in

the Civil War in France for the first time when Marx summarized the
experience of Paris Commune. There Marx stressed: “the working class
cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its
own purposes”, then he listed this “state machinery” which was “the
centralized state power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police,

1 Speeches of Kautsky, Page 384-386.

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bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature” etc.1 Later, in his Introduction to the
Civil War in France, Engels further explained the principle put forward by
Marx that “the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the
old state machine”.

Why couldn’t they manage with the old state machines? Engels explained
that because they “transformed themselves from the servants of society into
the masters of society”.

Is this only applied to a military monarchy? Engels answered: No,

because “this can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary monarchy,
but equally also in the democratic republic”. He also took the United States as
an example, where there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, and
no bureaucracy. He pointed out that there two great gangs of political
speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it
by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is
powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its
servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it. Based on this, Engels came to a
conclusion:

“In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression
of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in
the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its
victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just
like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible
moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social
conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-
heap.” 2

Then what did Engels say about the democratic republic in his Critique of
the Erfurt Program in 1891 which was quoted by Kautsky as evidence?

In that Critique, Engels indeed said: “If one thing is certain it is that our
party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a
democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 17, Page 355.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 227-229.

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proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown.”1

What Engels stressed here was this political form of democratic republic
is easy for the proletariat to gain the State power, which didn’t exclude the
bourgeois democratic republic from the old State machines that would be
destroyed by the Proletariat after it came to power.

On the contrary, in his letter to Paul Lafargue on March 6, 1894, Engels

further illustrated his views on this problem and clearly pointed out:

“For the proletariat, the difference between a republic and a monarchy is:
a republic is the ready-made political form of the future proletarian
domination.” “However, like any other political system, the republic depends
on its content. When it still takes the form of bourgeois rule, it is antagonistic
to us, as the monarchy does (regardless of their ways of being antagonistic).
Therefore, it is a delusion to take it as a form of socialism in nature or entrust
it with the task of socialism when it is still in the hands of the bourgeoisie. We
can force it to make some concessions, but we can never entrust our work to
it, even if we can supervise it through a minority which is strong enough to
turn itself into the majority within one day”2

That is to say, difference between a bourgeois republic and a monarchy is

that a republic has changed the form of economic enslavement and made very
pretty decoration on this enslavement; meanwhile, for the proletariat, a
democratic republic is a form of class struggle and oppression that is more
extensive, free and open than a monarchy and it can greatly expand, promote
and implement the struggles of the proletariat for the abolition of all classes.
Just in this sense, it can be said that a democratic republic is a shortcut to
proletarian dictatorship.

However, on the other hand, a democratic republic, just like a monarchy,

still has the character of transforming the servants of society into the masters
of society without changing the nature of economic enslavement, without
abolishing the oppression over the masses and without abolishing the rule of
capital; on the contrary, this political crust enables the wealth to establish the

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 274.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 39, Page 209-210.

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power of the capital in a more reliable and consolidated manner. Just in this
sense, it can be said that the most democratic republic has always been or had
to be the instrument of the capital power and the instrument of oppression
over the laborers by capital.

It’s obvious that Kautsky distorted the words of Engels by excluding the
bourgeois democratic republic from the old State machines that would be
destroyed by the victorious proletariat. One of the important reasons for him
to do is: he unlimitedly exaggerated the differences between a democratic
republic and a monarchy and arbitrarily removed the similarities between
them.

8. “State Machine Can Change its Nature Because of Democracy”

After the 1920s, Kautsky began to shift the focus of his view of State to
the so-called doctrine of the change of the nature of the State machine because
of democracy.

In the book of Materialist Conception of History published in 1927,

Kautsky ungrudgingly devoted a large amount of space for preaching his
theory of the State in two places.

In Section 4, Chapter 12, Article 7 of his book Materialist Conception of

History, Kautsky put forward this doctrine and said: “if the State machine has
mainly been a military organization produced and maintained by military
forces from the very beginning when it appeared to the modern times, now its
character of military organization has been increasingly diminished, compared
with its economic and cultural tasks”. “For this reason, the relations of the
lower classes under exploitation to the State have changed. In the past, the
relations of the other classes to the State were: the upper ruling class…fought
with each other for the power of the State while the lower class under
domination and exploitation…almost only wanted to overthrow the existing
State into which they had to be embedded, as long as they felt that they had
enough strength”

But “now it’s quite different. The State has acquired more and more
functions which are equally important to the exploited class”. Then “even the

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exploited class thinks less of destroying or dismissing the State. They’d rather
seize upon the State power and make it to serve their own interests…they are
increasingly participating in the struggle for State power. They first struggle
for democracy and then make use of democracy to exert increasingly powerful
influence on the State to make it suit their intention”. “In this way, the
working masses have had a new relation of dependence to the State. This new
relation has nothing to do with the military means of the State and even exists
also in the completely democratic States. But democracy also brings about a
possibility: to take this huge State machine and its irresistible violence which
has been so far in the hands of the big exploiters so as to transform the
machine of domination into the machine of emancipation”1.

In Chapter 14, Article 8, Volume 4 of his book Materialist Conception of

History, Kautsky reiterated his doctrine on the change of the nature of the
State: “the huge social movement resulting from the appearance of industrial
capital and pushed forward by the class struggle of the proletariat”, has bring
about the overall reform of the State, “it not only lead to various reforms
within the State, but also changed the nature of the State fundamentally”.

How do the changes happen?

Kautsky said: “the above changes have already happened only because of
the appearance of modern democracy and modern democratic States”. The
reason is that the modern democratic State has already been in extreme
contradiction to the nature of the State formed through historical evolution,
“the State formed through historical evolution was established on the
inequality of rights of its various components such as communities,
hierarchies and classes from the very beginning. The idea that all the members
of the Sate are equal before the law and each of them enjoy the equal political
and civil rights means that this is different from the original State because the
original State was established on the plunderage and suppression over the
majority of the nationalities that make up the State and other nationalities by
the victorious minority.”

Although the modern “democratic State doesn’t prevent the exploiting

1 Kautsky: Materialist Conception of History, Book 5, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1964, Page 149-150.

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class from grabbing the State power and making use of it for their own
interests in their antagonism to the exploited class, it is still different from the
various forms of previous States: the fact that the State machine is utilized by
the exploiting class in such way is not decided by the nature of the State, and
is not inalienably connected with the nature of the State”; on the contrary, it
“is rather doomed to become the organs of the majority of the citizens,
namely, the laboring class. But if it becomes the organ of the minority of the
exploiters, the reason doesn’t lie in the quality of the State, instead, it lies in
the quality of the laboring class, their disunity, ignorance and lack of
independency or incompetence in struggle, which are caused by those
conditions that they live in”. And the “democracy itself has provided the
possibility to eliminate all these causes of the hold of the political power by
the big exploiters under the democratic system. At least the increasing wage-
labors will be more and more able to achieve this. The more possible this is,
the more likely the democratic State won’t merely be the instrument of the
exploiters any more and the State machine will turn back to oppose the
exploiting class in some conditions, namely to carry out its functions that is
just opposite to its present activities and then begins to change from an
instrument of suppression over the exploited to an instrument of their
emancipation”1.

Till now Kautsky has at last displayed his true intention. It turns out that
the driving force behind the so-called continuous change of the nature of the
State is bourgeois democracy. With this democracy featuring “equality before
the law”, those wage-labors enjoying the equal political and civil rights with
other members of the State can change the State organ from the server of the
exploiters into organs of the laboring class, from machine of domination into
machine of emancipation.

However, this whole system of theory was completely based on his

impractical illusion of the bourgeois democracy:

1. Will the nature of a bourgeois State be extremely contradictory to the

nature of “the State formed through evolution” after the implementation of

1 Kautsky: Materialist Conception of History, Book 5, Page 301-302.

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bourgeois democracy?

No, absolutely not. Because the bourgeois democracy itself is a form of

the State and its nature is the same with that of “the State formed through
evolution”——the use of violence on people in an organized and systematic
way. The only difference between them lies in their forms: democracy means
acknowledging that all citizens are equal before the law in form and that all of
them have the equal rights to decide the system of the State and manage the
State. This phenomenon of “equality of all citizens before the law” in the
capitalist society had never appeared in the slave and feudal society because
the nature of the class in capitalist society is different from the nature of the
hierarchy in serf society. The difference of one class from another isn’t lie in
the legal privilege, but in practical conditions. The class in the modern
capitalist society exists under the precondition of legal equality in form and
inequality in reality. Therefore, this formal equality before the law doesn’t,
and can’t change the inequality between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in
their relations to the means of production, nor does it prevent the bourgeoisie
from employing, exploiting and oppressing the proletariat by this inequality.
Hence the bourgeois democracy advocating equality of all citizens before the
law hasn’t changed the nature of the bourgeois State as the machine of class
ruling, instead, it’s just the special form that reflects this nature.

2. Is the capitalist State doomed to become the organ of the majority of its
citizens and laboring class and hence be transformed from the instrument of
suppressing the exploited into the instrument of emancipating them under the
condition that each member enjoys the equal political and civil rights?

No, it isn’t. The reason is that the bourgeois democracy prescribing

equality of all citizens before the law is nothing but an ornament and a
disguise of the bourgeois dictatorship and it doesn’t have the function and
nature of changing the State machine. Lenin once argued by giving examples:
“The Dreyfus case in republican France, the massacre of strikers by hired
bands armed by the capitalists in the free and democratic American republic
—these and thousands of similar facts illustrate the truth which the
bourgeoisie are mainly seeking to conceal, namely, that actually terror and

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bourgeois dictatorship prevail in the most democratic of republics and are
openly displayed every time the exploiters think the power of capital is being
shaken.”1 Therefore, in the capitalist State, although “the equality of all
citizens before the law” is prescribed, the cruel truth is: “the power of capital
is everything, the stock exchange is everything, while parliament and elections
are marionettes, puppets.”2

9. “The Factor of Social Forces Decides Distribution of Powers”

Another component of democratic socialism’s view of the State is the

theory of State raised by Otto Bauer, an Austrian socialist democrat.

Bauer was a famous representative of the “Austrian Marxism”. In his

book Bolshevism or Social Democracy? published in 1920, he wrote:
“democracy is the form of state within which the distribution of power in the
state is determined exclusively by the social factors of power, but is not
shifted in favor of any one class through the application of material means of
coercion.”, “the ‘common will’ of a democratic State is nothing but the
resultant force of various social powers”3.

Bauer divided these social factors of power into five categories:

“All the social forces decide the distribution of power within a democratic
State. First, the number: the more people there are in a certain class, the
greater influence it will have on the result of election, and the more
representatives it will have in the national army. Then, the organization: for
example, the better the proletariat is organized, the greater impact it will have
on the composition and activities of the democratic parliament. Next, the
position in the production process: the wealth of the bourgeoisie allows it to
use its newspapers and spend a lot of money to influence the voters in the
election and the industrial proletariat concentrated in factories can be better
organized in the election than those rural proletariat scattered in peasants and
farms; the proletariat can exert effective influence on legislation through

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 35, Page 489.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 37, Page 75.
3 Speeches of Bauer, SDX joint publishing company, 1978, Page 173-174.

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strikes on the indispensable work of the society. Last, political activeness and
educational level: the intellectuals, whatever their number is, they can exercise
powerful influence as the creator of ‘public opinions’; the peasant class are
always the simple ‘voting animal’ at the very beginning while their votes are
utilized by the other classes for their interests. Only after a decade of training,
can they make use of their suffrage to serve their own interests.”

Bauer believed that the class nature of the democratic State depended on
which class won the majority of votes: “wherever the number of workers are
so small or the class consciousness of the workers are so weak that the
proletariat won the majority of votes, the democratic State there will be the
ruling instrument of the proletariat whose leadership usually fall into the
hands of the bourgeoisie, and then democracy will become the bourgeois
democracy. However, under a certain condition, it may be the interests and
viewpoints of the peasant class which impact the legislation and management
of the democratic State which then will become the republic of peasant. If the
working class constitutes the majority of the voters and the class
consciousness of both urban and rural workers becomes so strong that the
workers will not allow themselves to be influenced by the capitalist
newspapers and the deception of capitalists in the election, the democratic
State will become the ruling instrument of the working class and democracy
will become the proletarian democracy.”

Based on this, Bauer came to a conclusion: “democracy is merely a form;

whether it has the bourgeois content, peasant content or the proletarian content
depends on social factor of power. Democracy is a ruling instrument, but it
may fall into the hands of different classes, such as the bourgeoisie, the
peasant class and the proletariat, according to the development of social
factors of power. If democracy is usually a form of bourgeois domination, it
will be turned into a form of proletarian domination at a certain stage of
development of social factors of power.”

Bauer had to admit that democracy was also based on violence, however,
he said: “a democratic State uses armed forces only to ensure enforcement of
its laws, orders and regulations and oppose the minority of people who

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disobey them. However, the contents of these laws, orders and regulations are
not decided by the violence of a certain class, but only by the social factors of
powers of various classes”. “By contrast, the function of violence is quite
different in all the other forms of the State”, “the foundation of all the non-
democratic forms of the State is, a class formulates and maintains a
constitution by violence. This constitution endows it with bigger power than
the one that comply with the social factors of power and endows the other
classes with a power that is smaller than the one that complies with social
factors of power. Therefore, the foundation of all the non-democratic
constitutions is imposing violence on social factors of power. A contradiction
exists in all the non-democratic constitutions, that is, the contradiction
between the legal power distribution maintained by violence and the social
power distribution depending on the social factors of power——this
contradiction doesn’t exist in the democratic form of the State”. However,
“violence is finally decided by social factors of power. Whether a class can
influence, infiltrate into and then destroy the army which is used to impose
violence on it, or deprive the army of its material means of living, or use the
opposite army to fight against it, all these are decided by the development of
social factors of power”1.

An important characteristic of this theory of Bauer is that it seemingly

admits that the State is the instrument of class domination, but in fact
completely denies the use of class analysis method to analyze the nature of
State power.

Firstly, since Bauer admitted that “democracy is a form of State”, then the
obvious logical conclusion should be: the form should shift with the content
and the nature of a democracy should depend on its content, namely, is it a
bourgeois democracy, or proletarian democracy? There’s absolutely not any
democracy in general dissociated with class domination. However, the theory
of Bauer just takes this democracy in general as a starting point to classify
various States by the so-called “democracy” and “non-democracy”. It should
be mentioned that this starting point and way of classification are just the
negation of class analysis method in the problem of the State. This negation,
1 Speeches of Bauer, Page 174-176.

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in nature, is to serve his purpose of disguising the bourgeois democracy in the
real life as democracy in general.

Secondly, his description that the power distribution within the State was
decided by various social factors of power appears comprehensive, but in fact
denies the nature of the State as an organ of class domination. The nascence
and development of the State tell us: the State isn’t, like what Bauer said, the
resultant force of various social factors of power. No. Instead, it is an organ of
class domination, and is always the organ of domination by the most powerful
and economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state,
becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of
holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. Therefore, it’s not in line
with the facts and could only cause confusion and deceive the public for Bauer
to divide the factors deciding the power distribution within the State into five
categories and put the “position in the production process” parallel to the
number, organization and even the educational level of a class without
priority. The State can only reflect in a centralized form the economic needs of
the class dominating the production, and then maintains and the living
conditions and ruling conditions of this class by compulsory means so as to
oppose the dominated class.

Then, what’s the role of the number of votes gained by various classes in
the election?

Within a certain scope, and to a certain extent, it can influence the policies
implemented by the ruling class, but cannot change the nature of the State as
an instrument used by the ruling class to carry out class domination. Things
just go as Lenin said: “every state in which private ownership of the land and
means of production exists, in which capital dominates, however democratic
it may be, is a capitalist state, a machine used by the capitalists to keep the
working class and the poor peasants in subjection; .while universal suffrage,
a Constituent Assembly, a parliament are merely a form, a sort of promissory
note, which does not change the real state of affairs.” “And the more
democratic a republic is the cruder and more cynical is the rule of capitalism.
One of the most democratic republics in the world is the United States of

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 America, yet nowhere (and those who have been there since 1905 probably
know it) is the power of capital, the power of a handful of multimillionaires
over the whole of society, so crude and so openly corrupt as in America.
Once capital exists, it dominates the whole of society, and no democratic
republic, no franchise can change its nature.”1

Thirdly, under the bourgeois democracy, even if the social democrats

participate in the Coalition Cabinet and form the Cabinet independently “at a
certain stage of development of social factors of power” as a result of “the
development of social factors of power to a certain extent” said by Bauer,
they are merely conducting the administration of the government for the
bourgeoisie and cannot transfer the State, which is an instrument of class
domination, into the hands of the proletariat and hence change the content of
the bourgeois democracy into proletarian democracy. The reason is that, in
the bourgeois democratic State, for the real work of administration is in the
hands of an enormous army of officials. This army, however, is
undemocratic through and through, it is connected by thousands and millions
of threads with the landowners and the bourgeoisie and is completely
dependent on them. This army is surrounded by an atmosphere of bourgeois
relations, and breathes nothing but this atmosphere. It is set in its ways,
petrified, stagnant, and is powerless to break free of this atmosphere. It can
only think, feel, or act in the old way. This army is bound by servility to
rank, by certain privileges of “Civil” Service; the upper ranks of this army
are, through the medium of shares and banks, entirely enslaved by finance
capital, being to a certain extent its agent and a vehicle of its interests and
influence.

“That is why it always happens, under all sorts of ‘coalition’ Cabinets

that include ‘socialists’, that these socialists, even when individuals among
them are perfectly honest, in reality turn out to be either a useless ornament
of or a screen for the bourgeois government, a sort of lightning conductor to
divert the people’s indignation from the government, a tool for the
government to deceive the people. This was the case with Louis Blanc in
1848, and dozens of times in Britain and France, when socialists participated
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 37, Page 73.

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 in Cabinets. This is also the case with the Chernovs and Tseretelis in 1917. in
Russia So it has been and so it will be as long as the bourgeois system exists
and as long as the old bourgeois, bureaucratic state apparatus remains
intact.”1 Such was Lenin’s summary of the experience of the “socialists” in
participating in the bourgeois Cabinets.

Since the 1930s, labor parties, socialist parities and social democratic
parties in more 20 countries have been in power, and some of them have
been in power for 30, 40 and even 50 years. But none of these countries have
been turned from bourgeois democracy into proletarian democracy. Haven’t
these hard facts clearly proved the following unchangeable truth put forward
by Marx in summarizing the experience of Paris Commune? The working
class “should firstly transform the conventional State machine and then
abolish it as an instrument of class domination”, “The working class cannot
simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own
purposes. The instruments used to enslave them shouldn’t be taken as the
instrument to emancipate them”2.

Finally, for Bauer, the bourgeois democratic State uses armed forces
only for the purpose of ensuring the implementation of its laws, decrees and
regulations and opposing those who don’t obey them. But the content of
these laws are not decided by the violence of a certain class, but by the social
factors of power of various classes. Bauer denied the class character of the
violence in the bourgeois democratic State so as to deny its nature as a
machine of class domination. It’s obviously groundless to do so.

The reason is that the crime as a struggle against the ruling relations
committed by an isolated individual happens in the same conditions with the
existing rule. Therefore, it’s definitely an illusion to take crimes and breaks
of laws simply as a “destruction” of the laws. As a matter of fact, the nature
of the laws and provisions of the bourgeois democratic State on preventing
and prohibiting the destruction of orders is: when the oppressed class
“destroys” their state of being enslaved and ceases to be as obedient as
slaves, the bourgeoisie will move the troops to suppress the workers impose
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 32, Page 161.
2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 17, Page 642.

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 restrictions on them. Take a general survey of the history of capitalist States
and you’ll find this is the law of the bourgeois democracy. Therefore, Bauer
was actually trimming up the nature of bourgeois democratic State when he
placed the bourgeois democratic State in opposition to non-democracy and
excluded it from the ranks which imposed violence on social factors of
power. This is just like what Engels said: “so far all forms of society need
violence to survive and some of them are even established through violence”,
“the State and violence so far have just been the things that all forms of
society have in common”1. And the bourgeois democracy is no exception.

10. “Laski’s Reformist View of the State”

Another component of the democratic socialist view of the State is the

reformist view of the State put forward by Laski, a theorist of British Labor
Party.

Laski was a member of the Executive Committee of the British Labor

Party for a long period during World War II, and once served as the chairman
of the Labor Party. He was the major representative of contemporary
democratic socialism at the early stage. His theory of the State generally
changed with the changes in the position and policy of the British Labor Party
of which he was a leader and experienced the following periods:

During the decade after World War I, Laski was the major representative
of the pluralist theory of the State. At that time, he strongly opposed the so-
called “Monistic Mysticism” in the conventional theory of the State,
particularly the theory of the sovereignty State put forward by Bodin,
developed by Hobbes and Rousseau and boosted to its peak by Austin and
Rieger. In his book the The Foundations of Sovereignty, and Other Essays
published in 1921, Laski believed that this view of the sovereignty State took
the State power as limitless and representative of all the people and hence was
certainly legitimate, and moreover, it was a hierarchical organization which
centralized its power on a certain central point and which settled different

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 20, Page 681.

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affairs in a unified way and hence cause dictatorship or revolution. Laski held
that the fundamental mistake of this theory was that when conflicts occurred
between the State and the trade union and church, the trade union and the
church usually subject their members to themselves while making the concept
of the sovereignty State nonsense, on the other hand, this concept of
sovereignty State would definitely prevent the development of citizens’
personalities and moral standards. On the contrary, to adapt to the
development of the narrow thinking of anarcho-syndicalism within the trade
unions in Britain in the early 1900s, and to adapt to the need of some capitalist
groups to oppose the intervention of the State as a total bourgeoisie in the
economy when capitalism entered into the period of monopoly, Laski
advocated the pluralist theory of the State, which believed that the State was
merely one of the various forms of groups of mankind and its nature was no
different from that of the other groups such as trade unions and clubs, and
hence the centre wasn’t in the State but in its administrative function; the
value of the State didn’t lie in the order, but in the unification. This theory of
the State advocates the introduction of federalism and decentralization instead
of centralization of power and it believes that the State should distribute its
sovereignty to various groups or autonomous regions with different functions;
meanwhile, it believes that the State should fully understand the motives and
desires and mankind and provide opportunities for the development of each
individual’s nature and creativity. Laski thought that such a State wasn’t the
instrument of class domination and oppression because its power was jointly
held by various social groups to guarantee and develop the personality of its
citizens.

In his book A Grammar of Politics published in 1925, Laski no longer

preached this pluralist theory of the State and began to hold the view that the
State should be above the other social groups in its nature and control them to
some extent. He now believed that the State was the final legal storehouse of
the social will, the will of the State was the will of the sovereign; the State had
the right to administer all the human behaviors that it wanted to administer
and regulate the other organizations and their activities and freedom should be
within the limit of State safety. Based on this theory, Laski now vigorously

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advocated the intervention in economy by the State and believed that the State
could fulfill its function of protecting the interests of the consumers only when
the government gained control over the production and distribution of wealth.
Meanwhile, Laski believed that although the modern State was actually held
by the minority of people who were economically dominant, the existing
system still contained the possibility of peaceful reform. Therefore, he
advocated the realization of socialism through the nationalization of key
industries without changing the existing capitalist system. He savagely
attacked the violent revolution which, he thought, deprived people of their
patience and kind restraint, and sowed the seeds of cruelty, hatred, indignity
and suspicion; and at the same time he preached the step-by-step
improvement, the little-by-little reform and an inch forward here and an inch
backward there, until most of things were turned into convention.

During the period from the early 1930s to the eve of World War II,
another change could be found in Laski’s theory of the State. In his book the
State in Theory and Practice published in 1935, he, on the one hand, admitted
that the basic function of the State was protecting the specific relations of
production, that the State was a direct power which protected the vested
interests related to the class in a specific society and that the bourgeois State
was nothing but a tool for the capitalists to gain profits; but on the other hand,
he put the representative democracy of capitalism in opposition to the
capitalism and believed that representative democracy stood for the people in
nature, and as a result of the implementation of the representative democracy,
the modern capitalist States had changed from the “negative States” only
subject to the profits of capitalists into the “active States” restraining the rich
and improving the material living conditions of the poor. However, when the
capitalism entered into the stage of monopoly, the bad political shell of
dictatorship would take the place of this better political shell of representative
democracy. During this period, he also raised another theory of “violent
revolution” which threatened the ruling class to carry out reforms and make
concessions to the working class. According him, if the welfare of the working
class was continuously reduced and the relations between classes had to be
solved by force, the violent revolution, as a pure evil and destruction of

116
civilization, would be inevitable; on the contrary, as long as the bourgeoisie
agreed to make concessions and carry out reform, this revolution could be
avoided.

After World War II, in his works including Reflections on the Revolution of
Our Time, he, to suit the need of the administration of the third British Labor
Party Government, began to shift his preachment from “violent revolution” to
the “agreed revolution” which meant the “revolution agreed by all” based on
the sense of public interests and public crisis of various classes and groups at a
high degree, to transform the State in a peaceful and consultative way instead
of violent way. This “agreed revolution” advocated by Laski was a revolution
led by the ruling class and aimed to maintain the “democratic process” of the
“civilized societies” and its specific content was the “planned democratic
States” which combined democracy and socialism by abolishing the economic
foundation of capitalism while preserving its democracy and by abolishing the
“dictatorship” of socialism while preserving its public ownership of means of
production, namely, the nationalization of monopoly capitalism based on the
existing capitalist States which bought the big monopoly enterprises with
“subsidies” and promised to pay off the dividends. Laski believed that in the
State under this system, the concept of freedom was active and the State was
no longer the instrument of class dictatorship and the highest goal of the State
was to provide the maximum welfare to its citizens. To this end, it would try
to coordinate the goals of the individuals with the social ones so that the
people could have their perfect personalities.

If can be seen from the above basic ideas of Laski’s theory of the State,
such as his praise of the bourgeois parliamentary democracy, his preachment
of the progressive reformist road and his attack on violent revolution and
proletarian dictatorship, etc., that this theory is in fact merely a transplantation
and copy of the reformist view of the State from the European Continent to
England.

11. Theory of Welfare State

The last component of the democratic socialist view of the State is the theory of
117
welfare State. When the development of the capitalism entered into a new stage of
State monopoly capitalism, especially after World War II, a series of new phenomena
appeared in the operating systems of the developed capitalist countries: first, in order
to overcome the anarchy in the development of capitalist society, limit the spontaneity
of the market and mitigate crises, the bourgeoisie unprecedentedly strengthened the
function of the State in its intervention in the economy, introduced a set of anti-crisis
measures and adopted various means of economic predictions and planning; second,
in order to reduce the resistance of the working people to the exploitation and
oppression by capital, mitigate the extremely heated class conflicts and intensified
social antagonism, the bourgeoisie introduced new measures to its social policies in
terms of wages, working conditions and social security, which improved the material
living conditions of the working people. Based on these phenomena, the democratic
socialists raised the theory of welfare State.
After World War II, Karl Renner, an Austrian socialist democrat and president of
Austrian Republic was the first to put forward the theory according to the above new
phenomena of the State monopoly capitalism. He said that the State wasn’t the
machine of ruling class in nature but the “community of territory”, “the organization
of common will” and the organs that “coordinating acts for the common goal” etc. For
Renner, the State is always the “reflection of common will” in nature.
Jellinger, a German social democrat migrated to England, believed Marx’s idea that
the bourgeois State was the instrument of the capitalists and the organ imposing
violence on the working people was right only in the times where Marx lived. Later,
appeared the “new phenomena” that Marx couldn’t see in his life such as the universal
suffrage and parliamentary supervision, ect., which guaranteed “the expression of
people’s will”, eliminated class antagonism and turned the State into the organ
“serving the whole society”. The State, as the representative of the whole society, and
which was above classes, paid attention to the maintenance of the capitalist order so
as to protect it from suffering the social shock, and turned into “the protector of the
people”. The State introduced social legislation, which meant limiting the working
time and providing that the sick persons can enjoy social insurance through
legislation, all of which “started from the concern about the stability of social order”.
Thus the State acquired a new function in the capitalist society: a “support of the
existence” of all classes. Jelinger wrote: “the expectations for economic and social
security raised by all sectors are put on the State, and there will be two most important
results based on the nature of the State: first, here the State refers to the national state.
Because the relationship of people of various classes to the State becomes
increasingly closer, there would be a transition to the planification within the scope of
the nation; second, that is to say, the State appears not as the instrument of oppression,
but as the savior of the poor.”1
B. Kautsky, an Austrian socialist and the son of Karl Kautsky, believed that the
welfare State was a form that “infiltrates the factor of political democracy and
economic democracy of the society into the State”, and a form of the transition from
capitalism to socialism. Because the modern capitalist State bore a series of economic
functions and exercise intervention in the economy, its nature was changed into
something new and it appeared as the State of the whole society which cared for “the
universal welfare”2
Strachey, a theorist of British Labor Party, believed that the bourgeois

1 Jellinger: On the Side of Capitalism, English edition 1947, Page 77.

2 Prospects magazine, 1954, Issue No. 2.

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democracy could change the nature of capitalist State through welfare
measures. In his book Contemporary Capitalism, Strachey said: the natural
tendency of capitalism at various stages was the increasing centralization of
ownership and wealth whereas modern democracy was the popularization of
power within the political field, hence it could “overcome” this centralization,
transform capitalism, eliminate its weaknesses and endow it with the features
of kindness such as caring for people’s interests and improving people’s
material welfare. The State under democracy could employ the methods of tax
collection and State intervention in the economy which were conducive to the
whole society to distribute profits and stop the growing tendency of profits.
He wrote:

“It has been proved to be attainable to separate the centralization of economic

power and its management from the increasing maldistribution of income (this
is the necessary result of technological progress) through the separation of
ownership from management, through the taxes which can redistribute the
income to a high degree and other similar measures. But the essential
economic tendency is imbalance and centralization, and hence its potential
tendency is antidemocratic. Therefore, the two mainstream directions in
political and economic fields are opposite to each other.”

“If the resistant pressure of democracy become powerful enough to make

the distribution of national income more conducive to the people, the wage-
labors and farmers will began to have a solid concern about democracy”;
“they’ll begin to feel that they’ve got an idea that they ‘also have their share in
the State’ not only in material life, but also in all the other aspects”; “their
right to old-age pensions, to the unemployment relief, to free medical care and
the other rights in this welfare State as its main features, and the right to
continuous employment based on the wage rate of employees, the educational
opportunities and the housing facilities through public development, all these
in fact mean that they have a share in the State, although the wage-labors
usually don’t have a large amount of investment”.1

Jurgen Habermas, a major representative of the second generation of the

1 Strachey: Contemporary Capitalism, Page 187, 297-298.

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Frankfurt School in Germany, discussed the characteristics of the capitalist
welfare State at its later stage from the perspective of the relations between
economic foundation and superstructure. In his book theory and practice
published in 1963, he put forward “four facts” that “oppose Marxism”, one of
which was “the State intervention in economy means that the economy is no
longer autonomous, and the State and society is no longer considered as the
foundation and superstructure”1. In his book Technology and Science as
Ideology published in 1968, he further pointed out that in the late capitalist
society, the result of State intervention in the field of production and exchange
was: “politics isn’t merely the phenomenon of superstructure any longer”, “the
society and State no longer exist in the relation of foundation and
superstructure defined by Marxist theory”, “ ‘the foundation’” itself should be
understood as a function of the government activities and political conflicts”,
and “the government activities are aimed to solve technological problems”,
“and are confined to administrative means in solving the technological
problems”2.

The democratic socialist theory of welfare State, although displayed in

different forms, attempts to prove that the modern capitalist State which has
implemented bourgeois democracy has changed its nature as a result of its
intervention in the economy and it appears as the organ of the whole society,
especially since it has assumed some social functions and carried out a series
of welfare measures, it has changed its nature as an organ of class domination,
become “the support for the existence of all classes”, “savior of the poor” and
made the workers and masses feel that they “also have a share in the State”,
and that it’s no longer the economic foundation that decide the superstructure.
However, this theory of the State is in fact a groundless utterance.

Since the State is a power above the society in appearance and is used by
the ruling class to mitigate class conflicts and bring these conflicts under the
control of “order”, it can and must assume its social functions in order to
fulfill this task in a certain condition. As a matter of fact, these social
functions widely preached by democratic socialism were already assumed by

1 Habermas: Theory and Practice, Berlin, 1967, Page 162.

2 Habermas: Toward A Rational Society, Boston, 1970, Page 101, 103.

120
the bourgeois States as early as 100 years ago. For example, many bourgeois
States in Europe, as early as before they entered into the imperialist period,
had introduced the system to limit the working day by the State and provide
the laborers in some sectors with pensions. Marx once called the decree about
10-hour working day in England the great victory of the working class.

After the October Revolution in Russia, because of the worldwide

expansion of revolutionary class struggle, the bourgeois governments in many
States had to adopt a series of social measures such as the implementation of
8-hour working day by legislation and solution of some unemployment
problems, etc.

After World War II, these measures were more widely carried out by
some countries, for example, in Britain, the State provided free universal
education, free medicare and old-age pension to the working people.

Nevertheless, all these didn’t and can’t change the nature of bourgeois
State as the instrument of class oppression, for the ruling class had to adopt
these measures to bring the class struggles of the oppressed and exploited
people into the bourgeois order under the conditions of class struggle at that
time and at that place, with the purpose of guaranteeing the domination of
monopoly capital by making partial and small concessions. This doesn’t
indicate that the functions of bourgeois State can transcend classes and that the
State, as a machine of bourgeois domination, cares for the universal welfare
and hence has become the so-called “pillar of the existence of all classes” and
“the savior of the poor”, nor does this show that the working people have “had
a share in the State” of the bourgeoisie.

Equally, when making analysis on the increase of State intervention in

economy in the period of State monopoly capitalism, only by taking Marxism
as a guiding principle, can we come to correct conclusions.

Marxism has always held the idea that we should observe all forms of
State with the theory that the economic foundation decides the superstructure:
“It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of
production to the direct producers — a relation always naturally

121
corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labor
and thereby its social productivity — which reveals the innermost secret, the
hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the
relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific
form of the state.”1

On the contrary, the traditional idea which believes that the State and
political system decide the civil society and economic relations——for all the
requirements of the civil society can actually be effective in legal forms only
through the form of the State will——only reflects the form of the problem.
Just like what Engels said in his work Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of
Classical German Philosophy, when we inquire into the questions such as
“what is the content of this merely formal will of the state”, “where is this
content derived?” and “Why is just this will and not something else?”, “we
“discover that in modern history the will of the state is, on the whole,
determined by the changing needs of civil society, by the supremacy of this or
that class, in the last resort, by the development of the productive forces and
relations of exchange.” For example, “today in the era of big industry and
railways, the State on the whole only reflects, in a centralized form, the
economic needs of the class which dominates the production”2.

Even in the developed capitalist States today, or the late capitalist society,
it isn’t true that the State activity seems to be increasingly confined to the
solution of technological problems by administrative means, as what
Habermas said. In fact, there the functions of the State in economic field have
been greatly strengthened, for example, a large amount of State-owned
properties have come into being and the tax revenues are used to promote
economic growth and provide allowances for the scientific research of new
technologies etc. As a result, the functions of the State have been increased in
terms of production planning, price regulation and direct intervention in social
relations, etc. However, this doesn’t mean that the State activity has lost its
dependence on the economic foundation and show its independence, nor does
this mean that the State machine of the monopoly bourgeoisie has turned into

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 25, Page 891-892.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 21, Page 345-346. 154

122
the economic and social organization seeking welfare for all the members of
the society. Instead, this means the strengthening of power of the capitalist
monopoly organizations, and their further manipulation of the State machine
for their own interests.

Here we just take as an example the activity of the State to use tax
revenues to provide allowances for the research of new technologies within
the capitalist countries. In appearance, this seems quite like what Habermas
said: “to solve problem of the organization of technology”, or “to solve the
technological problems by administrative means”. However, this in fact means
that the State, through tax collection, gives the money collected from the
citizens to the monopoly organizations as allowances, distributes the orders of
goods among them and pay their bill on the experiment and research of new
technologies, and as a result, the monopoly organizations can exploit the
laborers not only by their enterprises directly, but also by the whole social
production in indirectly. Therefore, the development of the modern capitalist
States hasn’t negated, but has further proved Marx’s conclusion that the will
of the State is decided by the supremacy of a certain class and by the
development of the productive forces and relations of exchange, hence has
further proved the dependence of superstructure on economic foundation, and
at the same time has refuted the various democratic socialist views of welfare
state.

Chapter 3 Economic Program of Democratic Socialism

The economic program of democratic socialism involves various aspects of

production relations, it advocates: the replacement of socialist public ownership by
mixed economy in terms of ownership of means of production; the establishment and
development of economic democracy characterized by the participation of workers in

123
decision-making and management in terms of the mutual relations between people in
the production; and the establishment and development of social welfare system in
terms of the distribution and redistribution of products.

Section 1 Replace Public Ownership of Socialism with Mixed Economy

After the proletariat seizes the political power of the State and establishes
socialist system, it should, while rapidly developing social production, gradually
abolish the capitalist private ownership of means of production and establish socialist
public ownership of means of production in order to meet the development need of
productive forces. This is of great importance to the abolishment of the economic
sources of exploitation and oppression, to the direct combination of laborers and
means of production within the scope of the whole society, to the elimination of
inherent contradiction within the capitalist system between social production and
private ownership and the cyclical economic crises brought about by this
contradiction; to the change in the aim of social production from making profits for
capitalists to satisfying the increasing needs of the vast majority of masses in their
material and cultural life; and to the full play of the advantages of socialist system so
as to open a new opportunity for the increase of labor productivity and development
of productive forces. Therefore, it’s only right and proper for Marxism take socialist
public ownership as one of the fundamental measures in the development process of
socialism and communism.
As early as in his article The principles of Communism in 1847, Engels pointed
out: “the abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant
way to characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made
necessary by the development of industry – and for this reason it is rightly advanced
by communists as their main demand.”1
Immediately after this, Marx and Engels once again pointed out in the
Manifesto of the Communist Party: “modern bourgeois private property is the
final and most complete expression of the system of producing and
appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation
of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be
summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” 2

the In theInternational
First General Rules of the International Working Men’s Association written for
subjection
source of of the
life — man ofestablished
liesand
at labor
the to thein
bottom of
1864, Marx
monopolizer
servitude in
reiterated:
ofall
theitsmeans
forms,
“That
ofof the—economical
labor
all thatmisery,
social is, the
mental
the degradation,
working classes is as political
therefore dependence; that the economical emancipation
the3 great end to which every political movement of
ought to be subordinate a means.”
Even inforce
productive the is
States where the enough
capitalist economy ais single
not developed and the
structure
of of means
revolution, the of not
dominating
advanced
production immediately
position of
toafter
public
establish
the proletariat
ownership in the
public
has
economy
ownership
won the victory
should be
established
requirements. there.
First,Comrade
its economy Deng
4 mustXiaoping pointedbyout:
be dominated “socialism
public hasand
ownership, twosecond,
major
there must be no polarization.”
It is evident
important that the socialist public
whatownership of means of production is a very
toward thisaspect of socialism.
very important Then,
aspect attitude does
of socialism? the democratic socialism take
It should
toward be noted
this question that the attitude
has experienced of social
continuous democracy-democratic socialism
changes.
1. Two Changes in the Attitude of Socialist Democrats toward Socialist Public
Ownership
At of
means theproduction
beginning,tothe
thesocialist democrats
whole society, and didn’t
this justagree to the
formed onetransfer of all the
of its differences
from communists.
For this
problems thatreason,
had Engels
been pointed out
published in 1894 from
that in his to
essays on“Ithe international
not call myself a Social Democrat,inbut
Volksstaat
a Communist.1871 This is1875:
because consistently
at that time do
in
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 237-238.
2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 286.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 609.
4 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page 138.

124
various
inscribedcountries people called the
themselves
taking Social Democrats
society who
of allhadthe
certainly
means not
production”upon
1
. their banners over by of
Later,
within the with theInternational
Second extensive popularization
which was by Marx, manythe socialist democrats
Engels changed
production as theirtheir attitudes
economic and
program.took theestablished under
socialist public direct leadership
ownership of means ofof

(SPD)In can
this serve
regard, as the example:
previous programs of the Social Democratic Party of Congress
Germany
in
of 1869
all believed
forms of thatanthe
enslavement workers
and
the
the
program
economic
aim of SPD
of SPD
dependence
was
passed
to
at the Eisenach
on capitalists
abolish the were the
existing source
method of
production of(the
production his wage
work by system)
relyingand ensure thatlabor.
on cooperative each worker can get the whole
The Program
instruments laborofwere
ofposition the SPD passedpossessed
exclusively at the Gotha Congress
by the capitalist inclass,
1875and believedledthat
subordinate
pauperization and of the
enslavement. working
Hence class, which
the emancipation was ofthelabor
cause of this
required allthat to
forms
the
instruments
whole society. of labor should be transformed into public property possessed by the
Theout
pointed Program of the SPD in germany passedofatproduction,
the Erfurt once Congress in 1891
securing
for forthat
the the
expropriating
private
producer
farmers,
ownership
the ownership
artisans,
of of
and
thehis
means
small product, had and
merchants, today become
for
the the
putting
means
the
for
means
workers –Only
workers. capitalists,
the large landowners
transformation of the – into possession
capitalist private of the of
ownership product
the ofnon-
means the
of
production – land
transportation and
– into soil,property
social pits and andmines, raw materials, of
the for
transformation tools,
the machines,
production means
of goods of
into
and socialist production
the constantly growing carried on by
productivityand society
of social can cause
labor into
to change the large enterprise
exploited
welfare andclasses from
universal, a source
harmonious of misery and
perfection. oppression a sourceforof the hitherto
the greatest
afterAt the London
Engels’ Congress inof1896,
the Second aimInternational held in the following year
transform
However, thedeath,
the “school
namely,
capitalist ownership
of evolution” in
the method
and thesystem
of the
of
Second“can
socialist
production
International,
party wassocialist
into
namely,
reiterated: “to
ones”.
thethrough
school ofa
reformism,
revolutionary denied that
struggle the capitalist
overthrowing power of the be
ruling abolished
class”, only
instead, it believed
“with the
transformed increasingly greater influence of the workers, the capitalist
into socialism within the framework of the existing State through a system can be
process of evolution”.
RightThus the so-called
Wing of socialist
the thesocial public ownership
democratic ofin thefact
partywas means of production by the
nationalization within
the socialist democrats capitalist
toward society.public
the socialist This another became
ownership. change inthe bourgeois
the attitude of
After
Russia World
onbegan War I, as
the capitalist a result
States, theofsocialist
the strong impact ofinthe
democrats October
some Revolution
Western Europeanof
countries to advocate bourgeois nationalization of the means of production.
For example, Clause IV of the Constitution of the British Labor Party
passed at the Party Congress in June 1918 provided that the aim of the Party was “to
secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the
most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the
common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of
popular administration and control of each industry and service”; the Labor and the
New Social Order passed at this Congress criticized the capitalist private ownership of
means of production and the monstrous inequality between the rich and the poor
which led to “the degradation and brutalization both moral and spiritual”, and
promised “We of the Labor Party, whether in, opposition or in due time called upon to
form an Administration, will certainly lend no hand to its revival. On the contrary, we
shall do our utmost to see that it is buried with the millions whom it has done to
death.”
The Policy
Constitution Statement
of 1918 as its of Laborprinciple.
guiding Party in Britain made in May 1945 still took the
In 1946,
practice the Attlee administration
by nationalizing the Bank put the Cause
of England, and later IV issuing
of the 6Constitution
decrees on into
the
nationalization
and people’s of the enterprises
livelihood as that
the played
such domestic industries important
of coal, rolegas,in the
ironnational
andetc. economy
steel, civil
aviation,
purchase telecommunication,
at a high price. For example, the transportation
British governmentand electricity,
paid one billion through
Pounds
of securities for
Pounds. the purchase of British Rail of which the book value wasof500 themillion
economicBy 1951,
sectors the Attlee
in Britain. administration had nationalized 20% basic
roundIn 1974, the 3rd administration of the British LaborasParty initiatedshipbuilding,
the second
aircraft,of astronautics,
state-owned
nationalization,
enterprises
which
oilaccounted involved
and pharmacy.
for 11%
such
During industries
of thethat
GDP, period,
the
automobile,
the output
number valueinofthese
of investment
staff the
enterprises accounted for 8% of the total number
fixed assets took up 20% of the total amount of domestic investment. of labor force and the in
was In 1919 when
established andtheextended
Soviet won victory
to the border in Hungary
of its their and the proletarian
neighboring country dictatorship
Austria, thea
working
soviet peopleUnder
power. in Austria
this consequently
condition, the expressed
Austrian expectation
socialist democrats of establishing
promised thea
people to
Socialization realize the
Committee nationalization
with transformed of
Otto Bauer as the means
its leader.of production
During and established
the several months of
its existence,
into the Committee
semi-state-owned ones. Meanwhile, a tannery
it transformed and athepharmaceutical
state-owned company
munitions
enterprise
the privateof the Austrian
capitals, and toArsenals
this end, into an enterprise
it established jointly
a share run by
holding both the
Austrian State and
Factory.
In 1919,
leadership of the SPD also
Kautsky. This set up a Socialization
Committee consisted ofCommittee
many in Germany
bourgeois under and
economists the
the
1920,economists
these of the Social
economists Democratic
published lots of Party.
articles During
which the periodthat
asserted between 1919 and
nationalization
was possible
condition of and
giving it’s complete
completely possible to nationalize some enterprises under the
wouldn’t upset
production. These capitalists, compensation
the economists and second,
also said that
to the
this
it’s could
also
capitalists
prevent because,
possible the
and
first, this
suspension
beneficial of
to
establish
Lederer, share holding
an economist companies
of the SPD, jointly run
once published by the
books State
to and private
prove theofbenefits capitals.
of
establishing
domination the
according “producer’s cooperatives”
to theCommittee
activities wasof the under
Committee the condition
led had
by Kautsky. capitalist
just whentransition
peaceful the Socialization
to socialism, arguing
workers’ uprising that they
were bloodily found outHowever,
suppressed a way of
by the
army of Scheidemann
Consequently, the Committee administration
was dissolved.led by Noske, a socialist democrat.
1921 Nevertheless,
still andstressed the
thatProgram
“to of the SPD
transform passed at the
the whole
centralized largeGörlitz Party Congress
enterprises in
intosocialist
public
economy continue to transform the capitalist economy into
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 489.

125
economy,
necessary namely, of the economy engaged inchain
the of overall welfare—— all these are
productionmeansand upgrade freeing
peoplepeople
to a from
higherthe form capitalism,
of economic raisingcommunity.”
and moral efficiency of
In 1934,
persecuted the Prague Declaration, made“the bytaskthe ofExecutive Boardclassofineconomic
the
the SPD
State is toand
organizations use exiled
and the by
realize
Hitler,
achievements
the
pointedof out:
socialization the
of State
the heavy
the working
to industry,
establish socialist
banks and big
new
farms,
but this isn’t the
into a socialist one.” end, but merely the starting point of transforming a capitalist society
In 1946,
pointed out:and the Political
“today’s Germany Program
will noof the SPD
longer allowpassed at thecapitalist
the private Hanover Congress
economy to
gain profit
ownership income
relations by
inbecomeexploitation
Germany now canand profiteer
no longer through capital
meet development
the and land
requirement rent.
of The
further
development
The and
socialization has
should begin a serious
with the obstacle
industry to healthy
concerning natural and
resources progress.
and raw
materials.
the All theindustry
processing mining and quarrying industries,
of semi-product), most metallurgical
of the industries
chemical (including
industries and
industries concerning
various public servicesproduction
and all ofthe synthetic
processingmaterials, all the
industries large-scale
with the enterprises,
possibility of
developing large-scale
or enterprises.” enterprises, should be transformed into state owned industries
Compared
Socialist with thea social
Party adopted democratic
more radical parties
attitude toward in other countries,ofthe
the ownership meansFrench of
production.
Party AsConstitution
early as in provided
the French thatbranch
its aimofwas thetoFirst International,
“transform the Article
the capitalist society 1 ofintothea
collectivistic or communist society”.
Blum Before World War
also advocated theII,establishment
the election of program worked out
a collectivistic by the French
production system socialist
and the
French
1936. People’s Front Government implemented some measures of nationalization in
calledIn Declaration
Feb. 1946, the of Declaration
Principles of short)
for Principlespassedof the French
at the Socialist
national Party (also
congress
French
adheres Socialist
to the Party stated: “the
abolishment of characteristic
capitalist of the
ownership socialist
so as party
to lies in of
emancipate thattheit
individuals”,
nationalize etc., “the
the so socialist
natural party
wealth is a
such revolutionary
as the based party in nature”,
means onof capitalist
production and its “aim
and means isthe
to
of
exchange,
society where as
the classesto replace
have the society ownership by the
coalition
large-scale government led by
nationalization the been abolished”.
Socialist Party afterJustWorld
basedWar on this Declaration,
II began to carry out the
electricity and gas industries.in such industries as the automobile, coal, railway,
Mitterrand, the former French president and a socialist, proposed a “social
contract” in his book the Possible Socialism in 1970. This “social contract” includes
nationalization, planification and redistribution of income, etc. In the socialist
programs such as Change the Life and Draft of Socialism as well as the Common
Political Program of the Left Wing Union in France, the expansion of nationalization
and the reform of planification were provided in detail. For example, this Program
listed the natural resources, aerospace industry, aeronautic industry, nuclear industry
and most of the electronics industries, chemical industry and all the commercial banks
as the state-owned sectors.
The Constitution of French Socialist Party: Declaration of Principles passed at
the party congress in 1973 reiterated that the aim of socialism was common wealth
instead of private profits, and believed the socialization of means of investment,
means of production and means of exchange was the indispensable foundation for the
realization of this aim. This Declaration of Principles also proposed to replace the
capitalist ownership by some sort of social system.
After the Socialist Party of France came to power in June 1981, it issued decrees
on widening the nationalization and took it as an important part of structural reform
and the first step in “breaking away from capitalism” or the “trial ground of
socialism”.
In July 1981, the Socialist Party Group in the National Assembly of France
delivered political declaration which said that the great expansion of public sector
would help the French economy to get rid of the control of large scale industry and
financial monopoly groups and was the condition of democratic planification. Later,
the Socialist Party of France in power initiated the third round of nationalization
movement with the largest scale in history, following the first two rounds in 1936 and
1945 respectively. In this movement, the socialist government nationalized 5
industrial groups, 2 financial companies and 39 banks. Thus the State controlled 4,000
enterprises indirectly, the investment volume of the state-owned enterprises accounted
for one third of the total industrial investment of the country, their output value
accounted for 17% of the GDP, their staff number accounted for 23% of the total
number of the staff in the industrial sector of the country, and nearly three quarters of
bank loans are in the hands of the State.

126
2. Democratic Socialism Advocates Mixed Economy

However, gradually, the socialist democrats no longer took the social possession
of the means of production as the necessary condition and foundation of socialism.
This change happened to various social democratic parties in Europe in different
times. For example, the Social Democratic Party of Sweden started this change in the
1930s; the Social Democratic Party of Germany started this change in the 1940s; in
Britain, in 1960 the Labor Party affirmed that the mixed economy was also a form of
public ownership and in the 1980s officially put forward the ideology and policy of
“social ownership - mixed economy”; in France, it was after the middle of 1980s that
the Socialist Party no longer took nationalization as the aim of socialism, but took it
as a means of adjusting economic development and strengthening economic
democracy. But the democratic socialism, as a whole, began to advocate replacing
socialist public ownership by mixed economy and taking mixed economy as its
economic program after World War II, and after the Frankfurt Declaration made by
the first congress of the Socialist International in 1951.
The Frankfurt Declaration of the Socialist International in 1951 pointed out:
“The immediate economic aims of Socialist policy are full employment, higher
production, a rising standard of life, social security and a fair distribution of incomes
and property”, to achieve this end, “It requires effective democratic control of the
economy”. It clearly stated that “These various forms of public ownership should be
regarded not as ends in themselves but as means of controlling basic industries and
services on which the economic life and welfare of the community depend, of
rationalizing inefficient industries or of preventing private monopolies and cartels
from exploiting the public”. Meanwhile, it advocated the “existence of private
ownership in important fields, for instance in agriculture, handicraft, retail trade and
small and middle-sized industries”.
Because of the frequent occurrence of economic crisis and the increasing gap
between the rich and the poor in the capitalist development, the democratic socialists
stressed the importance of the element of public ownership in the mixed economy in
the Socialists’ View of the World Today passed at the Oslo conference of the Council
of the Socialist International in 1962:
“The continuous control of the State and public institutions over the economy
will no doubt reduce the danger of the reoccurrence of economic crisis”; “in order to
achieve rational distribution of wealth, we request the expansion of the public
ownership, the strengthening of public supervision, the formulation of laws and
regulations to impose restrictions on the private monopoly enterprises and the
fundamental change in tax system so as to protect the consumers”. This indicates that
in the 1960s the Socialist International still considered the public ownership in the
mixed economy as a means of distributing wealth rationally and realizing social
justice.
However, just during this period, an ideological trend against nationalization
appeared within the socialist party. For example, Valverde, a Dutch socialist, said at
the 6th congress of the Socialist International in 1959: “We believe that nationalization
isn’t a problem of principle, but a problem of efficiency and whether it’s favorable or
not. In our opinion, there’re other ways to impose influence on the private enterprises
and these ways are equally effective and maybe easier to implement from the political
perspective”, “for the socialists, the most important problem is by no means who get
hold of the means of production, but how people live in the society”1.
1 International Socialist Review, 1960, (1)-(2), Page 34.

127
 For another example, Jules Moch, former chairman of the drafting committee of
the Program of the French Socialist Party, believed that nationalization shouldn’t be
taken as the way to achieve the aim of socialism and to “cure all the social maladies”,
and “the implementation of nationalization hasn’t improved the conditions of workers
at all, nor can it led to the elimination of those disasters suffered by French society”1.
One more example, Eichler, a German socialist democrat, said that against the
background that the system of workers’ participation in administration was
implemented, “the universal implementation of socialization could no longer be taken
as the natural way of getting rid of all social miseries, and it shouldn’t be firstly taken
as the synonym of socialism. Now, the problem of freedom and justice and the
problem of supervision on economic power, Konzern and investment to a large extent
are the problem of competition between the publicly-owned enterprises and private
enterprises, and the problem of full employment, joint participation in administration,
development of the right of labor and social policy and the development of
education”2.
At the beginning of the 1980s, influenced by the wave of privatization in the
Western world, the democratic socialist theory of mixed economy became further
inclined to deny nationalization.
The cause of the wave of privatization in the Western developed capitalist
countries in the 1980s was that the monopoly capitalist class was eager to get rid of
the pressure brought about by the economic stagflation since the 1970s and to this end
they decided to give up the mode of State intervention put forward by Keynesianism
and carry out the privatization movement so as to protect the overall interest of the
bourgeoisie. This wave of privatization swept more than 50 capitalist countries and
Britain was the first one to take the lead.
As early as in 1971, the Conservative government of Britain, in the name of
raising efficiency, auctioned about 900 enterprises to private capitalists at very low
prices. For example, when Vickers Company and ComLaird 康米来尔德 Company
were nationalized, the Government paid 22 million pounds to purchase them, but now
they were returned to their original owners at a low price of only 10 million pounds in
the privatization movement. In 1981, the Thatcher administration adopted a form of
privatization called “mass capitalism”, selling 14 large companies worth of 5 billion
pounds, including the British Telecom, British Aerospace Company, British
Telegraph and Wireless Company, Britoil Oil Company, Enterprise Oil Company and
Jaguar Cars Ltd. After 1985, the administration sold such companies as the British
Airways, British Gas, Rolls-Royce Company, etc. By 1987, the British government
had sold more than a half of its state-owned companies and transferred one third of
the staff employed by the State, namely 600,000, to the private sector.
The Right Wing Government of Chirac in France sold 26 state-owned enterprises
with the total asset value of 20 billion US dollars in the 1980s, including 7 banks and
two large-scale industrial enterprises: Electricite de France and Saint-Gobain Group.
From 1982, The Kohl Government in West Germany sold all the government shares
in the 4 large companies including Volkswagen. Other countries in West Europe and
the countries in North Europe, America, Canada, Japan and Australia also sold some
state-owned enterprises to different extents.

In this context, the 17th Congress of the Socialist International passed the Lima
Standing Order in June 1986 which declared: “democratic socialism isn’t merely the

1 International Socialist Review, 1961, (11)-(14), Page 213.

2 Eichler: Introduction to Democratic Socialism, 1972, Bonn, Page 72. 165

128
socialization of property or planification of the government, although the two are very
likely to be the means of achieving the end.”
In the Stockholm Declaration of Principles passed at the 18th Congress of the SI
in June 1989, although the SI reiterated that “the democratic socialist movement
continues to advocate both socialisation and public property within the framework of
a mixed economy”, it focused on the revision of the traditional thought of
nationalization: “experience has shown that while nationalization in some
circumstances may be necessary, it is not by itself a sovereign remedy for social ills”;
“Neither private nor State ownership by themselves guarantee either economic
efficiency or social justice”.
This process of change from advocating bourgeois nationalization of means of
production to preaching mixed economy can also be found within the various socialist
democratic parties of Europe in different times.
In this regard, the SPD can also serve as the most typical example.
Until the early period after World War II, the SPD still believed that it couldn’t
and shouldn’t established a State which had already been reduced into the ravages of
war according to the capitalist economic principle, and advocated abolishing the
capitalist exploitation and transfer the means of production from the big holders to the
society.
However, the action plan of the SDP in 1952 showed the change of the Party’s
guiding principles in this problem, namely, from advocating the realization of
socialization to actively promoting competition and small and medium-sized
businesses of private ownership.
This guiding principle was explicitly reflected in the Godesberg Program of the
SPD in 1959, which provided that “private ownership of the means of production has
the right to be protected and promoted so long as it doesn’t hinder the establishment
of a fair social system”; this Program also believed that the key problem was not
public ownership, but the restriction of the power of large enterprises and public
supervision on economic power, and public ownership was a legal form of public
supervision that any modern State will not give up”. Because any centralization of
economic power will produce danger, it held that “public ownership should take
autonomy and decentralization as its principles”.
In Britain, at first, when Gaitskell, a leader of the British Labor Party, drew upon
lessons from the failure of the Party in the general election, he said that it was just the
socialist content in the Clause Four of the Labor’s Constitution, namely, “the
nationalization of means of production and distribution” that had frightened the swing
voters away. Therefore, he proposed to replace it with the content of “mixes
economy”. But his proposal was strongly opposed and vetoed by the Left Wing and
the trade union. Finally, they come to a compromise: on the one hand, in Oct. 1960,
the annual meeting of the Labor Party passed a resolution to affirm the original
version of the Clause Four of the Constitution; on the other hand, the meeting urged
the executive committee of the Labor Party to draft the Goal of the Labor Party and
passed it at the annual meeting, taking the “mixed economy” as a form of public
ownership: “pubic ownership will take various forms, including the state-run
industries and commerce, cooperation between producers and consumers, local public
operation and the participation of public sectors in private operation.”
The Program of the British Labor Party passed by the annual meeting of the
Labor in 1982 reiterated that the Labor Party “doesn’t believe that public ownership
should extend to all the aspects of economic life. And the public ownership can take
various forms such as workers’ cooperatives, public companies, city-run enterprises,

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State holding companies, local enterprises and joint investment of public companies
and private companies”.
Between 1986 and 1987, the British Labor Party officially put forward its
ideology and policy of “social ownership”——mixed economy in the election. Later,
it issued documents to state repeatedly that it “has never promised to support only one
form of public ownership”, it “encourages the joint management and organization of
capitals in both private and public enterprises and the establishment of a new form of
public ownership”, and it “will develop various forms of social ownership according
to different conditions, for example, to transform the enterprises that had already been
privatized into ‘public interest companies’, etc.”
The French Socialist Party, while issuing the decree on the expansion of
nationalization, stressed that “a far-ranging private sector will continue to act and
grow freely” and that “socialism should allow the existence of a system of mixed
economy in France”. After the mid 1980s, the French Socialist Party didn’t take
nationalization as the aim of socialism any longer, instead, it took it as an instrument
to adjust economic development and strengthen economic democracy.
Why did the socialist democrats’ view and policy on the ownership of the means
of production experience the above changes from socialist public ownership to
bourgeois nationalization and then to mixed economy? One of the fundamental
reasons is that the socialist democrats’ view of socialism was changing constantly
under the bourgeois influence.
When the socialist democrats were advocating socialist public ownership of the
means of production, it was just influenced by Marxism and believed that socialism
was a system to abolish class exploitation and differences and was an aim to strive
for: only by abolishing private ownership and realize socialist public ownership, can
this aim be achieved.
When the socialist democrats were changing its proposition from advocating
socialist public ownership to advocating bourgeois nationalization, it was just
considering that capitalist could evolve into socialism in a peaceful way, taking the
state and socialization element in the capitalist society as an intermediate station of
the transition from capitalism to socialism, and believing that the further transition
from capitalism to socialism was to gradually expand the coverage of “socialization
element” and reduce the coverage of “private element”. Just in this sense, Strachey, a
theorist of British Labor Party, put a premium on Keynesianism which advocates
economic intervention by the bourgeois State, and said that “Keynes has made the
greatest contribution to the technology of democratic transformation (into socialism),
and thus pointed out a road for the westerners. This road will not cross the boundary
of overall class struggle——the wage-labors have retreated from that boundary, now
they have seen the onrushing flood of that boundary”1
When the socialist democrats were changing their preachment from bourgeois
nationalization to mixed economy, they were just considering the socialism as a long-
lasting task striving for freedom and justice and also being tested by freedom and
justice. Now, in their eyes, the basic values of socialist will wasn’t the abolishment of
exploitation and classes, but freedom, justice, and solidarity through democracy. And
the freedom, justice and solidarity could be gradually achieved by limiting the power
of large enterprises which may hinder the realization of these goals, instead of by
fundamentally changing the ownership relations. According to this, although the
public enterprises within the mixed economy weren’t abolished by the socialist
democrats, they were limited to such a narrow scope that they could only make
1 Strachey: Contemporary Capitalism, Page 265.

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reasonable contributions to the public economically because of natural and
technological reasons and only under the prerequisite of non-competitions. They
played a role as a legal form of public supervision aimed to protect freedom from
being infringed by the large monopoly organizations and to participate in competition
in order to prevent the private enterprises from dominating the market. They took
autonomy and decentralization as their principle.

3. Basic Arguments of Democratic Socialism against the Necessity of Socialist Public

Ownership

In order to deny the necessity of socialist pubic ownership of the means of

production, democratic socialists put forward a series of arguments:
The first argument was that the separation of ownership and management has
appeared in the capitalist States. Now, the large enterprises were dominated by their
managers, which was called a “managerial revolution” in which the power of the
enterprise was transferred into the hands of the managers. This revolution marked that
the ownership of the means of production had changed from private ownership to
unknown ownership and it hadn’t played a decisive role in social politics any longer.
Therefore, socialist public ownership of the means of production was of little
importance. The key problem today was not the problem of ownership, but the
supervision on the economic power within the existing system.
It’s true that in the developed capitalist countries after World War II, the personal
share of capitals in the capitalist enterprises decreased whereas the share of capitals
controlled by the enterprises and financial groups increased. And since the
institutional shareholders were represented by managers, the management was
separated from ownership and a new class of managers emerged.
But this separation of ownership and management in fact was not a special
phenomenon of the contemporary monopoly capitalism and it appeared as early as at
the very beginning of capitalism. At that time, the function of supervision and
management had already separated the investment of capital in production from the
employer. As long as the capitalist enterprise grows into a certain scale and the
division of labor developed to a certain stage, it’ll be possible for the employers to
employ managers. Marx once pointed out: “the capitalist production itself has made
the commanding labor that is separated from the ownership of capitals very popular
everywhere, hence this commanding labor needn’t be done by the capitalists
themselves. A conductor of a band is unnecessarily the owner of the musical
instruments; and how to deal with the wage problem of the other players in the band is
beyond his duties.”1 When the capitalism was developed into the contemporary period
of State monopoly capitalism, this separation of supervision and management of labor
from ownership of capital was boosted to its height and reached the most perfect
form.
More importantly, the separation of management from ownership and the rise of
emerging class of managers didn’t mean the “managerial revolution” of power
transfer at all, nor did this mean that the capitalist private ownership of the means of
production had lost its dominating power, for ownership relations are the foundation
of the exploitation of workers by capitalists and of the whole capitalist system. All the
other privileges become unimportant in front of the privilege of ownership.
Mills, an American Leftist economist, after observing the new situations and
phenomena appeared at the stage of State monopoly capitalism, pointed out, “the
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 25, Page 435.

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employer and manager are no longer the same person, but the manager will by no
means deprive the employer of his power and the domination of the employer over the
workers and the market hasn’t been weakened. The power of ownership isn’t taken
away, but is centralized even faster. Getting hold of the ownership, employer can use
the police to punish anyone, including the previous employer, manager and the non-
employers who have attempted to seize the control of ownership. He can also accuse
any manager of ‘expropriating’ his ownership and send him to trial and even to
prison”. “As a matter of fact, a director is a member of the class of employers who
have the full power in their hands and he acquired his right of activity from the
ownership system”, “he is in accordance with the class of employers and the source of
their wealth both economically and politically”. And “the manager who is usually
considered to have deprived the employers of their function is in fact performing this
function more faithfully than any talented employers. The personal connection
between the big employer and the big executive corporate manager lies in that both of
them pay attention to the favorable balance sheet, and strive for it”.
In short, no mater how talented they are and how great their decision-making
power is, the managers after all are employed by the monopoly capitalist to maintain
the bourgeois interests based on wealth and capital. And their power will be
withdrawn by the monopoly capital at any time when necessary. Iacocca, an
American business giant, who had once helped the Ford Company out of its trouble in
management when he worked there, was however fired by the company because he
was considered to no longer comply with the will of the capitalist Ford. Therefore, it
is groundless to believe that the private ownership has lost its dominance and
ownership is no longer important by taking the separation of ownership from
management as an excuse.
In fact, to talk glibly about the supervision on economic power, especially the
supervision of the trade union and the working people by putting aside the ownership
problem in the place where private ownership of the means of production still exists is
nothing but to allow the exploited to supervise how the exploiters exploit and oppress
them. This may weaken the exploited people’s awareness of resistance to some
degree, but cannot change the objective fact of exploitation and oppression of workers
by the capitalists at all.
The second argument raised by the democratic socialism was that socialist public
ownership wasn’t the universal remedy to cure all the social maladies. It argued that
the name of ownership didn’t play a core role and people should abandon their
illusion that the abolishment of private ownership of the means of production would
automatically brought about greater freedom to mankind, and the illusion that the
mankind can make the decisive breakthrough with the universal change of ownership
relations.
It’s true that the socialist public ownership wasn’t the remedy to cure all the
social maladies, for it can only establish the basic socialist system economically. In
order to give full play to the relative advantages of this socialist system over capitalist
system, we should take further efforts to find out the specific ways and mechanisms to
build up the socialist system. For example, the highly centralized model of planned
economy which was established after the first socialist country in the world was
established, although had once promoted economic growth within a certain period in
history, it became so rigid that it couldn’t adapt to the development of productive
forces as time went by, especially since the world entered into an era with peace and
development as its main theme. This rigid model had the following defects: there
wasn’t a clear division of responsibilities between government management and

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enterprise operations, which resulted in serious segmentation in work; the state
government exercised too much control over enterprises while neglecting the role of
commodity production, value law and the market; as a result of serious
equalitarianism in distribution, there was a lack of autonomy for enterprises which ate
from the same “big pot” of the state and the employees ate from the “big pot” of
enterprises; the initiative and creativity of enterprises and their employees were
seriously suppressed and the socialism which should have been dynamic lost its
vitality to a large extent. Therefore, by no means should we consider that all is well
with everything after we have established the socialist public ownership. Instead, we
should take continuous effort to improve the specific systems and methods of building
socialism according to the development needs of productive forces so as to improve
and develop the socialist system.
However, in no way does this mean the socialist public ownership of the means
of production is of little importance. Instead, the fact is that the public ownership of
means of production, although isn’t the universal remedy for all social maladies, is the
basic precondition to cure all the social maladies of the capitalist society. Only when
the problem of socialist public ownership is solved, can the contradiction between
social production and private ownership in the capitalist society be settled, can the
cyclical economic crisis induced by this contradiction be avoided and can the various
inherent chronic illnesses of the capitalism in economic foundation and superstructure
be possibly cured; on the contrary, if the socialist public ownership isn’t introduced,
these illnesses won’t be completely cured whatever measures are taken. Just as Deng
Xiaoping pointed out: “there is no way by which capitalism can ever eliminate the
extraction of super-profits by its millionaires or ever get rid of exploitation,
plundering and economic crises. It can never generate common ideals and moral
standards or free itself from appalling crimes, moral degradation and despair” 1; “only
socialism can eliminate various phenomena of greediness, corruption and injustice
inevitably produced by capitalist society and other exploiting systems”2.
After World War II, scientific and technological revolution greatly promoted the
development of productive force. This once made some spokespersons of the
capitalist system draw a conclusion that the technology of automatics had changed the
nature of monopolistic capital and productive force seemed to develop limitlessly
without changing the capitalist private ownership of the means of production.
However, after 1973, the major capitalist countries suffered stagflation and slow-
down in their economic development, which relentlessly broke this dream. During the
period between 1974 and 1988, the average annual growth rate of GNP in the
developed capitalist countries dropped from 5% to 2.7%. The new technological
revolution failed to overcome the essential contradiction of capitalism and the cyclical
economic crises it had brought about. On the contrary, the economic crisis broke out
more frequently: during the 89 years between 1825 and 1914, this capitalist economic
crisis occurred once every 8 to 10 years; during the 20 years from 1918 to 1939, it
occurred once every 7 years; and it has occurred more frequently since World War II
——once every 5 years. Moreover, crisis lasted longer and the industrial production
decreased by a larger margin during the crisis: from 1957 to 1958, the crisis lasted one
year, with the industrial production decreasing by 13.5% and 10.4% in the U.S. and
Japan respectively; from 1973 to 1975, it lased for 18 months in the U.S. and for more
than 20 months in West Germany, Britain, France and Italy, with the industrial
production decreasing by 15.3% in the U.S., 20% in Japan, 12.9% in West Germany,

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 2, Page 167.

2 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page 143.

133
11% in Britain, 14% in France and 22.4% in Italy; and from 1979 to 1982, it lasted for
44 months in the U.S., 35 months in Japan and 33 months in Italy.
The third argument raised by the democratic socialism to deny the necessity of
socialist public ownership was that ownership of the means of production was getting
less important in modern developed capitalist countries. It argued that the most
important problem now wasn’t who got hold of the means of production, but how
people live in the society; and the people’s real living condition didn’t depend on the
how much means of production they possess and how much income they get, but to a
large degree on the factors of social welfare.
As to the real situation of the welfare system in the capitalist society, we’ll
discuss it in detail in section 3 of this chapter. What should be pointed out here is that
when the democratic socialists raise this argument, they obviously ignored an absolute
truth that has been tested and proved repeatedly by practice in history: “any
distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the
distribution of the conditions of production themselves. The latter distribution,
however, is a feature of the mode of production itself”1. Since under the condition of
the capitalist private ownership of the means of production, the material conditions of
production are in the hands of capitalists in the form of capital and land property,
while the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labor
power, what else can the masses receive as a distribution except the values of selling
their own labor-power in the developed capitalist society? And what other welfare can
they count on? What other life can they live? Marx once sharply pointed out: “vulgar
socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the
bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent
of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning
principally on distribution”2. When the democratic socialists raise the above
arguments to deny the necessity of socialist public ownership, weren’t they just taking
over the idea of the “vulgar socialism”?!

4. Emergence, Development and Nature of Mixed Economy

The democratic socialism denies the necessity of socialist public ownership of the
means of production while advocating the mixed economy with both capitalist state-
owned enterprises and privately-run enterprises. Then, how did this theory of mixed
economy emerge and develop? And what’s its nature?
It should be pointed out that mixed economy isn’t a new invention by democratic
socialism. It appeared as early as at the end of the 19th century, for example, the
school called “State Socialism” in the bourgeois political economics in the second
half of 19th century was just the preacher of the theory of mixed economy. In order to
use a certain theory of “mixed economy” which may ever exist in the past, present
and future in the real life as a resistance to Marxist theory about the inevitable
transition from capitalism to socialism, Adolph Wagner, argued in his book the
Principles of Political Economy published in 1876: the national economy in real life
were always the combination of private economy, public economy (including state-
owned economy) and social service economy . He held that “the national economy
only based on one or two organizational principles isn’t likely to exist, to say nothing

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 306.

2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 306.

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about the existence of this economy as a historical phenomenon, for these
organizational principles are always mixed”, “the whole national economy is just
based on this mixture”1.
During the general crisis of capitalism, mixed economy was fully developed.
During this period, the State intervened in economic life in many aspects and
consequently the State monopoly capitalism grew rapidly, which laid a historical
foundation for the development of the theory of mixed economy. This theory made
the bourgeois State antagonistic to private enterprises, and described the bourgeois
State-owned enterprises as supra-class institutions striving to guarantee the welfare of
the people. It also described modern capitalist economy as the mixture of private
economy and public economy, and took this mixed economy as the remedy for all the
capitalist maladies including unemployment and crisis. For example, under the
influence of the world economic crisis between 1929 and 1933, Stuart Chase, an
American economist, recommended “mixed economy” as a prescription to cure the
morbid American capitalism in his book Government in Business (1935) and Danger
—Men Talking! (1938). Late in his book For This We Fought (1946), he proposed to
use the “controllable” system of mixed economy to overthrow the “unstraightened”
system of mixed economy which failed to prevent crisis and unemployment. Many
American economists of Keynesianism such as Alvin Hansen and John Maurice Clark
preached mixed economy. According to their opinion, the system of free operation in
the private enterprises hindered the development of production and lead to
unemployment and crises; hence the state economic activities should serve as a
supplement. The “mixed system” based on this could get rid of the defects of
capitalism and preserve its foundation. In short, the State should spend large amount
of financial fund in increasing the total demand so as to stimulate the production and
create more job opportunities while the private enterprises should produce
commodities.
The theory of mixed economy advocated by the Social democrats——democratic
socialists, was the reformist version of the bourgeois theory of mixed economy from
the every beginning. The Fabian Society of Britain established in 1884 advocated the
use of reformist theory about the peaceful evolution of capitalism into socialism to
oppose the Marxist theory about the proletarian revolution and dictatorship, and the
theory of mixed economy was just taken as an important part of this reformist theory.
The Fabian Society believed that expanding the State and (Yerel Belediye)
Municipal authority’s participation in the domestic economic life was an important
way of achieving peaceful evolution of capitalism into socialism. In its book the
Fabian Essays in Socialism published in 1886, the Fabian Society believed that the
developed capitalist economy was a mixed economy made up of private capitalist
economy and “socialized” economy, where “the field of private exploitation is
reduced”, and there had already been “the bud of social reform”, which was mainly
reflected by “municipal socialism”2.
During the period of economic crisis in the capitalist world, Hugh Dalton, an
activist of British Labor Party published a book Practical Socialism for Britain in
1935, giving further development to the theory of mixed economy and simply
describing the bourgeois State-owned economy as the socialized element of socialism.
He wrote: “generally, the relative proportions of the ‘socialized element’ and ‘private
element’ in the social and economic life can be used to decide to what degree a
society is a socialism society. The socialized element contains a certain form of State

1 Adolph Wagner: Principles of Political Economy, Leipzig, 1893, Page 778-779.

2 Fabian Essays in Socialism: London, 1889, Page 48-51.

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ownership and supervision without any extraction of profits by the capitalists. Every
civilized society has the socialized element of such meaning, namely, the core of the
State planned economy.”1
Crosland, a theorist of British Labor Party, further denied that the British
economy implementing this “mixed economy” was capitalist economy in his book
New Fabian Essays published in 1953 and The Future of Socialism in 1957. The
authors this Essays believed that the modern British economy was a “mixed
economy” between capitalism and socialism, which combining capitalist elements
with socialist ones. Within this mixed economy, the “socialization” characterized by
equal distribution of national income and centralization of most of the powers in the
State was just the socialist element. Crosland said: “this isn’t socialism however. Of
course, this isn’t pure capitalist, either. It (the society) has only realized part of the
socialist wills, and to this degree it has the socialist characteristic.” 2 Just based on this
theory, the British Labor Party took mixed economy as the intermediary station of the
transition from capitalism to socialism and preached the transition to socialism
through “utilizing and controlling capitalism” while negating the necessity of
establishing a new social economic system through socialist revolution.
From the above brief review of the emergence and historical development of the
bourgeois and reformist theory of mixed economy, we can clearly see the substance of
this theory.
Firstly, the mixed economy called by the bourgeoisie---democratic socialists,
doesn’t refer to the mixture of different socio-economic elements, for example, the
coexistence of socialist economic element and the capitalist one, instead, it refers to
the coexistence of capitalist public enterprises and capitalist private enterprises.
Therefore, the so-called mixed economy here is in fact the coexistence and mixture of
the two forms of capitalist economy——the State form and Private form.
Secondly, in the nationalization of a capitalist society, although the ownership of
the means of production takes the public form, it is merely the public ownership of the
bourgeoisie, which is completely different from the socialist public ownership.
Why did the bourgeoisie socialize its means of production? The fundamental
reason was that the development of productive force required the abolition of the
contradiction between social production and private possession and the recognition of
its nature as a social productive force, hence the official representative of the capitalist
society——the State, had to assume the leadership of the production at a certain stage
of development; in other cases, the bourgeois State monopoly served as a means of
increasing and guaranteeing the income of the millionaires in some industrial sector
who were just about to go bankrupt. Here we just take the British Labor Party, which
adopted a series of nationalization policies after World War II, as an example.
After winning the general election in July 1945 and establishing a Labor Cabinet
under the leadership of Attlee, the British Labor Party embarked on a “socialist plan”,
of which an important content was the nationalization of the Bank of England, the
industries of coal, gas, domestic transportation, electricity, civil aviation, telegraph
and wireless communication and some of the steel plants. The number of workers in
these sectors accounted for 20% of the total number of industrial workers in Britain.
Why did the Labor nationalize these sectors? One of the important reasons was
that these sectors were in such a serious down-turn that they couldn’t provide
necessary products and services for the society and threatened the profits of the
British monopoly organizations; hence nationalization was needed to reequipe them.

1 Hugh Dalton: Practical Socialism for Britain, London, 1935, Page 27.
2 Crosland: The Future of Socialism, London, 1957, Page 115.

