Eduard Bernstein

Eduard Bernstein (6 January 1850 – 18

December 1932) was a German social-
democratic Marxist theorist and
politician. A member of the Social
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD),
Bernstein had held close association to
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but he
began to identify what he believed to be
errors in Marxist thinking and began to
criticize views held by Marxism when he
investigated and challenged the Marxist
materialist theory of history.[1] He
rejected significant parts of Marxist
theory that were based upon Hegelian
metaphysics and rejected the Hegelian
dialectical perspective.[2]
 Eduard Bernstein

Member of the Reichstag

from Lower Silesia
In office
7 June 1920 – 20 May 1928

Constituency Breslau
Member of the Imperial Reichstag
from Silesia
In office
13 January 1912 – 10 November 1918

Preceded by Otto Pfundtner

Succeeded by Reichstag dissolution
Constituency Breslau-West

In office
31 October 1901 – 25 January 1907

Preceded by Bruno Schönlank

Succeeded by Otto Pfundtner

Constituency Breslau-West

Personal details

Born 6 January 1850

Schöneberg,
Kingdom of Prussia

Died 18 December 1932

(aged 82)
Berlin, Free State of
Prussia, Weimar
Republic

Political party SDAP (1872–1875)

 SPD (1875–1917)
USPD (1917–1919)
SPD (1918–1932)
Philosophy career

Era 19th–20th-century
philosophy

Region Western philosophy

School Socialism

Main interests Politics, economy,

sociology

Notable ideas Social democracy

Revisionism

Influences
Kant • Hegel • Marx • Engels •
Karl Höchberg • Karl Kautsky •
Jean Jaurès
Influenced
All Marxist revisionists, mainly the
SPD

Bernstein distinguished between early

and mature Marxism. The former,
exemplified by Marx and Engels's 1848
The Communist Manifesto was opposed
by Bernstein for what he regarded as its
violent Blanquist tendencies. Bernstein
embraced the latter, holding that
socialism could be achieved by peaceful
means through incremental legislative
reform in democratic societies.[3]

Early life
Bernstein was born in Schöneberg (now
part of Berlin) to Jewish parents who
were active in the Reform Temple on the
Johannistrasse whose services were
performed on Sunday. His father was a
locomotive driver. From 1866 to 1878, he
was employed in banks as a banker's
clerk after leaving school.[4] Bernstein's
political career began in 1872, when he
joined a socialist party with Marxist
tendencies, known formally as the Social
Democratic Workers' Party of Germany, a
proponent of the Eisenach, named after a
German town, type of German socialism.
He soon became known as an activist.
Bernstein's party contested two elections
against a rival socialist party, the
Lassalleans (Ferdinand Lassalle's
General German Workers' Association),
but in both elections neither party was
able to win a significant majority of the
left-wing vote. Consequently, Bernstein,
together with August Bebel and Wilhelm
Liebknecht, prepared the
Einigungsparteitag ("Unification Party
Congress") with the Lassalleans in Gotha
in 1875. Karl Marx's famous Critique of
the Gotha Program criticised what he saw
as a Lassallean victory over the
Eisenachers, whom he favoured.
Bernstein later noted that it was
Liebknecht, considered by many to be the
strongest Marxist advocate within the
Eisenacher faction, who proposed the
inclusion of many of the ideas that so
thoroughly irritated Marx.

In the 1877 elections, the German Social

Democratic Party (SPD) gained 493,000
votes. However, two assassination
attempts on Kaiser Wilhelm I the next
year provided Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck a pretext to introduce a law
banning all socialist organisations,
assemblies and publications. There had
been no Social Democratic involvement
in either assassination attempt, but the
popular reaction against "enemies of the
Reich" induced a compliant Reichstag to
approve Bismarck's Anti-Socialist
Laws.[5]
Bismarck's strict anti-socialist legislation
was passed on 12 October 1878. For
nearly all practical purposes, the SPD
was outlawed and throughout Germany,
it was actively suppressed. However, it
was still possible for Social Democrats to
campaign as individuals for election to
the Reichstag, which they did, despite the
severe persecution subjected to the
party, and actually increased its electoral
success, gaining 550,000 votes in 1884
and 763,000 in 1887.

