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Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Social democracy politician and Socialism theorist. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Bernstein is best known for his reformist challenge to Marxism known as evolutionary socialism or revisionism, in which he questioned the revolutionary predictions of Karl Marx and advocated for a gradual, parliamentary path to socialism. His political and theoretical work played a significant role in the development of modern social democracy and reformist socialism.
Born into a lower-middle-class Jewish family in Berlin, Bernstein became active in socialist politics in his early twenties. He spent years in exile in Switzerland and London during the period of the Anti-Socialist Laws in Germany, where he became a close associate of Friedrich Engels. During his time in London, his interactions with the reformist Fabian Society and his observation of the stability of late Victorian era capitalism led him to question key tenets of orthodox Marxism.
After Engels's death in 1895, Bernstein began to publicly articulate his revisionist views. In his most influential work, The Preconditions of Socialism (1899, also known as Evolutionary Socialism), he rejected the Hegelian dialectical method and disputed the Marxist predictions of the inevitable collapse of capitalism, the disappearance of the middle class, and the increasing immiseration of the proletariat. Instead, he argued that socialists should work for gradual social and political reforms through democratic institutions. His famous aphorism, "The movement means everything to me and what is usually called 'the final aim of Socialism' is nothing," encapsulated his focus on practical, democratic progress over revolutionary goals.
Although his views were officially condemned by the SPD, which maintained its orthodox Marxist Erfurt Program, the party's practical policies were largely reformist, reflecting the reality Bernstein described. His work sparked major debates within the international socialist movement, pitting him and his supporters against orthodox Marxists like Karl Kautsky and radicals like Rosa Luxemburg. During World War I, Bernstein's principles led him to break with the SPD's pro-war majority and co-found the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), though he rejoined the SPD after the war. He served in the Reichstag during the Weimar Republic, where he continued to advocate for democracy and peace. He died in Berlin in late 1932, weeks before the Nazi Party seizure of power.
At sixteen, Bernstein left school without finishing Gymnasium due to his family's financial situation and began an apprenticeship at a Berlin bank. He worked as a bank clerk from 1869 until 1878, a profession that provided a livelihood but did not capture his primary interests. His real education was self-directed, and he developed intellectual pursuits in theatre, poetry, and philosophy.
Bernstein's political awakening occurred during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Initially a patriot, he became sympathetic to the anti-war stance of socialist leaders August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht after they were accused of treason. In February 1872, after reading works by Ferdinand Lassalle and being particularly impressed by a speech from the socialist agitator Friedrich Fritzsche, Bernstein and his friends joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party, known as the "Eisenachers" for the town where they were founded. He quickly became a skilled public speaker and an active party member, undertaking grueling speaking tours and engaging in debates with the rival Lassallean socialist party.
The two most influential books on the young Bernstein were Karl Marx's The Civil War in France, an exaltation of the Paris Commune, and Eugen Dühring's Cursus der National- und Sozialökonomie. His enthusiasm for Dühring's work proved contagious, and he was instrumental in popularizing Dühring's ideas within the socialist movement, even introducing them to Bebel. This early attachment to Dühring's thought, a blend of positivism and idealism, would later be exorcised by Friedrich Engels's sharp critique, Anti-Dühring.
Amidst government harassment and internal divisions, the Eisenachers and the Lassalleans recognized the need for unity. In 1875, the two factions merged at a congress in Gotha. The twenty-five-year-old Bernstein was a delegate to the preliminary conference and participated in the creation of the unified party, which would become the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The resulting Gotha Program was a compromise between Marxist and Lassallean ideas, which drew a sharp critique from Marx himself. Bernstein later acknowledged that the Eisenachers, himself included, had an inadequate grasp of Marxist theory at the time.
In 1879, Bernstein became embroiled in a controversy that caused serious friction with Marx and Engels, whom he had never met. He had a minor role in the publication of an anonymous article in a new Yearbook for Social Science, financed by Höchberg. The article, written by Karl Flesch and revised by Höchberg, criticized the SPD for its proletarian focus and its "hatred of the bourgeoisie". Marx and Engels were furious, believing the article represented a bourgeois takeover of the party's organ. Engels accused Bernstein of being a key figure in this "trio of Zurichers" and demanded that Höchberg be expelled from the party.
Despite this incident, the SPD established its official, albeit illegal, newspaper, Der Sozialdemokrat, in Zurich in September 1879. Bernstein was active with the paper from the start. Anxious to clear his name with Marx and Engels, he and Bebel traveled to London in December 1880. The visit was a success; Bernstein won the full confidence of the "Londoners", and his relationship with Engels grew into a close friendship and a lifelong correspondence. In January 1881, Bernstein was appointed editor of Der Sozialdemokrat. Under his leadership, and with Engels as a frequent adviser, the paper became, in Engels's words, "unquestionably the best newspaper this party has ever had." During his Zurich years, Bernstein became one of the key members of the SPD, and his circle of friends included future socialist luminaries like Karl Kautsky.
The 1890s were a crucial decade for Bernstein's intellectual development. He spent much of his time in the reading room of the British Museum, the same place Marx had worked for so long. He was responsible for the tactical sections of the SPD's new Erfurt Program of 1891, which was largely Marxist in its theoretical sections drafted by Kautsky. He also undertook a major historical work, Sozialismus und Demokratie in der grossen englischen Revolution (Socialism and Democracy in the Great English Revolution), published in 1895 as the final volume of The History of Socialism. A pioneering study of the English Civil War from a social and economic perspective, the book was an original contribution to scholarship, particularly for his "discovery" of the communist thinker Gerrard Winstanley. His other major work of this period was a highly critical political biography of Ferdinand Lassalle, which aimed to dismantle the "Lassalle Legend" within the German labour movement.