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For example, during the 25 years between 1913 and 1938, the labor productivity of a
worker in the big coal industry of Britain only increased by 13% whereas the
production volume would have been increased by one fold if the industry was
reorganized with modern technologies and methods, and the production would have
been increased by another 25% to 50% if the larger mines were modernized; take the
railway as another example, from 1946 to the winter of 1947, among the 20,242
locomotives, 3,700 were under repair, and many of them had an average age of over
32. About 1,000 and 328,000 tons of new steel rails were needed to restore the railway
to order, but the employers of private enterprises were reluctant to pay this bill.
How to carry out the nationalization? The British Labor Party did it in this way: it
paid the owners of the private enterprises a large sum of money for the purchase of
their enterprises which was far more than their real their values. For example, after
the Bank of England was nationalized, its shareholders who had originally possessed
a capital of 14.5 million pounds received buy-out securities worth of 58 million
pounds from the State at an annual interest rate of 30%; the nationalization of coal
industry enabled the owners of coal mines to acquire 400 million pounds from the
State in the form of buy-out securities at an annual interest rate of 35%. Moreover, in
the management of these nationalized industrial sectors, the old owners still remains
the leaders of the enterprises. For example, the chairman of National Coal Board
(NCB) established after the nationalization was Lord Hyndley, the manager of the
largest coal trust in Britain, and two owners of the old mines also became members of
the leadership of NCB. Among the 87 members of the Administration of
Industrialized Industries in Britain, 43 were magnates; on the contrary, none of the
representatives of workers participated in this leading organization of nationalized
industries.
Therefore, the nationalization implemented by British Labor Party was in line
with the interests of British monopoly capitalists in all respects and was a way to help
these industries get out of trouble and at the same time to secure the income of their
old owners. The same is true with the nationalization carried out by the social
democrats in other countries of west Europe.
Meanwhile, in the developed capitalist countries, under this policy of
nationalization adopted by the socialist democrats, the transfer of the means of
production to the State didn’t get rid of the capital nature of productive force. The
reason is that “And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois
society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of
production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual
capitalists”. “The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more
does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The
workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away
with. It is, rather, brought to a peak”. Therefore, Engels sharply refuted the opinion
which called bourgeois nationalization socialism and pointed out that it was “a kind of
spurious socialism, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkeyism” “if
the taking over by the state of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and
Metternich must be numbered among the founders of socialism”1.
Therefore, the major elements that determine the nature of nationalization are the
class nature of the political power which implements nationalization. It’s true that in
some sense the State monopoly capitalism is the fullest material preparation for
socialism, but in order to achieve socialism, socialist revolution must be carried out.
So, for the democratic socialist theory of mixed economy, just as Lenin said: “the
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 628-629.

137
erroneous bourgeois reformist assertion that monopoly capitalism or state-monopoly
capitalism is no longer capitalism, but can now be called ‘state socialism’ and so on, is
very common.”1
Secondly, just because the state enterprise and private enterprise are only two
forms of capitalist ownership under the capitalist system, at the stage of State
monopoly capitalism, the necessity of nationalization in economy usually inevitably
mixes the private monopoly ownership with the State monopoly ownership.
The history of the nationalization and privatization which appeared alternatively
in the developed capitalist countries after World War II proved that when the
capitalism is at the stage of recovering its industries and do away with post-war
damages, it is usually the preachment and implementation of nationalization that get
very popular; but when this process of economic recovery has gone, the profit of
enterprise grows rapidly and the monopoly organization no longer need
nationalization, the wave of privatization will take the place of nationalization and
prevail. Therefore, both nationalization and privatization are only the different means
adopted by the State monopoly capitalism at different stages and in different sectors
in order to consolidate its dominance and develop economy.
In the last analysis, the nature of the so-called mixed economy raised by the
bourgeoisie and democratic socialists is nothing but the mixture of private monopoly
and state monopoly. Within this “mixed economy”, on the one hand, the state
monopoly capital creates various necessary conditions for the smooth reproduction of
private monopoly capital, and the State of the monopoly capitalist class provides raw
materials, power and market for private monopoly enterprises through state-owned
enterprises; facilitates the combination of state-owned capital with private monopoly
capital in the field of production through the joint state-private enterprises so as to
provide preferential treatments, subsidies and financial aids for the private monopoly
capital; provides non-reimbursable subsidies, tax preferences and large amount of
procurement for the private monopoly enterprises through fiscal policies; according to
the need of economic development, readjusts the rediscount rate of central bank and
bank reserve ratio and makes the market business transparent through monetary and
credit policies so as to ensure the stable development of private monopoly economy;
and bears the investment and risks of private monopoly capital in scientific research
through allocation of funds to scientific research and popularization of education and
also provides them with necessary skillful labor force, etc.
On the other hand, capitalists in the big private monopoly organizations directly
get hold of the State power either by themselves or by designating their agents.
Therefore, the implementation of mixed economy by combining State monopoly
with private monopoly didn’t change the nature of capitalist economy, nor did it
change the exploitation of workers by bourgeoisie. On the contrary, “under the
condition of retaining the private ownership of the means of production, all these
measures that make the production more monopolized and more nationalized will
inevitably aggravate the exploitation and oppression over the laboring people and
cause difficulties to the resistance of the exploited and strengthen reactionary forces
and military dictatorship; at the same time, this will certainly dramatically increase
the profits made by the magnates from exploitation of other classes, and cause the
laboring people to have to pay tributes and taxes to the capitalists, namely, pay one
billion dollars of interests on borrowings”2.
Therefore, the mixed economy preached and implemented by democratic

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 31, Page 64.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 29, Page 441. 186

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socialism in order to meet the above-mentioned needs is in fact a reflection of the fact
of the coexistence and mixture of the State form and private form of capitalist
economy at the stage of State monopoly capitalism, which is entirely different from
Marxist socialism.

Section 2 Economic Democracy with Worker’s Participation in Decision-making and

Management

The second aspect of democratic socialist economic program is advocating the

establishment and development of economic democracy with worker’s participation
in decision-making and management.
Democratic socialism believes that this economic democracy is of great
importance to the implementation of democracy not only as a political system of a
State but also as a life style in various social fields including professional life and is of
great importance as a necessary supplement of parliamentary democracy because only
the combination of parliamentary democracy with co-participation system is the best
solution to the problem of giving full play to the democratic mechanism.
What is parallel, connected and overlapped with this “participatory democracy
mainly in economy” is the “participatory democracy mainly in politics” put forward
by the New Left in the West at the end of 1950s as an ideal model which means the
citizens should participate in the affairs that influence their work and life, the poor
should enter into the organs managing properties, the students should enter into the
administrative organs of schools and workers should participate in activities of the
management department of factories, for according to these New Leftists, the people
could accurately put forward their demands and interests and really enjoy equal
opportunities only when they had the right to decide their own lives. They believed
that in the modern society, the development of freedom and individuals can only be
realized by the direct and continuous participation of citizens in social and State
affairs. Therefore, only by implementing the participatory democracy, could people
become the master of themselves and decide the direction of their lives. On the
contrary, if freedom and equality wasn’t expanded to the participation of citizens in
various aspects, they would be abstract without specific content and hence would be
impossible to achieve. Later, the Western bourgeois politicians and political
commentators took over this participatory democracy and took it as means of
maintaining bourgeois democracy and consolidate bourgeois domination through
parliamentary democracy and participation of the masses. John Naisbitt, a western
scholar, even listed participatory democracy as one of the ten development tendencies
of the modern world in his book Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our
Lives in 1982.
Here we just focus our observation on the “participatory democracy mainly in
economy” advocated by democratic socialism.

1. The Problem of Economic Democracy in the Program of Socialist Democratic

Party

As early as in the Frankfurt Declaration in 1951, economic democracy, together

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with political democracy, social democracy and international democracy, was listed
by democratic socialism as one of the four democracies that it preached in its
program. But at that time, the content of economic democracy was not specifically
provided and was only limited to “the effective democratic supervision over
economy”.
In June 1962, the Socialists’ View of the World Today passed at the Oslo
conference of the Council of the Socialist International pointed out specifically that:
“an institution should be established within the system of democracy where workers
can exert effective influence on the decision-making and conditions of the industry
and the overall economic performance”, and pointed out: “industrial democracy may
further develop and deepen the democratic process”.
In 1969, the Resolution on the Development of Communist Countries and
Communist Parties passed at the 11th congress of the SI clearly stated the attitude of
the socialists toward the meaning of economic democracy: “democratic socialists
understand the weaknesses of the pure political democracy, hence they should use the
new form of economic democracy and industrial democracy to complement it so as to
realize social democracy”.
In 1989, the Stockholm Declaration passed at the 18th congress of the SI further
identified the basic principle of economic democracy: “not simply formal, legal
control by the State, but substantial involvement by workers themselves and by their
communities in economic decision-making”. “The concentration of economic power
in few private hands must be replaced by a different order in which each person is
entitled - as citizen, consumer or wage-earner - to influence the direction and
distribution of production, the shaping of the means of production, and the conditions
of working life. This will come about by involvement of the citizen in economic
policies, by guaranteeing wage earners an influence in their workplace…”
The various socialist parties in Europe as members of the SI also provided the
specific content and significance of economic democracy in their own programs.
For example, the Program of Social Democratic Party of Sweden in 1978 not
only gave specific prescription about workers’ right to participating in decision-
making, but also pointed out: “by winning the right to participate in the decision-
making of the business affairs and the building of funds of the enterprises, the
laborers have opened a door for the implementation of collective influence and
collective ownership, thus connecting the laborers with the means of production and
increasing people’s initiatives and sense of responsibility”. It also explained the
significance of economic democracy: “economic democracy is a step and
precondition for the social reform of social democratic party. It will enable the people
to possibly control the development of economy and technology, and thus to make the
material wealth equally distributed, to make the working conditions improved and
give richer social meanings to the progress. It will create new road for emancipation
of civilization and broaden people’s horizon”. “It will lay a foundation for the real
equality between men and women in family, society and working life and turn the
whole society into one that shows care and love for children.
The Social Democratic Party of Germany even gave more detailed prescriptions
on the participation of workers in management and decision-making in its Program.
The Godesberg Program of the SPD in 1959 put forward the right of workers to
participate in decision-making in economic and social life as an object of struggle. It
believed “A worker must change from an economic slave to a citizen in the economic
field”; “the participation of workers in decision-making in the coal and steel industries
marked the beginning of a new economic system”, for after the realization of workers

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right to participation in decision-making, “the proletariat who was always the object
of exploitation by the ruling class now has become citizens enjoying the recognized
equal rights and duties”.
The Economic and Political Program of the SPD between 1975 and 1985 clearly
pointed out that the nature of participation in decision-making was the participation
and supervision of the dominated in and on the domination. “People’s demand for
participation in decision-making indicates that they are striving for more freedoms
and self-responsibilities. Wherever domination of people by other people exists, the
dominated should, through participation in decision-making, participate in and
supervise this domination in effective ways”, therefore this participation “first is
applicable to working life”; “on the one hand, workers or their representatives have
the right to participate in the discussion and implementation on the problem of
working posts and other problems in the daily life of the enterprise; on the other hand,
workers and capitalists equally participate in the appointment of and supervision on
the leading organization of the enterprise”. This Program said that the participation in
decision-making advocated by the SPD was a “peer-to-peer participation in decision-
making” which required “the laborers and capitalists participate in the management of
enterprise together in an equal manner”, and this “means the equal integration of
workers’ interests into the enterprise’ policy which will then replace the tendency that
the decisions of the enterprise are made only according to the interests of the
capitalist”. In this way, within the scope of the enterprise, “it can ultimately eliminate
the mutually antagonistic interests in an open and fair manner”, and within the scope
the whole State, “it can strengthen workers’ right to participate in activities and
decision-making, ensure the ‘countervailing power’ of workers to capitalists, and
broaden the scope of State actions in dealing with private economic power”.
In reality, the system of workers’ participation in decision-making and
management bears different traditions and characteristics in different countries.

2. The Joint Consultation Model of the British Labor Party

In Britain, the idea of industrial democracy was originally put forward by Fabian
Society to oppose the Marxist socialism.
As early as in the Fabian Essays in Socialism published in 1889, the British
Fabianists systematically expressed their opinions on industrial democracy; in 1897,
the Webbs, leaders of the Fabian Society, gave a further description of their idea about
industrial democracy in their book Industrial Democracy.
The Fabianists believed that the democracy in industrial relations wasn’t achieved
through the management by workers advocated by Marxism and anarchism, but
through the capitalists’ recognition of the trade union’s perfectly justified position as a
partner in the collective consultation relations within the industry and the whole
country. Later, the Fabianists slightly changed this moderate model of industrial
relation and added more contents to it, such as the nationalization of the basic
industries, the designation of representatives of the trade union to the management
committee of the industrialized enterprises and the workers’ participation in various
councils and committees at the factory level.
Guild socialism, split from Fabian Society, believing that any centralized
dictatorship would pose threat to industrial democracy, once drafted a model of
industrial control under the leadership of Cole, a British historian. According to this
model, the trade unions or guilds in various industries had the right to control the

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nationalized industries. However, facts proved that they even couldn’t solve the
problem of control of the industry in theory, not to mention about putting it into
practice. As a result, both leaders of the workers’ movement and the masses lost their
interests in this idea.
After the decline of guild socialism, leaders of the British workers’ movement
once again identified the objectives of the struggle for the workers’ organizations so
as to change the British industrial democracy in three directions: First, to identify the
objective of changing the complete workers’ control advocated by Marx and Bakunin
into joint control which was relatively moderate; second, to expand industrial
democracy from macro society to micro society and believe that workers should
participate not only in the formulation of national economic policies, but also in the
management of companies and enterprises; third, to combine the idea of constant
emphasis on struggle with the relatively moderate idea of workers’ participation in
management, given the contradiction between the objective of raising workers’ wage
and increase fringe benefits and the objective of greater responsibilities shouldered
the workers in the decision-making of companies in the problem of how workers
should participate in the decision-making of companies.
These changes paved the way for the Labor Party to carry out the model of joint
consultation by both workers and capitalists in the whole industrial area after it came
to power. Since the workers and capitalists had worked together within the “Joint
Production Committee” during World War II, both of them accepted this model of
joint consultation naturally.
After the Labor came to power in 1974, it abolished the Industrial Relations Act
formulated by the Conservative government which wasn’t in the interest of the
workers, and promulgated the Trade Union and Labor Relations Act, Health and
Safety at Work etc. Act, Employment Protection Act and Equal Opportunity Act, etc.,
which expand workers’ right in the enterprise, integrated workers’ supervision into
industrial democracy and institutionalized the participation of workers and capitalists
in the joint management of companies.

3. Mitbestimmung (Co-determination) Model of the Former Federal Republic of

Germany

The economic democracy of the SPD of germany originated from the theory of
economic democracy preached by Bernstein and Conrad Schmidt at the beginning of
the 20th century and finally came into being during the rising period of industry
before the world economic crisis between 1929 and 1933. Economic Democracy, a
book written by a leading exponent of this theory Fritz Naphtali, was once the topic of
discussion at the congress of the trade unions in Breslau and Hamburg in 1920s.
Naphtali believed that economic democracy made it possible “to limit the system of
bourgeois dictatorship and achieve economic freedom to a certain degree”, and the
way of realizing economic democracy was the participation of trade unions in the
national economic institutions and the participation of factory committees in the
leadership of enterprises. But after World War II, the economic democracy developed
into Mitbestimmung (Co-determination system)——the specific model of workers’
participation in decision-making and management in the former Federal Republic of
Germany.
The Mitbestimmung could be classified into general co-determination applied in
the economic sectors and public administrative organs and special co-determination in
the coal and steel industrial enterprises according to various economic sectors; it

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could also be classified into factory co-determination applied in small and medium-
sized enterprises and corporate co-determination in large enterprises or corporations
according to the size of enterprises.
This co-determination system operates on three organizational levels:
First, the Supervisory Board. The Co-Determination Act promulgated by the SPD
government provided: a large enterprise with more 1,000 employees should establish
the supervisory board as its highest institution which was equally represented by both
sides of workers and employers, with both sides having the equal rights. All the
representatives of workers should be constituted by election. If the candidate of the
election failed to win a majority of two thirds of the votes, the chairman should be
appointed by side of the employer and the vice-chairman should be appointed by the
side of workers. The chairman of supervisory board had the right to double vote. This
supervisory committee determined such important issues as the budget and final
account, wage and dividends, expansion of construction and close-down of the
enterprise and was entitled to appoint and dismiss the members of the management
board which is actually charged with the day to day running of the company. The
workers’ representative to the management board should be proposed by the
employer.
Second, the Management Board. It usually consisted of three to four directors:
director of technology management, director of financial management and director of
human resources management, among whom the director of human resources
management was the most important person and he must gain full confidence from all
the organizations representing workers. The appointment of the director of human
resources management required the support of the majority of workers’
representatives in the supervisory board. The director of human resources
management was in charge of the affairs related to labor and human resources,
especially affairs related to workers in the company management such as
employment, wage, social welfare, etc. He also had close connection with the
supervisory board, workers’ representatives in the factory committee and the trade
union.
The trade union was required to participate in electing workers representatives in
the supervisory board and management board, but it didn’t control various workers’
representatives directly.
Third, the workers Committee. It was a comprehensive system representing
workers in the plant and constituted by democratic election. Its members should
include representatives engaging in different types of work in the plant. According to
the Works Constitution Act promulgated by the former Federal Republic of Germany
in 1972, in the enterprises with more than 5 employees having the right of voting,
three of them can be elected to the workers committee and all the employees at or
above the age of 18 could participate in the election. Foreign employees also had the
right to vote and to be voted no matter whether they participated in the trade union or
not; executive staff didn’t fall into the category of employees and hence were not
allowed to participated in this election; the term of office for members of workers
Committee should be three years and those who were incompetent in his work could
be dismissed at any time according to the opinion of employees; the employer
couldn’t dismiss the members of the Committee when he was in office or within one
year after he left the office; most of the members were not allowed to break away
from their own working post in the plant during their term of office, but one or two of
them could be allowed to do so only in large companies. No one was allowed to
hinder the work of the committee and to discriminate its members because of their

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work, and the members were not allowed to receive any benefit from their work,
either.
On the one hand, the workers committee had the right of co-determination on
social and human resources affairs, to the internal rules and regulations of the plant,
beginning and end of working time, arrangement of holiday plan, specific problems of
human resources such as recruitment and rating of workers etc. Without the
permission of the committee, the leaders of the company shouldn’t make the workers
work overtime or extend the working hours, install facile time stamp or other facilities
to monitor their employees at workplace, issue the rules on additional wages or bonus
and announce the termination of contracts on workers’ renting of apartments.
On the other hand, the workers committee shouldn’t prevent the leaders of
company from dismissing employees, but the latter must inform the workers
committee of their decision on dismissal timely because the workers committee had
the right to disagree within a certain limit. In the former Federal Republic of
Germany, a labor court was also used to settle industrial disputes, which was made up
of the following members: 1 professional judge and 2 to 4 jurors assumed by
representatives of both workers and the employer. If the dismissed person filed a
complaint to the labor court and the workers committee disagreed with the decision
on dismissal, this dismissed the person could continue to work on his original post
before the labor court gave its decision. If great changes threatening the interests of
employees took place in the plant, for example, the dismissal of a batch of employees,
suspension of production or close-down of the plant, the workers committee was
entitled to require the employer to carry out a social plan to compensate or mitigate
the losses suffered by the relevant employees, for example, to pay for the expenses of
compensation and removal, etc.
The workers committee had the right to send two of its representatives to the
supervisory board of the share holding company that it was affiliated to; and to
appoint a director of the management board to perform the duty of the manager on the
workers’ side.
The basic function of the workers committee was to carry out consultation and
negotiation with leaders of the plant and company. To this end, it must engage in
unique activities such as investigating into workers’ sufferings and reporting their
opinions on some problems, hence it served as a bridge of communication within the
system of workers’ participation in management. However, the law prescribed that the
workers committee wasn’t allowed to threaten the employer by means of strike. And
the labor court was established in enterprises with a large number of employees.
According to the law of the former Federal Republic of Germany in 1956, a
“general workers committee” should be set up in a joint company made up of many
plants.

4. Other Models of Economic Democracy

Apart from the former Federal Republic of Germany and Britain, other developed
capitalist countries also established and developed economic democracy models
characterized by workers’ participation in decision-making and management in the
post World War II period.
In France, an enterprise board was established in enterprises with over 50
employees. Made up of workers representatives constituted by election, the board was
aimed to solve problems in the operation of enterprise through consultation, especially

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problems of labor organization, employment and social services provided by the
enterprise.
In Belgium, an enterprise board was established in large enterprises and was
entitled to get information, propose suggestions on consultation and even make some
decisions, especially on the problems of how many hours the workers should work in
holidays and how much should be paid to them, etc.
In Switzerland, the management board of company began to absorb a few
representatives of the workers from 1977.
In Sweden, an act on workers directors was passed in 1973, which provided that
the local trade unions should appoint 2 workers and 2 candidates to attend the board
of directors of the company. In this way, the workers could participate in the decision-
making process of the company through their worker directors in the board who
enjoyed the right to participate in the meetings of board of directors, but didn’t have
the right to vote.
In Netherland, the law provided that the workers committee began to have the
right to participate in decision-making on the problems of security, old-age pension,
profit sharing, working time and vacations, etc from 1971. This right of co-
determination was extended to the wage scales, training, welfare and workshop
consultation etc in 1979; and it was provided that 7 to 25 members of the workers
committee should be elected by the workers with the term of 2 years, the chairman of
the committee should be worker, and the manager should no longer be the member of
the committee, but should give a report on the performance, financial situation and
operational policies of the company to the committee.
In 1974, the European Community issued a Green Paper which proposed that a
company should establish a representative organization for workers’ participation in
management of the company——supervisory board where the number of worker
representatives should be no less than one third of the total number.
In Europe, Italy adopted a special form of worker participation. Due to the strong
power of traditional trade unions and the great number of unemployed workers in
Italy, the owners of enterprises never supported worker participation. As a result, the
Italian workers’ participation didn’t take the form of cooperation, but the form of
antagonism, which meant the trade union was exerting increasingly greater influence
on decision-making of enterprise instead of participating in the decision-making.
According to the law issued in 1970, an enterprise with more than 15 employees
should have a member of the trade union which was a legal existence politically
among the enterprises, but the employer had the power of control within the
enterprise. The trade union usually played its role outside the enterprise by exerting
influence on the decision-making through labor contracts, but it gave up any form of
“joint responsibility system”. In 1976 when signing the collective contract, the
union’s “right to consultation on investment” was changed into the “right to get the
information” on major operational activities of the enterprise, but this didn’t change
the form of antagonism adopted by workers’ participation in Italy.
In Japan, “labor consultation” and “operation consultation”, with the participation
of highest leaders in both sides of unions and employers, were established.
In the U.S. an employee suggestion system was established. According to the
statistics in 1971, 6% of the companies with less than 1,000 employees implemented
this system, and among the 500 largest industrial companies within the country, 375
implemented this system. Under this system, if the suggestion of an employee was
adopted, a prize should be given to him; if his suggestion wasn’t adopted,
explanations and praise should be given to him. In addition, on some occasions,

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especially in the time of economic depression, the so-called “employee-related” form
of worker participation was practiced in some U.S. companies, which means when the
company was in face of bankruptcy, it would change its form of operation and
management by allowing its employees to participate in the joint management of the
company; or transfer its ownership to the employees who would then manage the
company by themselves. For example, in 1982, the Ford Motor Company, in order to
survive the competition from Japanese car producers and avoid bankruptcy, reached
an agreement to with the United Auto Workers which provided that consultations
should be carried out by both sides to make production a plan on reducing cost,
upgrading operational style and improving quality of product and that both sides
should come to consensus of mutual understanding in production and management.
In the economic democracy advocated by democratic socialists, apart from the
above various models of worker participation in decision-making and management,
there’s another theory of “capital democratization” characterized by the so-called
“worker participation in capitalists’ ownership”.
Bernstein described the spread of shares into the hands of petty bourgeois and
workers as one of the basic conditions for the peaceful evolution of capitalism into
socialism ages ago. Before and after World War I, this theory of “capital
democratization” was widely spread and selling shares among workers was described
as a means of evolution from capitalism into socialism. In the period after World War
II, some economists of social democratic party further preached that the selling of
shares to workers was just the realization of “worker participation in the ownership of
capitalist enterprises”, and said that this was “an important means of destroying the
employer’s monopoly of the means of production and realize joint ownership of both
employees and employers”. Later, this “capital democratization” became the
theoretical foundation for “people’s capitalism”, and was even reflected in the
programs of some social democratic parties.
For example, the 1954 Program of the SPD, said: “if the people without property
are not carefully helped to get hold of property, it’ll be impossible to distribute
income in a fair manner”. “Get hold of property” here meant asking the workers to
buy shares. The 1957 draft program of Austrian Socialist Party also said: “it’s
impossible that there’s any principle disagreement” with the acquisition of cheap
shares by workers and it required that “the promise to give the truth of the balance
sheet should be used as a precondition”, so as to “protect the rights of small share-
holders”.
Some economists of social democratic party described the purchase of shares by
workers and employee participation in profits as the primary and most important
factor of production democracy and believed that it could better “facilitate the
improvement of productivity” than the workers committee. Some economists of social
democratic party believed that the participation in ownership was sharing profits and
bonus. They advised the industrial enterprise to give the workers a supplementary
salary at the end of the year, which was 3% of their total income and implement the
system where workers pay capitalists for the “investment certificate” and they
believed that in this way both workers and the bourgeoisie could become “participant
of ownership” together. Some economists of social democratic party even described
the system of employee participation in profits as the most important part of economic
democracy, worker participation system and change of capitalism into socialism.
Some other democratic socialists advocating worker participation in decision-
making and management was opposed to this system of employee participation in
profits. Form example, the 3rd congress of the Trade Unions in the former Federal

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Republic of Germany once said in its resolution: “the trade unions of Germany
oppose the joint ownership of the means of production and the other forms of
participation. The joint ownership of the means of production within the existing
economic system can’t change anything by using its balance of power. No problem
can be solved by the so-called ‘joint ownership’. On the contrary, this ownership
attempts to replace the requirement of transforming private ownership of the means of
production (especially the means of production in the key industrial sectors) into
public ownership.”

5. Comment and Analysis on Democratic Socialist Theory of Economic Democracy

How should we view the system of worker participation in decision-making and

management implemented by the contemporary capitalist countries? And how should
we view the democratic socialist theory of economic democracy?
First we should know that the system of worker participation in decision-making
and management implemented in the contemporary capitalist countries was a
compromise made by the monopoly capital during the post World War II period
against the background that socialist system won new victories in many European and
Asian countries and that the struggles of the proletariat all over the world, especially
the working class in capitalist countries were running high, so as to prevent workers’
revolution and uprising and to prevent and overcome the intense class conflicts and
damages of production caused by class exploitation and oppression in capitalist
enterprises.
This compromise and concession, on the one hand, was helpful and important to
improving the workers’ conditions in capitalist countries; on the other hand, since this
system enabled workers to have a say in the enterprise and to participate in
consultation on problems of common interests, it improved the relation between
management institutions and ordinary workers and hence improved the industrial
relations to a certain degree. Therefore, it played an important role in mitigating the
contradictions and conflicts within capitalist enterprises and consolidating the
capitalist domination in enterprises and even in the whole country.
People who lived outside the capitalist system usually feel puzzled at the fact that
there haven’t been a revolutionary situation to overthrow the capitalist domination for
a long time and the working class haven’t rise up to get hold of political power in
capitalist countries where the highly developed productivity is still confined to the
narrow framework of capitalist private ownership. As a matter of fact, this situation in
the capitalist countries resulted from the various measures adopted by the bourgeoisie
there to mitigate the class conflicts, blur the class demarcation between the
bourgeoisie and working class, play down the class awareness of working class and
divert their attention. The worker participation in decision-making and management is
just one of these measures.
Moreover, in the development process, the bourgeoisie also utilize the worker
participation system to maximize their profits under the condition of modernized
large-scale production, and hence to gain the tangible benefits of improving the
economic returns of the industrial enterprises and increasing profits. The reason is
that, in places where workers participation system was implemented, the workers
were given more freedom which would give full play to their initiatives to exert their
capacity and wisdom and hence raise the per capita output value. Form example,

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during the period from 1972 to 1976, in the enterprises where the system of worker
participation in decision-making and management was implemented in the former
Federal Republic of Germany, the average per capita output value increased by 17%
whereas in the enterprises which didn’t implement this system, the figure was only
4%; in the 1,000 enterprises which participated the “National Association of
Rationalized Proposals” in the U.S., the income increased by US $570 million within
one year as a result of adopting the rationalized proposals of their employees;
similarly, in Japan and Britain, the ratio of expense to economic return in
implementing this system was from 1: 30 to 1:50, and in 1976, the Toyota
Corporation in Japan received more than 400,000 pieces rationalization proposals
which saved about 19.2 billion yen in expenditures, more than 45 times the expenses
spent in giving awards to employees whose proposes had been adopted.
However, all this is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that,
this economic democracy didn’t and couldn’t change the working class’ position of
being exploited and oppressed as wage-earners in the capitalist enterprises, and didn’t
change capitalist society and enterprises into socialist ones because the worker
participation system was carried out in the contemporary capitalist countries under the
precondition of the private ownership of the means of production. The nature of this
system is merely allowing the workers to participate, as employees, in the decision-
making and management by the employers and their agents to exploit and oppress
workers, and hence couldn’t bear any “great significances” given by democratic
socialists.
The first significance given by democratic socialists to the economic democracy
in capitalist society was that the worker participation system could “secure equal
rights of workers with employers”, hence “has abolished the phenomena that there is
no real freedom and equality in the capitalist society”, “has enabled workers to enjoy
the equality of participation in decision-making relative to man-made power
hierarchy”, “has turned the proletariat who was always the object of exploitation by
the ruling class into citizens enjoying the recognized equal rights and duties”, and
“has proved that workers has now become the ‘equal partner’ of the bourgeoisie in the
management of enterprises”.
Here, the democratic socialists were obviously using the bourgeois view of
equality to create confusion so as to cover up the truth.
As is well known, one of the important differences between bourgeois domination
and the domination of slave owners and feudal lords was that the former realizes its
dictatorship over the masses by formal recognition of equality of all citizens. That is
to say, it creates actual inequality and monetary privilege of the minority of
bourgeoisie on the majority of the exploited people by applying legal equality to the
people who don’t enjoy equality in possession of the means of production. Just for
this reason, the proletariat, in order to oppose the requirement of this formal equality
raised by bourgeoisie, grasped the weak point of the bourgeoisie in words: equality
not only should be formal equality and realized in the field of State, but also should be
actual equality and realized in social and economic fields, namely, the real content of
the requirement of equality should be summarized into the requirement for the
abolition of classes.
Then, have things changed after the implementation of worker participation in
decision-making and management?
It should be noted that there’s no changes in basic points. Although in form the
workers now has the equal right with the capitalists to participate in the decision-
making and management of factories and companies, in fact the means of production

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are still privately owned by the bourgeoisie and the workers hasn’t get rid of the
exploitation and oppression by capitals. Therefore, this “equality” in participation is
merely the “equality” under the prerequisite of inequality in the ownership of means
of production, namely, it is still only a formal equality.
And then, even in terms of formal equality, workers aren’t entirely equal with
capitalists in places where worker participation in decision-making and management
is implemented. In supervisory board, management board and workers committee
(take the former Federal Republic of Germany as an example) of enterprises where
worker participation is implemented, there are various restrictions to the rights of
workers’ representatives. For example, the law provides that in the election of the
chairman of supervisory board, when the votes of the candidates is less than two
thirds of the total, the chairman should be decided by the shareholders of the
company. And when the supervisory board makes decisions by vote, the casting vote
is in the hands of the chairman who is always the representative of the shareholders.
The workers committee can’t directly intervene in the investment direction and
important operating strategies of the company while failing to participate in the
effective decision-making process because of lacking special knowledge in details
within a professional field. Thus although the system of worker participation may
cause some workers to have an illusive sense of equal participation, this participation
in reality is merely nominal and doesn’t play a decisive role in production and
management at various levels. Moreover, the market relations between enterprises and
diversified self-governance of the countless decision-making centers will also cause
the principle of participation to lose its original meaning and the significance of
worker participation to be gradually weakened and even replaced by the actual
domination of experts.
Lenin once said, “‘equality’ is a deception if it runs counter to the emancipation
of labor from the yoke of capital”; “a democratic republic with present-day equality is
a fraud, a deception; here there is no equality, nor can there be. It is prevented by the
private ownership of the means of production and money, capital”1. Weren’t the
democratic socialists repeating these lies and deceptions when they crowned the
worker participation system in the contemporary capitalist system with all kinds of
beautiful and fair-sounding laurels of “equality”?!
The second significance given by democratic socialists to worker participation
was that it “combines the laborers with the means of production and opens the door
for collective ownership”, it was a “social reform that turns antagonism between
laborers and capitalists into cooperation and harmony between them”, and hence
became “the starting point of reforming the existing capitalist system and establishing
a new social system”.
The above analysis has proved that the worker participation system implemented
in the capitalist countries was a superficial and formal right of equality given to the
workers to participate in decision-making and management under the prerequisite of
adhering to the capitalist private ownership of the means of production and class
exploitation. Therefore, it didn’t combine the laborers with the ownership of the
means of production and open a door for collective ownership, nor did it really turn
antagonism into cooperation and harmony between laborers and capitalists. Instead, it
was a measure to further stabilize the capitalist private ownership and class
exploitation by weakening the class awareness of the working class and blurring the
demarcation between bourgeoisie and working class. Therefore, in the final analysis,
the implementation of worker participation under the capitalist system didn’t mean
1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 36, Page 340.

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the beginning of changing capitalist system and introducing a new social system at all,
but a reform carried out by the bourgeoisie under the capitalist system.`
However, this reform has unique characteristics of the times. In the past, in order
to maintain the absolute inviolability of private ownership of the means of production,
the bourgeoisie always used liberalism to oppose socialism, but now, it usually use
social reform to oppose the idea of social revolution; moreover, the higher the
development of capitalism in a given country, the more unadulterated the rule of the
bourgeoisie, and the greater the political liberty, the more extensive is the application
of the bourgeois slogan: reform versus revolution, the partial patching up of the
doomed regime with the object of dividing and weakening the working class, and of
maintaining the rule of the bourgeoisie, versus the revolutionary overthrow of that
rule. And the worker participation of capitalist countries just falls into this category of
reformist measures. Things just go as Lenin sharply pointed out: “a reform is called
reform (instead of reactionary or conservative measure) because it is a certain step or
a ‘stage’ in the change for better. However, all the reforms have dual characters. It is
also the concession made by the ruling class to prevent, undermine or eradicate
revolutionary struggles, disperse the power and energy of the revolutionary class and
blur their class awareness, etc.”1
In fact, the worker participation system in capitalist countries also has dual
characters. After this system was carried out in the Federal Republic of Germany for a
period of time, the newspapers there published an article which said: “the members of
trade unions begin to realize very late that most of ‘the managers on the labor side’
who are in the position of factory managers, not only change their positions in form
from workers to employers, but also change their ways of thinking. Under the
condition that the managers have a monthly salary of as high as 6,000 Deutsche Mark,
some of them suddenly find it difficult to maintain their original struggling ideal of
being faithful to the trade unions…”,2 the manager on the labor side and the
supervisory board usually stand by the side of employer in case of disputes between
the trade union and the employer.
Therefore, on the one hand, the Marxists should accept the struggle for reform,
and accept the struggle for improving laborers’ conditions under bourgeois
domination, and on the other hand, they should firmly oppose the reformists who
confined the intention and activities of the working class to the scope of reformism in
direct or indirect ways.
Lenin once said: “Reformism is bourgeois deception of the workers, who, despite
individual improvements, will always remain wage-slaves, as long as there is the
domination of capital”.3 The democratic socialist doctrine that economic democracy
in capitalist society was the starting point of reforming capitalist system and
introducing new social system was just such a reformist deception that must be
disclosed and opposed.
The third significance given by democratic socialism to economic democracy was
that it “can replace the revolutionary transformation of society and gradually develop
capitalism into socialism through more extensive worker participations in decision-
making and management”.
Since the worker participation system in capitalist countries was a measure
implemented under the prerequisite of adhering to the capitalist private ownership of
the means of production and to class exploitation, with the aim of better consolidating

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 15, Page 103.

2 Another Newspaper in Federal Republic of Germany, May 1, 1958.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 24, Page 1.

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bourgeois domination, how can it “replace the revolutionary transformation of
society” and how can it “gradually develop capitalism into socialism”?
Therefore, this democratic socialist theory of economic democracy was not a true
reflection of the significance of worker participation in decision-making and
management in the reality of the capitalist society, but the wishful thinking on the part
of the democratic socialists. And such an idea going against the reality just proved
that the socialism called by democratic socialists was nothing but a bourgeois
socialism which took some sort of reform based on bourgeois production relations as
socialism.
As early as in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels pointed
out: “The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions
without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the
existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements”. “In
requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to march straightway
into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should
remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas
concerning the bourgeoisie.” “A second, and more practical, but less systematic, form
of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of
the working class by showing that no mere political reform, but only a change in the
material conditions of existence, in economical relations, could be of any advantage to
them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism,
however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production,
an abolition that can be affected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms,
based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no
respect affect the relations between capital and labor.”1
This discussion of Marx and Engels on bourgeois socialism also incisively
depicted the true face of democratic socialist theory of economic democracy.
However, although the worker participation implemented under the capitalist
system undoubtedly bears the above class characters, this doesn’t mean that the
participatory democracy is peculiar to the capitalist system and can only be
implemented in a capitalist society.
Participatory democracy also exists in a socialist society, and only under the
socialist system where the socialist public ownership is implemented, can people
directly participate in the decision making, implementation and supervision process
that influences their work and life, and hence participate in democracy really and
completely.
In his reading notes on Marx’ book the Civil War in France which summarized
the experience of the Paris Commune, Lenin pointed out when he was reading the
“complete democracy” in the book: “the conditions of all this is : (use the
revolutionary flame and revolutionary enthusiasm) to wake up the working people, or
most of the residents, and enable them to replace the officials and participate in state
affairs——under the leadership of the proletariat, they must be led by the organized
and centralized proletariat” , “the conditions of all this is: reduce the working day to
8-6-4 hours; —— and combine the participation of everyone in production with the
participation of everyone in the management of ‘the State’”.2
It is obvious that Lenin just interpreted the complete democracy realized in a
socialist society as the participatory democracy of the working people. For example,
Bosch, a British political scientist, pointed out in his article Participatory System,

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 301-302.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 31, Page 184.

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Reform and Stability: “one of the deep-rooted doctrine in the orthodox Marxist and
Leninist ideology is that participation of citizens in politics and universal participatory
system can oppose the excessive power of bureaucratists and nationalists in the most
effective way.”1
People’s democracy is the intrinsic demand and inherent character of socialism.
Without democracy there can be no socialism, let alone socialist modernization.
Therefore, to develop participatory democracy in forms that comply with the unique
conditions of a given country in every aspect of social life is in line with the meaning
of developing socialist democracy. In this process, the democratic socialist experience
in establishment and development of worker participation in decision-making and
management is referential for us to some extent. It’s true that participatory democracy
implemented under the capitalist system can only consolidate capitalism instead of
change it, but if it is implemented under our socialist system, it will help us to build
up a better relation between socialist entrepreneurs and laborers which is conducive to
social stability, to give initiatives to all sectors of the enterprises and to finally
promote socialist economic development.

Section 3 Ideas and Policies of Social Welfare

The third aspect of the economic program of democratic socialism was its ideas
and policies of social welfare. The welfare socialism advocated by Swedish social
democrats even believed, “the socialism of social democrats is welfare policy” (Ernst
Wigforss). “because the aim of socialism is universal welfare, all that is done for
welfare is socialism, and the concept of socialism has a more specific trend of welfare
concept” (Herbert Tingsten).

1. Social Welfare Problem in Social Democratic Party’s Program

Social democratic parties give top priority to the problem of social welfare in
their programs.
For example, in the part of “Economic Democracy” in its Frankfurt Declaration
in 1951, the Socialist International said “the immediate economic aims of Socialist
policy are full employment, higher production, a rising standard of life, social security
and a fair distribution of incomes and property”; in the part of “Social Democracy and
Cultural Progress”, it said “the guiding principle of Socialism is the satisfaction of
human needs.”, hence “basic human needs must make the first claim on the
distribution of the fruits of production; this need not deprive the individual of the
incentive to work according to his capacity”. It also mentioned “Socialism stands not
only for basic political rights but also for economic and social rights. Among these
rights are: the right to work; the right to medical and maternity benefits; the right to
leisure; the right to economic security for citizens unable to work because of old age,
incapacity or unemployment; the right of children to welfare and of the youth to
education in accordance with their abilities;the right to adequate housing”.
Stockholm Declaration of Principles passed at the 18th congress of the SI in 1989
discussed various rights to social welfare from the perspective of human right:
“Human rights include economic and social rights; the right to form trade unions and
to strike; the right to social security and welfare for all, including the protection of
1 Bosch: the Prospect of Communist Social Reform, London, 1978, Page 108.

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mothers and children; the right to education, training and leisure; the right to decent
housing in a livable environment, and the right to economic security.” The principles
of declaration also pointed out with emphasis: “Economic rights must not be
considered as benefits paid to passive individuals lacking in initiative, but as a
necessary base from which to secure the active participation of all citizens in a project
for society. This is not a matter of subsidizing those on the fringe of society, but of
creating the conditions for an integrated society with social welfare for all people.”
The programs of social democratic parties in various European countries also put
the problem of social welfare at the top place.
For example, the Godesberg Program of the SPD in 1959 (the Program for short)
believed, “The goal of Social Democratic economic policy is the constant growth of
prosperity and a just share for all in the national product, a life in freedom without
undignified dependence and without exploitation”.
Then, how to realize this aim under the precondition of adhering to private
ownership of the means of production and class exploitation?
The Program proposed a basic solution, that is: “the implementation of an income
and wealth policy with clear goals”, “to guarantee just distribution of income and
wealth”. It also analyzed: “Income and wealth are distributed unjustly. This is not
only the result of mass destruction of property through crises, war and inflation but is
largely due to an economic and fiscal policy which has favored large incomes and the
accumulation of capital in the hands of a few, and which has made it difficult for
those without capital to acquire it.” It then pointed out that because “wage and salary
policies are adequate and necessary means of distributing incomes and wealth more
justly”, “appropriate measures must ensure that an adequate part of the steadily
growing capital of big business is widely distributed or made to serve public
purposes”. Meanwhile, the Program also provided in the part of “Social
Responsibility”: “The system of social security must correspond to the dignity of
responsible individuals”, “Social allowances of all kinds” “must be regularly adjusted
to the rise in earned incomes”; and “In order to cope with particularly difficult
situations in life and in special cases of need, the general social allowances must be
supplemented by individual care and social aid”.
SPD’s Economic and Political Framework Program for the Years 1975–
1985(Framework Program for short) further discussed the three basic aspects of the
SPD’s social welfare policy, with focus on the distribution of income and wealth. The
Framework Program pointed out: “the distribution of income and wealth and
distribution of living opportunities partly related to it have increasingly led to extreme
injustice.” It reiterated “a road that will gradually achieve greater justice in
distribution and at the same time facilitate sustainable economic development”.
Specifically, it means “while further raising the income level in general, the top
priority should be given to reduce these serious income disparities (between gainers of
capital profits and the wage-earners employed by them, between women and men,
between employees with higher education and those with general education and
between the employees within the industrial sector and the public service sector)”.
“All reforms that are conducive to reducing the original injustice of income
distribution should have priority over the State redistribution measures that cause
heavy burden on public finances”. It also believed “a fairer distribution is not only

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meaningful in itself, but also conducive to the realization of more extensive social
stability and better development of democracy”.
Secondly, the Framework Program believed that “social security is a basic
precondition for self-determination and self-fulfillment”, “social security is a part of a
aid society”, “the aid of the society should not only be practiced in the working life,
but also should be first given to the elderly, the children, the sick and the people with
disability”.
Meanwhile, the Framework Program also stressed the importance of “achieving
full employment” and “humanitarianism in the working field”. It pointed out, “in a
motile economy and within the scope of second-sighted structural policy, to ensure
that every employee has a job opportunity, but not always the same job opportunity”,
and at the same time, “has the working conditions comply to human dignity”, namely,
to protect their health and ensure that they have steady jobs, the improvable working
conditions, satisfying job contents and a social labor organization and the right to
participate in decision-making, “this is the centre of the social policy of the SPD”.
The Program of British Labor Party in 1982 said the Labor “is determined to
eliminate poverty and realize just distribution of income and wealth”. Given the
situation that there was a serious inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in
Britain at that time, this Program pointed out “our goal is to realize a large-scale
redistribution of income and wealth to ensure everyone has the right to receive a
decent income”. It specially provided “social care” and pointed out “the society has a
clear responsibility to try to provide the best care for its most vulnerable members”,
and “one of the top tasks of democratic socialists is to provide first-class social care
for all the people according to their needs instead of their paying capacity”.
The Program of Swedish Social Democratic Party in 1978 pointed out: “to reduce
the current disparity in income and wealth is a major goal of the workers’ movement.
The inequality in income and wealth at present must be reduced in order to distribute
the consumption opportunities in a reasonable manner and enable the consumers to
exert the equal influence on production. Therefore, the Social Democratic Party is in
favor of the unified wage policy of the workers movement and will redistribute
income through tax policy and social policy”, meanwhile, “more measures should be
taken by the government to satisfy people’s needs in various aspects such as in terms
of culture and education and in terms of establishing better medical facilities,
increasing children welfares, improving the care for the sick and elderly and
providing more opportunities of activity for people with disabilities, etc. The Social
Democratic Party plans to expand public service sectors to satisfy people’s needs in
these aspects”.

2. “Welfare State” Implemented by British Labor Government

After the British Labor Party came into power in 1945, it implemented social
reforms mainly involving a social welfare system during the period between 1945 and
1947. It was just these social reforms that enabled Attlee, the leader of the Labor
Government, to claim that a “welfare state” had been established in Britain in 1948.
Then, what are the contents of these social reforms that led to the establishment

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of the “welfare state”?
First, the British Labor Government reformed its health care system.
According to the law promulgated by the Labor government, the citizens had the
right to free medical care, and the relevant expenses should be born by the state
budget. This new health care system was enforced on July 5, 1948. Since the principle
of free medicare was soon violated, the law of 1949 entitled the Minister of Health to
decide the prescription fees. The law of 1951 also provided the other fees of medical
services and provided that one shilling should be charged as a fee for writing one
prescription. On the other hand, the law provided that people could choose their
doctors freely and the doctors who participated in this medicare program could
receive an extra pay according to the number of families that chose him as their
doctors apart from their fixed salaries. The law also allowed these doctors to continue
their private businesses. As a result, 95% of the residents registered in the program
and almost all the dentists and 90% of general doctors in Britain participated in this
medical welfare program. The British government changed its budget of 1951-1952
and prescribed that those who enjoy such medical services and facilities as fitting
false teeth and get the right lenses for their eyeglasses should be charged a very small
amount of fees (this fee increased by 2.5% in 1969). Thanks to this unified State
health care system, the medical services for residents were improved.
Second, the British Labor Government reformed its social security system.
The new security system involved allowances for new born babies, allowances
for child education, allowances for disease, unemployment and pregnant, and the
widow and old-age pensions and funeral allowances, and also provided that
allowances should be granted to people who had lost their capacity to work as a result
of industrial accidents or occupational diseases. In Britain, about 23 million insured
people were entitled to receive various kinds of allowances.
The funds of these allowances were made up of the premiums contributed by both
the insured individuals and employers regularly and the appropriation from the state
budget. For example, the social security funds in the year from 1949 and 1950 totaled
524million pounds, among which, 136 million pounds were the appropriation from
state budget, taking up 26% of the total; the amount of premiums contributed by the
insured, namely, the workers, was 185 million pounds, taking up 35.3%; the amount
of premiums paid by the employers was 175 million pounds, taking up 33.4%; and the
money from other sources was 28 million pounds, taking up 5.3%.
Thirdly, the British Labor Government controlled the rise in food price and issued
food allowance.
During the year of 1948-1949, this food allowance granted by the British Labor
government totaled 320 million pounds; and during the year of 1950-1951, this figure
amounted to 400 million pounds. In 1950, the price of bacon was three shillings and
five pence a pound, and then dropped to two shillings and three pence a pound after
the allowance was granted; the price of bread was one shilling and five pence a loaf,
and then dropped to eleven pence after the allowance was granted; the price of meat:
dropped from one shilling and eight pence a pound to one shilling and five pence; and
the price of fat: from three shillings to one shilling and eight pence a pound.

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 Meanwhile, the British Parliament also passed the national health welfare
(industrial injury) act, providing the extra allowances apart from the money
exclusively paid by the employers.
Thus, through the above measures, the British Labor government developed the
social welfare measures before the Second World War with the character of relief for
the poor, into a “cradle-to-grave” social welfare system with a wide coverage,
involving various aspects such as birth, old age, sickness, death, injury, disability,
orphanage, widowhood, unemployment and education, etc.
Following after Britain, many West European countries such as France, Germany,
Netherland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Belgium announced that they had developed
themselves into a “welfare state”. In the U.S., being preached by such Keynesians as
Hansen and Samuelson, the theory of “welfare state” also got increasingly strong
momentum. These Keynesians took the welfare state and the mixed economy as the
same thing and preached them together. In their eyes, the so-called welfare state
meant that the private enterprises produced material products while the government
provided increasing social services and measures indispensable for improving
civilization and cultural standards, such as social insurance, health care, housing and
cultural and educational activities, etc. Based on this, they argued that “all the modern
liberal democratic countries” in fact had already become “welfare states” where
individuals own the means of production while the government provides increasing
social services”.
This social welfare system was widely developed in capitalist countries from the
late 1950s to the early 1970s. The social welfare spending in Most of these countries
usually accounted for a half of the total government spending. From the mid 1970s to
1980s, since the capitalist countries fell into a state of stagflation after the economic
crisis, their social welfare system also fell into trouble and had to be readjusted. But
because of the increase of unemployment and the need to stimulate economic growth,
the governments in these countries had to continue to increase their spending in social
welfare, and when they stepped out this economic stagflation after the 1980s, their
spending on social welfare saw another growth. For example, from 1976 to 1980, the
proportion of social welfare spending in the total government spending was: 48.7% in
the U.S., 50.9% in Japan, 58.1% in the former Federal Republic of Germany and
56.8% in Sweden; and from 1981 to 1985, this proportion increased to: 52.4% in the
U.S., 51.1% in Japan, 58.8% in Germany and 58.7% in Sweden.
3. Origin of Welfarism and Reasons for Its Wide Development
Although the social welfare system and “welfare state” were widely developed
after World War II, this welfarism wasn’t the new invention of democratic socialism.
Instead, it originated from the some bourgeois and reformist social ideological trends,
especially the following four ideological trends:
First, the “professorial socialism” of the German new historical school of vulgar
economics in the 1880s.
Compared with the old historical school of thought, new historical school was
more enthusiastic in preaching class reconciliation and top-down social reform.
Composed of professors preaching bourgeois socialism on the platform of
universities, this new historical school tried to trumpet the supra-class character of the

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State and its decisive role in society and economy. They believed that apart from
maintaining social order and protecting the safety of its people, the State had the
“cultural and welfare purposes”, and hence it should take various measures to achieve
its social goals such as promoting cultural development, improving public health and
protecting the elderly, the children, the poor and the sick. Only when the State played
its role as the social economic centre, could the national economy be highly
developed. They preached the top-down reform carried out by the State by law, and
put the label of “socialism” on this reform while calling the Prussian State with the
dictatorship of feudal aristocracy and bourgeoisie “the people’s State” and “welfare
State”, so as to resist the rapid development of proletarian revolutionary movement
and wide spread of scientific socialism in the workers movement in Germany. Their
scheme was put into force by the Prussian Prime Minister Bismarck who introduced
social insurance system and tax rate reform for the first time in the world.
Second, the Fabian socialism in Britain.
The British Fabian Society established in the 1880s preached the reformist road
of capitalism “sliding into” socialism. It advocated the bourgeois universal suffrage
and parliamentary system politically and the so-called municipal socialism and
cooperative economically. According to Fabian Society, socialism meant expanding
the municipal authority’s ownership of the gas industry, electricity industry, water
plants and other public utilities and strengthening government control over private
enterprises.
Later in the early 20th century, the Webbs, major representatives of Fabian
Society, further preached social services for the sick, disabled, the elderly, children
and the unemployed so as to replace “the Poor Law”, and they were later called “the
first to fully formulate the concept and policy of welfare state”. It is just under the
direct influence of this Fabian socialism that the British Labor Government took the
realization of social welfare system as its program.
Third, the full employment theory of Keynes.
During the period between 1929 and 1933 after the world economic crisis broke
out in the capitalist countries, Keynes, a British bourgeois vulgar economist, raised
the policy of adopting financial measures, increasing public spending, reduce interest
rate, stimulate consumption and increase investment through the State power of
intervention in economy so as to increase effective demand and realize full
employment in his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in
1936.
The so-called “effective demand” means the aggregate social demand expected to
bring maximum amount of profit to the capitalists, and it decides the employment
actually provided by the capitalists. The size of this effective demand is decided by
three basic psychological factors: “the psychological propensity to consume”, “the
psychological attitude to liquidity” and “the psychological expectation of the future
yield from capital assets”
Keynes believed the reason why employment and depression appeared in the
capitalist society was the insufficiency of effective demand caused by the function of
these three psychological factors and the reason for the breakout of crisis was the
“sudden collapse” in the “marginal efficiency of capital” (market profit rate) caused

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by lack of confidence in the future yield from investment. Since this theory of Keynes
comply with the urgent need of the monopoly capitalist class to implement its state
monopoly capitalism, it was called “Copernican revolution in economics”, “the savior
of capitalism” and was also taken by the theorists of welfare state as the starting point
of their research.
Last, the welfare economics raised by Pigou, an English vulgar economist.
In his book the Economics of Welfare published in 1920, Pigou divided “welfare”
into “social welfare” in a broad sense and “economic welfare” in a narrow sense.
“social welfare” had a extensive meaning, which even included “freedom”,
“pleasantness” and “good family life” etc., and was hence “difficult to measure and
research”; however, the “economic welfare” referred to the part in the social welfare
that “can be brought into relation with a money measure”, and since it was composed
of the utilities of things, it could be calculated according to the unit price of a
commodity. Economic welfare was also the counterpart of national dividend. Pigou
said: “Just as economic welfare is that part of total welfare which can be brought
directly or indirectly into relation with a money measure, so the national dividend is
that part of the objective income of the community.” However, since money had
different utilities on people with different incomes, not only the size of national
dividend could influence the economic welfare, but also the distribution of national
dividend among the social members can influence the economic welfare to a large
extent. “There’re two propositions in the welfare economics. Briefly speaking, first,
any increase in one’s actual income will increase satisfaction; second, any
transference of income from a relatively rich man to a relatively poor man must
increase the aggregate sum of satisfaction.”
Here, proceeding from the law of diminishing marginal utility, Pigou proposed
the idea of transferring part of the monetary income from the people with high income
to those with low income so as to achieve equalize income. That is to say, because the
marginal utility of money for people with high income was smaller than that for
people with low income, the transference of money from high income people to the
low income people would increase the aggregate utility of money and hence would
increase the economic welfare. The transference could be conducted through the
channel of collecting progressive tax from high income people and then using the tax
revenue to establish social welfare facilities such as old age insurance, unemployment
insurance and medical insurance, etc.
The economists after Pigou took the “equal distribution of income” and “optimal
distribution of income” as the main object of their researches. Thus the appearance
and development of welfare economics provided an important theoretical base and
policy propositions for the theory of welfare state and greatly facilitate the spread of
this theory.
Moreover, there are many reasons for the implementation of these ideological
trends of welfarism, the formation of social welfare system and the widespread of this
system in developed capitalist countries.
Generally speaking, the emergence and development of social welfare system
originated from the need of the monopoly capitalist class for softening social conflicts
and consolidating its class domination in most of the cases.

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 For example, during the world economic crisis in the capitalist countries in the
1930s, the industrial, agricultural and financial crises broke out together. As a result,
the industrial output of capitalist countries was backslid to 30 years ago, and the
industrial production decreased by 37%-44%. In the U.S., about 10.4 million mu of
cotton was destroyed in the field; in Denmark, about 100,000 cows were killed by
man; in Brazil, England and Germany, huge amounts of coffee was thrown into the
sea; and on the other hand, the number of unemployed and semi-unemployed workers
reached as high as 45million and the unemployed workers demanded the “hunger
march” to “give us work to do”; the mass strikes led by the proletariat for
improvement of their own economic and political positions were increasing and the
class conflicts were aggravated dramatically while the extreme disparity between the
rich and the poor was threatening the whole society. Against this background, the
former U.S. President Roosevelt always warned the American capitalists by citing the
famous saying of Thomas Macaulay, a British Historian: “if you expect to save
yourself from the damage, you have to carry out reform.” It was just in this context
that Roosevelt proposed his “new deal” measures including government intention in
economic activities and the redistribution of wealth to a certain extent through tax
adjustment, which was the early form of welfareism.
For another example, the social reform implemented by British Labor Party
government during the period from 1945 to 1947 for the purpose of building Britain
into a welfare state was also a measure to prevent the revolutionary movement which
had overthrown or seriously undermined the capitalist system in many European
countries from spreading to Britain. This reform was in fact the concessions made to
the working people in order to consolidate the bourgeois domination. Just for this
reason, it won support and acclamation from the monopoly capitalist class in Britain.
Reginald and William Rootes brothers, famous British entrepreneurs, once announced
at a meeting of American businessmen in 1946: “the British businessmen …support
the Labor Government because it’s the optimal system at present, and the reliable wall
protecting Britain from becoming a communist country.” 1
It should be pointed out that a reason why social welfare system was also widely
spread among other developed capitalist countries after World War II was, to a certain
extent, that the victory of proletarian revolution in some European and Asian
countries had encouraged the people’s struggles against monopoly capital in the
capitalist countries and once again intensified the class conflicts there, which forced
the bourgeoisie to introduce this welfare system as an “automatic stabilizer” to
mitigate class conflicts and economic crisis.
Meanwhile, another reason for this wide spread of social welfare system after
World War II was that the capitalist system demanded the State to ensure
reproduction at the stage of State monopoly capitalism, and the social welfare system
just reflected this demand for ensuring the necessary conditions of the reproduction of
labor power by the State. According to the common interests and common needs of
capital, the State was increasingly taking the task of ensuring the reproduction of
labor power through social welfare. At the same time, the social welfare system also
reflected that the society demanded the State to readjust the implementation procedure
of the expanded reproduction of social capital so as to expand peoples’ demand for
individual consumer’s goods and mitigate the sharp contradiction between capitalist
production and consumption (because the increase of workers’ wages fell far behind

1 New York Herald, December. 1, 1946. 210

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the increase of production); reflected that the society demanded the State to readjust
the cyclic process of the reproduction of social capital so as to reduce the severity of
its cyclic swing; and reflected that the society demanded the State to maintain the
external conditions of reproduction. In order to avoid unnecessary disputes, on the one
hand, the bourgeoisie demand the State to centralize a big part of the total value of
social labor power by tax collection; on the other hand, they demanded the State to
redistribute this part of value in the form of social welfare so as to create a false
impression that the masses could enjoy all kinds of welfares, promote equalization of
income among workers and turn social welfare into a social buffer to mitigate class
antagonism.
The above discussions show the necessity of implementing social welfare system
in developed capitalist countries after World War II. Now we’ll discuss the possibility
of its implementation. Economically, with the emergence and development of new
technological revolution, the production and labor productivity in capitalist countries
was greatly improved from the 1950s to the 1960s, hence it was possible for the
dominating class there to provide high salaries and welfare for the working people
while increasing the relative surplus values and rates of exploitation; in addition, the
transnational companies enjoyed a rapid development after World War II and its
subsidiaries almost spread to the whole capitalist world, with a profit rate far higher
than that within its own country: this make it possible for the monopoly capitalist
class in the developed capitalist countries to provide higher salaries and welfare for
the working class within its own country after making lots of huge profits so as to
consolidate its class domination.

4. Analysis on the Social Welfare Theory of Democratic Socialism

Just the same as the system of worker participation in decision-making and
management, the social welfare system implemented by the developed capitalist
countries, on the one hand, is helpful to improve the living conditions of workers in
these countries and maintain their interests; on the other hand, is an important
measure for the bourgeoisie to mitigate class conflicts and weaken the class awareness
of the working class. Therefore, it isn’t the patent of democratic socialism. In
developed capitalist countries, the conservative monopoly capitalist class also
implements social welfare system when they are in power. But democratic socialism
conferred to it the unique nature and meaning of socialism so as to confound the right
with the wrong. Martelli, vice-president of Italy once said: “we live in a century
which should be called democratic socialist century and social welfare state should be
considered as the greatest achievement of our times.”1 In his book the Grand Failure,
Brzezinski also took welfare state and democratic socialism as two concepts with the
same meaning and used them alternatively. Then, it’s necessary for us to analyze this
theory through careful observation.
The first meaning given by democratic socialists to social welfare system was
that it was a “fair distribution” that “satisfies human need” by implementing
discriminatory tax policies, especially the progressive income tax, to different income
groups.
Since the social welfare system in the capitalist countries was implemented under
1 See Gorbachev and Brandt: Socialism in the Future, Page 281.

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the precondition of adhering to the capitalist private ownership of the means of
production, it’s groundless to describe it as a fair distribution that could satisfy human
need.
Marxism believes that before distribution becomes the distribution of products
and means of consumptions, it is first the distribution of the means of production,
which is another determination of the same relation in the distribution of the members
of society among the various types of production. The relations and methods of
distribution thus appear merely as the reverse aspect of the factors of production. The
structure of the distribution of product and means of consumption is wholly
determined by the structure of production, not only with regard to its object, but also
regard to its form, for the particular way of participating in production determines the
specific form of distribution, the form in which participation in distribution occurs.
“An individual who participates in production in the form of wage-labor participates
in the products, the results of production, in the form of wages.”1
Since in the capitalist society, the production conditions of materials are in the
hands of non-laborers——capitalists and landowners in the form of capital and land
property while the masses only have their bodies as production conditions, it’s
impossible to turn the distribution of the means of consumption in capitalist countries
from the distribution that satisfies the needs of bourgeoisie to the distribution that
satisfies “the human needs” no matter what social welfare system and progressive
income tax were implemented. Just as Marx pointed out: “tax collection is the
economic foundation of government machine, instead of the economic foundation of
any other things.”2
It’s true that the collection of “progressive income tax” can narrow the income
gap to a certain degree if it is strictly implemented. However, since 1907 when Britain
first adopted this tax system and other capitalist countries followed suit, the
progressive income tax system in these developed capitalist countries have opened a
door for the high income groups to evade tax. For example, in the U.S., the statistics
of income tax issued by the Treasury Department annually shows that the income tax
rate paid by the income groups with an average income of US$ one million is in fact
lower than those groups with an average income of US$ 200,000-US$ 500,000. In
1957, among the 19 high income people whose income exceeded US$ 5million, only
5 paid the income tax; in 1979, an American with a high income of US$20million
even didn’t pay any income tax at all. Similar things also happen in other developed
capitalist countries.
Apart from this, the bourgeoisie also crack their brain to transfer the tax burden to
the shoulder of the working people directly or indirectly. Things in fact don’t like
what the democratic socialists described: “to transfer the income from the rich to the
poor through redistribution”.
The second meaning given by democratic socialists to social welfare system was
that they described it as a “socialist human right”.
This doctrine is also groundless. The workers’ income from social welfare in its
nature is a merely a part of the value of labor power paid by the capitalists that is
necessary for maintaining and reproducing labor power, a kind of indirect wage, or a
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 13.
2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 315.

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modified form of wage, a new form of value of labor power paid by the capitalists.
This can be clearly seen from the source of social welfare funds.
The fund of social welfare first comes from the premiums contributed by insured
employees, which is also called social security tax (called payroll tax in the U.S.).
This insurance premium is directly deducted from the salary of workers in the form of
social security tax. For example, in Britain, employees with a weekly salary of 19.5-
135 pounds should contribute 6.5% of their salary as old-age and sickness insurance
premiums. In the former Federal Republic of Germany, the employees should
contribute 5.65% of their salary as medical insurance premium and 9% as old age
insurance premium. Moreover, this social insurance tax is constantly increasing, for
example, in France, the social insurance tax rate paid by employees grew from 12.9%
of their salary to 16.5% in 1982; and in the U.S. this tax rate grew from 1% in 1937 to
6.65% in 1981.
The second source of social insurance funds is the insurance premium paid by
employers. In the developed capitalist countries, the employers usually share at least
one half of the insurance premium. This part of premium is paid by the bourgeois boss
in form, but is actually added to the production costs and transferred to working
people by raising the price of products.
The third source is the funds appropriated by the government from its budget. In
capitalist countries, apart from the premiums paid by employees and employers, the
insufficient section of social welfare funds were supplemented by the State treasury,
especially the welfare allowances and relief funds for the low income groups and
underprivileged group are paid by the State treasury.
This part of fund appears to be paid by the dominating class is in fact collected by
the bourgeois State through taxes and most of it comes from working people.
Therefore, it is ultimately paid by the working class.
And the higher the social welfare, the more tax will be paid by working people.
For example, in West European countries such as Britain, Norway, Germany,
Netherland and Denmark, the income tax and social insurance tax paid by workers
account for 26%-35% of their salary; in Sweden, the single employees contribute one
third to a half of their salary to taxes; in the U.S. the social welfare paid by workers
account for 30.5% of their income before tax, and all the taxes paid by them account
for 31.2% of their income before tax. Therefore, in the final analysis, the social
welfare in the developed capitalist countries is merely the transformation of a part of
the value of labor power originally arranged and dominated by workers themselves
into the form of social welfare paid by the bourgeoisie under the unified arrangement
and domination by the State machine.
Anyhow, in the developed capitalist society, the workers’ income from social
welfare is the modified form of the value of labor power sold by the wage-earners. It
has nothing to do with socialist human right, for the socialist human right is defined
on the basis of the abolition of private ownership and class exploitation. The
Manifesto of the Communist Party announced: “the theory of the Communists may be
summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”1 The Anti- Dühring
pointed out: “From the moment when the bourgeois demand for the abolition of class
privileges was put forward, alongside it appeared the proletarian demand for the
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 286.

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abolition of the classes themselves.”1
The third meaning given by democratic socialists to social welfare system was
that it was an “income revolution” that could abolish exploitation and poverty and
lead to universal social welfare and class assimilation.
It’s rather groundless to give such a compliment to the social welfare system in
development capitalist countries. Just because the workers’ social welfare income is a
part of the value of their labor power, the rise in their social welfare income, although
may improve their living conditions to a certain degree, can’t change their positions of
being exploited and enslaved, let alone assimilate them with the bourgeoisie who
exploit and oppress them. When taking about the general law of capitalist
accumulation In Volume 1 of the Capital, Marx once pointed out: “just as little as
better clothing, food, and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the
exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker. A rise in
the price of labor, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact,
that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for
himself, allow of a relaxation of the tension of it.” 2
In fact, although the social welfare system implemented in the capitalist countries
has improved the workers’ living conditions to a certain degree, since it is
implemented under the prerequisite of capitalist private ownership of the means of
production, it has failed to abolish exploitation and poverty and didn’t lead to class
assimilation, instead, the polarization has been even aggravated. Take the U.S. as an
example, over the past decade, the annual income of the high income families which
account for 1% of the population has increased by 75% whereas the annual income of
those low income families which account for 20% of the population has decreased by
34.4%. As a result, the number of people who live on food stamps has grown from
2% of the total population in 1970 to 9.27% at present, and those who live below the
officially stated poverty line have numbered 39.3million, with 7 million homeless
people and 39.7million people not being covered by medical insurance. Britain is also
in the same situation: about two thirds of the country’s wealth and decision making
power are under the control of people who only account for 1% of its total population
and among the total population of 57.2 million in Britain, 4million live below the
officially stated poverty line; in Germany, 75% of the means of production in the
country and decision-making power are in the hands of people who only account for
1.4% of the total population; in Sweden, about 94% of the means of production are in
the hands of a few capitalists.

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 447.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 23, Page 678.

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Chapter 4 Ideological Program of Democratic Socialism

On the whole, the ideological program of democratic socialism can be summed

up as neutrality in its world outlook and diversification in its guiding principles. The
so-called neutrality in its view of the world and diversification in its guiding
principles mean that it no longer takes Marxism as its guiding principle; instead, it
takes ethical socialism, abstract humanism and critical-rationalism as its philosophical
foundation.

Section 1 Democratic Socialism and Marxism

The Second International and the various social democratic parties in West
European countries as its members had believed in Marxism before the emergence of
Bersteinism in the late 19th century. After the appearance of Bersteinism, although the
reformist practice grew increasingly within these parties, in terms of their theories and
programs, they still continued to consider themselves as Marxists, and believed
Marxism could provide irreplaceable ideology and methods for scientific social
analysis and socialist goals. This situation had lasted until after the First World War.
For example, the Heidelberg Program of the SPD formulated in 1925 copied most of
the Erfurt Program.

1. World-outlook Neutrality Is the New Characteristic of Democratic Socialism

However, this situation changed after World War II. Since the democratic
socialism of the social democratic parties rejected the Marxist view of socialism, they
no longer took Marxism as their guiding principle; instead, they took world-outlook
neutrality and diversification of guiding principles as their ideological program. It
should be noted that this is a new characteristic of democratic socialism which

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differentiates it from the previous social democracy.
In this regard, Braunthal, Secretary-General of the SI once said: “Marxism once was
the dominating ideology within the Second International before World War II”, but
after World War II, “reformism became the dominating ideology within the Socialist
International. Almost all the parties (members of the SI) participated in the
government (either independently, or by forming an coalition with the bourgeois
parties)”, and their policies was based on reformist ideology, namely, to achieve
progressive social development through implementation of nationalization of key
industries, social planification, supervisory production system and social security
system. Therefore, in the European democracy, Marxism was no longer the effective
force for the theory of proletarian revolution”, “Marxist theory could no longer
encourage the workers and was no longer their spiritual leader”, and “it was the
theory of evolutionary socialism that guided them instead of the revolutionary Marxist
theory”1.
This theory of neutrality in view of the world was typically reflected in the
following two programs:
One was the Frankfurt Declaration of the SI in 1951, which said: “Socialism is
an international movement which does not demand a rigid uniformity of approach.
Whether Socialists build their faith on Marxist or other methods of analyzing society,
whether they are inspired by religious or humanitarian principles, they all strive for
the same goal — a system of social justice, better living, freedom and world peace.”
The SI didn’t care whether the socialists believed in Marxism or other methods of
analyzing society and whether they are inspired by religious or humanitarian
principles, this indicated that it no longer took Marxism as its guiding principles and it
began to preach “world-outlook neutrality”.
The other one was the Godesberg Program of the SPD in 1959, which said:
“Democratic Socialism, which in Europe is rooted in Christian ethics, humanism and
classical philosophy, does not proclaim ultimate truths – not because of any lack of
understanding for or indifference to philosophical or religious truths, but out of
respect for the individual’s choice in these matters of conscience in which neither the
state nor any political party should be allowed to interfere.”
The Godesberg Program went so far that it didn’t mention Marxism in its
ideological sources at all.
Why was there such a big change in the relation between the ideological system
of social democratic parties and Marxism after World War II?
There’re many reasons. It’s no doubt that the fundamental reason is that after the
World War II there was a long period of smooth development and the class struggles
in developed capitalist countries was mitigated, which resulted in the phenomenon of
the so-called “integration” of working class into the existing capitalist system.
However, the direct reason for this change should be the wave of de-
ideologicalization raised by western bourgeoisie against this background and its
impact on socialist democratic parties.

2. The Wave of De-ideologicalization and Its Influence on Social Democratic Party

As for de-ideologicalization, we should start from the book Ideology and Utopia,

1 International Socialist Review, 1968 (9).

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written by Karl Mannheim, a German sociologist of knowledge in 1929.
In this book, Mannheim defined science as the objective and reliable knowledge
about facts and ideology as some kind of random judgment on social and moral
values. He believed the ideology of the dominating class was restricted by its
subjective interests and hence they couldn’t understand those things that wavered their
interests. Therefore, he believed that ideology meant “the collective unconsciousness
of some group in a certain environment makes this group or other groups fail to see
clearly the real conditions of the society and hence can consolidate it”.
After World War II, some western scholars such as Bell and Lipset in the U.S.,
Pope in Britain and Aaron in France, etc. further developed Mannheim’s theory. They
believed that ideology means political craziness which had definitely already
declined. But they were somewhat different from Mannheim: they didn’t use ideology
to refer to utopia, but use the decline of ideology to refer to the decline of Marxist and
socialist ideology. They argued that the ideology served the political purpose of some
people and was aimed to argue for the interests of the two sides of the struggle, and its
principles couldn’t distinguish true or false because they themselves were false and
usually distorted the facts. With the mitigation of class struggles in developed
capitalist countries and the so-called gradual “integration” of working class with the
existing capitalist system, some people said that class antagonism had disappeared
and there’s no room for ideology to exist and the it’s time for the “end of ideology”
and to replace it with science and get rid of its influence. Against this background,
they set off the wave of “de-ideologicalization”.
For example, Lipset said: in the western democracy, “serious intellectual conflicts
among groups representing different values have declined sharply”1. He claimed that
the ideological issues dividing left and right have been reduced to a little more or a
little less government ownership and economic planning; and that it really makes little
difference which political party controls the domestic policies of individual nations.
Bell believed that the old ideology had already lost its truth and persuasiveness,
“few serious minds believe any longer that one can set down ‘blueprints’ and through
‘social engineering’ bring about a new utopia of social harmony”2. He pointed out that
in the Western world there is a rough consensus among intellectuals on political
issues: the acceptance of a Welfare State; the desirability of decentralized power; a
system of mixed economy and of political pluralism.
Raymond Aron maintained, “in my opinion, except some stage in its
development, industrial society itself has widened the scope of problems related to
scientific observations and requires the skills of social engineers and even the form
and adjustment methods of ownership. It also led to theoretical and ideological debate
in the last century, which seems (at present) mainly in the technological field”3.
The neutrality in world-outlook and diversification in guiding principles in the
program of social democratic parties of West Europe just appeared under the
influence of this wave of “de-ideologicalization”.
Just as Eichler, a democratic socialist theorist, said: “in a word, under the slogan
of de-ideologicalization, people recognized such a problem: the Party has abandoned
the serious theory relying on some kind of political objective dogmatically and the de-
ideologicalization reflected in the program has indeed happened in the Social
Democratic Party of Germany.”4
Kurt Schumacher, who reestablished SPD after the Second World War, once said
1 Lipset: Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, London, 1963, Page 403.
2 Bell: The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties, London, 1985, Page 402.
3 Raymond Aron: The industrial society; three essays on ideology and development, London, 1967, Page 164-165.
4 Eichler: Introduction to Democratic Socialism, Bonn, 1972, Page 122.

166
in the preface to the action programme passed at the Dortmund congress in 1952:
“there’s no reason for us as social democratic party to blindly abandon Marxism
which isn’t outdated in terms of its two important forms, namely, economic point of
view and view of class struggle, for it has been indeed confirmed by the reality”,
“especially when we’re applying this method in analysis, it gives us more power,
knowledge and weapons than any other scientific and social methods in the world
do”.
However, not long after this, under the wave of “de-ideologicalization”, this idea
and policy represented by Schumacher was regarded as “ideological encumbrance”
that must be abandoned. In November 1959, Ollenhauer, chairman of SPD, once said
at the Godesberg congress: “it’s a complete non-Marxist attitude to require us to take
the principles of political program of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as the viewpoint
of our 1959 basic program. If we follow this idea, we’ll become a sect losing all its
political influence within a short time.”1
Brandt, a leader of SPD, said: “since the 1959 Godesberg congress, the Socialist
Party has no longer been the old political party relying on a certain theory and
viewpoint. Experience and wisdom tell us that in order to give play to our wisdom,
determine our important goals, and consider our future tasks, we must abandon this
system and doctrine, only in this way can we think and carry out actions.”2 For the
British Labor Party, since its ideological system didn’t originate from Marxism, but
mainly from anarcho-syndicalism, the “socialist” doctrine of Fabianism, Mill, Webb,
Bernard Shaw and Anglicanism, the de-ideologicalization meant getting rid of the
influence of Marxism. Morgan Phillips, General Secretary of the British Labor Party,
said at the drafting committee of the Labor Party Program in June 1950: “the British
Socialism can be hardly attributed to Marx in theory, practice and method of
organizing workers.” He believed that the idea of Marx that ask the political
organizations to carry out class wars “can’t be accepted by the British workers’
movement”.
The representative of the Labor Party of Netherland said, “The two world wars
have separated socialism from Marxism in Europe”.
Felipe Gonzalez, secretary-general of the Socialist Party of Spain, advocated
abolishing the wording of “Marxist party”, but still believed that Marxism was a non-
dogmatic theoretical instrument to analyze and transform the social reality. And he
proposed to absorb both Marxist and non-Marxist experience.
The Socialist Party of Portugal proposed not to take Marxism as the guiding
principle of the Party any more because the present times are quite different from the
times where Marx lived. The Socialist Party of Italy stated that it would continue to
take Marxism as a part of its ideological treasury, but also said that critical attitude
should be adopted toward the socialism of Marx and Engels. It maintained that the
theory of Marx and Engels on class war and seizing of political power by violence
was an overestimate of the revolutionary possibility and was raised under the
influence of extremist at that time.
Even though the French Socialist Party had always reiterated that it
unconditionally accepted Marxist analysis on capitalist society, one of its
representatives Paul Ramadier also said: “by the year 1958, believing in Marxism has
not been the characteristic of socialism” because “Marxism has been outdated”, and
“Marxist idea that social reform was the great calamity induced by the sharp social
relations and the necessary result of revolution has no longer complied with the

1 International Socialist Review, 1959, (48).

2 Neue Zeit (New Society) magazine in the former Federal Republic of Germany, 1972, (11)

167
reality. The social progress will be achieved through gradual and slow development”,
and “the evolution of capitalism is another new factor and capitalism will no longer be
established on the basis of private ownership of employers and free competition, and
this capitalism (except its origin) will no longer have relation with the private
capitalism that have been studied by Marx”1.
This wave of “de-ideologicalization” is reflected in the program of socialist
parties by swinging dramatically to the Right. This can be clearly seen in the
programs of the socialist parties in some European countries passed in this period.
First let’s take Austrian Socialist Party as an example.
In its 1926 program, the Austrian Socialist Party not only admitted that class
struggle was a means of overthrowing the bourgeois domination, but also believed
that in some cases it was necessary for the workers to carry out armed struggles, and
even to implement proletarian dictatorship in order to establish their political power:
“if the task of the Socialist Party was striving for the establishment of a democratic
republic at the early period of struggle, its task in the future should be to make use of
all the democratic means to overthrow the bourgeois domination by most of the
people under the leadership of working class and strive to establish a democratic
republic dominated by the working class.” It stressed that, “the bourgeoisie won’t be
willing to give up their dominating power”, therefore, “if the anti-revolutionary power
still kills democracy even though the social democratic workers’ party has taken all
the efforts, the working class can win the State power only by civil war”; and “if the
bourgeoisies resist the transformation of society (which is the task of the State power
of working class), if it damages the economy designedly and if it makes an alliance
with the anti-revolutionary power in the other big countries to carry out armed riots,
the working class will be forced to defeat the bourgeois resistance by means of
dictatorship”.
However, in its 1958 Program, the Austrian Socialist Party didn’t mention armed
struggle and proletarian dictatorship at all, and believed that class struggle wasn’t the
necessary means of abolishing capitalism and achieving socialism. This Program also
said: “only by taking social welfare as the starting point, can the problem of which
enterprises should be nationalized be solved”; as for “small and medium-sized
enterprises”, “they shouldn’t be nationalized in any cases”, “because the Austrian
economy is mainly composed of small and medium-sized enterprises, they will keep a
broad front for the private enterprises in the future”2.
Take the Social Democratic Party of Germany as another example:
The Prague Manifesto passed by the Executive Board of the SPD in January 1934
stated: “the task of the working class in the new State is to use the achievements of
the State to establish socialist economic organizations and realize the socialization of
the heavy industry, banks and big farms, but this isn’t the end, but merely the starting
point of transforming a capitalist society into a socialist one”.
Even the Political Program of the SPD passed at the Hanover Congress in May
1946 still said: “today’s Germany will no longer allow the private capitalist economy
to gain profit and income by exploitation and profiteer through capital and land rent.
The ownership relations in Germany now can no longer meet the requirement of
further development and has become a serious obstacle to healthy development and
progress”. “The socialization should begin with the industry concerning natural
resources and raw materials. All the mining and quarrying industries, metallurgical
industries (including the processing industry of semi-product), most of the chemical

1 International Socialist Review, 1958, (21)-(22).

2 View the Social Democratic System of Austria from its Program, Vienna, 1966, Page 58, 81-103.

168
industries and industries concerning production of synthetic materials, all the large-
scale enterprises, various public services and all the processing industries with the
possibility of developing large-scale enterprises, should be transformed into state
owned industries or enterprises”1.
However, the Godesberg Program of the SPD in 1959 included clear a provision
of protecting private ownership: “Private ownership of the means of production can
claim protection by society as long as it does not hinder the establishment of social
justice”.
The same situation of swinging to the Right also happened in the social
democratic parties of other European countries. For example, in the special
conference of the SI held in 1960, Professor 班牙恩格，a member of leadership of
the Dutch Labor Party, said: “If socialist movement wants to expand its influence
among the groups which are interested in socialist moral subject instead of becoming
sectarianism, it should break itself away from all the residues of the proletarian
ideology because with social and economic development, the proletarian ideology has
lost its attraction of the working class, and it doesn’t comply with the interests of the
‘new social groups’ at all.”2

3. The Attitudes of Various Factions within the Social Democratic Party toward
Marxism during the Period of De-ideologicalization

Encouraged by the social democratic parties’ practice of taking world-outlook

neutrality and pluralism of guiding principles as their ideological program, the Right
Wings within the various democratic parties stated that they would draw a clear line
of demarcation between themselves and Marxism one after another, and some of them
even hoist the ensign of anti-Marxism.
For example, Wentzel, a member of the SPD’s administrative agency, said after
the Godesberg congress: “the Social Democratic Party of Germany isn’t and has never
been a political party of Marxism, and it is impossibly such a party” 3. And the Ultra-
Right group represented by Taimill 泰麦尔, Peter, Schmidt, Jellinger, 巴乌梁 Wissel
and Arendt even asked the party leaders to officially announce that the SPD was an
anti-Marxist party.
On the contrary, the Left Wing members within the SPD opposed this anti-
Marxist attitude of the Right Wing. For example, High Nork, a German social
democrat, once delivered his opinion on newspaper: “It’s impossible to abolish
Marxism and this is the actual situation in reality. The Capital of Marx is a scientific
work which clearly points out the way to gain victory over capitalism by the method
of analyzing capitalist society”4
The Left Wing Socialist Youth of Germany announced in their Cologne
Manifesto their strong determination of adhering to the Manifesto of the Communist
Party, firmly condemned the anti-Marxism of the extreme opportunists and put
forward a principle of uniting the working class to oppose the resurrection of
militarism. At the party congress in the summer of 1954, some Left Wing socialists
also required to dismiss those who support the principle of extreme opportunism.
Before the convening of the Munich congress of the SPD in 1956, Nuremberg
organization of the social democratic party proposed the suggestion to the congress:
“Socialist system is the final goal of Social Democratic Party of Germany for ever”;
1 Documents of the SPD on Policy Development Since 1945, Bonn, 1973, Volume 3, Part 2, Page 85, 18.
2 International Communication of Social Democratic Parties, 1962, (26), Page 377.
3 Neues Deutschland (New Germany, a German daily newspaper), July 26, 1958.
4 Neuer Vorwärts (New Forward) of the Federal Republic of Germany, Jan. 29, 1954.