Exile
The vehemence of Bernstein's opposition
to the government of Bismarck made it
desirable for him to leave Germany.[6]
Shortly before the Anti-Socialist Laws
came into effect, Bernstein went into
exile in Zurich, accepting a position as
private secretary for the social-
democratic patron Karl Höchberg, a
wealthy supporter of social democracy. A
warrant subsequently issued for his
arrest ruled out any possibility for him to
return to Germany, and he was to remain
in exile for more than 20 years. In 1888,
Bismarck convinced the Swiss
government to expel a number of
important members of German social
democracy and so Bernstein relocated to
London, where he associated with
Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky. It was
soon after his arrival in Switzerland that
he began to think of himself as a
Marxist.[7] In 1880, he accompanied
Bebel to London to clear up a
misunderstanding concerning his
involvement with an article published by
Höchberg that was denounced by Marx
and Engels as being "chock-full of
bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideas".
The visit was a success, and particularly,
Engels in particular was impressed by
Bernstein's zeal and ideas.

Back in Zurich, Bernstein became

increasingly active in working for Der
Sozialdemokrat (Social Democrat) and
later succeeded Georg von Vollmar as
the paper's editor, which he was for 10
years. It was during those years between
1880 and 1890 that Bernstein
established his reputation as a major
party theoretician and a Marxist of
impeccable orthodoxy. He was helped in
that by the close personal and
professional relationship he established
with Engels. The relationship owed much
to the fact that he shared Engels's
strategic vision and accepted most of the
particular policies that Engels believed
the ideas to entail. In 1887, the German
government persuaded the Swiss
authorities to ban Der Sozialdemokrat.
Bernstein moved to London, where he
resumed publication from premises in
Kentish Town. His relationship with
Engels soon developed into friendship.
He also communicated with various
English socialist organizations, notably
the Fabian Society and Henry Mayers
Hyndman's Social Democratic
Federation.[8] In later years, his
opponents routinely claimed that his
"revisionism" was caused by seeing the
world "through English spectacles".
However, Bernstein denied the charges.[9]

In 1895, Engels was deeply distressed

when he discovered that his introduction
to a new edition of The Class Struggles in
France, written by Marx in 1850, had been
edited by Bernstein and Kautsky in a
manner that left the impression that he
had become a proponent of a peaceful
road to socialism. On 1 April 1895, four
months before his death, Engels wrote to
Kautsky:

I was amazed to see today in

the Vorwärts an excerpt from
my 'Introduction' that had been
printed without my knowledge
and tricked out in such a way
as to present me as a peace-
loving proponent of legality
quand même (at all costs).
Which is all the more reason
why I should like it to appear
 in its entirety in the Neue Zeit
in order that this disgraceful
impression may be erased. I
shall leave Liebknecht in no
doubt as to what I think about
it and the same applies to those
who, irrespective of who they
may be, gave him this
opportunity of perverting my
views and, what's more,
without so much as a word to
me about it.[10]

In 1891, Bernstein was one of the

authors of the Erfurt Program and from
1896 to 1898, he published a series of
articles entitled Probleme des
Sozialismus (Problems of Socialism) that
resulted in the revisionism debate in the
SPD.[11] He also published the book Die
Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die
Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie (The
Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks
of Social Democracy) in 1899. The book
was in great contrast to the positions of
Bebel, Kautsky and Liebknecht. Rosa
Luxemburg's 1900 essay Reform or
Revolution? was also a polemic against
Bernstein's position. In 1900, Berstein
published Zur Geschichte und Theorie
des Sozialismus (The History and Theory
of Socialism).[12]
Return to Germany

The USPD board on 5 December 1919 included

Bernstein.

