Bernstein’s reformism may have provided ease for some in struggling times. However, much is taken for granted. It is not a fix, merely duct tape. Reformism is certainly not the final answer. And we see that in how it has been twisted in the bourgeouis favour.
“His theory tends to counsel us to renounce the social transformation, the final goal of Social-Democracy and, inversely, to make of social reforms, the means of the class struggle.”It undermines the proletariat, claiming that it is helping, when in reality, it is just enabling a bourgeois democracy.
— Rosa Luxemburg on Eduard Bernstein - Reform or Revolution (1899)
Today, I was removed from my seat in a relatively empty train. You may ask, why? Because I held a concession ticket. The transport officer claimed that since I was not paying for the transport, I must stand up. For who? Nobody wished to use my seat. There were no elderly or disabled, no pregnant women. I was simply removed because I was in need of subsidy.
This is an abuse of the label of Social Democracy. When I am given a concession ticket, it is no ‘free trial’. I should expect to live the same experience as any other person on the transport. Socialism requests equal treatment of proletarians despite communalisation. It is inherently against socialist theory to treat a proletarian any different simply because they benefit from communalisation.
Alas, Bernsteinian Reformism has failed to meet the aims of Social-Democracy that Luxemburg once envisioned. It has become systematic suppression of proletarians via the political weaponisation of the process of communisation.