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“the policy of SPD should be reestablished on the basis of scientific socialism,
namely, the theory of Marx and Engels. All the local organizations of the Party should
hold meetings to discuss the issues of Marxism”1.
As a result of this stand and attitude adopted by the Left Wing socialists, the
leaders of SPD dared not allow the ultra-Right Wing to dominate the situation and
oppose Marxism openly. For example, at the 1954 Party congress, Eichler, a member
of the Party’s leading organization, had to denounce in his report the slogan of “we
aren’t on the same road with Marx” put forward by the ultra-Right Wing while
stressing the necessity of adhering to “Marxist tradition” within the party and
declaring that Marx is “in the same camp” with him2. At the 1958 Party congress, this
Eichler still admitted that Marx had disclosed the “class nature of basic characteristics
of the capitalist society”, and that the Marx’ principles on “the old capitalism” was
correct and “none of the sociologists or representatives of political economy is
sceptical about the real situation at the time”. He also admitted that “the class society
still exists and the private ownership of the means of production hasn’t been abolished
today”3.
However, conforming to the trend of “de-ideologicalization” and implementing
the neutrality of world outlook and pluralism of principles were the established
principles of the social democratic parties. Therefore, the Godesberg Program of the
SPD which was published a year later excluded Marxism from its guiding principles.
This attitude of social democratic party toward Marxism showed that even if the
words of Marx or Marxism sometimes appeared in the manifesto and declaration of
the social democratic parties, the meaning of these words was just like what
Economist, a newspaper of British monopoly organizations, described: “on the part of
social democratic parties, the role of ‘Marxism’ is much smaller than what is
hypocritically praised in their party manifestoes. In fact, those hypocritical
compliments are made for fear that the communists will become the sole successor of
Marxist authority among intellectuals and workers, instead of out of their belief in
Marxist theory or their attention to this theory.”4

4. Re-ideologicalization and Its Influence on Social Democratic Parties

After it had been prevailing in the West for a period, the wave of non-
ideologicalization encountered the social protest movement initiated by the New Left
youth in the West with the “May Storm” in France as its peak, and hence was
increasingly losing its momentum.
In the mid and late 1960s, student and worker strikes took place one after another
in some Western capitalist countries such as America, Germany and Italy etc. and
these strikes shocked the whole society. Among them, one with the largest scale and
greatest influence was the “May Storm” happened in France in May-June 1968, which
shocked the world as a model and symbol of youth and student revolts in the West.
This May Storm began with the protest of a few Left Wing students in Nanterre
College of Arts, University of Paris against the government authority which arrested
those who opposed American invasion in Vietnam by throwing bombs to the
American enterprises in Paris. Within a short period of ten days, the student strike
spread all over the country and was strongly supported by millions of workers, and
1 Neues Deutschland, July 5, 1956.
2 Neuer Vorwärts (New Forward), July 30, 1954.
3 Neuer Vorwärts (New Forward, May 20, 1958.
4 Economist, a British magazine, March 20, 1954.

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was later developed into students’ occupation of campus and workers’ occupation of
factories. The government had to assemble more than 10,000 military police and
police and send tanks and paratroops to the suburbs of Paris to quash the riot. The
students and workers carried out street battle with the police by creating barriers and
barricades, and attacked the Senate and the Stock Exchange. A revolution and civil
war was imminent. The “May Storm” ended without any fruits because it lacked
unified leadership, theory and strategies and tactics, and also lacked good organization
and strict discipline. However, the happening of this event itself showed clearly that in
capitalist society, not only the contradiction between the exploiters and the exploited
still existed, but also the decision-making power was increasingly concentrated in the
hands of the very few elites who advocate technocracy and the masses in various
sectors were experiencing a feeling of anomie and alienation. The role of ideology
wasn’t weakening but increasing. Hence theories of “the end of ideology” and “non-
ideologicalization” in fact began to meet refusals and collapse. Then People such as
Bell and Lipset had to give up this theory and put forward another slogan of “re-
ideologicalization”, boasting to create an ideology and theory that could attract the
masses and rival Marxist world outlook.
In the early 1970s, the capitalist production just entered into a period of
continuous decline and the political power of social democratic party as a ruling party
found it difficult to get out of crisis. Then under the influence of “re-
ideologicalization”, some social democrats required to carefully study the ideological
theory and policies of democratic socialism and make necessary changes so as to
adapt to the situation that the capitalist crisis was aggravated and class struggles were
intensified. In 1971, the SI began to establish special research center to study the
urgent problems in the theory and policies of social democratic parties; in 1973, the
SPD established research institute of democratic socialist problems; the Austrian
Socialist Party established the Renner Institute; and the other socialist parties also
carried out hot debate on party program. In short, within the social democratic parties
appeared a sign showing the recovery of ideological and theoretical activities, which
was called “ideological renaissance” by Kreisky.
However, it’s out of different motives that all fractions within the social
democratic party were interested in this “re-ideologicalization”.
The Right Wing expected to take it as a chance to get rid of the Marxist influence
remaining in the party. For example, Kingsley, a Swedish social democrat, once said:
“Marx’ theory, as a universal theory about socialism, has become a reactionary theory
today”1; 莱 特 霍 费 尔 , an Austrian social democrat, said: “Marxism is an old and
obsolete theory that is only related to a specific historical period”2. According to them,
“re-ideologicalization” meant putting forward a new set of ideology about the role,
tasks and goals of social democratic parties based on the idea of class cooperation,
“social partnership”, “alliance with the bourgeoisie” and anti-communism so as to
achieve the “modernization” of democratic socialism.
The Left Wing expected to bring a “Marxist renaissance” within the party under
the slogan of “re-ideologicalization” so as to push the social democratic party to the
Left. Since at the end of the 1960s and at the beginning of 1970s, the social
democratic parties in many West European countries absorbed a large number of New
Left university students and intellects who adopted a critical attitude toward the
opportunist practice of the Right Wing leaders and admitted Marxism to some extent,
the Left Wing forces were strengthened. These Left Wing forces tried to base their

1 Neue Zeit (New Society) magazine, 1969 (5).

2 Prospect Journal, 1972, (5)

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research on social problems on Marxism but their interpretations of Marxism were
different from those of the communists on the problems of the tasks of the working
class as the vanguard and the role of the party as a leading power, etc. They stressed
that Marxism wasn’t outdated and Marxist analysis on social problems should be
redeveloped.
For example, Uthai Junker, a German social democrat, said in his article
Democratic Socialism that Marxism wasn’t outdated and its meaning lied in its
method of social analysis used in the interrelation between the actual social economic
relations and political system and the interrelation between theory and practice. And it
also had huge influence on the upsurge of workers’ movement1. Lotte, a representative
of Left Wing in the SPD, when criticizing the Long-term Program of SPD (1973-
1985) for failing to carry out Marxist analysis on the social historical process, also
pointed out that the problem was to “redevelop Marxist analysis”. These Left Wing
forces also recognized that the social reformist of the social democrats couldn’t
develop beyond capitalism, and at the same time believed that it’s groundless to rely
on the restriction on the idiopathic nature of capitalism. Therefore, they demanded a
review of reform policies implemented by the social democratic parties so as to make
them have the clear character of “transforming the system” and “changing the system”
instead of maintaining and stabilizing the system.
The disputes between the Left and Right within social democratic parties were
developed into such a degree that they split into two independent political parties in
some countries such as Italy, Japan, Austria, India, Lebanon and Israel. This forced
the leaders of social democratic parties to reiterate their attitude toward Marxism in
the period of “re-ideologicalization”.
In general, they adopted a compromising attitude. On the one hand, they stressed
that Marxism and democratic socialism didn’t contradict each other, hence the
requirement that social democrats should completely break away from Marxism was
absolutely wrong. Eichler, a democratic socialist theorist said: “If we cater to this
requirement too rashly, we’ll deny our tradition, our theory of truth and the core of the
scientific principles that the society is based on.”2 On the other hand, they reshaped
Marxism according to the theory of democratic socialism. For example, Lattman, a
German social democrat, once wrote in his article Marxism and Democratic
Socialism: “The Marxism in its original form was just humanitarian, free and
democratic socialism.”3
In this regard, the speeches made by Bettino Craxi, a leader of Italian Socialist
Party, and Brandt, a leader of the SPD, can serve as typical examples.
Craxi said, “Especially because Marxism announced that all the people,
regardless of their class origin, family background and race, had the right to
inalienable liberty, it is till a part of the intellectual and spiritual weapons of
democratic socialism. Marxism wasn’t and isn’t correct on all occasions both in the
past and at present, however, it can be considered as an inalienable requirement of
democratic socialist spirit within the scope that it is just”. “In this sense, modern
socialism can be called Marxist, but can also be called revisionist at the same time”4.
Brandt said that Karl Marx was not only a great German, but also an elite
standing in front of the European emancipation movement. His greatest quality was
always his unremitting struggle for liberty, for people’s freedom from enslavement
and dependency and for emancipation, and this was also the theme of Marx’ ideology
1 Democratic Society, Harmony and Conflicts, Part 1, Munich, 1975, Page 139.
2 Eichler: Introduction to Democratic Socialism, Bonn, 1972, Page 41.
3 Neue Zeit (New Society) magazine, 1972, (8)
4 Socialist Affairs, 1977, Volume 2, (4).

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and practice1. Brandt stressed: “Many viewpoints and predictions of Marx has proved
to be well-founded”, “in terms of constantly seeking the relationship between freedom
and happiness, he is still considered as one of the most important democratic socialists
in the 19th century”. He believed that the work of Marx was meaningful to democratic
socialism in three aspects: First, he engaged in the social philosophy of individual
freedom and happiness according to the philosophical tradition of the European
classical humanitarian; second, he was an innovative social scientist not only in
methods but also in contents because he proposed and used dialectics to explain the
meaning of thoughts and the development of social economic structure in history;
third, he played a key role in organizing workers’ movement of the First International.
But at the same time, Brandt believed that they must deny and abandon Marx’ class
analysis on the capitalist society, his idea of breaking the bourgeois State machine and
replacing it by proletarian dictatorship and his conception of absolute pauperization of
the proletariat; he also believed that the Leninist understanding of Marxism must be
abandoned because it still related Marxism to the tradition of plotting in the Russian
underground revolution, etc.2.

5. The Reflection of Re-ideologicalization in the Program of Socialist Democratic

Parties

Generally speaking, during the period from the late 1960s and the early 1970s to
the mid 1980s, the wave of “re-ideologicalization” resulted in the program of socialist
democratic parties swinging to the Left.
For example, the Socialist Charter published by the Left Wing of the British
Labor Party in 1968 stressed the great significance of public ownership “as a real
instrument of the struggle for socialism”; since the Charter believed “private
ownership hasn’t been put under the supervision of the elements of common
ownership so as to be helpful to the socialist planned economy and hasn’t created a
vast space for developing various forms of public enterprises and democratic
management in industry”, it required to “expand common ownership”3.
In 1972, the conference of British Labor party passed a resolution to require the
next Labor government to completely implement the Clause Four of the Party
Constitution which clearly established common ownership of the means of
production, distribution and exchange.
In 1973, the Great Britain Labor Party Congress passed the Britannic Program
which said that the aim of the party was “to realize irreversible changes in balance of
power and distribution of property to make them conducive to the working class and
their family members and to create a situation where the party reports its work
completely to the society, the workers and the requesters”4.
For another example, the Declaration of Principles issued by the French Socialist
Party in 1969 pointed out that socialist transformation shouldn’t become “the sum of
reforms amending the capitalist defects”; and in the present French society, “the
system should be replaced by a new one instead of being amended”5.
The Epinal congress of the French Socialist Party in 1971 reiterated class struggle
and accepted Marx’ proposition that transformation of private ownership of the means
1 Marxism and Socialist Democratic Party, Frankfurt, 1977, Page 143.
2 Brandt’s speech at the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of Marx in Feb. 1983.
3 Tribune newspaper in Britain, June 7, 1968.
4 Britannic Program of the Labour Party, London, 1973, Page 2.
5 Working Class and the Contemporary World in France, 1973, (4)

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of production should be carried out so as to transform the capitalist society, abolish
exploitation and achieve the transition to socialism, although it still adhered to
pluralism of guiding principles.
In his preface to the Program of the French Socialist Party government in 1972,
the French president Mitterrand pointed out: “the Socialist Party isn’t restricted by
any dogmas and gets rid of official theories; however, Marxism is its theoretical
basis”1.
Similar situation also existed in the social democratic parties of the other West
European countries:
For example, in the 1971 congress of Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party, a
Declaration of Principles was passed to stress that the goal of the Party was to abolish
capitalism.
In 1971, the Workers’ Party of Norway passed its programmatic document Daily
Democracy which pointed out that “the workers’ movement will achieve the
restriction on private ownership so that no one can decide other people’s fate or
impede the development of democracy only because he has money, factories and
land”.
In 1972, when the Dutch Labor Party was discussing the problem of ideology
and policies, the problem of private ownership was one of the focuses of the
discussion. The vice-chairman of the Party 特西尤 said that the problem of modern
Netherland couldn’t be solved “within the framework of free business economy”.
In 1972, Tamburano, a member of the Central Committee of Italian Socialist
Party, published an article in the magazine of Socialist International which said: “For
socialists, it’s difficult to believe that the reforms carried out in Britain and the
Scandinavian countries can realize socialism or lead these countries to the road
toward socialism”2.
In 1976, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party passed a resolution which pointed
out: “the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party is a socialist party because its program and
activities are more advanced than capitalist methods of production and can ensure that
the working class not only have the possibility to seize the political power, but also to
seize the economic power and implement public ownership of the means of
production, distribution and exchange”; “our ideas deny all the roads that
accommodate to capitalism or implement simple transformation”. The resolution also
pointed out: “we’re a Marxist party because we accept the scientific method which
instructs us that the transformation of capitalist society must be accompanied by class
struggles which are a driving force of history”. 3
However, more dramatic changes could be found in the programs of the Social
Democratic Party of Germany.
As is mentioned above, in its 1959 Godesberg Program, the SPD didn’t even
mention a single word about Marxism in its guiding principles; but it once again put
forward Marxism in its draft programs after the mid 1980s. In June 1985, the SPD
Program Committee published a draft party program and in a chapter about the basic
principles, it said: “the European democratic socialism is rooted in classical
philosophy, Marxism and Christian social ethics.”
In August 1986, the new draft program of the SPD passed at the Nuremberg
congress changed its wording: “the ideological sources of the European democratic
socialism are humanitarian philosophy, Christianity, Marxist theory of history and

1 Change the Life, Society and Government Program, Paris, 1972, Page 8.
2 Socialist Affairs, 1974 (2).
3 Socialist Affairs, 1977 (2).

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society and the experience of workers’ movement.” This wording is still kept in the
Party’s New Berlin Program.
This swinging-to-the-Left situation was also reflected in the resolutions of the
Socialist International. Previously, the SI believed that it could restrain the
spontaneity of capitalism and the reformist policies could led to the fundamental
change of capitalism. Therefore, in its Frankfort Declaration in 1951, it believed that
it had laid a “foundations of a socialist society” in the capitalist countries.
However, being faced with the capitalist economic crisis starting from the
beginning of 1970s and the re-ideologicalization within the social democratic parties,
the SI had to reconsider its principles and finally in the Albufeira Declaration passed
at its 16th congress in 1983, it admitted that its overoptimistic estimation in the 1950s
was a groundless “fantasia” and “idyll”, for what it faced today was in fact “a wild
confusion”.

6. Influence of the Theory of Post-Industrial Society on Democratic Socialism

However, because democratic socialism in its nature is an ideological system

based on theory of evolution and reform instead of revolutionary Marxism, its swing
to the Left was very limited and had to be an expedient measure to adapt to the
situation. Therefore, after the mid 1980s when some of the traditional voters of the
socialist parties began to support the new conservatives or “green party”, the socialists
began to reconsider the meaning of this process happening in the capitalist world and
then resorted to the theory of “post-industrial society” when they were arguing for
their answers to the problem and their action plans.
The so-called theory of post-industrial society refers to the theory based on a
book The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society: A Venture into Social Forecasting
written by professor Bell in Harvard University of America in 1973. The book
summarized and predicted the development of the aspects related to productive forces
and believed that the new technological revolution had brought about the
development of productive forces, led to changes in industrial structure, economic
structure, production scale, social division of labor, organization of production and
economic management system, enabled knowledge and intelligence to play an
increasingly important role in the economic and social development and become the
key to competitiveness and economic achievements of the enterprises. Meanwhile, it
believed that information technology had created a new era where brainwork was
partly replaced by machinery and led to changes in means of labor and rises in the
production efficiency of mental work of mankind and hence accelerated the
development of economy. It uses these as evidence to prove that the new
technological revolution was creating favorable conditions for the evolution of
capitalist society into a new civilization and new society. The publication of this book
produced great sensation in the West. Some believed it summarized those obvious and
continuous changes which were just happening in the social and economic structure,
class structure and political and legal organizations of the Western world and provided
a new “post-Marxist” theory on social development.
In fact, while displaying to people vividly and specifically the scene that science
is turning into direct productive force under the new technological revolution, this
theory contains many serious mistakes. For example, it divides social formations and
stages of social developments simply by economic and technological level regardless
of relations of production; it absolutizes the role of production technology in social

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development and dreams that scientific and technological development will
automatically lead to the reform in capitalist relation of production and social system;
it also exaggerates the rising of managerial personnel and increasing role of
intellectuals of science and technology in production and takes this as the appearance
of new ruling class, meritocracy, pre-eminence of the professional and technical class,
the loss of the leading role of capitalist class in society and change in relations of
social conflicts.
But the democratic socialism developed its ideological system just according to
this theory of post-industrial society in its third theoretical wave of development after
the mid 1980s. Its main ideas involve:
First, it believed that the developed capitalist countries were entering into a new
stage of “post-material values” where all the results brought about by these post-
material values took a dominating position in various fields of economic, social,
political and spiritual life. Social democrats basically reflected the material needs of
the working people in its political requirement in the past. But with the satisfaction of
these needs, the process during which the “material factors” were replaced by “post-
material values” were going on and these “post-material values” stressed the quality
of life, or the content of life, for example, the self-actualization of personality,
democratic participation, environmental protection and prevention of new war cloud.
Second, it believed that the representatives of the “new middle class”, such as
engineering technical personnel, highly skillful workers in modern economic sectors,
doctors, teachers, legal workers, scholars and workers in public information sectors,
were a reflection of the “post-material values” and their proportion in the structure of
Western society were increasing. Therefore, the future belonged to those parties which
could fully and completely reflect the “post-material values” of this ever expanding
social group. Meanwhile, given the situation that the number of industrial workers
was decreasing as a result of new technological revolution, it also proposed to
establish a “new social alliance” considering the feeling and needs of the “new middle
class” with social democratic parties at its center.
Third, it believed that its economic strategy which was determined in the transition
from “mechanical civilization” to “electronic civilization” should not be blind
modernization and static policies of economic balance, but the policies that carried
out social management to the new technical process in the economy, which meant that
the paradigm of the economic policy of social democratic party should be changed
into participation in management and ownership.
All these clearly indicate that social democratic parties are replacing Marxism
with the bourgeois theory of social development in its guiding principles when it’s
faced with the new changes in the contemporary world.
Then, how about the attitude of the Left Party which has gradually become silent
since the 1970s toward this new development tendency of social democratic parties?
德 特 莱 福 , a professor of politics in University of Bremen in Germany and a
social democrat who called himself a Left Wing socialist, expressed his opinions in
his article Why Is Marxism Still Organized in the Social Democratic Party of
Germany Today?
He believed that Marxism wasn’t a final theory and it must adapt to the new
challenges brought about by the capitalist relations. Marx’ motto “doubt everything”
should and must also be applied to his and his students’ ideas. Since the core of the
capitalist society was its motility, and its tendency of endlessly exploiting people and
the nature, Marxism shouldn’t be conservative and complacent, instead, it should pay
attention to all the theories, analyses and strategies intended to develop socialism and

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to the efforts that make them excel capitalist groups at present. On the other hand, a
social democratic party shouldn’t be complacent about taking Marxism as an outdated
theory and refusing its help. It’s impossible for it to talk about peace with the
capitalism and since the centre of the Western world (including the Federal Republic
of Germany) suffered from the pain of unemployment, struggles must be carried out
to change this situation. So, for a party caring for the interests of workers or the
majority of the residents, it’s unavoidable to break with the “structural defects” of this
system. Thus the road it took would again comply with those ideas that had formed
the core of Marxism over the past 100 years. He believed the facts that batches of
traditional voters of social democratic party didn’t participate in the voting and more
people in the younger generation turned to vote for the Green Party showed that the
masses were asking the party to give answers that were different from its present
ruling practice. He also said that Schmitt’s fall from power had already partly buried
the Party’s optimistic attitude toward the future and imprudent faith in “market
economy” displayed in the Godesberg Program, and buried its attitude of abandoning
Marxism in the Program.1

Section 2 Democratic Socialism and Ethical Socialism

After World War II, democratic socialists flatly rejected Marxist view of
socialism and no longer took Marxism as their guiding principle; instead, they took
the neutrality of world outlook and pluralism of guiding principles as their ideological
program. Then, what’s the philosophical basis of this ideological program?
As for this question, if we make a rough analysis on the account of socialism in
the programs of socialist parties, we’ll easily find out that one of the philosophical
bases of this ideological trend of democratic socialism is the ethic socialism of neo-
Kantianism.

1. The Programs of Socialist Parties Take Ethical Socialism as Its Philosophical Basis

The ethical socialism in the program of socialist parties was mainly reflected in
the following four aspects:
First, it flatly denied the historical inevitability of socialism and took socialism as
a moral need.
In the “Preface” to Frankfort Declaration in 1951, the Socialist International
clearly declared that “the achievement of Socialism is not inevitable. It demands a
personal contribution from all its followers”.
Marxism announced the inevitability of the replacement of capitalism by
socialism by analyzing the basic contradiction of a capitalist society and its reflection
in the economic life and class relations and said: “The fall of bourgeoisie and the
victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” 2 Why did the democratic socialism
deny this inevitability?
It turned out that the democratic socialism completely denied that there were
objective laws in social development and that the direction of social development
could be predicted according to these laws. For example, Eichler, a theorist of the
SPD, said: “the initiatives of people are controlled by their conscious or unconscious

1 Neue Zeit (New Society) magazine, 1983, (3)

2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 284..

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motives and the conflicts between various social forces lead to a parallelogram which
synthesizes these forces. It’s impossible to predict this parallelogram scientifically and
hence this prediction can’t be done in the predictable future.” 1
Meanwhile, the democratic socialists also made the regularity and inevitability of
social development absolutely antagonistic to people’s wills and activities, and it
seemed that if they acknowledged the inevitability of the realizing socialism, there
would be no room for people to carry out conscious historical activities; and people’s
wills and activities were independent of economic foundation. Peter Klotz, a social
democrat, said that it’s undoubted that democratic socialism must set great goals, but
it should beware of falling into “historism” and “Historical Theology” which seemed
to realize the “inevitability” of the historical process and even to realize the historical
“truth”2.
After denying the objective inevitability of the realization of socialism, what was
left for the democratic socialism was to take socialism as some sort of ethics and
subjective wishes, for it seemed that the factor of personal wills could only take a
certain religious and ethical standard as its goal.
Second, it summed up socialism as a kind of moral protest.
The Declaration of Socialism and Religion passed at the special conference of the
SI in Bentveld in 1953 believed, “socialism is a protest against the depreciation of
human dignity in modern society and it announces that man has his dignity”;
“Socialist policy is a specific expression of ethics. The source of these ethics may be
religious or non-religious”.
The Godesberg Program of the SPD in 1959 also said: “The Socialist movement
… began as a spontaneous moral protest of wage earners against the capitalist
system.”
Democratic socialists believed that their opposition to capitalism and the so-
called totalitarianism was just based on moral principles. The Frankfurt Declaration of
the SI in 1951 said: “Socialists oppose capitalism not only because it is economically
wasteful and because it keeps the masses from their material rights, but above all
because it revolts their sense of justice. They oppose totalitarianism in every form
because it outrages human dignity.”
Third, it summed up socialism as a lasting task to achieve freedom, justice and
solidarity through democracy.
In 1986, the Lima Mandate passed at the 17th congress of the SI believed,
“socialism is a movement striving for human emancipation by means of
democratizing the political, economic, social and cultural structures of both domestic
society and world community”; “democratic socialism is not only the socialization of
property and planificaiton of government, although both of them are very likely to be
the means to achieve this aim. It is by no means a fixed blueprint of an economic
system, but the realization of such basic values as freedom, justice and solidarity
through democracy”.
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) specially stressed that this was a
lasting task. For example, in its 1959 Godesberg Program, it said: “Freedom, justice
and solidarity, which are everyone’s obligation towards his neighbours and spring
from our common humanity, are the fundamental values of Socialism”, “Socialism is
a constant task”.
SPD’s Economic and Political Framework Program for the Years 1975–1985
again stressed that “socialism is a constant task”, and argued: “democratic socialism

1 Eichler: Introduction to Democratic Socialism, Page 107.

2 See Nellingen, Rolmar: the postscript of the book What is Left in Socialism?, Hannover, 1968, Page 110. ;

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neither promises to establish a paradise on earth and solve all the problems of
mankind, nor is it a perfect plan of a new social system. Instead, it is achieved by
striving for and protecting freedom, justice and solidarity and at the same time by
being tested in freedom, justice and solidarity, and this is the reason why socialism is
and will continue to be a constant task.” The Framework Program also said: “The
decisions to give support to socialism may be driven by different motives. The
conformability of democratic socialism…is rooted in the same political goal based on
the common fundamental moral values which are freedom, justice and solidarity. The
basic political and social requirements of democratic socialism just developed from
the decisions to give support to the above fundamental values.”
Finally, it stressed that “People are the objectives”.
In June 1962, the World Today: the Socialist Perspective passed at the Council
conference of SI in Oslo said: “We democratic Socialists proclaim our conviction that
the ultimate aim of political activity is the fullest development of every human
personality.” Based on this, it criticized: “Communism and capitalism point back to an
age where human beings were treated as raw materials and not as the source and
objective of all efforts”, and “we repudiate alike the soulless tyranny of Communism
and the wasteful injustice of capitalism”.
Why are these accounts in the programs of socialist parties described as “ethical
socialism”? What’s the dividing line between “this ethical socialism” and the
scientific socialism of Marxism?

2. Kant and His “Categorical Imperatives” Which “Takes Man as Purpose”

In order to make clear the meaning and origin of “ethical socialism”, we should
first discuss the German classical philosopher Kant and the later neo-Kantianism.
Immanuel Kant, the founder of German classical philosophy, was born in
Königsberg of East Prussia and once studied and taught at the Philosophy Department
of University of Königsberg. His philosophy was the continuity and sublimation of
the French revolutionary spirit in the 18th century, but it also reflected the dual
character of German bourgeoisie who demanded revolution while being coward and
timid.
During the period of “Pre-critique” before 1770, Kant laid down the Nebular
hypothesis about the evolution of celestial bodies and proposed the hypothesis of the
existence of galactic cosmos outside our Milky Way Galaxy, developed the theory of
the retardation of the rotation of the earth as a result of tidal friction and the theory of
relativity between movement and stillness. These researches on materialistic ideas of
the natural development of the universe and earth once played an important role in the
formation of dialectics. Kant also gave priority to experience and restrict the role of
the thinking method of formal deduction.
During the critique period after 1770, Kan published such works as Critique of
Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment, etc., which
discussed the theory of epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and purposiveness of the
“critique”. These works of Kant in the “Critique” period pointed out that it’s
impossible to establish the system of speculative philosophy without studying the
forms of cognition and the boundary of our faculty of cognition. Based on this, he
came to a conclusion of agnosticism and claimed that the nature of things-in-
themselves was unknowable, and we could only understand the “phenomenon”, or the

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visible form of things in our experience. The theoretical knowledge could only exist
in mathematics and natural science. The reason why we possibly had reliable
theoretical knowledge was that we have in our consciousness the form of sensuous
intuition, a priori form of understanding, intellectual concept and a priori form of
connections. Kant believed there existed uncontrollable intention looking for
unconditional knowledge in reason, and this intention came from the highest ethical
needs.
However, ethical socialism wasn’t put forward by Kant himself, but by his
followers according to his theories of practical reason, “Categorical Imperatives” and
“man is the purpose”.
In his work Critique of Pure Reason, Kant tried to play down theoretical reason
so as to provide evidence for the limits of knowledge, confine reason within the
narrow limits of subjective experience and prove that “things-in-themselves” or the
objective world was unknowable. However, in his work Critique of Practical Reason,
he cried up “practical reason”, but the so-called “practical” here referred to mental
activities instead of material activities; and the practical reason here referred to the
will interpreted by the spirit of religious idealism.
From practical reason, Kant deduced a moral imperative which existed
congenitally without empirical nature, an imperative that was related to duty and what
ought to be done and that must be absolutely followed by all——“Categorical
Imperatives”. Kant’s described “categorical imperatives” in this way: “Act only
according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become
a universal law. Only under this condition, can the will never be self-contradictory,
and this imperatives is absolute.”1
By applying this pure form of categorical imperatives to the specific events in life,
Kant put forward the “practical imperative” that humanity was the end in-itself: “man
and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to
be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern
himself or other rational beings, must be always regarded at the same time as an end”.
“Accordingly the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to treat humanity,
whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal,
never as means only”2.
Since Kant believed man got return for his welldoing from his life in the heaven
instead of from his life in the underworld, his theory that humanity was the end-in-
itself directly led to the argumentation for such religious doctrines as freedom of will,
immortality of the soul and “Kingdom of God”. In his Critique of Practical Reason,
he wrote: “the moral laws lead through the conception of the summum bonum as the
object and final end of pure practical reason to religion, that is, to the recognition of
all duties as divine commands.”3

3. Ethical Socialism of Neo-Kantianism

Neo-Kantianism is a school of the Modern Western Philosophy.

From the 1840s to 1870s, Marxism gained victory over all the other (karşıt )

1 Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, See the Chinese translation version published by the
Commercial Press, Page 51.
2 Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, See the Chinese translation version published by the
Commercial Press, Page 42-43
3 Kant: Critique of Practical Reason, See the Chinese translation version published by the Commercial Press,
Page 132.

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hostile ideological systems and took the dominant position in the workers’ movement.
This rapid maturity of proletariat in theory forced the bourgeoisie to go back to Kant
to seek ideological weapons in their sharp antagonism to proletariat. “Just as a
defeated army which retreats to look for its stronghold with the expectation to re-
gather its forces and rally, the slogan of ‘back to Kant’ is heard all over the
philosophical circle” (said by Langue, a neo-Kantian). This is the origin of neo-
Kantianism which, under the banner of Kant, further developed the idealistic elements
in Kant’ philosophy such as agnosticism, metaphysics and the mysterious moral law
and has denied the materialistic element in his philosophy about the objective
existence of “things-in-themselves”.
As early as 1865, in his book Kant and His Inferior Successors, Otto Liebmann
put forward the slogan of “back to Kant”, which marked the official birth of neo-
Kantianism. In years between 1870s-1880s, Neo-Kantianism began to be widely
spread.
In his book Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der
Gegenwart (History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance), Langue
put forward the basic philosophical viewpoints of neo-Kantianism systematically.
Based on some materials of the modern physiology in the first half of the 19 th century,
he absolutely exaggerated the influence of organoleptic physiological attribute on
sense and took it as the basic source of knowledge while denying the objective
existence with regularity and necessity independent of man’s will and thinking it was
determined by man’s histoorgan.
The Freiburg School (also called Baden school or Southwest School) represented
by Windelband and Rickert believed that philosophy shouldn’t study the problems of
objective reality because it only involved things within the scope of people’s
knowledge and the object of knowledge was created by transcendental sense or
people’s mind. This School put history social science completely antagonistic to
natural science and believed that there wasn’t anything universal in the history and
that historical regularity was self-contradictory in its definition. It also attacked
Marxism by saying that Marxism only admitted material value instead of spiritual
value.
The Marburg School represented by Cohen and Natorp maintained that the
essential task of philosophy was to lay down the logic foundation of scientific
knowledge. They expounded and proved the basic viewpoints of neo-Kantianism
from the perspective of pure conception and mathematics and believed that both the
form and content of knowledge were the creation of pure thinking and hence were
subjective and relative. This Marburg School especially pointed out the relationship
between neo-Kantianism and Marxism and put forward the theory of ethical
socialism, trying to replace the Marxist theory of class struggle and proletarian
dictatorship with the Kantian theory of categorical imperatives.
In his book The Ethics of Pure Will published in 1904, Cohen believed that
people could observe the society from two different views: one was the view of
commodity circulation which was a viewpoint subject to the law of causation and
established on the concept of political economy. The materialistic theory of socialism
was established on this view; the other one was the view of Right which was a
viewpoint subject to purpose and established on the concept of ethics. The idealistic
theory of ethical socialism was based on this view. Cohen believed that the mistake of
the materialistic theory of socialism was that it underestimated the role of ethical
principle, therefore, Marx didn’t acknowledge the ethical principles in socialist theory
although moral spirit could be seen in all of his works.

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 Cohen also said that since Marx lived in an era of economic turmoil, he attached
great importance to the “stomach problem of men ”. The importance of stomach
problem shouldn’t be denied because in places where the stomach could be kept in a
healthy condition but “life vitality was suppressed, will and pure will couldn’t be
realized”. However, the practice of Marxist theory of socialism which took the men”s
stomach problem as the major problem should be denied and abandoned because the
socialist problem shouldn’t be the economic problem at first, but the moral problem,
ethical problem and spiritual problem. As a viewpoint, the conception of God should
be the highest conception, but Marx failed to recognize the importance of ethical
principles to socialism, hence the socialism of Marx wasn’t based on ethics, although
Marx’ works were filled with moral enthusiasm. Cohen also said that in order to
achieve socialism, what should be done first was the transformation of Right and
realization of ethical socialism principles, instead of transformation of economy and
abolition of private ownership of the means of production and establishment of
socialist public ownership.
Cohen believed that Kant was the founder of ethical socialism because he
accounted the principle of ethical socialism, namely, the principle that humanity was
the end-in-itself: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that
of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.”
Why should the principle of ethical socialism be the principle that humanity was
the end-in-itself proposed by Kant? Cohen explained that according to Kant, things
not only had market value but also dignity, and they could be used as means to a
certain end; but humanity was different from things in that humanity didn’t have
market value, but only dignity and thus humanity should be end forever instead of
means. Cohen said it was just this principle that “contained the moral program of both
modern and future world history as a whole”.
Meanwhile, Cohen believed that this conception of socialist society as “the
communication group of moral men” where everyone was the end instead of means
was only the methodology conception of ethics which took eternal movement as its
prerequisite and didn’t mean the recognition of some practical thing. Therefore,
socialism was a view, adjustment view and “thing-in-itself” that could never be
achieved, and a task that could never be fulfilled. It only meant continuous and
endless tendency to pure will. Therefore, what was important was not the end
(socialism), but the movement guided by adjustment view.1
According to Cohen, the foundation of socialism lied in: first, the conception of
God; and second, the eternity of the bourgeois State and Right. Thus, he proposed the
following requirements to the “political socialism”, or social democracy:
First, as for the socialism as a foundation, it should not only be gradually
destroyed, but also be “firmly refused”;
Second, neither ethics nor socialism should ignore the roof of the high building
that they had built, namely, the conception of God which referred to the belief in
“kind force” and the “hope for achieving justice”.
Third, the Right and State must be respected, as opposed to the “pure existent”, or
materialistic socialist view, and to the “material economic cooperation”.
Fourth, the concept of nationality and humanity (human society) must be
combined. Cohen said that we should seek to realize our respected humanity in our
beloved nations.
Although “ethical socialism” was put forward mainly by Cohen, a founder of the
Marburg School of neo-Kantianism, many of its basic viewpoints were the same for
1 Cohen: The Ethics of Pure Will, Page 270-290, 303, 309, 322.

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the other schools of neo-Kantianism. For example, Rickert, a representative of the
Freiburg School of neo-Kantianism, claimed: “the political program of socialism isn’t
formulated on the basis of historical materialism”1. Windelband said, “the road in
itself is the end of road, the aim and value of life shouldn’t be sought in the realization
of the eternal content, but in the constant recognition of the will of life.” 2
The ethical socialism put forward by Cohen was immediately echoed by other
neo-Kantians.
For example, Karl Vorländer, a neo-Kantian, once said in his book Modern
Socialism and Ethics of Philosophy, “it’s no doubt that modern socialism or
democracy applied the means, ends and slogans of ethics in its activities”; “according
to the opinions of neo-Kantians, modern scientific socialism must find their
grandfather in Kant and prove the rationality of its reformist ideas by approving the
moral principle of Kantian ethics”3. In his book Kant und Marx: ein Beitrag zur
Philosophie des Sozialismus (Kant and Marx: on the philosophy of socialism),
Vorländer more specifically described “the confluence of these two opposite views” of
“Kant and Marx”. He proclaimed that the simple and majestic description of
“categorical imperatives” by Kant should be “taken as the foundation of socialism”,
“the real connection between socialism and Kant’s critique of idealism is based on
‘pure moral things’. In this regard, or in terms of the argumentation for ethics, this
wise man of Königsberg should be considered as the true and real founder of German
socialists, just as what Hermman Cohen called bravely”. “The outstanding
representatives of Kantianism spread the method of critique to the field of social
philosophy, and try to apply Kant’s ethics to the argumentation for socialism. On the
other hand, among the Marxists rang the battle cry ‘Back to Kant!’ which was
considered absolutely impossible not long ago”4.
Staudinger, a neo-Kantian, also believed, “If Marxism develops according to its
own principles, it’ll necessarily walk toward Kant; vice-versa, if the Kantians develop
their own concepts continuously, they’ll walk toward Marx. There’s no opposite side
here”5.
Schulze-Gavernitz, another neo-Kantian, believed that Marx should be replaced
by Kant. He said: “in our epoch, Marxism is obviously in a state of disaggregation.
The rising sun of Kant dims the star of Marx”; the major defect of Marxism was the
denial of “value philosophy”, because “Marx was a philosophical nihilist and he
denied the world of values”, “in order to become a political theory, Marxism needs
ethical foundation”; those who want socialism must “walk across the grave of Marx”,
and “advance with the living people, advance with Kant who is considered correctly
by Jaures as the father of German socialism”6.
From the accounts of the above neo-Kantians including Cohen, we can see the
essential characteristics of ethical socialism or its distinctions from scientific
socialism:
First, it separates socialism from historical materialism and combined socialism
with the moral philosophy of Kant. While Marxism turns socialism from fantasy into
science by establishing socialism on the basis of historical materialism and the theory
of surplus value, the neo-Kantianism turns socialism from science to a subjective

1 Rickert: Philosophy of History, the Preface in Russian.

2 Windelband: An Introduction to Philosophy, English version, Page 298.
3 Quoted from Critique of Modern Bourgeois Philosophy, Science Press, Page 26.
4 Vorländer: Kant und Marx: ein Beitrag zur Philosophie des Sozialismus, St. Petersburg, 1909, Page 16, 31, 35,
36, 38, 42.
5 Staudinger, Ethics and Politics, Berlin, Page 159.
6 Schulze-Gavernitz: Marx or Kant, St. Peterburg, 1909, Page 5, 13, 58, 67.

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ethical idea, an abstract moral doctrine. According to this moral doctrine, the driving
force of social development isn’t class struggle, but the abstract moral principle.
Second, it interprets socialism as the moral values aimed to abolish
contradictions in social relations. While scientific socialism interprets socialism as a
social system established through proletarian revolution and dictatorship, based on
public ownership of the means of production and distribution according to work and
aimed to emancipate and develop productive force, abolish exploitation and
polarization, and finally achieve common prosperity, the ethical socialism believed
that the nature of socialism isn’t political and social economic relations, but a moral
value which is aimed to abolish the contradictions in social relations and realize the
supra-class solidarity among people. Therefore, it is moral relations and the idea of
gradual moral improvement of people that are put at the first place by ethical
socialism. It believes that ethics should become the “social pedagogy” which can
abolish class conflicts and unite the society.
Third, it greatly values Kant as the father of socialism because Kant first
proposed the basic idea of socialism in the wording of categorical imperatives, and his
idea that “humanity is the end-in-itself” has for the first time in ethics proved the idea
of social solidarity and respect for the dignity of every human being. For this reason,
the advocates of ethical socialism either use Kant to reject Marx or mix Marxism with
Kantianism by distorting Marxist theories and replace Marx’s historical materialism
with Kant’s “practical reason” in philosophy.
Fourth, it describes socialism as an ideal aim which, although encourages people
to move constantly, belongs to the other world and the kingdom of purposes that
should exist, and which can never be achieved in real life. Therefore, it advocates
replacing aims with movements and giving priority to immediate aim over the highest
aim.

4. Social Reformism Closely Follows Neo-Kantianism

The ethical socialism put forward by neo-Kantians gained strong support from the
international workers’ movement, especially the social reformists within the ranks of
German workers’ movement who imitated the neo-Kantians closely and perfectly.
Such representative works of Marburg School as Stammler’s Economy and Law,
Natorp’s Social Pedagogics, Staudinger’s Ethics and Politics and Vorländer’s Kant
and Marx, especially Cohen’s Ethics of Pure Will, became the classical weapons of
social reformists to attack and revise Marxism.
In this regard, Berstein, the forefather of revisionism, played a leading role. In his
letter to the neo-Kantian Vorländer, he said that he was influenced by such people as
Langue and Cohen who made him completely believe in neo-Kantianism and get the
idea that could prove socialism from ethics wiev . Later, Berstein published an article
which said: “I’d like to thank an article of Konrad Schmidt about Kant in the
academic supplement of Vorwärts because I’m directly enlightened by it. In my
opinion, the words ‘back to Kant’ are also applicable to socialist theory to a certain
degree”. “The social democratic party must have a Kant who will conduct critical
review and strict blame to the traditional doctrine one day and who will point out the
place where the superficial materialism of this doctrine is developed to the highest
degree and hence become doctrinairism which is most likely to lead to the crossroad
and point out that to look down upon ideals and take the material elements as the
omnipotent development forces is actually a self-deception”1.
1 Speeches of Bernstein, Page 56, 229, 230.

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 The revisionist formula “The movement is everything, the final goal nothing”
constantly cried by Bernstein since 1898 in his article The Theory of Collapse and
Colonial Policy was just carried and copied from Kant. 齐 马 克 尔 ， a theorist of
social democratic party, pointed out in his book The Philosophy of Revisionism about
this issue : “The slogan that ‘The movement is everything, the final goal nothing’ is
merely a political substitute for the principle of the endless cognitive process of the
so-called ‘things-in-themselves’ in Kantian philosophy.”1
Then, how on earth did Bernstein go “back to Kant” and how did he use the
ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism to attack the scientific socialism and historical
materialism of Marxism?
This attack mainly focused on the following two problems: first, it completely
opposed the objective law of social development with people’s participation in
historical activities with subjective wishes, denied the regularity of social
development and denied that socialism was a science under the pretext that people
had thoughts and desires and aims ; second, it distorted Marxist theory of history
determinism which determined the inevitability of human behaviors and overthrew
the absurd fairy tale about Marxism accusation so-called “denying the freedom of
will “ by reducing ideology and political social relations into production relations and
also reducing (indirgemek) production relations into productive force and which he
(Bernstein ) thus overthrew Marxist materialism and it misinterpreted this theory as
“anti-ethics tendency” of Marxism which has denied the moral motives of humanity.
Now, let’s investigate into the speeches made by Bernstein in these aspects in
chronological order.
After the death of Engels in 1895, Bernstein got rid of the supervision from his
tutor (Engels ) and began to publish a series of articles entitled Problems of Socialism
in the magazine Die Neue Zeit (the New Society) from the year 1896, crying to revise
Marxist policy of the social democratic party. In one of these articles named How Is
Scientific Socialism Possible? he openly proclaimed that socialism was impossible to
be a science because it wasn’ t the inevitable law of the history of social development,
but merely an “ethical will” and people’s wish. He said: “All those theories where our
will functions there will no longer be pure sciences” and the “iron necessity” was
increasingly getting limited, which was reflected in the smaller role played by
economic factors in the society, the independency of ideology from economic
development and the gradual emancipation of people from the influence of necessity2.
In January 1898, Bernstein said in the “Critical Interlude” of his article On the
History and Theory of Socialism: “The whole historical materialism can’t remove a
fact that it is man who creates the human history and man has his mind, and the
quality of mind can’t be such a mechanical thing that is simply dominated by
economic conditions”3
In June 1898, in his article The Real Elements and Ideological Elements in
Socialism Bernstein said: “The third conceptual element related to socialism is moral
consciousness and the concept of Right”, however “Marx and Engels seemed to have
adopted an absolute negative attitude to this problem in their works during that
period”. And “in their later works Marx and Engels almost avoided directly calling for
moral motives. For this reason, Professor Werner Sombart called the ‘anti-ethical
tendency’ of Marxism the distinctive marker of Marxist socialism”. “In terms of the
meaning that Sombart gave to it, namely, as the name of the attitude that opposes
1齐 马克尔：The Philosophy of Revisionism, Berlin, 1929, Page 5.
2 Bernstein: How Is Scientific Socialism Possible?.
3 Bernstein: The Critical Interlude in On the History and Theory of Socialism, published in the Speeches of
Bernstein, Page 50.

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extending the meaning of socialism by ethical principles, it is in fact very appropriate.
Anywhere in the theory of Marx, no citation of ethics (as a basic force) can be found”.
“On the contrary, ethics is deliberately and repeatedly used to serve the purpose of
proving its defects”, but “it should be noted that justice is still a powerful driving
force of the socialist movement even today. Indeed, there won’t be any lasting mass
movement without moral force”. In fact, “the activists in the socialist movement”
were those who “want for nothing”, and “what attracts them to socialism is the
blueprint that strives for a preferable and fairer social system”; “a fairer social system
takes the first place in this regard”1.
In January 1899, in his book The Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks of
Social Democracy, Berstein said: “To use materialism to explain history means
basically advocating the necessity of all historical processes and developments”. Here,
“‘consciousness’ and ‘existence’ are so completely opposite to each other that a
conclusion almost could be drawn, that is to say, a man is only taken as an agent of
historical force and he carries out the tasks of historical force by almost going against
his own will”. “On the whole, the consciousness and will of man appear to be subject
to the elements of material movement”, but “in fact I don’t think the victory of
socialism depends on its ‘internal economic necessity’, rather, I think it’s neither
possible nor necessary to provide pure materialistic arguments for socialism”2. ”
In September 1901, at the Lübeck Congress of the SPD, Bernstein said in his
speech: “Socialism is impossible to be completely scientific in terms of its future
programs because it’s dominated by wills and class struggles”. In a word, “socialism
isn’t and can’t be complete science”; “socialism in itself is a general theoretic view
about the future of society, and it contains mostly the elements of wills”3.
In April, 1903, in his work the Rights to Worship and Revise Marx, Bernstein
said: “Although the formula of historical materialism left by Marx and Engels has
provided guiding principle for studying the reason behind great historical changes,
this traditional formula isn’t enough to fulfill the task of explaining the internal
process of historical evolution, and need important supplement”. From these speeches
of Bernstein, we can see that his idea remains essentially the same despite all apparent
changes, that is to say, to “supplement” and replace historical materialism with the
ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism and take the latter as the philosophical basis of
socialism.
Kautsky, the leader of the neutralists within the Second International, also
believed that the economic and historical theory of Marx could be combined with
Kantian philosophy. When the behavior of Bernstein in revising scientific socialism
and historical materialism with the ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism aroused
strong opposition among the Left Wing of social democratic parties, Kautsky said in
his letter to Plekhanov in 1898, “I should declare that neo-Kantianism seldom makes
me embarrassed”; “I believe the economic and historical views of Marx could at least
coexist with neo-Kantianism”; “since Bernstein only degenerates in this regard, I
don’t feel worried about it at all”.
Under the leadership of Bernstein and the connivance of Kautsky, the socialist
reformists within the Second International began to uproar for the replacement of
scientific socialism with ethical socialism and stirred the waves one after another.
For example, among the leaders of “Austrian Marxism”, Bauer believed that the
Kantian philosophy and transcendental method were the theoretical foundation of
1 Bernstein: The Real Elements and Ideological Elements in Socialism, Speeches of Bernstein, Page 64, 66-67.
2 Bernstein: The Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy, Speeches of Bernstein, Page 82,
83.
3 Speech of Bernstein at the Lübeck Congress of the SPD, Speeches of Bernstein, Page 274, 275.

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socialism while Cohen’s philosophy overcame all the weaknesses of Kantian
philosophy; Marx’s materialism was a revision of Hegelian theory and contained the
realistic meaning of Kantian content. Max Adler, once said in his speech
Commemoration of Immanuel Kant at a conference of Vienna Social Democratic
Association of Self-Study, “Kantian philosophy of practice is a real philosophy of
action. Its vitality is reflected in that: the most powerful spiritual phenomenon,
namely, science, has gone back to Kant while the most powerful practical
phenomenon, namely, socialism, has integrated with Kant”. In his work The Causality
and Teleology in Scientific Debate (Kausalität und Teleologie im Streite um die
Wissenschaft), Adler further put forward the Kantian-style programmatic view and
said that first, to overcome all the materialistic world-outlooks based on natural
sciences; second, to interpret the self-conscious and rational activities of man as some
causal relation between social phenomena; to point out a way for the domination of
practical reason and “ethics”.
This program of Adler gained acclamation from Kampfmeyer, a neo-Kantian in
the SPD. In his article Critique of the Philosophical Basis of Marxism, Kampfmeyer
said: “Adler has opened the door to moral kingdom. The moral law and its necessity
clarify the regularity of will, and the man confers external meanings to the regularity
of will and thus becomes the creator of new things and transformer of the world. Here
morality plays a role of ‘transforming the world’.” He also said, Adler’s “re
construction to the foundation of Marxism is as huge as that done by the works of
Bernstein’s reformist works”1.
Veltman, another neo-Kantian within the social democratic party, said in his
article Historical Socialism: “Marxism has completely forgotten that people’s spiritual
life tries to get rid of economic interests and become increasingly the independent
end-in-itself.” He said “my critique is conducted from the philosophical standpoint of
Kant, so my world outlook should be established under the banner of ‘back to Kant’ ”2
Schmidt, another neo-Kantian in the social democratic party, proclaimed to go
back to Kant in his article A New Book About Materialist Conception of History. He
wrote that if Kant is neglected, no progress will be made in epistemology which,
together with logic, is the important object of scientific philosophy. In his article On
Kant’s Philosophical Conception of History, he connected the Marxist view of history
with Kant’s historical philosophy, and said that “critical epistemology” was the
foundation for the unification of Marxism and Kantian philosophy, therefore,
“criticism” and the purposive observation on the object should form the foundation of
rational knowledge of Marxism and the historical philosophy of Marxism must
include the principle of teleology. Even the historical conception of Hegel, which had
direct influence on Marx, can’t be separated from “the basic point and most important
characteristic of this conception put forward by Kant, which has been formulated
clearly and briefly and also proved directly by Kant”3. He also believed that the
historical philosophy of Kant proved the necessity of socialist transformation of
society in a more extensive and adequate manner than the historical materialism of
Marx and Engels did, and the greatest achievement of Kant was that he combined
idealism and materialist conception of history organically.
In 1904 when it was the centenary of the death of Kant, most of the newspapers
and magazines of social democratic parties published articles to affirm the “direct
connection” between socialism and Kant and called Kant the founder and “father” of

1 Socialist Monthly, 1905, Page 225, 221.

2 Neue Zeit magazine, Volume 17, Book 1, Page 793.
3 Socialist Monthly, 1903, Page 691, 684.

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socialism. For example, Public Opinions, a newspaper of Frankfurt Germany,
published an article which said: “Kant isn’t entirely unrelated to the contemporary
socialist ideas, hence it isn’t groundless to call him ‘the father of socialism’”; the
newspaper The Voice of Miner published an article which said that the Kantian
“principles about morality, about people’s obligations and common life are just those
things in all the key factors of socialist movement that are shining on us in the form of
eternal truth”; at a commemoration of a socialist workers’ group in the hometown of
Kant——Königsberg of Germany, a doctor scholar said: “if all is subject to the
categorical imperatives of Kant, the aim of socialism will have be achieved already”;
the newspaper Königsberger People’s Newspaper published an article which said that
the most valuable part of Kantian philosophy was ethics, and only by relying on the
“ethical conception of social ideal” can the ultimate goal of socialism be proved
scientifically and “categorical imperatives are always the basic moral law of
socialism”; Vorwärts (Forward in English), the central organ of the SPD, published an
article which said, “the moral law of Kant is the instructive subject of humanity”, “it
only proves to be an outstanding capacity clearly pointing out the ideal of humanity,
and people oppose the ‘eternity’ of Kant’s moral law with the ever-changing morality
in various countries and in different times only as a result of misunderstanding”.
The ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism not only prevailed among the reformists
in the Second International in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, but also
was inherited by the contemporary democratic socialists one generation after another.
For example, in the 1920s, Leonard Nelson, a theorist of the SPD, took over the
mantle of Bernstein and actively preached the ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism.
After World War II, Willi Eichler, an ideologist of the SPD who was once the
secretary of L.Nelson, once again took the mantle of Nelson and continued to preach
this ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism. In his book In Memory of L Nelson, Eichler
regarded the philosophy of Nelson as the ideological foundation of democratic
socialism and spread his ideas by saying: “The effective experience over a long time
requires us to at least partly refuse the conception about the law of social development
which can be known and expressed in a scientific way and which decides the
historical process” because to accept historical regularity would lead to fatalism
which would reduce man’s initiative and responsibility for his own actions.
Eichler also incorporated this idea of ethical socialism into the SPD Godesberg
Program, of which he was one of the drafters. In May 1958 when discussing the first
draft of this Program at the Stuttgart Congress of the SPD, he said in his report that it
was man, his feeling and his wishes that were in the centre of “socialist will”. He said
that such a value as dignity “prohibits anyone from making use of other people as the
simple means to his end”. He also said: “It’s very difficult to prove such values as
freedom, justice and solidarity mentioned by the Godesberg Program. We’ll not
discuss the origin of their world-outlook and philosophy respectively, but only put
forward the following principle: Christian ethics, humanitarianism and classical
philosophy constitute the spiritual and moral sources of European socialism.”1 The
classical philosophy here referred to the Kantian philosophy, and to be more specific,
the Kantian philosophy interpreted by neo-Kantianism.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that the programs of contemporary social democratic
parties were filled with the theory and concept of ethical socialism of the neo-
Kantianism.

1 Record of Reports at the Congress (May 18-23, 1958) of German Social Democratic Party, Stuttgart, 1958, Page
362, 370.

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5. Dividing Line in Principle between Marxism and Ethical Socialism

The speeches and actions made by the social reformists to use ethical socialism of
the neo-Kantianism to attack and replace the scientific socialism of Marxism was of
course strongly refuted by Marxists.
As early as this ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism was just in the bud, Marx
and Engels disclosed its nature in their letter to Bebel on 17-18 September, 1879 and
said:
“The people who came out as bourgeois democrats in 1848 could just as well call
themselves social-democrats now. To them the democratic republic was unattainably
remote, and to these people the overthrow of the capitalist system is equally so, and
therefore has absolutely no significance for practical present-day politics; one can
mediate, compromise and philanthropise to one’s heart’s content.”1
With the rising of Bernsteinism, the neo-Kantianism became the philosophical
basis of reformists in the Second International, and the then Marxists deeply disclosed
and deadly criticized the neo-Kantianism-Bernsteinism from different perspectives.
Franz Mehling, a German Marxist, focused his refutation on the ethical socialism of
the neo-Kantianism. Generally, his refutation could be divided into the following
three aspects:
Firstly, he disclosed the substance of Kant’s theory that “humanity is the end” and
theory of ethics.
Aiming at the argument of the neo-Kantianism-social reformism which took the
ethics of Kant, especially his theory that “humanity is the end” as the ethical
foundation of socialism, Mehling sharply pointed out, “in Kant’s eyes, this argument
is nothing but a moral mask of such an extremely immoral fact: the capitalism needs
free workers for the purpose of their exploitation”, therefore, “Viewed from a
historical standpoint, it can be immediately seen that the above argument of Kant is a
ideological reflection of an economic fact that: the bourgeoisie, in order to gain the
exploitation materials favorable to their mode of production, should not only use the
working class as means, but also turn them into ends, namely, emancipate them from
the chains of the feudal society in the name of freedom and human dignity”2.
Mehling pointed out that it is a pervasive illusion in the Enlightenment to
describe the perishment of feudal mode of production as the emancipation of workers
instead of taking it as the change of feudal mode of exploitation into the capitalist
mode of exploitation. This illusion, no matter it’s created deliberately or faithfully, is
an illusion after all, for it can disguise the cruelest facts in reality. One of these
cruelest facts is that although Kant cried that “humanity is the end” and belled the cat
as a defender of the most complete and legitimate freedom, equality and
independence of all the citizens of the State, he took “all those who are maintained
and protected by another person” as “residents” instead of “citizens”. That is to say,
“What Kant required was the complete freedom of the citizens within the State
instead of the freedom of residents and he took all the working classes, employees,
workhands of businessmen or handicraftsmen, especially the tenants who had been
actually emancipated in the French Revolution, as residents”3. This was about the real
content of Kant’s theory that “humanity is the end”.
In terms of the real role of the Kant’s theory that “Humanity is the end” in history,
Mehling pointed out: it played a very important role in the political works of the 19 th

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 34, Page 381.

2 Mehling: In Defense of Marxism, the People’s Publishing House, 1982, Page 152, 223.
3 Mehling: In Defense of Marxism, Page 224.

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century, however, it didn’t played any active role in promoting the establishment of
socialism in Germany, instead, it provided many cornerstones for the establishment of
liberalism, especially the anti-socialist liberalism.
In disclosing the nature of Kant’s theory of ethics, Mehling said: “Kant is more
philistine in his ethics than in any other places, and he’s a Babbitt with the whole
poisonous blood of theology flowing in his body. His theory of duties and categorical
imperatives is nothing but the Decalog; and his theory about the absolute evil in man’s
nature is merely the doctrine about original sin.”1
Secondly, he disclosed the true relationship between Kant and socialism.
Just because Kant’s theory that “humanity is the end” is totally unrelated to
socialism in terms of both its real content and its role in history, it’s completely
groundless for the neo-Kantianism-social reformists to regard Kant as the founder of
socialism and take Kant’s ethics and theory that “humanity is the end” as the ethical
foundation and guiding star of socialism.
Aiming at the above fallacies of the neo-Kantianism-social reformists, Mehling
firmly denied that there was any relation between Kant and socialism. He said
ironically: “otherwise, the neo-Kantians should take the Declaration of the Rights of
Man and of the Citizen as the mother of socialism, just as they take Kant as its
father.”2
Mehling pointed out that the real source of socialism isn’t the above propositions
of Kant.
The fact is, “the increasingly sharper contradiction between the inhuman reality
of the bourgeois practices and the humanistic ideal of the bourgeois ideal led to the
emergence of socialism in the 19th century, namely, the socialism from Saint-Simon,
Fourier and Owen to Marx, Engels and Lassalle”3. Therefore, “it’s obviously absurd
to deduce socialism historically or logically” from Kant’s theory that “humanity is the
end” regardless of the facts. On the contrary, “the slogan ‘back to Kant’ (which is of
course a pure illusion) proposed by Cohen and Vorländer means garroting socialism
as a whole, and is a——fortunately it’s only an illusion——desperate struggle
expecting to go back to the miserable self-deception of the 18th century; and the basic
elimination of this self-deception is one of the most glorious achievements of the 19 th
century”. To take Kant as the real founder of German socialism and take Kant’s theory
that “humanity is the end” as the ethical foundation of socialism, “this inference can
only prove such a fact: what Kant passed to his disciples is nothing but his lack of
historical conception”4.
Thirdly, he pointed out the harm of adding and grafting Kantianism to Marxism.
Aiming at the neo-Kantian view of using the ethics of Kant to supplement
Marxism, Mehling made a comparison: “Marx’s requirement for a human society in
the ideal state was such a group where the free development of each is the condition
for the free development of all”; “but Kant’s ‘analytic demonstration’ lies in that he
tried to mix the medieval classification of a State into citizens and residents with his
arguments while Marx’s ‘historical and causal’ argument lies in that he could point
out how to realize his ideal when carrying out the argumentation according to
economic development” . But the neo-Kantianism in fact had failed to explain clearly
1 Mehling: In Defense of Marxism, Page 221.
2 Mehling: In Defense of Marxism, Page 104.
3 Mehling: In Defense of Marxism, Page 106. Mehling showed his confused idea about the development history of
socialism, because he neither fully realized that socialism was changed from fantasy to science by Marx and
Engels’ scientific socialism, nor recognized that the socialism of Marx and Engels is a revolutionary socialism
while the “socialism” of Lassalle is a kind of social reformism. Hence it’s groundless and wrong for him to put
Lassalle at the equal place with Marx and Engels who were the founders of scientific socialism.
4 Mehling: In Defense of Marxism, Page 106, 223.

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“why there is a ‘defect’ here that can get ‘necessary supplement’ only by ‘going back’
to Kant”.
Given that “the neo-Kantianism, objectively and substantially, is only an attempt
to destroy historical materialism”, it is completely different from and opposite to
Marxism in philosophical basis. Therefore, “the attempt of neo-Kantianism to graft
Marx to Kant, or to graft Kant to Marx, even if it is made out of lofty motivation, will
once again blur the German working class’ understanding of their historical task that
they gained through many difficulties”1.
From this it can be seen that the ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism was a theory
based on no grounds. Then, why did the social reformists cling firmly to it and use it
to replace the scientific socialism of Marxism? The reason is that on the one hand, the
ethical socialism reflected the will of social reformists; on the other hand, the social
reformists basically misinterpreted Marxism.
This misinterpretation of Marxism was mainly reflected in the following two
problems.
One was that they took the Marxist historical materialism about regularity and
necessity of social development the same as fatalism and the negation of man’s
subjective initiative. This was a complete distortion of the revolutionary change made
by Marxism in the social historical field and the distortion of the Marxist Materialistic
conception of history.
The fact is that although the ideologists prior to Marx had given explanations
about the complicated social phenomena, they had only investigated into the
ideological motivation behind people’s historical activities and failed to give the
reasons for these motivations and to explain the activities of the masses. But Marx
discovered that people must first have enough food, drink, shelter and clothes to
survive before they engaged in political, scientific, art and religious activities,
therefore, we must take the direct material means of subsistence as a foundation to
explain people’s state system, law and moral conceptions, art and religious believes;
he also discovered that in order to find out the real final force of history, attention
should be paid to the motivation of the actions that arouse the majority of masses, the
whole nation and the whole class to take actions to make great historical changes
rather than the motivation of some outstanding individuals. Thus, Marx achieved
revolutionary reforms in the social historical conceptions and established such a
complete and precise scientific theory of historical materialism to observe social
history, namely, it tries to find out the ultimate reason behind social changes and
historical reforms from the changes of mode of production and exchanges, instead of
from people’s minds and people’s understanding of the eternal truth and justice.
In his Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx
illustrated and gave general formulation of the basic theories of historical
materialism, and with the publication of Capital, he turned historical materialism
from hypothesis to a well-founded scientific theory——which takes the development
of social formations as a natural historical process. This first means that society, just
as the nature, is also a development process according to its own laws. In human
society, the ideological motivations of people’s activities are, directly or indirectly are
restricted by the interests of their material life and their positions in the relation of
production and the relation of production is finally decided by productive forces.
Therefore, although history is created by people themselves, it isn’t created by people
at their wills under condition sthey chose , instead, it’s created on the basis of real
existing relations under the set conditions which restrict people. Thus, although the
1 Mehling: In Defense of Marxism, Page 113,117-118,126.

191
social historical process is composed of people’s activities, the development of socio-
economic formations, as the nature, is a regular development process independent of
man’s will.
However, on the other hand, Marxism believed the socio-historical process is
different from the unconscious natural process which is without the participation of
people. In social historical process, all the activities here are conducted by people
who have consciousness and thoughts or emotions aims in pursuit of some purpose
and the happening of all the things involves self-conscious intention and purpose. The
law of social development is after all based on the results of people’s activities.
Without people, without people’s activities, laws of social development cannot exist at
all, and a historical incident is a total result produced by the mixture of people’s
mutually contradictory and even mutually conflicting wills, purposes, wishes and
intentions. Therefore, historical materialism is also a theory which closely combines
the affirmation of both regularity and necessity and also emphasizes on the active
role of people.
Thus it’s entirely groundless for the democratic socialism to take the affirmation
of regularity and necessity of social development by historical materialism as the
fatalism which excludes the active role of people. Just as Lenin said, the historical
materialism’s “idea of determinism, which postulates that human acts are necessitated
and rejects the absurd tale about “men”s free will “, in no way destroys man’s reason
or conscience, or appraisal of his actions. Quite the contrary, only the Marxist
determinist view makes a strict and correct appraisal possible instead of attributing
everything what you please/like to : free will. Similarly, the idea of historical
necessity does not in the least undermine the role of the individuals in history: all
history is made up of the actions of individuals, who are undoubtedly active figures”1.
The other problem was that the social reformists took the affirmation of the
necessity of social development by historical materialism as “anti-ethical tendency”
which denies values. This is also a complete distortion of historical materialism.
The regularity and necessity in social development said by Marx refers to the
general direction of movements produced by various objective conditions. For
example, the necessity of the replacement of capitalism by socialism means that the
objective law of capitalism will necessarily lead to the intensification of its economic
and political contradictions and the ever increasing class struggles of the working
class and the masses against the capitalist system, and the result of these struggles will
be the perishment of capitalism and victory of socialism.
However, Marx always believed that the society was developed in contradictions
and the specific process of all the historical incidents depend not only on general
laws, but also on the real balance of force of various classes in the specific historical
process and on the policies of various classes in the struggle and many other special
conditions. In this process, some elements accelerate, and some elements postpone the
final victory of the working class in the struggle. Therefore, in this historical process
during which socialism will necessarily replace capitalism, the consciousnesses,
beliefs, values and activities of the working class play a very important role. For
example, Mao Zedung also pointed out according to Chinese history of revolution:
“The belief in Marxism is a spiritual force behind the victory of Chinese revolution.”2
In fact, in the process of defining and developing the materialistic conception of
history, the authors of classical Marxist works not only emphasized the illustration of
the regularity of social development, but also paid attention to moral problems. On the

1 Selected Works of Lenin, Volume 1, Page 129.

2 Selected Works of Mao Zedung , Volume 3, Page 63.

192
one hand, they criticized the ethical theory of bourgeoisie, and on the other hand, they
tried to understand, study and summarize the moral aspect of the proletariat and the
noble spirit they displayed in the struggle, and use this to educate the proletariat and
the vast majority of masses.
As early as in his Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx once said:
“I shall therefore publish the critique of law, ethics, politics, etc., in a series of
distinct, independent pamphlets, and afterwards try in a special work to present them
again as a connected whole showing the interrelationship of the separate parts, and
lastly attempt a critique of the speculative elaboration of that material.”1
Marx also had a plan to write a monograph on moral problem, but he failed to do
so later because of various reasons.
In the process of refuting the “true socialism” of Bauer and Stirner, Marx and
Engels clearly explained many problems about ethical ideas in their works such as
The Holy Family and German Ideology.
In studying the experience of the Paris Commune, Marx summarized and highly
praised the self-sacrificing, active and brave spirit of the French workers.
In studying the conditions of working class in England, Engels once advocated
spirit of solidarity and mutual help in the English workers.
In his controversy with Dühring, Engels, with the support of Marx, once gave a
scientific illustration on the social nature and historical types of morality, the relation
between the class character and the universality of morality, the methods of morality
and the problems such as freedom and necessity.
In his works such as The Origins of Family, Private Property and the State and
Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Engels further
elaborated on the nature of morality, the class character of the view of happiness, the
relation between morality and economy and the dialectic problem of moral
development.
After the October Revolution in Russia, Lenin clearly proposed the concept of
communist morality for the first time in The Tasks of the Youth Leagues; here and in
his other articles such as Subbotniks and A Great Beginning, Lenin systematically
discussed the origin and development of communist morality and explained its basic
principles and category by focusing on the significance and methods of implementing
communist moral education.
Mao Zedong also gave an extensive and in-depth discussion on many basic
theoretical problems in Marxist ethics in his works such as Anti-Liberalism, In
Memory of Bethune and Serve the People, etc.
Therefore, it’s groundless for democratic socialism to blame Marxism for failing
to take values as the driving force of the socialist undertaking and to blame Marxism
for displaying the anti-ethical tendency that denies values.
The dividing line in principle between scientific socialism and ethical socialism
doesn’t lie in this, but in: whether to establish socialism on the basis of historical
materialism and the theory of surplus value or to establish it on the basis of ethical
idealism of Kant.

Section 3 Democratic Socialism and Abstract Humanitarian

The above observations on ethical socialism also indicate that the disagreement
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 42, Page 45.

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between Marxism and the neo-Kantianism-social reformism and democratic socialism
is not whether to deny values but what values should be accepted and what place
these values should be put. These problems brought about another basic disagreement
between Marxism and democratic socialism on abstract humanity.

1. Democratic Socialism Regards Freedom, Equality and Fraternity as the Basic

Values of Socialism

It should pointed out that the tendency of abstract humanitarian was displayed as
early as in Kant’s philosophy, his ethics and his categorical imperatives that humanity
is the end.
In Germany where Kant lived, the feudal lords did whatever he likes to do
unscrupulously, and together with them, the nobility cruelly exploited and oppressed
the vast majority of masses. Under this circumstance, Kant didn’t interpret man’s
nature as the sum of specific historical relations, and then combine his proposition
that humanity is the end with the practical struggle of the masses against feudal
oppression and class exploitation and for self-emancipation, instead, he took man as
the abstract entity and believed that in the “empirical world”, it’s impossible to
achieve the highest principle of humanitarian and gain the highest happiness which
could only be achieved in the kingdom of reason with the things-in-themselves. He
said: “it is only from a morally perfect (holy and good) and at the same time all-
powerful will, and consequently only through harmony with this will, that we can
hope to attain the summum bonum which the moral law makes it our duty to take as
the object of our endeavours.”1 Thus, through abstract humanitarian, the ethics of
Kant guided people who were longing for emancipation to the evil way of following
and relying on the will of the God and refusing to carry out active struggle for
changing their subcelestial life.
In the same way, the democratic socialists who slavishly followed Kant’s ethics
and ethical socialism of the neo-Kantianism also took abstract humanitarian as their
guiding principle. This was firstly reflected in the programs of the social democrats
which summed up the basic value of socialism into the ideal of freedom, equality and
humanitarian that had been put forward in the French bourgeois revolution:
In July 1955, the Declaration on the United Nations of the SI passed at its 4th
congress stated: “freedom and equality are the foundation of socialism”;
In April 1960, the Declaration on the New Tasks of Democratic Socialism passed
at the meeting of the Council of the Socialist International in Haifa Syria stated: “the
principle of democratic socialism” “is based on our belief in freedom, equality and
human brotherhood”;
In June 1962, the World Today: the Socialist Perspective passed at the Council
conference of SI in Oslo said: “both freedom and equality are precious and essential
to human happiness. They are the twin pillars upon which the ideal of human
brotherhood rests”;
In September 1982, the Declaration on the Democratic Socialist Selection of
Economic Policies passed at the special conference of economic issues of the SI said:
“Solidarity is always a pillar of the democratic socialist ideology”;
In April 1983, the Albufeira Declaration passed at the 16th congress of the SI
reiterated that “freedom and democracy are the substance of socialist ideal”;
In June 1986, the Lima Standing Order passed at the 17th congress of the SI said:
“democratic socialism” “realizes the basic values of freedom, justice and solidarity
1 Kant: Critique of Practical Reason, see the Chinese translation version of the Commercial Press, Page 132.

194
through democratic process”;
In June 1989, the Stockholm Declaration of Principles passed at the 18 th congress
of the SI stated: “Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom,
social justice and solidarity”.
This abstract humanitarian which summed up the basic value of socialism into
freedom, equality and humanitarian can also been seen frequently in the programs of
and speeches of the leaders of the social democratic parties in West Europe as member
parties of the SI.
For example, the Godesberg Program of the SPD in 1959 said: “Freedom, justice
and solidarity, which are everyone’s obligation towards his neighbours and spring
from our common humanity, are the fundamental values of Socialism.”
Brandt, a leader of the SPD and the chairman of the SI, explained: “the basic
value of socialism will is freedom, justice and solidarity”, “these three concepts of
freedom, justice (equality) and solidarity (fraternity) clearly show that we’re the
descendants of the Enlightenment and this isn’t shameful”1.
Strachey, a theorist of British Labor Party, also said: “Mankind once proposed the
concept of the triune of freedom, equality and fraternity for themselves at the
beginning of the modern era, and now we can take our task as an attempt to once
again realize this concept on the earth”; “in the first half of this century, these one-
track feelings in terms of blind worship for race, class and the State was developed to
such a crazy degree that they almost destroyed half of the world”, “on such an
occasion, what else can one devote himself to except the ideal of the mankind as a
whole?”2
Then, what are the meanings of “freedom”, “justice (equality)” and “solidarity
(fraternity)” which are regarded by democratic socialism as its basic values?
As to this question, the Stockholm Declaration of Principles of the SI in 1989
once gave an explicit explanation:
“Freedom”, means “Each person has the right to be free of political coercion and
also to the greatest chance to act in pursuit of individual goals and to fulfil personal
potential”;
“Justice means the end of all discrimination against individuals, and the equality
of rights and opportunities”, and “Equality is the expression of the equal value of all
human beings and the precondition for the free development of the human
personality”;
“Solidarity” “is the practical expression of common humanity and of the sense of
compassion with the victims of injustice”.
It should be noted that the abstract humanitarian of democratic socialism was
already fully expressed here.
What is abstract humanitarianism ?
The so-called abstract humanitarianism is to discuss the abstract and
undifferentiated men regardless of their life in material production and the social
relation among them and take this bare and abstract humanity, human nature and
human value as a criterion and starting point to explain history, to measure social
progresses, design reform plans and construct an ideal and reasonable society.
Although in history this abstract humanitarian always emphasized that its so-
called humanity, human nature and human value were eternal and common for all the
human beings, in fact the eternal truth, eternal justice, the good nature and reason of
human being, the kingdom of ideal and paradise of humanity are nothing but an ideal

1 Social Democracy and the Future, Chongqing Publishing House, 1990, Page 2-3.
2 Strachey: Contemporary Capitalism, Chapter 15.

