With the growth of DSA and the rise of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, the question of social democracy, or reformist socialism, on the Left today has become a live one.

In his book, Bailing Out the System: Reformist Socialism in Western Europe: 1944-1985, Ian Birchall examines the history of European social democracy and its practical and theoretical limitations, and highlights the superiority of revolutionary socialism. First published in 1986 to address many of the arguments and debates of the time, Birchall’s book continues to hold valuable lessons for today.

As he writes in the concluding chapter,

It is one of the problems of defending socialist ideas that our language is constantly stolen from us and used against us. When [reformist socialists of the 1970s] Guy Mollet, Harold Wilson and Felipe Gonzalez take the label “socialist” we have to make it clear that their tradition is not ours. We differ from them not about means but about ends. They see the capitalist system stinking with injustice and rotting in crisis, and they aim to palliate its worst excesses and stave off the discontent of the oppressed so that the system may survive. We seek to finish the system off as soon as possible, and to build over the ruins a new world geared to human need and not to profit, democratically controlled by working people themselves.

Here we reprint chapter one, which looks origins of reformist socialist—the idea that socialism can be achieved through piecemeal, gradual reform.

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The long and winding road

THE LEFT in Europe is in crisis. Communist Parties are in decline, Socialist Parties drift ever further rightwards and the revolutionary left is in disarray. Yet a glance at the state of the world today makes the case for socialism. A deep recession with no end in sight; famine in the Third World; the ever -present threat of nuclear war. The argument for the abolition of the whole social system has never been stronger.

Nor has the working class vanished, despite the repeated claims of academics and journalists that it has evaporated or otherwise said ‘farewell’. From the massive upsurge at the end of the Second World War, through the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Belgian General Strike of 1960, the French mass strike of 1968 and the Portuguese upheaval of 1974-75 to the British miners’ strike of 1984-85, workers have shown their determination and their potential power.

Why, then, has the left made so little progress over the past forty years? Above all, because the organizations which claim to represent it and its interests have repeatedly blocked its advance. We have seen during the British miners’ strike that it was, in the last resort, not the policies of the government or the organized violence of the state machine that deprived the miners of their victory; it was the failure of Labour leaders and trade union bureaucrats to fight for the solidarity that could have won the strike.

The aim of this book is to trace the history of social democratic politics in Western Europe since the end of the Second World War, to show what role they have played in the class struggle, and to analyze whose interests they have ultimately served.

The debate between reform and revolution—do we change the existing order from within, or smash it and build anew?—is as old as the idea of socialism itself. What is at stake is not simply the winning of reforms—capitalism itself, as a historically developing system, makes it possible for reforms to be fought for and won. The argument is about how socialism can be achieved and what sort of socialism we want to build.

The crucial question is that of the state. Revolutionaries under stand that the state is the weapon used by one class to oppress another. As a result the organs of the state—the law courts, police and army— cannot simply be infiltrated or made use of; they must be smashed and replaced. It is the simple recognition of this, not any kind of insurrectionary romanticism, that makes revolutionaries insist that somewhere along the road to socialism there has to be a sharp and rapid transfer of power. In R. H. Tawney’s words: “Onions can be eaten leaf by leaf, but you cannot skin a live tiger paw by paw.”

The division goes deeper. Reformists and revolutionaries are not following two different roads to the same destination; they are heading for quite different goals. If socialism is defined, not as planning or state ownership, but as a society where human beings collectively control production and thereby their own destinies, then by definition it cannot be achieved by reformist means. Parliament can legislate a minimum wage or a higher pension for me, but no-one can legislate that I should take power into my own hands; I must take it for myself. Any socialism that deserves the name must be the product of the self-activity of the working class. And that means workers’ selforganisation— workers’ councils—as the indispensable means by which the old order must be destroyed and the new order built.

The history of modem social democracy can be traced back to the founding, in 1889, of the Second International. The old Engels was actively involved in the organisation, and the International became committed to Marxist principles, to class struggle and proletarian internationalism. Its main sections were in the advanced capitalist nations of Western Europe — Britain, France, Austria and above all Germany. The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) had a tough record of fighting for revolutionary principle against an authoritarian state; time and again its members were jailed for socialist activities.

Yet there was a fatal duality at the heart of the spd and the whole Socialist International. On the one hand they proclaimed the inevitable collapse of the whole capitalist system; on the other, they became increasingly involved in fighting for short-term gains within the institutions of the existing order. Those who attempted to argue openly for a reformist strategy, like Eduard Bernstein (‘I cannot believe in a final aim of socialism’),^ were soon defeated by conference resolutions; meanwhile those who claimed pure orthodoxy in words made huge concessions to reformism in practice.

At the same time the International was overwhelmingly a European organisation. Inevitably, there was enormous pressure on social democrats to identify with the imperialist interests of their own ruling classes. In this respect too, revolutionary principles were subtly undermined.

