Revolutionary socialism
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</span> Revolutionary socialism is an ideology that supports establishing socialism through violent revolution, instead of through democratic elections and the existing political institutions.
Historically the phrase was used by members of the left wing tendency of the Second International — such as Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg — to identify themselves as distinct from evolutionary socialists such as Eduard Bernstein. This tendency became widely known as Communism following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the replacement of the Second International by the Third International.
Following the rise of Stalinism in the Third International, dissident tendencies such as Trotskyism and Left Communism would often use the term revolutionary socialism (or revolutionary communism) as a means of asserting that they were opposed to Stalinists. Conversely, Stalinists would assert that they were the genuine revolutionary socialists. Some revolutionaries outside of the Marxist tradition, such as libertarian socialists or anarchists have described themselves as revolutionary socialists.
Today the term revolutionary socialism is used by the far left to distinguish itself from parliamentary socialists, particularly in countries where social democratic parties use the name Socialist Party or refer to themselves as socialists.