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bourgeois State.
Obviously, the basic values of freedom, justice (equality) and solidarity
(fraternity) called by democratic socialism which were “common” for everyone and
were proposed “at the beginning of the modern era” just fall into the category of this
abstract humanitarian
Contrary to this abstract humanitarian, the historical materialism of Marxism
explains history by taking the specific social and material living conditions, instead of
the abstract man, humanity, human nature and human value, as a starting point. It
explains man, humanity, human nature and human value from a certain social
relations and takes men in different social relations as the undertaker and
personification of these relations. Marx said: “the capitalist is merely capital
personified and functions in the process of production solely as the agent of capital”1,
whereas “the workers themselves are the poor in concept, and are the personification
and carrier of this capacity independent and separated from material conditions”2.
Therefore, the opinions of the historical materialism of Marxism on such values as
freedom, equality and fraternity are entirely different from those of the democratic
socialism.
For Marxism, such values as freedom, equality and fraternity are not eternal, but
a conception reflecting the commodity exchange relations in buying and selling of
labour power. “The sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, within whose
boundaries the sale and purchase of işgücü(emek) goes on, is in fact a very Eden of
the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham”.
“Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are
constrained only by their own free will”; “equality, because each enters into relation
with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent
for equivalent…”3 Therefore, in a society where there exist class and class struggles,
the contents and meanings of such values as freedom, equality and fraternity are not
common and the same for all the people, and they should be discussed by class
analysis.
For example, what is freedom? Marxism believes that the individual freedom
called by the bourgeoisie in a capitalist society is in its nature the slavery system of
the civil society: “Precisely the slavery of civil society is in appearance the greatest
freedom because it is in appearance the fully developed independence of the
individual, who considers as his own freedom the uncurbed movement, no longer
bound by a common bond or by man, of the estranged elements of his life, such as
property, industry, religion, etc., whereas actually this is his fully developed slavery
and inhumanity”4.
The bourgeoisie always put forward the demand for freedom to serve their own
narrow class interests and confine freedom to the limit of the mild and prim
bourgeoisie. In time of peace, they combine it with the most delicate means of
suppressing the revolutionary proletariat, and in time of storm, they combine it with
the brutal means of suppressing the revolutionary proletariat. Only after the abolition
of classes, “Man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at
the same time the lord over Nature, his own master — free.”5
What is equality? Marxism believes that the equality of right in modern history
was put forward by the bourgeoisie in their struggle against the feudal hierarchy and
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 25, Page 925.
2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 47, Page 39.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 23, Page 199.
4 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 149.
5 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 760.

196
privilege in order to development capitalist production. However, from the moment
when the bourgeois demand for the abolition of class privileges was put forward,
alongside it appeared the proletarian demand for the abolition of the classes
themselves. “The real content of the proletarian demand for equality is the demand for
the abolition of classes. Any demand for equality which goes beyond that, of necessity
passes into absurdity.” 1
What is fraternity? Marxism believes that the advocate of fraternite where there
exists the exploitation of one class over the other is related to the abolition of class
relations in imagination. Marx once took the 1848 French class struggle as an
example and pointed out that the so-called fraternity which had easily removed the
class contradictions, mildly coordinated the interests of the antagonistic classes and
dreamed of transcending class struggles in the February Revolution in 1848, in the
middle of the June, “found its true, unadulterated and prosaic expression in civil war,
civil war in its most terrible aspect, the war of labor against capital. This brotherhood
blazed in front of the windows of Paris on the evening of June 25, when the Paris of
the bourgeoisie held illuminations while the Paris of the proletariat was burning,
bleeding, groaning in the throes of death”2
Marx also drew a conclusion from the analysis of the brutal facts of class struggle
in history: when the foundation of the bourgeois rule is threatened, the bourgeoisie
“will replace the maxim of freedom, equality and fraternity by infantry, cavalry and
artillery without hesitation”3
On the relation of freedom, equality and fraternity to socialism, Marxism has
completely different opinions from democratic socialism. For Marxism, “the socialist
doctrine is successful precisely when it stops arguing about social conditions that
conform to human nature and sets about making a materialist analysis of
contemporary social relations and explaining the necessity for the present regime of
exploitation”4.
Just for this reason, Marx pointed out ages ago that it’s extremely foolish for the
socialists to overturn the world by the spell of freedom, equality and fraternity. “The
French socialists are so stupid that they want to prove that socialism is to realize the
ideal of a bourgeois society proclaimed by the French Revolution”5. Facts proved that
this can only result in puzzleheadedness.
Moreover, Marx also sharply uncovered and refuted the opportunists such as
Hochberg “who want to give socialism a “higher ideal” orientation, that is to say, to
replace its materialistic basis (which demands serious objective study from anyone
who tries to use it) by modern mythology with its goddesses of Justice, Freedom,
Equality and Fraternity” and said this attempt “can only be silly – silly, stale and
basically reactionary”6.
Obviously, Marx’s above incisive analyses and criticisms on the opportunists and
reformists in the international workers’ movement for their distortion of the socialist
nature and ideal by the bourgeois idea of freedom, equality and fraternity are equally
significant for us today to correctly understand the abstract humanitarian
characterized by freedom, equality and fraternity preached by democratic socialists.

2. Social Democrats Turn Marxism into Abstract Humanitarian

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 448.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 5, Page 154.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 8, Page 160.
4 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 1, Page 155.
5 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 46, Part I, Page 201.
6 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 34, Page 281.

197
 The abstract humanitarian of democratic socialism was also displayed in the
arbitrary distortion of Marx’s Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 by some
social democrats who tried to turn Marxism into abstract humanitarian. The major
representatives of these social democrats were the German social democrats Franz
Huth and Meyer and the Belgian socialist Henri De Man at the early period, and the
American socialist Fromm at the later period.
The social democrats once severely criticized Marxism for its anti-ethical
tendency from the standpoint of the ethical socialism of neo-Kantianism. However,
after the publication of Marx’s Marx’s Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
(hereinafter called Manuscripts) in 1932, many of them turned to an opposite
direction and began to use ethical motive to interpret Marxism so as to turn it into
abstract humanitarian.
First, the German social democrats Franz Huth and Meyer tried to create
favorable public opinions for turning Marxism into abstract humanitarian before and
after compiling Marx’s Manuscripts into the book Historical Materialism: A
Collection of Marx’s Works in the Early Period in 1932.
In 1931, Meyer published a report named On an Unpublished Work of Marx;
later, he published an article The Significance of Marx’s Early Works to the Re-
Interpretation of Marxist Doctrine jointly with Franz Huth, which was compiled into
their book Historical Materialism: A Collection of Marx’s Works in the Early Period
as a preface.
Then, what’s on earth the significance of the Manuscripts as the early works of
Marx to the re-interpretation of Marxist doctrine?
According to Franz Huth and Meyer, its significance lied in that it was “a new
discovery of true Marxism”, “the most important work of Marx and the key to the
development of his thoughts”, and this “Manuscripts shows that Marx’s idea has
developed to perfection”, and it “is the sole document covering the whole scope of
Marx’s ideas”.
Obviously, they summed up the true Marxist thought into this Manuscripts and
excluded all the other works of Marx.
Then, what does this Manuscripts that “solely” shows “the true Marxism” and
the “key to the development of the thoughts” of Marx mean?
They said, “here, the principle of economic analysis was concluded directly from
the idea of true actuality of man”. In terms of “the relation between man and his
world, Marx always used the wording of self-alienation to describe this relation”, that
is to say, “self-alienation in itself bears the historical task of facilitating the self-
fulfillment of man through itself”, hence “the purpose of history isn’t ‘socialization of
the means of production’, namely, the abolition of ‘exploitation’ by ‘exploiting the
exploiters’ which will be meaningless without the ‘fulfillment of man’ at the same
time. Communism isn’t the purpose of history, either”1.
It’s obvious that here Franz Huth and Meyer took some humanistic utterances of
Marx who hadn’t yet got rid of the influence of Feuerbach at that time as the “true
Marxist” ideas and use them to deny the historical materialism and scientific
socialism of Marxism.
Immediately after, Marcuse, who once had been a member of SPD, published an
article Foundation of Historical Materialism2 in the 2nd Volume of the magazine

1 A Study on Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Hunan People’s Publishing House, 1983, Page 285-
297.
2 Marcuse: Studies in Critical Philosophy, Boston, 1972, Page 3-34.

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named Society # International Review on Socialism and Politics in 1932, joining in
the ranks of turning Marxism into abstract humanitarian.
In this article, Marcuse said, “The publication of the Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts written by Marx in 1844 must become a crucial event in the history of
Marxist studies. These manuscripts could put the discussion about the origins and
original meaning of historical materialism, and the entire theory of ‘scientific
socialism’, on a new footing”. The so-called “new footing” here referred to the theory
of “human nature” proposed by the Manuscripts.
Then, Marcuse used this “human nature” to explain everything and summed up
everything into this “human nature”. For example, he interpreted that “alienated
labour” put forward by Marx in the Manuscripts as “the alienated human nature” and
said: “if we look more closely at the description of alienated labour we make a
remarkable discovery: what is here described is not merely an economic matter. It is
the alienation of man, the devaluation of life, the perversion and loss of human
reality”; then he attributed the root of alienation to the human essence and to the
“conflict in the human essence”, namely, the objective world, on the one hand, was
the part of man himself, and on the other hand, was the a precondition of his being
which does not belong to his being, is beyond his control. He attributed the root of
alienation to the conflict between these two aspects; thus he believed that the root of
social revolution was the inversion of human essence in totality and summed up the
“positive communism” and “the liberation of society” into the replacement of private
property by the property belonging to man’s essence.
It should be pointed out that the theory of alienated labour accounted
systematically by Marx in his Manuscripts was already different in principle from
Hegel’s theory of the alienation of absolute idea and Feuerbach’s theory of the
alienation of religion, or the theory of the alienation of abstract human essence,
although he needed a long process to get rid of the influence of Feuerbach’s theory of
humanism. On the problem of the so-called alienation of human essence, on the one
hand, Marx had already put forward theoretical ideas that were different in principle
from those of Feuerbach, and on the other hand, he hadn’t completely got rid of the
influence of Feuerbach’s humanism; on the one hand, he had put forward theoretical
analyses that were brand new in content, and on the other hand, he sometimes still
used some old, inaccurate terminologies that couldn’t show his basic differences from
Feuerbach to express these new analyses.
For Hegel, the essence of man referred to the abstract mental and thinking
activities; and the alienation of man’s essence referred to the alienation of self-
consciousness. Feuerbach denied the man of abstract thinking, the man of philosophy
put forward by Hegel and proposed the real man and sensuous man and the
understanding of an individual man from human life and public life. But the
“sensuous” called by him only meant the sensible intuition, mainly taking the human
love or sympathy as the essence of man, and the so-called species-essence of man
referred to the natural commonness of man.
In his Manuscripts, Marx took over such terminologies as “the essence of man”
and “species”, but they were quite different from those put forward Feuerbach in their
specific contents. According to Marx, the essence of man referred to the conscious
living activities, free, self-conscious and creative productive labor and sensuous
practice. This showed that he had overcome the humanism of Feuerbach who
emphasized that man was the natural being, a part of the nature and social production
wasn’t the object of philosophical analysis; while Marx took social production as the
innate species-activities of man by proceeding from material production, which

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disclosed the essence of society characterized by the unity of man and nature, and at
the same time disclosed the social essence of man.
From the Theses on Feuerbach which was written six month after the
Manuscripts and the German Ideology which was written about one year after the
Manuscripts, we can see that the wording of “essence of man” proposed by Marx in
the Manuscripts showed that Marx was still influenced by the humanism of
Feuerbach, but this influence only lasted a very short time and was very limited and
hence shouldn’t be taken as whole of Marxist theory of alienated labour.
In the Manuscripts, in disclosing the various aspects of the alienation of labour,
Marx first discussed the alienation of the object and product of productive labor from
the laborer and the self-alienation of the laborer, and then mentioned that the alienated
labour also make man’s essence alienated from man, and make man alienated from
man. However, in his article Foundation of Historical Materialism, Marcuse not only
eternalizes this short-term influence, but also universalized and absolutized this
“alienation of man’s essence”. He simply interpreted Marx’s theory of alienated
labour as the theory of the alienation of man’s essence and while illustrating the
alienation of man’s essence, he removed the big differences between Marx and
Feuerbach and distorted Marxism by humanism. Thus, the interpretation of Marcuse
didn’t follow the way of the formation and development of Marxism from Feuerbach
to Marx, but went in an opposite direction, namely, from Marx back to Feuerbach, and
then back to the existentialism of Heidegger, who was once the teacher of Marcuse. In
this way, he turned Marxism entirely into humanitarian.
After Marcuse, then came Henri De Man, a leader of the Belgian socialist party,
who published his article Newly Discovered Marx1 serially in the monthly magazine
of the social democratic party——Struggle (Vienna) in Issue No. 5, 6 of 1932.
Being different from Marcuse, De Man clearly revealed his intention to turn
Marxism into abstract humanitarian. He said: “This work disclosed the ethical and
humanitarian motives behind his socialist belief and the value judgments of all his
scientific creations in his life more clearly than any other works of Marx did.” He
said, here “the driving force behind man isn’t economic interests”, “but living needs”,
“the man with love, hatred and wishes is the primary thing”; here, it showed the “the
conformity of socialism with vitality”, “this judgment and sense of value…showed
the Marxist motive that produces Marx and hence showed the purpose and
significance of this Marxism”
De Man described the Manuscripts as “the peak of Marx’s achievements”, for
Marx’s “later works…showed the decline and weakening of his creativity”. Therefore,
he would impose this distorted idea of abstract humanitarian on Marxism. He said,
“now it’s time to make a judgment: this humanitarian Marx belongs to Marxism”; “or
this humanitarian Marx doesn’t belong to Marxism, and then there will be a
humanitarian Marxism with which people can oppose materialistic Marxism”. He also
swore: “So long as the Marxism represented by Marxist theorists who are still alive
today doesn’t accept this humanitarian of Marx, I will stick to my opinion, namely, I’d
rather reform the Marxist formula.”
This wave of making use of the Manuscripts by distorting it and turning it into
abstract humanitarian in the 1930s was later interrupted by the outbreak of the Second
World War, but it came back soon after the War. In this second chorus involving
philosophers and theologists from various schools of Western Philosophy, a voice was
especially sensational: it was the voice of Fromm, an American socialist.
By taking the translation of Marx’s Manuscripts into English for the first time in
1 A Study on Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Page 348, 376.

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the 1960s as a chance, Fromm wrote a book Marx’s Concept of Man and put it before
the English version of the Manuscripts for publication so as to arouse public attention.
Meanwhile, Fromm was very different from others because he openly declared his
political purpose of turning Marxism into abstract humanitarian instead of disguise
this purpose. He said: “The alternatives for the underdeveloped countries, whose
political development will be decisive for the next hundred years, are not capitalism
and socialism, but totalitarian socialism and Marxist humanist socialism”, the West
should advocate the development of this so-called “Marxist humanist socialism”, and
“has much to offer for the former colonial nations; not only capital and technical
advice, but also the Western humanist tradition of which Marxist socialism is the
upshot”. That is to say, all the activities of Fromm in turning Marxism into abstract
humanitarian directly served the global strategy of the Western world.
Fromm was also quite different from others in his practice of turning Marxism
into abstract humanitarian. He didn’t explain and amplify the Manuscripts itself, but
gave full play to abstract humanitarian in discussing Marxism as a whole, and in
discussing a series of key theoretical problems about Marxism.
For example, he imposed abstract humanitarian on the whole Marxist philosophy
from three aspects in one breath.
What’s the origin of Marxist philosophy? Fromm answered it was the Western
humanist tradition. He believed “his (Marx’s) philosophy originated from the Western
humanist tradition”, which was “the tradition of man's freedom”, “the tradition of
human dignity and brotherhood”, and the nature of this tradition was “to develop
man’s own human potentialities”
What are the major concerns and aims of Marxist philosophy? Fromm answered
that the major concerns of Marx was “the emancipation of man as an individual”, and
“it was aimed at the full realization of individualism”. Therefore, “Marxist philosophy
was a new and radical step forward in the tradition of prophetic Messianism” and can
enable man to “be fully human”.
What’s the nature of Marxist philosophy? Fromm said that it was a protest
against the alienation of man, and also “as many existentialist ideas, Marxist
philosophy is a spiritual existentialism” and “Marx's concept of socialism is a protest,
as is all existentialist philosophy, against the alienation of man”.
We have mentioned that in the process of turning Marxism into abstract
humanitarian, Marcuse followed the way from Marx back to Feuerbach, and then slid
down to existentialism; on the contrary, Fromm turned Marxism into existentialism
just at one stroke.
The existentialism in the modern Western World, which takes the facts and
problems of alienation as its starting point, is a special ideological counteraction.
Through the conceptual category and principle of fear, angst, alienation, absurdity,
helpless, despair and boredom, it discloses and protests the situation that the
bourgeois utilization of science and technology is snuffing out the basic values in
man’s inner heart and the numerous and jumbled system of machinized production in
capitalist society and the faceless consumption turn man into slaves of machines, and
it takes the emancipation of man from alienation as its aim. However, it attributes this
contradiction that originally derives from the capitalist mode of production and the
contradiction it produces between living labor and materialized labor in the capitalist
society either to the ontological phenomenon rooted in objectification, or to the
humanistic phenomenon rooted in humanity itself. In this way, it takes alienation as
an essential constituent element of man’s existence and believes that man alienates
from himself in a way of daily existence and sink into the world. Hence it describes

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the crisis of the capitalist society as the crisis of the existence of the mankind as a
whole, and as the eternal tragedy of human existence that cannot be overcome by any
social transformation, and thus it falls into inextricable social pessimism.
It is obvious that Marxism has nothing to do this theory of alienation of humanity
of the existentialism. It’s completely groundless and unreasonable for Fromm to take
Marxism as the equivalent to existentialism.
After giving these groundless description and comments on Marxist philosophy
with abstract humanitarian, Fromm began to misinterpret a series of key theoretical
problems of Marxism with abstract humanitarian.
Aren’t these abstract humanitarian interpretations of Marxist philosophy against
the historical materialism established by Marx? Fromm answered: No, because
“‘materialistic basis’, by which he (Marx) simply referred to the fundamental
conditions of human existence”, “It does mean that man---the real and total man, the
"real living individuals" -- not the ideas produced by these "individuals" -- are the
subject matter of history and of the understanding of its laws”, therefore, “Marx's
interpretation of history could be called an anthropological interpretation of history…,
it is the understanding of history based on the fact that men are ‘the authors and actors
of their history’”.
Here, Fromm obviously gave a one-sided distortion of Marxist principle that men
are the authors and actors of their history because while pointing out that history is
created by men themselves, Marx also stressed that people aren’t creating history
under their selected conditions at their pleasure, but under the real circumstances
which restrict them and on the basis of the existing realistic relations. Therefore,
although the social historical process is composed of people’s activities, the
development of socio-economic formation is a regular natural historical process
independent of man’s will. A society, even if the natural law of its own movement is
discovered, it still can neither leap over this natural development stage nor abolish it
by law. Thus it’s groundless to describe Marx's interpretation of history as an
anthropological interpretation of history which takes man as the subject matter.
In the problem of “the nature of man”, Fromm believed, there was a “continuity
of the concept of man's essence which the young Marx wrote about in the Economic
and Philosophical Manuscripts” in the works of Marx’s whole life, and there wasn’t
“basic change” in this concept. “Although he no longer used the term ‘essence of
man’ later in the German Ideology, it remained the main ideological tendency of the
Manuscripts, especially the continuity of the concept of alienation”.
Then, what’s Marx’s conception of alienation?
Fromm said: “For Marx the history of mankind is a history of the increasing
development of man, and at the same time of increasing alienation”, hence he
believed that “For Marx, as for Hegel, the concept of alienation is based on the
distinction between existence and essence”, and “he (the man) is alienated from the
essence of humanity, from his ‘species-being’, both in his natural and spiritual
qualities. This alienation from the human essence leads to an existential egotism,
described by Marx as man's human essence becoming ‘a means for his individual
existence’”. Here, Fromm completely confused Marx’s ideas with Kant’s theory that
humanity is the end. He said: “Marx's concept touches here the Kantian principle that
man must always be an end in himself, and never a means to an end. But he amplifies
this principle by stating that man's human essence must never become a means for
individual existence.”
Then, Fromm crammed this package of abstract humanitarian ideas into the
Marx’s concept of socialism.

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 He said: “Marx's concept of socialism follows from his concept of man”. For
Marx, “the aim of socialism is man. It is to create a form of production and an
organization of society” in which man can overcome “alienation”, and “return to
himself”.
Here, Fromm once again confuses the Marx’s concept of socialism with
existentialism. He wrote, “Socialism for Marx was, as Paul Tillich (an American
theistic existentialist) put it, ‘a resistance movement against the destruction of love in
social reality.’”; “Marx's concept of socialism is a protest, as is all existentialist
philosophy, against the alienation of man; then Marx's socialism is a protest against
this very lovelessness”; “The mainstream of Messianic thinking …found its latest and
most complete expression in Marx's concept of socialism”, and “Socialism (in its
Marxist and other forms) returned to the idea of the "good society" as the condition
for the realization of man's spiritual needs”1.
Lenin once said: “the socialist doctrine is successful precisely when it stops
arguing about social conditions that conform to human nature and sets about making a
materialist analysis of contemporary social relations and explaining the necessity for
the present regime of exploitation.”2 That is to say, Marx’s concept of socialism was
formed just in the process of breaking from the humanistic conception of history.
However, Fromm described Marx’s concept of socialism as “returned to the idea of
the ‘good society’ as the condition for the realization of man’s spiritual needs”.
Doesn’t this show clearly that Fromm wanted to once again cram abstract humanism
into Marxist concept of socialism which had already abandoned abstract humanism?!
Just for this reason, for Fromm, Marx’s concept of socialism wasn’t what Marx
had described, but an “heir of prophetic Messianism, Christian Chiliastic
sectarianism, thirteenth-century Thomism, Renaissance Utopianism, and eighteenth-
century enlightenment. It is the synthesis of the prophetic-Christian idea of society as
the plane of spiritual realization, and of the idea of individual freedom”3. In a word,
for Fromm, the “Marxist concept of socialism” might be all forms of abstract
humanism in history instead of the Marxism described by Marx himself.

3. Declaration and Program of the “Democratic and Humanistic Socialism”

As a member of the National Committee of the Socialist Party of America-Social

Democratic Federation, Fromm not only turn Marxism into abstract humanism by
misinterpreting the Manuscripts, but also put forward Let Man Prevail—A Socialist
Manifesto and Program4.
In this Manifesto and Program, From called his “socialism” as “the third way
——“democratic and humanistic socialism” “outside the free enterprise management
system and communist management system”. The editor of the American magazine
the Socialist Call where this Manifesto and Program was published added comments
to it, pointing out that Fromm, by proposing this Manifesto and Program “has broken
a new ground for the present discussion by socialists on revising the socialist doctrine
to make it more meaningful to our times”.
In order to enable the readers to have a clear understanding of this “new ground”
“broken” by Fromm, I’ll compare and analyze it here with the programs of the social
democratic parties in Europe, especially the programs of the Socialist International.
1 Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man, New York, 1961.
2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 1, Page 55.
3 Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man, New York, 1961.
4 American magazine Socialist Call, 1960, Volume 28, Issue 2.

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 The “third way” of Fromm’s “democratic and humanistic socialism” was put
forward by using abstract humanism to comment on capitalism and criticize the
existing socialism.
Then, what are the characteristics of capitalism in the 20th century?
Fromm said, one of its important characteristics was, “Concentration of capital
led to the formation of giant enterprises, managed by hierarchically organized
bureaucracies… The individual worker and clerk becomes a cog in this machine, their
function and activities are determined by the whole structure of the organization in
which they work”. In giant enterprises, the ownership is separated from management
and these “managers” have the qualities of “lack of individuality, impersonality,
caution, lack of imagination”, “they administer things and persons, and relate to
persons as to things”; “and in the sphere of consumption he (an individual) is likewise
managed and manipulated”, “Man is transformed into the consumer, the eternal
suckling, whose one wish is to consume more and ‘better’ things”.
In a word, Fromm believed, “capitalism of the 20th century is basically different
from the previous one”, it was “rapidly developing into a society dominated by the
bureaucracy where it is managing a group of people who are sated with food, living
comfortably, short of humanity and depressed”. It “brings martial wealth and also lack
of humanity”, man produced machine, and he became a machine himself. Machine
became the idol of modern man while man became its slave, thus “man is alienated
from himself, and was subject to his work, to his production and to the State and
leaders elected by him”.
The programs of the Socialist International also commented on capitalism with
abstract humanism. For example, the 1951 Frankfurt Declaration of SI said,
capitalism “excluded the great majority of citizens from influence over production. It
put the rights of ownership before the rights of man. It created a new class of wage-
earners without property or social rights”; “Socialists oppose capitalism”, “above all
because it revolts their sense of justice”.
The Resolution on International Situation passed at the 4th congress of the SI in
1955 said: “capitalism opposes the principle of social justice and equality of man; and
under its wings, exploitation and enslavement grow.”
The World Today: The Socialist Perspective passed at the Oslo congress in 1962
said, “The capitalist methods of ruthless exploitation of the workers”, “point back to
an age where human beings were treated as raw materials and not as the source and
objective of all efforts”.
After comparing these two comments on capitalism, we can see that the “new”
ground displayed by the Manifesto and Program of Fromm was that it described
contemporary capitalism entirely according to the existentialist theory of alienation
and hence showed a strong color of abstract humanism. According to the description
of Fromm, the class exploitation and oppression completely disappeared from the
capitalist society and only the contradiction between man and material existed: man
was reduced to the slave of his production, and at most there also existed the
contradiction between man and a few bureaucrats-managers of man.
Then, how did Fromm criticize the existing socialism?
He believed because the existing socialism was subject to the capitalist spirit,
“on the one hand, it forgets the humanistic aim of socialism, and on the other hand, it
focuses all its efforts on the pursuit of economic aim”. Thus, “socialism means that
workers try to gain their position under the capitalist system and socialism no longer
changes the capitalism, instead, it’s overwhelmed by capitalist spirit”. He said, the
Soviet Union “adopted the terrorist and autocratic means so as to achieve the

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accumulation of capital which was already realized in the West Europe in the 19th
century because it is far behind the West Europe and hasn’t the tradition of
democracy. They developed a new form of State capitalism”, “which proved to be
economically successful and humanly destructive”, “in fact completely denied the
recognition of personality and full development of individuals advocated by
socialism”. Fromm predicted that once the Soviet Union could satisfy the demand for
a comfortable life, it would “adopt the same method of manipulation as the West
Europe does”, and this would lead to “the merger of capitalism and socialism in the
20th century”, and both of them would become “a society dominated by a managerial
class and a group of professional politicians” “based on industrialization” so as to
“constantly raise economic efficiency and increase wealth”.
In a word, Fromm believed that “capitalism and the distorted vulgar socialism
have already brought men the danger of becoming a machine without humanity, men
are losing wits and on the verge of complete self-destruction”.
Compared with the programs of the SI with a strong anti-communist color cited
above1, Fromm’s Manifesto and Program had a subdued irrational anti-communist
color, although it also took the abstract humanism as a weapon to criticize the existing
socialism. Nevertheless, it’s groundless to take socialism the same as capitalism and
believe that “socialism no longer changes capitalism; instead, it’s overwhelmed by
capitalist spirit” under the pretext that the existing socialism takes development of
economy and productive forces as its central task.
Since the existing socialism has been developed in the capitalist countries with
backward economic and cultural development, in order to win comparative
advantages over capitalism, it should boldly take in all fruits of human civilization
and learn all the management models and methods reflecting modern production laws
from other countries including developed capitalist countries and vigorously develop
its social productive forces and take this as its priority. However, this doesn’t mean
socialism is overwhelmed by capitalist spirit at all. Just as Deng Xiaoping said, “The
essence of socialism is to emancipate and develop productive forces, eliminate
exploitation and polarization and eventually realize common prosperity”2. Therefore,
“socialism is much better than capitalism which make profit at the expense of others
and where the weak falls victim of the strong”3, and “There is no way by which
capitalism can ever eliminate the extraction of super-profits by its millionaires or ever
get rid of exploitation, plundering and economic crises. It can never generate common
ideals and moral standards or free itself from appalling crimes, moral degradation and
despair”4, “only socialism can eliminate the various phenomena of greediness,
corruption and injustice inevitably produced by capitalism and other systems of
exploitation”5.
Then, how did Fromm design the so-called “third way”-“democratic and
humanistic socialism” in his Manifesto and Program?
Fromm said, this was “an expectation and ideal that was better and more
humanistic that the previous societies”, a “new and true ideal of human society put
forward on the basis of the original principles of socialism”. As to the so-called
“original principles of socialism”, he put forward 17 principles which can be summed
up into the following five principles:
First, the value of man is above all. That is to say, in the relation between man
1 See Section 5 of this Chapter.
2 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page 373.
3 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 2, Page 337.
4 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 2, Page 167.
5 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page 143.

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and matter, “to put man above matter, life above property, and then work above
capital; power comes from creation instead of property; the environment should by no
means dominate man, instead, man should dominate the environment”; “man should
dominate capital instead of being dominated by capital”. In the relation between men,
“it should be ensured that every man himself is the end, and shouldn’t be used by
others a means to their ends”, “anyone shouldn’t be subject to the other who possesses
capital”. This principle was similar to the principle advocated by the programs of
socialist parties that demanded not only maintenance of capitalism but also
democratic supervision over economy.
However, the problem is that capital in itself is a social relation based on
extraction of surplus values by exploitation of labour, how can we, under the
framework of capitalist system, put man’s value above property and capital? How can
we make it possible that power doesn’t come from property? And how can we enable
man to dominate capital and not to be subject to those who possess capital? ... All
these can only be a dream or disguise to cove up the true face of capitalist
exploitation, oppression and enslavement over the working people.
Second, the moral principles and values of humanism in the West should be
advocated. Fromm said: “humanistic socialism roots in the belief in harmonious co-
existence and solidarity of human being”; “it believes that man’s biggest fidelity
should be devoted to the whole human being and the moral principles of humanism
and it is dedicated to bringing back those ideals and value standards established by
Western civilization”, for example, freedom is one of such ideals and standards,
“humanistic socialism advocates freedom”.
This principle of Fromm dovetailed completely with the programs of the SI.
Socialist International also tried to emphasize that “the principle of democratic
socialism” “is based on our belief in freedom, equality and human brotherhood”;
“democratic socialism realizes the basic values of freedom, justice and solidarity
through democratic process”; “democratic socialism is an international movement for
freedom, justice and solidarity”. This has been analyzed previously in this book.
Third, “Full development of individuals is the condition of full collective
development”. This also complied with the proposition of the programs of SI. The
programs of SI also said, “we democratic Socialists proclaim our conviction that the
ultimate aim of political activity is the fullest development of every human
personality”, “individual rights is the basis of socialist values”, and “the development
of individual personality is the foundation of human development”, etc.
It should be pointed out that this was a principle which handled the relationship
between individual and collective by egocentrism of ultra-individualism. It’s true that
in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels once said: in a future
communist society, “the free development of each is the condition for the free
development of all”1. However, Marx and Engels viewed the individual perfection as
social perfection. Just for this reason, they put an emphasis on the other side of the
coin in German Ideology: “Only in community can an individual gain the means of
cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal
freedom possible”; “In a real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and
through their association”2.
Fourth, the principle of economic democracy. Fromm said: “Humanistic
socialism expands democratic procedure from pure political field to economic field,
and it is political democracy plus industrial democracy”; “to expand democracy to

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 294.

2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 119.

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economic field means democratic supervision over all the economic activities by
participants of these activities (manual workers, engineers and manager, etc.)”.
This Principle of Fromm was also completely in line with the programs of the SI.
The latter repeatedly emphasized that “democratic socialists understand the
weaknesses of the pure political democracy; hence they should use the new form of
economic democracy and industrial democracy to supplement it so as to realize social
democracy”. “(we are) confident that political democracy can become real political
democracy only when it’s expanded to social democracy, and (we) recognize that only
economic equality can led to the realization of freedom to the largest extent”.
It’s no doubt that the implementation of economic and industrial democracy will
be helpful to protecting workers’ interests to a certain extent, but so long as this
democracy is implemented under the precondition of capitalist private ownership of
the means of production, it cannot change the working class’ position of being
exploited and enslaved in a capitalist society. Therefore, Marxism has to summed up
this problem into the abolition of capitalist private ownership of the means of
production. However, both the Socialist International and Fromm took private
ownership as a precondition in their manifestos and programs. In this context, the so-
called “democratic” and “humanistic” socialism could only be a visional and abstract
humanism.
Fifth, principle of non-violence. Fromm said: “Socialist humanism completely
opposes any form of wars and violence and believes that all the attempts to solve
political and social problems by military force and violence is not only useless but
also immoral and inhumane”; “it believes that peace is not only the freedom from war
but also an active principle of human relations which is based on free cooperation of
mankind for their common interests”.
This principle of Fromm was also basically in line with the so-called political
democracy and international democracy put forward by the programs of the SI, for the
latter proposed to domestically “strive to build a new society in freedom and by
democratic means”, and to internationally “work for a world of peace and freedom”.
However, the problem now is that in the contemporary world, violence roots in
class oppression and imperialist aggression to a large extend. Democratic socialism
opposes the abolition of capitalist private ownership of the means of production,
opposes the abolition of class oppression, and opposes the abolition of imperialism,
but it also opposes violence at the same time. Isn’t this the support for cause and
opposition to effect? Moreover, for the oppressed races and people, they are forced to
use a just war to oppose the unjust war because violence and war are always imposed
by imperialism and exploiting class on them. If the oppressed races and people “don’t
fight back because it’s immoral and inhumane” when the imperialism and exploiting
class impose war and violence on them, isn’t this doctrine of abstract humanism
asking them to be obedient slaves and flunkies?
To sum up, Fromm’s democratic and humanistic socialism completely conformed
to the democratic socialism proposed by the Socialist International on the key point of
abstract humanism. Therefore, the “new ground” it “has broken” had to still be the
social reformism of Socialist International which took abstract humanism as its
guiding principle, and it at best offered an American version for the programs of SI.

Section 4 Democratic Socialism and Critical-Rationalism

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 In 1975, a group of young theorists of the Social Democratic Party of Germany
published a collection of essays named Critical Rationalism and Social Democratic
Party. On the one hand, they commemorated Bernstein who, as early as in his letter to
Bebel 20 years before the German Revolution in November 1918, pointed out that
Marxist theory was disjointed with the reformist policies of social democratic parties,
and proposed to test this theory in order to ensure its conformity to reality. 60 years
later, Bernstein’s demand for “testing this theory” finally found its expression in the
Godesberg Program of the SPD in 1959. But on the other hand, the authors of this
collection of essays complained that the Godesberg Program didn’t have “strict
philosophical and theoretical basis”, and they required to take Popper’s critical
rationalism as the philosophical basis of the long-term program of the SPD.
It should be pointed out that although this collection of essays consisted of
articles written by some young theorists of the SPD and it only belonged to the
domestic affairs within SPD and Germany, this action of the young theorists showed
the requirement of the social democratic parties to use critical rationalism to
supplement neo-Kantianism, especially to use the epistemology and socio-political
philosophy of critical rationalism to supplement the ethical socialism and abstract
humanism of neo-Kantianism, and to take critical rationalism as its philosophical
basis to prove its speeches and programs.
Then, who’s Popper? What’s his critical rationalism? What’re the epistemology
and socio-political conception of this philosophy? And why could it supplement
ethical socialism and abstract humanism and become philosophical basis of
democratic socialism?

1. Popper and His Critical-Rationalism

Karl Popper was a famous philosopher in modern West. He was born in Vienna 1902
to a family with Jewish origins. Karl’s father was a lawyer and loved history, poets
and philosophy, and he had a great number of philosophical books in his personal
library. Moreover, his father was also an active liberalist and once was awarded a
peerage by the Austrian Emperor for his remarkable achievement in charitable causes.
His mother came from a long line of musicians and was an expert in music. Since he
dabbled in many philosophical books kept by his father in his boyhood and lived in a
period of storm and stress in Europe caused by the outbreak of the First World War, he
formed a habit of thinking hard and inquiring into social problems.
When he was young, Popper once red many Marxist and anti-Marxist books
under the guidance of his socialist friend Arthur Arndt who had participate in the
February Revolution of Russia and had opposed Leninist Bolsheviks, hence he was
inclined to social democratic party and skeptical about communist party. In the spring
of 1919, driven by the revolutionary wave, Popper regarded himself as a communist.
But in the summer of the same year, many young students and workers were bloodily
suppressed and shot in the demonstration and then were greatly scared. They soon
became skeptical about the scientificity of scientific socialism and oppose Marxism,
especially the Marxist theory about class struggle and violent revolution, and from
this they drew a conclusion that they should adopt a critical attitude toward all the
theories instead of accepting them dogmatically. In his work Unended Quest, he said:
“Thus I arrived by the end of 1919, at the conclusion that the scientific attitude was
the critical attitude, which did not look for verifications but for crucial tests; tests,
which could refute the theory tested, thought they could never establish it.”

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Before he graduated from high school, Popper had been tired of the educational mode
there; hence he left school at the end of 1918 for the University of Vienna where he
studied as an associate student. In 1922 he became a formal student in the University
of Vienna and in 1928 he earned a doctorate there with his doctoral dissertation On
the Problem of Method in the Psychology of Thinking. Later, he turned to the study of
methodology and gained the qualification of a middle school teacher of mathematics
and physics in the next year and began to live a tranquil life as a middle school
teacher.
When he was studying and writing his doctoral dissertation in the University of
Vienna, Popper was influence by the Vienna School. During the period between 1929
and 1930, encouraged by Vogel, a philosopher of Vienna School, Popper wrote a book
The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge, which, after being cut
down, was published with the title of Logik der Forschung as one of the books of the
series The Scientific World Conception: The Vienna Circle. Popper immediately
gained a great reputation and then was invited by many universities and academic
groups to visit and give lectures. In 1936, he was invited to the University of
Canterbury in New Zealand and lived there for a long time as a result of the breakout
of the Second World War. During this period, he began to apply his ideological
principles of scientific philosophy expressed in his book Logik der Forschung to the
socio-historical field. In the 1940s, he published two books: The Poverty of
Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies, publicly criticizing the historical
determinism and scientific socialism of Marxism.
In 1945, Popper was invited to teach in the London School of Economics and
lived there for the rest of his life. In 1950, he was invited to the U.S. as a visitor and
lecturer. During this visiting period, his essay Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and
in Classical Physics was once praised by Einstein. After the 1950s, he turned to study
ontology and proposed the theory of “three worlds”. He was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth II in 1965, and was also an academician of both British and American
Academy. He retired from academic life in 1970.
The critical rationalism put forward by Popper was a school of the modern
scientific philosophy in the West. It was diametrically opposed to logical positivism
and its emergence was a reflection of the modern revolution of physics in the field of
philosophy. At the turn of the 19th -20th century, in the German cultural area, a
revolution of modern physics broke out, bringing about challenges to almost all the
basic concepts of classical physics. And the emergence of relativism and quantum
mechanics in the 20th century put this revolution to a new high. In 1916, Einstein
published his preface to the theory of general relativity, predicting that the amount of
bending by the starlight passing close to the sun would be 1.7 arc-seconds, but
according to Newton’s theory of gravity in the classical physics, this amount should
be no more than 1 arc-second. The observations of solar eclipse in 1919 proved that
Einstein’s theory of light bending was correct while Newton’s theory of gravity which
had been proved by millions of scientific tests declared its failure. However, when this
“heat of relativity” was sweeping the scientific circle, Einstein declared “The theory
of general relativity cannot stand well if the earth potential field can't make the
spectral line to move to the red end”; “and if must be abandoned if one of the
conclusions drawn from it is proved to be wrong”. This brought about a big shock to
Popper and inspired him to look for new methods to solve a series of problems in
scientific philosophy. Science is called science because it’s correct or because it has
mistakes and can be falsified? Is the way of scientific development from observation
to theory, or from theory to observation? In answering these questions, Popper used

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the principle of falsification to replace the principle of verification of logical
positivism, and proposed a trial-and-error method to achieve the alteration of
scientific theories. Against this background, the philosophical school of critical
rationalism opposite to the empiricism of logic positivism came into being.

2. The Epistemology of Critical-Rationalism

The epistemology of Critical Rationalism contains the following three aspects:

1) Repudiation to inductivism
Logical positivism believes that the induction is an important way to form and
verify scientific theories. The reason is that the formation of a scientific theory must
start from the experimental facts that can be observed and then be summed up through
induction; and after a scientific theory came into being, it should also be verified by
inducing from a number of facts.
On the contrary, Popper’s critical rationalism completely repudiated induction.
He believed:
Firstly, all the experiential statements are singular statements while all the
scientific theories are universal statements with universal validity. A universally valid
scientific theory as a universal statement cannot be induced from the empirical facts
as singular statements; moreover, an induction only includes part of the empirical
facts in the past and even if the events have always repeated in the past, one cannot
prove that they will continue to repeat in the future. Popper pointed out: “Now it is far
from obvious, from a logical point of view, that we are justified in inferring universal
statements from singular ones, no matter how numerous; for any conclusion drawn in
this way may always turn out to be false”1
Secondly, the principle of induction in itself is a general statement and people
proved this principle from its past empirical validity. Popper believed that this method
of argumentation is absurd in itself because this means an argument which hasn’t yet
be proved is used to prove itself which leads to a vicious circle.
Thirdly, when disclosing the above defects of the induction, Popper also criticized
the argumentation made by Hume for the rationality of induction. In the Western
philosophical history, Hume, a British agnostic, not only pointed out that induction
was logically false because of the above two defects, but also said that induction had
psychological basis because similar things repeatedly for many times in experience,
and then produced imaginations, beliefs and even habits in minds of people who
believed this would continue to repeat in the future and hence induced necessary
knowledge from their understanding. As for this, Popper criticized: “After ruling out
the logic doctrine of induction, Hume compromised with common sense and tamely
allowed induction to come back through repetition in the disguise of psychology.”2 He
believed that logical problems should be separated from psychological problems and
Hume’s psychological argumentation in itself will backslide endlessly.
Fourthly, Popper also criticized Logical positivism for using modern probabilistic
logic to remedy induction. Logical positivism attempted to use probabilistic logic to
prove: that induction can deduce the probability of future knowledge although it
couldn’t deduce the necessity of it; deduction was probabilistic reasoning although it
wasn’t necessity reasoning and thus it led to probabilistic truth although it couldn’t
lead to necessary truth. Popper refuted this idea, saying that the past could neither

1 Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York, 1959, Page 27.
2 Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, New York, 1959, Page 42.

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prove the necessity of the future, nor the probability of the future, and logically in an
infinite universe of discourse, the probabilities of every infinite universal statement is
zero, and thus its probability is nothing but an empty talk.
Finally, Popper made a point to repudiate induction, saying that a theory didn’t
begin with observations, and its wasn’t formed through the accumulation of the water
of knowledge from outside in one’s brain which was like the bucket that containing
water; instead, theory preceded observation, and it’s a bold conjecture, a bold
conjecture and hypothesis of the reality.
These views of Popper denying induction is undoubtedly correct in criticizing the
one-sidedness of the traditional inductionism because the induction alone can’t solve
many problems without deduction. Just as Engels pointed out: “With all the induction
in the world we would never have got to the point of becoming clear about the process
of induction.”1 Lenin also pointed out: “The simplest truth obtained in the simplest
deductive way is always incomplete because experience is always unfinished.”2
However, after all, induction means to conclude a general scientific method from
individual cases, hence it’s one-sided, incorrect, and hence inadvisable to separate
induction from deduction mechanically by exaggerating the role of one of them and
denying the other one. Engels once said: “Induction and deduction belong together as
necessarily as synthesis and analysis. Instead of one-sidedly lauding one to the skies
at the expense of the other, we should seek to apply each of them in its place, and that
can only be done by bearing in mind that they belong together, that they supplement
each other.”3
While criticizing inductionism and describing theories as bold conjectures and
hypotheses prior to observation, Popper also repudiated the reflectionism. For Popper,
scientific knowledge wasn’t the reflection of the objective world and the reflectionism
was “wrong”; “commonsense theory of knowledge” was an “old dogma” and
outdated “idol” because sense was only the “information” acted on man by the outside
world and knowledge was merely the “reading of the codes input” from the outside
world, and it was not the image of reflection, but an exploration or conjecture.
Moreover, all the observations and senses were activities carried out under the
guidance of a certain ideal, expectation, interest and inclination, and hence were
inevitably subjective.
However, as a matter of fact, the sense produced by the objective world through
acting on one’s sensory organs is a replicate reflecting the outside phenomena of the
objective world. “It’s indisputable that a replicate is in no way completely the same
with the original model”, but “it must be based on the objective substantiality of the
“replicated” thing”4. And when man’s knowledge rises from sensibility to abstract
rationality, it is a deepening of the reflection which penetrates deeply into the inner
nature of the objective things, rather than an arbitrary distortion of them, for “all
scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly
and completely”5. As for the opinion that observations must be carried out under the
guidance of a certain theory or conception and hence was subjective, it only indicates
that the reflection of observation has selectivity, but it doesn’t deny the objectivity of
the content of observation. Therefore, the various arguments put forward by Popper
are not enough to repudiate the reflectionism of Marxism.
2) Propose the principle of falsification as a criterion of demarcation to draw a
1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 20, Page 570-571.
2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 55, Page 150.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 548.
4 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 18, Page 246.
5 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 65, Page 142.

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line between those theories that are scientific and those that are unscientific.
Based on his criticisms of inductionism, Popper proposed the principle of
falsification in opposition to the principle of verification of logical positivism.
According to the principle of verification proposed by logical positivism on the
basis of induction, only those propositions which could be verified or falsified by
empirical facts were meaningful and scientific while those which couldn’t be verified
or falsified by empirical facts were meaningless and nonscientific, or metaphysical.
On the contrary, according to the principle of falsification proposed by Popper,
the principle of verification of the logical positivism was wrong because empirical
facts couldn’t verify the universal statements and scientific truth with universal
validity, although they could verify singular statements. However, although
experience couldn’t verify theories, it could falsify scientific theories. For example,
experience could verify that “this is a white swan”, and “that is a white swan”, but it
couldn’t verity “all swans are white”. But an empirical fact that there is a black swan
can deny and falsify the universal statement that “all swans are white”.
Popper also used the principle of falsification to replace the principle of
verification as a criterion of demarcation to draw a line between those theories that are
scientific and those that are unscientific. He believed that the principle of verification
was not only too narrow but also too broad to be a criterion of demarcation to draw a
line between science and nonscience. It’s too narrow because it would consider these
highly abstract scientific theories that couldn’t be restored to empirical statements
such as relativity and quantum mechanics as non-sciences, and exclude them from the
scientific field; it’s too broad because it would include pseudoscience, for example,
astrology, into scientific field on the basis of rich inductive materials. Therefore,
Popper required to replace the principle of verification by the principle of
falsification.
According to the standard of falsification principle, Popper believed that only
those which could be tested were scientific: “if a statement is testable and falsifiable,
then it is scientific; otherwise, it is non-scientific and metaphysical.”1 Based on this,
he also put the various propositions, together with religions, myths and pseudoscience
with confused wordings and ambiguous inferences into the category of non-science.
These propositions included: toutology proposition without any statements of
empirical contents, logic proposition listing all kinds of possibilities but was
unfalsifiable and mathematical proposition belonging to tautology and logical truth
but was unfalsifiable.
It should be pointed out that on the one hand, Popper’s repudiation to verification
principle of logical positivism contains some rational elements, but on the other hand,
his falsification principle took experience, instead of practice, as the criterion of
testing truth, as did the verification principle. As a matter of fact, without rationality
and practice, experience alone could neither verify a theory, nor falsify it because
although sensory experience has the character of direct actuality, it doesn’t have the
universal quality that can grasp the internal relations of things and universal laws, and
it can also cause misconceptions, and hence is unreliable and can’t be taken as a
reliable criterion to falsify a theory. Only practice is the sole criterion to test truth.
Engels pointed out: “The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical
crotchets is practice — namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the
correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it
into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain,

1 Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, New York, 1959, Page 25.

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then there is an end to the Kantian ungraspable ‘thing-in-itself’.”1 The reason is that,
when we make use of things according to our perception of their properties, we can
have the correctness of our sensory perception tested in a reliable way. If these
perceptions are wrong, our judgment about the possible uses of the fact will certainly
be wrong, and our trial will be a failure. But if we have achieved our purpose, if we
find out that things are in compliance with our conception about them and produced
the expected results, this will definitely prove that within this scope, our conception
about things and their properties are in line with the reality existing outside us.
3) Use the method of trial-and-error to express the increasing process of scientific
knowledge and the formula of theory of knowledge
Popper opposed the traditional idea that summed up scientific progress into
continuous induction, verification and accumulation, and he believed that scientific
progress lied in constantly criticizing the old theories while boldly conjecturing new
theories and constantly eliminating the errors in them. Based on this, he proposed the
“four-step formula” of the increasing process of scientific knowledge”:
Science begins with problems which make scientists to think.
Then, scientists propose various bold trials, conjectures and hypotheses or
theories based on these problems. Popper said: “A scientific theory is an explanation
of a problem and a trial to solve a scientific problem, that is to say, a problem directly
concerns the emergence of an explanation”2.
Next, various theories compete with and criticize each other, and then receive
strict test in observations and experiments where errors are eliminated and a new
theory with the highest verisimilitude is selected.
Finally, the new theory is identified, but can’t be verified, and hasn’t been
falsified temporarily, and it will be falsified in the further development of science and
technology. At that time, scientists will again be faced with new problems, and then
this endless process of circulation from problem to problem will start again,
promoting the constant growth of scientific knowledge.
Popper said: “Scientific development should be considered as a continuous
progress from problem to problem. With this progress, the depth of problem is also
constantly increasing.”3 He called this method of four-step formula “the method of
trial and the elimination of error”, which could be summed up into “bold trial and
strict test”.
He believed that the key to “bold trial and strict test” was to have a critical spirit.
The critical idea was just the rational idea. A Critique was a rational critique while
rationality was critical rationality. Therefore, he called his theory “critical
rationalism”.
He said that this critical rationalism was the continuity and development of the
philosophical thinking of criticism in Kantian philosophy and the critical scientific
theory of knowledge of Einstein. He said: “My criticism is only the advocate and
accomplishment of the Kantian critical philosophy and Einstein provided possibility
for this.”4
He also related his trial-and-error method to the evolutionary theory of
Darwinism. He said: “the theory of knowledge that I’ve proposed is generally a
Darwinist theory of knowledge development.”5 The reason was that all the living
creatures had an innate instinct to adapt to the environment, and this instinct was the
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 225-226.
2 Popper: The Poverty of Historicism, London, 1957, Page 122.
3 Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, Page 222.
4 Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, Page 27.
5 Popper: Objective Knowledge, London, 1975, Page 112

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trial-and-error method, namely, they conducted various trial variations to the outside
stimulus, and selected a new species through competition for existence and natural
selection so as to reflect their innate capacity of evolution. “The trial-and-error
method is basically a method used by a life organism in the process of adapting to the
environment”1 and this method could also explain the evolution of creatures because
animals and plants were also the problem solvers and they also use the method of trial
response and error elimination to solve problems in a competitive manner.
Popper compared his “four-step” formula of trial-and-error with the “three-step”
formula of dialectics which was thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and believed that there’re
big differences between them: the three-step formula only admitted the opposition
between a thesis and an antithesis while the four-step formula allowed the oppositions
between several theses and antitheses; the three-step formula asserted that antithesis
come from thesis while the four-step formula believed that antithesis could only come
from man’s critical spirit. The dialectics believed that thesis and antithesis struggle
with each other while Popper didn’t think that struggle was good, instead, he thought
that there were many struggles in the ideological history of mankind, but they were
useless and had brought about nothing good to people; the three-step formula believed
that the struggle between thesis and antithesis resulted in synthesis while Popper
believed that generally the thesis was criticized and then was falsified and eliminated.
Popper also brought his trial-and-error formula into comparison with the attitude
of Marxist dialectics toward contradictions, and he believed that the fundamental
difference between them was that, the Marxist dialectics affirmed contradiction and
its universality while his trial-and-error formula denied contradiction and believed
that it only existed in man’s mind instead of in the objective things. He believed that
the artificial extension of contradiction to the nature had resulted in big mistake and
arbitrary decisions and turned the dialectics a dangerous method, moreover, the
combination of dialectics and materialism was even worse than the idealistic
dialectics. He also believed that the Marxist dialectics artificially set up contradictions
while he tried to eliminate them; the Marxist dialectics opposed the law of
contradiction in logic while Popper affirmed the law of contradiction in formal logic;
Marxist dialectics affirmed dialectical logic while Popper opposed it and thought
there’s no reason to believe it.
Popper’s trial-and-error method summed up his ideas of epistemology
comprehensively, which included both elements of dialectics and dregs of
agnosticism, and most of his attacks on Marxist dialectics were a result of
misinterpretation.

3. Sociopolitical Philosophy of Critical-Rationalism

Popper believed that his conjecture and refutation method and trial-and-error
method of critical rationalism were not only applicable to the natural sciences, but
also to social sciences; and the application of trial-and-error method to socio-political
field formed the socio-political philosophy of critical rationalism. This socio-political
philosophy mainly contained the following two aspects:

1). Be opposed to historicism

Popper advocated that the method of social science should be the same with the

1 Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, Page 312.

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method of natural science, and he called the idea which believed the social science
and natural science were different in methodology the “anti-naturalistic” idea. He also
believed that the reason why social science was lagging behind since Galileo was the
lack of guidance by correct scientific methods, especially was that the anti-naturalists
took the distinctiveness of social science as an excuse to refuse to apply the effective
methods of modern natural science to the study of socio-historical problems.
Popper believed the most popular anti-naturalism in history was historicism. This
historicism believed that the task of social science was to give long-term historical
prediction and that the process of events could be predicted through the law of history
that had been discovered. According to Popper, among various historicisms, including
the historicism in a theological form (which believes that the God formulates social
development and decides the fate of the voters), natural historicism (which believes
that the natural law decides social development) and psychological historicism (which
believes that psychological law decides social development), the Marxist economic
historicism which believed that economic law decided social development was the
most popular and dangerous one: “Marxism is so far the purest, the most developed
and the most dangerous form of historicism”
Popper believed historicism was opposed to naturalism in terms of its opposition
to applying methods of natural science to the socio-historical field; but it also
supported naturalism in terms of its proposition that the task of social science, the
same as the natural science, was to seek laws. The reason was it was influenced by the
achievements made by Newton and Darwin: “Modern historicism has been greatly
influenced by the success of Newton’s theory; especially it can predict the position of
planet for a long time”, “the present popularity of historicism should be regarded as a
part of the popularity of Darwin’s theory of evolution”1. However, he thought that
historicism was basically wrong because the changes in socio-history had no laws to
speak of. He believed that social phenomena, different from natural phenomena, were
one-off and not repetitive, and hence there’s no law in their changes. “There’re no
laws in social history, hence no experiment can be conducted to society. It can’t repeat
under exactly the similar conditions.”2 The new things in social area were also
different from those in the nature, they might not be rationally analyzed and predicted
and weren’t the artificial reassembly of the existing elements, but the new things with
brand new nature. Social phenomena had relations in many aspects which couldn’t be
artificially isolated, and they involved man’s ideological activities; in the field of
social phenomena, there’s only tendentiousness instead of regularity, but the
prediction of social history always took a temporary tendency as a universal law.
Popper said: “We can assert: this is the core error of historicism, its ‘laws of
development’ turn out to be an abstract tendency which, seems like a law, is
independent of the initial conditions and lead us to the irresistible future. They are the
basis of unconditional prediction and opposite to the scientific conditional
prediction”3, he called this unconditional prediction a “false prediction” or a “trick”.
By summing up his arguments on denying historicism, Popper asserted that the
process of human history was strongly influenced by the knowledge progress of
mankind, and since we couldn’t predict the growth of our scientific knowledge in a
rational or scientific way, we couldn’t predict the future process of human history
either. This meant that we must deny the possibility of theoretical history, namely, the
possibility of the historical sociology corresponding to theoretical physics. Therefore,

1 Popper: The Poverty of Historicism, Page 36, 106.

2 Popper: The Poverty of Historicism, Page 93.
3 Popper: The Poverty of Historicism, Page 128.

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Popper believed that the fundamental goal of the method of historicism was designed
in a wrong way, and thus historicism was unsustainable.
Popper also attacked historicism, saying that it had brought about “essentialism”
which believed that the knowledge of things should be obtained by seeking the
essence through the surface of things, “totalitarianism” which took human history as a
huge all-encompassing torrent of development, and held that man must study things in
a comprehensive and general manner, and “utopianism” which attempted to strictly
control and achieve the predicted social development process, and thus led to
dictatorship that denied individual freedom and the replacement of solution to the
present concrete problems by a mania for abstract interests. He said: “Although
socialist movement is atheistic, it is as a whole inspired by a strong religious and
humanistic belief”1.
Popper was particularly devoted to the attack on Marx’s historicism. He said that
Marx’s “economism” was of great value in terms of its proposition that the study of
social history must take into consideration the then economic conditions, but it was
completely wrong to describe economic conditions as the decisive condition of social
history and described social development as dependent on the economic conditions,
especially the development of material means of production.
For Popper, compared with political and religious ideas, especially scientific
ideas, economic elements only took a secondary place. He believed ideology decides
economic and social development. He said: “I think the experience of social history
clearly shows that under a certain circumstance the influence of conception exceeds
and takes the place of the influence of economic strength.”2 The ideas which
constitute knowledge are more fundamental than the whole material means of
production, “therefore, from a basic point of view, ‘historicism’ is a mare’s nest”,
“historicism is groundless”3. Popper also repeatedly attacked Marx by saying that
Marx was a wrong predictor in the historical process who had misled many people of
vision into believing that the aim of social study was to propose historical prediction
and he threatened that Marx should be responsible for this destruction influence.
From the discussion of this book on the regularity of social development and
basic content of historicism when analyzing the dividing line in principle between
Marxism and ethical socialism, it can been seen that Popper’s attack on Marxist
historicism and his negation of the law of social development are groundless, as is the
argument of neo-Kantianism. On this problem, the difference between critical
rationalism and ethical socialism lies only in that ethical socialism puts ethical and
moral factor on the top of the list of social development factors while critical
rationalism puts rationality, ideas and knowledge on the top of the list and takes them
as a basis to attack Marxist historical materialism. However, no matter what factors
they put on the top and no matter how high they put them, they are finally decided by
the economic factors in real life, especially decided by the production method of
material means of production in a direct or indirect way, which is a historical fact that
can’t be changed by both neo-Kantianism and critical rationalism, however sophistical
they are. And it was just on the basis of this objective fact that Marx predicted the
overall tendency of historical development, and his prediction has been brilliantly
verified over and over again in our real life.

2) Advocate replacing Marxist theory of socialist revolution by piecemeal social

1 Popper: Reply to Our Criticism, see the Philosophy of Karl Popper, Volume 2, 1974, English version.
2 Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, Page 332.
3 Popper: The Poverty of Historicism, Page 4-10.

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engineering

Based on his negation of historicism, Popper proposed the concept and theory of
piecemeal social engineering. He believed it was an application of his trial-and-error
method to socio-historical science and it was antagonistic to the blueprint of eternal
and imaginary ideal society of utopianism proposed by historicism from the viewpoint
of totalitarianism. He said that totalitarianism always took the prescheduled aim as its
component and thus would necessarily lead to Micawberism; on the contrary,
piecemeal social engineering didn’t pay attention to aims, but to individual events and
the step-by-step and workable transformation of society. The piecemeal social
engineering here called by Popper was actually social reformism; and the so-called
utopianism of social determinism here referred to the Marxist theory of social
revolution.
Popper also elaborated on the various aspects of this antagonism between social
reformism and theory of social revolution.
Firstly, he said that the what the former proposed was the present and near-term
engineering while what the latter proposed was an eternal and ultimate blueprint of an
ideal society. He believed that this blueprint was imaginary, useless and harmful
because the transformation of society could be effective only if it was carried out with
trial-and-error method by proceeding from the actual conditions and existing
problems whereas the empty talk about lofty ideal wouldn’t solve any problems.
Secondly, the former advocated piecemeal and gradual improvement of society;
while the latter advocated a holistic transformation of society according to the
totalitarian principle. Popper believed that the transformation of society should be
carried out in a different way from the transformation of nature and the method of
experiment shouldn’t be applied to social transformation; instead, only by constant
trials and eliminations of errors, can the transformation of society gain support from
the masses.
Meanwhile, the blueprint designed by the former was a simple and gradual
reform of individual systems and organizations and even if it was wrong, it wouldn’t
bring about great losses and could be easily readjusted; on the contrary, the reform
advocated by the latter seemed to have an ambitious and unswerving goal, but in fact
it often led to rudeness, chaos and regradation.
Thirdly, in terms of method, the former advocated adopting the means of
improvement while the latter proposed to use the means of violent revolution. Popper
believed that the adoption of the means of peaceful improvement would meet less
social resistance and induce smaller social losses, and hence it was conducive to
promoting historical and cultural traditions and in compliance with rationality and the
logic of development of things; on the contrary, the adoption of the means of violent
revolution would necessarily meet the desperate resistance from the targets of the
revolution and make it difficult to realize the revolutionary ideals, and hence it would
bring much bigger social losses, and at the same time easily lose rationality, destroy
historical and cultural traditions and not in line with to the law of development.
Fourthly, the former advocated critical rationalism and opposed authoritarianism
and advocated an open-minded attitude toward criticisms from the people and the
method of learning from errors; on the contrary, the latter advocated authoritarianism
of individuals because it stuck to essentialism and sought absolute and ultimate truths
and goals.
Finally, the former proposed to relieve people’s sufferings, which was feasible;
while the latter proposed to seek happiness for people, which was impractical. Popper

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believed that seeking happiness was the privacy of people and it should be done by
people with their own effort instead of by the state and government; what the state
and government should and could do was to relieve various specific sufferings of
people and create conditions for them to pursue happiness. In Conjectures and
Refutations, he said: “Our demand is to overcome the specific disasters instead of
establishing an ideal paradise.” “We should work for the elimination of various
specific evils instead of striving for the abstract good. It’s better to adopt specific
measures to eliminate specific disasters and poverty than to set up a goal of happiness
by political means”, “this is a simple formula or method to differentiate a feasible
social reform plan from an unfulfillable utopian blueprint”1.
Popper also gave a list of the biggest social evils which he thought could be
remedied and solved. They are: poverty, unemployment and other similar forms of
social instability, illnesses and sufferings, cruel punishment, slavery system and other
forms of serfs, lack of educational institutions and serious class differences and war,
etc.
Popper also believed that his critical rationalist piecemeal social engineering
could help mankind to reconstruct a society which could better meet the humanistic
goal by means of social engineering. He call this society an “open society” which
advocate rationality, oppose obsession and conformism and respect individuals and
freedom, namely, the present capitalist society; meanwhile, he called the socialist and
communist society proposed by Marx a “closed society” which opposed rationality,
advocate conformism and obsession and believed in unchangeable laws, regulations
and authority, and which only give priority to the holistic groups while suppressing
individual interests. He also shouted that in the struggle between these two
antagonistic social systems of open society and closed society, “we can only go ahead
instead of regressing”, and the regression would bring people back to the age of
animals, and there’s only one way to preserve the mankind, that is, to walk to the an
open society, and so on.
It should be pointed out that the nature of social reformism preached by Popper
by using piecemeal social engineering remains the same with the other forms of
reformism, that is, to eliminate the social evils on the basis of maintaining the
capitalist society. Therefore, it only opposes the results such as poverty,
unemployment and sufferings, etc., instead of opposing the causes of these results; it
only uses paregoric instead of getting rid of the root causes. Hence the reforms
implemented under this reformist strategy will inevitably become an instrument to
consolidate the bourgeois power.
Marxist theory of socialist revolution isn’t like what Popper described—
seemingly to negate reform and advocate the empty utopian ideal, on the contrary, it
proposes to closely combine reform and the “ultimate goal”, and evaluate every
individual reform from the viewpoint of the overall revolutionary struggle so as to
avoid wrong steps and errors on the way ahead. Therefore, the Marxist theory of
socialist revolution isn’t opposed to reform, but “the reformists who confine the will
and activities the working class to the limit of reform in a direct or indirect way”
because “reformism is bourgeois deception of the workers, who, despite individual
improvements, will always remain wage-slaves”2. As for the uproar of Popper to use
the so-called “open society” to oppose “closed society”, it merely displayed his
hysteric anti-communist utterance from the standpoint of maintaining bourgeois
domination.

1 Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, Page 361.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 24, Page 1.

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 From the above brief introduction and comments on the epistemology and socio-
historical philosophy of critical rationalism, it can be seen that the reason why
democratic socialism resorted to Popper’s critical rationalism was only to provide
philosophical argument for its social reformist programs.
The authors of the book Critical Rationalism and Social Democratic Party said
that critical rationalism was anti-dogmatism and anti-authority in terms of its nature.
In terms of epistemology, the principle of critical rationalism is to constantly test and
revise a theory according to real experience and it believes that the progress of
knowledge is to eliminate the wrong theories which have suffered failures through
experiences and replace them with the new ones. Obviously, this epistemology can
provide basis and arguments for the democratic socialists to abandon and revise
Marxism, and then convert to various fashionable bourgeois theories.
For these democratic socialists, the socio-political philosophy of critical
rationalism seemed to be opposite to the political monopoly of truth and fantasy,
“under democratic conditions, the free competition among various ideas is the only
rational form of political struggle”. The connection between the socio-political
philosophy of democratic socialism and that of critical rationalism was that both of
them recognized that the criticisms to the existing system were the driving force of
social progress, and democracy was the rational form of political struggle; moreover,
“the epistemology and political philosophy of critical rationalism are interrelated and
the political philosophy of critical rationalism advocates the democracy of open
society because in politics, as in science, there’re seldom unchangeable truths”1.
These democratic socialists showed special appreciation of Popper’s idea of replacing
Marxist theory of socialist revolution by the piecemeal social engineering. They wrote
in deep sympathy with Popper: “It’s quite natural for a man to have aims and ideals,
and also ideas about a ‘good society’, but he should be dedicated to improving the
existing system, namely, to struggling for the elimination of the sources of specific
evils and for the abolition of poverty, illness, and any all forms of oppression and
exploitation. And people are more likely to come to an agreement on their
understanding of the specific evils of society and the struggle for overcoming these
evils than on their abstract knowledge of the future”. By contrast, “the ultimate goal
of fantasy has an inalienable connection with violence. To achieve this goal, all means
may be taken to overcome various barriers on the road to it because the plan of
fantasy can only be realized under the condition that the social aims will not change in
this long journey of realizing the plan. Therefore, to stop the deviation and changes
which will bring loss to this goal of fantasy will be an inevitable result of the attempt
to realize this fantasy. If the unbearable sufferings and sacrifices shouldered by the
society seem to be unimportant compared with the promise of “ultimate goals”, ‘the
society as a whole’ must hence be based on the social engineering with the fantasy of
‘transforming society according to the general fixed plan’ or the doctrine of the
paradise on earth. Besides supremacy, it must know everything, allowing no open
criticism and no possibility of errors”2.
Popper himself was very happy to see that some young German theorists of social
democratic parties published the book Critical Rationalism and Social Democratic
Party and attempted to respect critical rationalism as the philosophical basis of
democratic socialism. He said in his talk with the journalist of an Austrian newspaper
Die Presse: “I took the anti-Marxist standpoint even during the period between the
two World Wars when I was still a social democrat.” He considered that the main

1 Critical Rationalism and Social Democratic Party, Berlin, 1975, Page 16.
2 Critical Rationalism and Social Democratic Party, Page 40.

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purpose of the book Critical Rationalism and Social Democratic Party was to “use
critical rationalism to argue for the reasons of the anti-Marxists”, hence the
publication of the book had left a deep impression on him and made him very happy1.
”

Chapter 5 The Model and Show Window of Democratic Socialism——Swedish

Model

In previous chapters we have discussed the origin as well as the political, economic
and ideological program of democratic socialism. So, how about its practical action?
First of all, it should be judged by its practice when it becomes the governing party. In
this respect, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, that is, the so-called Swedish
Model can be regarded as the model and show window of democratic socialism.
The reason why Swedish Model is taken as the model and show window of
democratic socialism is that the Swedish Social Democratic Party has held power of
office for a majority of terms after its founding, it enjoyed the win of two consecutive
national elections and the total terms were more than half a century, this was longer
than that of any other parties which believe in democratic socialism. There are more
than 80 parties or organizations believing in democratic socialism through out the
world, and over 25 countries have been or were governed by democratic socialism
parties in its prime time, some of them once held power as long as 10 or 30 years
when accumulated, however, the Swedish Social Democratic Party is the best.
Above all, the Swedish Social Democratic Party topped in the Socialist
International in terms of achievements and the influence on the world. Sweden is a
North European country with an area of no more than 450,000 square kilometers, and
a population of 8 million or more. However, the proportion of its industrial products
in the world total was 4 times of the proportion of its population in the world total; the
proportion of its export was 9 times of that, and the proportion of machines and
equipments they provided, 14 times. The growth rate of employment exceeded that of
the population. Furthermore, the unemployment rate remained low for a long time,
only about 1%-2%. It ranked among the tops in many indicators including average per
capita income, social security, health care, education as well as environmental
protection, etc. Sweden was the role model of Western Europe in quite a long time. In
mid 1980’s, it also attracted Soviet Union and Eastern European countries to go to
Stockholm to learn from it. Despite the factors that Sweden model has been
questioned for a couple of reasons since 1990’s, the Swedish Social Democratic Party
lost the 1991’s national election, the Swedish Model formed by the Swedish Social
Democratic Party in their half century long governing always deserves a close study
1 See View Theories and Politics from the Viewpoint of Critical Rationalism, Volume 3, Bonn, 1976, Page 25.

220
in that it acts as the model and show window of the practices of democratic socialism.
Therefore, combining both history and the reality, it is necessary to study the
evolution of the thought of Swedish Social Democratic Party and to learn from the
Swedish model or to draw a lesson form it in analyzing and commenting on
democratic socialism after a close observation of its origin, its political, economic and
ideological program.
Swedish Social Democratic Party was a socialism party which originally favored
public ownership of the means of production by means of revolution as well as
reform. Karl Hjalmar Branting, the first chairman of Swedish Social Democratic
Party, in his speech Why the Working Class Movement Must be a Socialist movement?
delivered in 1886, argued that “the transition to socialism is a historical mission for
the current working class”. He also argued that “even if what the liberalism has
advocated such as the universal suffrage program, republic and direct tax has been
realized, social reforms on reducing working hours and national insurance have
succeeded, it is still far from satisfactory since unequal property distribution, large
poverty-stricken population and unemployment still remained unsolved, liberalism
only brings nominal equality rather than substantive equality to the working class.”
Naturally, he believed that the transition to socialism meant to get support from the
working class, to transform ownership of productive meant to workers, only in this
way, can income equality be achieved and class distinction be eliminated. In the
transition to socialism, he agreed with gradual changes in principle, however, he
didn’t exclude violence when it is necessary.
Nevertheless, from 1890’s onward, optimistic about the possibility of reform
within the framework of modern capitalism, Branting focused on social reform and
brought Swedish Social Democratic Party onto the road of cooperation and fight
within the system of capitalism. He approved the proposals put forward by capitalist
government which talked about the work, life and welfare of the working class; he
also complemented that this was the right way to realize social equity. In dealing with
the problem of public ownership of the means of production, he avoided its relation
with socialism and combined it with Sweden tradition; he argued that capitalist
country has maintained this tradition in the process of socializing banks, railways and
mines.
In 1920, when he formed a cabinet which was mainly composed of Social
Democratic Party, he advocated to realize socialism by reforms and peaceful means
based on the unique conditions of Sweden. He said that the ultimate goal of Swedish
Social Democratic Party was to abolish capitalism, but the only way to achieve this
goal was gradual progress and reform. He said, “The socialist society we want to
build will not follow any theoretical model, we will build it from experience, from the
lesson of life.”
In February 1919, in the restored Second International Berne conference, Branting
drafted a resolution which demonstrated that they were determined to stick to
capitalism democracy and were against the proletarian dictatorship adopted by the
Soviet Union after the October Revolution. In the draft resolution, he wrote,“If not
guided by a firmly establishing free principle of democratic obtaining and further
development, a reform directed by socialism will not be realized, not to mention
maintaining it.”. He also pointed out,“There won’t be any real socialist development
without democracy”. He argued that “proletarian dictatorship could only lead to a
civil war within proletarians, which could reduce the power of them, and finally, the
dictatorship of reactionary forces would be likely to appear.

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1

Branting died in 1925. Per Albin Hansson became the chairman of Swedish Social
Democratic Party. He formed the first government of the party in 1932 and began a
half century long building of Sweden Model.

Section 1 Welfare Socialism

The first stage of Sweden Model was Welfare Socialism from 1930’s to the end of
1960’s.
The so called Welfare Socialism was based on the theory that all that was done for
welfare was socialism since its target was universal welfare. Hence, “Socialism for
Swedish Social Democratic Party means welfare policy.”2Why did Swedish Social
Democratic Party believe that socialism equal to social welfare and then they aimed to
build Welfare Socialism?
This can be dated back to the revision of the traditional ideology of the party by
Hansson, the second chairman of Swedish Social Democratic Party. When Swedish
Social Democratic Party was established in1889, it declared that Swedish Social
Democratic Party was a “revolutionary party”; the target it set was to fight for the
right to vote, to change the position of labors and to organize the working class to
strive for the power. By 1920, Branting, the first chairman of Swedish Social
Democratic Party, although insisted on reform, still took socialization as a gradual
form to abolish capitalism ultimately. In 1925, when Hansson succeeded Branting to
the office, he replaced the principle of socialization by the idea and policies of
Welfare Socialism, completing the transformation of Swedish Social Democratic
Party both in theory and in practice.
About 1928, Hansson put forward the idea that Swedish Social Democratic Party
should be identified as “people’s party” and established “the home of people”.
Hansson argued that Swedish Social Democratic Party should be called “people’s
party” in order to win the support of peasants and middle class, to find a road of
cooperation, the goal of the party is to get freedom for the people and found a “home
of the nation” for them. On the contrary, the concept of class seemed to be limited so
it was not good for the party to work and to realize its goal.
In the same year in a congressional debate, Hansson compared a country to a
family; he put forward the theory of the home of people and said the foundation of the
country as a family is solidarity. He believed that there were equality, care,
cooperation and willingness in helping others in a happy family where the members
would not be divided into the one who had the privilege and the one who were
deprived of their rights, he also described that in such a family no one would be
abandoned. “Likewise, in a big family of civil citizens and people, that means all
existing social and economic hedges that divided the citizens into the privileged and
the deprived, the rich and the poor, the exploited and the owners, the robbers and the
robbed would be pulled down.” As for Sweden, he said that politics equality was only
in name; from social perspectives, a class society still remained and a small number of
people had the power of economic dictatorship. Therefore, Sweden could not be
considered as a good home of the citizens. “To be a good family, Sweden should
abolish class differences and develop social care, realize economic equality and
democracy both in economy and society. Based on this equality, the working class

1Julius Braunthal: History of the International, Volume 2, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1986, ,
Page182-183.
2 Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten: The ideological development of Swedish Social Democrats, Todor-watt version in
1973, Page328.

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should participate in economic managements, obtain democracy and exercise it into
society and politics.”
The lost in 1928 election and the success in 1930 election made Hansson firmly
believed that the principle of “people’s party” and “the home of people” should
replace the traditional socialism principle. In 1928 election, Swedish Social
Democratic Party was severely attacked because they followed the old principle1 of
socialization, as a result, they lost some supports; in 1930 election, they only put
forward some limited social and political policy goals but won to certain extent. Thus
Hansson concluded that the point was not to cry out a traditional slogan, but to solve
urgent problems concerned people and give them practical suggestions. Compared
with this, Hansson argued that socialization was not a practical and urgent task. He
viewed equality, welfare and cooperation as “the fundamentals of the home of
people”, and put these reforms before socialization since it was a long term goal.
The economic recessions from 1929 to1933 presented a good opportunity for the
Social Democratic Party to hold power of office and to materialize its ideology of “the
home of people”.
The economic recessions at that time severely attacked Sweden, about 1/3 workers
lost their jobs, labor-capital relationship was tense, and there were waves of strikes.
Some members of the Social Democratic Party thought that capitalism in Sweden was
likely to end and it is a proper time to realize socialization. But some other people,
represented by Hansson, argued that economic crisis didn’t equal to the immediate
collapse of capitalism, moreover, the situation in Sweden was better than that of other
capitalist countries. In this context, although the crisis may implied that a bad system
will be replaced by a good system in which people have the right to control resources,
the suggestions proposed by the Social Democratic Party to handle the economic
recession could not be considered as socialism since they didn’t take into
consideration of the fundamental interests of the proletarians.
Hansson, convinced of the Swedish School and Keynesian economics, put
forward programs that suggested state intervention and focused on full employment,
stimulating production, improving people’s life, etc. He emphasized that economic
equality should be realized by labor market and political reform.
In the 1932 party congress, Hansson highlighted that the starting point of the
anti-crisis policies was “all people”, the major task of the Social Democratic Party
was to call for people to support a policy that can effectively help the oppressed and
the poor. He avoided the question of socialization and advocated that democracy was
a kind of principle and was the only order to materialize the theory of the Social
Democratic Party. He also attached great importance to the obligation of observing
democracy and cooperation between classes in order to maintain public interests. In
the same year, the Social Democratic Party got 41.7% of the vote, which totaled more
than 104 million votes, and began its 44 years governing of the country.
When Hansson formed the government and served as the prime minister, he
adopted the guiding principle of laying a sound foundation and bringing benefits to all
people on the basis of solidarity and cooperation. He emphasized that the short term
goal was important for the realization of welfare socialism and class cooperation,
hence, eliminating differences and compromising were necessary ways to achieve the
goal of making Sweden “the home of people”.
Hansson declared that the urgent task was to spare no efforts in overcoming economic
crisis rather than discussing the possibility of building socialism. In name of the prime
minister, he extended formal invitation to private entrepreneurs for cooperation and
1Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten: The ideological development of Swedish Social Democrats, Page265.

