The modern revisionists have purely and simply picked up again the so-called theory of structural reform from the obscurantist ideological outfit of social democracy.
The outline of this theory is well known. Peaceful evolution from capitalism to socialism will be realized by the so-called peaceful conquest of political power, achieved through a parliamentary majority, along with a so-called conquest of economic power by nationalization.
With regard to the first point, this is a negation of the class character of the bourgeois state and its ornament, parliament, a negation of the necessity of destroying the bourgeois state machinery and, in consequence, a negation of the necessity of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Concerning the second point, this denies the fact that the character of nationalization – bourgeois or socialist – is entirely decided by the nature of the state.
Socialist nationalization is the product of the socialist revolution; it is carried out under the conditions created by the state power of the working class and its allies and under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialist nationalization realizes the expropriation of the expropriators; by it, the means of production become the property of the whole people.
Nationalization within the framework of the capitalist system will always be bourgeois nationalization, that is, the further strengthening of state-monopoly capitalism, the further fusion of capitalism and the state into a single mechanism for intensified exploitation and oppression.
The examples provided by Britain, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands clearly demonstrate the true content and significance of bourgeois nationalization.
Lenin pointed out:
. . . state-monopolistic capitalism is a complete material preparation for Socialism, the threshold of Socialism, a rung in the ladder of history between which and the rung called Socialism there are no intermediate rungs.[1]
In other words, the strengthening of state-monopoly capitalism, bringing as it does the socialization of production to the highest point that the capitalist system can reach, creates more favourable objective conditions for the socialist revolution. But it by no means marks any stage on the road of the transformation of capitalist society into a socialist society.
Lenin long ago trenchantly exposed the deceptive nature of this assertion. He said:
. . . the erroneous bourgeois reformist assertion that monopoly capitalism or state-monopoly capitalism is no longer capitalism, but can already be termed “state Socialism,” or something of that sort, is most widespread. . . [2]
That is to say, we must use the development of state-monopoly capitalism to demonstrate the necessity of the socialist revolution and not to negate this necessity, or to celebrate the so-called progress of capitalism, as the reformists or the revisionist neo-reformists do.
The spreading of confusion between bourgeois nationalization and socialist nationalization by the reformists and neo-reformists leads to the discrediting of the latter and therefore of socialism itself. They try to make the masses accept bourgeois nationalization and the strengthening of state-monopoly capitalism as a transformation of capitalist society into socialist society and so turn the working class and the mass of working people away from the indispensable task of smashing the bourgeois state machine and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat as the first fundamental act of the socialist revolution.
[1] V. I. Lenin, ”The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It”, Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 158.
[2] V. I. Lenin, ”The State and Revolution”, Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 269.