Nonetheless, on the eve of the First World War the Second International was an impressive organization, embodying the achievements and class-consciousness of European workers. In 1912 the International’s parties had more than three million members; associated with them were more than seven million members of co-operatives and nearly eleven million trade unionists. Affiliated parties had an electoral base of eleven to twelve million voters, and produced a total of two hundred daily papers.

The outbreak of the First World War revealed the fragile nature of the edifice. The SPD abandoned its internationalism in order to “safeguard the civilization and independence of our country.” In almost every country in Europe social democratic parties did the same; only small isolated groups stood up against the war.

This was not the end of the road. Social democracy survived the war and when the peace came it was able to make massive gains. For the millions of men and women who had been radicalized by the bitter experience of war still looked to the organizations of the traditional left. In almost every country social democratic parties saw massive increases in the numbers of their members and voters. But amid the revolutionary wave that shook Europe after 1917, the social democratic leaders stood firmly on the side of the old order; this was most clearly seen in Germany, where the SPD was the main barrier to the success of a working-class revolution between 1918 and 1923.

While the painfully reconstituted Socialist International now became openly reformist, the banner of the revolutionary socialist tradition was picked up by the new Communist International, founded in 1919 to defend and spread the gains of the Russian Revolution, and committed to a rejection of the parliamentary road to socialism, to the power of workers’ councils and to the dictatorship of the proletariat. In many countries the left wings of the social democratic parties split away to rally to the banner of the new International.

As the post-war revolutionary wave began to subside, social democracy made further gains. Figures for voters and members began to rise. But there was no tangible success. In Britain there were two short-lived Labour governments; the first achieved little and the second ended in abject betrayal, as its leaders joined a coalition with the Tories. In the deep crisis of the thirties social democracy had little to offer. It had no strategy for fighting fascism; in Germany the SPD discovered that the ruling class showed no gratitude for its services in the post-war period; when the bourgeoisie switched its bets to Hitler the SPD was crushed along with all the other workers’ organizations. In France a Popular Front government under Socialist leader Leon Blum found that its first job was to oppose a mass strike of two million workers; it soon crumbled. In a period when economic slump and mass unemployment made reformist solutions look singularly im plausible, social democracy seemed to have no future.

Meanwhile the social democrats’ main rival, the Communist International, was also undergoing major transformations. In Russia the isolation of the revolution in a poor and war-weakened country led to the erosion of workers’ democracy; the power vacuum was filled by a growing bureaucracy, and by the thirties Stalin and his allies had crushed the last remnants of workers’ power and established a brutal dictatorship. Stalin, with his doctrine of “socialism in one country’,” had no perspective of world revolution; the Communist International was turned into a tool of the national interests of Russia’s ruling bureaucracy. Communist Parties throughout the world went through dizzying zigzags, from the ultra-left lunacy of the ‘Third Period’ (‘social democrats are the same as fascists’) to the rightism of the Popular Front (‘unite with the progressive bourgeoisie against fascism’). On the eve of the Second World War social democracy and Stalinism appeared equally bankrupt.

But the story was not over for social democracy. The long boom after the Second World War gave a new lease of life to capitalism, and with it to reformism. When the system showed it could still offer reforms, reformist politics got some of their credibility back. Between 1945 and 1985 social democrats were in power—alone or in coalitions—at some time in virtually every country in Western Europe. Their continuing strength and resilience could be explained by the decline of their rivals and by the specific political role they were called upon to play in modern capitalism.

From the 1950s international Stalinism went into a long historic decline. There were three main reasons for this. Firstly, with the nuclear arms race, the Communist Parties came to be a much less significant factor in the Russian bureaucracy’s foreign policy. In 1945 Stalin’s control over the Western Communist Parties had been a crucial item in his bargaining with the Western powers. By the time of the 1962 Cuba crisis they were largely irrelevant to his successor, Nikita Kruschev.

Secondly, the attractive power of Russia as the one “homeland of socialism” was seriously weakened by the emergence of a number of rival ‘socialist’ countries. Stalin’s split with Tito in 1948 was followed by Mao’s break from Kruschev in the early sixties. By the late sixties Russia was on the brink of war with China, and the late seventies saw a squalid triple conflict between Vietnam, Cambodia and China. More over, Kruschev’s revelations, in 1956, of some of Stalin’s crimes had permanently tarnished Russia’s image.

Thirdly, Stalinism had been the product of defeat and despair. The Russian myth had been at its strongest in the thirties when Western workers saw Stalin as the only alternative to mass unemployment and the rise of fascism. In die post-war period workers had much more confidence in their own strength and thus felt less need of a distant paradise.

All this left Communist Parties in the West with two choices to retreat into sectarian sentimentality, nostalgia for the days when Joe was in the Kremlin and all was right with the world, or to transform their organizations into social democratic parties. This second alternative was fraught with risks. For if the price is the same, people will tend to prefer butter to margarine that claims to taste like butter.

The bankruptcy of Stalinism left social democracy with the fundamental task of mediating between labor and capital. Modem industrial capitalism creates a huge and powerful working class; this cannot be held down by force alone, and without its acquiescence the system cannot continue to function. Social democratic parties, created by the working class but wholly committed to the existing order, are the best possible organizations to secure this acquiescence.

