Revisionism (Marxism) in the context of "One-party rule"

The Sino-Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. This was primarily caused by divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism, as influenced by their respective geopolitics during the Cold War of 1947–1991. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sino-Soviet debates about the interpretation of orthodox Marxism became specific disputes about the Soviet Union's policies of national de-Stalinization and international peaceful coexistence with the Western Bloc, which Chinese leader Mao Zedong decried as revisionism. Against that ideological background, China took a belligerent stance towards the Western world, and publicly rejected the Soviet Union's policy of peaceful coexistence between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc. In addition, Beijing resented the Soviet Union's growing ties with India due to factors such as the Sino-Indian border dispute, while Moscow feared that Mao was unconcerned about the drastic consequences of nuclear warfare.

In 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin and Stalinism in the speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" and began the de-Stalinization of the USSR. Mao and the Chinese leadership were appalled as the PRC and the USSR progressively diverged in their interpretations and applications of Leninist theory. By 1961, their intractable ideological differences provoked the PRC's formal denunciation of Soviet communism as the work of "revisionist traitors" in the USSR. The PRC also declared the Soviet Union social imperialist. For Eastern Bloc countries, the Sino-Soviet split was a question of who would lead the revolution for world communism, and to whom (China or the USSR) the vanguard parties of the world would turn for political advice, financial aid, and military assistance. In that vein, both countries competed for the leadership of world communism through the vanguard parties native to the countries in their spheres of influence. The conflict culminated after the Zhenbao Island Incident in 1969, when the Soviet Union reportedly considered the possibility of launching a large-scale nuclear strike against China, and the Chinese leadership, including Mao, was evacuated from Beijing, before both sides eventually returned to diplomatic negotiations.

Sorelianism is advocacy for the support of the ideology and thinking of Georges Sorel, a French revolutionary syndicalist. Sorelians oppose bourgeois democracy, the developments of the 18th century, the secular spirit, and the French Revolution, while supporting Classicism. A revisionist interpretation of Marxism, Sorel believed that the victory of the proletariat in class struggle could be achieved only through the power of myth and a general strike. To Sorel, the aftermath of class conflict would involve rejuvenation of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

With the seeming failure of syndicalism, Sorel announced his abandonment of socialist literature in 1910, and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce, that "socialism is dead" due to the "decomposition of Marxism". He became a supporter of Charles Maurras-style integral nationalism (maurrassisme) beginning in 1909, which he believed had similar moral aims to syndicalism despite being enemies materially. In this sense, Sorelianism is considered a precursor to fascism. However, Sorel became disillusioned with these ideas with World War I, and from 1918 until his death in 1922, became a supporter of the Russian Revolution and communism, believing them a revival of syndicalism.

The Socialist International, commonly known as the Second International, was a political international of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on 14 July 1889. At a time of growing industrial working-class movements and the expansion of suffrage, it brought together autonomous national parties into a loose international federation. It continued the work of the First International (1864–1876), from which it inherited both the legacy of Karl Marx and the conflict with anarchists. The organization was dominated by the powerful Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), whose organizational and theoretical leadership heavily influenced the other member parties.

The International established the annual celebration of International Workers' Day on 1 May and popularised the demand for an eight-hour day. Its early congresses were preoccupied with expelling anarchists and defining its mission as one based on parliamentary political action. After 1900, the International was increasingly confronted with the internal divisions of the socialist movement, particularly the rise of revisionism in Germany and the debate over socialist participation in "bourgeois" governments, sparked by the Millerand affair in France. The 1904 Amsterdam Congress, which saw a major debate between French socialist Jean Jaurès and German leader August Bebel, condemned revisionism and ministerialism, marking the highest point in the influence of the International.

The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), also known as the Khmer Communist Party, was a communist party in Kampuchea. Its leader was Pol Pot, and its members were generally known as the Khmer Rouge. Originally founded in 1951, the party was split into pro-Chinese and pro-Soviet factions as a result of the Sino–Soviet split with the former led by the Pol Pot faction and the latter aligned with the Soviet Union which the Pol Pot faction denounced as revisionist. As such, it claimed that 30 September 1960 was its founding date; it was named the Workers' Party of Kampuchea before it was renamed the Communist Party in 1966.

The party operated underground for most of its existence, and it took control of the country in April 1975, establishing the state known as Democratic Kampuchea. The party retained control until 1979 when the intervention of Vietnamese military forces led to the establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea. The party was officially dissolved in 1981, after which the Khmer Rouge remnants reorganized under the Party of Democratic Kampuchea, claiming to continue its legacy.

Revisionism may refer to:

• Historical revisionism, the critical re-examination of presumed historical facts and existing historiography
  • The "revisionists" school of thought in Soviet and Communist studies, as opposed to the Cold War "traditionalists" school
  • Historical negationism, concerted denial of claims accepted by mainstream historians, may purport to be historical revisionism but its methodologies have no basis in historiography/profession of history
  • Revisionist school of Islamic studies, which questions whether the traditional accounts about Islam's early times are reliable historical sources
• Fictional revisionism, the retelling of a story with substantial alterations in character or environment, to "revise" the view shown in the original work
• Marxist revisionism, a pejorative term used by some Marxists to describe ideas based on a revision of fundamental Marxist premises
• Revisionism (Ireland), an issue in Irish historiography
• Revisionism (Spain), a derogatory term used in Spanish historiographic debate
• Revisionism theory, another word for reformism
• Revisionist Zionism, a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement
• Territorial revisionism, a euphemism for revanchism or irredentism
• The reevaluation of one's experiences with a hindsight bias

Philosophy in the Soviet Union was officially confined to Marxist–Leninist thinking, which theoretically was the basis of objective and ultimate philosophical truth. During the 1920s and 1930s, other tendencies of Russian thought were repressed (many philosophers emigrated, others were expelled). Joseph Stalin enacted a decree in 1931 identifying dialectical materialism with Marxism–Leninism, making it the official philosophy which would be enforced in all communist states and, through the Comintern, in most communist parties. Following the traditional use in the Second International, opponents would be labeled as "revisionists".

From the beginning of Bolshevik regime, the aim of official Soviet philosophy (which was taught as an obligatory subject for every course), was the theoretical justification of communist ideas. For this reason, "Sovietologists", among whom the most famous were Józef Maria Bocheński, professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Gustav Wetter, have often claimed Soviet philosophy was close to nothing but dogma.

Eduard Bernstein (German: [ˈeːduaʁt ˈbɛʁnʃtaɪn]; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German social democratic politician and socialist theorist. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Bernstein is best known for his reformist challenge to Marxism known as evolutionary socialism or revisionism, in which he questioned the revolutionary predictions of Karl Marx and advocated for a gradual, parliamentary path to socialism. His political and theoretical work played a significant role in the development of modern social democracy and reformist socialism.

Born into a lower-middle-class Jewish family in Berlin, Bernstein became active in socialist politics in his early twenties. He spent years in exile in Switzerland and London during the period of the Anti-Socialist Laws in Germany, where he became a close associate of Friedrich Engels. During his time in London, his interactions with the reformist Fabian Society and his observation of the stability of late Victorian capitalism led him to question key tenets of orthodox Marxism.