223
put forward the idea of protecting, supporting and making full use of the initiatives of
private entrepreneurs. He believed that welfare socialism could be realized when
democracy exists. Cooperating with the Agrarian Party which represents the interests
of rancheros, he then took a series of anti-crisis measures: investing more in public
projects and paid workers according to labor market value; financing anti-
unemployment measures and state projects dealing with economic depression; loosing
the limitation of unemployment relief; issuing loans for local housing construction
projects and municipal projects; compensating or issuing loans for private enterprises.
Furthermore, the government also carried out structural plans guiding the model of
national economic structure.
Meanwhile, with the idea of “the home of people”, Hansson pushed forward social
reforms in all directions. He changed the relief nature of the past welfare and transited
it into social insurance system. In this context, welfare measures such as retired
management, dental services, unemployment insurance, wage and hour law, and two-
week vocation had been brought into practice.
These measures were successful as the world market became better when products
were increased, market demand grew, and unemployment rates reduced greatly, all
this helped ease the crisis. People equated Hansson’s policies with the new policies
adopted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the U.S., and called it Hansson’s new deal.
The Sweden model was regarded as “the middle course” between Fascism and
Communism. Clement Richard Attlee, the leader of the British Labor party, held
Sweden up as a paragon of developing socialism through constitutionalism. Hansson
attributed his success to introducing cooperative policies which aimed to satisfy the
interests of different social groups and serve for universal welfare. He took the
policies as people’s policies, therefore, “socialism and capitalist democracy … never
confronted ”, on the contrary, “they worked together to solve the common democratic
problems.”1.
In his second term from 1936, Hansson furthered his welfare state policies,
revising again the pension law, completing medical insurance system, implementing
family policies which include allowance for pregnant woman, mother and children in
an all round way. The family policies advocated loaning for wedding, encouraged
marriage and raising children. The government welfare spending increased 30.2%
compared with that of the late government.
In dealing with class relations, the Hansson government believed that the major
problems were how to prevent the crisis form breaking out for another time since it
was overcome. In this respect, it was very important for private enterprises to
cooperate with government representatives. The government also encouraged the
negotiations between the Swedish Employers Association (now the Confederation of
Swedish Enterprise) and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, which led to the
Saltsjöbaden Agreement of 1938. The agreement stipulated the procedure and
institutions of labor disputes, set limitations on the administration of entrepreneurs,
and abolished Article 32 of the Employment Law which stipulated that private
enterprise owners can dismiss workers at their will. According to this agreement,
when there is labor dispute, representatives from both sides can negotiate and sign a
1-3 year agreement that should be observed by both sides. The agreement will
continue to be effective when both sides don’t have any objections within the two
months before the agreement is due. If agreement can not be achieved, the
government will assign a mediator to help both sides to solve the problem. When both
sides still fail to reach agreement, they have to inform the other side one week ahead
1 Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten: The ideological development of Swedish Social Democrats, Page 410.

224
whether workers decide to strike or employers decide to close down the factory. When
agreement is achieved but workers or employers have different interpretations
towards it, they can go to the labor court which consists of representatives from both
sides. This agreement played a very important role in easing the conflicts between
workers and employers, maintaining social stability and developing Swedish
economy. It is regarded as the turning point of labor relations in Sweden; someone
even considered it as the “starting point of a new era where both sides began their
ever increasing understanding and unique cooperation.”
During this period, Swedish Social Democratic Party was an unparalleled party
in Sweden and the country took on quite a new look. The production environment was
improved, capitalist enterprises developed, production increased, national economy
enjoyed an ever increasing growth and workers got better wages and welfare. Sweden
turned from a poor country once threatened by economic crisis into a rich country.
The Social Democratic Party not only gained support from workers but also
cooperated with capitalists who took a tolerant attitude toward the Party since they
benefited a lot from the policies. Swedish Social Democratic Party obtained 54% of
the vote in 1940 parliamentary election, the highest in history, and the Party has been
the biggest workers’ party in Western Europe and Northern Europe. The Swedish
Model of socialist democracy emerged and became famous throughout the world.
Hansson held the idea that what he has done was socialism although socialization
was not carried out according to tradition. He said, socialization “doesn’t mean the
transfer of the ownership of means of production, it is, above all, the efforts made by
the country and society to improve people’s life.”1 Therefore, it is a result of
economic development rather than the decision of a resolution or the congress. In his
opinion, Sweden has greatly promoted socialization and the Social Democratic Party
has taken measures featuring in socialization since welfare policies have been
adopted. Thus, theorists of the Social Democratic Party began to reconsider and
interpret the theory and connotation of socialization according to Hansson’s idea; they
equated welfare policies, state intervention with socialism and thus formed welfare
socialism theory.
The coalition government mainly formed by the Swedish Social Democratic
Party observed strict neutrality during World War II. In 1944 Hansson government
formulated the Post-war Program for Workers’ Movement that focused on economic
development and the improvement of people’s life, and won the 1945 election.
Hansson formed his fourth cabinet and made this Program his guiding principle for
social reform and welfare system construction such as sick leave and retirement
system, universal fringe pension, universal medical insurance, leave in lieu and
vocation as well as nine-year compulsory education system, etc.
After World War II, Sweden established a National Labor Market Council which
was composed of the government, labor union, and capitalists. It consisted of a
chairman, a vice chairman, three representatives from the employer union and the
labor union respectively, two representatives from the central employee organization,
one representative from the union of vocational associations, one representative of
woman and one representative of peasant. Sweden was held up as the paragon of class
cooperation. The work of the Council included labor force plan, vocation training
plan, employment service, unemployment relief and long term economic plan, etc.
Actually it was an economic running center that was used by the government to
manage macro economy by making use of the cooperation between the labor and the
capital.
1 Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten:The ideological development of Swedish Social Democrats, Page327-328.

225
 Furthermore, Sweden also set up cooperative system in which employers and
employees could jointly decide the production and working conditions within the
enterprises immediately after the war. Labor and capital achieved an agreement of
founding Production Council which stipulated that enterprise owners and workers
should cooperate with each other continually in order to maximize production;
employees had chances to know about the economic situation and technology of the
enterprise on the condition that no secrets would be leaked. It also took measures to
provide employment insurance, production security, health check for employees and
tried to stimulate their enthusiasm for work. It urged enterprises to make out training
plans, improve productivities and working conditions.
When Hansson died in October 1946, his successor, Tage Erlander, the prime
minister and the chairman of the Social Democratic Party, followed Hansson’s welfare
policies. Erlander carried out an overall social reform and welfare construction. He set
the target of “creating a classless society of insurance, freedom, cooperation,
solidarity and equality” based on the fundamental value of “freedom, equality,
solidarity and cooperation.” He explained that “insurance” means employment for all,
that is, full employment and certain social status for people; “freedom” means civil
rights on the basis of democracy, this idea is different from communism and
liberalism; “solidarity and cooperation” are emphasized because they are essential to
social development, the reform policy embodied, fundamentally, solidarity and
cooperation between human beings; “equality” ensures that everyone in a welfare
country can live happily and enjoy equal opportunity.
Erlander gave top priority to building a strong and united government which
could guarantee and stabilize the long-term governing of the Social Democratic Party
and its majority in the congress. To achieve this goal, Erlander carried out
Proportional Representation (PR) Voting and Referendum Act, etc; in terms of
economic construction, he took a series of measures to put into practice the Post-war
Program for Workers’ Movement. As a result, the GNP of Sweden enjoyed an average
2.5% growth rate annually during his 20 years or more term from the middle of
1940’s to the end of 1960’s, and unemployment rate also remained at a low rate.
Based on the further development and completing of social welfare system, he also
focused on the development of public health, improving medical service and housing
conditions, etc. Sweden ranked among the most developed countries in the world.
Under the leadership of Hansson and Erlander, Sweden acquired remarkable
achievements in social welfare construction. Sweden provides free education and
medical service at a very low price; per capita living space achieves more than 40
square meters; employees have the right to receive 90% of their regular pay when get
ill; the pension and additional pension totaled can account for 2/3 of the regular pay
and they will be adjusted according to inflation rate; when a baby is born, the law
stipulates that the parents will have a 12 month holiday altogether and receive
compensation from the government in order to ensure they can have 90% of their
original income; the state also grant tax free subsidies for children under 16 years, etc.
To build such a large scale welfare construction, the proportion of public spending in
GNP increased year by year and tax burden increased consequently, yet the income
gap was reduced since progressive income tax was implemented.
However, the disadvantages and limitations of Swedish “welfare socialism”
protruded by the end of 1960’s as new social movement aiming at criticizing modern
capitalism and New Left developed and spread in the mid 1960’s.
The essential issues lied in that this kind of “welfare socialism” did improve
people’s life, gave people more democratic rights, but it didn’t change the

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fundamental power structure and remove class differences, it also failed to eliminate
the evils associated with the private ownership of means of production.
On the one hand, the target set by the Swedish “welfare socialism” of equal
distribution of national income was also realized by non-socialism governments such
as Holland, Belgium, and France; on the other hand, even those most stubborn
conservatives in Sweden also tended to support these welfare policies, it was natural
for people to wonder whether this “welfare socialism” did have a nature of socialism
or not. Just as what Allan Garfield Gruchy, the western economist has pointed out that
the decades’ governing of Swedish Social Democratic Party only resulted in “little
progress in realizing socialism organization of industry and socialism of the
proletarians. Most of the industry is in charge of private owners, the property
ownership is still highly intensified, and class distinction remains unchanged”.1
Considering what mentioned above, in the 1968 Swedish Social Democratic
Party Unusual Delegates Conference, many delegates required more attention on the
ownership of means of production, they also asked for extensive socialization of
banks and other important economic sectors as well as working out more clear
economic democracy measures.
The doubt about the nature of this welfare socialism emerged within social
democratic parties not only in Sweden but also in other western European countries.
Therefore, the then Secretary General of the Socialist International, Hans Janitschek
pointed out that “people began to doubt the old value and old belief, they are
reconsidering the old actions and old methods.” “It will be failures in 1970’s for
socialism democracy if they take the strategy of simply declare that they have more
humanism and efficiency in managing welfare countries of mixed economy than
defenders of free enterprises. The young generation with rich political consciousness
began to get sick of the imprints left by the 1960’s, this is a symbol of dangers that
had appeared”.2 The Swedish Social Democratic Party began to “reconsider the
ideology” and then put forward the idea of replacing “welfare socialism” by “function
socialism”.

Section 2 Functional Socialism

It should be clarified first that Functional Socialism was not a new policy
adopted by the Swedish Social Democratic Party but a new interpretation of Swedish
Model by the Social Democratic. During the period of Hansson and Erlander
government, the Swedish Social Democratic viewed “the home of people”, “welfare
socialism” as the features of the Swedish Model. However, when the weak points of
“welfare socialism” emerged day by day, and more attention was focused on the issue
of the ownership of the means of production, the Swedish Social Democratic tends to
conclude that the feature of Swedish Model is Functional Socialism.
The theory of Functional Socialism was first put forward by Gunnar Adler—
Karlsson, a Swedish Social Democrat.
Karlsson is a member of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League who read
law in Sweden and in the U.S, he began to study economy when came back Sweden
in 1962. The college life in 1960’s made him realize the impact of New Leftist on the
traditional theory and strategy of the Social Democratic Party. When he introduced
Sweden to the leaders of the Latin-American student movement who visited Sweden
in 1965, an idea occurred to him to put forward a new theory of the Swedish Model

1 Allan Garfield Gruchy: Comparative Economic System, China Social Sciences Press, 1985, Page388.
2 International Socialist Review, 1971, Issue 4.

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founded by the Social Democratic Party. He then wrote and published a brochure
entitled Functioning Socialism: the Swedish Social Democratic Theory. After revising
and enlarging the content, he changed its name as Functional Socialism: the Swedish
Social Democratic Theory and published it in English in 1969. From then on,
“Functional Socialism” as a theory of the Swedish Social Democratic Party became
popular both in Sweden and abroad.
As a new summary of the features of the Swedish Model, Functional Socialism
was different from Welfare Socialism in that it catered to the new fashion and the new
trend of thought. Unlike Welfare Socialism, it went directly to the point of the
ownership of production and acknowledged that it was necessary to reform the private
ownership of production instead of avoiding this problem. It advocated the practice of
functioning socialization within the structure of capitalist private ownership rather
than the practice of denying socialization of production which was favored by Welfare
Socialism.
Karlsson said his theory of Functional Socialism was based on the ancient right
of ownership theory.
Karlsson argued that there were two conceptions in terms of the right of
ownership: one considers “the right of ownership as a concept of Natural Right”, it
takes the right of ownership as something sacred which is a blessing from God or
natural rights; the other one is “Positive Jurisprudence or Skopos Theory” which takes
the right of ownership as something that should be judged according to the aim
selected by the society or the aim suitable to the society.
The contradiction for the right of ownership can be traced back at
least to the 17th century when Thomas Hobbes and John Locks
expressed their ideas differently. Locks argued that property was a
natural right and it was derived from labor. He believed that ownership
of property was created by the application of labor. In addition,
property precedes government and government cannot dispose of the
estates of the subjects arbitrarily. According to Thomas Hobbes, the
ownership of property was created by the state and should be
controlled by the state just like most of the other rights. Locks’s idea
was written in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
during the French Revolution. Thomas Hobbes’s idea received
attention only in recent years. In his book of The Swedish Property
Law, The Swedish jurist 奥 斯 登 - 恩 顿 set out the “functioning
concept”of the ownership of property which is a little different from
Locks’s idea and greatly different from the concept of entities. It
describes a relationship that doesn’t have an essence but can help us to
have a systematic thinking on abstract things in a convenient way. The
ownership of property is generally a non-separation concept, but 恩
顿 ’ s“functioning concept” viewed it as a separate concept which

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 included many functions that the owners might used on his possession.

Karlsson’s argumentation of Functional Socialism started by

introducing 恩顿’s theory of the ownership of property:

“What 恩 顿 has done was: Following traditional Roman-Law

System, he emphasized that the ownership of property was not an
inseparable concept, on the contrary, it was a concept including many
functions of the ownership of property, and these different functions
could be easily separated. Therefore, the ownership of property O
didn’t simply equal to the whole content of the ownership of property,
but was an equivalence to the total of function a, b and c, etc. That is,
O=a+b+c…+n. This logic of reasoning indicated that it was not
necessary to promote socialization in an all round way to achieve the
goal of socialism, it will be enough or better for economy to socialize
part of the functions of the ownership of property such as function a
and function b, function c excluded.”1

Karlsson explains his theory by means of the right of ownership

of the house owners. In a society where absolute ownership of a house
is adopted means all the functions like residing, renting, handling the
house at one’s will, driving the tenant out at the expiration of the lease,
destroying or reconstruction, and transferring the income of selling the
house to a foreign country, etc.

The feature of Swedish Functional Socialism is that it doesn’t socialize all the
functions of a house but just control part of the functions mentioned above, so as to
encourage the owners to use his right in a socializing way rather than a non-
socializing way. For example, if the state enacts laws to control the rent of a house,
the owner will be not permitted to raise rentals at will. Under conditions prescribed by
law, the owner will be not permitted to use the rentals against the law, or he has to pay
tax for that, or he is not permitted to destroy or reconstruct house against the style
decided by city designing. The owner is not permitted to drive out law abiding tenant;
he doesn’t have the right to transfer house sales income without the permission of
relevant departments of the government, either.
“In this way, we have indirectly socialized many functions of the right of
ownership which are not limited although we don’t socialize the ownership of a house
in an all round way.”2 That is to say, while maintaining the capitalist ownership of

1 Karlsson: Functional Socialism-Swedish Theory of Socializing Democracy, published in From Functional

Democracy to Fund Socialism, Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, 1988, Page16.
2 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 17.

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means of production, the state can employ direct methods such as enacting laws by
congress or indirect methods such as adopting economic policies to make the
capitalists accept limitations on his ownership of production, or make him share his
rights with others, or to use his means of production or run his business only in
accordance with the benefits of the whole society.
Karlsson believed that this was a good method to maintain competition and the
driving force of capitalists in economic activities on one hand, and to eliminate the
unavoidable evils and conflicts resulting from the abuse of the absolute rights of the
private ownership of production on the other hand. It can satisfy the desire of the
capitalists and meet the needs of the working class for a better life.
Karlsson first used the theory of “functional socialism” to prove the convergence
theory of socialism and capitalism. He said, according to this theory, the so called
capitalist economy meant that private owners had the right to use all functions of the
right of ownership which were not clearly socialized by laws; the so called socialist
economy meant that the state had the right to use all functions of the right of
ownership which were not clearly non-socialized by laws. The so called mixed
capitalist economy meant that some of the functions of the right of ownership had
been socialized; and the so called mixed socialist economy meant that some of the
functions of the right of ownership had been non- socialized. Karlsson argued that
when all functions were considered together, capitalism and socialism did have a
tendency of convergence, that is, the two systems both moved toward a direction that
was against their original purpose. As in western countries, “by means of a functional
division from which the working class or ordinary citizens in western society benefit
increasingly”, “the interests of the state and workers are identical to certain degree”.
While in eastern countries, “workers and managerial personnel did undertake some
similar responsibilities related with functions like workers and managers did in
western countries”, “those individuals who were far from the top economy planning
departments had enjoyed good opportunities for personal development and some
freedom of shouldering individual responsibilities for some important decision.”1
Karlsson then proved the feasibility and superiority of “functional socialism” by
denying formal socialization.
First, an all round formal socialization is not good for economic development, “if
radical reforms like formal socialization are brought into force into a performing
economy, it is inevitable that the economy will suffer from setbacks”. However,
capitalism showed that it had a power that could not only survive but also further
adapt to the democracy required by modern industrial society. Furthermore, 50 years
of the Soviet Union’s experiences indicated that formal socialization of the means of
production was not a sufficient condition for resolving all economic problems, it was
even not able to help to achieve a higher economic growth rate than that of the
capitalist countries. But, on the other hand, “reform is necessary since very unfair
facts exist in current (capitalist) world economy”.2
Karlsson argued that the gradual socialization of economic organization was able
to replace formal socialization and it was a choice with obvious socialist
characteristics. Its advantages lied in that: first, in modern society, formal
socialization was an extreme ideological change which could be realized only by
violence, however, in a nuclear age, the use of violence will only lead to ultimate
doom. Functional socialization offered a series of compromises which were
acceptable for capitalists, but formal socialization only provided them with

1 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 62.

2 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 65.

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devastation brought by revolution rather than by nuclear war. The two results were the
same for them. They would rather die with all man kind if formal socialization was
carried out since they occupied nuclear weapons in western countries. Besides, formal
socialization was connected with revolution but functional socialization was
connected with evolution. “ Formal socialization was a policy emphasized on
‘absolute’, while functional socialization was just like (Italian) ‘Salami Sausage
’strategy, this means that the butcher will take little pains in slicing the capitalist
sausages.”1
In the following paragraph, Karlsson classified the world into three types and
studied the superiority of functional socialization to formal socialization in those areas
respectively.
In undeveloped countries, it seemed that formal socialization was something met the
demands from certain perspectives, but it was also by no means a best solution in any
circumstance if we observe it from the other perspectives; on the contrary, functional
socialization was able to solve the problem of backward economy, feudal bondage
and oppression of foreign capitals.
In East European socialist countries, the economic growth depended on
excessive use of resources and consumption repression, even though, it failed to get
rid of inequity in economy and property which was severely attacked by formal
socialization in theory, it also failed to materialize proletarian internationalism and
build permanent peace. In short, East European socialist countries could not offer
persuasive evidences for the argumentation that the so called formal socialization
would lead to a better and fairer economic system which could resolve all the
problems existing in the society. However, functional socialization is able to find a
way out of eliminating immoderate centralization of power, the prevailing bureaucrats
and the declining of individual initiatives.
In western developed countries, it is unavoidable to pay huge amounts of
compensations to the former owners when major socialization activities are carried
out within the existing political system. Therefore, it is not strange that the former
capitalists will try to transfer their money capital abroad, which will lead to economic
crisis, deficits and currency devaluation. If the government forbids transfer of
compensation to foreign countries, the former capitalists will attempt to engage in the
old business, thus private economy will flourish and make troubles for the emerging
national economy, at the same time, the gap of income and wealth will remain
unchanged. Moreover, complicated technical problems of deciding which enterprises
should be socialized first among private enterprises are also issues that can not be
easily handled. Therefore, it seems technically impossible to bring large scale formal
socialization into practice in western countries in the near future unless war,
revolution or dictatorship occurs. On the contrary, functional socialization is able to
achieve the socialist goal of making capitalist exist in name only by limiting or
seizing the most important functions of capitalists without causing social turbulence
and paying huge amounts of compensation. Since “some most important functions of
the right of ownership can be easily transferred to the state or other bodies like
cooperatives by means of legislation”, it is natural that “nothing can prevent the state
from legislating to accredit a director in the board of directors of all important
economic organizations by the state or the trade union”2; the state can also legislate to
give the government power to appoint managers or approve the appointment of
managers in the most important companies, and this will change the situation that
1 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 67-68.
2 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 93-94.

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managers are only loyal to capital owner.
In the end of the book, Karlsson compared his functional socialism to the method
of gradual abolishing the king’s powers in Scandinavia. He wrote as followings:
“Let us treat capitalists with the same way that the kings of Scandinavia had been
treated! 100 years ago, any king of Scandinavia had superior powers; 50 years ago, he
still exercised quite a number of powers. Nowadays, according to the constitution, a
king still possesses the same formal powers as a king had 100 years ago; however, in
reality, we have taken away all of his power functions and actually he has no powers.
We have attained these achievements without undergoing dangerous and destructive
internal fights. We should use the same way to avoid even more dangerous
confrontation which will be inevitable if we follow a road of formal socialization. Let
us abandon this road of formal socialization, instead, we will abolish and deprive
capitalists of their functions of the right of ownership one after another, we will even
give them new clothes similar to that of the famous Emperor of Anderson’s fairy tales.
Decades later, capitalists will still exist, they may exist in name just like the king, but
actually their existence will be just a naked symbolization of the past early stage of
development”.1
In his book From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Karlsson employed
the theory of the right of ownership to sum up the experiences and achievements of
Swedish model, so he won support and encouragement from the Swedish Social
Democratic Party. The book was reprinted 16 times within 5 years after its first
edition. The Swedish Social Democrats generally summarize the Swedish experiences
in a similar way to the statements of the book From Functional Socialism to Fund
Socialism. For example：

维 格 福 尔 斯 ， the Swedish Social Democratic theorist, described in his book

Contemporary Socialism that “We Swedish Social Democrats consider socialization
as an inevitable process which proceeds within a very narrow range”.2
Assar Lindbeck, the Swedish Social Democratic economist,
pointed out in his book The Political Economy of the New Left that“the
meaning of the right of ownership is a relative concept that is
completely dependent upon the laws and regulations of a country.”“In
principle, it is possible to reduce the ownership of property to a degree
that it has little difference from the ownership of a bank account in
terms of economic rights by way of transferring the power to state
authority, employees, and consumers”.3

The Swedish social democratic theorist, Johnson wrote in his

book Democratic Welfare Society that “We Scandinavian social
democrats are defenders of partial socialization, to abolish private
1 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 96-97.
2维格福尔:Contemporary Socialism, Stockholm, 1971, Page 9.
3 Assar Lindbeck: The Political Economy of the New Left, the Commercial Press, 1980, page66

232
 system means undermine the foundation of us, we will then reduce the
growth rate of economic development greatly and have a feeling that
we are irresponsible for and indifferent to our policies, and this may
lead to turbulence and bad results in the country.” “In a word,
abolishing private system will only lead us to take a wrong road. In the
context of preserving private ownership, we will be facilitated greatly
to eliminate privileges related with private system”. The reason is that
“when socialization is partly carried out, the right to control will
basically belong to the whole society and at the same time the private
properties are still in charge of some individuals. Meanwhile, the
industrial sectors which are dominated by small business owners will
rationally remain the same”. “The most important one is that we don’t
take privatization as something absolute”.1

The book From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism written

by Karlsson had an extensive influence which was beyond Sweden. It
was translated into 7 foreign languages within a short period of 5
years; its extracts were also published in many newspapers and
magazines like International Socialist Review. It was also viewed as
the most complete, most mature theory among the “partial
socialization” theories proposed by the social democratic parties. It
was also considered as the one that enjoyed most of the actual
convincing economic evidences. For instance, American social
democratic theorist Mike Harrington argued that functional
socialization was “an effective way that can make those who live on
capitals die without pain”.2 The co-author of the book Comparative
Economic Systems：A Decision—Making Approach, Egon Neuberger
and Duffy ranked Functional Socialization of Karlsson one of the
important reference books in the right of ownership theory.3 Karlsson
himself also obtained great international reputation. He first accepted
the offer as a researcher in Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic

1 Johnson: Democratic Welfare Society, Stockholm edition, 1969, page66, 75, 10

2 International Socialist Review, 1970., Issue 8
3 Egon; Duffy: Comparative Economic Systems:A Decision—Making Approach, The Commercial Press,1986,
Page 49, 298.

233
Studies, and then was invited to work in the center of the University of
Roskilde of Denmark as a social science professor, he was also
appointed as the Director of the Institute of International Studies of
Philosophy of Sociology in the island of Capri, Italy.

On the other hand, functional socialism was just a new summary

of Swedish Model, and it was not a new policy that could replace
welfare socialism. Just as some people put it, compared with welfare
socialism, functional socialism was only another description of
traditional Swedish social democratic theory. Therefore, it didn’t and
will not be likely to eliminate the evils of Swedish Model featuring on
welfare socialism. As a matter of fact, in Sweden, it was true that the
government did take forceful measures to control and intervene in
economic development. The government reallocated social product by
means of fiscal policies, tax, currency and price regulation, and
attained certain achievements in developing economy and easing
social conflicts. However, it didn’t solve the fundamental problems in
socializing production and private ownership as well as other conflicts
associated with capitalism, as a result, Sweden fell into the most
severe economic recession in post war period since the mid of 1970’s.

First, the annual average growth rate of GNP decreased from

5.3% between the year of 1960-1965 to 3.8% of 1965-1970; then to
3% of 1970-1974; then 0.3% of 1974-1977; finally, 1.5% of 1977-
1983.

Second, welfare spending continuously expanded and fiscal

deficit increased consequently. For example, from 1977 to 1987, the
deficit was 24.218 billion Swedish Kronas; it increased to 38.941
billion in 1978-1979; and 55bilion in 1980-1981.

Next, inflation and currency devaluation occurred. From 1973 to

1984, the inflation rate was 10.2%; in 1970-1982, the retail price index
increased by 2 times. The currency continued to depreciate
significantly for 3 times since 1977, the exchange rate of the Swedish
Krona vs. U.S. Dollar decreased from 4.08:1 in 1974 to 9.1:1 in

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February, 1985; it then increased to 7.05:1 in April, 1986.

The economy deteriorated continuously, the unemployment rate

increased, and social conflicts were sharpened. Moreover, strikes
occurred 17.5 times in 1960’s on average, and 142 in 1970’s. As a
result, the share of valid votes for Swedish Social Democratic Party
saw a drop; it decreased from 50.1% in 1968 to 45.3% in 1970 and to
43.7% in 1973. Finally, the party lost its consecutive 44 years
governing in 1976 election.

Because of this, Karlsson himself also gave a new self-evaluation

of functional socialism when he defined the two entries “Swedish
Model” and “Functional Socialism” in German Dictionary of
Socialism published in 1986.

In defining “functional socialism”, he wrote that “functional

socialism as a positive political theory has attained little
achievements.”

“I once believed that it is possible to abolish all important

functions of capitalists just like what we have done on Swedish king
who only adds topics to old ladies’ chatting today. This is off course
just another expression of salami sausage strategy. According to my
experience, this metaphor misleads people. A problem which can not
be solved is that while people slice one function from one end of the
capitalist salami sausage, two new functions will grow out of the other
end. Currently I doubt that whether it is possible for functional
socialism to make the function of the right of ownership just a symbol
of the unfair and out of date capitalism which only provides material
for chatting so long as technological development continue to create
new means of production, then create new functions of the right of
ownership, hence make capitalists maintain initiatives. On the
contrary, in order to be effective in practice, functional socialism has to
find some means as prerequisites to guide or control technological
changes(this is the dynamic element in economy), otherwise,

235
 “functional capitalism” will prove to be more practical”.1

As for the entry of “Swedish Model”, Karlsson further pointed out

that:

“If something like Swedish Model did exist in the past, it has
been severely shocked in the 1973 oil crisis. Therefore, no matter what
other comments people will give on the achievements of the 44
years(1932-1976) governing of the Swedish Social Democratic party,
it is clear that these achievements lack solid foundation and are not
able to last for a long time. With the growing economic
internationalization, the special Swedish Model tends to integrate into
the universal capitalist Western European Model. People can not say
that a special democratic socialism exists in Sweden unless they really
intend to confuse the concept.” 2

While the theory of “functional socialism” was falling, the theory

and policy of “fund socialism” was rising and replaced it.

Section 3 Fund Socialism

“Fund Socialism” got its name from the adoption of Employee Investment Funds
Act passed by the Swedish Parliament in 1983 because the implementation of the act
symbolized the characteristics of the Swedish “socialist experiment”.
But “Fund Socialism” as the thoughts and policy of Swedish Model had been
advocated by Kobe, Steffens, and Himme Stellan. They argued that there were two
types of the transition from capitalism to socialism: one was a natural process in
which capitalism got matured and transited itself into socialism; the other was the
collapse of capitalism. Welfare socialism was an essential preparation for the
transition to socialism and it didn’t destroy the structure of the existing system. They
thought that it was not necessary to smash the existing system to materialize
socialism, instead, it could be materialized by the natural “mature” of capitalism and
fund socialism could provide basic subjective and objective conditions for socialism.
They argued that the major feature of this kind of socialism was that, in the existing
system, workers were able to control the capital ownership step by step by way of
collective control of the profit and shares. In doing this, they could increase
investment, expand employment and welfare, realize economic democracy and
finally, enter into socialism. Kobe and the other two also proved their theory from
different perspectives.
Kobe drew his conclusion mentioned above from the process in which the social
democratic party had a historic compromise with capitalists which improved the
position of the workers but then destroyed the balance between labors and capital and
hence workers demanded more economic and democratic rights.

1 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page100-101.

2 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page101-102.

236
 Steffens came to his conclusion by analyzing that the development of welfare
state demanded more intervention from government to further the transition to
socialism.
Himme Stellan, started from the structural conflicts of capitalism, put it that it was
necessary to manage to ease the conflicts in order to help capitalism get matured. The
key step here was to make the transitional policy be responsible for workers because
workers’ participation in decision making could help to adopt reasonable decision and
reduce crisis. Base on this argument, he came to his theory of fund socialism.
Kobe, Steffens, and Himme Stellan all regarded economic and democratic rights
as the ultimate goal of the future socialism, they also considered welfare socialism as
the necessary prerequisite of fund socialism.
Internationally, the assumption of establishing a system in which employees
share with capitalists the profit and enjoy collective ownership of the fund didn’t
originate from the Swedish Social Democratic Party. Similar advices or assumptions
occurred in countries like Britain, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany and
France before it occurred in Sweden.
For instance, as early as at the turn of 1960’s and 1970’s, working class movements
in Denmark demanded that workers control capital accumulation. In 1971 and 1979,
the Danish Social Democratic Party twice suggested to the congress to establish
wage-earner fund by imposing tax upon capitalists and making workers hold half of
the shares of their company within 35 years.
The British Labor Party also gave suggestions such as to impose tax upon
capitalist enterprises in order to establish a national workers fund in 1973.
However, all these assumptions and suggestions were not able to be implemented
to become acts and institutions. Only in Sweden, they were passed by the parliament
and became acts which could be brought into practice. This result could not be
separated from the special conditions in Sweden.
Unlike other developed capitalist countries, in Sweden, although industries and
social wealth were highly concentrated in private capitalists, working class
movements and the Social Democratic Party were also strong. When economic crisis
broke out in mid 1970’s, social conflicts were sharpened and demands for reforming
capitalist economy became ever shriller in working class movements.
In 1978, the 27th Party Congress passed the Swedish Social Democratic Party
Program which clearly expressed that: “the Social Democratic Party combats the
phenomenon of wealth exercising powers over the people and the highly
concentration of economic rights in a small number of people. The party tries to find a
way of production and distribution under the condition of democracy. The purpose is
to make all social members become equal partners in the task of controlling and
improving common production resources.” And among many of the measures taken to
realize this purpose, one is to combine labors and means of production. “Labors open
the door to collective influence and collective ownership by obtaining the right of
participating into the decision making and capital construction of the enterprises. This
is a way to combine labors and means of production and hence arouse people’s
initiatives and sense of responsibilities. ”1
How to make “labors” take part in “the capital construction of the enterprise”? The
key was to establish “employee investment fund”.
In 1961 and 1966, in the two Representative Assemblies of Swedish Trade Union
Confederation, the famous economist, doctor Rudolph 麦 德 内 尔 who previously

1 Selections of Important Documents of the Social Democratic Parties, the Party School of the CPC Central
Committee, 1985 edition, Page 469,479.

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lived in German and then moved to Sweden during World War II, gave series of
suggestions about negotiating with some capitalists about super profit and the
establishing of trade fund and department trade union fund. However, his suggestions
were not passed by the Assemblies. Therefore, in 1971 Representative Assembly of
Swedish Trade Union Confederation, 阿 恩 Geiger ， the chairman of the Assembly
and the confederation, invited Rudolph to lead a working group to study these
problems in depth when a bill about limiting wealth concentration and encouraging
investment at the same time was proposed by the metals trade union. He also asked 麦
德内尔 to give suggestions about how to use certain kind of collective ownership to
resist wealth concentration and enlarge workers’ influence on decision making
process
Over the years, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation had adopted “the wage
policy of solidarity”, that is, they tried to make the employees be paid according to the
nature of their jobs instead of being paid according to the paying ability of the
employers. But, in this context, those high efficient companies could obtain ever
growing super profits. So, what measures should the trade union take to deal with this
situation? Should the trade union hold the position of certain kind of collective
capitals in the distributing of the right of ownership in those profit-making
companies?
4 years later, 麦德内尔 and his colleagues finished the first edition of employee
investment fund report in August, 1975. At the turn of 1975 and 1976, this report
aroused heated discussion among trade union members. About 18,000 members
responded to the questionnaires given by 麦 德 内 尔 working group and expressed
their personal ideas. Based on this, the Confederation proposed the report of
Employee Investment Fund- the Study of the Shaping of Collective Capitals written
by 麦德内尔 working group to the Representative Assembly held in June 1976. After
serious discussion, the Assembly approved this report and made it the basis for further
research. Meanwhile, the Assembly expressed that it would not give final decisions
about the detailed plans which may possibly be adopted in the end. The plans
included the growth rate of employee investment fund, the range of the fund system
and its managerial arrangement, etc. 麦 德 内 尔 himself also said that he would
consider this study as a contribution to the permanent resolution of the problem of the
right of ownership and the power distribution of industry and society.
Then, what was included in his report of Employee Investment Fund?
The report pointed that the study of employee investment fund had three targets:
first,“completing the wage policies on the basis of solidarity principle”; second,
“resisting wealth concentration resulting from self-financing of the industry”; thirdly,
strengthening employees’ influence on the process of economic activities”.1
The report also compared employee investment fund plan with two other plans
which were made to enhance wage solidarity and to redress the unsatisfied side effects
caused by the distribution. One plan was to establish trade fund managed by the trade
union; the other was to raise wage tax. These two plans both deprived enterprise and
the owners some of the profits but failed to deal with the problem of enhancing
employees’ influence on the internal management of the enterprise. That is, they
failed to meet the third target. Compared with them, employee investment fund plan
“make employees obtain certain portions of the assets growth by gradually
transferring profits to the fund system owned and managed by employees”. It not only
made employees really take part in the process of capital growing, but also“makes

1 Employee Investment Fund- the Study of the Shaping of Collective Capitals: printed in From Functional
Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 108.

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employees play more part in the industry”, thus it could achieve the three targets
mentioned above. At the same time, it also “does no damage to other important targets
of economic and wage policies.” For instance, it would “impose no bad impacts
employment and capital growing”; it would not “restrain wage polices”; it would
“produce no side effects on cost and price”, and it would not “obstacle on the road of
equal income”.1
So, how to establish employee investment fund?
The report said,“the ownership of the profits used for reinvestment of the
enterprise will be transferred from the former owners to employees as collectives. We
suggest 20% of the profits should be transferred to employees.” But “this part of
assets will not be taken out of the enterprise. On the contrary, the enterprise will issue
stocks of the same value and hand them over to employee fund.”2
According to 麦 德 内 尔 , if the percentage charges of the enterprise was 20%,
then when the profit percentage of the enterprise was 10%, the employee investment
fund would be able to control 17% of the stocks of the enterprise within 10 years, half
of the stocks within 35 years; when the profit percentage of the enterprise was 15%,
the employee investment fund would be able to control 24% of the stocks of the
enterprise within 10 years, half of the stocks within 25 years. While the profit
percentage of the enterprise was 20%, the employee investment fund would be able to
control 30% of the stocks of the enterprise within 10 years and 52% within 20 years.
Then what was the coverage of employee investment fund?
The report pointed put that the coverage of the fund had to be limited within
several types of enterprises because of kinds of reasons. For example, non-profit
enterprise should not be included if the division was based on profits. On the whole, it
should be judged according to the following factors such as targets, the potential
benefits for employees, implementation and management, etc. Then, what was the
scope of employee investment fund? The report said that “what actual results the
discussion has brought us is, it is proper to include enterprises with the number of
employees from 50 to 100.” According to a survey of enterprise conducted in 1972,
“if the minimum number of employees is 100, then 99.2% of the enterprises and 33.9
% of the employees will be excluded by the fund system; if the limit number is 50, the
corresponding percentages will be 98.3% and 33.2%”.3 At that time, there were about
235,000 enterprises in Sweden, and 4000 of them had over 50 employees, which
accounted for 1.7 % of the total number of enterprises. Therefore, further discussion
and research were needed to combine the principle of limiting large enterprises,
protecting small enterprises and establishing an influential employee’s investment
plan.
As for the issue of managing fund income, the report said:“The only way to
make the income or yields of the fund system benefit all employees is to set up
Central Clearing Fund covering all incomes which should not be used elsewhere.”4
The report had a high evaluation of the meaning of employee investment fund. It
said, “The fund finds a new way to make some decisions of the enterprise more
democratic”, that is, “investment decision of what will be produced and where the
production will be carried out will be made in democracy”. “The collective ownership
of capitals is regarded as a guarantee for making new labor laws of extensive
collective decision”. It would break down the confrontation between the existing
property owners and employees, “because each time when employees get more
1 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page119,131.
2 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page136.
3 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page161.
4 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 180.

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collective decision rights, the existing property owners will lose some of the powers
and influence accordingly in employee fund”. Second, “it will lay a foundation for
further solidarity between the society and enterprises when employees obtain more
powers”. In this context, “it will be easier to make the decision of an enterprise to be
in accordance with the goal of the society, so the society will not have to interfere
with and control decisions of enterprises”.1
In conclusion, the report pointed out that the implementation of employee
investment fund meant that a new type of ownership emerged in the fight with private
ownership. However, this was a reformist plan that included a gradual advancing
policy. This plan was a new step toward the long term goal of equity and economic
democracy.
In January 1975, before 麦德内尔 finished his report, the Ministry of Finance of
the Swedish Social Democratic Party government once set up an official working
group studying the establishment of employee investment fund. But their work moved
slowly. When 麦德 内尔 issued his report, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation
and the Social Democratic Party set up a joint research group, and the group finished
a joint report of Employee Investment Fund and Capital Shaping in April 1978.
Compared with 麦德内尔 ’ s report, this 1978 joint report featured in following
aspects: first, it set the fourth target of increasing investment fund to establish
employee investment fund, this target was set to solve the problem of the severely
investment decrease in economy which had a serious impact on production. Second, it
put forward the idea of establishing different types of funds. One type was to exercise
profit sharing plan in 200 enterprises with 500 employees or more. The profit sharing
plan stipulated that the enterprise should transfer 20% of its profit before tax to
employee investment fund in the first 5 years, and the congress would examine the tax
rate every 5 years in the following years; another type was to found “collective
decision fund” in order to enhance the power of the employees who can not join the
profit sharing system since they work in enterprise with no more than 200 employees.
The fund would be pooled from the 1% tax of the total wage bill paid by enterprises
instead of the enterprise participating into the profit sharing plan. The third one was a
special development fund set to solve the problem of the insufficient investment fund.
The joint report suggested that the special development fund be established by
implementing a special wage tax. All owners of enterprises including individual
enterprise had to pay development fund tax, the tax rate was 0.75% of the wage bill in
the first year, then it would be improved to 3% within 4 or 5 years, and it would be
redefined every 5 years. In the last 5 years, the development fund would be put into
export industry that was threatened by foreign competitors.
The 1978 joint report also discussed the organizing of the employee investment
fund. It suggested branch funds be set up in the 24 provinces of Sweden, each branch
fund would be composed of 300 employee representatives from their own province.
In large enterprises which participate in the profit sharing plan, the right of vote
would be equally shared by the basic-level trade union of the enterprise and the
provincial branch fund. In enterprises establishing collective decision fund, collective
negotiation would decide the proportion of employee collective ownership. In the
special development fund, the provincial fund would consist of representatives elected
by employees and different circles of the society who will decide the investment
orientation.
The 1978 National Congress of Swedish Social Democratic Party discussed the
joint report and accepted it in principle, but the Congress also decided to do further
1 Karlsson: From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 163-167.

240
research about the report and to make out a detailed and specific report to be formally
approved by the next session of the National Congress. Later on, the Swedish Social
Democratic Party declared that it supported the idea of employee investment fund.
For example, Olof Palme, the chairman of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, said
in the conference of Socialist International in 1980 that“the Swedish trade union
movement and the Social Democratic Party all agree with the target set by the
employee investment fund”, he also said “the target will be helpful for economic
performance and for restoring economic balance. It will help the party to build a
moral, equal, and just society.”1
In March 1981, the joint research group of the Swedish Trade Union
Confederation and the Swedish Social Democratic Party issued a report of The
Working Class Movement and Employee Investment Fund on the basis of 麦德内尔
working group’s report and the joint report of 1978. Compared with the two previous
reports, the new content of this report included the following four aspects:
First, it planed to set up provincial employee investment fund by levying profit
sharing tax and pension tax; the fund would be incorporated into public fringe pension
system.
Secondly, it stipulated that all enterprises which registered in stock market
should pay 20% of its super profit (not its total profit) as profit sharing tax; at the
same time, it also stipulated that all employers should pay the raising pension tax as
the second source of employee investment fund.
Thirdly, it suggested that employee investment fund buy stocks in stock market
instead of buying them within the enterprise so as to have more influence on
investment orientation.
Fourthly, it defined that the trade union could appeal to the three party court of
arbitration if enterprises with 500 or more employees refused to offer new stocks for
the fund to purchase. In addition, the report also stipulated that the fund yields
belonged to the national fringe pension system.
In 1981, the Confederation and the National Congress of the Social Democratic
Party passed the report respectively and determined the basic principles for further
research.
In autumn 1982, when the Social Democratic Party won the national election and
came to power for another time, it immediately founded a series of institutions
studying employee investment fund. In June 1983, it also put forward a report
prepared for as a bill which would be submitted to the congress.
On December 21, 1983, the Swedish Congress approved two acts for
establishing employee investment fund by a small majority: Profit Sharing Tax, Rules
Act of National Insurance and Pension Fund.
In terms of organization, 5 employee investment fund organizations were
established within the system of national fringe pension, the act stipulated that “each
employee investment fund management committee should have 9 members. In
addition, it should also have 4 alternate members”, and among them, “at least 5
members or 2 alternate members should represent the interests of employees”, “both
members and alternate members should be appointed by the government”.
As for the source of the fund, the act first stipulated that “each company limited
by shares, each co-operative, each saving bank and each property insurance joint
stock cooperation should pay profit sharing tax according to the act”, “the amount is
20% of the profit sharing tax base”, that is, if the after-tax profit of the enterprise
exceeded 6% of the total wages or 500,000 krona, the profit would be considered as
1 Palme: Economic Democracy in the Journal of international Communist Movement, 1986, Issue 2.

241
super profit and the enterprise should pay 20% of the super profit for free. Next, the
act stipulated that “fringe pension donation tax, or 0.04% of the fringe pension
donation tax base” would be transferred to each employee investment fund
committee, this meant that employer had to pay for his employees the public fringe
pension which would be raised by 0.2%-0.5%. The act also stipulated that “the capital
rationing for each employee investment fund committee should be 400 million
Swedish krona in 1984, and it should be increased each year hereafter until 1990(1990
included)”.
In respect of the use of the fund, the act stipulated that each employee investment
fund committee“should not hold over 8% of the total stocks” within one stock
company or one enterprise. If 5 employee investment fund committees purchased
stocks of the same enterprise respectively, then they could hold maximum 40% of the
right of vote of the same enterprise. The acts also stipulated that employee investment
fund committee could “grant the basic trade union of the enterprise to exercise half of
the vote rights obtained by purchasing stocks after the committee gets the stocks and
the trade union ask for the rights. The term for one grant is 1 year at most”. The other
half vote rights were up to the fund organization.1 Besides, the act also stipulated that
the fund investment yields should not be lower than 3% of the actual value of the fund
investment; the yields belonged to pension system and were taken as collective
welfare savings for employees.
It is obvious that the employee investment fund stipulated by the act in 1983
were greatly different from 麦德内尔’s report in 1976. First, according to the 1983
act, only 15-20 billion krona could be transferred to employee investment fund
during the period of 1984-1990; however, according to the 1976 report, employee
investment fund would enjoy “limitless fund transfer” in principle.
Second, according to the 1983 act, employee investment funds were not allowed
to hold over 5% stocks of the total market value or employee investment
organizations hold 3%-4% stocks of the total market value; in contrast, the 1976
report said that employee investment funds could hold over half of the stocks of large
companies in Sweden.
Next, according to the 1983 act, the capitals transferred to employee investment
funds for purchasing stocks came from profit sharing tax and 0.2% of total wage tax;
however, according to the 1976 report, companies wouldn’t offer capitals, instead,
employee investment funds could obtain stocks by issuing the so called special
employee stocks.
Nevertheless, although in the 1983 act the employee investment fund plan made
such major retreating revision, it still met with fierce opposition from owners of
enterprises large or small and their agents. Finally, it inevitably led to the failure. For
instance, these enterprises owners criticized that employee investment fund would
replace market economy with planned economy, employee investment fund
organization would become the dominating owners group in each company in
Sweden, and the cost would rise but the stocks prices would plummet. They also
described the employee investment fund as “gill net socialism” which was the same as
the oriental groups, and it was only the efforts made by union barons to top
themselves on industry and commerce. Before the Swedish congress passed the
employee investment fund act, leaders of the Swedish employers’ confederation
threatened to spare no efforts in prohibiting the pass of this fund system. When the
congress held regular meetings in autumn, they organized a demonstration with
75,000 people to fight against the establishment of employee investment fund, and
1 Karlsson, From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 212-221.

242
this was the largest demonstration aimed at the congress since the Vietnam War.
Before 1985 national election, three Swedish non-socialist parties threatened to ban
employee investment fund if they win the election. A joint “banning group” even put
forward several alternative plans to cut apart the capitals accumulated by fund
organizations. Furthermore, in February 1991, the Swedish Social Democratic Party
failed in the election, the “non-socialist group” consisted of the Moderate Coalition
Party, the Centre Party, the Swedish People's Party, and the Christian Democratic
Party won the election and formed a new government. After that, the ideas of making
employees participate into capital shaping through employee investment fund and
struggle for powers with private system vanished away in a fast speed.
What did the emergence and failure of the “fund socialism” of the Swedish
Social Democratic Party indicate?
First, it illustrated the extreme importance of the issue of the ownership of the
means of production repeatedly emphasized by scientific socialism in socialism
reform.
As talked above, denying the importance of the ownership of the means of
production was taken by international socialist parties as one of their distinctive
features, the Swedish Social Democratic Party even boosted to attach great
importance to distribution and welfare by denying the actual importance and urgency
of the socializing target. So, what made them to turn from welfare socialism which
denied the importance of socialization to functional socialism which concerned about
the issue of the ownership of the means of production in form, and then moved to
fund socialism which attempted to actually touch the ownership of the means of
production? The fundamental reason is that, as a logically necessary consequence, the
needs of the economic development undoubtedly demand a road. Therefore, the
emergence of “fund socialism”in the Swedish Social Democratic Party itself proved
the correctness of scientific socialism and the error of democratic socialism in the
issue of the means of production from a special angle.
Then, why fund socialism which met the objective needs of social development
could not avoid failure in the end?
The fundamental reason lies in that: on one hand, the Swedish Social Democratic
Party attempted to touch the private ownership of the means of production in its ideas
and acts proposed for fund socialism and aroused a counter back from capitalists
ideologically and politically. On the other hand, the Social Democratic party was not
well prepared for challenging private ownership in ideology, political program and
strategy because the party held a position of mediating class contradictories for a long
time. Just as what 庞 梯 逊 has mentioned in his article The Swedish Social
Democratic Party’s Radical Measures and its Retreating, the failure of employee
investment fund plan resulted from the lack of a forceful strategy adopted by the
Social Democratic Party which should be based on a clear long term socialism goal.
The party failed to see the significance of the important relationship between the
alliances of different classes and the transition of socialism; or they confused the
activities of corporatism and the movement of socialism. Finally, consensus could not
be reached within the Social Democratic Party and the working class movements, and
as a result, their forces are weakened.1

Section 4 The Experiences and Lessons of the Swedish Model

The 1932 Great Depression affected almost the entire capitalist world, during
1 Britain, New Left Review, 1987, Issue 9-10.

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that period; the Swedish Social Democratic Party that mainly consisted of blue-collar
workers came into power by election. Deeply touched by the damage brought by the
capitalist economic anarchy to the society and the unemployment pains of workers,
they determined to create a unique Swedish economic model. After half century of
efforts, Sweden finally turned from a poor agricultural country to a developed
capitalist country. By 1987, the per capita GDP of Sweden reached 18,955 US dollars,
which was higher than that of the United States that was 18,198 US dollars per capita,
it was also higher than that of the 12 countries of European Community that was
13,180 US dollars per capita. It also remained a low unemployment rate below 2% for
quite a long time. Sweden in a period of time became a Mecca and was held up as a
paragon by many countries. Actually, it can not be denied that the Swedish Social
Democratic Party did attained great achievements in developing economy, improving
people’s life, promoting life democracy (although it was still capitalism democracy) in
capitalism.
Although the Swedish Model did make Sweden prosper, it is also a curse of the
future development for Sweden because it was constructed and implemented within
the framework of capitalism despite the fact that it was guided by democratic
socialism ideology.
The first one was the issue of the ownership of the means of production.
The Swedish Social Democratic Party adhered to the capitalist private ownership
of the means of production, to the absolute control of the production by private
enterprises, thus state owned enterprises accounted for only 8% of the total industry
which was much lower than that of Australia, Britain, France, Italy and Norway. In
Sweden, over 90% enterprises were concentrated on private capitalists, 93% industrial
products were produced by private enterprises, and 95% means of production were
controlled by 100 great families. Meanwhile, 17 financial capital groups dominated
the lifelines of the national economy, 2/3 stocks were held by only 0.2% of the total
population, and 1/2 of the wealth was in charge of rich people who only took up 5%
of the total population. In this context, although the employee investment fund plan
proposed by the Social Democratic Party was severely weakened, it was still strongly
opposed by employers big or small and inevitably became a failure in the end.
The second issue was tax policies.
The Swedish Social Democratic Party materialized equalization of income by
adopting measures such as levying progressive tax, state public spending subsidies. It
practiced a vertical redistribution from high income group to low income group and a
horizontal redistribution from private sector to public sector. In Sweden, the average
progressive tax was 54%, which mainly included income tax, inheritance tax, property
tax and capital tax. For example, if the monthly income of a person was below 12,000
krona, he would get 8%-10% new income after tax; if the monthly income of a person
was 60,000 krona, he would lose 18% income after tax; and for those whose monthly
income were more than 150,000, the tax rate reached 80% and 25% of their income
were transferred. It seemed that the personal income gap of Sweden was not wide, but
actually it covered up the wide gap between the rich and the poor. As a matter fact, the
highest income was 144 times than the lowest income before tax. The reason was, the
government often raised the rate of depreciation and writing off of the fixed assets,
thus part of the profit would be exempted. The so called “preferential cut in taxes”,
“performance investment fund” exempt greatly the capital profit tax; the so called
experiences such as “the short of income sources”, “living abroad for a period of
time” were all conditions for tax exemption, and this led to false income report,
distorting the tax law, tax evasion and tax fraud, etc.

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 On the other hand, the high taxation system severely discouraged the worker’s
initiatives in production. As early as in the 1970’s, the tax burdens in Sweden had
accounted for 55% of the average per capita GNP, this was much higher than that of
the western European countries in which the tax burdens were generally 35% of the
average per capita GNP. This situation led to a high marginal tax rate, dampened
individual enthusiasm and investment enthusiasm of the enterprises too, hence, labor
productivity, investment rate decreased and national economic growth rate increased
at a low speed. For example, even during the period of 1965-1970 in which capitalist
economy enjoyed a rapid development in the world, the average annual growth rate of
GNP in Sweden was only 3.9%, which was lower than the average growth rate of
GNP in western European countries. In France, the number was 5.65; Italy, 6%; the
Federal Republic of Germany, 4.5%; Holland, 4.9%; and Norway, 4.4%. The
economic development in Sweden even slowed down in 1989, in 1990, Sweden’s
balance of payment deficit was 33.4billion krona, industrial growth rate was 2.8%
negative, and the growth rate of GNP was only 0.3%. However, the rate of inflation
reached 8%-10% annually, and there was also a high taxation, as a result, the real
wages of Swedish people only ranked 14 among all industrial countries in 1988,
which was far behind the Federal Republic of Germany, France, and Australia.
This policy of high taxation especially discouraged the labor’s working
enthusiasm. The average monthly wages for industrial workers was 2,208 US dollars;
for the white collars, 3,177 US dollars. According to the act, workers had to pay
income tax which would take up 30%-35% of their wages, the tax rate for income
from overtime work and part time job even hit 50%, the sales tax for general goods
(food excluded) was 25%. Since the mid of 1980’s, 75% of the overtime and part time
income had to be paid for tax, inevitably this seriously dampened the workers’
enthusiasm to produce. In some industries, each day the number of employees who
were absent from work accounted for 26% of the total workers. The Volvo Car
Corporation had to hire 144 workers for 100 jobs on average. In the city of
GothenBurg, each day 13% of the workers were absent, the bus drivers and tram
drivers asked for sick leave for 73 days on average in 1991. In addition, indirect tax
increased rapidly and led to price rising, finally, ordinary consumers have to bear the
burdens.
What came next was the issue of wage policies.
Over the long time, the Swedish Social Democratic Party had adopted a
solidarity wage policy which was named after its founder as“Rehn-Meidner Model”.
This policy pursued equal pay for equal work, small wage gaps and tried to quickly
transfer workers fired by one enterprise to another one that remained a strong
momentum for growth and had the capacity to pay workers wage in accordance with
the amount stipulated by the general agreement. At the same time, it also facilitated
free flow of workers through labor market authorities by providing vocational
counseling and arranging all-round career changing trainings. The National Labor
Market Board was once a powerful social institution in 1960’s, it was directly
involved with the major aspects of Swedish economy. The strong point of this policy
and institution was that Sweden could remain a low unemployment rate for a long
time and coordinate the interests of the state, the trade unions and monopoly capitals
through various ways; the weak point was that it had a feature of equalitarianism
which disregarded the management of the enterprises as well as the personal skills of
workers, thus, it ignored competition and encouraged low efficiency.
In this situation, it was impossible to solve the fundamental problems by
negotiations between labors and capitals, which could only ease the conflicts

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temporarily. From 1985 to 1990, economic unrest occurred and negotiation between
labors and capitals about wages broke down for many times, this led to fierce
confrontation between labors and capitals. Strike waves occurred now and then, and
the institution aimed at mediating the relations between labors and capitals by
negotiation existed only in name. In 1990, strikes went on because people demanded
increasing wages by 20% at most, as a result, banking and stock business were
interrupted, the state was at a chaos.
The last issue was the welfare system.
Sweden practiced a welfare system which covered people’s life from cradle to
tomb. It carried out a social insurance which included birth allowance, child
allowance, free primary and secondary education, free medical care for citizens,
retired pensions, unemployment and injury insurance system, full pay sick leave
without time limits, and full pay 60 days vocation for taking care of sick children each
year, etc. In such a system, the social welfare spending was as high as 100billion
krona, which was almost 23% of the GNP,( 24.8% in 1975) and 1/3 of the total
government spending.
Facts have proven that such a high welfare system didn’t necessarily bring about
a good result. For example, before January 1991, the sick leave rate of Swedish
workers ranked first among European countries. Meanwhile, too many people went to
hospitals to see doctors, and many diseases which needed urgent treatments could not
be dealt with in time. For instance, just in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, currently
there are 28,000 patients are waiting for surgeries. On the other hand, according to the
1970 survey, only 68% Swedes between the age of 20-60 received primary and
second education or some kinds of professional education, 23% of them graduated
from secondary school and training school, 6% participated in the college entrance
examination and only 3% received higher education.
Meanwhile, to maintain a high welfare spending, the social consumption growth
was far more than that of the production growth. The rigidity of welfare and wage
policy resulted in the increase of social consumption which could not be brought
under control and not to mention to reduce it, consequently, financial deficit expanded
continuously, the deficit increased from 3% of the GNP in 1950’s to 13% in 1980.
The evils that were revealed forced the Swedish Social Democratic Party
government to put the brake on their “people’s home” policy long before they failed
in 1991 election and lost the power. For instance, the 1990-1991 plan of the Swedish
Social Democratic Party stipulated that prices, wages, rent, and dividend would be
blocked for two years, strikes were forbidden until 1991 and those who violated this
regulation would be punished severely. Effective measures should be taken to reduce
the misuse of powers spread in medical and health sectors, etc
In September 1994 national election, the Social Democratic Party led by
Karlsson got 45.6% votes, 162 parliamentary seats (the total seats are 349) and came
into power for another time. Actually this result came from the failure of the policies
of the Swedish Liberal Party led by Carl Bildt rather than the correctness and success
of the Swedish Model. After this election, the Singapore newspaper Lianhe Zaobao
published an article entitled Why Did Swedes Turn back? The articles gave
comments on this situation of Sweden:
The Swedish Model takes multi-party system in political and emphasizes market
economy under a strong central power in economy, the central government adopts
macro regulation and control which feature in heavy tax. The capitalists in Sweden
said that the Swedish model is against market economy. Therefore, in 1991 election,
four capitalist parties including the Liberal Party joined hand and defeated the Social

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Democratic party, gaining the power of forming a government. “The 41 year old
young prime minister, Carl Bildt came into power, he rolled up his sleeves and
determined to do something different. He abolished welfares subsidized by the
government, made poorly run companies close down, the result was: 200,000 jobs lost
and unemployed people increased by 14%. During the 3 years of his governing, he ran
his head into stone walls everywhere and the reform was a total failure. He brought
250billion marks debt for the state which was more than 2/3 of the GNP; this was a
heavy blow for a country with 8.5million population”. “In addition, in Sweden, the far
right fascism became more and more frantic, antiforeigner sentiments became
stronger, crime rate increased and national cohesion was extremely weakened”.
“During these 3 years, the state machinery was declining and the person managing it
wanted to reform all day long but was not able to give his own ideas”. “All this led to
strong disappointments towards the new government and Swedes began to miss the
old welfare society”. However, the Swedish Model welfare state was not able to
continue because it had structural defects as mentioned above. Therefore, when the
Social Democratic party came back into power, the prime minister “Karlsson was
confronted with many difficulties and it was obvious that he was not able to make
Sweden come back to the old policies that the state covered everything for people”!1
Chapter 6 Democratic Socialism and the Drastic Changes in Eastern Europe, the
Collapse of the Soviet Union
The 1980’s-1990’s had witnessed a highly volatile international situation and the
dazzling events among them were the drastic changes in Eastern Europe as well as the
collapse of Soviet Union. These changes were caused by the changes of communist
leaders in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In previous time, they called
themselves firm believers of scientific socialism and practiced it in reality, but now
they turned to democratic socialism. However, several years later, socialist parties and
democratic social parties transformed from communist parties in Eastern Europe
recovered from their loss in 1990 election and came back into power or formed
coalition cabinet one after another since 1992. What had happened on earth? What
role did democratic socialism play in all this events? And what does it mean to
democratic socialism. People are eager to know and understand this entire issues.
Actually, it is also a practical problem deserves discussions and answers in analyzing
and commenting on the thoughts of democratic socialism.
As mentioned above, social democracy- democratic socialism always holds an
opposite position against communism, communists and socialist countries; it also
takes capital democracy as the tool for the infiltration and peaceful evolution of
socialist countries. So, why didn’t those former leaders of Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union who called themselves firm believers of scientific socialism fight
against the thoughts and political power of democratic socialism but turned to it
instead? Why did they abandon communism and believe in democratic socialism?
This was a mystery for quite a long time and attracted many people to study and think
about it. For example, some one said that it demonstrated that democratic socialism
was superior to scientific socialism and social democratic parties in Western Europe
were particularly believed in this opinion; someone said that “foregoers” like
Gorbachev appeared within communist parties and they tended to gave way to
democratic socialism. It is clear that facts have proven that the first statement was
wrong, because the objective reality that the former USSR and Eastern European
Socialist countries failed quickly when they turned to democratic socialism clearly
1 Singapore, Lianhe Zaobao, September 24, 1994.

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indicated that this was the failure of democratic socialism and the evil consequences
of their abandon of scientific socialism. Therefore, it is far from saying that
democratic socialism is superior to scientific socialism. However, the second
statement was too simple too be persuasive. At that time, the trend of transforming
from scientific socialism to democratic socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern
European Socialist countries was aggressive and became a fashion in those countries.
It is clear that “foregoers” did play a part, or we could even say a big part in this
trend. But we should not be just satisfied with this point if we want to further study
history because history is not created by a small number of people, otherwise, it will
be idealism. The Marxist concept of history also requires to find the objective causes
and the essence of this phenomena which also includes the events that those
“foregoers” abandoned scientific socialism and turned to democratic socialism.
Meanwhile, only by following this sequence of thought, can we explain the reason
why those “foregoers” could play a part in it.

Section1 The Transformation from Scientific Socialism to Democratic Socialism in

the Soviet Union and Eastern European Socialist countries

Why did those leaders in the Soviet Union and Eastern European Socialist
countries abandon scientific socialism and turn to democratic socialism? Let us begin
with the Soviet Union.

1 The continuously slowdown economy in the Soviet Union and Gorbachev’s

attempts of finding a way out from the transformation of reform between 1970’s
-1980’s
The national economy of the Soviet Union had enjoyed a rapid development
since the establishment of the socialist system after the October Revolution in 1917.
In a short period of just two decades, the Soviet Union materialized industrialization
that capitalist countries had spent one or two hundred years to realize. Its industrial
production level ranked the second in the world and the first in Europe. In 1913, it
was only the fifth in the world and the fourth in Europe. Then, it defeated the Fascism
invasion on its own strength. After World War II, its strength of economy and national
defense enjoyed an even larger scale development, it was the first to launch artificial
satellite, and it was also a match for the U.S. in the nuclear arms race and became one
of the two superpowers in the world. Therefore, some one said that the collapse of the
Soviet Union didn’t come from economic construction. We argue that this statement
suggests that they only “have a one sided view”.
We know that the Soviet Union did enjoy a rapid economic development in quite
a long time, but its economy began to slow down when it reached a high in 1950’s.
According to an official survey in the Soviet Union, its average annual national
income growth rate was 10.6% in 1950’s, 7% in 1960’s, and 5.1% in 1970’s.
(according to the survey of western countries, the average annual GNP growth rate of
the Soviet Union was 5.7% in 1950’s, 5.1% in 1960’s, and 3.2% in 1970’s). In 1981,
its annual national income growth rate was 3.2% (the western countries estimated that
its annual GNP growth rate was 1% in 1981), and reduced to 2.6% in 1982. According

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to the survey of the western countries, the proportion of the Soviet Union GNP in the
world was 15.9% in 1970, 14% in 1975, and reduced to 11.6% in1980. From the late
1970’s, the Soviet Union had lost upper hand in the competition with the U.S. in the
speed of economic development. From the period of 1983-1984, the speed of the
economic development of the Soviet Union had been slower than that of the U.S..
According to the survey of the Group of Seven, the GNP of the Soviet Union was
only 512 billion U.S. dollars in 1989, which ranked the 8th in the world and was
almost as same as that of the Canada. The per capita commodities and labor service
output of the Soviet Union was 1,780 U.S. dollars, this was much lower than that of
the developed capitalist countries, 17,606 U.S. dollars ; it was even lower than that of
the east European countries, 2,465U.S. Dollars; it was only a little higher than that of
Costa Rica. And the per capita consumption level of the Soviet Union ranked the 7th
in the world in 1917, but only the 77th in 1990.
Why did the Soviet Union win the victory over capitalism in the first half of the
20th century but suffered one defeat after another in the last half of the 20th century?
Here we won’t go further for this question but only point out three determining
factors: first, the world theme has transformed from war and revolution to peace and
development; second, in this context, the defects and evils of the Soviet Union Model
and development strategy which were suitable for war and revolution and rendered
immortal service to the socialism construction were exposed gradually; thirdly, the
leaders of the Soviet Union remained rigid in their thinking and always considered the
Soviet Union model as the fundamental institution of socialism. Under the banner of
defending socialism, they refused to adjust and reform the Soviet Union Model and
development strategy to adapt to the changing situation.
Anyhow, it was the economic slowdown from 1970s to 1980s that made
Gorbachev felt that it was not only necessary but also urgent to reform economy when
he came into power in 1985. He felt that the Soviet Union was facing a danger of
being surpassed by Japan in economic strength and reducing to a second rank middle
power.
Therefore, in the 27th Session of the General Assembly of the Soviet Communist
Party held in 1986, Gorbachev put forward and shaped the course of Speeding up
Social and Economic Development Strategy as well as Reforming Fundamental
Economic Institution. The target was to transform from the over centralized
mandatory management system to a democratic management system based on the
combination of centralization and autonomy democracy. It aimed to double the
production potentials and value of gross output within 15 years from 1986 to 2000 in
which the production would turn to follow an intensive development path and the
labor productivity would be greatly raised. Specifically, the national income would be
doubled and the annual growth rate would be 4.7%; labor productivity would increase
by 1.3-1.4 times and the annual growth rate would be 5%-6.3%. Furthermore, per unit
national income energy consumption would be reduced by 40%, specific consumption
of metal would be reduced by 50%; the actual per capita residential income would be
doubled and the annual growth rate would be 3.5%; meanwhile, it also planned to
upgrade all technologies and equipments by the year of 2000 by speeding up the
development of machine building and manufacturing modern technological
equipment.
The Strategy of Speeding up Social and Economic Development was not realized
because it was unrealistic and ignored the following objective facts: at that time, the
national economy of the Soviet Union was not reasonably structured , the ratio
between agriculture, light and heavy manufacturing was 2:2:6 which was a serious

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disproportion. However, Gorbachev didn’t take immediate measures to adjust it; on
the contrary, he made it even more disproportionate. For instance, during the period of
1985-1988, the proportion of the heavy industry in the total industrial output value
increased from 69% to 70.5%; the proportion of the light industry in the total
industrial output value decreased from 14.6% to 13.8%. During the period of 1986-
1990, the proportion of the investment in secondary industries among the total
industrial investment decreased from 12 %( 1981-1985) to 1.9%; the proportion of
agricultural investment in the total national economic investment decreased from 18.5
%( 1981-1985) to 11.8%. This caused an overall strained supply of consume goods,
the rising prices and panic buying. The general public held a negative attitude toward
the reform and gradually lost confidence in it.
In June 1987, in the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Soviet
Communist Party, Gorbachev raised a new idea that the reform would start from
enterprises and be carried out from top to bottom. According to this idea, the session
also passed The Basic Principles for the Fundamental Reforms of Economic
Management which required that “enterprises and joint companies should transform
to take full responsibility for their own profits and losses and finance by themselves”,
it also required “a transition from administrative management in different levels to an
extensive democratic management which would arouse people’s enthusiasm”, it
required that “the central government would not interfere the inferiors with their
economic activities”. In this way, the Soviet Union would “transform from the over
centralized mandatory management system to a democratic management system,
developing autonomy, and establishing a mechanism which can arouse people’s
enthusiasm”.
However, during that time, the Soviet Union didn’t have a macro reform to match
this basic principle, proper external business conditions for enterprises were not
established, either. When mandatory plans were removed, enterprises were still
attached to ministries which gave state orders as mandatory plans. In this situation, it
was obvious that the reform of enterprises could not go further. Besides, the Soviet
Union also lacked effective price, financial and tax mechanisms as well as macro
competition mechanism and binding mechanism. The practice of enlarging the
decision making power of enterprises only led to the growth of “group self-interest”
in enterprises, they reduced or stopped the production of those low profit goods which
are essential to people’s life, and turned to produce high profit products. This caused
the chronic shortage of daily living goods. On the other hand, Gorbachev carried out
the practice of expanding the yield distribution power of enterprises, this made them
increase wages and bonus for workers regardless of the fact that the production
increased only a little or even didn’t increase. As a result, the growth of consumption
fund was much faster than that of the consume goods production, this further
aggravated the shortage of consume goods and inflation.
When the economic reform failed, Gorbachev abandoned developing production
and completing socialism, instead, he turned to remove the obstacles by “updating”
socialism with a universal standard.

2. Great efforts made by Gorbachev to push on the self-smear , self-denying of

socialism, and the transformation to a humanitarian, democratic socialism
Gorbachev attributed the failure of his economic system reform to political
obstacles, to “barrier mechanism” which “blocked social and economic development
as well as advancement and reform”, he held that “reform will not succeed until

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democracy are practiced”. Therefore, in the January plenary session of the Central
Committee of the Soviet Communist Party held in 1987, he claimed that socialism
should be “updated”, he said that the ten key issues such as production relations,
superstructure, and Lenin’s exposition of socialism “had long been simplified and
castrated”.
Gorbachev held that the bureaucratic mandatory system formed between the late
1920s and the early 1930s had become a system that blocked social and economic
development. Its evils lied in “the alienation of human and government, the alienation
of human, means of production and the fruits of their labors, as well as the alienation
of human and spiritual wealth”; he also said that “the significance of the reform, in the
last analysis, was to completely overcome all this alienations”. The corrective
measure was to adopt “democracy and humanism” which are the “common value
standard of the whole mankind”. He argued that the ultimate goal of the reform was to
“to fully reveal the humanitarian natures of our system in all its determining
dimensions -economy, society, politics and moral”. And democracy was not only the
“reform goal”, “the reform essence”, but also “the major methods”, and “the major
driving force” as well as the “irresistible major guarantees of the reform”.
To match the reform, Gorbachev also adjusted the foreign policies. From April to
July in 1987, he put forward the “new political thinking” which “put the interests of
man kind and humanitarian value first”. In his book Reform and New Thinking
published in November 1987 as well as his report of the 70th anniversary of the
October Revolution, Gorbachev further explained that the “kernel” and “fundamental
elements” of his new thinking was that “the interests of the whole mankind is superior
to the class interests”, “the value of the whole mankind is superior to anything else”,
“the existence of the whole mankind is superior to anything else”.
In the Nineteenth National Congress of the Soviet Communist Party held in June 1988
and the twenty-eighth National Congress of the Soviet Communist Part held in July
1990, Gorbachev further switched the reform direction to the total denying of the
existing socialism and to the path of the humanitarian, democratic socialism.
This transformation was demonstrated by the redefining of socialism. That is to
say, Gorbachev advocated that the political system formed after the October
Revolution had been “severely distorted”, it was a “rigid power system” which “orally
claimed democratic principle but actually acted arbitrarily”; it was also a system
“advocated people’s government in public but trampled the lifestyle and moral code
of socialism in practice”.
In contrast, Gorbachev held that “socialism was a real and practical system in which
man kind was the real yardstick of the world”. In his viewpoint, the right of man was
the inalienable feature and achievement of socialism, the overall goal of the reform
was to “reveal the humanitarian nature of socialism and to improve welfare for
people”. He said that “the key to reform was to solve the problem that man was
separated from the right of ownership”. Here, “man is the center of the problem”, and
“the reform was to realize the man-centered idea of Lenin”. Gorbachev argued that
“socialism ideology, according to our understanding, was first the thought of
freedom”, and “the kernel of the socialism ideology was man”, “socialism embodies
and defends the universal democracy, the ideal and values of the whole man kind”.
However, “Stalin took out the most important elements of the socialist ideal— man,
man’s needs, interests, and man’s real life”. “The distortion of Stalinism led to the lost
of the major parts of the socialist concepts defined by Marxism and Leninism: man
should be the aim instead of being regarded as methods”. Therefore, “we take reform
as a long way to go in the history of socialism. During this period, we will abandon

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the dictatorial bureaucratic system and form a social organism with real democracy
and autonomy”. To achieve this goal, “we should have a radical reform of our whole
social building from economic foundation to superstructure”. “The socialism we are
striving for in the process of reform” has “a humanitarian social structure and is able
to realize democracy in every aspect of the social life”, “we are well-founded that
what we are building is not only a humanitarian but also a democratic socialism”.
To adapt to this economic reform, Gorbachev also reformed political system. He
shifted the power center from the Communist Party to the Soviet Union and abolished
the party’s direct leadership of the state organs, social groups, thus the Soviet
Communist Party had been transformed from the “kernel leader” to “the political
pioneers”. In March 1990, the National Congress of the Soviet Union revised Article
6 of the Soviet Union constitution, formally abolishing the legal leadership of the
Communist Party and established a presidential government. When the twenty-eighth
National Congress of the Soviet Communist Part was held in July 1990, Gorbachev
finished the transformation of the reform and formally raised the banner of
humanitarian and democratic socialism. Under the banner of democracy, he described
the socialism of the Soviet Union as a “despotic and bureaucratic system” which
needs a “complete reform”. He switched from disseminating humanitarian value to
advocating supra-class democracy and freedom domestically and the whole man kind
value internationally. He demanded that the confrontation between socialism and
capitalism be removed, and attempted to develop multiparty from the advocating of
publicity, democratization, and social pluralism in politics. Economically, he
vigorously beat the drum for “reforming the overall ownership relations” by adopting
the private ownership of the means of production; ideologically, he advocated
pluralism in thinking, and demanded the “absolute abandon of the ideological
restriction on different ideas, different thinking as well as dogmatism, intolerance”. In
terms of the party, he advocated “democratization of the Party” and demanded that the
Soviet Communist Party should play a role as the parliament, and become an
“autonomy socialist political organization”.

3. The humanitarian and democratic socialism advocated by Gorbachev—another

version for the democratic socialism of the social democratic parties.
If we take a bird view of the thinking trend worldwide, we will easily find that the
humanitarian and democratic socialism advocated by Gorbachev was just another
version for the democratic socialism of the socialist international and the social
democratic parties in west European countries. It was first the version of ethical
socialism and abstract humanism advocated by the social democratic parties. They
described the basic value of socialism as the capitalist ideology of freedom, equality
and universal fraternity proposed by the French Revolution. They summarized that
socialism meant a permanent task which could realize freedom, equity and solidarity
by democratization, and they also emphasized that “man should be the aim”.
People can find the archetype of the humanitarian and democratic socialism
advocated by Gorbachev in the social democratic parties’ documents. For example,
the Socialist International wrote in The Social Parties’ View on the Current World
passed by the Oslo Conference held in June 1962 that “we democratic socialists are
deeply convinced that the ultimate goal of political activities should be the fullest
development of each individual”. Based on this, it criticized that “both communism
and capitalism retreated to a time when man was just regarded as raw material rather
than the aim and source of all efforts”. The statement and declaration of the fourth and

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the16th Socialist International congress repeatedly claimed that “the root of socialism
is freedom and equality”, and the “essence of socialist ideal is freedom and
democracy”. Is it clear here that we can find the script of the ideas advocated
vigorously by Gorbachev such as the so called “socialist ideology is above all the idea
of freedom”, and “socialism defends and embodies the universal democracy and the
ideal and value of the whole man kind”? Is it clear here that we can also find the script
of the ideas advocated vigorously by Gorbachev such as “man is the real yardstick in
the world” in socialist system, and the distortion of Stalinism led to the lost of the
major parts of socialist concept like “man should be the aim instead of being regarded
just as method”? Is it also clear that all this scripts are the programs claimed by the
Socialist International?
Started from abstract humanism, Gorbachev held that “socialism” “embodies and
defends the universal democracy as well as the ideal and value of the whole man
kind”, he demanded “more socialism and more democracy”. Although Gorbachev
boasted that what he pursued was socialism, what he actually had done was already
democratic socialism of social democratic parties rather than scientific socialism of
Marxism. The Stockholm Principle Declaration passed in the 18th Socialist
International Congress in June 1989 advocated that (the universal, absolute)
democracy was “not only the political means to realize the goal of socialism but also
the real substance of the goal of socialism (to establish democratic economy and
democratic society)”.When Gorbachev boasted that “socialism embodies and defends
the universal democracy as well as the ideal and value of the whole man kind”, didn’t
he just recite the democratic socialism doctrines of the social democratic parties?
Is it just a coincidence that the humanitarian and democratic socialism advocated
by Gorbachev echoed the democratic socialism of the social democratic parties?
The answer is “no”. The fact is that Gorbachev intentionally learned this from the
social democratic parties.
On November 8, 1987, Yakovlev, Gorbachev’s think tanker, published an article
in Pravda, demanding an analysis of the “social formation diversity of socialism” and
of “the alternatives of socialism development”.
June 1988, Omsomolskaya Pravda published, in form of 4 days serials, the report
of the delegation led by Gorbachev’s economic counselor Abalkin and Aganbegyan,
the report talked about how the delegation paid homage to the Swedish Model and
learned from it.
On October26, 1989, Gobarchev published an article entitled The Socialism ideology
and its Revolutionary Reform in Pravda. When talking about social democratic
factions, he particularly stressed that “we have seen its contribution to the
development of socialism value, to the reform of helping to promote labor’s welfare
and social insurance in western capitalist countries, and it deserves praise. We are
interested in studying the rich and extensive experiences accumulated by social
democratic parties. Although we have different conditions, we are trying to employ
some experiences that are fit for our own social conditions.
On April 30, 1990, Gorbachev published the article The Future World and
Socialism in the journal of The Working Class and Contemporary World, he
intentionally described the revolutionary group (communist parties) and the reform
group (social democratic parties) as the same, he said both “opinions originated from
Marxism”, he also emphasized that:
“We have found many meaningful and enlightened contents from the theoretical
studies and practices of social democratic parties; I am deeply convinced that we are
getting close to each other since socialist countries have undergone profound changes

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and social democratic parties have their own process of changing”. “Now there is no
such a gap between social democrats and communists that divided them in previous
time”, because “communists have criticized themselves about their weakness, errors
and mistakes without mercy”.
In this article, Gorbachev also emphasized that:
“The programmatic documents passed by the 18th Socialist International have proven
that we have much in common—the viewpoint of the contemporary world, the
understanding of the tasks facing all progressive forces, the basis of our humanitarian
and democratic value. We are getting close to each other not only in political position
but also in the position of the world outlook; and this is the logical development of the
contemporary world as well as the demands of the world situation and historical
experiences”.
It is clear that Gorbachev’s humanitarian, democratic socialism and the social
democrats’ democratic socialism originated from the same source. The problem
remained is: why did Gorbachev want to find a way out by transforming scientific
socialism to democratic socialism?
It seems complicated but actually it was very simple. Gorbachev and some other
former Soviet Communist leaders before him equaled the Soviet Model to the basic
socialist system. What the difference was: if the former Soviet Communist leaders
refused to reform the Soviet Model which didn’t adapt to the changing situation and
meet the needs of the development by making an excuse for defending socialism, then
Gorbachev acted in a diametrically opposite way, he attributed the defects and evils of
the Soviet Model to the basic socialism system and pushed forward vigorously the
self-smear and self-denying of socialism on this argument. Yet, even in this condition,
he still wanted to label himself as “socialism”, therefore, the only way for him was to
resort to transformation and to the democratic socialism of the social democrats!

