SOCIALISM: obstacles to a discussion

• Main Author: Ivo Tonet
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco 2008-06-01
• Series: Clio: Revista de Pesquisa Histórica
• Subjects: real socialism; democratic socialism; associated work
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/revistaclio/article/view/24202/19641

For those, like us, who believe in the possibility and need of building a socialist society, it is imperative and urgent a critic of the attempts of its instauration. In that task, two concepts had and still have an enormous and negative importance. They are the concepts of “real socialism” and “democratic socialism”. Those two concepts are frequently used for those who intend to criticize the attempts of socialist revolutions. The first, in the sense that socialism would be that that in fact resulted of those attempts. The second, as correction of the suffered deformations in that process. We understood that, instead of helping in the critic and in illuminating the road of an authentic socialist society, those concepts are an obstacle that should be avoided since they deform completely the starting point of the discussion. The demonstration of that will be the goal of the present text.