In 1901, Bernstein returned to Germany

after the end of the ban that had kept him
from entering the country. He became an
editor of the newspaper Vorwärts that
year[6][12] and a member of the Reichstag
from 1902 to 1918. He voted against the
armament tabling in 1913, together with
the SPD fraction's left wing. Although he
voted for war credits in August 1914, he
opposed World War I from July 1915 and,
in 1917, was among the founders of the
Independent Social Democratic Party of
Germany (USPD), which united antiwar
socialists, including reformists like
Bernstein, centrists like Kautsky and
revolutionary socialists like Karl
Liebknecht. He was a member of the
USDP until 1919, when he rejoined the
SPD. From 1920 to 1928, Bernstein was
again a member of the Reichstag. He
retired from political life in 1928.

Death and legacy

Bernstein died on 18 December 1932 in
Berlin. A commemorative plaque is
placed in his memory at Bozener Straße
18, Berlin-Schöneberg, where he lived
from 1918 until his death. His grave in
the Eisackstrasse Cemetery became a
grave of honour (German: Ehrengrab) in
Berlin.

Opinions

Opposition to violent revolution …

Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus

(1899) was Bernstein's most significant
work. Bernstein was principally
concerned with refuting Karl Marx's
predictions about the imminent and
inevitable demise of capitalism and
Marx's consequent laissez-faire policy
which opposed ameliorative social
interventions before the demise.
Bernstein indicated simple facts, which
he considered to be evidence that Marx's
predictions were not being borne out
while he noted that while the
centralisation of capitalist industry was
significant, it was not becoming
wholescale and that the ownership of
capital was becoming more and not less
diffuse.[12][13] Bernstein's analysis of
agriculture, according to which Bernstein
believed that land ownership was
becoming less concentrated, was largely
based on the work of Eduard David[14]
and was in its marshalling of facts
impressive enough that even his
Orthodox Marxist opponent Karl Kautsky
acknowledged its value.[15]

As to Marx's belief in the disappearance

of the middleman, Bernstein declared
that the entrepreneur class was being
steadily recruited from the proletariat
class and so all compromise measures,
such as the state regulation of the hours
of labour and provisions for old-age
pensions should be encouraged. For that
reason, Bernstein urged the labouring
classes to take an active interest in
politics.[12] Bernstein also indicated what
he considered to be some of the flaws in
Marx's labour theory of value.[13]

Looking especially at the rapid growth in

Germany, Bernstein argued that middle-
sized firms would flourish, the size and
power of the middle class would grow
and that capitalism would successfully
adjust and not collapse. He warned that
a violent proletarian revolution, as in
France in 1848, produced only
reactionary successes, which
undermined workers' interests.
Therefore, he rejected revolution and
instead insisted the best strategy to be
patiently building up a durable social
movement working for continuous
nonviolent incremental change.[16]

In his work, The Quest for Evolutionary

Socialism: Eduard Bernstein and Social
Democracy, Manfred Steger touches on
Bernstein's desire for socialism through
peaceful means and incremental
legislation. Some say that is Marxism in
its mature form after the revisionists said
claimed many of Marx's theories to be
wrong and came up with theories of their
own, including socialism coming through
democratic means.[17]