4. The sale of Democratic Socialism by Gorbachev to Eastern European Countries

Gorbachev not only resorted to democratic socialism himself, he also spared no
efforts in selling democratic socialism to Eastern European Countries.
It should be pointed out that many factors attributing to the transformation of the
Eastern European Countries. Internal cause and external cause, the influence of
western countries and the Soviet Union as well as the influence of western capitalist
and western European social democratic parties all led to the transformation of the
Eastern European Countries.
As early as 1960s-1970s, western capitalists had tried their best to lead the reform to
the path of democratic socialism when Eastern European Countries reformed
economic systems. They aimed to overturn socialism and to restore capitalism by
peaceful evolution. In autumn 1970, Brzezinski wrote articles in the autumn issue of
the American journal Foreign Affairs, he pointed out that a party of intellectuals who
held power in the Eastern European Countries appreciated the Northern European
model of social democracy very much, he urged that “western countries should
encourage these intellectuals in authority and promote the peaceful evolution of the
Eastern European Countries”.
In section one of chapter two, we have a detailed discussion about the question
that the Socialist International sold democratic socialism to Eastern European
Countries and promoted the peaceful evolution of these countries, so we won’t repeat
it here.
However, Gorbachev’s sale of democratic socialism to the Eastern European

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Countries had played a major part in their drastic changes.
Early at the beginning of October, 1988, when a social science conference of
socialist countries was held in Moscow, Gorbachev asked Medvedev, the secretary of
the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee, to persuade delegates of different
countries to consider western experiences for the sake of their future reforms. He
particularly talked about the programmatic issues and specific policies of the Socialist
International. He highlighted that “we should have a close observation of the practices
and specific activities of the current social democratic parties, including their
practices and activities in defending the social achievements obtained by the working
class and general democracy”.
In selling democratic socialism to the Eastern European Countries, Gorbachev not
only disseminated his concept but also took concrete measures to realized it, that is,
he made use of the influence of the Soviet Union on Eastern European Countries and
forced them to follow his whole set of democratic socialism route. Based on the
thought crisis and social troubles caused by humanitarian, democratic socialism,
Gorbachev supported and fostered leaders of Eastern European Countries who
favored democratic socialism and excluded and struck those who disapproved it. He
even interfered with the affairs and managed to drive them out; he founded a group of
small governments that resembled his government and made them to transform
communists parties and labor parties in Eastern European Countries to social parties
and social democratic parties.
For example, on October 7, 1989, the 14th Hungarian Socialist Workers Party
congress passed a resolution to rebuild the party as Hungarian Social Party. The party
constitution stated that “the party accepts the universal value of human development
without reservation, that is, the party is an political organization of humanism,
freedom, democracy as well as Marxism”. “It holds the principle of solidarity and
social justice and respects labors that create values”. “The party is willing to serve the
whole nation with its actions”. “The goal of the party is democratic socialism”. And
this Programmatic Declaration of the party even claimed that “the party should first of
all draw a clear line with Stalinism and all varieties of new Stalinism”. The program
set the target of establishing a political system of democratic socialism, its features
included the following aspects: a democratic country under the rule of law, direct
democratic structure, even power distribution between different organizations and
power centers, free vote, a responsible parliament that executes major powers and
represents the popular sovereignty, a republic president who keeps balance between
different power departments and a government that is responsible for the parliament,
an independent judicial organs, civil freedom, multi-party system that can express
different political wills, free competition between different political organizations and
factions, independent institutions representing welfare and interests, and professional
interest organizations aiming at protecting the constitutional guarantee for all
minorities, and so on.
On October 9, 1989, the Yugoslavia newspaper Courier gave a comment on this:
“the 14th Hungarian Socialist Workers Party congress completely changed its own
ideological program and its political position”. “It broke away from the Bolshevistic
heritage. An era was over, the Hungarian Social Party symbolized that the whole
ideological model of communism had been historically broken through and the one-
party rule was terminated”.
On October 10, 1989, the Japanese Tokyo Daily News also commented on that, it
said that “it is the first time that the ruling party—communist party vanished in
socialist countries, this was really an epoch-making event”. The same day, the

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Japanese Economy News published an article that also discussed this event, it stated
that “the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (a communist party) had held power for
over 40 years in Hungary but now broke away from communism that it followed for
so many years. It changed its basic route and resorted to the western European social
democracy, it even changed the party’s name as “Social Party”, and this means the
declaration of the failure of communism in its competition with capitalism, one may
say that this is a step toward the clear turn of the world political system after the
Second World War”.
Following Hungary, the communist parties in Czechoslovakia, the German
Democratic Republic, Romania, Portland, Republic of Bulgaria… resorted to
democratic socialism one after another. At that time, many people in the Soviet Union
could not understand these dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and wrote to
newspapers like Pravda for an answer. Then, Pravda published an article entitled It is
Easy to Ask but Difficult to Find an Answer on February 20, 1990, revealing the
situation. Why did it say “it is difficult to find an answer”? The fundamental reason
was: the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe were directly caused by Gorbachev, the
then Soviet Union leaders.
The Federal Republic of Germany weekly The Times, published an article of
Christian·Schmidt-heusser on December 29,1989, it said that “the dramatic changes of
Eastern Europe were unimaginable without the push from the Kremlin”, Gorbachev
“facilitated the complete revolution of Eastern Europe by holding meetings behind the
scenes”.
The French weekly L’Express commented on July 6, 1990 that “over the year,
the special correspondents of L’Express have gathered too many signs from the ‘new
continent’ which indicated that ‘the dramatic changes of Eastern Europe were
triggered by Moscow’. “The tremendous shock cracked the Eastern European Group
within several months and it was clear that this shock absolutely stemmed from
Moscow.” “Stuck with the political and economic troubles, Gorbachev and his
partners had a new ideas—what they should do first was to make reform and publicity
succeed in some other places. Then the first step was to remove those old leaders who
still held the powers, and the aim was to establish small Gorbachev governments in
those Eastern European Countries”. Given that “things didn’t move toward the
direction as it was planned”, Gorbachev and his partners then didn’t give up until they
took various further steps one after another to transform communist parties in those
countries into social parties or social democratic parties.
The collapse of the German Democratic Republic was a good example. On
October 17, 1989, at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of
the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, members of the Political Bureau headed by
Egon Krenz asked Willi Stoph, the Prime Minister, to revolt to force Erich Honecker,
the highest leader of the party and the country, to resign at the Ninth Plenary Session
of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party held the next day, and to be
replaced by Egon Krenz. What followed was the large amount outflow of residents
out of the country and plus the turbulent and volatile political situation there . In this
situation, the 11th session of the ninth People’s Assembly elected Hans Modrow as
the prime minister and formed a coalition government joined by 11 nonmembers of
the party. The session also deleted the content that the German Democratic Republic
“is led by the working class and the Marxism, Leninism party” by revising the
proposal of Article 1 of the constitution. Subsequently, the Twelfth Plenary Session of
the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party decided to expel the former
leaders Honecker, Stoph, and H ． Sindermann from the party, it declared that the

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Central Committee and the Political Bureau resigned, and the working committee
chaired by Crocker would be set up to prepare for a special congress of party
representatives. The special congress was held on December 8 and 16, Gysi and
Modrow were elected as chairman and vice-chairman; the congress decided the party
would be renamed as “the Socialist Unity Party of Germany-the German social
democratic party”; the congress stated that the crisis could be solved only by
following the third road which would get rid of the socialism of Stalinism and
abandon transnational monopoly, and this road featured in absolute democracy, rule of
law, humanism , social equity, environmental protection and real equality of men and
women.
As for the reasons of the dramatic changes of the German Democratic Republic
within several months, Gorbachev, when he accepted an interview of the American
newspaper the Los Angeles Times in 1994, concluded that “Honecker refused to
reform, and most of the people around him held the same position, therefore they
failed.” Honecker wrote in his memoirs Essay of Moabit Prison published in 1994 that
he had the news from Washington as early as in 1987 which said that Gorbchev
decided to carry out reform in the Soviet Union at the sacrifice of its satellite states.
The plot of “dismissing all leaders of the German Democratic Republic and the
Socialist Unity Party” succeeded because there were “collaboration from within with
forces from without”. He held that the collapse of the German Democratic Republic
was the error of his successor Krenz and the former president of the Soviet Union
Gorbachev. According to the report of the German Frankfurt General Newspaper on
August 17, 1993, in his letter to the local intermediate court Berlin, Krenz accused
Gorbachev of sacrificing them and selling the German Democratic Republic for the
sake of the political interests of the Soviet Union. Krenz said, by the end of 1989,
Gorbachev still maintained “protecting the postwar reality including the existing of
two Germanys” and declared repeatedly that “we won’t abandon the German
Democratic Republic”. In this context, when he replaced Honecker, he followed
Moscow to reform and to practice publicity aiming at “helping the German
Democratic Republic undergo difficult times”. However, Gorbachev didn’t lay his
hope on Krenz and didn’t regard him as the future leader of the German Democratic
Republic who would follow Moscow to reform. Hence, Gorbachev exploited Modrow
and his comrades in arms to remove Krenz from the position and to take over the
government. In the end of January 1990, Modrow was called to Moscow and
announced the plan “Germany, the unity of fatherland” when he came back to Berlin
from Moscow after a discussion with Gorbachev. Therefore, Krenz was shocked that
Gorbachev refused to attend as a witness on the trial of the National Defense Council
members.

Section 2 The dramatic changes of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet
Union caused by resorting to democratic socialism
When the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries turned to democratic
socialism, the dramatic changes of Eastern European and the collapse of the Soviet
Union occurred.
1. The process of the collapse of Eastern European and the Soviet Union
Hungary went first. The Socialist Worker Party of Hungary announced to give up
the position of ruling party in February 1989 and carried out multi-party system. The
14th Unusual Congress held in October 1989 renamed the Socialist Worker Party as

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the Hungarian Socialist Party. The interim president announced that the country was
renamed as the Republic of Hungary. After that, parties stood in great numbers and by
March 1990, the parties that officially registered were up to 52 such as the Hungarian
Democratic Forum, the Alliance of Free Democrats, the Social Democratic Party and
the Hungarian people’s party, etc. Although there were sharp contradictions between
these parties, they held similar positions in the development direction of the country
like establishing welfare society of Western European Model, carrying out
privatization and capitalist market economy, etc. They took various measures to
impose pressures upon the Socialist Party which were still in power. In March and
April 1990, Hungary held the first national election for two rounds after the adoption
of multi-party system. 19 of the 52 parties participated in the election. Finally the
Hungarian Democratic Forum won 164 out of the 386 parliament seats, accounted for
42.75% and obtained the right to form a cabinet; the Socialist Party got 33seats,
accounted for 8.5%, it lost its ruling power and became an out party. In its first
meeting, the new parliament highlighted that it inherited the parliament of the 1964
when multi-party system was practiced, this indicated a complete break from the 43
year ruling of the communist party. Hence, from 1989 to 1990, the Hungarian
Socialist Worker Party finished its transformation to democratic socialism and then to
the dramatic changes within just one year.
The situation in Poland was like this. In the first period of the Tenth Plenary
Session of the United Workers Party held in December 1988, Jaruzelski, the first
secretary, proposed to “firmly get rid of all that was out of date”, “to root out the
remnants of Stalinism”. Consequently, the Political Bureau had a major political
realignment and six members of the Political Bureau including the prime minister
were expelled from the post. And in the second period of the Plenary Session of the
Central Committee of the United Workers Party, the resolution of the self reform of
the party and the resolution “About the Position on Political Pluralism and the Trade
Union Pluralism” had been passed. They stipulated that the principle of parliamentary
election would be decided in the round table meeting and also blazed a trail for the
remobilization of the Solidarity Trade Union.
In the round table meeting from February to April 1989, organizations like the Polish
United Workers’ Party, the Solidarity Trade Union achieved a consensus on legalizing
the Solidarity Trade Union, forming presidential government, adding senate, and
carrying out parliamentary democracy. According to the agreement, among the 460
seats in the Parliament, 65%(299seats) should be allocated to the ruling alliance
parties; 35%（161seats）should be freely competed by the ruling alliance parties and
the Solidarity Trade Union; the 100 seats in the senate should be freely competed by
different parties. However, in the first round election in June 1989, 161 seats allowed
free election were taken by the Solidarity Trade Union; among the 299 seats allocated
to the ruling alliance parties, only 5 were elected, the prime minister, the defense
minister, the interior minister and leaders of other parties in the ruling alliance lost the
election one after another. And of the 100 senate seats, the Solidarity Trade Union got
95. In the second round election, the Solidarity Trade Union got another 1 seat of the
parliament and 7seats of the senate, the ruling alliance only got 1 seat of the senate
except for the 294 seats left in the parliament. In this context, Jaruzelski was elected
as president by holding just a one-vote majority, and T．Mazowiecki of the Solidarity
Trade Union took up the post of prime minister. In the end of 1989, the parliament
passed the Amendments to the Constitution which decided to delete chapters about
“political leadership power” and “state society-political system”, it also changed the
name of the country as the Republic of Poland and the national emblem as a white

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eagle with a crown. On January27, 1990, in the 11th representative congress, the
Polish United Workers’ Party passed a resolution to cease its own activities and
suggested to establish the Social Democratic Party.
Czechoslovakia had another story. In December 1987, Milos Jakes took up the
post of general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia, however, there were repeated trials of political strength. Opposition
political factions represented by the Charter 77(later it united other organizations and
set up “the Citizen’s Forum”) held rallies and demonstrations about whether it was
right to redress the 1968 cases. In August 1989, the Polish Parliament condemned that
the 5 Warsaw Treaty Organization countries headed by the Soviet Union invaded
Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Political Executive Committee of the Socialist Worker
Party of Hungary also declared that its present leader disapproved of the 1968 military
interference with Czechoslovakia, they also sent delegates to support the
demonstrations of the oppositions. Under the great pressure from home and abroad,
the leader body of the Czechoslovakia Communist Party headed by Jakes had to
resign collectively in November 1989. The parliament elected Dubcěk as the
chairman and Vaclav Havel, the member of the Citizen’s Forum, as
the president. In December, the Czechoslovakia Communist Party
passed the action program Realizing Democratic Socialism in
Czechoslovakia in the unusual representative congress. But in the parliamentary
election of July 1990 , the Communist Party only got 47 out of the 300 seats and
organizations like the Citizen’s Forum got 170 seats. In the new government, the
Communist Party was excluded completely.
Bulgaria had the similar situation. After April 1989, the Muslim Communities
held rallies and demonstrations, demanding restoring their Muslin names and
immigrating to Turkey at their own will. At the same time, political dissidents and
oppositions also came alive. They formed an organization called “Public Character of
Ecological”, demanding the discussion of environmental protection and enlarging
democracy and publicity. They condemned that there weren’t any “democracy”,
“guarantee of human rights”, “news publicity” in Bulgaria. “The Association for the
Protection of Human Rights” demanded political pluralism, freedom of worship and
the end of the “policy of assimilating minorities”. On November 10, Todor Zhivkov ,
the general secretary of the Bulgaria Communist Party had to resign, consequently, he
was expelled from the party. Furthermore, he was detained, investigated and
sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. At the beginning of 1990, the 14 congress of the
Bulgaria Communist Party passed Bulgaria Democratic Socialism Declaration and
claimed to build democratic and humanitarian socialism in Bulgaria. It would carry
out multi-party system, parliament democracy and free election, it would also
implement separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, depoliticize
armies, public security organs, procurator organs and people’s courts, etc.
Consequently, “the Independent Socialism Alliance” within the Bulgaria Communist
Party announced to establish “the New Socialist Party”, and the Communist Party
changed its name as the Bulgaria Socialist Party. In June 1990, the Bulgaria Socialist
Party already won the national election, however, the leader of the Socialist Party had
to resign his post as president in July and was replaced by the chairman of the Union
of Democratic Forces Coordination Committee; in November, the Socialist Party
announced its collapse and was replaced by the “peaceful transitional government”
headed by Non-Party Personages.
The situation in the German Democratic Republic was like this. In May 1989,
Hungary declared to dismantle all the bordering facilitates with Austria, large

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numbers of the German Democratic Republic citizens left for the Federal Republic of
Germany through Australia when they traveled to Hungary for vocation. In
September, Hungary also decided that the stranded German Democratic Republic
citizens in Hungary could choose to leave or not at their own will, and declared to
abolish The Bilateral Agreement of Forbidding Citizens without Effective Certificate
of the Counterpart Country to Flow to the Third Country signed with the German
Democratic Republic. Influenced by this situation and stirred up by the western
countries forces, the German Democratic Republic residents fled to the Federal
Republic of Germany at large numbers. Then demonstrations broke out in many
cities, the demonstrators demanded developing democracy, carrying out reform, and
relaxing restrictions on traveling abroad and medias. The opposition factions like “the
New Forum” also speeded up their activities. Soon after, the Unified Socialist Party
and the government repeatedly regrouped and hence were mired in a snowballing
crisis. In November, the Berlin Wall was dismantled. In December, the Party was
renamed as “the Unified Socialist Party- the Democratic Socialist Party”, and held
round table meeting with the opposition parties. In March 1990, in the People’s
Parliament election, the German Alliance composed of the Christian Democratic
Union, the Social Union, and the Democratic Awakening got 48.15% of the vote and
won the election; the Democratic Socialist Party only got 16.33% of the vote and was
reduced to an out-party.
The German Democratic Republic was formally merged in the Federal Republic
of Germany and the Germany unified. And Honecker, the former highest leader of the
German Democratic Republic and the Democratic Socialist Party, was removed from
his position both in and out of the party. In addition, he was also expelled from the
party and was accused of the crime of abuse of authority and degeneration as well as
corruption, finally, he was exiled to Chile even if he suffered from cancer.
In Romania, the Timisoara event burst out on December 16, 1989. Originally,
hundreds of local residents held protests against the local authority’s order of moving
priest Laszlo Tokess, a dissident, out of the place, and the issue developed into an
anti-government demonstration with thousands of people the next day. Demonstrators
clashed with police in the street and thus triggered out the outbursts of various
conflicts in Romania. In Bucharest, the capital of Romania, anti-government leaflets
were distributed and protests against Nicolae Ceauşescu were held. The scales were
increasingly enlarged and even spread to other places. Ceauşescu executed the
defense minister who refused to shoot at the demonstrators for treason and declared a
state of emergency. But the army refused to execute the command and fought with the
security troops who supported Ceauşescu in a fierce shoot out. The couple of
Ceauşescu were arrested when they ran away and was immediately put to death. The
Romanian National Salvation Front was established and took over the power.
Meanwhile, it also announced 10 administrative programs which included abandoning
single-party system, implementing multi-party system and separation of the executive,
legislative and judicial powers, etc.
Influenced by Poland and Hungary, when the 26th Plenary Session was held in
September 1989, the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
held that they had to change their monopoly position in political system and competed
with other political bodies. In the 28th Plenary Session held in October, it passed The
Outline of Political System Reform which called for deep reform for the existing
socialist model in Yugoslavia in order to guarantee political pluralism; soon after,
nationalism parties came upon the stage one after another. In the14th unusual
congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia held in January 1990, there

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were strong disagreements between two groups, one group included Slovenia, Croatia
and Bosnia-Herzegovinia, and the other group included Serbia, Montenegro and
Voivodina, hence the League of Communists of Yugoslavia broke up. In January
1991, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia declared to cease activities. Since
multi-party system was carried out, about 224 parties registered in the whole country.
In 1990, in the Croatia parliamentary election, the Croatian Democratic Union got
55.06% of the seats and the League of Communists-the Democratic Reform Party
only won 18.54% of the seats, it was reduced to out-party from a ruling party. In the
Slovenia parliamentary election, the opposition party Demos coalition got 126 out of
the 240 seats and the Youth League, the Communist League and the Socialist League
only got 74 seats altogether; in the parliamentary election of Macedonia, the Internal
Macedonian Revolutionary Organization Democratic Party For Macedonian National
Unity got 37 seats, the Social　Democratic　Union　of Macedonia got 31 seats; In
the election of both Houses of Parliament in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovena, the
Party of Democratic Action got 86 out of the 240 seats; the Democratic Party of
Serbia (DSS), 72 seats; the League of Communist-Social Democracy party,14 seats.
Consequently, the national conflict of Yugoslavia was intensified into civil war.
Influenced by Poland and Hungary, demonstrators also appeared in Tirana, the
capital of Albania. After clashes with police and security troops, numerous citizens
fled to western countries’ embassies in Albania for asylum. The Polish senate and the
Foreign Affairs Ministry of Germany published resolutions and statements, criticizing
Albania for violating human rights. They urged it to take humanitarian measures to
solve the issue of citizen’s fleeing to other countries. In the 11th Plenary Session of
the Ninth Central Committee of the Party, the Party of Labor of Albania underwent
major personnel changes in the Central Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the
Central Committee. It also decided to issue passports to its citizens stayed in foreign
embassies in Albania. In December, about 2000 college students held protests that
called for “freedom”, “democracy”, “multi-party system”, “Down with dictator”,
“long live Gorbachev”, “long live Alia”, and they also clashed with police. The
Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania then decided to legalize multi-
party system in its 13th Plenary Session of the Ninth Central Committee. On April 10,
1991, Albania announced the new constitution which changed the country’s name,
deleted articles about the leadership of the Party of Labor and the guiding of
Marxism, Leninism. In June, the Party of Labor renamed itself as the Socialist Party
and Alia was elected as the first president. However, the Socialist Party was defeated
in the parliamentary election in April, 1992, the opposition forced Alia to resign and
then put him into prison on a charge of “the abuse of authority and blundering away
state property”.
In the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party held
in February and March 1990, the Soviet Union proposed to revise article 6 of the
constitution, removing the legal leading position of the Soviet Communist Party and
suggesting the practice of multi-party system and presidential system. Furthermore,
the 28th congress of the Soviet Communist Party held in July passed the programmatic
statement Moving toward Humanitarian, Democratic Socialism and The Soviet
Communist Party Constitution, actually, it had changed the communist party into a
socialist party. In April, 1991, Gorbachev and the leaders of the 9 Union Republics
issued “9+1” joint statement on the treaty of the new Unions, starting the process of
power transfer nationwide.
In the Soviet Union and Eastern European Countries, communist parties had held
the power and built socialism for more than 40-70 years, why did they tumble down

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immediately once they resorted to democratic socialism?

2 One of the reasons for the collapse: self-smear and self-denial of socialism in a
vigorous way
Just as what we have discussed above, the anti-communists of the democratic
socialism held that communist parties and socialist countries “destroy freedom and
deprive of the opportunities for obtaining freedom”, and they were based on “military
bureaucracy and police terrorism”. Anti-communists also regarded communist parties
and socialist countries as a kind of “totalitarianism” which was the same as Fascism;
they held that communist parties and socialist countries were a kind of “old tyranny”,
“dictatorship” which resembled capitalism that “regarded man as raw materials rather
than the source and aim of all efforts”.
As early as in 1956, the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Parties issued a
secret report which expressed the idea of Khrushchev who followed the route of
democratic socialism which was against anti-communism. Khrushchev condemned
that Stalin was “Persecution Mania”, “despotic” and “followed a road of large scale of
persecution and terrorism”, hence, Khrushchev denied the theory of class struggle and
proletarian dictatorship of Marxism and Leninism. This situation facilitated
imperialism to set off a wave of anti-soviet union and anti-communism worldwide,
accordingly, the events of Poland and Hungary were bred in Eastern Europe and 1/3
of the communists in western countries withdrew from the party.
During the period of 1980-1990, Gorbachev inherited and further developed this
idea; he totally denied the history of socialism construction and proletarian
dictatorship of the Soviet Union since the death of Lenin. He carried out self-smear
and self-denial of socialism vigorously. Gorbachev claimed that decades of socialism
practices in the Soviet Union only brought disasters to the people; therefore, that
period of history was not only a mistake but also “totalitarian socialism” and
“arbitrary socialism” which “committed crime”. He said, “Over the decades, the
socialism theory and practice model were imposed on the party, however, they didn’t
hold water now.” “The model imposed on the party and the society for decades now
had suffered strategic defeats, this conclusion has principle significance. Thus, we can
draw a conclusion: we have been close to the whole idea that we have to further
change our socialism completely. We are not able to find the solution of our problem
in the old model”. “Yes, this is the crisis of socialism and socialism ideology”,
“Nevertheless, this crisis can be overcome and the following restoration as well as the
new organism will firmly move ahead”. And in order to “overcome the crisis”, we
“have to crash Stalin ideology and all that related to it”. The so called “new organism”
was actually humanitarian, democratic socialism advocated by Gorbahev.
It should be pointed out that the complete negation of Stalin is not an issue
concerned about the criticizing of Stalin’s errors, about adopting what position and
what method to judge the personal merits and demerits of Stalin, but an issue about
how to evaluate the socialism practices in the Soviet Union over the decades and how
to assess international communism movements over the decades.
In the international anti-communism wave triggered by the secret report of
Khrushchev in 1950’s, someone once mentioned “Stalinism” and “Stalinist”.
As for this, Mao Zedong pointed out that the so called Stalinism was no more
than the thoughts and opinions of Stalin; the so called Stalinists were no more than
those who were for Stalin. Then, may I ask what are the thoughts and s of Stalin? We
held that the thoughts and opinions of Stalin were basically in accordance with

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Marxism and Leninism. The major parts of them are correct although there were some
mistakes, and Stalin’s error was secondary points. Therefore, the so called Stalinism
was basically correct and the so called Stalinists were also basically correct. They
were communists who just made some mistakes and had some weak points; they were
good people who made mistakes. As for Stalin himself, Mao Zedong pointed out that
his basic route and principle was right in the construction of the Soviet Union and
should be approved. It was understandable that inevitably he had mistakes and
shortcomings. Stalin overemphasized dictatorship and violated some parts of the legal
system, but he didn’t destroy the whole system; he violated parts of the constitution
but not the whole, he didn’t violate the whole civil law and criminal law. The
dictatorship was basically right although democracy was not enough; at the same
time, he also carried out the Soviet Union democracy. He had shortcomings and
bureaucracy but he turned the Soviet Union into an industrial country and defeated
Hitler after all. Could bureaucracy and bureaucratic institutions obtain such great
achievements? It was not persuasive to say that the Soviet Union was bureaucratic on
the whole. As for Stalin, most of the debates focused on two issues: 1.the extension of
counter-revolutionaries elimination; 2. great power chauvinism. However, Stalin was
right in both issues in some aspects: whether it was the issue of the attitude toward
counter revolutionist or the issue of foreign relations. He did kill too many people but
he was right in killing those real counter revolutionists, his mistake lied in that he
extended the elimination of counter-revolutionaries and killed some good people; as
for foreign relations, he practiced internationalism in most cases, he aided fraternal
parties and countries as well as those oppressed nations and oppressed people of the
world, large amounts of historical facts had proven this point although it was not
necessary to disguise that he made the mistake of great power chauvinism. All in all,
Stalinism is bound to be preserved; it is good when its shortcomings and mistakes are
overcome, and certainly we should not abandon this knife.1
30 years later, when it came to evaluate Mao Zedong who had made mistakes in
his later years, Deng Xiaoping even raised the issue to the height of how to deal with
the important period of history of our country: “Comrade Mao began to incline to the
Left from 1957, the most severe period was the 10 years of Cultural Revolution”.
However, Deng Xiaoping pointed out that in evaluating Mao Zedong, “Although it is
necessary to criticize the mistakes in no uncertain terms, including the mistakes made
by comrade Mao Zedong, it is also necessary to seek truth from facts and to analyze
different situations, it is not proper to attribute all the problems to personal qualities”.
“We should give proper judgment on comrade Mao Zedong’s mistakes. Otherwise, it
will be not only a smear on him, but also a smear on our party as well as our country,
and it will be contrary to the historical facts”. He repeatedly emphasized that “we
should identify the historical position of comrade Mao Zedong, pursue and develop
Mao Zedong Thought”.2 “When our party summarizes historical experiences, we can
not discard Ma Zedong; if we deny Mao Zedong, we are denying most of the Chinese
revolutionary history”. “Each party, each country has its own history. Only when an
objective attitude of seeking truth from facts is adopted to analyze and sum up the
history, will it bring benefits to the country”.3
“The criticizing of the mistakes made by Mao Zedong in his later years should
not go beyond what is proper, because denying such a great historical personage
means denying an important period of Chinese history; it will bring puzzle to people

1 Wu Lengxi, Recalling Chairman Mao, Xinhua Press, 1995, Page 19, 26.
2 The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 2, Page291.
3 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page271-272.

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and lead to political instability”.4
From such a perspective, it is not difficult to find one of the important reasons which
led to the collapse of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union when they turned to
democratic socialism, that is ： the self-denial and self-smear of socialism made by
Gorbachev who obtained this by a total negation of Stalin.
As for the self-denial and self-smear of socialism made by Gorbachev, the
American political commentator Michael·Davidow once said: “Over the 5 years, he
described the century long history of the party and the country as totalitarian politics
with a one-sided and complete negative attitude, hence, he facilitated and will
continue to facilitate the anti-communism. … The history of America did have dark
chapters in the past and at present—slavery, wiping out aboriginal Indians. But it was
never denied in such a one-sided way”. “If the previous distortion of facts came from
the anti-Soviet Union forces abroad, then currently it is the major newspapers and
magazines as well as some famous party members that provide reports distorting the
facts for the Soviet Union people through the Soviet Union television stations”.
“Currently, many major newspapers and magazines of the Soviet Union published
more anti-communism contents than that of American newspapers and magazines, so
do the television station. Besides, their anti-communism statements are far cleverer,
because it is based on the “in house” knowledge about the history of the party and the
Soviet Union. Considering this point, we will say that the Soviet Union is the most
‘authoritative’ cradle land of anti-socialism, anti-Soviet Union and anti-communism
propaganda.”
Led by Gorbachev, some former communist leaders who believed in democratic
socialism in Eastern European countries also began to smear and deny their own
countries decades’ long socialism practices by themselves, they described it as a
“shameful history” and demanded a “clear cut” with it; they wanted to “bid farewell
to the past” and draw a clear line with it”.
The self-smear and self-denial of socialism made by some former communist
leaders in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries created the
fundamental precondition for their self-collapse. Since communists themselves
smeared their own decades’ long socialism practices, then, why did they have the right
to demand leadership of the country and the society even if they changed their name
as democratic socialism?

3 The second reason for the collapse: openness, democratization and social pluralism
that invite anti-communism to overturn the leadership of communist
Gorbachev put forward the so called three proposals of openness, democratization
and social pluralism in the 19th Soviet Communist Party congress held in 1988, and
the congress also passed The Resolution about Openness which openly highlighted
that openness was the essential condition for realizing people’s autonomy in
socialism, civil rights, freedom and obligations, it was the method to realize pluralism
of the various social interests and public opinions of the Soviet Union, and it was also
an effective way to identify socialist humanism.
It will be justifiable for the slogan of enhancing socialist democracy and widening
openness if it aims at stimulating the enthusiasm of the general publics to construct
socialism by eliminating the evils and shortcomings of the Soviet Union Model which
had done a poor job in publicizing and practicing socialist democracy as well as
openness in the past. However, the question was, the precondition for Gorbachev to
4 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 3, Page284.

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put forward this slogan was the self-smear and self-denial of socialism. Furthermore,
he took an absolute and one-sided attitude toward the slogan, and he advocated
“openness with no restriction”, “the utmost openness and pursuing openness with a
free hand”. On June 12,1990, the Supreme Soviet passed the Press & Publication
Law which declared “freedom of press” and “no examination of public opinion” in
Article 1. Article 1 also stipulated that citizens “have the right to express their ideas
and opinions, to seek for, select, obtain and spread information in any forms including
newspaper and magazine as well as other instruments”, it also said that state organs,
political parties, social organizations, religious bodies and citizens who had reached
the age of 18 “all have the right to start public opinion instruments”. In this context,
the “freedom of press” which revealed the so called “dark side” of socialism was only
something occurred at the cost of the leakage of the state or party secret. The
socialism construction was severely demeaned, the image of communist parties was
increasingly damaged and the ideology was seriously out of control and broke down
in the end.
On September 23, 1991, the Hong Kong Asian Wall Street Journal commented on
this phenomenon, saying that “ when the Soviet Union fell into pieces, a simple
question still remained without answer: how could a country which was irresistible
domestically and pushed forward abroad tumble down within a short period of 6
years? The answer to the riddle was the nature of the reform. Gorbachev chose a road
that imposed restrictions on the party and revealed the shortcomings of the party
through openness. However, openness was quickly out of control and made the ruling
of the Soviet Union as a legal government suffer a drastic fall in its prestige”. The
comment also stated that “the stability of the state depends on three factors: no serious
national conflicts, the peaceful co-existence of the working class and the solidarity of
the ruling group. In the past all these conditions were guaranteed by ideology, but
under the pressure of openness, ideology collapsed and destroyed the three
conditions”. “One of the results came from the declining of ideology was the
occurrence of nationalist sentiment. When openness was carried out, people began to
doubt about ideology and a vacuum that could only be filled by nationalism
occurred”; “the collapse of ideology also weakened the communist government’s
control over the workers, particularly the miners”. “The third and the most important
of the declining of ideology was the disintegration of the ruling group”.
The Philippines newspaper World News published an article on January
9,1992,commenting on this event, it said “Gorbachev crippled the Communist Party
when he needed a hard core most”; “he dug up the past, started an bitter argument and
the outburst of nationality issues when he needed national solidarity most”; “he
weakened and destroyed on himself the administrative organization when he needed
an effective administration to carry out his reform most”.
As for the issue of social pluralism, what should be pointed out first was that
contradictions among the people , various opinions as well as different interests did
exist in socialist societies. Lenin had regarded proletarian dictatorship as the alliance
of the proletariats which were the vanguard of laborers and the non- proletariat
laboring classes; the alliance of the firm defender and other fluctuating allies as well
as neutrals; the alliance of classes who were different in economy, politics, social
status and spirits. It was obvious that Stalin was one-sided when he emphasized that
workers, peasants and intellectuals were unanimous in their opinions of the social
moral obligations and politics of socialism. However, Gorbachev went to another
extreme when he put forward social pluralism in the 19th Soviet Union congress in
that it led the existing conflicts and different interests to a political direction and

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encouraged social bodies to put on a rival show against the Party rather than pursued a
right policy to adjust the conflicts. Later on, the pluralism developed into multi-party
system that expressed the following arguments: democratization would lead to “the
emergence of new civil social and political organizations”; “social development
doesn’t exclude the possibility of creating new parties, either”; “carrying out multi-
party system won’t be a tragedy if it is a result of the normal historical process and
meets the needs of the society. We shouldn’t be afraid of multi-party system as devils
who are afraid of burning incense”. Therefore, the anti-communism forces who were
dormant during the period of proletarian dictatorship or fostered by the “peaceful
evolution” policy of imperialism were called for and congregated to form an
opposition party to over turn the leadership of the communist party. In his book The
Grand Failure: The Birth And Death Of Communism In The Twentieth Century,
Brzezinski gave comments on that, he said that pluralism “facilitate the dissidents to
evolve into real political oppositions who will demand negotiations on peaceful power
transfer in a certain period”, the emergence of a diversified “independent civil society
indicates the start of the ultimate liberation of the society from the ruling of the
communist party”. According to a survey, as the policy of democratization, openness
and social pluralism was being carried out, various informal organizations came out
from underground. Over 30,000 informal NGO organizations emerged in 1987 and
60,000 in 1989, in 1990, the number was over 90,000. Most of them are anti-
communist and anti-socialism organizations. Furthermore, when the Plenary Meeting
of the Soviet Union Central Committee held in February 1990 decided to abolish the
leadership of the Communist party and carry out multi-party system, over 500 parties
and more than 20 national parties appeared in a rash, and most of them aimed to over
throw the communist Party and socialist system. Meanwhile, as the theory of
pluralism and the policy of multi-party were carried out under the condition of the
self-smear and self denial of socialism, anti-communism factions and polices were
also summoned out from the Communism party itself to confront with and over turn
the Communist Party.
In the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, communist parties had held
power as long as 40-70 years or more, how could they lose powers once they turned
to democratic socialism? After the Communist Party was reduced to out-party, the
former first Secretary of the Communist Party Committee of Lvov State 谢克列塔留
克 reflected the process of their loss of power with intense sorrow, he said“ Originally,
the Communist Party expressed guilt for their mistakes made in the 70 years and
reflection and gave up their monopoly of the power, they supposed that the general
public would hail them and democratization would go smoothly”. However, this was
not the case. “The Communist Party was the largest party in this state, it only wanted
to enter into the Soviet State as a balanced force in a modest manner, but it was not
acknowledged because the opposition parties hated the Communist Party. They
argued that the Communist Party was criminal organization and should be eliminated
and driven out of the political stage because it had made the country into such a
mess”. The former Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Chile, Luis Corvalán
said in his book published in 1993 that “socialism could not move ahead in the Soviet
Union because it was eroded by centralization and bureaucracy. But measures taken
by Gorbachev only resulted in the collapse of the country, Gorbachev became the
grave digger of the Soviet Union objectively.

Section 3 The clear definition of the regaining position by socialist parties in some

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Eastern European countries
The former communist parties in Eastern European countries changed themselves as
socialist parties and resorted to democratic socialism, however, they failed in
parliamentary elections between 1989-1990 and forfeited their powers one after
another. Nevertheless, dramatic changes occurred several years later: from 1992,
socialist parties in some Eastern European countries won parliamentary elections one
after another and regained their positions. Various political powers were quite shocked
by these events. The rightists exclaimed that it was a threat from the recovery of
communist parties because those winners were composed of former communists; and
those socialist parties who won the elections argued that their regaining of powers
was the recovery of social democracy rather than the recovery of communism,
because voters chose social democracy—democratic socialism instead of socialism,
communism.
What attitude should we take toward this phenomena? How to understand its clear
definition?

1 The situations of socialist parties who regained positions in some Eastern European
countries
The reversal of socialist parties’ failure in the election in some Eastern European
countries first occurred in Lithuania. In the parliamentary election of December 1992 ,
the Social Democratic Party headed by Brazauskas gained 73 out of the 141 seats and
exceeded half of the number.
The next winner was the Polish Social Democratic Party. The Party got only 12%
of the vote in the parliamentary election of October 1991 ; in the parliamentary
election of September1993 , it got 20%; the Democratic Left Alliance consisted of the
Polish Social Democratic Party and Polish Peasants Party got 2/3 of the vote and was
able to replace the Solidarity (Polish trade union) to form a cabinet.
The Hungarian Socialist Party followed next. The Party got only 11%of the seats
in the parliamentary election of March 1990; in the first round election held in May
1994, it obtained 33% of the seats and got 54.1% of the votes totaled in the second
round election, it enjoyed 209 among the 386 seats of the parliament.
In Slovak, the People’s Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by
Vladimír Mečiar also won the parliamentary election of October 1994 .
In Bulgaria, the Socialist Party got 44% of the votes and 106 out of the 240 seats
in the parliamentary election of December 1994.
Besides, the German Social Democratic Party led by Schneider got 37% of the
vote in the European Parliament member election held in Treptow Administrative
District of east Berlin in June 1994 and became the largest party in this district. In the
local elections in east Germany, the Party also got 15% of the vote in Thüringen state,
20% in Saxony-Anhalt state, and 25% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state; it
got 1/3 of the vote in Potsdam, Schwerin, Rostock, Neubrandenburg, Frankfurt an der
Oder respectively. Its representative Horst-Diet·Blemish was also elected as the mayor
of the city of Hoyerswerda.
The Russian Communist Party headed by Zyuganov also got 12% of the Russian
parliament election and 15% of the seats in Russian State Duma.
…
Around 1989-1991 when the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries
collapsed, communist parties in those countries were discredited and suffered a loss of

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prestige because leaders of communist parties in those countries carried out vigorous
self-smear and self-denial of socialism. Although some communists resorted to
democratic socialism and changed the party’s name as socialist party, communist
parties still failed in parliamentary elections one after another under the severe attacks
from the opposition parties. So, how could they regain their positions and come into
power in the parliamentary elections after 1992?
We should also first of all find the fundamental reasons from the economic,
political and social development as well as the changes after the collapse in those
countries.

2. The economic, political and social situations in the Soviet Union and Eastern
European countries after the collapse
During the process of the collapse of those countries, someone argued heatedly
that the cause of the collapse and the treatment plan could be attributed to the issue of
democracy; they said that the nature of the collapse was a bourgeois-democratic
“revolution” which would make up the development hindered by communist parties
artificially, they tried to stir up people’s delusion with the fairy tales of bourgeois
democracy. Therefore, in quite a period of time, the concept of bourgeois democracy
was romanticized to a degree that it could not be recognized. It had become a political
panacea for all the ills. It seemed that if the social system and state system transferred
from socialism to capitalism, if bourgeois democracy was implemented, the welfare
and high consumption of western society would fall automatically in those countries.
However, in reality, this dream of bourgeois democracy had only brought headaches
and troubles to people in those countries. An American writer published an article
after examining the whole process, he said that the year 1990 made the world get
three lessons of democracy and he warned people to be alert on three
misunderstandings of democracy. The three lessons of democracy were as the
followings: “democracy was not an outstanding teacher of economics”, “democracy
limited the power of the central government and sometime may destroy this power”,
“democracy didn’t always produce fresh blood”; the three misunderstandings of
democracy that should be avoided included the following aspects: “democracy would
certainly lead to prosperity”, “democracy would lead to stability”, “democracy means
the ruling of the majority”.12
After the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries collapsed, some western
bourgeois teachers told them to use “shock therapy” to transform socialist planned
economy into capitalist market economy. That was, first they could carry out direct
and rapid privatization, and then they could reduce needs, relax the control over
foreign trade, devalue the currency into a degree that it could be convertible, raise
current exchange rate and take other measures to harden financial policies. They
promised that economy of those countries would be prosperous. However, the fact
was that the production went steadily downhill: from 1990 to 1994, the GNP of
Russia decreased year by year, its gross industrial output value in 1994 was less than
half of that in 1990, and the output value of machine building industry was only 40%
of the total amount in 1990, capital construction investment only accounted for 25%
of the total amount in 1990. Over the 3 years, the decrease rate of the production level

1 Kenneth Auchincloss: The Age of Anxiety and The limits of Democracy, Newsweek (international), March 1991
and January 1992.
2 Kenneth Auchincloss: The Age of Anxiety and The limits of Democracy, Newsweek (international), March 1991
and January 1992.

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was much higher than that of the Great Patriotic War which decreased by 23% in 4
years. As for Eastern European countries, from 1989 to 1993, the decrease rates of the
GNP were as followings: Bulgaria, 40%; Rumania, 32%; Slovak, 28%; Czech and
Hungary, 21%respectivley, Poland, 15%. In 1994, the economy of Bulgaria and
Albania still decreased. The economic and social situations of those countries such as
Potland, Hungary who saw a recovery were still serious. For example, the fiscal
deficit increased from 199.7 billion Forint to 350 billion Forint within just one year
between 1993-1994, its per capita external debt reached 2,600 U.S. dollars. In Poland,
the unemployment rate hit 16% and 3million people lost their jobs. Currently in
Eastern European countries, over 70% residents felt that life was worse than the life
before the collapse. Residents below the poverty line amounted to 20%-30% of the
total population, and in Bulgaria, the number was 68%.
During the process of the collapse, western bourgeois politicians also promised
huge amounts of aids, it seemed that U.S. dollars, Japanese yen and Mark would
streamed into those countries once they changed the state power. However, people
had no expectations, they became more disappointed instead. The Austria Institute of
Economics and the Munich Institute of Economics respectively evaluated the “New
Marshall Plan” designed to aid the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries by
western countries: to achieve an annual economic growth rate of 5%-7%, Eastern
European countries needed 75billion-2,75billion U.S. dollars foreign aid, the
Commonwealth of Independent States needed 184billion-570billion U.S. dollars
foreign aid. Nevertheless, the reality was different. Take Russia as example.
Previously, western countries promised to provide 43billion U.S. dollars foreign aid
for Russia, but then they decided to cut 13.2 billion, 10.8 billion was short term loan
that the principal and interest should be repaid immediately, 15 billion was for default
of foreign debts, and only 4 billion was used to revitalize the economy, which was
much lower than the drain of capitals from Russia, 10-20 billion U.S. dollars. About
this issue, a Yugoslavian writer once wrote that: “it was an absolute delusion to expect
rapid foreign aid from the defender of the world capital, because their interests and
profits are superior to everything else. They are only interested in establishing
colonies, seizing cheap factories, raw materials and labors. They also want important
markets for their products, so they take a long term consuming strategy. What happens
consequently (the bankruptcy of factories, starvation, and unemployment) will bring
them benefits”.1
Because of what mentioned above, the mind-set of people in those countries
changed greatly. They didn’t worship blindly western society any more; instead, they
began to demand developing traditional national spirit. For example, a poll conducted
by the Social Survey of Vienna Paul —Lazarsfeld in 1994 indicated that those
surveyed approved of learning from western countries and westernizing, in Poland,
52%; in Czech, 36%; in Slovak, 42%; in Rumania, 47%; in Hungary, 36%; in
Bulgaria, 36%; in Russia, 22%; in Belorussia, 29%; in Ukraine, 39%; however, those
approved of maintaining and developing traditional national spirit accounted for 48%,
64%, 48%, 52%, 58%,64%, 78%, 71%, 41% respectively.
Besides, right-wing parties fostered by western bourgeois classes in those
countries committed serious errors in their governing.
Take Hungary as example. When Kadar, a communist, held power in Hungary, its
agriculture was world famous. Its agriculture formed a running system in which state
farms played a leading role, cooperatives acted as the major parts, small scale

1 Jovan Lakicevic: No Dollars, but Starvation—What did Regime Change Bring to Eastern Europe? Published
in the Yugoslavia newspaper Politika Ekspres, December 22, 1990.

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production was incorporated into the production system which featured in collective
producing, and enterprises made their own management decisions and took full
responsibility for their own profits and losses. Per capita grain yields even reached
1.5tons in the peak year, per capita meat yields hit 200kilograms, 1/3 of its farm
products exported and its volume accounted for 1/4 of the total foreign trade volume.
Living standards of rural residents had actually come up with or even surpassed urban
residents. However, after the collapse, right-wing parties came into power and
adopted improper policies because they stuck to the dogma that “the agricultural
collectivization of the oriental groups was a total failure”. They greatly reduced
agricultural investment, increased tax, raised the rate of loan, widened the price
scissors, and reduced peasant’s incomes. This dampens the enthusiasm for production
of the peasants. They even threatened to abolish those successful cooperatives, to
carry out non-collectivization in those properly running agricultural sectors. They
also issued some contradictory laws and regulations and took some contradictory
production organizing measures; all this led to instability in rural areas, thus greatly
damaged Hungarian economy which suffered a loss of 100billion Forint within
several years. The severe loss made the right wing parties and liberalism advocated by
them become out of date although they were popular during the collapse. After the
Socialist Party won the parliament election, the Hungary newspaper People’s
Freedom published an article that bitterly thought back to what happened in the past
and said “the pressure of economic transformation made the society only find the
‘destructive’ aspect of capitalism, the paradox caused our citizens to give up
liberalism when they didn’t gain ruling experiences of the liberal government”. 1
Bulgaria was another example. In December 1994, the right wing party Union of
Democratic Forces failed in the national election. The Japanese Kyodo News
commented on this event and said that “it indicated the new political trend of the
Eastern European countries”. “The failure of the right wing in the national election
demonstrated that people clearly refused the bad economic reform”.
Why did people of Bulgaria refuse the “reform” of the right wing parties? In
autumn 1991, when the right wing party Union of Democratic Forces began their
ruling, they once adopted and took series policies and measures in order to transform
to capitalism, they also used their power to expose and criticize former communists.
They issued and adopted “land laws” in agriculture sector which once exported large
amounts of food to Western Europe like Hungary. They abolished agricultural
cooperatives and stock farms by force and adopted the policy of returning the land to
its original owners, as a result, vast areas of land and orchards became waste,
agricultural products decreased by 40% within just one year, animal husbandry was
almost destroyed although its meat and milk production was once more than self-
sufficient. The Union of Democratic Forces also dismissed economic leaders at
different levels of the communist government and replaced former economic
managerial personnel by members of the Union of Democratic Forces who knew
nothing about economy and management. Consequently, national economy was
damaged completely, the unemployment rate was up to 18%, and inflation rate was as
high as three digitals, its currency devalued greatly, and living standards was
continually reduced and the national economy almost broke down in the end.
On the whole, the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern European
countries brought calamitous economic situations to their people, the middle income
class was reduced to poverty, the unemployment rate went up, and the life of most of

1The Breakthrough Development of the Socialist Party, published in People’s Freedom, Hungary, January 22,
1994.

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the residents deteriorated. During the Budapest Council of the Socialist International
held in November 1994, Luis Ayala, the Secretary General of the Socialist
International, said to the reporter of Agencia EFE that it was impossible for the right
conservatives “to find a real alternative road for Eastern European countries that
already abandoned communism”. It was justifiable that his word faithfully reflected
the real situation. In summary, what talked above indicated that: for most of the
people in those countries, the restoration of capitalism only meant a disaster rather
than a bright future.

3 The emergence and spread of reminiscent mood among the people of the Soviet
Union and Eastern European countries
People suffered from setbacks and disasters after the collapse of the Soviet Union
and Eastern European countries, their mental states also underwent great changes.
Even western bourgeois class could observe this clearly. For instance, in his book
published in 1993 Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century,
Brzezinski described the disappointed and desperate mood out of the frustrations of
the general public in those countries. He wrote that: “there is a strong probability that
social disasters and economic poverty caused by rapid privatization will lead to large
scale political turbulence and intranquility”; “production and consumption dropped
sharply, extreme inflation could not be brought under control, unemployment was
ever increasing, thus, more and more poor people could not help blowing out their
hatred toward a few new rich people”. “People are not crazy about democratic slogans
any more and are disappointed toward the new economic order, they are eager to
pursue new truth—“nationalism that put national interest above everything else”﹑“a
new form of fascist”.
It should be pointed out that Brzezinski was very sensitive to the changing mood
of the people in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. But his judgment
of the direction of this changing mood was wrong due to his class limitation. As a
matter of fact, although the disappointed and desperate mood spread among people in
those countries made nationalism come back in some degree, what people really
wanted was not fascism; on the contrary, the reminiscent mood of the social life in
socialist countries in some respects was quite popular in that social atmosphere and
soil, this reminiscent mood was particularly prominent among people in east Germany
who missed some parts of the life in the former German Democratic Republic.
After the former German Democratic Republic communists won the European
Parliamentary election and local election, the American New York Times published a
report written by its resident correspondent in Berlin, it said that “democratic
socialists benefited from the bad effects of German re-unification. East German
residents were dissatisfied with their status in the new system; therefore they ran mad
after their East German property that almost faded out completely”. “The democratic
socialists gained vote by making use of the disappointed mood toward German re-
unification”.1
What kind of dissatisfaction and disappointment did East German residents have
towards the new system established after the re-unification? It could be seen from the
state of operation of the Landeskrankenhausgesellschaft hospital in the state of Thüringen
eyaleti . This has a clinic specialized in mental illness. After two years of its
foundation, it had treated about 1700 patients of different ages, and nearly half of
1 Former German Democratic Republic communists win in European and Local election, The New York Times,
June18, 1994.

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them suffered the illness from the re-unification or their illness was intensified by the
re-unification. It was reported that patients went to this hospital to “talk about their
hopes after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, their desperation, their
problems as well as the pains they suffered”. The symptoms were that “they often had
a sense of fear, they couldn’t sleep well and had no appetite, and sometime they felt
pains suddenly somewhere in their bodies”. “A patient said that they all suffered a
‘spiritual bankruptcy’ after the collapse of the country which was connected with
them”. A female singer said that she “felt lost and her confidence was reduced to
zero”. According to the director of this hospital, Plusman, “many patients had
symptoms so long as they heard that their enterprises would close down”. He said that
“from the perspective of psychological treatment, the collapse of German Democratic
Republic means the loss of mother’s love”, “a few people felt happy for getting rid of
restrictions and they went to ‘swim freely’, but many people felt that they were
abandoned and could not bear the burdens of life”.1 Dominated by this kind of mood,
when people visited Berlin History Museum and were invited to write their ideas of
the re-unification, someone even wrote down such words: the Berlin Wall (it
separated East Germany and West Germany) should be reconstructed and should be
20 meters higher than the previous wall！”
The history of communist parties was totally discredited in the Soviet Union and
Eastern European countries, and its true colors was still not restored in people’s mind,
therefore, it was neither practical nor accord with the fact to assume that this
reminiscent mood means a desire for restoring socialist system led by communist
parties. Actually, what they are missing is just something they consider beautiful at
that time.
What on earth was the good thing in the past? A young Croatian sociologist
Bervar described this in his article Why did Eastern European people Look on Those
Days with a Feeling of Nostalgia? He said that “when the system changed, people
were rejoiced, impassioned and exulted, having great expectations of the future. They
hoped to raise living standards and come up with Western Europe soon. However,
what came next was only unemployment, price rising, social turbulence and reduced
living standards. People waked from their daydream, then came disappointment and
the bubble had burst. This kind of disappointment and disillusion made people missed
the past, and this reminiscence was not an isolated but a universal phenomenon.
Furthermore, it was also a “political reminiscence”, “most people missed the past
because the past society provided certain social securities which now vanished
completely. And people got nothing from the new system that they once held such
high expectations. This was the reason why people missed the past.” Then, “what
good thing did people feel lose? First of all were full employment and reliable
positions which gave individuals and their families sense of security; another good
thing of the past was the sense of equality since the income gap was small. People
also missed the free education from primary school to college, missed the cooperative
spirits, missed the fraternal love and the mutual assistance between each other, missed
real free medical care that people could get medicines they need just for a small sum
of money which was only a token, they also missed the low rent. On the whole, they
missed all good things they could get in the past. However, these good things were
snatched by the government without mercy within a short period, people had no
preparation at all for this, and privatization played a major part in this great change”.2
It was this reminiscent mood that made voters in Eastern European countries vote

1 Confidence was Reduced to Zero, Der Spiegel, Germany, Issue 28, July 11, 1994.
2 People’s Freedom, Hungary, Febuary 13, 1995.

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for candidates of socialist parties and democratic socialist parties consisted of former
communists in the parliament election.
4IV The fundamental changes from communist parties to socialist parties

Although these former communists in Eastern European countries benefited from

the reminiscent mood of the voters who missed some good things in the communist
period, they still made fundamental changes in their organizations, programs and
policies when they resorted to democratic socialism and changed their name as
socialist party.

First, their organization structures changed. The socialist parties consisted of

former communists were accepted as member parties in the 19th Socialist
International congress held in Berlin, in mid-September 1992. Social democratic
parties and social-democratic workers’ party in Bulgaria, Czech, Estonian, Latvian,
and Lithuania were accepted even before the 19th congress. In the 19th congress, the
Social Democratic Party of Slovakia was officially accepted as a member party, the
Social Democratic Party of Albania was accepted as “consultative member party”, and
the Socialist Party, the Social Democratic Party of Hungarian as well as the Social
Democratic Party of Slovenia were accepted as “observing member party”. Other
socialist parties in Eastern European countries and Commonwealth of Independent
States sent delegations to sit in on the congress. Gorbachev was also invited as
individual guest to attend the congress and delivered a speech. In the Socialist
International Budapest council held in November 1994, the Socialist Party of
Hungarian, the Left Democratic Party of the Slovak Republic, the Slovenya
Democratic Alliance as well as the Social Democratic Party of the Republic of Poland
were nominated as the official member parties.
Second, their programs and polices changed. They publicly announced that
Marxism and Leninism “was ineffective because they failed to meet the needs of the
time” and democratic socialism was the only “feasible alternative” when they
changed the parties’ name from communist party to socialist party or social
democratic party. Around the parliamentary election this time, they repeatedly
declared that they promised not to restore communism. For instance, when the
Hungarian Socialist Party won the election, its vice chairman told the reporter that
“one thing is sure: that is, the wheel of history will never be set back and we will not
restore the ruling of the communists. The left wing Socialist Party led by Gyula Horn
pursues reform policies and aims at integrating Hungarian into Europe”. Here is also
another example. Rakovski, the “spirit father” of Poland’s Democratic Left Alliance
that won the parliament election, took the lead in pushing the economic wave of
privatization and capitalist market, he acknowledged that his position embodied the
nature of social democratic parties and his opinion was close to that of Brandt.
Adapted to this, although socialist parties in Eastern European countries still
talked about socialism, this socialism was not the scientific socialism of the
communist but the democratic socialism of the Socialist International. For example,
the basic slogan proposed by the Hungarian Socialist Party in its party congress of
October 1994 after they won the national election was “freedom, justice and mutual
assistance” that was paraded as basic value by socialist parties. They didn’t take
abolishing exploitation, eliminating polarization and achieving common prosperity
ultimately as the basic contents of their socialism, instead, they advocated “the social

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justice of social market economy, economic privatization, and property owners as
well as labors which featured in the humanitarian characteristic of socialism.
In conclusion, those socialists in Eastern European countries who rose again had
following characteristics in politics: firstly, they generally declared to “separate with
the former communism and resort to defend social democracy”, they would “draw a
clear line with the past communists”; secondly, they generally declared that they
would observe and defend parliament democracy system and multi-party system,
opposing seizing power by violence; thirdly, they generally favored social market
economy with the private sector remaining dominant and diverse sectors of the
economy developing side by side, and they were also not against reforming state
owned enterprises by privatization, i.e., the coalition government formed by
Hungarian Socialist Party and the Alliance of Free Democrats declared in their
program that “the establishment of the social, free coalition government provides
particularly favorite conditions for setting up a cooperative system that takes private
system as its major body and adapts to modern social market economy relationship as
well as modern social interests”. Fourthly, they acknowledged the achievements made
by its predecessors—the right wing party government. They expressed that “they will
not only maintain but also develop these reform achievements”, they also guaranteed
that they “won’t undertake major changes of the reform”, “they just make slight
revisions of some methods or ways”. That is to say, those socialists in Eastern
European countries who rose again would not take basic political positions like
communists who act as the grave digger of capitalist system, rather, they would act as
doctors and nurses along side the sick bed of capitalism just like socialist party
members of the capitalist society. They just wanted to reform within the framework of
capital humanity, that is, they regarded fighting for taking turns on government in the
system of capitalist multi-party parliamentary democracy and easing the social
conflicts of capitalist society as their duty.
For example, in dealing with the problem of privatization, like those right wing
parties who lost in the election, these socialists who rose again also committed to
continue to accelerate privatization in Eastern European countries and make
completing privatization as their basic state policies. What the difference just lied in
that ： learning from the lessons of the right wing parties who pushed forward
privatization at any cost without caring about whether people have the capacity to
bear it or not, and as a result they were opposed by people and failed in the election,
Socialist parties claimed that “it was not allowed to involve the major classes of the
society with the savage capitalist state”. Instead, they would reconsider the speed and
methods of privatization as well as the establishment of the necessary social insurance
system. Therefore, some western newspapers gave comments on the implication of
the comeback of the socialist parties like this: “ideologically, the democracy of the
Central Europe was not threatened because Marxism had been shattered and
totalitarianism was not possible to bounce back. The current problem was, what kind
of capitalism and democracy will the Central Europe bring about?”1 Because these
socialists who came back “took action programs that in many aspects were in
conformity with the opinions of those new emerged political organizations who came
from the opposition factions who held an position against socialism. The statement
that communist parties were regaining their power seemed only on the surface rather
than practical. Because in these countries the danger of restoring socialism was not
possible to be described with the word of “a real probability”, at least in a short of mid

1 The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 1994.

274
term”.2
Therefore, the exact implication of socialist parties in those Eastern European
countries who came back only meant the failure of capitalism in those countries and
didn’t indicate the recovery of communism, because these socialist party members,
although were communists in the past, had now abandoned communism and turned to
democratic socialism. It neither indicated the victory of democratic socialism because
these socialist party members won the election by relying on the reminiscent mood of
the people in Eastern European countries who missed what they considered good
things in the socialist society governed by communist parties, and they also won by
relying on their status as former communists.
On the other hand, since these socialist party members had accepted the programs
of democratic socialism as well as the action rules of the capitalist society, then, their
victories and failures in the parliamentary elections did not involve the change of the
nature of the power and society in those countries. Just like socialist parties and social
democratic parties in Western European countries, even if they come into power, they
just administrate capitalist society for the bourgeois class. What they could do was
only to dedicate to improving people’s living conditions, promoting democratization
of social life within the framework of capitalist system, and consequently make
capitalism more “humanitarian”.

Chapter 7 Clarifying the Theoretical Problems about Democratic Socialism

Section 1 Different meanings and principles between Socialism with Chinese

Characteristics and Democratic Socialism

Some people argue that the reason why China could avoid collapsing during the
period of the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is that
Deng Xiaoping had introduced a series of reform and opening up polices. They label
this new policy in socialism with Chinese characteristics as democratic socialism.
This kind of misunderstanding is widely spread. Therefore, theoretically, it is an
urgent task to clarify the different meanings of these two ideological concepts and to
draw a clear principle dividing line between them as two different political roads.

1 Determining different meanings of these two ideological concepts

“Take our own road and build socialism with Chinese characteristics” was first
proposed by Deng Xiaoping in the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of
China. The 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China gave a scientific
summary and comment on Deng Xiaoping Theory on Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics, identifying it as the Party’s guiding ideology and pointing out it
should be taken as a strategic task to educate the whole Party with this theory.
Therefore, socialism with Chinese characteristics is our own theory and our own way
to socialism, it is developed by Chinese communists with Deng Xiaoping as the
representative after a systematic review of our past work, a thorough study of the
international experience and world situation, and it is also based on the new condition
of adopting the reform and opening up policy since the Third Plenary Session of the
11th CPC Central Committee. This new theory is the fruit of the inheritance and
development of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, the fruit of the
scientific summary of the experiences and lessons in socialism construction, and the

2 Latin America News Agency, December17, 1994.

275
fruit of the scientific analysis of current international environment and contemporary
features. Adhering to the ideological line of emancipating the mind and seeking truth
facts, this theory opens up new perspectives on Marxism and deepens our
understanding of socialism. It makes correct analysis and scientific judgment of the
contemporary features and overall international situation, of the success or failure of
other socialist countries in the world, of the gain and loss of the development of
developing countries as well as the development trend and conflicts of developed
countries. The scientific system of a new theory on building up socialism with
Chinese characteristics is thus formed. In essence, it is the inheritance and great
development of Marxist scientific socialism under present new historical conditions
home and abroad. While retaining the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong
Thought, socialism with Chinese characteristics speaks out a series of previously
unsaid ideas, which accord with reality and contemporary features.
Democratic socialism is the ideological system of social democratic, socialist
and labor parties, formed by reversing the term “socialist democracy” in Frankfurt
Declaration issued in the First Congress of Socialist International in 1951. Social
democracy was originally the socialism of petty bourgeoisie and many social
democrats once believed in Marxism after the Paris Commune. However, after
Engel’s death, especially the emergence and spread of Bernsteinism, social democracy
became social revisionism in the Fourth Congress of Second International in 1896.
The term “democratic socialism” derived from this revisionism version of social
democracy. The great changes in its democratic concept were the reason why Socialist
International reversed social democracy as democratic socialism. Before World War
II, bourgeois democracy was taken as the only way to socialism; after WWII,
however, it has been regarded as the component element and fundamental feature of
socialism, even as the aim itself. Social democratic party hold that socialism is the
highest form of democracy and democracy is the essence of aim of socialism. They
further believe that the divergence between social democrats and communists has
expanded from two different roads to the same aim to two completely different kinds
of socialism. The purpose of reversing social democracy as democratic socialism is to
make clear that what they has been advocating is a democratic socialism, a socialism
against proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship, and a socialism opposing
communism. That was why in 1951 Socialist International stated in Frankfurt
Declaration that “communism claims to inherit the socialist tradition. But in fact, it
has distorted this tradition and made it beyond recognition”, and “socialism is the
highest form of democracy”. In 1956’s Declaration Concerning Socialism and
Communism, Socialist International said that “socialism and communism have
nothing in common and the communists have completely distorted the socialist
ideology”; “we believe in democracy, and they do not”; “criticism of Stalinism did not
fundamentally change the nature of communist regime”; “their so-called ‘Leninism’ is
just an earlier version of the mistaken ideas and crimes of Stalinism”.
Therefore, socialism with Chinese characteristics and democratic socialism are
two ideological concepts with completely different meanings, which cannot be
obscured. As two different political roads, the principle dividing line between them is
not allowed to be ignored or obliterated.
2 As two different political roads, the principle dividing line in the first aspect
between socialism with Chinese characteristics and Democratic Socialism is how to
deal with Scientific Socialism and the existing socialist countries
Based on the present new historical conditions home and abroad, socialism with
Chinese characteristics is adhering to, consolidating and developing socialism, while

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democratic socialism continues to fight against communism. This is precisely the first
fundamental principle dividing line on how to deal with scientific socialism and the
existing socialist countries between socialism with Chinese characteristics and
democratic socialism as the two different political roads. To oppose and resist the
peaceful evolution towards capitalism pushed by the imperialists, or to collude with
them to bring about peaceful evolution in Soviet Union and Eastern European
countries? This is the second fundamental principle dividing line between socialism
with Chinese characteristics and democratic socialism on how to deal with scientific
socialism and the existing socialist countries.
As early as in the days when the Cold War was about to end, Comrade Deng
Xiaoping acutely pointed out that “it seems that one Cold War has come to an end but
that two others have already begun: one is being waged against all the countries of the
South and the Third World, and the other against socialism. The Western countries are
staging a third world war without gunsmoke. By that I mean they want to bring about
the peaceful evolution of socialist countries towards capitalism.”1 He then stressed
that “the imperialists are pushing for peaceful evolution towards capitalism in China,
placing their hopes on the generations that will come after us”, “so we must educate
the army, persons working in the organs of dictatorship, the Communist Party
members and the people, including the youth.”2
In contrast, Socialist International translated their persistent anti-communism
ideology and guidelines into actions to push for peaceful evolution towards capitalism
in Soviet Union and Eastern European countries in the period of political unrest in the
Eastern Europe in the autumn of 1989. Declaration of Principle issued at the 18th
Congress of Socialist International in Stockholm in June 1989 stated that “Socialist
International supports every effort aimed to reform communist society through
liberalization and democratization”. Brandt, then President of Socialist International,
and the principal leaders of socialist parties in 23 European countries met on
November 2-3 of the same year in Milan, Italy, making clear their attitude on the
changes in Eastern Europe. They declared that “the new process in the Eastern
European countries has broken the rigidness of the communist system” and “opened
up a vast world for democratic and liberal socialism”. “The guidelines socialist parties
should follow” include: first, “to warmly welcome the changes in Eastern Europe,
open up to the new democratic forces there and cooperate with them effectively”;
Second, they “hope that Gorbachev’s reforms will succeed, rather than fail”; Third,
they “hope that the countries in European Community will cooperate with other
European countries and international organizations and make active effort to resolve
the problems of Eastern Europe”; Forth, “to exert an active but cautious influence on
Eastern European countries and push for a political evolution towards democracy and
freedom in Eastern Europe. What to do currently is to bring new driving forces into
the reforms in Eastern Europe and accelerate the reform process”. On November 23-
24, 1989, Socialist International Council passed Position Paper on Eastern Europe at
their Geneva meeting, reaffirming that “Socialist International supports every effort
aimed to reform communist society through liberalization and democratization”,
hailing “the viewpoints of social democratic parties in Europe, especially those about
democracy, human rights and better relations and cooperation with Europe as well as
the viewpoints of the organizations that dedicated to reform and abandoned their
previous ruling models are held up as an encouraging criterion”, and at the same time
“sincerely hoping for the continuation and success of Gorbachev’s reforms”.

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III, Page344.

2 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III, Page380.

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 How to overcome the defects of Soviet model of socialism is the third
fundamental principle dividing line between socialism with Chinese characteristics
and democratic socialism on how to deal with scientific socialism and the existing
socialist countries.
Since World War I and the October Revolution, the Soviet model of socialism,
which came into being under a specific historical condition – surrounded by
capitalism, was a model for preparation against war that was suitable for the world in
the era of war and revolution. In such an environment, it could effectively mobilize
human, financial and material resources to engage in war or construction, but it also
had a series of shortcomings and drawbacks.
With respect to economic structure, the socialist economy developed on the
Soviet model emphasized the development of heavy and defense industry solely,
causing the proportional imbalance of national economy, backward and slower
development of agriculture and light industry, resulting chronic shortage of the
necessities of life.
With respect to development strategy, what Soviet Union implemented was a
kind of extensive management with high investment and low output, relying on
constant increase in investment for more output. It emphasized too much on
development speed while neglecting benefits, making itself a human and natural
resources consumption-based economy, which was characterized by low efficiency
and astonishingly high consumption.
With respect to economic system, Soviet Union rushed into unitary public
ownership system of production materials prematurely and eliminated other economic
sectors, regardless of the uneven growth of productive forces in different sections and
stages. In addition, it practiced a highly centralized mandatory planned economy and
a uniform decision-making mechanism, while excluding market economy and
restricting the development of commodity-money relationship. It attached great
emphasis to administrative orders and ignored the material benefits. This weakened
the internal driving force behind its economic development.
With respect to political system, the Soviet model was characterized by highly
centralized power and administrative enforcement. Socialist democratic construction
was overlooked and leaders tended to make arbitrary decisions and settle divisions
and differences within the Party by means of dictatorship, leading to severe damage
of socialist legal system.
With respect to foreign relations, Soviet leaders pushed its hegemonism and spent
huge amounts of money on the arms race, burdening its national economy intolerably
heavily.
It was even worse that the rigid Soviet leaders later absolutized and froze the
Soviet model developed under specific historical conditions, trying to forcedly extend
it to other socialist countries as the universal model law of socialist construction. Even
after the world era had changed from war and revolution to peace and development
and the shortcomings and drawbacks of Soviet model became more apparent with the
rapid development of science and technology revolution, they still refused to make
accordingly adjustments . This was why economic and political crises hidden before
kept occurring in the socialist countries with the Soviet model. As for the economy, in
the end 1950s a vicious circle of the national economy began to emerge in Soviet
Union: malfunctioning of the whole economic system, proportional imbalance of
national economy, backwardly development of agriculture and light industry,
impossibility to improve people’s livelihood, and restriction on the development of
heavy industry. In the 1970s, the production resources were running short and the

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extensive reproduction relying on investment for more output was no longer possible,
causing a significant slowdown in economic growth rate. Since the 1980s, with
production factors and resources being exhausted and driving force for economic
development gone, the contradictions in economic system became increasingly sharp
and economic growth rate dropped drastically. All the reserves were largely depleted
and the living standards of people were falling markedly. In social and political
aspect, it was also a turbulent period: the conflict between Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia in 1948, Demonstrations in Berlin in 1953, the 1956 Crises in Hungary
and Poland, the Sino-Soviet polemics in 1960s, the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia
in 1968, the December 1970 events and 1980 strike in Poland, and then the drastic
changes in Eastern Europe and dissolution of the Soviet Union during 1989-1991.
The exposure of these shortcomings and drawbacks of the Soviet model indicated
that all the socialist countries, whether copying the Soviet model indiscriminately or
in part, faced an increasingly urgent task of reform. Nevertheless, on how to reform
the shortcomings and drawbacks of the Soviet model lies the principle difference
between socialism with Chinese characteristics and democratic socialism.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, some people in China were skeptical of
the socialist system in a position of rightist, alleging that socialism was not as good as
capitalism. When correcting these erroneous ideas, Comrade Deng Xiaoping
highlighted that “the socialist system is one thing, and the specific way of building
socialism another”.
1
On this ground, he clearly differentiated the basic system of socialism from its
specific political and economic systems. When reforming the specific systems that do
not meet the needs of the development of productive forces, we should also uphold
and develop the basic system of socialism. This is the “basic line” for the reform in
China.
Comrade Deng Xiaoping holds that to realize socialist modernization in China we
must on the one hand uphold the basic system of socialism and on the other hand
persist in reforming those specific systems unsuitable for the development of
productive forces. “To carry out China’s four modernizations, we must uphold the
Four Cardinal Principles ideologically and politically. This is the basic prerequisite for
achieving modernization.”2 That is to say, we must keep to the socialist road, uphold
the dictatorship of the proletariat, uphold the leadership of the Communist Party, and
uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. This is the basic prerequisite
for our achieving socialist modernization. But at the same time, we must also reform
those specific systems and mechanisms in economy, politics, science and technology,
and education, which hamper the development of productive forces. Comrade Deng
demanded that “our modernization programme and socialist cause will be doomed if
we don't make reforms now”.3
Since being elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union in 1985, Gorbachev attempted to advocate two reforms in the socialist world:
strategy to accelerate the economic development and basic principles of radical
reform in economic management. However, the measures taken were seriously
divorced from reality and disproportion dengesizlikler in national economy became
more serious, leading to group egoism. The growth of consumption funds far
exceeded the growth in production of consumer goods. Consequently, these two
reforms failed. So after that , Gorbachev switched his reforms from “improving

1Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume II, Page250.

2 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume II, Page164.
3 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume II, Page150.

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socialism” to “renewing the distorted socialism” and building a new, humanitarian
and democratic socialism. This democratic socialist reform policy of Gorbachev
gained strong support and best wish from Socialist International and western social
democrats. It contained four key points:
First, it attributed the defects of the existing socialist system formed in 1920s and
30s to the alienation in three aspects: people and regime, people and means of
production or fruits of their labor, people and spiritual wealth, concluding that “our
whole social system, from economic base to superstructure, must be reformed”. Thus
the basic system of socialism was denied.
Second, it proposed that democracy and humanitarianism – the shared values of
the mankind – should be adopted to correct the alienation of socialism and to abandon
the incompatible simplified class viewpoints.
Third, glasnost, democratization and social pluralism were introduced to
thoroughly reform “the bureaucratic authoritarian”. Defaming and denying socialism
as “totalitarianism” and “arbitrary socialism” which committed crimes, Gorbachev
summoned and organized the dormant anti-communism forces fostered by the
peaceful evolution strategy of imperialists to overthrow the leadership of Communist
Party.
Fourth, eliminating antagonism with capitalism, adopting capitalist parliamentary
and presidential system, canceling the leadership of Communist party and practicing
multi-party political system, implementing pluralism in ideology and politics and
privatization in economy, Gorbachev gradually pushed the Soviet Union and eastern
European Countries to drastic change and collapse. During this process, he
established the Social Democratic Party of Russia and joined in the Socialist
International.
As two political roads, the principle dividing line in the second aspect between
socialism with Chinese characteristics and democratic socialism is how to deal with
capitalism
As to the relations of socialism with Chinese characteristics and capitalism, there
have been some misunderstandings both home and abroad. Some even described
socialism with Chinese characteristics as capitalism with Chinese characteristics. The
root cause of this misunderstanding is the confusion of different levels in the relations
of socialism and capitalism. In creating socialism with Chinese characteristics,
Comrade Deng Xiaoping has clearly put forward our historical task: “to uphold
socialism, a socialism that is to be superior to capitalism”1. How to accomplish this
historical task? The most fundamental one is to maintain and develop the inherent
advantages of socialism, and at the same time to draw on from some useful capitalist
methods to develop productive forces. He noted that “if we want socialism to achieve
superiority over capitalism, we should not hesitate to draw on the achievements of all
cultures and to learn from other countries, including the developed capitalist
countries, all advanced methods of operation and techniques of management that
reflect the laws of governing modern socialized production”.2 This means to learn the
advanced technology and management from capitalist countries, introduce foreign
capital, take advantage of market economy to develop socialism, and so on. Some
feared that the introduction of useful means from capitalism would result in the
adoption of capitalist system. To dispel this fear, Deng Xiaoping stressed that “taking
advantage of the useful aspects of capitalist countries, including their methods of
operation and management, does not mean that we will adopt capitalism. Instead, we

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III, Page225.

2 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III, Page373.

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use those methods in order to develop the productive forces under socialism. As long
as learning from capitalism is regarded as no more than a means to an end, it will not
change the structure of socialism or bring China back to capitalism”.1 Those labeling
socialism with Chinese characteristics as capitalism with Chinese characteristics have
epistemologically confused the levels of means and methods to develop social
productive forces with social system düzlemi , development path with the
development direction, mistaking the former for the latter. They forgot a key point –
advocating taking advantage of some useful aspects of capitalist countries to develop
social productive forces does not mean that we will introduce and adopt capitalism on
the social system düzleminde , development path and development direction. Instead,
we firmly hold that socialism is far superior to capitalism, only socialism can save
China, and only socialism can develop China. Only by taking socialist road will China
have a bright future. After a long period of development, socialism will inevitably
replace capitalism. Of course, besides positive effects, some negative influences will
also be brought in the country when introducing some useful aspects from capitalism
as means to develop social productive forces. If these are allowed to spread
unchecked, these negative elements and decadent things of capitalism would
definitely change the economic nature of our society and bring about the transition
from socialism to capitalism. Nevertheless, as long as we keep a clear mind to
eliminate them and take such effective measures as “two hands grasp, two hands are
hard”, we can prevent the decadent things of capitalism from spreading, influencing
and changing the socialist system.
As for “a socialism that is to be superior to capitalism” in Deng Xiaoping’s
words, this superiority is all-sided, multi-level and holistic (bütünsel ) not just
embodied in economic growth rate. After three decades of reform and opening up, we
can find that socialism with Chinese characteristics continues with the path of
peaceful development. In the international strategy, it has been on the way to the
peaceful, open, cooperative, and harmonious development, which surpasses the way
taken by the major capitalist world powers. Their traditional modernization road has
been realized by means of overseas colonialism, external expansion and plunder, and
even wars of aggression. In the domestic strategy, a new road to industrialization has
been established after years of hard work and exploration. This new industrial road
reflects the scientific development view which is people-oriented, all-round,
coordinated and sustainable. It is a less wasteful, clean, safe and sustainable
development. All in one word, drawing on the achievements of all cultures, socialism
with Chinese characteristics is on a new way to civilization and progress, which is
completely different from the capitalist great powers’ traditional modernization road .
On how to deal with capitalism, socialism with Chinese characteristics draws on
the useful aspects of capitalism to develop social productive forces and is building a
socialism that is superior to capitalism. In contrast, democratic socialism confines and
integrates the proletarian struggle for socialism into bourgeois democracy in the
capitalist society, claiming that they want “to coexist with the capitalism” and “it
cannot be simply assumed that our aim is to abolish capitalism” 2. Regarding
themselves as “doctors to cure the diseases for capitalism”, they are striving for a
more democratic and humanitarian capitalist society. In the socialist society, by
showing warm support for Gorbachev’s “reform”, they make it approve capitalism
and promote “the capitalist integration”.

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume II, Page236.

