Reformism is the belief that gradual changes through and within existing institutions of a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations, economic system, and political structures. This belief grew out of opposition to revolutionary socialism, which contends that revolutions are necessary for fundamental structural changes to occur.

Socialist reformism, or evolutionary socialism, was first put forward by Eduard Bernstein, a leading social democrat. Reformism was quickly targeted by revolutionary socialists, with Rosa Luxemburg condemning Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism in her 1900 essay Reform or Revolution?. While Luxemburg died in the German Revolution, the reformists soon found themselves contending with the Bolsheviks and their satellite communist parties for the support of the proletariat.

After the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War and consolidated power in the Soviet Union, they launched a targeted campaign against the Reformist movement by denouncing them as "social fascists". According to The God that Failed by Arthur Koestler, a former member of the Communist Party of Germany, the largest communist party in Western Europe in the Interwar period, communists, aligned with the Soviet Union, continued to consider the "social fascist" Social Democratic Party of Germany to be the real enemy in Germany, even after the Nazi Party had gotten into power.

Geoffrey Charles Van Orden MBE (born 10 April 1945) is a British politician and former soldier. He is currently Member of the European Parliament for the East of England region for the Conservative Party. He was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999.

Van Orden was born in Waterlooville, Hampshire in 1945. He attended the Mons Officer Cadet School and was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1964. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1966, Captain in 1970, Major in 1977, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1983, Colonel in 1988, and Brigadier in 1991. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) aged just 27.

He served worldwide as part of the British Army from 1964 to 1985. In 1985 he became an instructor at the German Armed Forces Staff College in Hamburg (1985–88) and was later the Chief of Staff of the British Army in the British sector of Berlin (1988–90). In 1990 he worked as part of the Assessment Staff for the Joint Intelligence Committee in London. From 1991 to 1994 he served as the Executive Secretary of International Military Staff at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, his final military appointment.

Dalia Mogahed (born 1974) is an American Muslim scholar of Egyptian origin. She is the Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a non-partisan research center that provides data and analysis to reflect the views of Muslims all over the world. She was selected as an advisor by U.S. President Barack Obama on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Dalia was born in Cairo, Egypt and immigrated to the United States at the age of 4. She received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering with a minor in Arabic from the University of Wisconsin and subsequently received her MBA from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Upon graduation, Mogahed joined Procter & Gamble as a marketing products researcher.

Dalia Mogahed chairs the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, which conducts research and statistics on Muslims throughout the world. She was selected as an advisor by U.S. President Barack Obama on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Irshad Manji (Arabic: إرشاد مانجي‎ ‘Irshād Mānjī, Gujarati: ઇરશાદ માનજી Irshād Mānji; born 1968) is a Canadian author, journalist and an advocate of a "reform and progressive" interpretation of Islam. Manji is director of the Moral Courage Project at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, which aims to teach young leaders to "challenge political correctness, intellectual conformity and self-censorship." She is also founder and president of Project Ijtihad, a charitable organization promoting a "tradition of critical thinking, debate and dissent" in Islam, among a "network of reform-minded Muslims and non-Muslim allies."

Manji is a well-known critic of traditional mainstream Islam and was described by The New York Times as "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare".

Manji’s most recent book, Allah, Liberty and Love was released in June 2011 in the US, Canada and other countries. On Manji's website, the book is described: "Allah, Liberty and Love shows all of us how to reconcile faith and freedom in a world seething with repressive dogmas. Manji’s key teaching is "moral courage," the willingness to speak up when everyone else wants to shut you up. This book is the ultimate guide to becoming a gutsy global citizen."

Hassan Abbasi (born in 1967) is an Iranian political analyst doctrinologist & strategist, the head of the Center for Doctrinal Analysis, an independent political strategic think-tank in the Islamic Republic and also counter-terrorism advanced study center.

Abassi claims to be a basiji of the Iran-Iraq war, and special forces.[1] However, his involvement in Iran-Iraq war (and claims of his volunteer efforts to defend Iran in war times), has bean disputed by General Ali Shamkhani (the Commander of IRGC Navy during the war). General Shamkhani has said: "If Hassan Abbasi and the likes of him would have come to the battleground, we wouldn't have shortage of forces, and the matter [result of the war] would have been different. He was not in the battleground." [2]

Abbasi calls himself a doctor, with a Ph.D. degree, but has always refused to clarify the university from which he graduated or his adviser. He even claims that he has supervised some Ph.D. dissertations, but it has not been confirmed by an independent source. [3][4] Answering questions about his Ph.D. he has said that "Doctorate means Doctrine, meaning someone who can offer Doctrine." [5]