Alan Woods - Reformism or Revolution

Reformism or Revolution

Marxism and Socialism in the 21st Century

(Reply to Heinz Dieterich)

by Alan Woods

Smashwords edition

eBook published 2015

Copyright Alan Woods

UK distribution: Wellred Books, PO Box 50525

London E14 6WG, England

Tel: +44 (0) 207 515 7675

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ISBN 978 1 900 007 55 9

Over the past months I have received a lot of encouragement from many people who were keen to see this book in print. This was a great help to me, since I have more than once regretted having taken the task on in the first place. I hope that the final result will justify the work that so many people have put into it.

I wish to express my thanks to all those who, by their painstaking work, have made the appearance of this book possible. In the first place, my thanks to Mick Brooks for his invaluable help with the section on economics and expert proof-reading, and to Harry Whittacker, Jordi Martorell and Fred Weston, for their proof-reading and valuable suggestions. I must also thank Harry Nielsen, Luke Wilson and Alex Grant for their helpful observations on the chapter on science. In addition, I would like to thank Espe Espigares for her professional layout.

Since we decided to publish the book simultaneously in English and Spanish, I would also like to thank Juana Cobo and Pablo Roldn for the excellent Spanish translation. In addition, a special mention is due to Miguel Fernndez, whose considerable literary skills were of great help to me in perfecting and polishing the final text both in Spanish and English.

Above all, my heartfelt thanks to my comrade and companion Ana Muoz for her invaluable help and encouragement, and for her immense patience in the final proofreading, which was enough to try the patience of a saint!

The publication of the present work requires some explanation. Many friends have asked me why I was taking so much time replying to a man whose books are read by a limited public, mainly in the Latin American universities, and are mostly only available in Spanish. I replied that I had been persuaded by the persistent requests of my friends in Cuba and Venezuela, who, after some years, were fed up of the theoretical pretensions of Heinz Dieterich and wanted me to answer him.

For some years Heinz Dieterich has been waging a noisy campaign, claiming that he has invented the idea of Socialism in the 21st Century. This has had some effect on certain circles of the Left in Venezuela and some other countries. As we know, there is an important debate taking place in Venezuela on the nature of socialism, inspired by Hugo Chvezs declarations in favour of socialism.

This is enormously important, not only for Venezuela but for the whole international workers movement. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is a ferment of discussion on the Left on a world scale. The ignominious failure of Stalinism and the unprecedented ideological counteroffensive of the bourgeoisie against socialism have led some to conclude that the old ideas of Marxism (scientific socialism) are no longer valid, and that it is necessary to invent something entirely new and original. This is just what Dieterich claims to have done.

During the referendum campaign on constitutional reform in December 2007 the name of Heinz Dieterich suddenly began to acquire greater prominence. He opposed the reform and publicly defended General Baduel, the former Defence Minister who went over to the opposition and campaigned for a no vote in the referendum. Later, Dieterich said he supported a yes vote as a lesser evil.

How does it come about that a man who has cultivated the image of a loyal supporter of Chvez and the Bolivarian Revolution should behave in such a way? It came as a shock to many on the Left who had accepted uncritically the audacious claims of Professor Dieterich. But, having carefully read his articles and books for many months, it was not at all surprising to me.

The fact that in a decisive moment Heinz Dieterich took a position that was clearly against the further advance of the Revolution towards socialism is no accident. It is the logical and inescapable conclusion from all his theories and from his peculiar version of 21st Century Socialism - a kind of socialism that is not socialism at all, as we shall see.

In preparing my reply I decided to re-read Engels famous book Anti-Dhring, in which he answers the arguments of a man who, more than a century ago, claimed to have developed a new and original theory of socialism that would render the ideas of Marx (and everybody else) obsolete. I found that the similarity between Dhring and Dieterich to be astonishingly similar, not only in their ideas but even in their way of expressing them.

The first words of its preface are: The following work is by no means the fruit of any inner urge. On the contrary. Like Engels, I had no wish to write the present book. I agreed reluctantly because I regarded it as an unwelcome distraction from other important work. I thought, rather naively as it turns out, that I could deal with this very quickly. But I was wrong. The more I penetrated into this thick jungle of convoluted prose and even more convoluted ideas, the more it became clear to me that a short reply was impossible. The more I wrote the more I kept thinking of the words of Engels in the Preface to Anti-Dhring:

Nevertheless it was a year before I could make up my mind to neglect other work and get my teeth into this sour apple. It was the kind of apple that, once bitten into, had to be completely devoured; and it was not only very sour, but also very large. The new socialist theory was presented as the ultimate practical fruit of a new philosophical system. It was therefore necessary to examine it in the context of this system, and in doing so to examine the system itself; it was necessary to follow Herr Dhring into that vast territory in which he dealt with all things under the sun and with some others as well.

The writings of Heinz Dieterich are an even bigger and sourer apple than the one old Engels had to bite on. Like Herr Dhring, Heinz Dieterich writes on many subjects and, since he constantly mixes everything up, I was obliged to follow him through all these twists and turns. He seems to be incapable of writing about political economy without dragging in the history of philosophy, or the perspectives for the Bolivian Revolution without speculating on the nature of the universe.

The present book is therefore intended to do two things: to answer the ideas of Heinz Dieterich and also to explain as clearly as possible the classical ideas of Marxism, which in every respect contradict them. I am conscious of the fact that this does not make reading the book very easy. There are some very long quotations - some from comrade Dieterich and others from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

If this book is therefore rather long, the reader must console him or herself with the thought that the universe about which comrade Dieterich strolls with such enviable ease is a lot bigger. We can hope that some day maybe someone will explain to Heinz Dieterich that brevity is the soul of wit. But until that day arrives, we have no alternative but to answer him point-by-point, page-by-page, galaxy-by-galaxy, and millennium-by-millennium.