2 Brandt, Kreisky & Palme: Social Democracy and the Future, Chongqing Publishing House, 1990, Page113, 114

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4 As two political Roads, the principle dividing line in the third aspect between
socialism with Chinese characteristics and democratic socialism is how to deal with
Marxism
Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out that the correct ideological line formulated
since the convocation of the Third Plenary Session of the Party’s Eleventh Central
Committee is “to adhere to Marxism and to integrate it with Chinese realities” 1. “We
have profound faith in Marxism, but we must integrate it with Chinese realities. Only
Marxism that is integrated with Chinese realities is the genuine Marxism we need. It
is on this understanding that we have been striving to attain our development goals”2,
as he stressed. In this way, the socialism with Chinese characteristics does not
abandon Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong with regard to the ideological line. Integrating
the basic theory of Marxism closely with contemporary features and Chinese reality, it
is advancing with the times and blazing new trails in a pioneering spirit. A series of
previously dillendirilmemiş ( un-said) ideas has been uttered, which are in accord
with contemporary features and Chinese reality.
On the contrary, democratic socialism has held neutral world view and multiple
guiding ideologies as its ideological program since the formation of Socialist
International in 1951. They sometimes juxtapose Marxism and religious principles as
the foundation of their beliefs. For example, Frankfurt Declaration in 1951 states that
“whether Socialists base their beliefs on Marxism or on other methods of social
analysis and whether they draw inspiration from religious principles or from
humanitarian principles, they are striving for the common goal”. Sometimes, they
completely excluded Marxism from their program. Godesberg Program of German
Social Democratic Party, for instance, declared that “the democratic socialism in
Europe, rooted in Christian ethics, humanitarianism and classical philosophy, is
reluctant to announce any final truth”, saying nothing about Marxism. Sometimes,
Marxism is brought back. The German Social Democratic Party’s 1986 Program
claimed that “the ideological root of European democratic socialism is humanitarian
philosophy, Christianity, Marxist historical and social theory, and the experience of
labor movement”. However, the guiding ideology of democratic socialism is not
Marxism, whatever changes have happened. The reason why they sometimes mention
Marxism is that “they fear that Communist may become the only inheritor of Marx’s
prestige among intellectuals and workers”, as an article in Economists pointed out as
early as in March 1954 issue 14 .

5 The claim that socialism with Chinese characteristics belongs to democratic

socialism is groundless
To sum up, as two ideological concepts, socialism with Chinese characteristics and
democratic socialism have different meanings and should not be confused. As two
different political roads, the principle dividing line between socialism with Chinese
characteristics and democratic socialism on how to deal with scientific socialism and
the existing socialist countries, how to deal with capitalism, and how to deal with
Marxism, is quite distinct and cannot be blurred. Therefore, the claim that socialism
with Chinese characteristics belongs to democratic socialism is groundless.

Section 2 Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism: history, theory and status
quo

1 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III, Page62.

2 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III, Page213.

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 Social Democratic Parties of western countries, including socialist party and labor
party, are the reformists of the socialist movement, the labor movement, and the
central-left political forces. Social democracy and democratic socialism are the name
of their thoughts and their ideologies.

1 The origin and development of Social Democracy and Democratic

Socialism
1.1 Social democrats were at one time originally petty-bourgeois socialist
In the mid-nineteenth century, not only Communists represented by Marx and
Engels, but also Representatives of non-Marxist ideas, including social
democrats ， had influence on labor movements. What is social democrat? Marx
pointed out, the special nature of social democrat lies in its requirement of democratic
republic, which is not to eliminate the two extremes of capital and wage-labor, but to
ease the confrontation between the two and make coordination of them. Its essence is
to transform the society in a democratic way. But this transformation never exceeds
the scope of the petty bourgeoisie. Therefore, Marx and Engels never consider
themselves as social democrat but communist.
The special situation after the failure of Paris Commune uprising required labor
party to train the masses gradually, when the revolution had not been put on the
agenda. In their daily struggle, they should be good at compromise and the abeyance
of the strategic considerations of the alliance. They should neither avoid election nor
give up the meeting battles in the streets . On the one hand, this situation spread the
concept of social democracy quickly in international labor movement. On the other
hand, the wide spread of Marxism in labor movement made those people who claim
to be social democrats accept the basic theory of communism, i.e. scientific socialism.
This made Marx and Engels adjusted their attitude towards the concept of “social
democrats”: they kept it temporarily.

1.2 Social Democratic Party between the seventies and the mid-nineties in the nineteenth
century
Under the direct guidance of Engels, representatives of international socialism
created the Second International in 1889. The programs of Social Democratic Party in
their respective countries are all based on the ideology of Marxism, Marxist
philosophy world view, economic theory, theory of class struggle, national doctrine
and revolutionary theory. In their own constitution, they all state their own socialist
nature. They break the old state machines through the class struggle, eliminate the
capitalist system of private ownership and establish public ownership of means of
production. They take socialism instead of capitalism as their objectives. For example,
German Social Democratic Party elaborated on Marx’s ideal of scientific socialism in
Erfurt Program in 1891. Moreover, in the pre-event, the Second International cleared
anarchism, spread Marxism widely, and lay down guidelines and policies related to
labor movement. With the development and expansion of the labor movement, the
mass organizations and party organizations of the working class became larger and
larger.

1 . 3 The Social Democratic Party developed into social reformist party in the late
nineteenth century
Activities of the Second International were carried out in peacetime of horizontal
development. Moreover, the struggle against the right opportunism in respective

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 parties was neglected. So right opportunism grew and strengthened day by day.
Particularly when Engels died in 1895, opportunists of those countries intensified the
activities of reformism and changed the content of Social Democratic Party on the
Fourth Congress of the Second International in London between July and August in
1896. Although it re-stated the objective of changing the capitalist ownership and
mode of production into socialist ownership and mode of production, it generalized
the measures to seize political power as a series of requirements related to universal
suffrage. With the emergence of Bernstein doctrine, the right and centrist of the
Second International interpreted social democracy as something against the
proletarian revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, something within the
framework of capitalism driving capitalism to evolve into socialism through peaceful
and legitimate way of parliament, and something changing social democratic party
into a party of reformism within the framework of capitalism.
After October 1896, Bernstein published a series of articles with The Issue of
Socialism as the general heading, advocating revisionist point of view. In 1899, he
published a book The Premise of Socialism and the Task of Social Democratic Party,
which made revisionism a comprehensive system. It fought against demonstrating
socialism according to the objective historical necessity. It also claimed that the
success of socialism did not lie in the inner economic necessity. It was not only
impossible but also unnecessary to provide a purely materialist argument for
socialism. The social democratic party should change its nature and become a party
which Strives to improve democracy and economic reform in order to achieve
socialist transformation.
The proposition of Bernstein was ever strongly criticized and resisted by the
party, but it also aroused widespread support inside and outside the party and in the
international labor movement. Many leaders of party and labor union in France,
German, England, Italy and Belgium showed reformist tendency in varying degrees.
Around 1910, Bernstein doctrine became the dominant ideology of most Second
International Social Democratic Parties.
1.4 The role of Social Democratic Party in the process of capitalism development
In contrast with the revolutionary proletariat as the gravedigger of capitalist
system, the basic function of social reformism lies in that it advocates being “the
doctor and nurse by the sickbed of capitalism”. As to this point, some leaders of the
Social Democratic Party speak frankly and bluntly. For example, in May 1975, vice-
chairman of the Socialist Party Cleskey quoted German Social Democrats Fritz.
Talneau in a conversation that the Social Democratic Party was “a doctor by the
sickbed of capitalism” in Leipzig Conference in 1931. He said that although this
historic speech met strong opposition from all the Left, but it was therefore Pertinent.
Another vice-chairman of Socialist International Palme –Sweden-said “To some
extent, we socialists indeed co-existed with capitalism”. “People need the
infrastructure of industrial society. Modern crisis of capitalism is also the crisis of
industrial society. So it’s our task to save industrial society”. He emphasized that “The
outdated slogan to abolish capitalism is no longer attractive, so we cannot simply say
we’d like to abolish capitalism.”
It should be said that the social democratic parties of western countries had made
some achievements which were demonstrated in two aspects: On the one hand, they
proposed policies in their programs to improve people’s life. In the practice of their
policies, they indeed achieved in improving people’s material life in capitalist
countries, and developed people’s rights from citizen’s right to economic and social
rights, including labor, medical care, pension, disability benefits, leisure, child

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 protection, family maintenance grants, equal educational opportunities,
unemployment insurance, social security, etc. According to some sociologists’
comparative analysis, countries under the rule of Social Democratic Party had more
social appropriations for social need and better social security, compared with the
bourgeois right-wing parties in Western countries. On the other hand, the theory and
practice of social democratic party also developed further democracy of social life in
capitalist countries. However, social democratic parties of western European countries
implemented the path of acting as “the doctor and nurse by the sickbed of capitalism”.
So they never and would never make any achievement on the fundamental issue of
transforming capitalism into socialism.

2 The propositions of Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism

2.1Viewing socialism as a kind of moral necessity and moral protest, and denying its
historical inevitability
Social democrats thought that the essence of socialism was not the relationship
among politics, society and economy, but a kind of moral values. It aimed at
eliminating the contradiction of capitalist social relations, and achieved the supra-
class solidarity between people. In 1951, Socialist International explicitly declared in
the preamble of Frankfurt Declaration that the achievement of socialism was not
absolute. Social Democrats made an absolute opposition between regularity and
inevitability of social development and the will and activities of human being. They
criticized and emphasized that Marxist historical inevitability of socialism had an
anti-ethical tendency, because they wrongly equated regularity and inevitability of
Marxism with people’s subjective initiative of fatalism, the negation of value and anti-
ethical tendency. So they denied the objective inevitability of the realization of
socialism.
2 . 2 socialism within the framework of bourgeois democracy
From the German Social Democratic Party’s Godesberg Program to Stockholm
Declaration of the Socialist International, social democrats always took freedom,
fairness and assistance as a fundamental value, and said that democratic socialism was
a struggle for freedom, social justice and solidarity of the international campaign.
Actually in capitalist countries, the value of freedom, equality and fraternity was a
reflection of the relation of commodity exchange through the sale of the labor force.
Therefore, individual’s unrestricted movements became their complete slavery and
direct opposition of human nature instead of their own freedom. Theory of socialism
succeeded because it abandoned the argument about the social conditions in line with
human nature. Instead, it started with materialist analysis of modern social relations
and explained the inevitability of present system of exploitation.
Social democrats repeatedly emphasized that socialism could only be achieved and
completed through democracy. Socialism was a movement for human liberation by
means of democratization. The struggle for socialism was completely limited and
dissolved in the bourgeois democracy. However, it was impossible to realize socialism
in the framework of bourgeois democracy.
2 . 3 Replacing and eradicating the private ownership through democratic supervision of
the economy
After WWII, social democrats thought that socialism was a persistent task. It was a
struggle for freedom and fairness. At the same time, it was tested by freedom and
fairness. When the realization of socialism did not need to fundamentally change the
ownership of the means of production, they replaced and eradicated the private
ownership in the pre-war program through democratic supervision of the economy.

285
 They emphasized that different forms of public ownership themselves should not be
considered as purposes. Public ownership was not a miracle drug to cure social ills.
Furthermore, after the mid-nineties in the twentieth century, ownership issue had not
been mentioned in the congress of the Socialist International.
2 . 4 Complementing the parliamentary democracy by means of the joint participation of
economic democracy
Social democratic party thought that compared with the eligibility of property,
which was a pure form change, i.e. the abolishment of private ownership, a genuine
democratization of economic decision-making power was really important. This
economic democracy was related to the problem that democracy was implemented
and achieved not only as a state polity, but also as a form of life in all areas of society,
including professional life. It was also related to the problem of making necessary
complement of parliamentary democracy, because only parliamentary democracy
combined with the joint participation was the best way to play the role of democratic
institutions. Therefore, economic democracy was of great importance.
After WWII, western developed capitalist countries began to allow employees to
participate in the high-level decision-making and grass-roots management. This
measure was meaningful to improve the situation of workers and protected their
immediate interests. It was also meaningful to improve the relation between
employers and employees and eased the internal contradictions and conflicts. But
western countries all implemented economic democracy under the premise of private
ownership. So it was impossible to change the employment status of workers being
exploited and gave equal rights for employers and employees. It was a social reform
with distinctive features of the times.
2 . 5 General proposition of the implementation of social security and social
welfare system
Social democratic party in western countries viewed the implementation of social
security and social welfare system as a very important aspect of realizing socialism.
They thought it should be seen as the necessary basis to ensure that all citizens
participated actively in projects of social services. It was the basic precondition to
strive for self-determination and self-realization. At the same time, it expressed their
determination to eliminate poverty and achieved equitable distribution of income and
wealth. Everyone was guaranteed the right to receive such income.
In western countries, the emergence of social security and social welfare
system was fundamentally determined by the contradiction between the trend of the
unlimited expansion of the capitalist mode of production and the limited consumption.
To some extent, the implementation of these systems narrowed the ever-widening gap
between rich and poor. It could ensure the reproduction of labor force, but it was not
an income revolution to eliminate exploitation and poverty and lead to general welfare
of society and class assimilation. After all, the social welfare of western countries was
mainly to concentrate a part of the value of the wage-earners to the hands of the State,
and then redistributed it in the form of welfare by the state so as to meet the needs of
social reproduction of labor force.
2.6The idea of the British Third Way
The British Third Way was advocated by the British Labor Party leader, Prime
Minister Blair and his spiritual mentor, the sociologist Anthony Giddens. The Third
Way advocated the theory and practice of taking the third way between and beyond
the old left and the new right, that is, the traditional social democracy and the neo-
liberalism. The background of the times it appeared was the neo-liberalism which
replaced Keynesianism and cured the phenomenon of the Western economic

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 stagnation between the seventies and the eighties in the twentieth century. In 1997,
under the impact of the Southeast Asian financial crisis and the American scandals
represented by Enron and WorldCom, the advocacy of full liberalization, complete
deregulation, easing restrictions and other policies was proved to be not feasible.
Besides, the market fundamentalism had also failed. The development of the situation
required re-establishing the visible hand of state intervention to complement the
invisible hand of the market economy. However, many changes had taken place in
capitalist historical conditions. It was impossible to go back to the kind of state
intervention before the seventies. The practice called for a new economic model, so
British third way arose to such a need. The traditional social democracy of the Old
Left emphasized too much on the role of state intervention, meanwhile, the New
Right neo-liberalism emphasized too much on the absolute free market. Both of them
had bias, sothey thought we must avoid weaknesses. A new balance must be achieved
in adjusting the relationship between market economy and state intervention under the
conditions of economic globalization.
The British Third Way prided itself as a modern social democracy. It claimed that
it was passionately committed to its social justice and the central-left political
objectives, but these objectives could be achieved in a flexible, innovative and far-
sighted way. The specific ideas of the British Third Way were: First, in politics, they
proposed to break the dichotomy between Left and Right, abandoned class politics,
and pursued the support of cross-class. They thought that individual liberty depended
on the collective resources, and that good government was the necessary support for
free development and extend. Second, in economy, a new mixed economy should be
created. It was not to strike a balance between the state-owned and the private-owned,
but to strike a balance between regulation and deregulation. Its basic principle was:
There was no right without responsibility, no democracy without authority. A
responsible enterprise was one that respected the employees, customers and
shareholders. Government needed to create a corporate culture of risk-quintal by
means of free incentives and regulation. Third, national rights should be decomposed
and transferred down to local and community, up to the cross-border institutions.
Government should no longer deal with activities within the scope of national
borders, while the world government’s handling of problems should be put on the
agenda. At the same time, government should develop active cooperation partnership
with the civil society and organizations. Fourth, the establishment of cosmopolitan
nation-state concept should find a new location against the nation-state in a world of
cosmopolitanism. Five, the welfare state should be changed as a social investment
state. The key point was to change the negative welfare into the positive welfare so
that individuals and other institutions could contribute to the realization and creativity
of welfare just like states.

3 Analysis of social democracy and democratic socialism

3.1 From social democracy to democratic socialism and then back to social democracy,
farther and farther away from socialism
In Western countries, social democracy was the name of ideology used from
the founding of the Social Democratic Party. But it had different ideological contents
at different times. In 1951 in Frankfurt , the Socialist International changed the name
of ideology from social democracy to democratic socialism in its founding declaration
statement of Frankfurt Declaration. The aim was to highlight that it was democratic
socialism, as distinct from the socialist dictatorship of the communist party. However,
this also indicated that before this time, quite broadly speaking, the fundamental

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objective of socialism on both sides was basically the same, although the Social
Democrats thought there were very sharp differences of principle between themselves
and the Communists on the issue whether socialism could be achieved in a democratic
and peaceful way. But now, their objectives were two different kinds of socialism.
After the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1989-1991, the Social Democrats in Western countries reversed the name of
their ideology into social democracy again. The reason was that Social Democrats in
Western countries expected huge development in Eastern Europe after their help to
bring about drastic changes in Eastern Europe. But in fact the result only inspired and
encouraged the development of extreme right-wing forces, and made people question
about their sign of socialism so that Social Democrats gradually lost power in Western
Europe. In their view, the word socialism seemed to have pushed voters into
conservative’s embrace. This made them feel that democratic socialism must be
reversed into social democracy in order to avoid being involved in the socialism
which had been demonized by the bourgeoisie in the drastic changes in Eastern
Europe. This meant that compared with the realism of socialism, it was not a
(democratic) “socialism”, but a（social ）“democracy”. Before the drastic changes in
Eastern Europe, Social Democrats in western countries believed that socialism that
can only be achieved through democracy was the highest form of democracy.
Freedom, democracy and human rights were not only political means to achieve the
goals of socialism, but also the very essence of the ideal of socialism. While after the
dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of Soviet Union, the Social
Democrats thought for a step further that the socialism in new era should no longer be
regarded as a system or objective, which requires the transition from capitalism to
socialism. But rather it should be seen as the continuous adjustment of the existing
society to achieve the value of equality and mutual assistance. Capitalism should not
be pursued to be surpassed, but should be seen as an effective process. Socialism
should be seen as a continuous reform in the historical process with limitations,
contradictions and imbalances.
The Western Social Democrats reversed the name of their own ideology from social
democracy to democratic socialism, later to social democracy again. Therefore, it
showed that they were farther and farther away from the scientific socialism.
3.2 Reformist activities of western social democratic Parties could help to improve
the living conditions
of working people, but found no way in transforming capitalist society.
In current capitalist society, social democratic party was a social reformist
political party. Their reformist activities were proved to help in two aspects: on the
one hand, they helped to improve working people’s material living conditions in the
capitalist countries, and helped to promote the further democratization of social life in
the capitalist countries. On the other hand, although they said that social reformism
was the most important tool for the transformation of the society, nothing had and
could be achieved on the fundamental issue of the transformation of capitalism into
socialism.
In this regard, the Socialist International had to recognize their limitations
after repeated reflections on it. When the Socialist International was founded in 1951,
the participating countries were fooled by the achievements of the nationalization
policies and welfare system implemented by the British Labor government after
WWII. They ever had the misconception that the reformist changed British from
capitalism to socialism. Therefore in the statement Frankfurt 1951 adopted at the
meeting, they said：“In some countries, the basis of socialist society had been laid, so

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the evils of capitalism in those countries were disappearing, and a new vitality was
produced in their society”; “In the areas with strong socialist power, important steps
had been taken in order to create a new social order”. However, when the Socialist
International re-examined the objective reality 32 years later, it had to radically revise
its claims and admitted that they did not change capitalism into socialism through
partial reform. In the Albufeira Declaration adopted by Socialist International in the
Sixteenth Congress, they said: “There had been gratifying illusion that capitalism had
been transformed, and that endless growth of the economy would be just like an
idyll ... The experience in fifties and sixties was over-generalized, whereas today it
was a mess”.
Social Democratic Party’s reformist activities could not transform the
capitalist society, this was also recognized by intellectuals of various ideological
colors in the world. For example, in his book Leninism and Western Socialism
published in British, the Soviet Union dissident Medvedev thought that the social
democratic movement had done a lot of work for the democratization of social life,
yet little had been achieved in the actual process of building a socialist society. In the
article What Is Social Democracy? Japanese scholar Saburo Okazaki stated “The
Social Democratic government made a lot of practical results in promoting the
nationalization of industry and financial institutions and establishing a social security
system, but compared with the objective of changing capitalist private ownership of
the means of production into the socialist public ownership and the eradication of
class antagonism, it was far behind. Britain and France remained capitalist society”.
In the book Marxism and Socialism, the former Yugoslav theorists Fulan Niczky
analyzed that the reason why reformism achieved little on this issue was that “it made
absolute of the Marxist view that the practice should not be absolute”. It “gradually
adapted to the conditions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. While the majority
of the Social Democrats had gained power, they still functioned only within the
framework of the old order to a large extent”. In the book Contemporary World and
Socialism, the former Yugoslav state activist karli Chekhov said that “the strategy of
Social Democratic Party focused too much on” the exploration of “under the
condition of no real change or abolishment of the capitalism, to what extent can
capitalism be used to improve the material situation of their own people”. Such a
strategy, “The reason why a crisis arose is that its long-term exclusion of socialist
factors exhausted its own organic vitality, and made its socialist quality lost in a long
time”. Italy professor Pellicani said that although the Social Democratic Party “would
enable the capitalist ‘civilized’, and made the society based on the principle of market
economy not so ruthless and inhuman”, but “the Social Democratic Party’s strategy
had certainly not bring us a socialist society”. It was just because of this, in the eyes
of the bourgeoisie, “democratic socialism and the welfare state were often the
effective ways to fight against the attractiveness of communist doctrine and provide
another democratic choice for the communist model”, just as the former U.S. National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski put it in his the book Big Failure.
3.3 The difference between social democracy(democratic socialism) and scientific
socialism
Social democracy (democratic socialism) and scientific socialism are two
different systems of thought. There are many differences between them, but mainly in
three aspects, namely, different attitudes and views of Marxism, capitalism and
socialism.
Firstly, their points of view and attitudes toward Marxist are totally different.
scientific socialism firmly takes Marxism as the theoretical basis for guiding ideology.

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That is, upholding the Marxist stand, viewpoint and method, adhering to the basic
theory of Marxism, advancing with the times, blazing new trails, promoting and
developing Marxism in the process of combining it with the characteristics of the
times and the objective reality of the times. On the contrary, social democracy
(democratic socialism) has abandoned Marxism in practice after nineties in 19th
century, from believing in Marxism between seventies and nineties in 19th century. In
theory and program, it still boasted itself on Marxism. And then after World War II, it
took the world view of neutrality and the pluralism of guiding ideology as their own
program ideas. Therefore, they sometimes put Marxism and the principle of religion
as the basis of their own faith side by side. In Frankfurt Declaration in 1951, the
Socialist International said “regardless of socialists to establish their faith on Marxism
or other methods of analysis of society, regardless of enlightenment of humanitarian
principles or religious principles, they struggle for the common goal ...” Sometimes
Marxism was completely excluded from their own program. For example, Germany
Social Democratic Party said in its Godesberg Program “In Europe, democratic
socialism, which is rooted in Christian ethics, humanitarian and classical philosophy,
does not want to declare the truth of any of the best”. It didn’t mention Marxism at all.
Sometimes it refered to Marxism again, such as the German Social Democratic Party
platform in 1986 saying that “the root of European democratic socialist ideas is
humanitarian philosophy, Christianity, Marx’s history and sociology, and the
experience of labor movement”. No matter what changes, its guiding ideology is not
Marxism. The reason why they sometimes refer to Marxism is that things are just as
an article of the British Economist in March 1954 pointed out:“ In social democratic
party, the role of ‘Marxism’ is much smaller than the hypocratic praise of Marx shown
in the Declaration of party. In fact, those hypocratic praises are not so much out of
the belief of Marxist theory or the importance of this theory. It would be better to say
that they fear the Communists to become the only heir of Marx prestige among the
intellectuals and workers”.
Secondly, their points of view and attitudes toward capitalism are totally
different. Scientific socialism reiterates, from The Communist Manifesto to Deng
Xiaoping’s Remarks of the South tour , that socialism will inevitably replace
capitalism. This is an irreversible trend of the social and historical development,
according to Marxism’s in-depth analysis of capitalism. Also according to the
objective fact that socialism wins victory first in less developed economic and cultural
countries in the 20th century, scientific socialism emphasizes, from the Soviet
socialism established by Lenin to socialism with Chinese characteristics and from
theory to practice, that socialism must absorb and learn from the achievements of
human civilization, including the advanced mode of operation and management
methods that reflect the modern law of socialized production in developed capitalist
countries. On the contrary, social democracy and democratic socialism consider
themselves as “the doctor by the sickbed of capitalism”. They confine the struggle of
the proletariat for socialism within the framework of capitalism completely. Even
though they become the ruling party or participating party, they are still confined to
manage the capitalist society for the bourgeoisie, only striving to make it more
“civilized” and “humanitarian”.
Thirdly, their points of view and attitudes toward socialism are totally
different, too. Scientific socialism is constantly deepening the understanding of
socialism, according to the basic theory of Marxism and the practice and exploration
of hundreds of millions of people. Such as in the understanding of the nature of
socialism, it was proposed by socialism with Chinese characteristics in 1992 that the

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essence of socialism is the liberation of productive forces, the development of
productive forces, the elimination of exploitation and polarization, and ultimately the
achievement of common prosperity. In 2001, the concept that “promoting human’s
overall development is the essential requirement of the construction of a new socialist
society” was proposed. In 2006, the concept that “social harmony is the essential
attribute of socialism with Chinese characteristics” was also proposed. On the
contrary, when social democracy and democratic socialism still take socialism as an
objective, socialism, as a means of achieving the objectives, has been dissolved and
reduced to bourgeois democracy. For instance, the Declaration of Principles in the
Eighteenth Congress of the Socialist International in Stockholm, says that “democracy
and human rights are not only political means to achieve the purpose of socialism, but
also the very essence of the purpose of socialism (the establishment of a democratic
economy and democratic society)”. However, after the drastic changes in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, social democracy and democratic socialism no longer
considered socialism as a system or objective, and didn’t require the transition from
capitalism to socialism. But they saw socialism as the value of equality and mutual
assistance through the continuous adjustment of the implementation of the existing
capitalism, as the continuous reform of the historical process with the existence of
limitations, contradictions and imbalances. Thus they got rid of socialism from the
option of the development of human society, and thought that capitalism could no
longer be replaced. For example, the British sociologist Giddens wrote: “In the past,
social democracy and socialism are always linked. Now, in a world where capitalism
cannot be replaced, what should be their orientation?” The answer is the Third Way,
known as the Farewell Socialism and proposed by himself.

Section 3 Correct understanding of Marx and Engels’ works in their twilight years
Recently, in order to describe Marx and Engels in their twilight years as
democratic socialists and the initiators of “socialism grows from capitalism
peacefully”, some people deliberately distorted the works of Marx and Engels in their
twilight years, especially the discussion on the joint-stock company in the third
volume of Marx’s Das Kapital. They came to the so-called conclusion that the third
volume of Das Kapital overthrew and conflicted its first volume, and it would no
longer need to “blow up” the “shell” of capitalism. They also distorted the discussion
of the adjustment of the proletarian revolutionary struggle strategy in Engels’
Introduction written for Marx’s The French Class Struggle. And they drew the
conclusion that Engels modified the old strategy of the Communist Manifesto, and
expected a peaceful transition to socialism.
In this way, a correct understanding of Marx and Engels’ works in their twilight years
and restoring their true colors have become an important part for the clarification of
the theory of democratic socialism.

1 No peaceful transition from capitalist joint-stock companies to socialism

In Chapter 27 the Role of Credit in Capitalist Production of the third volume of
Das Kapital, Marx kept pace with times, discussing his new understanding of
capitalism, especially the profound analysis of the capitalist joint-stock company.
Marx’s analyses of joint-stock companies mainly had the following four points:
First, with the surprising big expansion of the scale of production, social
enterprises which were impossible to be established by any single capital appeared;
Second, through credit, the capital directly gained the access to the form of social
capital which was opposed and different to the private capital;

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 Third, capital ownership was completely separated with the functions in the
process of reproduction in reality. The capitalists of the practical implementation of
the functions became mere ( more) managers, that is, the administrators of other’s
capital. Meanwhile capital owners became the mere currency capitalists. Labor also
had been completely separated with the ownership of the means of production and
surplus labor;
Fourth, the result of the extreme development of capitalist production was the
necessary transitional point of capital re-conversion into producers’ property.
However, this property was not the private property of the mutual-separated
producers, but the property of the co-producers and the direct property of the
community. The functions in the process of reproduction were converted to the simple
functions of the co-producers, and the transitional point of the social function.
In capitalist society, did the capitalism, as it had been claimed, complete the peaceful
transition to socialism after such separation of corporate ownership and management
in the stock company? No.
The emergence and development of joint-stock companies no doubt marked the
increasing socialization of the relationship between the capital shares within the
framework of the capitalist system. It also marked that the capital directly gained
access to the form of social capital (the directly combined personal capital) which was
opposed /different to the private capital. Accordingly, their enterprises behaved as
social enterprises opposed to private enterprises. It was in this sense, Marx
emphasized that “the result of the extreme development of capitalist production was
the necessary transitional point of capital re-conversion into producers’ property”.
On the other hand, this transformation of joint-stock form was still limited within
the scope of capitalism, thus the joint-stock companies’ abandonment of private
property was only in the context of capitalism itself, and such share capital was still
the collective forms of capital. Here the “social wealth”, “social capital” ultimately
remained in the hand of a small number of people. It was still the capital for them to
get surplus value. Although it eased the contradiction between the socialization of
production and the private ownership of the means of production within the
framework of the capitalist mode of production, to some extent, it hadn’t changed the
nature of corporate capitalism and the essence of private ownership.
Therefore, Marx pointed out that the joint-stock company was “the abandonment
of the capitalist private enterprises on the basis of capitalism system itself”.1 It
together with workers’ own cooperative factories should be “seen as the transition
form the capitalist mode of production into a joint mode of production”.2 At the same
time, he also emphasized that the historical position of this abandonment lied in that
it “is discarded as the capital of private property within the capitalist mode of
production”,3“the abandonment of the capitalist mode of production within its own
mode of production”.4
It “is still confined within the boundary of capitalism” and “does not overcome
the contradiction between the nature of wealth as a social wealth and as a private
wealth, but only develops such contradiction on a new form”. 5This was the two
connected and interdependent aspects that Marx pointed out in revealing the
contradictions of the abandonment of capitalism itself. If they only saw the first one
of the contradiction, but neglected and abandoned the latter and took it as the only
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, page 519.
2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, page 520.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, page 516.
4 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 518.
5 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, Page 520.

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 clue guidance to study the new changes in contemporary capitalism such as the joint-
stock company, it would obviously fall into one-sidedness, absoluteness, and
simplicity and thus draw incorrect conclusions. If we departed from this critical point,
arbitrarily explaining the joint-stock company in capitalist society, saying it as “the
possible way to make a peaceful transition to a new system”, and even “capitalism
thus completed the peaceful transition to socialism”, it was theoretically unfounded,
and thus the wrong conclusion was drawn that “the third volume of Das Kapital
overthrew and conflicted its first volume. It was no longer necessary to ‘blow up’ the
‘shell’ of capitalism, and Manchester capitalism in the minds of Marx (the primitive
capitalism) perished. And then, capitalism became gradually socialized under the
impact of Das Kapital” etc. If so, the Romanticism would even be developed to the
extreme romantic point, and thus the immeasurable distance between their
understanding and the original intent of Marx’s writings in his twilight years were
made.
In the Anti-Dühring, Engels also pointed out that “the essential nature of the
productive forces had not been eliminated, no matter it changed into the joint-stock
company or state-owned property. In the occasions of joint-stock companies, it was
very clear. The solution of the contradiction between capitalist production relations
and the development of productive forces, “can only be the de facto recognition of the
social nature of modern productive forces, and consequently make phase-adaptation
of the production, possession and the means of exchange to the public ownership of
means of production. The only way to achieve this was that the society openly and
directly possessed the management of productive forces which have been developed
to an extent that only fit the management of society but not any other management”. 1
It was precisely because of this, in the book The French Civil War, Marx emphasized
that the working class should “liberate those new social factors growing in the old
collapsing bourgeois society itself”, 2 rather than allow capitalist society itself invaded
by socialism peacefully through the qualitative change of these factors.
2 In capitalist society, the separation of ownership and the operating right has brought
two kinds of change: “hostile takeover” and the attempt of “operators capitalism” to
replace “owners capitalism”
In capitalist society, what the separation of ownership and operating right brought was far
from capitalism’s peaceful transition to socialism in real life.
After the separation of the ownership and operating right in joint-stock
companies, what happened to the relationship between the two? In western
countries, there were basically two views: one was called the theory of “the
revolution of managers” or “the revolution of management”, represented by the
book Modern Company and Private Possession published in 1932 by economists
Bailey and Means. According to this view, the above separation had made business
owners capitalists gradually lose their powers in managing their own businesses. At
the same time, the birth of the “manager class” full-time engaged in enterprise
management had contributed to the revolution of the shift of the business
management authority from the hands of the capitalist class in the hands of the
manager class, which was no longer the representative of the capitalists, but “the
representative of the community” concerned with productivity, business prosperity,
social welfare and under social supervision. Another insisted the determinism of
ownership, represented by the book High-paying Class published in 1951 by the
United States left-wing economist Mills. According to him, owner’s rights were not

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 629.

2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, Page 60.

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 deprived. The board of trustees was the sole owner class holding full authority, with
which it could use the police force “charging any manager by the fact of the
deprivation of ownership”. So managers, who were often thought to deprive the
authority of the owners, were in fact more loyal and devoted to the implementation
of such authority than any owner.
However, in real life of capitalist society, the new phenomena of the
emergence of owners and operators asked for new answers and solutions.
One was the phenomenon of “hostile takeover” in the wave of corporate
restructuring. In the sixties of 20th century, the acquisition of various companies was
tolerated and allowed by American and British government as the primary means of
reducing agency costs, maintaining the competitiveness of capital markets,
restraining the operator to effectively manage the company and working in the
interests of shareholders. In the eighties of 20th century, this hostile takeover was
still in possession of half of the mergers and acquisitions. But the practice showed
that hostile takeover was not an effective way to restrain the managers or provide
profit returns to the shareholders, and often ran counter to the interests of enterprises’
long-term development, and sometimes also tended to be an arbitrage for hostile
acquirers to plunder property. Thus, the enterprise’s “stakeholders” model in this
field came into being in theory and practice. According to this “stakeholder” model,
companies would undoubtedly first be the achievement for entrepreneurs trying hard
to create wealth for themselves and their partners. But today, companies should no
longer be seen as the tools merely to create wealth for their owners. It should also
create wealth for employees who needed to receive wage fairly, communities that
got funds from the tax revenue to start up schools and other public institutions, as
well as suppliers and marketing companies with sometimes good and sometimes bad
luck in the wave of business. In short, enterprises should be responsible for more
publics, not just its owners and shareholders. This new concept of enterprises had
been recognized and reflected in the principle of Corporate Governance Structure
signed in Paris in 1999 by Secretaries of the Treasury of 29 States of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The other was that “operators capitalism” sought to replace the “owners
capitalism”. Ever since Adam Smith, many Western economists had pointed out that
the company’s separation of ownership and operating right created the possibility for
insiders to abuse power, but the modern economy could not go back and re-rely on
family businesses and partnerships. Therefore, the capitalist system created a set of
supervising mechanisms to prevent insiders’ abuse of power, including modern
accounting system, independent auditors, securities and financial market system and
the prohibition of insider trading systems, and so on. However, when problems
developed inside capitalist society, theoretically, the professional management staff
that should act in accordance with the interests of the owners could make use of the
loophole of extremely dispersed shareholding and no responsible owners, changing
the company into a tool for their own profit, together with the accounting and other
management personnel. They might seek profits at the expense of the interests of
shareholders and employees, and then got out in time, using the “operators
capitalism” to replace “owners capitalism”. At the turn of the 20th and 21st century,
a series of accounting scandals cases of false accounts represented by Enron and
WorldCom in the United States were typical examples of this problems. In these
cases, the shareholders, enterprise owners even the whole state suffered a loss of
hundreds, hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars. But their operators led an
extravagant luxury life with high salaries and privileges. In order to curb this

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 situation, U.S. President George W. Bush had to sign the enterprise reform program
“Saar Bannas - Oxley Law in 2002”or“Financial Services Industry Reform Act” on
July 30, 2002 in order to end the “period of low moral standards and false profits”,
regulate the behavior of company management personnel, enhance supervision of the
accounting industry and enhance law enforcement.
To sum up, we can see that the implementation of the shareholding system and
the separation of ownership and operating right in capitalist society were totally
irrelevant to that “capitalism thus completed the peaceful transition to socialism” as
some people said, both from the Marxist point of view, and from the actual situation
of the capitalist point of view.

3 Engels’s Introduction in 1895 adjusted the strategy of the proletarian revolutionary

struggle

Engels wrote the Introduction for Marx’s book The French Class Struggle from 1848
to 1850 in five months before his death in 1895 . Some people said that Engels
expected“through the legitimate struggle of the working class to obtain power, to keep
the capitalist mode of production and to realize the peaceful transition to socialism”.
The actual situation was just the other way around; Engels only adjusted the strategy
of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat according to the change of the objective
situation.
The immediate background of writing this Introduction was: Early in 1895, the
press of The Progressive suggested republishing Marx’s works The French Class
Struggle from 1848 to 1850 which had been published the same year in Comment on
Neue Rheinische Zeitung Political Economy. After Engels accepted this suggestion, he
decided to write an Introduction and published it together with Marx’ works. He
thought this Introduction “should explain why we would hope the proletariat to obtain
the initial and final victory and why we haven’t achieved it, and in what degree the
following things changed our views apart from the overview of the events since that
time”.1
The first part of the Introduction written by Engels on March 6, 1895 pointed out in
particular the theoretical significance of Marx’s works, especially the aspects of the
application of historical materialism and the revolutionary theory of working class.
The second part discussed what strategy German Social Democratic Party should
apply in order to make working class obtain the victory of socialist revolution.
The new situation at that time was, after the Paris Commune, the working class
and the political party in Europe started the promotion and organization and
parliamentary activities, and made great achievements through the right to conduct
legitimate activities. Especially German Social Democratic Party even grew up
through more than ten years of brave and smart struggle under the persecution of the
anti-social partisans. In the election in February 1890, German Social Democratic
Party got 1427,000 votes and 35 seats, forced the government to abolish the Anti-
Socialist Law, and overthrew Bismarck. The Party’s ranks increased to 150,000
people, 300,000 members were under the influence of the party and labor union, and
the publications sponsored by the party and labor union had been more than 100
kinds. The working class and parties in England and France also made great
achievements. In this situation, opportunists within the party of working class had the
opportunity to distort the new conditions of class struggle and the significance of the
legitimate struggle. For example, the opportunists in Germany party represented by
1 February 26, 1852 To Paul Sierra Fag, Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 39, Page 389.

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the Youth Camp totally ignored the change of the situation of class struggle, without
understanding that the party must deny the necessity of legitimate struggle by use of
all possibility given by the legality of the bourgeoisie. The party was forbidden to
participate in parliamentary elections and parliamentary activities, and was criticized
to degenerate into petty-bourgeois opportunism. The opportunists were in vain to
attempt to make the party implement the adventure of divorcing from the masses and
indiscriminate violence regardless of objective situation. Another danger was the
party’s rightist opportunism represented by Gue of the UK’s new trade union and the
French Workers Party as well as Vollmar in Germany party. They exaggerated the
significance of the legitimate struggle and thought that it was the only and ultimate
form of struggle of the proletariat, with which the modern society could live long with
socialism. Even the Erfurt Draft Program drafted by German Social Democratic Party
Central Council also contained this ideology.
It was in this situation that Engels summarized the revolutionary experience and
the change of objective situation since 1848 in the Introduction. He pointed out that
“the period in which a small number of people consciously or unconsciously led the
masses to achieve the revolution has passed. Wherever the full extent of social
organization should be reformed, the masses should certainly have to be involved and
figure out what it is for”.1 To really do this, they have to take a long tough job. Under
the conditions at that time, the implementation of parliamentary struggle was the
strategy to make maximum effect of promotion and winning over the masses by use
of universal suffrage.
In 1860’s, Marx and Engels thought that universal suffrage was a trap for
workers and the government’s deception tool in a country like Germany. But in the
early seventies, they pointed out “universal suffrage gave us a superior means of
action”2 after social democratic party made the primary achievement through
universal suffrage, and explained its important functions gradually. In the late
seventies, they also pointed out universal suffrage made it possible for the working
party to evaluate its own power, and show its well-organized and well-developed
ranks to the world.3
In mid-eighties, they pointed out that universal suffrage was the measurement of the
maturity of the working class. Now Engels discussed more comprehensively that
universal suffrage was a weapon in the hand of the proletariat. Before the decisive
battle, the working class should struggle against the bourgeois through the election
movement. They should make the best use of the rights obtained from the ruling class
to inspire, train, educate and organize the masses of workers for the full preparation of
the revolution in the future. The Introduction emphasized that from the working class’
effective use of universal suffrage “people find that something in the rule of the
bourgeoisie used to organize the national institutions can also be used by the working
class to fight against these institutions themselves”, “As a result, the middle class and
the government fear the legal activities of political parties and workers more than
their illegal activities, and fear the success of the election more than that of
uprising”.4
Since the German Government proposed the “Draft Law to Prevent the Coup”
to the Imperial Congress in December 6, 1894, providing to take stringent measures

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 521.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume17, Page 304.
Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 19, Page 137.
3
4 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 517.

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 for “people who deliberately use violence to overthrow the existing national order”,
“people who instigate one class to use violent action against another, and break the
public order”. German Social Democratic Party Executive Committee insisted that
Engels dilute the excessive tone of revolution in their view in the Introduction so that
it could have a more cautious form. Engels agreed to this request with a heavy heart,
and made some diction of the Introduction a little mildly so that the judiciary could
not find any excuse to interfere in the socialist movement. However, in spite of the
existence of this situation, Engels just affirmed the universal suffrage in the sense of
adjusting the strategy of the revolutionary struggle of the working class according to
the change of the objective situation, but in no way as some people said “looking
forward to taking power through the legitimate struggle of the working class,
maintaining the capitalist mode of production and realizing the peaceful transition to
socialism”. It should be said that this point is very clear in the Introduction:
After the Introduction explained with examples of various countries “There
were people everywhere who followed the German example of using the right to vote
to win all the positions that we can”, following with this it emphasized “it was self-
evident that our foreign comrades did not give up their revolutionary right, and we
should bear in mind that the revolutionary right was always the only real ‘historical
right’ --- the only right for all modern countries, without exception, to be established
on this basis”; 1 It also emphasized that “Our main task was to constantly urge this
power of (the people) to go beyond the system of government control, to prevent the
growing troop of commandos being destroyed in skirmish, and properly to save it to
the day of the decisive battle”. 2 Obviously, both of the emphasis on not giving up
their own “revolutionary right” and saving their power to the day of the “decisive
battle”, clearly explained that Engels in the Introduction did not, as some people said,
“amend the violent revolution of Marxist theory,” “look forward to taking power
through the legitimate struggle of the working class, maintaining the capitalist mode
of production and realizing the peaceful transition to socialism”.

4. Engels is the opponent of “absolute legalism” and the naysay of “the theory of
peaceful growth of socialism ”
In the Introduction, Engels not only cleared his standpoint, but also showed that
he was the opponent of “absolute legalism” and the naysay of “the theory of
peaceful growth of socialism” through his various measures over the distorted use
and interpretation of the Introduction.
For example, response to the persistence of German Social Democratic Party
Executive Committee, Engels diluted the excessive tone of revolution in the
Introduction. But at the same time, he warned their absolute legalism in the letter To
Charlie Fisher in March 8, 1895, saying:“I tried to take your serious concerns into
account” ； however ， I couldn’t bear that you vowed loyalty to the absolute law-
abiding, law-abiding under any circumstances, even to laws which have been
violated by the lawmakers. In short, it was the same as “the way of sending the left
cheek after the right cheek was slapped”; “I thought if you promoted absolutely to
renounce violence, you would definitely get no benefit. Nobody would believe your
promotion and no country or party would go that far if they gave up the right to take
up arms against the illegal acts”.3
Let’s take another example. When few leaders of German Social Democratic

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 522.

2Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 523.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 39, Page 401.

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 Party, attempted to take Introduction as a basis for claims that Engels proposed that
the working class in any case can only achieve political power through peaceful
means. And in March 30, 1895, they published a speech entitled How to carry on the
current revolution at the official newspaper Forward of German Democratic Party
Central Committee. Without the consent of Engels, several excerpts of Introduction
were quoted out of context thus an impression was made that Engels held the view
of law-abiding in any case. Engels was very angry at this, so he immediately
protested against their distortion of his views to the editor of The Progressive
Liebknecht. And in the letter To Karl Kautsky in April 1, 1895, he pointed out that:
“Today I discovered that I appeared to be a peace-loving and law-abiding admirer in
any case after the distortion of the excerpt from my Introduction, which was
published in The Progressive without prior notice. In particular, I hoped that the
Introduction could now be published in full in the New Era so as to eliminate this
disgraceful impression. I would very clearly tell my views on the matter to
Liebknecht, and also to those who (regardless of who they were) had the opportunity
to distort my views without prior notice.1
In another example, soon after Engels wrote the Introduction, Liebknecht
quoted and publicized whatever would defense his peace and anti-violence
strategies. At the same time, in the letter to Lafargue in April 3, 1895, Engels,
according to the consistent spirit that the choice of policy approaches and methods
of struggle always changed to the specific historical circumstances, pointed out that
the current application of this strategy was only for today’s German, but one day it
might have to change suddenly. Engels emphasized, “The strategy I talked about was
only for today’s Germany with great conditions. For France, Belgium, Italy and
Austria, this strategy could not be used as a whole. Even in Germany, tomorrow it
might not apply”. 2This was to say, if the exploiting class made use of violence and
launched the civil war, the working class’ strategy of peaceful revolutionary struggle
would have to be replaced and supplemented by the use of non-peaceful methods.
It should be said that Engels’ firm opposition to the absolutism was not only
because his Introduction was distorted and taken advantage of, but also the
performance of adhering to the principles of Marxism position unswervingly until
his twilight years: In June 18-19, 1891, in the Criticism on Draft Program of Social
Democratic Party in 1891, Engels, for those who feared the recovery of anti-socialist
laws, and maintained that the current legal situation in Germany was sufficient to
achieve all the demands of the party through peaceful means, clearly pointed out:
“They try to make themselves and the party believe that ‘socialism was growing
from modern society’, but not to ask about at the same time, whether this society
still needed to shatter their own old shell like shrimp, which had to be hatched from
the old social system, and use violence to blow up this old shell. Besides this, was it
unnecessary for the society in Germany to blow up the semi-authoritarian regime
and unspeakable chaotic social system? He stressed that “such a policy can only
introduce party to go astray into the wrong path for a long time”, because “the fact
that in Germany even a single platform of disclosure requirements of the republic
can not be openly raised proved that it was such a big illusion to comfortably
establish not only the republic by peaceful methods in this country, but also the
communist society”. 3
In 1870’s, Marx thought, in countries “like the United States, the United

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 39, Page 432.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 39, Page436.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 411-412.

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 Kingdom”, “the workers could achieve their goals by peaceful means”, but he also
stressed that this was an exception: “Even so, we must also acknowledge that for
most of the countries on the mainland Europe , the violence should be the lever of
our revolution. In order to ultimately establish the rule of labor, one day we must
take violence”. 1The main problem here was not who enjoyed the majority in
parliament, but whether the state apparatus, organized coercive power existed or not
and who had it. At that time, the reason why Marx assumed that there was possibility
for the peaceful victory of socialism in the United Kingdom was that the United
Kingdom, “was the country with least warlord system and bureaucratic system”. In
the Criticism on Draft Program of Social Democratic Party in 1891, Engels also held
this view, so he said: “We can imagine, in those countries where people’s
representative bodies concentrated all power in their hands, if they get the support of
the majority of the people, they can act arbitrarily in accordance with the
constitution, new society might peacefully grow into the old society, such as, in the
Democratic Republic such as France and the United States, in the monarchy such as
Britain. The newspapers of British were talking about the upcoming issue of
redemption dynasty every day; this dynasty was weak in front of the will of the
people”. However, Engels pointed out immediately: “But in Germany, the
Government had almost supreme power, while the Imperial Parliament and all other
representative bodies had no real power. Therefore, announcing to do so in
Germany, was throwing off a fig leaf for authoritarian system, covering those naked
stuff by themselves”. 2
In the June 29, 1891, in the letter To Karl Kautsky, Engels also spoke of his
analysis of the shortcomings of the Draft Program of Social Democratic Party in
1891, the “blowing the peaceful opportunism of The Progressive, and blowing the
argument of the lively, docile, happy and free growth of socialist society into the old
filthy things”3
In October 1891, in the article German Socialism, (Critica Sociale, January 16, 1892 ) I
never said ‘socialist party would become the majority and then come to power’. On
the contrary, I stressed the likelihood that our rulers would use violence against us
before they came to power; and this would enable us to transform from the stage of
the parliamentary struggle to the stage of the revolutionary struggle”.4
Engels predicted the bourgeoisie would not tolerate the rising tide of socialism
to peacefully grow from capitalism, but certainly resort to violence first. Then the
working class and its political party would change from the stage of the
parliamentary struggle to the revolutionary stage. He said: “The bourgeoisie for
many times asked us to abandon the use of the revolution in any case, and stay
inside the frame of the law.” “Unfortunately, we can not give the gentlemen of the
bourgeoisie this help, though indeed, we were not in the status of ‘legitimacy killing
us’. Rather, it was such a problem that the bourgeoisie and its government would
undermine the legitimacy to crush us with violence. We would wait and see, now:
‘the gentlemen of the bourgeoisie, you just shot!’ There was no doubt that they
would first shot. Someday the German bourgeoisie and its government would be fed
up with the rising tide of socialism; they would resort to illegal actions.” “Counter-
revolutionary violence might be able to put off the victory of socialism for several
years, however, this could only make the victory in future more thorough and more

1 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 18, Page 179.

2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 411.
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume38, Page119-120.
4 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 327.

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 consolidate”.5

When the views of this article had been distorted and accused as done by

German opportunists , Engels immediately in the article Reply to the

Honourable Giovanni Bovio

in the February 6, 1892, reaffirmed and stressed that “For a start, I

have never said the socialist party, will become the majority and then
proceed to take power. On the contrary, I have expressly said that the
odds are ten to one that our rulers, well before that point arrives, will
use violence against us, and this would shift us from the terrain of
majority to the terrain of revolution, But let us pass over this.

Here I must permit myself the use of one of the honourable Mr. Bovio’s own
expressions. He must really be a “man of the cloister” if he has the slightest doubt
about the nature of this power.
All of governmental, aristocratic and bourgeois Germany, reproaches our friends in
the Reichstag for being republicans and revolutionaries.
Marx and I, for forty years, repeated ad nauseam that for us the democratic republic is
the only, political form in which the struggle between the working class and the
capitalist class can first be universalised and then culminate in the decisive victory of
the proletariat.” Dipnot 1
In order to clarify the right and wrong of the issue of the democratic socialist
theory, and reverse the distortion and false words imposed on the works of Marx and
Engels in their twilight years, this text focused on restoration of the true colors of
Marx’s original works. As for problems such as what kind of road the Communist
Party and the people of different countries in the world should follow and what kind
of strategy and tactics to win and build socialism, the national party and the people
should explore independently, according to the consistent requirements of Marxism,
and following the principles of the combination of the fundamental Marxist theory
with the characteristics of the times and the concrete practice of different countries.

Section 4 Lenin VS Bernstein: Who amended Marxism in the end

Recently, in order to make up democratic socialism as Marxist orthodoxy, and
impose democratic socialism on Chinese characteristics, some people deliberately
distorted the history of the international communist movement and history of the
development of Marxism at any cost, reversing the right and wrong. They
considered that the originator of revisionist Bernstein was “only repeating the words
of Engels”, but considered Lenin who tirelessly and persistently struggled against
revisionism as“ the greatest revisionists”. This gave us a historical task to reverse

5 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume22, Page 292.

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 the reversed right and wrong, and make completely clear from the history and theory
that Lenin and Bernstein: Who amended Marxism in the end?

1 Bernstein was not repeating the words of Engels, but rather made a comprehensive
amendment to the basic theories of Marxism
The main “basis” of saying Bernstein “only repeated the words of Engels” was
the Introduction Engels wrote for the book of Marx French Class Struggle from 1848
to 1850 in March, 1895.
In The Written Statement to the Stuttgart Congress of the German Social
Democratic Party in September 29,1898, Bernstein indeed has quoted the
Introduction, saying that “In 1895, Engels made a detailed exposition in the preamble
(actually introduction) of the French class struggle in detail, the era of political
surprise attack, the era ‘by a small number of people consciously or unconsciously
leading the masses to achieve the revolution” now has passed… The Social
Democratic Party ‘achieved much more through legitimate means than illegal means
or subversion means’.”
The problem was that Bernstein did not only stop here by quotation, he drew a
completely different conclusion from that of Engels in the essence, from Engels’
exposition that the proletariat should adjust their strategy of revolutionary struggle on
the basis of the objective changes of the situation.
The conclusion Engels drew from the above exposition was that: after Social
Democrats in all countries followed the example of Germany’s Social Democrats
winning all positions by means of universal suffrage, “it was self-evident that our
foreign comrades did not give up their revolutionary right, and we should bear in
mind that the revolutionary right was always the only real ‘historical right’ ” ; because
“our main task was to constantly urge this power of (the people) to go beyond the
system of government control, to prevent the growing troop of commandos being
destroyed in skirmish, and properly to save it to the day of the decisive battle” 1. Then,
in some letters related to this, Engels also developed his exposition that they did not
give up their own “revolutionary power” and saved it to the day of the decisive
battle”, and further expressed as firmly opposing to the absolute legalism and
negating the theory of peace growth of socialism from capitalism.
On the contrary, Bernstein distorted these expositions and drew the conclusion
that “Engels deeply believed that the strategy with catastrophe theory as the peak had
been out of date” and then drew the conclusion that “thus the social principles as a
basic condition for liberation were achieved if they give me universal and equal
suffrage”, so “the reforms asking for bloody revolution a hundred years ago can be
achieved today by means of coercion such as voting, demonstrations and so on”.
Thus, with the development of capitalist economy, “Such a day will certainly come.
At that time, the working class was so strong in number, so it will play a huge role in
the whole community. It can be said that the ruler’s palace is no longer able to
withstand the working class, and almost collapsed naturally”. Therefore “Talking
about society’s long growth of the socialist society is not wrong”.
Obviously, there was essential difference between Engels’ exposition and
Bernstein’s extension: Engels only asked the party to adjust the strategy of the
revolutionary struggle of the proletariat on the basis of the changes of the objective
conditions. He thought that under the conditions at that time, the use of universal
suffrage and parliamentary struggle can make maximum effect in promoting and
winning over the masses. So they can preserve the power to “the day of decisive
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, Page 522-523.

301
battle”, and exercise their “revolutionary power”; while Bernstein distorted and
extended that once universal and equal suffrage was practiced, the reforms asking for
bloody revolution a hundred years ago can be achieved today by means of coercion
such as voting, demonstrations and so on; the ruler’s palace will collapse naturally,
and t socialist society can peacefully grow from capitalist society. By contrasting the
two, how can we allow some people to deliberately deny such an essential distinction,
and believe that “Bernstein only repeated the words of Engels”?
In fact, Bernstein not only extended far beyond the distortion of Engels
discussion of the Introduction in 1895, and developed it to the direction of peaceful
growth of socialism; but also consciously and comprehensively revised Marxism in
The Premise of Socialism and the Task of Social Democratic Party and other books
and articles published in 1899. In 1899, he openly declared in the preface of the first
edition “I am fully aware that this book is contrary to the theory of Marx and Engels’
opinions on many essential points”; “the departure from this view is certainly not
happening recently. It is the inner product of the struggle for many years”. Faced with
the confession of Bernstein that “this book is contrary to the theory of Marx and
Engels’ opinions on many essential points”, how can some people say that “Bernstein
only repeated the words of Engels”?
The reason why we say that Bernstein’s amendment for the basic theories of
Marxism is comprehensive is that this amendment covers all fields and all
dimensions. In political economy, first of all, Bernstein said that Marx’s value theory
was “a pure abstraction”, labor value theory “can only be accepted as a pure theory
formula or a scientific hypothesis”. It can not explain the total value of the social
product; therefore, it was improper to take it as a starting point. Accordingly,
Bernstein thought that “the mere fact that workers can not get the full value of his
labor can not be held as the ground of making scientific exposition for socialism or
communism. So he introduces the concept such as needs, preferences and utility, and
combines the Marxist economic theory with the marginal utility theory of western
Economics.
Secondly, Bernstein believed that the growth of cartels, trusts and monopoly
capital, along with the socialization of production and the separation of ownership and
operating right, as well as the increase in credit instruments and the significant
improvement of communications and information services, allowed capitalism to gain
a self-regulating capacity, which can make capitalism survive almost indefinitely to
prevent the economic crisis and even its occurrence completely, because “the factor
that could develop into crisis has been relegated to secondary status”, “the general
stagnation under the present circumstances of the world market, is not inevitable”.
In sociology, Bernstein believed that with the development of technology and
social organization, “the number of property owners wasn’t increasing only more or
less; it was simply much more, that is, absolutely and relatively increased”; “Marxist
exposition about the growing class struggle is also wrong; on the contrary, the class
struggle is a disappearing phenomenon, at least an easing phenomenon. It can be
expected that in the near future there will be humanization of social relations”.
In politics, political freedom, democracy and universal suffrage have made the
basis of class struggle disappear gradually, because “in principle, democracy is the
elimination of class rule”. The privilege of the bourgeoisie in all advanced countries is
making a concession to a democratic system step by step. The more democratic the
political system is, the less the inevitability and opportunity for a great political
catastrophe is. “With the growth of the number and knowledge of workers, universal
suffrage will change representatives of people from their masters to their true

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servant”. Therefore, Bernstein argued that Marx’s theory of violent revolution of the
proletariat was outdated. What’s more, he also discarded the concept of dictatorship of
the proletariat, and rejected shifting the power and ownership from the hands of one
class to the hands of another. He said: “Class dictatorship belongs to the lower class’
culture”, “is a kind of retrogression, a political atavism”. He also accused that
Marxism was a Babeuf activist or Blanqui activist, saying that socialism should
achieve its goal through the path of gradual reform instead of the path of violence.
Only through patient work, can it improve capitalist society from the inside.
In Party’s construction, Bernstein thought that “all the practical activities of the
Social Democratic Party are attributed to the forms of creation and pre-conditions to
promote and guarantee the transition of the system in modern society to a higher level
of system without the reoccurrence of the spastic explosion”. That is to achieve the
peaceful transition of capitalism to socialism through reform; correspondingly, the
Social Democratic Party should change its nature, and become a political party
striving to achieve social transformation through means of democratic and economic
reforms.
In philosophy, Bernstein denounced Marxist materialist point of view, and
believed in Kant and neo-Kantian theory of socialism. He said that “in my opinion,
the phrase ‘back to Kant’ is also applicable to the theory of socialism to a certain
extent”, “the Social Democratic Party must have a Kant. “Bernstein’s Kantian and
neo-Kantian view of the world first manifested in his absolute opposition between the
objective laws of social development and people’s subjective desire to participate in
the historical activities. He denied the laws of social development on the pretext of
people having ideas and aspirations, the amount of denial, saying that “since there is
inevitability, why should we have to take action?” Second, he distorted that Marxist
attributed the ideological and political social relations to relations of production,
ultimately to the high degree of productivity so as to determine the inevitability of
human behaviors, as that Marxist has the anti-ethical tendency of denying human’s
moral motivation. Bernstein also used vulgar evolutionism instead of revolution
dialectics, raised the slogan of the socialist movement that “the ultimate goal is
negligible, movement is everything”, advocated occasional response and
accommodated the immediate small changes, forgetting and sacrificing the
fundamental interests of the proletariat.
In 1898 Stuttgart Congress, 1899 Hannover Congress, and 1901 Lubeck
Congress, Bernstein’s revisionist views were unanimously refuted by the leftists
within the German Social Democratic Party. In the case of no-repudiation, he openly
asserted in the Party Congress in Dresden in 1903 that “I at the very beginning
declared to you without any hesitation that I was a revisionist”; but on the other hand,
he attempted to find a way out in the distortion of the concept of “revisionism”. He
wanted people not to forget that, “Marx and Engels in their times were also
revisionists, and they were the greatest revisionists in socialist history”, because “any
kind of new truth, any kind of new knowledge is revisionism”. Here, Bernstein
apparently muddied the water intentionally in order to fish in troubled water. There is
no doubt that, in order to survive and develop, in the process of understanding the
world and transforming the world, human must advance with the times to continue to
innovate and amend their predecessors’ wrong views inconsistent with the objective
facts. Marx and Engels were undoubtedly a brilliant example in this regard. But
revisionism was a completely different matter. The reason why the leftists within the
German Social Democratic Party criticized Bernstein’s view as revisionism, was not
that his view was a “new understanding”, or “new truth”, but that he seemed to suppor

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Marxism, in fact on the pretext of the times and conditions’ change, saying that
Marxism was outdated in an attempt to amend and deny the basic theory of Marxism.

2 The theory for one country to build socialism is not contrary to Marxist theory, but
the promotion of Marxism through the times
Some people considered Bernstein who completely amended the basic theory
of Marxism as “only repeating the words of Engels”. At the same time, they said
that “it was Lenin who ran contrary to the Marxist idea about socialism’ common
victory in advanced capitalist countries. and put forward the theory of one country
to build socialism in backward Eastern countries”.
Obviously, this confused revisionism with the promotion of Marxism through times
by combining the basic theory of Marxism with the characteristics of the times and
the actual national conditions. In June 1872, 25 years after the declaration of
Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels pointed out in their preface written by
German, “The general principles in this Manifesto is completely right by now”, but
at the same time they emphasized in particular that“The implementation of these
principles should change according to the historical conditions at different times,
just as what is said in the Manifesto”1. In the “historical conditions at that time”,
Lenin particularly emphasized the characteristics of the times. He pointed out that
only through the analysis of the change from one era to another, can we understand
predict the major events before”. “Only on this basis, that is, to consider the
different characteristics of different ‘times’ (but not the individual historical events
in individual countries), can we correctly develop our own strategies; only we
understand the basic characteristics of a certain age, can we think over the more
specific characteristics of specific countries”.2
The difference between the theory for one country to build socialism and
socialist theories of Marx and Engels first of all is reflected in the difference of the
times.
In the era of laissez-faire capitalism, Marx and Engels thought that socialist
revolution must be launched simultaneously in most developed countries in
Europe, and succeed one after another smiltaneously . In the article On the Hague
Congress in 1872, Marx ever took the Paris Commune as an example and argued,
“The reason why the Paris Commune failed was that in all major centers such as
Berlin, Madrid and other places, great revolutionary movements didn’t break out
together with the Paris’ proletarian revolutionary struggle corresponding to its high
level”. 3
In that era, the reason why the proletarian revolution couldn’t win in the individual
capitalist countries was that, with the general development of productivity and the
world exchanges, the ruling class in other capitalist countries could collude with the
ruling class in those country the revolution broke out to interfere and suppress. Engels
ever pointed out :“Only the fact that large -scale industry built the world market has
put the world’s people, especially the people of civilized nations, closely linked to
each other so that the people of each country are subject to what is happening in
another country.” 4
However, major changes have occurred in the end of 19th century. The era of
laissez-faire capitalism changed into the era of monopoly capitalism also the era of
imperialism. On the one hand, all the territories on the planet have been carved up by
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 248.
2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume26, Page 142-143..
3 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 18, Page 180.
4 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page241.

304
the capitalist powers; on the other hand, the imbalance and the development by leaps
and bounds among all the capitalist countries enabled the previously relatively
backward nations to quickly jump forward to catch up and surpass the previously
relatively advanced countries, thus making the balance of power on the economy and
military in the capitalist countries dramatically change, which broke the balance of
power within the capitalist world. The trend of re-division of the world among the
imperialist powers made the imperialist war inevitable. It weakened the power of
monopoly capital, and prevented them to achieve unity in the struggle against the
proletarian revolution in all countries. Therefore, opportunities were created for the
proletarian revolution to break the weakest link in alignment of the imperialist.
Lenin’s theory of building socialism in one country and great practice of the October
Revolution was proposed and emerging to adapt to such changes of the times. It was
the product of the combination of concrete practice of Marxism and the characteristics
of the era of imperialism with the Russian revolution. Although it changed the
prediction of Marx and Engels that the socialist revolution must be launched
simultaneously in most developed countries in Europe and get the victory one after
another, it adhered to and promoted the great ideals of the Marxist proletarian
revolution and first achieved it in Russia. This can be called not losing the spirit of the
ancestors, but also expressing the new contents that the ancestors did not say but in
line with their actual characteristics of the times. This is an epoch-making creative
development of Marxism, how can you say that this is contrary to and amendment of
Marxism?
Marxist held that the socialist revolution must succeed in advanced capitalist
countries together, while Lenin put forward building a socialist society in the
backward states in eastern countries. Is this, just as some people said, the inheritance
and development of Blanquism? Regardless of the level of the development of
productivity, just by revolutionary violence can they create a new world without
exploitation and oppression? Absolutely no.
As to the problem whether a socialist society can be built in backward states,
when Lenin refuted the similar accusation of the Second International Suchan Nove in
the article On the Russian Revolution early in January 1923, he replied: “Since the
fact that there is no way out of the situation greatly increases the strength of workers
and peasants, we can create a fundamental prerequisite for the development of
civilization in different ways used by all other western European countries, then how
should we do? ” “ Since the establishment of socialism need to have certain level of
knowledge (although no one can really explain what kind of this “certain level of
knowledge” is, because it is different in various western European countries), why not
achieve the premise of the certain level by means of revolution first, then on the basis
of the regime of workers and peasants and the Soviet system to catch up with people
of other countries?” Because“the general law of historical development of the world,
does not exclude the individual development stages in the development of the form or
the order to show specificity, but rather, takes it as the premise.”1
But this does not mean that Lenin believes in Blanquism, believing that
regardless of the level of the development of productivity, just by the revolutionary
violence can they create a new world without exploitation and oppression. In the
summer of 1918, in order to cope with the war and the destruction of the economy, the
policy of War Communism was implemented. At the same time, it also prevented the
development of productivity, resulted in serious economic crisis, and triggered serious
political turmoil. After that, on the basis of summing up their experience and lessons,
1Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 43, Page 370-372.

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Lenin emphasized that a country with underdeveloped productive forces and
dominated by self-sufficient agricultural economy could not achieve direct transition
from small-scale production to socialism, but needed to go through the stages of state
capitalism to a gradual transition and indirect transition. As a result, from the spring of
1921, the Soviet Union turned to the New Economic Policy, allowing socialism under
construction to carry on economic competition with capitalism in an attempt to revive,
on the basis of meeting the needs of millions of farmers through the market. As for the
fundamental contents, the New Economic Policy mainly included three aspects: First,
in adopting new policies on the self-sufficient agricultural economy, the surplus grain
collection system was replaced by the food taxes (according to predetermined criteria,
part of surplus grain of farmers and other agricultural products were levied with the
modes of taxation, and the remaining grain and other agricultural products were at the
disposal of farmers after paying taxes), allowing free trade and the development of
commodity-money relations; second, in the new policies on capitalism, private
capitalism was allowed to certain extent, with the concession system, leasing system,
the joint venture system, cooperative system, shopping service and consignment
system and other systems to develop state capitalism; third, in the new policies on
socialist economy itself, the state-owned economy was rectified and the principles of
economic accounting and material interests were implemented. By implementing the
New Economic Policy, the Soviet state’s economy was restored and developed
rapidly, with an increase of national income more than doubled in 1925-1926 than in
1920. When summarizing the significance of the New Economic Policy, Lenin
emphasized: “The full meaning of New Economic Policy is and only is: we found the
combination of the new economy we established with a great effort with the peasant
economy ”1; “we captured the core of everyday problems, and this is a great gain.
Now socialism is not a future far away from us any more, not an abstract picture or
the problem of icon”; “we dragged socialism into the daily life, and we should bear in
mind that this is our current task, which is also the task of the present era”2. In these
discourse typically reflecting Lenin’s ideal of building socialism, where can you find
the shadow of “carry forward and develop Blanquism”, where can you find the
shadow of the conviction that regardless of the level of the development of
productivity, just by the revolutionary violence can they create a new world without
exploitation and oppression?

3 To restore the name of the Communist Party, Lenin is not creating something
unconventional, but rather restoring the original title of Marxism
In order to label Lenin “the amendment of Marxist from the perspective of the
leftists”, “the greatest revisionist”, some people were even fabricating history at any
cost, saying that “in Marx and Engels’ times, the Social Democratic Party was to
represent the interests of the working class, as the orthodox Marxist political party
engaged in social movements. It’s Lenin who created something new, renamed the
Democratic Party as the Russian Communist Party in 1918, established the Third
International (Comintern) and split the international labor movement”.
The argument that in Marx and Engels’ times, the Social Democratic Party is the
orthodox Marxist political party is completely nonsense. The fact is that Marx and
Engels called themselves as Communist from the very beginning so as to show their
difference and confrontation from the Social Democratic Party and the social
democrats.

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 43, Page 74.

2 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 43, Page 302.

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 In the book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx had revealed the
origin and meaning of the “social democrats”. In French legislation of the National
Assembly between 1849 and 1851, “And the confrontation with the joint bourgeoisie
is the petty bourgeoisie and the workers union, i.e. the so-called social democrats”.
Because in this joint, the revolutionary edge of the social requirement of the
proletariat was worn away so that the democratic transition took place, while the
democratic requirement of the small bourgeois lost the purely political form and
revealed the light of socialism. This gave birth to the social democrats. “The
specificity of the social democratic parties is reflected in that the call for democratic
republic system as a means is not to eliminate the two—capital and wage labor, but to
ease the confrontation between them and make them become coordinated. No matter
what methods were put forth to achieve this goal, no matter the color of this goal was
light or dark, the content was the same ： to transform society by democratic means,
but this transformation has never exceeded the scope of the petty bourgeoisie”.1
In the book The French class struggle from 1848 to 1850, Marx also revealed that
the kind of democracy advocated by the social democrats was a kind of “Utopia”, and
“doctrinaire socialism”. The essence was “to make all the movements subject to the
movement in a phase, to replace the common social production by the activities of
individual scholastic mind, to eliminate the revolutionary class struggle and its
necessity but mainly with little tricks and great sentimental feelings”; “Merely
idealized modern society, depicting a picture of modern society where there is no dark
side, and seeking to realize their ideals despite the reality of this society”.2
In The Declaration of the Central Committee of Communist League Alliance to
its leagues, Marx and Engels took the distinction between the petty-bourgeois
democrats and the revolutionary proletariat to start the confrontation between the
social democrats and the Communists:“the petty-bourgeois democrats are simply not
willing to change the whole society in the interests of proletarian revolution, that they
asked to change the social situation, is to make the existing community as much as
possible so that they can feel better and comfortable life”; “Petty bourgeois democrats
only hope to achieve the above-mentioned requests then they would quickly end the
revolution, but our interests and our task is to carry out uninterrupted revolution”;
“For us, the problem is not to change the private ownership, but to eliminate it; not to
conceal the class antagonism, but to eliminate the class; not to change the existing
society, but to create a new society”.3
Therefore, the record of the history clearly showed that the social democratic
party did not like some people said that it seemed in Marx and Engels’ times “to
represent the interests of the working class, as the orthodox Marxist political party
engaged in social movements”. It was just on the contrary. Things were just as what
Engels emphasized when he looked back:“I did not call myself as social democrat but
communist. This is because at that time those people who didn’t write the slogan of
transforming all the productivities into the hand of community on their flags call
themselves as social democrats.” “So for Marx and me, it absolutely doesn’t work to
represent our point of views with such an elastic name.” 4 “In 1847, socialism meant
capitalist movement,
while communism meant the movement of the working class. At that time, socialism,
at least on the mainland Europe , was the upper class, while the communism was just
the contrary. Since we were strongly determined ‘the liberation of the working class
1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 613-614.
2 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page461-462.
3 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 367-368.
4 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 489-490.

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should be their own affair of the working class’, so we never doubted which name to
choose between the two. What’s more, later we didn’t expect to abandon this name”.
This is “the reason why we didn’t call (Communist) Manifesto as socialist manifesto
when it was published”.1
The change occurred after the failure of the Paris Commune. On the one hand, the
special situation at that time required the labor party to train the masses gradually
before the revolution was put on the agenda, to be good at compromise, and to obey
the strategic considerations of the alliance, neither avoiding elections nor giving up
the meeting struggle in the streets . This situation made the concept of social
democracy spread in the international labor movements, so many labor parties in
Western Europe called themselves as Social Democratic Party. On the other hand, the
wide spread of Marxism in the labor movements made those who called themselves
social democrats also accept the basic theory of communism , i.e. scientific socialism.
Therefore, Marx and Engels made some adjustments of their attitudes toward the
concept of social democrats. When Engels looked back the circumstances later, he
said: “ Now the situation is different. (Social democracy) the word might be tolerable,
although it is imprecise for those parties whose economic programs are not purely the
general socialism but communism directly, and whose ultimate political aims are to
eliminate the entire country as well as the Democratic Party.” 2
But after Engels died in 1895, things changed again, especially with the
occurrence of Bernsteinism, the rightists and centrists in the second international
explained the social democracy as something that was opposed to the proletarian
revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, something that led socialism to grow
into capitalism peacefully through the peaceful and legislate parliament means in the
framework of capitalism, and something that transformed the social democratic party
into a party engaged in the social reform within the framework of capitalism; In
WWI, the Second International supported the national bourgeoisie to participate in the
world war which caused workers of all countries to kill each other. This made the
Second International degenerate into the federation for the defense of national
chauvinism within the international framework. It is in this case, in the December 5,
1914, Lenin appealed in A German’s Comments on War “to discard the name ‘social
Democrats’ tarnished and undermined by (the Second International rightists and
centrists), and resumed the original title of Marxist for the Communist”. 3
Therefore, Lenin changed the name of the Russian Social Democratic Party to the
Communist Party, and established the Third International (Comintern), it was nothing
like some people said“unconventional”and “splitting the international labor
movement”. Because in form, Lenin’s rename resumed the original title of Marxist for
the Communist, but not something “unconventional”; in the content and essence, it
was that the rightists and centrists in the Second International, under the situation of
labor movement, took off the nasty shirt of “social democrats” which had been
tarnished and undermined by them, but put on the clean coat of “communism” which
originally belonged to Marxism.
In May 1917, in The Task of Proletarian in Our Revolution (The Draft Program
of Action for the Proletarian Political Party), Lenin carried out his argument
comprehensively with the name of the Communists to replace the name of the Social
Democrats.
Lenin’s focus was on what title the party adopted “in science was right, was

1 Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Page 264.

2 Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 22, Page 490.
3 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 26, Page 97.

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helpful to inspire the political consciousness of the proletariat”. He pointed out that
the Social Democratic Party distorted and violated Communist Manifesto on two
points: first, Manifesto emphasized that workers had no country, while the Social
Democratic Party defended the motherland in the imperialist war, so this was the
betrayal of socialism; second, the Second International distorted Marx’s theory of
state. Since that we were Marxists taking Communist Manifesto as the basis, we
should be called Communists just as Marx and Engels called themselves, but not the
Social Democrats. For this, Lenin also made four arguments: First, that the name of
“the Social Democratic Party” is not correct in science, because it does not reflect the
proletarian political parties’ views on the future development of human society, as
well as the revolutionary ideal and objectives of the proletarian party; second, the
latter part of the name Social Democratic Party in science is also incorrect, because
democracy is a national form, while the Marxists are opposed to any country. While
the Marxist views that state is still necessary for the transition to socialism, but this
state does not like the Democratic Republic of the bourgeois parliamentary system,
but like the Paris Commune in 1871 and the State like Soviet as the representative of
Russian workers in 1905 and 1917; third, as the revolution has created the “new”
country in Russian, therefore, the word democracy has become the goggles which
cover people’ eyes, impeding their free, bold, and automatically building of the sole
power that was on behalf of the Soviet workers and peasants, etc., i.e. the only
political power of the ‘state’, the precursor of all the state “withering away”; fourth, it
should be taken into consideration that the objective situation of the social movements
in the world is not the task of starting a social revolution after the failure of the Paris
Commune, but the transformation of capitalism into imperialism. This will inevitably
and objectively produced imperialist wars, and there was no other way out except for
the proletarian revolution, while the Social Democratic Party leaders,
parliamentarians and newspapers went to the side of “national” bourgeoisie. If we still
use the old name, it is to encourage and foster such a deception and impede movement
forward, but what we have to do is to carry on the greatest proletarian revolution in
human history. Therefore, Lenin came to the conclusion “Now it’s the time to throw
the nasty shirt and put on the clean coat” .1
According to this, under the situation at that time, Lenin restored the title of the
Communist Party and established the Communist International, which precisely
showed that he was opposed to the rightists of the Second International to split the
international labor movement and the centrists to amend Marxism, but not a bit
like“the greatest revisionists”someone imposed upon him.

Section 5 Crisis in the Western Social Welfare System and Blair – Giddens’s “Third
Way”
In mid-1990’s, there was a major turning point in the history of the development
of social democracy— democratic socialism. It was that the British Labor Party
leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair and his spiritual mentor Giddens strongly advocated
following the “Third Way” between and beyond the traditional social democracy and
the bourgeois neo-liberalism. They said that “Third Way” was the modernization of
social democracy under economic globalization. But in essence it was the strategy and
solution of social democracy— democratic socialism, which was designed in dealing
with the crisis in the welfare system of Western society under economic globalization.

