Reformism

REFORMISM. - Reformism is neither a theory nor does it rest on a particular ideology, but rather a practical attitude concerning the method to be followed in promoting the progress of social institutions. In opposition to revolutionary tendencies, which regard the existing order as outdated or bad in all its elements and therefore set out to overthrow it by violence, in order to create an entirely different one, reformism considers it substantially good, though defective in several respects, and consequently aims to obtain its improvement through gradual and methodical reforms. Taken in this sense, it is an attitude coeval with the human spirit, which in moderate currents shuns the extremes of narrow conservatism and subversive revolutionism. It can therefore refer to any social institution, within which the yearning for progress and the will to correct its defects leads to promoting structural reforms, while leaving intact whatever good they contain. There have been, for example, vigorous reformist currents within the Church itself, particularly in times of disciplinary or ecclesiastical-moral decadence, such as those that branched out from Cluny and the movement that opposed the Protestant "reformation," which under Paul III led to the convocation of the Council of Trent.

However, from the 19th century onward reformism acquired a distinctly political meaning. Historically, the ideological and social movement set in motion by the Enlightenment (v.) can be considered reformist, which so greatly influenced the spiritual and practical attitude of the 18th century. The proclamation and dissemination of the so-called reformist principles unleashed, it is true, one of the greatest world revolutions, and yet, if the religious sector is excepted, their application did not entirely overturn the social order, since both the declaration of the rights of man and the subsequent republican constitution maintained, albeit on a rationalistic and agnostic plane, the fundamental rights of the individual, including that of property. Against this order, partly old and partly new, the revolutionary currents hurled themselves.

The century of reformism was the 19th century. Bentham introduced the term into political science, and from then on the moderate currents of the most disparate political leanings were called reformist. During the Italian Risorgimento such were the Neo-Guelphs and Gioberti, who gave reformism a historicist basis, while on the opposite side, with a revolutionary attitude, the radicals and the Mazzinians took their stand. The tendency penetrated socialism itself, bringing about within it the division between revolutionary communism, to which the most heated currents and those most faithful to the principles of pure Marxism remained attached, and reformist socialism, averse to the use of violence. The struggle between the two tendencies had repercussions not only on domestic politics but also on the external plane in the various Internationals (v. INTERNAZIONALE). From history, then, one deduces that reformism is not bound to any particular ideology, but can penetrate all of them indiscriminately, either as a moderating element or as a propelling principle. It is a moderator in currents with a revolutionary tendency, and becomes a propelling force in conservative ones.

The Church's attitude toward the social problem could very well be defined as reformist, although the term is not in use. It recognizes, in fact, that the existing social order is not perfect and therefore needs profound innovations to make it better suited to respond to the demands of modern life, through the creation of new institutions and the adoption of more adequate measures, particularly with regard to the organization and remuneration of labor and the more rational distribution of property, in order to attenuate social disparities as far as possible. However, it holds that the hoped-for improvements should not be achieved through revolution, but through a sound and progressive evolution. An authoritative expression of this attitude is the teaching of Pius XII in his address to workers of June 13, 1943: "Not in revolution, but in a concordant evolution lies salvation and justice." Violence does nothing but accumulate hatreds and ruins; "only a progressive and prudent evolution, courageous and consonant with nature, enlightened and guided by the holy Christian norms of justice and equity, can lead to the fulfillment of the worker's honest desires and needs" (AAS, 35 [1943], pp. 174-75).

Antonio Messineo