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Revisionism is a word which has several meanings. One of its first, neutral, use was the revision of Marx's doctrine by Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky in the late 19th century. It has also been used in a pejorative sense by historians to design politically-motivated attempts to rewrite history (denying the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, Japanese war crimes, colonialist crimes, etc.). The term is also used neutrally in describing fiction which alters or comments on a previous fictional work or genre.

Contents 1 Revisionism in the Socialist movement 2 Historical revisionism 3 Territorial revisionism 4 Fictional revisionism 5 See also

Revisionism in the Socialist movement

Main article: Reformism

Revisionism has often been used as a term of abuse within socialism. It has, however, been used in different ways at different times about different socialist trends.

• In the late 19th century revisionism was used to describe writers such as Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky who sought to revise the teachings of Karl Marx by claiming that a violent revolution was not necessary to achieve socialism. In all further uses of this term, there was an initial intent to create "guilt by association" between the abused socialist, and the actions of Bernstein in opposing violent revolution. See reformism.

• In the 1940s and 1950s within the international Communist movement, revisionism was used to describe Communists who focused on consumer goods production instead of heavy industry, accepted national differences and encouraged democratic reforms. Revisionism was one of the charges leveled at Titoists in a series of purges beginning in 1949 in Eastern Europe. After Stalin's death revisionism became briefly acceptable in Hungary during Imre Nagy's government (1953-1955) and in Poland during Wladyslaw Gomulka's government, although neither Nagy nor Gomulka described themselves as revisionists.

• Following the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, many people, particularly intellectuals, resigned from western Communist parties in protest. They were sometimes accused of revisionism by "loyalist" Communists. E. P. Thompson's New Reasoner was an example of this revisionism. This movement eventually became known as the New Left.

• In the early 1960s, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China revived the term revisionism to attack Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet Union over various ideological and political issues, as part of the Sino-Soviet split. The Chinese routinely described the Soviets as "modern revisionists" through the 1960s. This usage was copied by the various Maoist groups that split off from Communist parties around the world.

Historical revisionism

Main articles: Historical revisionism (political) & Historical revisionism

• Among historians, revisionism has traditionally been used in both neutral and pejorative senses to describe the work or ideas of a historian who has revised a previously accepted view of a particular topic. As historical research techniques change many fields of research go through periods of controversy as younger historians seek to revise established knowledge. See historical revisionism (neutral).

• • This usage has declined amongst historians because within the field of Holocaust studies revisionism has come to specifically designate historical work which aims to deny the extent of the Holocaust. In some langages, historical revisionism exclusively design denying of historical facts following a political agenda.

• • More generally, revisionism is used by both non-historians and historians as a pejorative term for biased historical work which denies that some past events took place. However, the distinction between a scientific historical revisionism and a political historical revisionism is subject to debate and controversy inside the historian community. See historical revisionism (political).

Territorial revisionism

• Territorial revisionism is sometimes used as an euphemism for revanchism or irredentism. The term has some usage in European post-Cold War debate, where many ethnic minorities hope to change the state borders drawn up after World War II.

• Revisionist Zionism was a movement founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky, who argued that the terms of the British Mandate in Palestine should be revised to make explicit the objective of creating a Jewish state there. Today's Likud party is a direct descendant of the Revisionists.

Fictional revisionism

• In fiction, revisionism is the retelling of a story or type of story with substantial alterations in character or environment, to "revise" the view shown in the original work. For example, the film Dances With Wolves is a revisionist Western because it portrays the Native Americans sympathetically instead of as the savages of traditional Westerns. Similarly, the novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire is a revisionist account of the life of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This usage is not generally considered pejorative.

See also

• historical revisionism (neutral)
• historical revisionism (political)

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