Bernstein's moderation under

attack
…
Bernstein was vilified by the orthodox
Marxists as well as the more radical
current led by Rosa Luxemburg for his
revisionism.[18] Nonetheless, Bernstein
remained very much a socialist, albeit an
unorthodox one as he believed that
socialism would be achieved by
capitalism, not by capitalism's
destruction (as rights were gradually won
by workers, their cause for grievance
would be diminished and consequently,
so too would the motivation for
revolution). During the intra-party
debates about his ideas, Bernstein
explained that for him the final goal of
socialism was nothing; progress toward
that goal was everything.
Luxemburg argued that socialism has its
end in social revolution and revisionism
"amounts in practice to the advice [...]
that we abandon the social revolution—
the goal of Social Democracy—and turn
social reform from a means of the class
struggle into its final aim".[19] She says
revisionism has lost sight of scientific
socialism and reverted to idealism and
therefore lost its predictive force. Since
reformists underestimate the anarchy of
capitalism and say it has adaptability and
viability, by which they mean that the
contradictions of capitalism would not of
historical necessity drive it to its doom,
Luxemburg said they would abandon the
objective necessity for socialism and
give up all hope for a socialist future. The
movement would collapse unless
revisionism is repudiated. Trade
unionists, who could see the successes
of capitalism and the improvement of
working conditions and who wanted to
improve working conditions through
parliament, generally followed Bernstein
while those who were more orthodox
hardliners generally followed
Luxemburg.[20]

Foreign policy …

Foreign policy was Bernstein's main

intellectual interest between 1902 and
1914, with many articles in the
Sozialistische Monatshefte (Socialist
Monthly). He advocated policies
positions for Germany that were
aggressively nationalist, imperialist and
expansionist.[21][22]

Bernstein considered protectionism (high

tariffs on imports) as helping only a
selective few, being fortschrittsfeindlich
(anti-progressive) for its negative effects
on the masses. He argued Germany's
protectionism was based only on
political expediency, isolating Germany
from the world (especially from Britain),
creating an autarky that would result only
in conflict between Germany and the rest
of the world.[23] Bernstein wanted to end
Germany's protectionism and argued that
tariffs did not increase grain production,
did not counter British competition, did
not increase farm profits and did not
promote improvements in farming.
Instead, it inflated rents, interest rates
and prices, hurting everyone involved. In
contrast, he argued that free trade led to
peace, democracy, prosperity and the
highest material and moral well-being of
all humanity.[24]

Bernstein rejected reactionary bourgeois

nationalism and called instead for a
cosmopolitan-libertarian nationalism. He
recognized the historical role of the
national factor and said that the
proletariat must support their country
against external dangers. He called on
workers to assimilate themselves within
nation-states, which entailed support for
colonial policies and imperial projects.
Bernstein was sympathetic to the idea of
imperial expansions as a positive and
civilizing mission, which resulted in a
bitter series of polemics with the anti-
imperialist Ernest Belfort Bax.[25]
Bernstein supported colonialism as it
uplifted backward peoples and it worked
well for both Britain and Germany.
Bernstein supported such policies in an
intensely racialised manner, arguing in
1896 that "races who are hostile to or
incapable of civilisation cannot claim our
sympathy when they revolt against
civilisation" and that the "savages [must]
be subjugated and made to conform to
the rules of higher civilisation".[26]
However, he was disturbed by the
Kaiser's reckless policies. He wanted
strong friendship especially with Britain
and France and protection against the
Russian threat to Germany. He
envisioned a sort of league of
nations.[27][28]

Zionism …

Bernstein's views on Jewish matters

evolved. He never identified as a Zionist,
but after initially favouring a wholly
assimilationist solution to "the Jewish
Question", his attitude toward Zionism
became considerably more sympathetic
after World War I.[29][30] Bernstein is also
noted for being "one of the first socialists
to deal sympathetically with the issue of
homosexuality".[31]

Works
Ferdinand Lassalle as a Social
Reformer. Eleanor Marx Aveling, trans.
London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.,
1893.
The Preconditions of Socialism. [1899].
Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
Evolutionary Socialism: A Criticism and
Affirmation. [1899] Edith C. Harvey,
trans. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1909.
Cromwell and Communism: Socialism
and Democracy in the Great English
Revolution . H.J. Stenning, trans.
London: Allen and Unwin, 1930.
My Years of Exile: Reminiscences of a
Socialist. , trans. Bernard Miall, New
York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1921.
online free
Selected Writings of Eduard Bernstein,
1900–1921. Prometheus Books, 1996.
Marius S. Ostrowski (ed.), Eduard
Bernstein on Social Democracy and
International Politics: Essays and Other
 Writings . Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2018.
Marius S. Ostrowski (ed.), Eduard
Bernstein on the German Revolution:
Selected Historical Writings .
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2019.

