Eduard Bernstein | Biography

Eduard Bernstein, born in Berlin, Germany, on January 6, 1850, was one of the first socialists to attempt a revision of the tenets of Karl Marx. Called the "father of revisionism," Bernstein advocated a type of social democracy that included private enterprise as well as social reform. His father was a railroad engineer, and the family's financial resources were limited. At the age of sixteen, Bernstein became an apprentice in a bank, rising to bank clerk within a few years. Perhaps through the influence of his uncle, Aaron Bernstein, editor of a Berlin newspaper that supported the progressive working class, young Bernstein announced, in 1872, that he was joining the Social Democratic Party. In this, he shared the aspirations of many educated Germans of the time, who called for national unity and democracy. A genial man, Bernstein was drawn to the pacifist Social Democrats over the more authoritarian General German Workers' Association.

Bernstein became an active party member. When Germany was thrown into an economic crisis in 1873, lasting well into the decade, his anticapitalism feelings became stronger. But when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's antisocialist laws were adopted in Germany, Bernstein emigrated to Switzerland. Before long, he became editor of the official publication and rallying center of the underground Social Democrats. The paper found its way into Germany. As a result, in 1880, at Bismarck's urging, the Swiss government expelled Bernstein from their country.

Continuing the underground publication in London, Bernstein met and became a close friend of Friedrich Engels, German socialist and Marx's collaborator. He also became friendly with members of the Fabian Society, a socialist organization that rejected the revolutionary ideas of Marx and favored a gradual development into socialism. The ideas formulated in England laid the basis for Bernstein's theory of revisionism.

By the time Bernstein returned to Germany in 1901, his break with traditional Marxism had become clear. His revisionist position, including such changes as seizure of power by the proletariat and refusal to await the imminent collapse of capitalism, was published in a series of articles in Die neue Zeit, an official party publication, in 1898. The following year, after criticism by some groups within the Social Democratic Party, Bernstein wrote a defense of his position, Evolutionary Socialism, a classic statement of the revisionist position. In it, Bernstein stated that socialism was not a product of revolt against capitalism, but the end result of liberalism, which exists in all human dreams. He did not believe that the concentration of productive industry was taking place as fast as Marx predicted, that capitalism was on the verge of collapse, or that oppressive tactics could be attributed only to the bourgeoisie. He argued that the successful road to socialism lay in a steady advance, not a violent overthrow. Despite his arguments, revisionism was condemned by the Social Democratic Party in 1903. This rift in the party's wings existed until after World War II.

In 1902, Bernstein became a member of the Reichstag (parliament) and was reelected several times. Although a member of his party's right wing, during World War I, Bernstein sided with the Independent Socialists. He opposed violence between nations just as he opposed violence between classes. At the war's end, however, he returned to his party and voted against those who wanted to turn the November 1918 political revolution into a social revolution in Germany. A parliamentary republic, Bernstein felt, was the most successful path to progress. In 1919, he served as secretary of state for economy and finance.

Although social democracy became a popular reformist movement in Germany and he contributed to the party program, Bernstein was powerless to stop the onslaught of fascism. He regarded Nazi tactics as the work of unbalanced minds. Weeks after his death on December 18, 1932, the democratic state in which he so passionately believed fell to the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

Bernstein was never totally successful in seeing his theories become a working reality, but many of his ideas became part of the party's program in West Germany after World War II. Abandoning revolutionary theory, cutting across class lines, emphasizing action and reform were some of the ways in which the new Germany party incorporated the revisionist ideas of Eduard Bernstein.