1 The crisis of Western social welfare system since1970’s

1 Complete Works of Lenin, Volume 29, Page 178-182.

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 The reason why there was a possibility for Western social welfare system to
spread widely in capitalist society after World War II was mainly with the support of
two aspects. Its ideological and spiritual support was the prevalence of Keynesian
which emphasized the state intervention in the market economy; its economic
material support was the rapid growth of national economy in the “Golden Times” of
more than twenty years between the early fifties and the mid-seventies after World
War II. However, with the outbreak of the two oil crises in the seventies, western
economy entered a new phase of stagflation, so Western social welfare system was
caught into all sorts of crises with the loss of spiritual and material support.
The crisis of Western social welfare system since the seventies in the twentieth
century basically included four types: first, the economic crisis; second, the aging
crisis; third, the crisis of the negative impact caused by the defects of the social
welfare system itself; fourth, the crisis caused by the Western social welfare system’s
incompatibility with the economic globalization and other new historical conditions.
1.1 The economic crisis
The first crisis of Western social welfare system was the economic crisis after the
national economy of Western countries entered a phase of “stagflation” from rapid
development. This was because in more than twenty years of Western national
economy’s rapid growth, the coverage, range of benefits, welfare programs and
welfare scale of Western social welfare system were also further expanded so that the
growth rate of government’s public expenditure, particularly of the social welfare
expenditure exceeded the growth rate of production as well as that of the government
revenue. Therefore, when stagflation crisis hit, the social welfare system first of all
was faced with economic crisis. It was specifically expressed in the rapid growth of
the government’s public expenditure of Western countries, particularly the absolute
number of social welfare expenditure and its percentage in both finance and gross
national product. For example, in the United States, its social welfare expenditure
increased from 42.2 billion dollars in 1967 to 86.7 billion dollars in 1972, 188 billion
dollars in 1977, 341.1 billion dollars in 1982, with an average doubling every five
years. The corresponding proportion of the U.S. social welfare expenditure in the
government expenditure increased from 26.7% to 37.8%, 46.7% and 49.1%. If
including the state and local welfare expenditure, the social welfare expenditure in the
United States accounted for 60% of total government expenditure at all levels, about
1/5 of the gross national product. Not only the U.S. was such a case, but the situation
was more serious in the developed capitalist countries in Europe. Between 1976 and
1980, the social welfare expenditure accounted for 48.7% of total government
expenditure in the U.S.; 58.1% in Federal Republic of Germany; 56.8% in Sweden;
50.9% in Japan; between 1981 and 1985, this rate was 52.4% in the U.S.; 58.8% in
Germany; 58.7% in Sweden; 51.1% in Japan. Correspondingly, the financial deficit of
the Western developed capitalist countries has risen sharply. Between the fifties and
sixties, it has been doubled; between the sixties and seventies, it has been quadrupled;
between seventies and eighties, it has increased twelve times; the ratio of the financial
deficit and gross national product was 7% in 1970 and 12% in 1980. At the same time,
the growth of money supply in Western countries has been significantly faster than the
growth of gross national product, which exacerbated inflation, and the price sharply
rose, thus the welfare system became the cancer to countries which implemented such
a system.
2.2 The crisis of population and aging
The crisis of population and aging in Western welfare states was mainly the low
birth rate and longer life expectancy. The combination of the two made the ratio of the

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service personnel and retirees continue to decline. It meant that in the social welfare
system the working population who provided the pension was declining whereas the
population who enjoyed the pension was increasing and becoming unbearable. For
example, in the U.S., in order to maintain the population base, the birth rate should be
maintained at an average of 2.1 births per couple on the child’s level. But in
the1990’s, the birth rate was only 1.8 -1.9 births per couple on the child’s level in the
U.S. (1.4 births in France, 1.2 births in Italy, 1.16 births in Spain), and the pattern of
young people who feed the elderly could no longer be maintained in the current U.S.
social welfare system, so people’s pressure to pay tax was greater and greater. In
1950, employers and employees paid social security tax together in the U.S., with
every 16 serving stuff bearing the burden of one retiree who enjoys the pension,
accounting for 12.4% of their wages (49.3% of employees’ wages in France, 40.9% in
Germany, 42.5% in Italy and 37.8% in Spain). It is predicated by 2030, in the United
States every three workers must pay for one elder over 65 years (but in Europe,
according to the International Monetary Fund data, the ratio of the taxpayer and
retirees who enjoy the pension was 2.5:1 and 2.3:1 in France and Germany in 1995, in
the next 50 years, this ratio will be reduced to 1.4:1, and 1.2:1). In 1998, among the
80 million people in Germany, 21% under 20 years old, 57% between 20 and 59, 22%
over 60; but it is predicated that the population in Germany will reduce to 75 million,
only 15% under 20 years old, 48% between 20 and 59, 37% over 60, with the number
of the pension-enjoying retirees increasing from 44 to 78 for every 100 workers. On
the other hand, people’s life expectancy will be longer and longer. When the U.S.
formulated the social insurance system, the lifespan people expected was 61.4 years
old for male, and 65.7 years old for female; while in the seventies in the twentieth
century, male’s lifespan has reached 72.6 years old, female 79.3; now, the aged over
65 has accounted for 13% of the national population, costing more than 1/3 of the
medical expenses. It is predicated in 2020 that this rate will reach 20%, costing 2/3 of
the medical expenses (the aged over 65 years old in British accounted for 16% in
1990, expecting to be 23% in 2030; now the rate of the able-bodied population and
the retired population is 5:1, which will become 2:1 in 2040).
This crisis was obviously more serious in Europe than in the U.S.. The existing
population of Europe is 105 million more than that of the United States, while by
2050 Europe’s population will be 18 million less than the United States’. Though
workers’ statutory retirement age was 65 years old, in fact, because the early
retirement penalty was too light, women retired at an average of 58-year-old, men on
average at age 61. Fifty years ago, European men and women workers worked 7 years
more than now, and the average life expectancy was 11 years shorter than it is now.
After most European countries unified the currency in the euro, it further exacerbated
the crisis in this area. This was because the euro hitched the 11 euro-zone countries
together. Thus, if the Italian government had to pay pension to more people because
of the demographic crisis, it was likely to trigger the inflation such as in Ireland,
despite the government of Ireland could deal with their own retirees. Similarly, if one
euro-zone country increased the government expenditure, it was likely to raise the
entire euro-zone inflation. For example, if huge deficits arose in the French
government expenditure, then the Dutch Holland would have to pay higher interest
rates for their own mortgage to buy a house.
Therefore, people in the Western welfare states would always consider the crisis
of population and aging as the “great challenge that leads to the collapse of the social
security system and even the welfare system in Western countries”.
3.3 The crisis triggered by the shortcomings and drawbacks of the social welfare

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system
With the development of the economic crisis in the social welfare states, the
social welfare system in many countries could not sustain. At the same time, the
shortcomings within the system itself of the Western countries became increasingly
prominent:
First, the social welfare system spent a lot of welfare expenditure, but it didn’t
effectively counteract and alleviate poverty by redistributing income and wealth as it
was supposed to be. For example, between 1979 and 1996, British socio-economic
annual growth rate was 4%, 43 billion pound more than before, but the poverty-
stricken population increased to 1/5 of the total population from the number of people
less than the average level — 1/10 of the total population. Social security expenditure
was more than the total sum of the education, health, police and judicial expenditures,
but so far there are still 4 million children living in poverty. The social welfare
expenditure paid in a cheated way was as much as 4 billion each year, but 20% of the
people who enjoy the social assistance receive less amount of relief than in 1979.
Second, the welfare which was meant to solve the problem of unemployment
became a heaven for some people to avoid the labor market; at the same time, it
resulted in some people’s welfare dependence, created a number of “welfare moms”
and “welfare queen” and led to “moral hazard”. In some Western welfare states, their
welfare policies are so generous that the social insurance given to the unemployed is
almost the same as the income of the serving staff. Such welfare system can not
properly help people develop an independent spirit and an active attitude to move
from welfare into employment. It does not reflect the founding principles, but also
failed to reflect its cost-effectiveness. The result is more people to apply social relief,
but less to take the initiative to find jobs. So the social welfare system does not
become a means to eliminate unemployment, but rather the reason for the growth of
unemployment. At the same time, some mothers with many children led a
comfortable life relying on the government relief, thus they were called “welfare
moms” and even “welfare queen” sitting in the car of welfare to spend taxpayers’
money freely.
Third, as the medical socialization is concerned, the health insurance with
generous and excessive protection of the interests of workers, on the one hand, led to
the loose labor discipline, the decline in labor efficiency, some people’s exaggeration
of minor illness and disease-free malingering; the absenteeism rate was up to 20% on
average in the welfare states such as Sweden; on the other hand, it also caused that the
low-income people who have paid failed to receive the minimum medical treatment.
Many people in the long queues of seeking treatment were beyond cure because of the
delay; but in order to sustain the huge welfare expenditure, the progressive income tax
implemented was too high, which discouraged employers’ enthusiasm for investment
and employees’ work motivation; high welfare also made people lose their sense of
urgency to save. In short, it stifled the market, weakened the incentives for work,
savings and investment, and seriously affected the product cost, the international
competitiveness and economic development in the welfare states. Swedish economist
Lindback said that the crisis triggered by this was just as “a one-way causal street”
and caused by the negative effects of the welfare states on work, savings and
investment. Another Swedish economist Matthias Bengtsson thought that the result
for the implementation of a high welfare in Sweden “is that our economic growth rate
was slower than other developed countries in 30 years. In 1970, we also belonged to
the column of the most developed countries together with Switzerland, Luxembourg
and USA, but now these three countries are still in the inside, while Sweden is far

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behind. In the ordered list of the Economic Cooperation Organization, Sweden has
dropped to the 17th place, behind Ireland”, compared with the German mark, the
value of Swedish kronor is only 1/3 of its original value.
Fourth, the shortcomings and disadvantages together are also likely and
sufficient to trigger a political crisis. The worst failure of Swedish Social Democratic
Party in general elections in September 1991 was a classic since 1932.
Five, the shortcomings and disadvantages of social welfare system also became
the arguments and excuses for the neo-liberalist to attack and cancel this system. For
example, some neo-liberalists believed that the social welfare system went against
economic power, development, progress, logic as well as the philosophy of human
survival. It was the worst failure and most out of control in the Western philosophy of
governing the country, so the tide of anti-welfare system will inevitably become a
great social evolution in the 21st century and it will also be the biggest turning point
in the social economy since the industrial revolution in the history of the West.
3.4 The crisis triggered by the incompatibility of the social welfare system with
the new historical condition
The challenge of the welfare state caused by the external forces is mainly the
inconsistence between the social welfare system and the advanced post-industrial
capitalist structure. People think that there are a variety of ideals of universal equality
in the modern welfare states, and an industrial working class with the same nature
correspondingly, while the characteristics of industrial society is expressed through
the greater diversity and more different needs and expectations of the occupation and
life cycle. The comparatively larger uncertainty in occupation needs more flexible
adjustment. For example, on the one hand, dual-career family units emerge; on the
other hand, the divorced, single and single-parent families arise. All kinds of changes
of family structures changed the family arrangements. Women’s employment aroused
great attention, and men’s wives going to work became the only way to eradicate
poverty for low-income families; what’s more, specialization and the increasing
variability of the occupational structure changed, complicated and non-standard life
cycle changed, and especially the growth rate slowed down and the “de-
industrialization” of the economic situation changed. All these make people
everywhere feel that the gap between the social security system and the growing
demand and the economy of the post-industrial capitalist society is becoming more
and more serious. In addition, the mass migration of residents to urban industrial
centers also undermines the traditional forms of social security. Sociologist Emile
Durkheim believes that the social welfare states are the combination of two social
trends. One trend is Keynesianism that concerned about the command control of
economic life; the other is concerned about the protection of those who have been
deprived of their rights economically. Once in a period of time, the global economic
tide made the combination of these two trends smooth and feasible, but when this
kind of environment changed, the superstructure of the two trends of the welfare
states collapsed. For example, the competition under the new conditions of economic
globalization, first, it narrowed the field of national domestic policy choices and
constrained different nations’ capacity to independently design their own politics and
economy; second, it punished the extravagant government and non-competitive
economy; third, the pre-set economic growth, full employment, and personal freedom
were no longer compatible goals for the welfare states and the Western capitalist
countries.

2 Western countries’ strategies in response to the crisis of the social welfare

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system
Since the social welfare system of the Western countries have been subjected to
the crisis of economy, population and aging from the mid-seventies in the twentieth
century, the crisis caused by its own shortcomings and disadvantages and from
external forces also met with fierce criticism from neo-liberalism, why didn’t the
social welfare system disappear in 30 years in the Western countries? The basic
reason is that the social welfare system is a political design for Western countries to
promote a country’s social integration. It has exposed many shortcomings and
disadvantages. In particular, as the expansion of citizens’ income and insurance
coverage, it means the deliberate deviation from the orthodox concept of the capitalist
market. But after all it made the lower people see hope from it. So it played a role in
the unity and cohesion of people in Western countries. Particularly when the
economic modernization tore down the old organization of social integration, it was
especially important to cherish and adhere to this role of social welfare system;
furthermore, the traditional welfare arrangements of family, the commune and private-
market cannot replace the arrangements of the social welfare system. What’s more,
when the new liberalism sought to fiercely criticize and abolish the social welfare
system, their proposed substitute was Chile’s privatized system. But in practice, the
result of the implementation of such a system was to make Chile’s poverty rate
doubled in more than ten years from 17% in 1970 to 38% in 1986 and 1/3 of the
workforce in 1993. This unnecessary poverty can only be counterproductive for the
modernization of Chile, which is clearly too high a social cost the Western welfare
states can not accept. On the other hand, the crisis of the social welfare system in the
seventies in the 20th century was also objective. As time goes by, the Western social
welfare system is indeed unsustainable. Therefore, in this dilemma, Western
developed capitalist countries can only propose and implement some countermeasures
in response to this crisis.
The countermeasures in response to this crisis are generally three types:
The first type is the neo-liberal market-oriented strategy represented by the
United States.
According to its intention, the neo-liberalism is fundamentally opposed to the social
welfare system. It believes that the huge expenditure on social welfare has become a
heavy financial burden on the developed capitalist countries, and it also reduced
economic efficiency and international competitiveness of domestic products and
profits. So developed capitalist countries should cut down welfare expenditure, reduce
the role of government in this area, and be against the state’s regulation on the
unemployment rate; it also believes that the labor market can achieve full employment
through self-regulation of the fluctuations of wage and labor supply and demand. The
substantial cuts of social welfare expenditure will force workers to agree to the
minimum-wage employment, so business owners can get more profits and expand
investment, resulting in further reduction of unemployment. Therefore, according to
the budget spending bill of Republican President Ronald Reagan’s economic recovery
program, the United States cut expenditure 32.5 billion dollars in 1982, 44 billion
dollars in 1983, 51.4 billion dollars in 1984. This kind of spending reduction was
implemented primarily in terms of expenditure on social welfare programs, including
unemployment insurance, housing subsidies, disability subsidies, family allowances,
student subsidies, food subsidies and so on. In 1980’s, according to the so-called
deregulation of neo-liberalism, the United States controlled over economy recession
and domestic unemployment through the market-driven strategy with larger labor
market and higher wage flexibility. Therefore, the United States reduced the minimum

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wage to only 38% of the average income, the value of social subsidies declined to
24% in 1989, and the unemployed who received the insurance of unemployment
continued to decline to 33% in 1989 since the seventies in the twentieth century. In
the eighties in the twentieth century, compared with the middle-income earners, 1/10
of those with the lowest income decreased by 11%.
After Democrat Bill Clinton became president, he changed Reagan’s neo-liberal
politics into center-left politics. In accordance with his stress on sense of
responsibility, he changed the social welfare into work benefits, so welfare became
the second chance, rather than the idea of lifestyle changes. In August 1996, Clinton
announced to reform the social welfare system established in period of Roosevelt’s
New Deal 61 years ago. Through Social Welfare Reform Act, the U.S. government
put an end to the unlimited welfare for the poor in the past, and intended to save 55
billion dollars of welfare spending in the next six years; second, the time limit of
social welfare for American families is five years, beneficiaries who enjoyed social
assistance need to find a job in the consecutive period of two years, otherwise they
will lose all the social assistance; third, the United States will reduce the food ration
coupons, welfare and social security to the non-US citizens; fourth, the United States
will cut down Children’s Relief Fund, if so, 4 million poor children living by this will
be affected; fifth, the US will cancel the supplemental security income for the elderly
and the disabled of non-US citizens. Then Clinton also announced that the people who
enjoyed the welfare benefits decreased by 2.1 million all over the country in the four
years, and awarded the “waiver of welfare benefits milestone” to the state of
Wisconsin with a reduction of 41% of welfare benefits and the state of Indiana with a
reduction of 38%. What’s more, Clinton also announced that they must give
enterprises incentives to encourage them to hire people breaking from welfare
benefits, as well as seek ways to make the private sectors to join to give all Americans
access to economic production so as to create one million jobs for people who
received welfare benefits before. The Clinton administration also saw education as an
important measure for the development of new economy, the reduction of
unemployment and the implementation of welfare policy. But after the Republican
President George W. Bush entered the White House, he only published the Bush
Report to reform the Social Security along the direction of privatization. What should
be noted was that in a considerable period of time, the U.S. workers’ pension was
invested in the stock market and became the largest shareholder of its domestic
business. Ironically, these companies have eliminated the security payments of
pension fund for retired workers, and they tried to achieve privatization of the social
security system together with the government. About 2/3 of the retirement and
pension funds were invested in various bonds, and some were even used to buy their
own company’s stock, the remaining 1/3 for the purchase of treasury bills. In the
nineties in the twentieth century, due to the “bubble economy” in Wall Street, the
retirement and pension funds also experienced its “golden age”, but later it was caught
in recession. In January, 2003, Dow Jones industrial average fell by 34% compared
with three years ago. In mid-2004, the U.S. Treasury yields hovered around only 3%
and was the lowest level in half a century. The decline of stock market and bond
yields led the U.S. retirement and pension funds in trouble, which has not been
restored since then. It is estimated that the contradiction of U.S. retirement and
pension funds has reached 500 billion dollars. At present, the system’s deficit has
reached 300 billion dollars. Where is the road of reform? This is a question that
puzzles many Americans, because once the U.S. retirement and pension funds go into
bankruptcy, it will affect 32500 U.S. enterprises and 44 million workers.

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 The second type is the NordicEuropean strategy for expanding employment
represented by Sweden.
The important characteristic of such a strategy was the change from effective social
policy of maximizing the employment and improving the position of women from the
seventies and eighties in the 20th century to the active labor market of strengthening
gender equality and expanding social services. As the number of secondary industry
jobs in the developed capitalist countries continued to decline, the expansion of
employment and the long-term full employment were mainly achieved by public
sectors to increase their services positions. As in Sweden and other Nordic countries,
50% of children were taken care of by public day-care institutions. Women enjoyed
the paid maternity leave and mother leave, so the rate of women’s participation in
work reached 80%. The positive result of such policy was allowing women to
coordinate their career and fertility, increasing the degree of gender equality in the
family, so even the poverty rate in single-parent family raised by women was not
high. At the same time, from the perspective of social welfare system, it ensured the
comparatively higher taxes and lower spending levels of raising families. But it also
had some negative impacts: First, it caused serious gender separation of men mostly
in the private sectors and women almost in the public sectors, and the result of high
social cost, high absenteeism rate and the high separation of the production in the
latter occasion; the second is the dominant strategy of social services caused a high
proportion of low-technology and high-paying job. If production and private
investment goes into depression, there will be a serious cost issue, which will increase
the pressure on Sweden to face with not only the recession of financial capacity, but
also the creation of public jobs and the implementation of the income subsidies.
On the one hand, Swedish strategy in response to the welfare crisis doesn’t
follow the example of neo-liberal market-oriented strategy represented by the United
States. But on the other hand, Sweden has also expanded the wage differentials;
adjusted marginal tax rates to reduce the reduction of work incentives and the high
rate of absenteeism caused by high welfares; extended the length of pension sharing;
emphasized more on workfare and the requirement for work and training in
unemployment insurance. What’s more, there was a trend of decentralizing and
privatizing services. A variety of priorities were tilted to the benefit of young people
and adults. In particular, a large number of adult re-training policies and lifelong
learning were carried out, social spending tended to be more favorable for young
people than for the elderly.
The new retirement system adopted by the Swedish Parliament in 1994:
First, it changed the system that everyone enjoyed the same treatment of pension
after retirement, that is, 60% of the original salary. Pension varied from people to
people, according to their own ages and the country’s economic situation (the
country’s economic growth, inflation level and the individual retirement age). The
later people retired, the higher pension they could get. Compared with 65-year-old
retirees, 66-year-old retirees could get 9% more pension, 67-year-old retirees with
19% more, and the 68-year-old with 30% more. So retirees could share the
achievement of development and the consequences of the economic crisis together
with the employees who were still working.
Second, it changed their practice of spending all the pensions, and took the
remaining small portion for investment after the payment of pensions in order to
prepare for future pension. For example, after the state extracted 18.5% from
employees’ wages each month for retirement insurance, 16% of them would be used
to cover insurance costs of that year, and the remaining 2.5%, in accordance with the

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wishes of the employees, would be given to financial institutions or state-run
investment fund. Now, people can retire as early as 61 years old in Sweden. At that
time, they can get two incomes: the first one is the accumulation of pension they paid
during their work divided by the number of years (based on the insurance companies’
calculation of the relevant data), then making appropriate adjustments according to
the speed of economic growth. The amount reached will be returned to retirees by the
way of annuity; the second is the part of interest-bearing funds extracted from his
salary according to a proportion of 2.5%. The new retirement system also provides a
series of transitional measures: people born before 1937 comply with the previous
retirement policy; people born after 1954 comply with the full implementation of the
new retirement policy; as to people born in 1938, 80 percent of their pension
calculated according to the old, 20% under the new method of calculation; as for
people born in 1939, 75% under the old method, 25% under the new method, the rest
are under the same method. In addition, all walks of life in Sweden also have their
own supplementary provisions that retirees can receive an amount of pension income
equivalent to about 10% of their salary before retirement.
Third, the European continent, in practice, applied the strategy of reducing the
workforce in employment. In order to reduce the welfare spending, if it is said, the
neo-liberalism represented by the United States has taken the market-oriented
approach to cut wages, and the Scandinavian represented by Sweden takes the
approach of training labor force and creating employment opportunities to arrange the
excess de-industrialized masses without specific techniques, then, the European
continent is nominally taking an approach seemingly to extend the retirement age, but
actually to subsidize early retirement for some workers to leave work. For example,
from 1977, the declination of Germany’s population made Kohl Government decide
to postpone men’s retirement age from 63 years old to 65 years old since 2001,
women’s retirement age from 60-year-old to 65 years old since 2005. But after
Schroeder came to power in 1998, the government cancelled the Kohl’s reform
program. Then after the tragic failure of the Social Democratic Party in local elections
in 1999, Metal Worker’s Union İG Metall proposed that the retirement age be shifted
to an early age of 60 years old in order to solve the unemployment problem. Thus, by
2005, there will be 1.5 million people who can benefit from such measures, and can
provide jobs for young people. Green Party firmly opposed to this proposition, but
Schroeder did not directly oppose but only stressed that the country can not afford its
cost. While the Minister of Labor in the government said retirement at age of 60 “is a
program of both employers and employees, but not the government’s plan”. As a
consequence, Germany’s average retirement age in 1960 was still 65 years old, but at
present only 62.5 years old. The labor market was oversupplied and many older
people retire early in practice , so the average retirement age has declined. Austria is
even the largest European countries for early retirees, where the statutory retirement
age for men is 65 years old, female 60 years old, but the early retirement is allowed
within the time frame of five years away from the statutory retirement age. In recent
years, the state-owned sectors where workers have access to social security are being
forced to become private. The state-owned assets which accounted for 3/4 of the
Austrian industrial in the early 80s have only accounted for 10%-20% in the mid 90s.
This had a great impact on the mood of working-class; besides, the reduction of
financial resources caused the employers to take rational measures to get rid of the old
wage-earners, which made early retirement in Austria become a very common
phenomenon. According to statistics, in 1992, Austria’s population of workers were
three million, retirees 1.7 million, of which 114,000 were early retirees; by 1997,

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Austria’s population of workers were 3.1 million, retirees 1.9 million. Compared with
1992, early retirees have increased by 90,000 people. The result for European
continent to implement this strategy was the reduction of the employed labors. If we
say that in the late 60s, the employment rate of the United States, the European
continent and Scandinavia (the ratio of the employed labor force in the total
population suitable for work) were 65%, then, in future, the employment rate of the
United States would increase to 76% for men and 60% for women; in Sweden, the
employment rate would be 83% for men and 76% for female, while the EC would
make the average employment rate for men and women reduce to 57%. The main
difference here is the employment rate of married women and older men. Therefore,
another result of adopting this strategy is the highly developed social insurance and
comparatively less developed social services, low coverage of children’s social care
and high rate of the elderly living with children, such as up to 40% in some Western
European States, while less than 10% in northern Europe and less than 15% in the
United States. So some people called the welfare states in Europe continent, in
essence, to be the state to transfer benefits to families.

3 The concept and practice of the reform of “Third Way” on social welfare
system
The strategy Western developed capitalist countries have taken in response to the
welfare crisis aimed at solving urgent, temporary and regional issues. This left a blank
for Western European social welfare system reform both in theory and in practice
from an overall and long term height. But in mid1990’s, the emerging “Third Way”
vawe was trying to fill this gap.
In modern history, the experiment of “Third Way” between and beyond capitalism and
socialism has appeared several times in past times . But “Third Way” here has
different connotations. It refers to the political theory and practice of taking the third
way between and beyond the West Old Left and New Right, that is, the traditional
social democracy and neo-liberalism, which was influenced by welfare reform ideas
and practices of the U.S. President Bill Clinton, and advocated by British Labor Party
leader and Prime Minister Tony Blair and his “spiritual mentor” the British sociologist
Anthony Giddens.
In September 1998, in the booklet Third Way: the New Century Politics, Blair defined
at the outset “the Third Way”, he said: “the Third Way represents a modern social
democracy that enthusiastically committes to its goal of social justice and center-left
political objectives, but with a flexible, innovative and far-sighted way to achieve
them.” The reason why we say “it is the third way, because it firmly goes beyond the
Old Left which controls high taxation and producers’ interests in the exclusive state
and the New Right which considers public investment, and often the ‘social’ and
collective concepts as evil to be eliminated”. However, “the Third Way is not a
compromise between the Right and Left; it plays the role of traditional values in a
changing world”. “The Third Way” believes that the first major feature of the change
in the contemporary world is the gradual development of global market and global
culture; the second one is the advances in technology and the increase of the
professional skills and information have become the main drive of employment and
new industries; the third one is the change of women’s role; the fourth one is the rapid
development of the nature of politics itself. The reason for making the question of
modernizing social democracy is that “after the seventies in the 20th century, social
democracy has become too rigid and the post-war social-democratic methods have
become more infeasible”. In the world with increasing competition, external shocks,

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industry and technology changes, the policy model of controlling demand and the
high level of state-owned instruction is becoming increasingly invalid in promoting
economic growth and curbing unemployment. The political philosophy of “Third
Way” is related to many aspects of the contemporary developed capitalist world, but
mainly against the West’s social welfare system, which aimed at “opening up a new
road for welfare reform”.
“The Third Way”, on the one hand, affirmed the role of the Western welfare
states in history, saying it was a major creation in the 20th century, which led many
people out of poverty and offered new opportunities for tens of thousands of people
and improved the quality of life for the poor; on the other hand, under the new
historical conditions, it is becoming increasingly invalid. In the book Beyond Left and
Right published in 1994, Giddens especially emphasized “to rethink the problem of
the welfare state with a fundamental way”.
First, the welfare state is formed through the approach of “class compromise”
or “reconciliation” in the past, but significant change has happened to those social
conditions.
Second, the security system of the welfare state is to cope with external risks, rather
than designed for artificial risks. So no matter in terms of the counterbalance of
poverty or the achievement of the large-scale redistribution of income and wealth, on
the whole, the welfare state did not work effectively.
Third, it is associated with a default model of the traditional gender roles
believing that male participates in the paid labor force.
Fourth, the bureaucracy of the welfare states, like any bureaucracy elsewhere,
also tends to become inflexible and impersonal.
Fifth, the welfare-dependence to some extent may be a reality, rather than the
neo-liberal fabrications.
Sixth, the welfare states were consolidated in the post-war period with long-term
high unemployment rate, which seems not to be revived.
Seventh, the dominant model for welfare system to develop a “full-time
permanent employment” is based on the central position of the scale production in the
economy, as well as the centralized organization of capital and wage labor. The
welfare state is a unified nation-state, of which the corporate doctrine strengthened
national unity, and the new period of globalization, affected not only the economic
base of the welfare state, but also the belief of its citizens to consider their wealth
equivalent to national wealth.
Eighth, welfare life is a life which tends to make people lack of ethics, resulting
in mutual influence between stable community and family life. This welfare
dependency also makes social and economic environment immobilized and
institutionalized. Leftist writers believe that the lower class is composed of members
of minority groups, blacks or people with Spanish Latin origin so as to be needed by
the market system; while Rightists believe that the lower class is not composed of the
victims of the market system, but composed of those who exclude themselves from
the system and choose to take advantage of the benefits of the welfare states, so the
lower class is precisely the creator of welfare dependency. When people change their
behaviors with the insurance protection and thereby re-defined it as insured risk,
moral hazard arises. And the more welfare is provided by the welfare states, the
greater the possibility of moral hazard and fraud is.
Ninth, the welfare system can not achieve substantial redistribution of wealth and
income, in fact, to some extent it has become a tool for the growing middle class to
promote their interests; on the contrary, as to the realization of the objective of

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reducing economic inequality through redistribution, the welfare states are not very
effective, because poverty mitigation primarily is not through the redistribution from
the more affluent people to the poor, but the general increase in wealth.
Tenth, the purpose of most welfare measures is to solve what has happened
rather than the root of events. This is the main reason for “state failure”.
Giddens believes that the Third Way’s assessment of the welfare states is different
from neo-liberalism’s, because new liberalism considers welfare state as the source of
all evils which caused great harm to the beneficiaries of its own vision --- the weak,
the poor and unfortunate people. It weakened the spirit of individual initiative and
independence, and brewed out some kind of explosive resentment in our free society.
Neo-liberals believe that after the collapse of welfare states, economic growth should
be guided by the market. Welfare system should not be interpreted as a relief, but
should be understood as the maximum of economic growth and the overall wealth. So
they advocate the establishment of a smaller welfare safety net. However, Giddens
also believes that the third way should accept some of the criticisms on the welfare
states raised by the Right. Now the dependence on a top-down welfare distribution
system, fundamentally speaking, is very undemocratic. Its main motive is to protect
and care for individuals, but it does not leave enough room for individual freedom.
Certain types of welfare agencies are bureaucratic, divorced from the masses and
inefficient, and welfare may be the unreasonable result which has contravened the
original intention of the welfare system. But on this point, the Third Way is also
different from neo-liberalism, because it does not consider these problems as signals
of elimination of the welfare states, but as reasons for the reconstruction of the
welfare states. Third Way believes that people should think about this reconstruction
following the idea of the positive model of the welfare, and proposes the concept of
“social investment state” to replace the concept of “welfare states” so as to control
active welfare policies.
To sum up, the idea of “the Third Way” to reform the welfare states is mainly
related to the following five concepts:
First, its viewpoint of equality.
“the Third way” claims its passionate commitment to social justice in a flexible,
innovative and far-sighted way, then how does it treat equality?
“The Third Way” believes that equality has overriding importance, because it is
related to people’s life chance, that is, well-being and self-esteem; and inequality is
harm to the society itself and a threat to social cohesion for failing to enable its
citizens to the fullest talents and abilities. However, it is opposed to the neo-liberal
model of equal opportunity and meritocracy model, believing that the Right considers
the opportunity as individual freedom without state control, so this model is untenable
because it would cause serious inequality of income and a threat to the social
cohesion. Thus it should adopt the new principle of political science and define
equality as inclusiveness and inequality as exclusiveness. It is also opposed to “the
egalitarianism at any cost” of the traditional Left, believing that this is a bad
Utopianism without future. What’s more, the Left used to belittle the personal and
family development and the responsibility to offer a wide range of opportunities.
From the most negative perspective, it inhabited the opportunity due to the abstract
equality.
In his essay The Question of Inequality included in The Global Third Way
Debate published in 2001, Giddens emphasized “the current Left needs to develop a
point of view of equality, dynamic, and life chances, focusing on equality of
opportunity. This concept of equal opportunity is reflected as “government and the

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state should not give its citizens the supply of food, housing and clothing, but it
should guarantee its citizens to use their own efforts to win the necessary social
conditions for another full citizenship” on welfare issues. Giddens particularly quoted
the Nobel laureate and India scholars Amartya Sen’s concept of “social competence”
as a starting point to elaborate that equality and inequality are not only in terms of
availability of the social and material goods. They are “rotating around the self-
realization”, “not involved in economic deprivation, but rather the consequence of
such deprivation of personal happiness”. Thus, despite an unemployed living in a high
welfare state is in the same or similar position with the in-service personnel in
economic, as for the well-being is concerned, his situation is worse than theirs,
because compulsory unemployment is widely linked to self-esteem and “oppression
of surplus time”. But on the other hand, the emphasis on equal opportunity still needs
the redistribution of wealth and income, because equal opportunity may lead to
unequal result. Therefore, without the redistribution of wealth and income, the
unequal result of one generation will become the unequal opportunity of the next
generation. All in all, the pursuit of equality must be the political core of “the Third
Way”, the measure of “taking from the rich and giving back to the rich” is still the
core of the central-left policies.
Second, its viewpoint of rights and responsibilities.
“The Third Way” believes that, for a long time, it is civic duty to ask for rights
from nation, and that the mutual responsibilities between individuals and society are
separated from each other. Unemployment benefits are often paid without equal
obligation. However, in fact, our rights reflect our responsibilities. Without
responsibilities, rights and opportunities would become the motive of selfishness and
greed. Thus, they believe that “a new social contract connecting the rights and
responsibilities should be established”1. That is to say, if the majority wants to pursue
their life plans freely, in logic, they should shoulder the responsibilities for the
consequences of what they do on themselves and others.
If the terms of civil rights, particularly welfare rights and the corresponding
duties are not clearly defined, it will cause the major problems of moral hazard in
welfare system. The welfare system without duties will also cause a kind of cheating
culture, such as the reflection in the high level of deception. Responsibilities and
rights in parallel is one of the guiding principles to lead welfare to work program. We
should put “no right no responsibility ”as the motto of a new type of politics as well
as an ethical principle. It not only applies to welfare recipients, but also applies to
each individual. Those who receive unemployment benefits should take the initiative
to fulfill the obligation to find work, while it depends on the government whether it
can ensure that various social welfare systems will not obstruct the behaviors of
searching jobs actively.
Third, it is associated with the state and the market.
“The Third Way” believes that, in the reform of the welfare states, the reform of
government and the state is the most important. But on this issue, the point of view of
“the Third Way” is different from both the Old Left and the New Right. The Old Left
believes that market is not rational in essence, so it is difficult to achieve social
justice. They consider state and government as the driving force for the promotion of
social justice, believing that it is the responsibility of the state to solve the harm of the
market failures. Thus they put more and more tasks in the hands of the state, which
would result in the disproportionate expansion with the scope of government’s

1 Giddens: The Question of Inequality, included in The Global Third Way Debate, 2001, Polity Edition, Page 178-
180

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intervention and the emerging bureaucracy. The overload of bureaucratic countries
will not only be unable to provide good services, but also lead to the disorder of
economic prosperity. On the contrary, neo-liberalism of the New Right or market
fundamentalism then emphasizes the primacy of individual freedom in the market
economy. It is believed that the overall intervention of state not only hampers the
development of capitalism1, such as the unprecedented “stagflation” of the West
economy, but also caused a lot of social problems and threatened the individual
freedom seriously. They believe that “the so-called weakest states” is the states that
proved to have the most functions. The misfortunate caused by the gaps of
distribution can be eased and solved by means of persuading individual charity, but it
can not be solved by force of the government, otherwise, new or perhaps even greater
misfortune would occur. A fundamental political task of “the Third Way” that is
different from the Old Left and the New Right is to re-achieve a positive dynamic role
for the government in the restoration and refreshment of the public mechanism,
making the government and the state agents to become transparent, customer-oriented
and efficient.
The positive benefits often require state intervention, but certain aspects of the
intrinsic link between “welfare” and “state” must be broken. Accordingly, the state
should not be the person rowing the boat, but should be the person at the helm.The
state should not dominate the market or civil society, although it needs to regulate and
interfere with them. Government and the country must be strong enough to be at the
helm to promote social development and social justice effectively. And an effective
market economy is the best way to promote prosperity and economic benefits. After
the effective control of monopoly, the market has to provide opportunities for each
individual, in principle, to participate in open competition; yet they must also limit the
role of the market. Where market intrusion is allowed in too many areas of social life,
there would have all kinds of unacceptable results. For the insecurity and inequality
caused by market, it is necessary for the government to intervene and regulate so as to
make it minimized and avoid violations of commercialism of government or civil
society.
Fourth, with regard to unemployment and employment.
Faced with the high rate of unemployment in the developed capitalist society,
especially in European continent, the welfare states distributed relief funds without
restriction, and then caused financial difficulties. The Third Way believes that it is
also related to restrictions on personal ability to find work and social exclusion.
People who have never had work or in long-term unemployment lack necessary skills
for competition in the labor market, and long-term unemployment also undermine
other opportunities of those people in life, which makes it difficult for individuals to
fully integrate into society, so it must be reformed. The general idea of reform is to
change “post-redistribution” into “possible redistribution” which can develop human
potential and promote human creativity and ability, that is, to change the “living
benefits” of government’s gift-type relief for the unemployed into active “workfare”
which can give employability to the unemployed.
The government should link welfare and work together to enable young people
and all unemployed people who have the ability to work to go to work from reliance
on welfare, to make the labor have suitable value, to bring income to individuals and
families and to invest the necessary skills for individuals. This means that the
government should invest the increasing social welfare expenditure primarily into
human resources and life-long education, so the social welfare state can become a
1 Giddens: The Question of Inequality, included in The Global Third Way Debate, 2001, Polity Edition, Page 8.

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“social investment state”; as for individuals, they should consider the unemployment
stage as an opportunity to obtain a new qualification and personal development.
Thus, in the active welfare society, the contract between individuals and government
changed, because initiative and self-development will become a priority; at the same
time, in this process, the welfare expenditure will be created and distributed not only
by the government, but it will be provided through the cooperation between the
government and other institutions (including enterprises) so as to promote the welfare
states to change into a welfare society with diversity of investors.
Fifth, it is with regard to aging and pensions emeklilik .
Confronted with the more and more serious aging problems in Western society,
with the government’s increasing expenditure on pension beyond the affordability of
the state and the untenable situation of crisis, “the Third Way” proposed to rethink
what the aging means from a deeper level, but not those problems such as who should
pay the pension, how much should be paid, through what way and so on. They
proposed that the aging has become a much opener process in a more active and more
reflective society, no matter from the physical or psychological level. The
opportunities presented by the fact of being into the aging are at lest as many as the
problems it brought about.
The traditional view of considering the elderly as the pensioners is clearly
demonstrated the elderly’s loss of the ability to meet the standards of social members,
their dependence on the welfare and they are widely considered as the medical and
financial burden of the national community and other members. This might be the
reason for many elderly’s loss of self-esteem. However, the study of the United States
Institute on aging shows that many physical difficulties of the elderly, fundamentally
speaking, have nothing to do with the old age, but have more to do with the way of
everyday life. For people over the age of 65, 80% of their health problems can be
largely controlled through changes in lifestyle. From the point of view what the state
must “solve”, the largely increasing aging population may be a problem, but from the
dynamic political standpoint, it is also an important opportunity for active
reconstruction. Dynamic political program here is reflected to consider the elderly not
as the troublemakers, but as the driving force to resolve the current difficulties. The
key point is to create the conditions for them to show their talent and skills. Under
these conditions, retirement doesn’t mean uselessness. For most people over the age
of 65, they don’t want to work for work, but want to get satisfaction from work. They
consider it as a means of improving the happiness and quality returns of life. The
elderly should be considered as part of the creators of wealth, and they have the
ability to make a contribution to revenue. On the contrary, if a community considers
the elderly as retirees and separates them from the majority in society, this means it is
not an inclusive society. Third Way believes that the elderly should be considered not
as a stage only with the enjoyment of rights but without responsibilities, but as
valuable resources not financial burden. So it maintains that we should phase out the
fixed retirement age, and separate the elderly from the corresponding pension. People
can freely choose the time to use the pension, which can not only make them stop
working at any age, but also provide funds for education or reduce working hours in
the period of child rearing; individuals can choose to stop work earlier, or work for
more time.
Under the guidance of these ideas, British Government led by Tony Blair
reformed the welfare system, and the basic principles are: that only those who are
totally incapable can get access to national remedies; able-bodied people must work.
This principle can apply to young people, single mothers and the disabled. In order to

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realize this principle, the government offers advice, training and retraining and child
care, under certain conditions, also provides jobs and other assistance in entering the
labor positions, which aims at reducing poverty, narrowing social gaps, increasing
personal security and opportunity and using the money of taxpayers smartly.
According to this principle, British implemented a maximum tuition fee of £ 1000 per
year for university students, and changed student grants into the way of long-term
loans; the measure of reducing subsidies for single-parent families was almost making
the British community disintegrated; the measure of reducing subsidies for the
disabled resulted in the first rebel within cabinet and the protest of people in
wheelchairs in Downing Street. Some protesters even poured themselves red color to
cause sensational effect. They also changed relief into employment, helped young
people and poor single mothers find jobs, let the unemployed choose or get regular
work subsidized by the government six months or participate in volunteer labor, if
they refuse these options, 40% of their relief would be cut down. They also made
welfare tests of middle-level families, seeing if they can give up some benefits
provided by the state so far.
It is worth mentioning the implementation of “young unemployed plan” of Tony
Blair’s British government between 1997 and 2001 that cost 5.2 billion pounds
budget. The focus of this plan is on the development of employment guidance and
professional competence, and its object is young people aged between 18 and 24
without employment for six months or more. First, the government would let them go
to the public employment agency to handle the procedures involved in the project;
then equipped each object with a private consultant. In the period of 4-month
“employment week”, these people interviewed with consultants once a week; at the
same time, employment activities were implemented. Consultants gave spiritual
comfort to their objects, put forward feasible proposals, guided and helped those who
are lack of literacy and not familiar with writing resumes. The government would also
provide vocational and educational training programs for those who experienced the
4-month “employment week” so that they can serve in the private sectors or the public
sectors, receive education and skills training or participate in the activities of
environmental groups. If they refuse to make any choice, the government will reduce
or stop their unemployment subsidies. In the meantime, the young unemployed can
also be subject to a training designed to achieve national qualifications, and
employers who employ the young unemployed can benefit from government
subsidies. Between 1998 and 2001, among 720,000 people who participate in this
program, 640,000 completed the plan and 250,000 found jobs.
Another notable reform is the new pension system introduced by the Blair
government. It should be said that Britain handled the pension system much better
than other Western developed countries. Its retirement insurance assets accounted for
77% of GDP (France 12.5%, Italy 7%), while pensions did not exceed 4.5% of GDP
(Germany 11%, France 10.6%). Under the new pension system, only 20% of British
residents can enjoy plenty of pensions on time, while 50% of the workers may face
difficulties in their daily life due to only half of their pensions. With the proportion of
the population over the age of 65 from 16% in 1990 to 23% in 2030, the United
Kingdom will have 1/3 of the retirees to rely on state subsidies for 30 years. Labor
government thought that this potential burden was unbearable, so they took out 1/3 of
the social insurance budget of that year as the basic pension, that is, 100 billion
pounds. According to the current system, if an employee paid the social welfare funds
in most time of the employment as required, he can receive £70 “basic pension” a
week, and a couple can receive about £100; while those employees who didn’t choose

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the recognized pension system would have to comply with the national supplementary
system of the national pension plan starting in 1978. Now the Blair government tried
to replace it by the State Second Pension, which is mainly for low-income people with
annual income less than 9500 pounds. At present, among 25 million workers in UK,
about 6 million people are protected by the state pension system, 10.7 million people
enjoy the occupational pensions managed by the enterprises, and 7 million people
enjoy the protection of personal pension scheme. After 1997, the British labor party
established “share of the pension” for 3 million low-income people, who have an
annual income between £9000 and £18,000 and can neither get the occupational
pensions managed by the employers nor have money to choose the “personal
pension”. This pension is operated by the insurance company while still under the
state control. The annual management fee is limited within 1%, so these low-income
earners can save £ 3600 per year by use of this new means of tax-free pension
savings.

Section 6 How to Understand the Swedish Model of Democratic Socialism

In some people’s minds, the Swedish model is the idol they worship. They
believe that its implementation of the social welfare system created a road for the
developed capitalist countries to realize the peaceful transition to socialism within the
framework of democracy and realized the common prosperity with shrinking
difference. It not only affected the entire Western industrial countries, and its
experience also had a universal value, so it was the living Marxism which changed the
direction of human history. However, this is only their subjective imagination. The
fact is that: although “welfare socialism” implemented by the Swedish model
considered welfare policy as socialism at the very beginning, and achieved good
results in the process of implementation, but it didn’t eliminate a series of defects
associated with private ownership of means of production. So with the highlights of
the limitations and drawbacks of “welfare socialism”, its nature has received more
and more serious doubts. Because of this, the Swedish model entered into its second
phase: “functional socialism” to re-summarize the Swedish model from the
perspective of ownership of the means of production. But in fact “functional
socialism” was nothing more than the different expressions of the traditional theory of
the Swedish model. It didn’t eliminate and it was also impossible to eliminate all the
drawbacks inherent in “welfare socialism”. This made Sweden fall into the most
serious post-war economic crisis since the mid-1970s, which gave birth to “fund
socialism” with the symbol of the Employee Investment fund Act which was
established by the Swedish Parliament in early 1980s. As the third phase of the
Swedish model, “fund socialism” attempted to change the private ownership to some
extent so as to make various bourgeoisie groups ally and launch the ideological and
political counter-attack. The Swedish Social Democrats, however, did not do a good
job on the preparation for the serious challenge of the private ownership both from
their ideology, programs and political strategy, so they ultimately could not escape the
fate of the abandonment of “fund socialism”, even bills passed by Parliament were
also overturned by the bourgeoisie.
In all parties affiliated to the Socialist International, the Swedish Social
Democratic Party occupies a special place, because the consecutive years of its twice
holding of powers in the 20th century was over half a century; its achievements and
the impact on the world during this period are even second to none of the Western

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Democratic Parties. Sweden is a Nordic country with more than 8 million people and
an area of no more than 450,000 square kilometers. However, in this period, its
proportion in the world’s industrial production was four times more than its
proportion of the world’s population, the proportion of export being nine times more,
supply of machinery and equipment being fourteen times more. And the increase of
the employment rate also went beyond the growth of population, with long-term
maintenance of the low unemployment rate between 1% and 2%. The per-capita
income levels, social security, health care, education, environmental protection and
other indicators have entered into the world’s leading ranks.
Swedish Social Democratic Party was originally a socialist party which
advocated implementing public ownership of means of production through the road of
revolution and reform simultaneously. In the speech Why Labor Movement Must be
Socialist? made by the first President Branting in October 1886, he said, “The
preparation for transition to socialism is a great historical mission of contemporary
working class”. On the problem of the transition to socialism, although in principle he
advocated gradual reform rather than revolution, he didn’t rule out the possibility of
the use of violence. Around the establishment of cabinet based on Social Democratic
Party in 1920, Branting also advocated the adoption of a reformist and peaceful means
to achieve the unique condition of the Swedish-based socialism. After Branting died
in 1925, Albin Hansen took over the presidency in 1932 and formed its first
government, then he began the construction of the Swedish model for half a century.

1 Welfare socialism: “the socialism of social democrats is welfare policy”

The first phase of the Swedish model is the “functional socialism” between the
early 1930s and the late 1960s . The base of its fundamental theory is that the goal of
socialism is general welfare, and therefore everything for welfare is socialism; and
then it believes “socialism of social democrats is welfare policy” 1. Welfare socialism
is Hansen’s amendments to the traditional thinking of Social Democratic Party.
Swedish Social Democratic Party declared itself “a revolutionary political party” on
its establishment. Although its first President Branting advocated a reformist path, he
still considered nationalization as gradual improvements step by step to achieve the
ultimate goal of the abolition of the capitalist system. After Hansen took over the
second president of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, he gradually replaced the
policy of nationalization by the ideals and policies of welfare socialism, and fully
completed the evolution of social reformism from theory to practice.
Around 1928, Hansen proposed the idea that Social Democratic Party should
claim “People’s Party” and establish “People’s Home”. He said “if the Swedish
community wants to become a good home for its citizens, it must abolish class
differences, develop social care, and implement economic equality, economic and
social democracy. In this equalization, the workers should participate in the economic
management, achieve democracy and apply it to social and political areas”2. In the
natioanl election in 1928, the votes for the Social Democratic Party reduced due to its
inheritance of traditional society. In 1930 local election, they only made limited
objectives of social policy, but won a certain victory. So Hansen was determined to
replace the traditional socialist principles by policies of “People’s Party” and
“People’s House”. He considered equality, welfare, and cooperation as the “basic
demands of People’s Home” and placed them before the long-term goal of
1Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten: The ideological development of Swedish Social Democrats, Todor-watt version in
1973, Page 328.
2Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten: The ideological development of Swedish Social Democrats, Todor-watt version in
1973, Page 265.

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nationalization.
The economic crisis of the capitalist world provided an opportunity for the
Swedish Social Democratic Party to achieve the idea of “People’s Home”. At that
time, the unemployed almost accounted for 1/3 of the total number of workers so that
strikes continued to occur. Therefore, some people within the party believed that
capitalism had come to an end, thus nationalization should be implemented as soon as
possible. But Hansen believed that crisis doesn’t mean the collapse of capitalism. And
he proposed an anti-crisis program with the main means of state intervention and the
main content of full employment, stimulus of production and improvement of
people’s living standards. As a result, Social Democratic Party received over 1.04
million votes, accounting for 41.7% of the total number of votes in parliament, thus it
began the consecutive 44 years governing.
After Hansen formed a cabinet as prime minister, he made immediate policy in
accordance with the principle of solidarity and cooperation to change society, lay the
basis for prosperity and brought benefits for all people. And he particularly
emphasized the need to care about short-term goals, to achieve the objectives of
welfare socialism and establish “People’s Home” by means of class co-operation,
elimination of differences and mutual compromise. For this reason, under the name of
Prime Minister, he made formal co-operative invitations to private entrepreneurs,
cooperated with Peasant Party representing the interests of ranch owners and adopted
a series of anti-crisis measures, such as expanding public projects, providing the
equivalent wages as the labor market for workers, offering financial assistance for
anti-unemployment measures and various types of emergency projects of the state,
easing the restrictions on unemployment relief, providing loans to housing
construction and municipal engineering around the country, offering loans or
subsidies for private enterprises, implementing structure plans aimed at guiding the
national economy structural model and so on. Hansen also changed the nature of
social relief in the past, led it to develop towards the direction of social security and
implemented a series of measures gradually, such as retirement system, dental
services, unemployment insurance, working hours law ( 工 时 法 ?) and two-week
vacation system. These measures succeeded in the better environment of the world
market: the production increased; the market activated; the unemployment rate
declined significantly; and the crisis eased. People compared it to the Roosevelt New
Deal in the United States and called it “Hansen New Deal”.
The second Hansen government since 1936 further implemented social welfare
policies. In the parliamentary election in 1940, the rate of votes for Social Democratic
Party rose to the highest level of 54%, hence there the “Swedish model” became
famous in the whole world. Hansen believed although nationalization didn’t develop
as traditional mode in Sweden, all he implemented was socialist. He said
nationalization “is not the transfer of ownership of all the major means of production,
but first of all is the effort of the state and society aimed at creating good living
conditions for people”1. Thus welfare socialism was formed.
After Hansen died in October, 1964, the successor Ehrlander continued to
adhere to his welfare policies, and advocated, with “freedom, equality, unity and
cooperation” as the basic values, achieving the goal of “classless society” filled with
“protection, freedom, cooperation, solidarity and equality”, and implemented
proportional electoral system, laws referendum, “the post-war labor movement
program” and so on, so that the building of social welfare in Sweden made

1 Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten: The Ideological Development of Swedish Social Democrats, Todor-watt version,
1973, Page 327-328.

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remarkable achievements.
But the welfare socialism in Sweden didn’t change the power structure of
society and class differences fundamentally, and didn’t eliminate a range of ills
associated with the capitalist private ownership of means of production, so limitations
and shortcomings of welfare socialism were exposed day by day in late 60s in the
20th century, with the appearance of new socialist movement aimed at criticizing
modern capitalist system in west and the spread and expansion of New Left thought.
On the one hand, objectives such as equal distribution of national income emphasized
by welfare socialism has come true in Netherlands, Belgium, France, and other non-
socialist governments; on the other hand, even the most stubborn conservatives also
supported these welfare measures, which could not fail to make the masses of people
suspect the socialist nature of the welfare socialism. Western economists Grucci
pointed out: the ruling result of Swedish Social Democratic Party for several decades
was that “there is no progress for Sweden in the realization of the socialist
organizations of industry and socialist society of the proletariat. The majority of
industries are still in private hands; property ownership is still highly concentrated;
and class differences are still strong”1. It is precisely because of the doubt of the
nature of welfare socialism in Sweden and abroad, when he was the general secretary
of the Socialist International, Hans Janicek emphasized that “there have been major
doubts about the old value and old information, as well as the rethinking of the old
actions and the old way of doing things”; “For social democracy, the simple claim to
be more humane than the defenders of free enterprises, manage the welfare state with
mixed economy more effectively, will prove to be only an increasingly ineffective
strategy in the 70s (in the 20th century). The younger generation with political
consciousness found the imprint on social democracy left by the 60s disgusting,
which is a signal of the emerged danger”2. The result of Swedish Social Democratic
Party conducting the “ideological re-thinking” was the proposition of “functional
socialism” to replace “welfare socialism”.
2 Functional socialism: re-summarizing the Swedish model from the perspective of
public ownership of means of production
In Hansen’s period, if it is said that the Swedish Social Democrats have
summarized the characteristics of the Swedish model as “welfare socialism”, then
under the situation of the increasing exposure of the shortcomings of the welfare
socialism and people’s demands for giving greater attention to the problem of
ownership of the means of production, the Swedish Social Democrats re-summarized
it as “functional socialism”. The first person proposing the outline of this new theory
is the Swedish Social Democrat Gagner Adler-Carlson.
Carlson is a young social democrat studying the legal profession in Sweden and
the United States, and he turned to economics after returning in 1962. The College life
in 1960s made him feel the impact of the trend of New Left thought on traditional
theories and strategies of the Social Democratic Party. In 1965, when he introduced
the Swedish situation to the group of Latin American student leaders to Sweden, an
idea of making new theoretical summary of the idea of the Swedish model of
democratic socialism came to his mind. Thus he immediately wrote and published a
pamphlet entitled Socialism in operation: Theory of Swedish Social Democracy. After
revision and expansion in 1969, he renamed it to Function Socialism: Theory of the
Nationality of Swedish Democracy and published it in English. Since then, “functional
socialism” of the Swedish Social Democratic Party became popular both inside and

1 Grucci: Comparative Economic System, China Social Sciences Publishing House, 1985, Page 388.
2 See the Socialist International in 1971, Issue 4.

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outside of Sweden.
As a kind of new summary of the characteristics of the Swedish model, the
differences between functional socialism and welfare socialism lay in that functional
socialism met new fashion and trends, changed welfare socialist approach of avoiding
the problem of the ownership of the means of production into direct access to this
problem, and recognized the need to transform the capitalist private ownership of the
means of production; it also changed the welfare socialist approach of complete
negation of the nationalization of the means of production into the implementation of
nationalized functions within the structure of capitalist private ownership.
Carlson’s demonstration of functional socialism began from the introduction to
his teacher’s theory of ownership. He believed that the concept of ownership is not an
indivisible concept; on the contrary, it is a concept including a number of ownership
functions which can be divided easily. Therefore, ownership O is not simply equal to
the entire contents of ownership, but equal to the sum of a, b, c and other functions,
another way of expressing that is: O = a + b + c... + n. This kind of logic shows that in
order to achieve the goal of socialism, it is unnecessary to conduct a comprehensive
nationalization in the community, but only to some of the ownership functions, such
as the nationalization of a and b, but except the function c. This is completely
sufficient or even better in economic terms1.
Carlson took the ownership of the homeowners as an example to demonstrate:
in society with the unrestricted ownership, this ownership means functions such as
residence, rental, and any disposal of the housing, evictions for the lease expiration,
demolition and alteration of the housing, transfer of the house sales income abroad
and so on.
The characteristics of the functional socialism in Sweden lay in that it is the complete
nationalization of the whole housing, but only the control of part of the above-
mentioned functions so as to encourage the homeowners’ social rather than non-social
use of their homeownership.
“In this way, although we didn’t make the ownership of housing fully nationalized, we
have indirectly made many of the functions of the unrestricted ownership
nationalized.”2 This is to say, in the case of preserving the capitalist ownership of
means of production, the state may make the capitalists to accept restrictions on their
ownership of the means of production through direct means of parliamentary
legislation and indirect means of economic policies, ask them to share these rights
with others or use the means of production and engage in business activities only in
accordance with the interests of the whole society. Carlson believed this can not only
keep capitalists’ role of promotion and competitiveness in the economic life, but also
eliminate the inevitable drawbacks and social conflicts caused by capitalists’
unrestricted use of the means of production; it can not only lead the capitalists to meet
the personal desires, but also meet the requirements of the working class to improve
their lives.
Carlson believed “functional socialism” is just as the Italian ‘Salami sausage’
strategy, which means it won’t charge the butcher too much effort, then the capitalist
sausage could easily be cut down piece by piece.”3
In the end of the book, Carlson compared the function nationalization to the
approach of Scandinavian gradually depriving of their king’s power. He wrote:
“Let us take the means of dealing with the Scandinavian King to deal with
1 Carlson: Function Socialism---Theory of the Nationality of Swedish Democracy, contained in From Functional
Socialism to Fund Socialism, Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, 1988, Page16.
2 From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page17.
3 From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page67-68.

329
the capitalists! 100 years ago, any one of the Scandinavian Kings has many powers;
50 years ago, he still exercised considerable power. According to our Constitution, the
King still has the formal authority as much as 100 years ago; but in real life, we have
deprived him of all powers, so in fact, he has no power to speak of today. We achieved
this without dangerous and destructive internal struggles. We should use the same way
to avoid the kind of even more dangerous confrontation, but if we embark on the road
of formal nationalization, then the more dangerous confrontation is inevitable. Let us
not do this, but deny and suppress these capitalists’ ownership functions one after
another. Let us even give new clothes to capitalists, but it is the similar clothes with
the emperor’s in Hans Christian Andersen’s famous Fairy Tales.”
“Several decades later, capitalists will still exist, and may also be the same as
the existence of the king in form. However, in fact, they are just a symbol of the
outdated lower stages of development.” 1
The book Functional Socialism of Carlson summarizes the experiences and
achievements of the Swedish model from the theory of ownership. Therefore, it first
of all, received support and encouragement from the Swedish Social Democrats.
Within a short period of five years after the publication of the book, it had been
reprinted 16 times in a row.
The impact of Carlson’s book Functional Socialism was far beyond the scope
of the Swedish. Within a short period of five years, it had been translated into seven
languages published abroad and excerpted extensively in many newspapers and
magazines such as Socialist International Communication. It was also considered as
the most complete and most mature theory with most economic basis among a variety
of theories of local nationalization proposed by the Social Democratic Party. Carlson
himself also won a huge international reputation. He was first invited to the Vienna
Institute for Comparative Economic Research as a researcher, then to the University
Center of Roskilde in Denmark as a professor of social sciences. What’s more, he has
also been appointed as the director of Capri National Institute of Social Philosophy in
Italian.
But on the other hand, functional socialism was a new summary of the Swedish model
and experience in order to replace Welfare Socialism, but not the new policy. Just as
some people said, compared with welfare socialism, functional socialism is nothing
more than the different expression of the traditional theory of the Swedish Social
Democratic Party. So it didn’t and can not eradicate the drawbacks of the Swedish
model known as welfare socialism. This made Sweden into the most serious
economic crisis from the mid-1970s since the war.
The first was the decline of the average annual growth rate of GNP from 5.3%
in 1960-1965, to 3.8% in 1965-1970, 3% in 1970-1974, 0.3% in 1974-1977, and 1.5%
in 1977-1983.
The second was the increase of welfare spending, and the growth of the financial
deficit, from 24.218 billion Kronain 1977-1987 to 38.941 billion Krona in 1978-1979,
and 55 billion Kronain 1980-1981.
The third is the inflation and currency devaluation. Between 1973 and 1984,
the inflation was 10.2%; between 1970 and 1982, community retail price index grew
twice; the currency started three devaluations; relative price of Swedish koruna and
the U.S. dollar declined from 4.08:1 in 1974 to 9.1:1 in February, 1985, then rose to
7.05:1 in April, 1986.
With the deterioration of the economic situation, rising unemployment and the

1 From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 96-97.

330
intensification of social conflicts, there were 17.5 strikes per year in 1960s, up to 142
strikes in 1970s. The collection of these cases finally led to the increasing decrease of
the votes of the Swedish Social Democratic Party in the general election, from 50.1%
in 1966, to 45.3% in 1970 and 43.7% in 1973, and finally lost its consecutive 44 years
of power in the election of 1976.
Because of this, when Carlson wrote the two terms of “Swedish model” and
“functional socialism” for the 1986 German edition of Socialist Dictionary, he also
made a new self-evaluation of functional socialism: “As an empirical theory of
political action, functional socialism didn’t achieve much.” “I used to think, it may
deprive the capitalists of all important functions, but this metaphor is misleading. One
problem that can not be solved is that: Whenever people cut off a function at one end
of the capitalist Salami sausage, there will re-grow two new functions at the other
end.”1
With the increasing internationalization of the economy, the special Swedish
model tends to integrate with universal model of capitalism in Western Europe.
People can not say that in Sweden there is a special kind of democratic socialism,
unless people really intend to confuse the concept.2
With the decline of the theory of “functional socialism”, the theory and policy
of fund socialism rose.

3 Fund socialism: an unsuccessful attempt of the establishment of an employee

collective ownership in capitalist countries
Fund socialism gained its reputation, because Swedish parliament passed the
establishment of Employees Investment Fund Program by the end of 1983, while the
implementation of the contents of this policy and system marked the characteristics of
Sweden’s “socialist experiment”.
From the scope of the international Social Democratic Party, the tentative idea of the
implementation of employees sharing the profits of the capitalists and the
establishment of the fund system for employees collective, did not start with the
Swedish Social Democratic Party. Prior to Sweden, such suggestions and ideas have
already occurred in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany,
France and other countries.
However, all these ideas and proposals failed to be put into practice as bills
and systems. Only Sweden has adopted it as a bill and put it into practice through the
parliament, it was obviously inseparable with the Sweden’s special conditions.
Compared with other developed capitalist countries, in Sweden, on the one
hand, the industrial enterprises and social wealth are highly concentrated in the hands
of private capitalists; on the other hand, there is more powerful labor movement and
the Social Democratic Party. Therefore, after the occurrence of economic crisis in the
mid 70s and the intensified social conflicts, the strong demand to transform the
capitalist economy appeared in labor movement.
In the 27th Party Congress in 1978, the Program of the Swedish Social Democratic
Party was adopted, which clearly put forward: “Social Democratic Party is opposed to
both the wealth to exercise power instead of people and the economic power
concentrated in the hands of the minority. It tried to seek methods of production and
forms of distribution under the democratic conditions; the purpose is to enable all
members of society to become equal partners in the task of the disposal and
promotion of common production resources.” One of the various measures to achieve

1 From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 100-101.

2 From Functional Socialism to Fund Socialism, Page 101-102.

331
these goals was to link workers and the means of production: “by winning the right to
participate in the decision of corporate affairs and the building of enterprise funds,
workers opened the door to the collective influence and collective ownership.
Therefore, the link between workers and the means of production was set up so as to
arouse people’s initiative and sense of responsibility”.1
How to make “workers” “involved in the building of enterprise funds”? The
answer was the establishment of “employee investment funds”.
In the two Congresses of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation in 1961 and 1966,
Sweden’s well-known economist Dr. Rudolf Meidner, who used to live in Germany
then live in Sweden during World War II, once proposed a series of recommendations
about the negotiation on the excess profits of some companies and the establishment
of union funds for industry and sectors, but at that time they were not passed.
Therefore, in 1971 Congress of the Swedish Trade Unions Confederation, the
president of the General Assembly and the Federation of Trade Unions Arne Geijer,
invited Meidner to lead a working group to examine these issues in depth and make
recommendations on the problems of resisting the concentration of the wealth and
expanding the impact of workers in the decision-making process through the adoption
of some form of collective ownership.
In four years after Meidner was appointed to examine this issue, he and his
colleagues completed the first version of the report on the employee funds in August
1975.
The report notes that there are three objectives of the study of employee investment
funds: First, “to perfect the wage policy based on the principle of solidarity”; second,
“to resist the concentration of wealth caused by the industry self-financing”; third, “to
enhance employees’ influence in the process of economic activities”2.
So how to establish the employee investment funds?
The Report says: “the ownership of part of the profits used to re-invest the
corporate is transferred from the owner in the past directly to the employees as a
collective. Set aside a certain percentage of profits ---we suggest 20%--- to distribute
to employees.” But “this part of the assets won’t leave the company. On the contrary,
enterprises will list shares of equal value, and transfer the shares to employee funds.”3
Meidner estimates, when the levy rate for corporate profits is 20%, if the
corporate profitability is 10%, then the employee investment funds can hold 17% of
corporate shares in 10 years and a half in 35 years; if the corporate profitability is
15%, the employee investment funds can hold 24% of corporate shares in 10 years
and a half in the 25 years; if the corporate profitability is 20%, employee investment
funds can hold 30% of corporate shares in 10 years and 52% in 20 years.
Thus to what extent should they establish the employee investment funds?
The Report believes: “What the discussion has brought us is the practical
conclusion that the size limits of enterprises should be neither less than 50 employees
nor more than 100 employees.” According to the survey report on business conditions
in 1972, “If the minimum size limit is set at 100 employees, then 99.2% of the
enterprises and 33.9% of the employees will be outside the fund system; if setting 50
employees as a dividing line, the corresponding proportion is 98.3% and 33.2%”. 4 At

1 Selection of Important Documents of the Socialist Party, the Central Party School Press, 1985, Page 469,479.
2 Employee Funds --- Research on the Collective Capital Formation, see From Functional Socialism to Fund
Socialism, Page108.
3 Employee Funds --- Research on the Collective Capital Formation, see From Functional Socialism to Fund
Socialism, Page136.
4 Employee Funds --- Research on the Collective Capital Formation, see From Functional Socialism to Fund
Socialism, Page161.

332
that time, there are 4000 enterprises with more than 50 employees among nearly
235,000 Swedish enterprises, accounting for 1.7% of the total number of enterprises.
Therefore, it still needs further discussion and researches on how to connect the policy
of the limit of the large enterprises and the protection of small businesses with the
establishment of a widely influential employee investment funds program.
As to the management of the fund’s income, the report believed “if they want to
use the income for the benefit of all employees, the only solution is to establish a
central clearing fund, and all income should enter the fund.”1
In December 21, 1983, the Swedish parliament passed two decrees of the
establishment of employee funds in a razor-thin majority: Profit-sharing Tax Law and
the Relevant Rules of National Insurance Pension Fund Law.
At the institutional level, in the national fringe pension system, five
organizations of employee investment funds should be established. The Act provided
that “every employee investment fund management committee shall have nine
members. In addition, there should be four alternatives”, in which “there should be at
least five members and two alternate members on behalf of the interests of
employees”, “both members and alternative members are appointed by the
government”.

Obviously, compared with Meidner’s report in 1976, the employee investment funds
in 1983 decree have had great change.
First, according to the parliamentary legislation in 1983, the employee
investment funds can only get 15-20 billion krona during the special period between
1984 and 1990; but according to the report in 1976, the employee investment funds
can “get the transfer of funds indefinitely” in principle.
Second, according to the parliamentary legislation in 1983, the employee funds
cannot possess more than 5% of the shares of the stock market, and perhaps the
market share of the fund organization will stay 3%-4% of the value of the stock
market; while the report in 1976 advocated that fund may possess more than half of
the stock in major companies in Sweden.
Third, according to the parliamentary legislation in 1983, funds allocated to the
employee investment funds and used to buy shares come from two taxes in
principle：profit-sharing tax and 0.2% of the payroll tax; but according to the report
in 1976, the company will not provide funds. On the contrary, the employee
investment funds get company’s stock by means of so-called special-planned issue of
employees’ stocks.
However, although the program of the employee investment funds made some
major changes of retreat in the parliamentary legislation in 1983, it still met fierce
opposition from owners and their agents of various-sized enterprises, which made its
destiny of failure inevitable. For example, these business owners accused that the fund
would replace the market economy by the planned economy; the fund organizations
would become the owner groups taking the dominant position in Swedish companies;
business costs will increase while the stock price will fall sharply. They also described
fund as eastern bloc-style “iron gill nets of socialism”, and the effort of the union
giants chasing power to place themselves above the entire industry and commerce.
Before the act of the employee investment funds was passed in the Swedish
parliament, the leader of Swedish Employers Confederation boasted: to use all means
and all efforts to prevent the adoption of such a fund system; in the regular autumn

1 Employee Funds --- Research on the Collective Capital Formation, see From Functional Socialism to Fund
Socialism, Page 180.

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meeting of parliament, they organized the largest demonstration with 75,000
participants marching into parliament and against the establishment of the employee
investment funds since the anti-Vietnam War. Before the general election in 1985,
three Swedish non-socialist parties boasted if they won in the general election, they
would ban the employee investment funds. A joint “banning group” even made a
number of options to divide the assets which had been accumulated by the investment
funds organization. But the Swedish Socialist Democratic Party failed in the general
election in February 1991, while the non-socialist group won, which was formed by
the moderate coalition party, the Central Party, the People’s Party and the Christian
Democratic Party. After the establishment of the new government, various tentative
ideas were nearly trapped in the situation of disappearance, such as the employees’
participation in the capital formation and the competition for positions against the
private ownership.
What did the appearance and failure of the functional socialism of the Swedish
Socialist Democratic Party show us?
First of all, it showed that the extreme significance of the problem of ownership
of means of production that scientific socialism had repeatedly emphasized in
socialist transformation.
The international socialists took the denial of the importance of ownership of the
means of production as its unique symbol; the Swedish Social Democrats boasted for
the negation of the practical importance and necessity of social goal and the stress of
distribution and welfare. Then, in the process of development, how did they develop
from welfare socialism denying the importance of the socialization, to functional
socialism with focus on the ownership of the means of production, and then to fund
socialism with the attempt to have some influence on the private ownership of the
means of production in practice? The fundamental reason is that the objective need of
the economic development paved their way with the inevitable logic. So the
appearance of the fund socialism in the Swedish Socialist Democratic Party itself
verified the correctness of scientific socialism and the fallacy of democratic socialism
on the problem of ownership of the means of production from a special perspective.
Then, why can’t the fund socialism which meets the objective need escape the
ultimate destiny of failure?
The fundamental reason is that the Swedish Social Democrats, on the one hand,
attempt to have some influence on the private ownership of the means of production
so as to joint all classes of the bourgeoisie and trigger the bourgeois counterattack in
ideology and politics; on the other hand, social democrats don’t prepare well to
challenge the principle of the private ownership on ideology, political program and
political strategy because of its long-term adherence to the class reconciling position
of its democratic socialism. Things were just as Pang Tixun pointed out in the article
Radicalization and Retreat of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. The reason why
the program of employee investment funds had failed was that the Swedish Social
Democratic Party lacked a strong strategy based on the clear and long-term goal of
socialism. They did not see the important relationship between the alliance of
different social classes and the transition to socialism, or confused the activities of the
various corporatists with the socialist movement, which led that a common
understanding can not be formed within the Socialist Democratic Party and in the
labor movement, which weakened its own power.1
In addition, as the Swedish Social Democratic Party has long insisted on the
capitalist private ownership of the means of production and persisted in the private
1 British New Left Review magazine, 1987, Page 9-10.

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sectors’ absolute control over the production, the proportion of state-owned
enterprises in industry is only 8%, far lower than Austria, Britain, France, Italy,
Norway and other countries. In Sweden, over 90% of enterprises were concentrated in
the hands of private capitalists, 93% of all industrial products produced by the private
sectors, 95% of the means of production in the hands of 100 large families, and 17
Financial Capital Group dominating the national economy. Only 0.2% of the total
population are in control of 2/3 of all the shares; only 5% of the total population of the
rich get more than 1/2 of all the wealth. Thus when the government of the Social
Democratic Party put forward the greatly weakened program of employee investment
funds, it also met the opposition of the employers of large and small business so that it
cannot escape the final fate of failure.

4 Three fundamental lessons learned

The course of development of the Swedish model offered three fundamental
lessons: first, although the social security and social welfare in modern society are
extremely important, without which the modern large-scale production can not be
carried out smoothly (Of course, if social security and social welfare grow rapidly,
exceeding the rate of economic growth; or its too broad coverage weakens people’s
enterprising motive, it can also trigger various crises), changes only in the distribution
without fundamental change in the ownership of the means of production, it is
impossible to transform a capitalist society into a socialist society; second, the
solution of problems of ownership of the means of production requires real change of
ownership in real life, such as the repackaging of Swedish “functional socialism”
relying on putting the clothes of ownership on welfare and allocation was only to
evade the issue, rather than solve it; third, although in the United States, under the
premise of 1% to 5% of households owning 65% to 85% of the shares, the
government can take various measures to encourage or reward “employees’
shareholding”, because it does not touch the substance of private ownership, and also
can motivate employee shareholders’ enthusiasm for production. However, in
Sweden, they engaged in “employee investment funds”, making employees be in the
rival position with the capitalist, really affected the private ownership, therefore, it
was absolutely intolerable for the bourgeoisie, even if it was the bill brewed for many
years and adopted by the parliament of the ruling Social Democratic Party.
After the three stages of 74-year development of the Swedish model (Social
Democratic Party accumulated power for 65 years in this process), only the welfare
society and its disadvantages were left. The all-round and multi-level social security
and social welfare system of Swedish model has contributed to Sweden from a
backward agricultural country into a highly industrialized and developed country with
electrification and information technology. However, after the end of the Cold War,
the rise of the tide of a new round of economic liberalism, emerging industries, the
investment activities of transnational corporations, etc., are in shock and challenge of
this welfare model, making its disadvantages more and more obvious; Sweden’s high
taxes, high welfare policy, and the lack of work incentives and the encouragement of
entrepreneurship, has seriously dampened the enthusiasm for employees to work and
business owners to invest. In accordance with tax regulations, workers have to pay
income tax accounting for 30% -35% of wages, overtime and part-time income tax
rate accounting for 50%, even up to 75% after the 80s of the 20th century. The results
on the one hand make the number of daily absenteeism in some industries reach 25%
of the total labor force; on the other hand, many people prefer to rely on government
relief at home but not go out to work; Sweden’s immigration policies also encourage

335
immigrants to enjoy government subsidies instead of going out to work, and the
amount of subsidy is even more than the income of cleaners, craftsmen, workers
which has brought the society new inequalities and contradictions. The high tax
policies in Sweden also led to its declining international competitiveness: its world
ranking dropped to the 11th in 2000 from the 9th before 2000 and the 14th in 2005. At
the same time, Sweden’s unemployment rate keeps high. At present, according to the
data of the Swedish Social Democratic government, the unemployment rate is 6%;
while according to the calculation of the United Front, the unemployed labor force
will reach 17% of the total labor force if including the early retirement, long-term sick
leave and people who are receiving training. It is precisely because of such reasons, in
the 2006 general election, the Swedish Social Democrat party only received the
support of 35.2% of the voters, which reduced by 4.7% compared with last election,
and 130 seats (the last was 144 seats), thus it once again lost its ruling position and
made Sweden further intend to abandon the original Swedish welfare model.
According to Sweden’s chief economist of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, Claes
Eklund, early in the 1990s, the government of the Swedish Social Democratic Party
reduced the public sectors substantially, and decided to abolish estate tax. Now, with
the tax has reached its top, we must improve efficiency. With the growth of the middle
class, the gradual weakening of the class basis of the working class, the Swedish
government implemented reforms for their own unemployment insurance scheme:
increasing the insurance premium, reducing the welfare in order to improve people’s
enthusiasm for work, and announcing the plan to abolish wealth tax and property tax.

Research Data Series on Marxism and Socialism Abroad

Bibliography I
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Sidney Hook(the U.S.) Translator: Xu Chongwen
2. History and Class Consciousness
—Marxist Dialectics Study Georg
Lukács(Hungary) Translator: Zhang Xiping
3. Communication and the Evolution of Society
Habermas(Germany) Translator:Zhang Boshu
4. Marx’s Theory of History

336
 William H.Shaw(the U.S.)
Translators: Ruan Renhui, Zhong Shiwei, Feng Ruiquan
5. Socialism on the threshold of the twenty-first Century
edited by Nicolic,M.( Yugoslavia)
Translators: Zhao Peijie, Feng RuiMeiRuimei, Sun Chunchen
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—From Hegel to Marx and Mao Zedong
Lefebvre(France) Translators:Li Qingyi,etc.
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—Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
Herbert Marcuse(the U.S.) Translators: Zhang Feng, Lv Shiping
8. Critical Theory. M. Horkheimer(Germany) translator: Li Xiaobing, etc.
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translator: Wang Nanshi, Rong Xinhai proofreader :Zhang Feng
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G.A. Cohen(the U.K.) translator:Yue Changling
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Bibliography II
12. Philosophy of Practice Gramsci(Italy) translator: Xu Chongwen
13. The Dialectic of Enlightenment
Theodor W. Adorno(Germany) translator: Hong Peiyu, Lin
Yuefeng
14. Everyday Life Agnes Heller(Hungary) translator: Yi Junqing
15. Mass Psychology of Fascism
Wilhelm Reich(Australia) translator: Zhang Feng
16. Biographical Dictionary of Neo-marxism
Robert A. Gorman(the U.S.) translators: Zhao Peijie, Li Ling, Deng
Yuzhuang
17. On Frankfurt school Ou Litong, Zhang Wei
18. Contemporary Capitalism Theory of Western Marxism Li Qingyi
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Chongwen
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Willy Brandt Willy Brandt(Germany) Olof Palme(Sweden) Bruno
Kreisky(Australia)
Translators: Ding Donghong, Baiwei

Bibliography III
21. Rousseau and Marx Della-Volpe(Italy) translator: Zhao Peijie
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Marcuse(the U.S.) translators: Cheng Zhimin
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Rationalization of Society
Habermas(Germany) translator: Hong Peiyu, Lin Qing
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Functionalist Reason
Habermas(Germany) translator: Hong Peiyu, Lin Qing
25. Negative Dialectics
Theodor W. Adorno(Germany) translator: Zhang Feng

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 26. The Domination of Nature
William Leiss(Canada) translator: Yue Changling, Li
Jianhua
27. History and Structure: An Essay on Hegelian-Marxist and Structuralist
Theories of History
Alfred Schmidt(Germany) translator: Zhang Wei
28.The History and Theory of the Praxis school in Yugoslavia
edited by Mihailo Markovic (Yugoslavia), Petrovic
translators: Zheng Yiming, Qu Yuehou
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—Introduction to Ontology of Society Being
edited by Benseler(Germany)
translators: Bai Xikun, Zhang Xiping, Li Qiuling
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—Introduction to Ontology of Society Being
edited by Benseler(Germany)
translators: Bai Xikun, Zhang Xiping, Li Qiuling
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Xu Chongwen
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Zhang Wei
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338
The book Comment and Analysis on the Principle of Democratic Socialism was
published in 1995. It makes comments and analyses on the basic aspects of
democratic socialism such as its origin, its political, economic and ideological
program as well as its model and show window-Swedish Model and the role it played
in the great changes of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book
is intended to draw a clear dividing line between scientific socialism and democratic
socialism in terms of basic principles so as to facilitate people to recognize the
fundamental differences between them. Recently, someone argued that “only
democratic socialism can save China”. In this context, the author has written another
6 articles such as Different Meanings and Principles between Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics and Democratic Socialism and included them into the 2007 enlarged
edition of this book as the last chapter, expecting to help people recognize that
Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Democratic Socialism are vehicles on
totally different tracks, so as to help people acquire a clear understanding of the true
color of democratic socialism, thus enhancing their confidence and determination in
taking the road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

339