Primary sources …

Tudor, Henry Tudor and J. M. Tudor,

eds. Marxism and Social Democracy:
The Revisionist Debate, 1896–1898.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1988.

References
1. Berman, Sheri. Social Democracy
 and the Making of Europe's
Twentieth Century. Cambridge
University Press, 2006. pp. 38–39.
2. Michael Harrington. Socialism: Past
and Future. Reprint edition of original
published in 1989. New York, New
York, USA: Arcade Publishing, 2011.
P. 251.
3. Steger, Manfred B. The Quest for
Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard
Bernstein And Social Democracy.
Cambridge, England, UK; New York,
New York, US: Cambridge University
Press, 1997. pp. 236–237.
4. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922).
"Bernstein, Eduard"  . Encyclopædia
 Britannica (12th ed.). London & New
York: The Encyclopædia Britannica
Company.
5. The Preconditions of Socialism
Eduard Bernstein
6. Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920).
"Bernstein, Eduard"  . Encyclopedia
Americana.
7. Berstein, Sozialdemokratische
Lehrjahre, p.72; Berstein to Bebel,
20.10.1898, Tudor and Tudor, p.324.
8. This influence is particularly evident
in Bernstein's My Years of Exile:
Reminiscences of a Socialist
(London, 1921).
 9. Bernstein to Bebel, 20.10.1898,
Tudor and Tudor, pp. 325-6.
10. Engels, Friedrich (2004). Collected
Works, Volume 50. New York:
International Publishers. p. 86.
11. Wolfgang Eichhorn: Über Eduard
Bernstein. Gegensatz und
Berührungspunkte zu Rosa
Luxemburg und W. I. Lenin, in:
Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur
Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung,
No. I/2002.
12. Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M.,
eds. (1905). "Bernstein, Eduard"  .
New International Encyclopedia (1st
ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
13. Die Voraussetzungen des
Sozialismus (1899)
14. Service, Robert. Comrades!. Harvard
University Press. p. 49.
15. Kolakowski, Leszek (2008). Main
Currents of Marxism. W. W. Norton &
Company. pp. 433–435.
16. Richard A. Fletcher, "Cobden as
Educator: The Free-Trade
Internationalism of Eduard Bernstein,
1899-1914." American Historical
Review 88.3 (1983): 563-68.
17. Steger, Manfred (1997). The Quest
for Evolutionary Socialism.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press. p. 236-237.
18. Peter Gay, The Dilemma of
Democratic Socialism: Eduard
Bernstein's challenge to Marx (1952)
p 258ff
19. Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic
Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's
challenge to Marx (1952) p 259
20. Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic
Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's
challenge to Marx (1952) p 260
21. Roger Fletcher, "In the interest of
peace and progress: Eduard
Bernstein's socialist foreign policy."
Review of International Studies 9.2
(1983): 79-93.
22. Roger Fletcher, "Revisionism and
Wilhelmine Imperialism" Journal of
Contemporary History (1988) 23#3
pp 347-366. online
23. Fletcher, R. A. (1983). "Cobden as
Educator: The Free-Trade
Internationalism of Eduard Bernstein,
1899–1914". American Historical
Review. 88 (3): 561–578.
doi:10.2307/1864587 .
JSTOR 1864587 .
24. Fletcher, "Cobden as Educator" 563-
69.
25. Bax, Ernest Belfort. "E. Belfort Bax:
Our German Fabian Convert (1896)" .
 www.marxists.org. Retrieved
19 December 2016.
26. Mcgeever, Brendan, and Satnam
Virdee. "Antisemitism and Socialist
Strategy in Europe, 1880–1917: An
Introduction." Patterns of Prejudice
51.3-4 (2017): 229
27. Roger Fletcher, "Revisionism ad
Wilhelmine Imperialism" Journal of
Contemporary History (11988) 23#3
pp 347-366.
28. Roger Fletcher, "An English Advocate
in Germany. Eduard Bernstein’s
Analysis of Anglo-German Relations
1900-1914." Canadian Journal of
History 13.2 (1978) pp: 209-236.
29. Jacobs, J. (1992). On Socialists and
the Jewish Question After Marx .
New York University Press. p. 193.
ISBN 9780814742136. Retrieved
12 December 2014.
30. Laqueur, W. (2009). A History of
Zionism: From the French Revolution
to the Establishment of the State of
Israel . Knopf Doubleday Publishing
Group. p. 425.
ISBN 9780307530851. Retrieved
12 December 2014.
31. "The Eduard Bernstein Internet
Archive" . marxists.org. Retrieved
12 December 2014.