Throughout his early years in London, Bernstein remained in the shadow of Engels, who was the preeminent authority on Marxism. When Engels died in August 1895, he named Bernstein as one of his literary executors, a sign of complete confidence. It was only after Engels's death that Bernstein felt free to publicly question the orthodox Marxism he had inherited. His time in England had a profound impact on his thinking. He observed a stable, prosperous capitalist society with strong democratic traditions and a reformist, rather than revolutionary, labour movement. He also established close relations with English socialists, most notably the Fabian Society, whose leaders included George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. While Bernstein later denied that Fabianism was the direct source of his new views, and even criticised their "visionless pragmatism", the Fabians' gradualist, empirical, and ethical approach to socialism undoubtedly reinforced the direction of his own thought.
Bernstein's critique of Marxism was comprehensive, targeting its philosophy, economic predictions, and political strategy. His central argument was that the reality of late 19th-century capitalism had diverged significantly from Marx's forecasts. This "moulting", as he called it, required socialists to reconcile their theories with the facts.
For Bernstein, socialism was not a historical inevitability but an ethical ideal. It was something that ought to be, a goal to be striven for based on a commitment to justice and equality, rather than something that must be as a result of impersonal historical laws. This reintroduction of ethics into socialist theory was a direct challenge to Marxist determinism. He famously declared in a response to his critics: This statement, often taken out of context, was not a rejection of socialist goals but an assertion of the primacy of the democratic and ethical process—the "movement"—over dogmatic adherence to a single, predetermined outcome.
Bernstein saw democracy as both the means and the end of socialism. He advocated for the expansion of political and economic rights through the existing state, championing trade unions and cooperatives as key "democratic elements in industry". He rejected the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a "barbarian" and "atavistic" idea, arguing that socialism could only be achieved democratically. While he saw the necessity for the mass strike as a defensive weapon to protect democratic rights like the suffrage, he fundamentally believed in the power of gradual, "organic" evolution over violent upheaval.
His return intensified the "Bernstein Debates" within the SPD. At successive party congresses, particularly the one in Dresden in 1903, his theories were the subject of heated discussion. The party leadership, dominated by Bebel and Kautsky, officially condemned revisionism and reaffirmed the revolutionary goals of the Erfurt Program. However, the SPD's day-to-day practice continued to be largely reformist, and Bernstein's views found wide, if often unacknowledged, support, especially among trade union leaders and the party's southern German branches. Bernstein himself remained a loyal, though critical, member of the party, continuing to argue for a policy of democratic reform and alliances with progressive elements of the bourgeoisie.
However, as documentation of Germany's aggressive war aims came to light, Bernstein's position shifted dramatically. His Anglophile sentiments and his deep commitment to internationalism and truth led him to become a vocal opponent of the war. He began publishing articles denouncing German chauvinism and annexationist ambitions, which isolated him from his former revisionist colleagues and led to the termination of his long collaboration with the Sozialistische Monatshefte.
On 20 March 1915, he was among a minority of SPD deputies who left the chamber rather than vote for further war credits. In June 1915, he, Kautsky, and Hugo Haase published a manifesto, "The Demand of the Hour", which condemned the war as an imperialist venture. The growing split within the SPD became permanent in March 1916, when Haase and his followers were expelled from the parliamentary party. Bernstein followed them, and in April 1917, he became a founding member of the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD).
Throughout the Weimar Republic, Bernstein was a courageous voice for reason and democracy. At the 1919 SPD party congress, he argued against the widespread nationalist sentiment in his party, insisting on Germany's share of responsibility for the war and the necessity of accepting the Treaty of Versailles, despite its harshness. His unwavering commitment to truth earned him ridicule from his colleagues but underscored his integrity. He also became a staunch opponent of Bolshevism, which he viewed as a "brutalized" and dictatorial perversion of Marxism. His role was instrumental in drafting the SPD's reformist Görlitz Program of 1921, though this was largely replaced by the more orthodox Heidelberg Program in 1925, following the SPD's reunification with the remnants of the USPD.
As the Weimar Republic faltered, Bernstein found himself increasingly isolated. The party leadership was too preoccupied with its own version of Realpolitik to heed his warnings against the rising dangers of both right-wing reaction and communism. Upon his retirement from the Reichstag in 1928, he issued a manifesto with Kautsky urging the SPD to guard against "the deadly enemies of the republic", the alliance of great landowners, captains of industry, and the Communists.
Eduard Bernstein died in Berlin on 18 December 1932, at the age of 82. His funeral was the occasion for a mass demonstration against the rising Nazi Party. He was spared from witnessing the final collapse of the republic he had championed, as Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany six weeks later.
His work highlights the central "dilemma of democratic socialism": the tension between achieving radical social change and adhering to democratic, parliamentary means. He was unwavering in his conviction that socialism without democracy was a betrayal of its core principles. While critics like Rosa Luxemburg argued that his approach sacrificed the revolutionary goal of socialism for the sake of bourgeois reform, Bernstein insisted that a gradual, ethical, and democratic evolution was the only path compatible with a humane society. The historian Peter Gay concludes that Bernstein's greatest contribution was his profound honesty and his courage to "submit Marxist dogma to searching examination while not surrendering the Socialist standpoint".
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