SPGB 2025 Summer School: What is Marxism? An update

The following session has been added to the programme of the Socialist Party Summer School:

Guest speaker Cat Rylance [of Communist Future] will present ‘Marxism, Reforms and Reformism’  

The question of the role and function that reforms play in the transformation from capitalism to communism has been brought to the surface again in recent years by ‘democratic socialist’ trends advancing the argument for ‘non-reformist reforms’. How does the idea of non-reformist reforms relate to existing approaches to reforms and reformism within the communist movement? And what place, if any, would we understand reforms as having within a Marxist programme? The talk will explore how reforms are related to in the programmes of Classical and Orthodox Marxism, in particular the purpose of minimum demands within this, considering these questions in relation to the approaches of the left today, and thinking about how we might deal with the challenges that emerge from these approaches.