Sources
Fletcher, Richard A. "Cobden as
Educator: The Free-Trade
Internationalism of Eduard Bernstein,
1899–1914." American Historical
Review 88.3 (1983): 561–578. online
Fletcher, R. A. "In the interest of peace
and progress: Eduard Bernstein's
socialist foreign policy." Review of
International Studies 9.2 (1983): 79–
93.
Fletcher, Roger. "A Revisionist Looks at
Imperialism: Eduard Bernstein's
Critique of Imperialism and
Kolonialpolitik, 1900–14." Central
European History 12.3 (1979): 237–
271.
Fletcher, Roger. "Revisionism and
Nationalism: Eduard Bernstein's Views
on the National Question, 1900–1914."
Canadian Review of Studies in
Nationalism 11.1 (1984) pp 103–117.
Fletcher, Roger. "World Power without
War. Eduard Bernstein's Proposals for
an Alternative Weltpolitik, 1900–1914."
Australian Journal of Politics & History
25.2 (1979): 228–236.
Fletcher, Roger. "An English Advocate
in Germany. Eduard Bernstein’s
Analysis of Anglo-German Relations
1900–1914." Canadian Journal of
History 13.2 (1978): 209–236.
Gay, Peter, The Dilemma of Democratic
Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's challenge
to Marx. (Columbia UP, 1952. Questia
online
Gustafsson, Bo. "A new look at
Bernstein: Some reflections on
reformism and history." Scandinavian
Journal of History 3#1-4 (1978): 275–
296.
Hamilton, Richard F. Marxism,
Revisionism, and Leninism: Explication,
Assessment, and Commentary
(Greenwood, 2000) online
Hulse, James W. Revolutionists in
London: A Study of Five Unorthodox
Socialists. (Clarendon Press, 1970.
Pachter, Henry. "The Ambiguous
Legacy of Eduard Bernstein." Dissent
28#2 (1981). pp 203–216.
Rogers, H. Kendall. Before the
Revisionist Controversy: Kautsky,
Bernstein, and the Meaning of Marxism,
1895–1898. (Routledge, 2015).
Steger, Manfred B. The Quest for
Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard
Bernstein and Social Democracy.
(Cambridge UP, 1997).
Steger, Manfred. "Historical
materialism and ethics: Eduard
Bernstein's revisionist perspective."
History of European ideas 14.5 (1992):
647–663.
 Thomas, Paul. Marxism & Scientific
Socialism: From Engels to Althusser.
(Routledge, 2008).

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Internet Archive
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Internet Archive
Bernstein on Homosexuality, Articles
from Die Neue Zeit, 1895 and 1898
Evolutionary Socialism: a Criticism and
Affirmation: (Die Voraussetzungen Des
Sozialismus und Die Aufgaben Der
Sozialdemokratie) (Google Books)
Archive of Eduard Bernstein Papers at
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 Newspaper clippings about Eduard
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