Selected writings of Eduard Bernstein, 1900-1921

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) was a German Social Democratic leader and theorist. Expelled from Germany as a result of Bismarck's antisocial laws, he emigrated to Switzerland from where he edited Der Sozialdemokrat, the rallying point of the underground socialist party. When Bismarck secured his expulsion from Switzerland, Bernstein continued publication of the periodical from London, where he was befriended by Engels and the leaders of the Fabian Society. Bernstein returned to Germany in 1901 and became the theoretician of the revisionist school of socialism, which rejected Marx's prediction of the approaching collapse of capitalism, the class war, and the achievement of socialism by revolution. For Bernstein, democratic reforms opened up the prospect of improving the lot of the working class by peaceful means. Although successive party congresses condemned Bernstein's views, he was a representative of German Social Democracy in the Reichstag during the years 1902-1906, 1912-1918, and 1920-1928. This collection presents the English-language reader for the first time with essays that are representative of Bernstein's much-neglected revisionist period, 1901-1921. Bernstein himself suggested that this later work included significant new elements, indicating further progress in his liberal-socialist theory. Bernstein's later work acquires additional significance in light of the events of 1989, which have discredited not only Marxism-Leninism, but revolutionary Marxist theory in general, thus making the reevaluation of Bernstein's revisionism a worthwhile enterprise.