This does not mean, of course, that the ruling class sees social democrats as the ideal party of government. Social democrats appear as both a threat and a support to the system. Because of their roots in the working class they may be able to restrain, by persuasion, better than a party of the right, and sell unpopular measures that a rightwing party could not get away with. At the same time the links with the working class may make them less willing to be tough in defense of the system. The events in Chile in 1970-73, when Allende’s government held back working-class struggle and was then cast aside by the army, is a graphic illustration of this duality.

What suits the bourgeoisie is a system which keeps the social democrats available in reserve as an alternative solution. The parliamentary system, based on two or more parties, is the best way of achieving this. The capitalist system requires conservatism and innovation, and a properly balanced two-party system will give it both in due measure.

The ideal form of this is the American system, where both Republicans and Democrats, despite differences of emphasis or style, are equally committed, in words as well as deeds, to the maintenance of the existing system. But the American system is the product of Specific historical circumstances; elsewhere in the world a social democratic party is generally one of the main contenders for parliamentary power, and the United States often encourages social democrats to play the role of defenders of the system.

An additional aspect of the strength and resilience of social democracy is its ability to co-opt on its left. Social democratic parties have always been adept in drawing towards them and absorbing groups on their left flank, while at the same time maintaining an air of respectable moderation. In order to do this they sometimes deliberately blur the distinctions between themselves and revolutionaries. Thus in 1971 Francois Mitterrand declared:

Whether violent or peaceful, revolution is first of all a break. Anyone who doesn’t accept this break—the method we can deal with later—anyone who doesn’t agree to a break with the established order—1 mean the political order, of course—and with capitalist society, any such person, I say, cannot be a member of the Socialist Party.

Of course a Mitterrand in opposition, aiming his words at party militants, uses a very different language from a Mitterrand in power. But more is at stake here than hypocrisy and deception. The continuing strength of social democracy shows the power of ideology in politics. Social democracy’s ability to keep an ideological grip on its rank and file is a major part of the explanation of its ability to survive. Hence the inadequacy of simple betrayal theories, which see right-wing leaders constantly selling out the militant rank and file. Betrayals there are indeed, but the scenario is more subtle than a rank and file straining at the leash and being held back by a corrupt leadership.

This book has been written to illustrate both the resilience and the ultimately reactionary role of social democracy by looking at its history in Western Europe between 1945 and 1985. It aims to present arguments to show that social democracy has not changed and cannot change its spots, and that the time is ripe to build a revolutionary alternative. It is, of necessity, an outline account. (A comprehensive treatment of reformist betrayals would require something on the scale of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) There is a reasonably consecutive account of developments in Britain, France, Italy and West Germany. Other countries are dealt with in a more selective fashion, with a focus on events that are particularly significant or typical.

A note on terminology

The term “social democracy” has a chequered history. Before the First World War the term was used widely in the working-class movement; the Bolsheviks originated as a faction in the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. With the effective collapse of Second International in 1914 and the founding of the Communist International in 1919, the term was dropped by the revolutionary wing of the movement; the Communist International used “social democracy” as a label for those who rejected revolution and soviet power. Within the revolutionary Marxist tradition the term has continued to be used as it was by the Conmunist International.

Since the Second World War there have been further developments in the usage of the term. When Saragat organized a right-wing breakaway from the Italian Socialist Party in the late 1940s he eventually adopted the name Italian Social Democratic Party. In 1981 a right-wing split from the British Labour Party likewise took the name Social Democratic Party.

For this reason many in the labour movement are reluctant to use the name ‘social democrat’. Tony Benn, for example, and many of the leaders of the French Socialist Party, publicly repudiate ‘social democracy’ and insist that they should be called ‘socialists’ or ‘democratic socialists.’

The distinction is largely spurious. The dividing lines, in theory or practice, are far from clear. Thus the CERES group in the French Socialist Party* claim to reject ‘social democracy’, which they define in terms of

a mass party, bringing together or attempting to bring together the greater part of the working class and middle classes so as to defend their interests without challenging the structures of capitalism.

Now one might well question whether the French Socialist Party in government has defended the interests of the working class; but there can be no doubt that it has not challenged the structures of capitalism.

Despite these terminological problems it is clear that there is a current of reformist socialism which, while showing national varia tions, exists throughout Europe. One way of identifying it is in terms of membership of the Socialist International. Among affiliates to this body are the Labour Parties of Britain, Norway, Holland and Ireland; the Socialist Parties of Austria, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain and Luxembourg; the Social Democratic Parties of West Germany, Denmark and Finland; and the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party. Both the Italian Socialist Party and the Italian Social Democratic Party are members.

In the rest of this book I shall refer to particular parties by their names, but I shall use the general term ‘social democratic’ to refer to a group of parties which have a programmatic commitment to some form of socialism and some link (organizational, traditional or ideological) with the working class, but whose practice is predominantly parliamentary and reformist.