Social reformist

A political tendency within the labor movement and social-democratic parties. This current denies the inevitability of class struggle and the socialist revolution; reformists support the idea of social cooperation between labor and capital, support positions against revolution, in favor of social reforms on behalf of workers, in favor of the creation of the “welfare society” and “people’s capitalism.” This movement gained a foothold in the workers movement of democratic countries in Europe and the Americas, but did not prosper in countries ruled by totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.. S.R. arose in the European workers movement in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. It gained strength from ethical socialism and revisions in Marxist doctrine. It opposed the notion of the indispensable role of political revolution and violence in history, and considered social reforms a crucial instrument of the working class in the transformation of society. Among principal contributors to its ideology have been Lassalle, Bernstein, Kautsky, Jaures and Iglesias. The First World War did damage to a number of this movement’s postulates and strengthened the position of social revolutionism, out of which the international communist movement was born. S.R. was one of the historical sources of postwar social-democracy and the Socialist International following the Second World War. N.H. values the antiwar spirit and the repudiation of violence of s.r., its support for labor legislation, and its practice of unionism and corporativism, but at the same time takes issue with the narrow classism and economic reductionism of its theorists.