Revisionism is usually a term in Marxist or socialist debate, indicating a falling-away from a previous and ‘purer’ form of a theory. Thus left-wing thinkers like Rosa Luxemburg or, for that matter, Leon Trotsky were accused of revisionism for suggesting methods alternative to Lenin’s for communist revolution. Most modern forms of Marxism might be accused of revisionism in this way, and it remains a highly selective and value-laden concept.
Non-Marxist writers have taken over the concept to describe any later, and alternative, theory or account where there had previously been a generally-accepted version. So now there are, for example, revisionist theories about the cold war by Americans who are less convinced than previous writers of the purity of US foreign policy in the 1950s. However, the most important ‘revisionism’ in the late 20th and early 21st centuries is that concerning the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, a number of historians having sought to deny the existence, or deprecate the importance, of the Holocaust. This indicates the way in which revisionism is used not only to indicate later alternative theories, but especially those which serve to pour doubt on comforting original certainties.
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