Anti-revisionism

Translated works of Enver Hoxha, a major anti-revisionist theorist.

Anti-revisionism is a position among communists that seeks to oppose revisionism and opportunism in all its forms while remaining true to Marxist principles. Anti-revisionism was practiced as early as Vladimir Lenin, who wrote works such as Marxism and Revisionism which analyzed so-called "evolutionary socialism" and other reformist trends. Anti-revisionism in its modern form emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as a reaction to the rise of Nikita Khrushchev and his policy of de-Stalinization, with Enver Hoxha and Mao Zedong spearheading the movement to defend Joseph Stalin from Khrushchev's attacks. In the modern day, anti-revisionists generally belong to either "Hoxhaism" or Maoism.

Concepts

Despite the often large political differences between the two major schools of anti-revisionism — Albanian and Chinese — there are some shared concepts in their thought.

Capitalist restoration in socialist states

Anti-revisionists generally hold that the Soviet Union underwent capitalist restoration after about 1956, when Khrushchev declared the proletarian dictatorship over and replaced with a "state of the whole people." Unlike many Marxist–Leninists, who argue that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while making a considerable mistake, did not amount to a fundamental change in the Soviet Union's character as a socialist state.

Social-imperialism

Main article: Social-imperialism

Anti-revisionists believe that Khrushchev's Soviet Union and China after 1976 became imperialist powers in their own right following their respective restorations of capitalism. The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan and China's modern debt-trap diplomacy are viewed as examples of this supposed imperialism.

Position on Joseph Stalin

Main article: Joseph Stalin

Anti-revisionists oppose the Soviet Union's policy of de-Stalinization, viewing it as counter-revolutionary. Attitudes on Stalin himself are somewhat more varied, with Albanian-line anti-revisionists greatly favoring him in contrast to the more critical stance of Maoists. Mao Zedong famously said that Stalin was "70% good, 30% bad." Regardless, most anti-revisionists uphold Stalin as a classical theorist of Marxism.

New bourgeoisie

Anti-revisionists believe that after the original bourgeoisie has been expropriated and its ownership collectivized, a "new" or "restored" bourgeoisie can emerge from the defects in the early socialist system. These defects include, but are not limited to, differences between manual and intellectual labor, divergences in pay grades, etc. This new bourgeoisie, according to anti-revisionists, must be fiercely combated. Maoists in particular advocate for a cultural revolution to achieve this.

External links

• Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line, on the Marxists Internet Archive