Centrist Marxism represents a position between

revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

and

reformism Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution. Within the socialist movement, ref ...

. Within the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

movement, ''centrism'' thus entails a specific meaning between the left-wing

revolutionary socialism Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revo ...

(exemplified by

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

and

orthodox Marxism Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought which emerged after the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the late 19th century, expressed in its primary form by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's views of Marxism dominated the European Marxis ...

) and the right-wing reformist socialist (exemplified by

democratic socialism Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic ideology, economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and wor ...

social democracy Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

, and Marxist revisionism). For instance, the

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of anti-war members of t ...

(USPD) and the British

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...

(ILP) were both seen as centrist because they oscillated between advocating reaching a

socialist economy Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that m ...

through reforms and advocating a socialist revolution. The parties that belonged to the Two-and-a-half ( International Working Union of Socialist Parties) and Three-and-a-half ( International Revolutionary Marxist Centre) Internationals, who could not choose between the

of the

Second International The Second International, also called the Socialist International, was a political international of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties and Trade union, trade unions which existed from 1889 to 1916. It included representatives from mo ...

and the revolutionary politics of the

Third International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internation ...

, were also exemplary of centrism in this sense. They included the Spanish Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( POUM), the

(ILP), and

Poale Zion Poale Zion (, also romanized ''Poalei Tziyon'' or ''Poaley Syjon'', meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire at about the turn of the 20th c ...

. Karl Kautsky, editor of '' Die Neue Zeit'', was a key thinker in this tradition, and his critique of Bolshevism was influential on democratic socialists in the United States. For Trotskyists and other revolutionary Marxists, ''centrist'' in this sense has a pejorative association. They often describe centrism in this sense as

opportunistic 300px, ''Opportunity Seized, Opportunity Missed'', engraving by Theodoor Galle, 1605 Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances — with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opport ...

since it argues for a revolution at some point in the future, but urges reformist practices in the meantime. For example, the Communist League described the ILP as a centrist organisation and therefore "politically shapeless and lacking any clear political position on the problems confronting the revolutionary movement"; British Trotskyist leader

Ted Grant Edward Grant (born Isaac Blank; 9 July 1913 – 20 July 2006) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant tendency, Militant and later Socialist Appeal (UK, 1992), ...

called the ILP "typical confused centrists"; and the Socialist Workers Party's journal described the ILP as "a centrist organisation whose revolutionary rhetoric was at odds with its reformist practice". According to a Trotskyist perspective, "the I. L. P. continues to be understood by such authors in terms of Trotsky's own characterisation of the I. L. P., as a centrist party, a party which attempts to stand between 'Marxism and Reformism'".

References

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See also

References

Further reading