changing and developing. reflects reality - therefore as new phenomena develop in social reality so new ideas and categories have to be introduced into Marxism.
Marx, for example, never developed a theory of imperialism -modern imperialist system did not exist when Marx was alive. Lenin developed he ends out eve] any theory of Stalinism — for the simple reason that develop until after Lenin's death.
Marxist analysıs dialectic of 'classic ideas and radical innovation. The criterion for that which should be retained from the old, and what should be introduced as new, is always whether a theory accurately reflects reality. As Engels put it Marxism: 'proceeds not from principles but from facts' A Marxist idea therefore remains valid for analysis, and action, as long as the realitv it ret ects continues to exist The creation phenomenon - imperialism, fascism, or Stalinism to take developments since Marx's death — requires the introducThis determines the relation MATTIN There does not exist anywhere in the 'Marxist classics' a fully developed analysis of British society and politics. This simply because svstematic study of this sublect exists. but also because British society has tremendously developed since such written. develop a Marxist analysis of British means study and learn from what is new — as Marx did in his own day.
But the criterion of correspondence to reality as the test of any analysis classic Marxist ideas is sterile Nothing is more short sighted than an attempt to "start from scratch' and ignore what has already been analysed in Marxist ideas.
Perry Anderson put it clearly an essay he wrote on Gramsci: The international disputes which united and divided Luxemburg, Lenin, Gramsci, Bordiga or Trotsky represents the last great strategic debate in the European workers movement... The classical debates, therefore, still remain in many respects the most ad. vanced limits of reference we possess LaV.
'It is thus not... archaism to recall the strategic confrontations which occurred four or five decades ago. reappropriate them, on the contrary, Is a step towards a Marxist discussion that has the - necessarily modest of assuming an "initial shape" of correct theory today. Regis Debray has spoken, in a famous paragraph, of the constant difficulty of being contemporary with our present. In Europe at least, we have yet to be sufficiently contemporary with our past.' Marxism - because the did not develops in a Kinnock social Golding Gorbachev Deng movement betrayers. to the influence that the development of a bourgeois revolution has on the liberals. In the first stages of the mass movement, the reformists move leftward, hoping in this way to retain the leadership in their hands. But when the surpasses the limits of reform, and demands from the leaders a clean break with the bourgeoisie, the majority of the reformists quickly change their tune. From cowardly fellow travellers of the masses, they turn strikebreakers, celles. open He also noted: 'At the same time however, some of them, not necessarily their better elements, jump over into the camp of the revolution...
Trotsky concluded: "The reformists are betravers not because they carr out, at every given moment and in every one of their acts, the instructions of the bourgeoisie. If that were the case, the reformists would have no influence on the workers and consequently would not be needed by the bourgeoisie. Precisely in order to have the necessary authority for betrayal of the workers at the decisive moment, the opportunists are compelled during the preparator period to assume the leadership of the workers' struggles, particularly at the beginning of the radicalisation of the "The social democrats and those of