To many, the word 'revolution' conjures up visions of barricades and public executions. All it really means is a complete change, without any implication as to how that change is to come about. The Socialist Party stands for a revolution in the basis of society, a complete change from class to common ownership of the means of living: this social revolution to be carried out democratically by the use of political power. It is possible for a majority of socialists to win power through democratic institutions, by use of the ballot, for the purpose of carrying out the socialist revolution. Thus we stand for democratic revolutionary political action.

In the past, and to a lesser extent today, others who claimed to stand for socialism advocated what they thought was an alternative method: by working, under capitalism, to induce the government to enact reform measures favourable to workers. They stood for reformist political action which they hoped would gradually transform capitalism into socialism with-out the need for class conscious workers' political action. This policy was called gradualism.

In Britain the leading gradualist thinkers were in the Fabian Society, formed in 1884. The Fabians held that by 'permeating' the civil service together with the working class and 'middle class* organisations they could gradually change society. Their real aim was state-run capitalism in which they saw themselves as the most suitable top administrators. Gradualism, as expounded by the Fabians and adopted by the Labour Party, has always been the dominant reformist theory in Britain. Labour leaders have al-ways rejected the Marxian analysis and never even claimed to be revolutionary.

The situation was different on the continent, and especially in Germany, where there were large parties, supported by millions of workers, claiming to be Marxist and to stand for a revolutionary policy. The German Social Democratic Party was the largest and most influential of these par-ties; but at the turn of the century it was rent by a controversy over gradualism which became known as the 'revisionist' debate.

Eduard Bernstein, a close friend of Marx's collaborator Engels, spent many years in exile in London and came under the influence of Fabian thinking. He attacked the main tenets of Marxism and called upon the German SPD to recognise that it was in reality only a reform party. He suggested that they be honest with themselves and drop their ultimate commitment to the capture of power for socialism and instead concentrate on getting reforms within capitalism by working through Parliament and co-operatives, the trade unions and local councils, and even by co-operating with non-socialist parties.

Bernstein and his supporters were answered and refuted by the arguments of men like Karl Kautsky who generally had a better grasp of Marx's writings and who did a great deal to popularise them. The German Social Democratic Party formally turned down Bernstein's suggestions but the decision meant nothing as far as the Party's practical policy was concerned. They retained their paper commitment to the socialist revolution but continued their day-to-day reformist practices. For it was on the basis of reforms and not socialism that their support among the German workers rested. In time, as their attitude to the First World War was dramatically to show, they became bogged down in reformist politics and prisoners of their non-socialist and patriotic supporters so that they lost all claim to be called a socialist party. Even opponents of revisionism like Kautsky were ready to defend the idea that a socialist party could engage in reform politics. Like the gradualists, they also had some odd views about socialism, usually equating it with nationalisation by a democratic state and holding that the wages system and buying and selling were quite compatible with the common ownership of the means of production. Their ultimate aim, like that of the Fabians, was state capitalism - not socialism.

The question of reform or revolution was discussed not only in Germany but throughout Europe and America. In the English-speaking world parties with socialism supposedly as their aim had failed to attract mass support even for reforms. This had the advantage of allowing them the chance to look at the issue in an objective manner since they did not have to worry so much how their answer might offend their non-socialist supporters. One important view to emerge was that the way to avoid the dangers of reformism was for a socialist party to seek support for socialism alone and not to campaign for so-called immediate demands within capitalism. This view was held by some members of the Socialist Party of Canada, the Socialist Party of America and the Socialist Labour Party of America. In Britain it was advocated within the Social Democratic Federation by a group which in 1904 left to set up the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

That a socialist party should not advocate reforms has always been the policy of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and our companion parties abroad who together make up the World Socialist Movement. This is not to say that reforms can never bring any benefit to the workers. As we shall see, some can and do, while many are futile or harmful. But a socialist party which advocates reforms would attract the support of people interested more in these reforms than in socialism. In these circumstances the party would be dragged into compromise with capitalism and so in the end become merely another reform party even if it still proclaimed socialism as its ultimate aim. As socialism can only be achieved when a majority of workers understand and want it, a socialist party must build up support for this aim alone. Support gained on any other basis is quite useless, even harmful.

Despite the existence there of large Social Democratic parties, mainland Europe was both socially and politically less advanced than Britain (where capitalism had long eliminated the peasant class) and North America (which had never known feudalism). In Europe significant remnants of feudalism survived; the workers there were only a minority amidst a population of peasants, artisans and small traders; many still thought of revolution in terms of a determined band of conspirators setting up barricades in a bid to seize important civic buildings much as had happened in France in 1830, in many other European cities in 1848 and in Italy in the 1860s.

This tradition put many of the European opponents of reformism on the wrong track. They mistakenly argued that it was parliamentary politics that had led the Social Democratic parties astray and that political power for socialism could only be won through an armed uprising. Thus the reform and revolution controversy tended to resolve itself into Parliament versus insurrection, in which both sides assumed that democratic, Parliamentary action must be reformist.

As capitalism developed, insurrection as a way to political power became more and more obviously outmoded. The advocates of Parliamentary action, even though reformist, were able effectively to refute the ideas associated with armed uprisings. Later many of the supporters of armed uprisings, especially under the influence of Russian Bolshevism, went from bad to worse and agitated for minority coups of the kind opposed by Marx and Engels as far back as 1848. Following the Bolshevik lead, they were able to establish many state capitalist dictatorships across the world on this basis, but never socialism. Thus the principal opponents of reformism ended up in a blind alley, eventually to capitulate to reformism themselves, as we shall see in Chapter Five.

One of the Socialist Party of Great Britain's primary contributions to the development of socialist theory lies in having worked out a satisfactory solution to the problem of reform or revolution based on the revolutionary use of democratic institutions to achieve socialism. The ballot had only been used by the orthodox Social Democrats to get reforms and it was assumed that this was the only purpose for which it could be used. We pointed out that this was a false conclusion and that there was no reason why Parliament and councils could not be used by a class-conscious socialist majority to win power and dispossess the capitalist class.

The two futile policies of insurrection and reformism can be avoided by building up a socialist party composed of and supported by convinced socialists only. When a majority of workers are socialist-minded and organised in a socialist political party, they can use their votes to elect to Parliament and the local councils delegates pledged to use political power for the one revolutionary act of converting the means of living into the common property of humankind. Socialists will be organised on the economic front too, to ensure the continuation of production in socialism, but history has demonstrated that the capture of political power is essential if a successful revolution is to be carried out as peacefully and democratically as possible.

Minority insurrection could never lead to socialism and has never represented a real alternative to the dead-end of reformism. Only a majority of workers organised to dispossess the capitalists of their power base in the state machine and their democratic legitimacy are likely to achieve a society of common ownership and production for use. Hence the real choice that lies in front of the workers today - more social reforms or worldwide democratic socialist revolution.