I have been reading The Complete Works of Malatesta and through that, I learned that a lot of people identified as ‘democratic socialists’ in Italy in the 19th century. I know that even Marx talks about democratic socialists in some of his writings and criticizes them. This has me wondering if that label was what social democrats called themselves at the time, or if they were different from social democrats. And if the latter is the case, how did they differentiate themselves from social democrats?
I think that the two terms (…
I think that the two terms ("democratic socialist" and "social democrat") were pretty much used interchangeably when Malatesta was writing. When Marx was writing, the term was not used by Marxists until the 1870s/1880s -- in France, in the 1830s/1840s it referred to the likes of Louis Blanc and other Jacobin-socialists.
Groups taking over labels used by others was a common feature of the time -- "collectivists" was used in the IWMA by the Federalist-wing but in the early 1880s it started to be used by the Marxist-wing of the French socialist movement (anarchists preferring communists by then).
Names and terms change due…
Names and terms change due to time and place. In the 20s and 30s groups calling themselves left communists had a strong chance of being Trots as they were referring to Trotsky's Left Opposition in the fights with Stalin.
In the UK, most Labour Party and adjacents would use Democratic Socialist to draw some distance between them and the Soviet Union and its supporters. Nowadays, I've noticed that within the Labour Party there's a new distinction, Labour's left use Democratic Socialist and their right wing are using Social Democrat, so I guess there's a distinction there if you look hard enough.
I mean, wasn't it only until…
I mean, wasn't it only until the 19th century that the definitive split between social democracy and revolutionary marxism occurred? I mean, for a while the Bakuninist faction in the International was called the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/iwma/documents/1868/iasd-program.htm
I think the programme of the old Bakuninist IASD was probably quite a way from what either "democratic socialism" or "social democracy" might suggest today though.
In the 19th Century you had…
In the 19th Century you had different factions in the social democratic movement eg in Russia with the Bolshevik faction in Russian Democratic Party who proved serious about carrying out the full "social democratic" program involving wide scale nationalisation of industries, rationing etc but covered up this program with talk about supporting workers control and land for the peasants etc. Particularly in Lenin's Pamphlet "State & Revolution" full of ultra democratic workers' state talk. They carried out their coup in October 1917 and set up a dictatorship to carry it out. After taking power and with moves to set up the 3rd International - they renamed themselves as the Communist Party. The menshevik faction of RSDLP supported bourgeois democatic/parliamentary regime and not in favour and not capable of carrying out key aspects of the social democatic program.
Today globally those parties which use the social democratic or Labour Party labels are all heavily involved in pursuing the neo liberal agenda and as are today's corporate bureaucratic unions which have power in them - also these parties and corporate unions are interwoven with the corporate set up/deep state/corporate media etc and its agendas by innumerable threads.
Also see "From Bureaucratic…
Also see "From Bureaucratic Corporate unions to Grass Roots Controlled Direct Action Unionism: Perspectives and Activity for Australia Today" on Libcom.org and on www.rebelworker.org RW Dec. 2023 - Jan. 2024 for a discussion of Corporate Unionism and its Relationship with the neo-liberal agenda and the Australian Labor Party