35 Facts About Eduard Bernstein

Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician.

Eduard Bernstein rejected significant parts of Marxist theory that were based upon Hegelian metaphysics and rejected the Hegelian perspective of an immanent economic necessity to socialism.

Eduard Bernstein was born in Schoneberg to Jewish parents who were active in the Reform Temple on the Johannistrasse whose services were performed on Sunday.

Eduard Bernstein's party contested two elections against a rival socialist party, the Lassalleans, but in both elections neither party was able to win a significant majority of the left-wing vote.

Eduard 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.

Shortly before the Anti-Socialist Laws came into effect, Eduard Bernstein went into exile in Zurich, accepting a position as the private secretary of Karl Hochberg, a wealthy supporter of social democracy.

In 1888, Bismarck convinced the Swiss government to expel a number of important members of German social democracy and so Eduard Bernstein relocated to London, where he associated with Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky.

Eduard Bernstein was helped in that by the close personal and professional relationship he established with Engels.

Eduard Bernstein moved to London, where he resumed publication from premises in Kentish Town.

In 1891, Eduard 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 that resulted in the revisionism debate in the SPD.

Eduard Bernstein published the book Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie in 1899.

In 1900, Eduard Bernstein published Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Sozialismus.

In 1901, Eduard Bernstein returned to Germany after the end of the ban that had kept him from entering the country.

Eduard Bernstein became an editor of the newspaper Vorwarts that year and a member of the Reichstag from 1902 to 1918.

Eduard Bernstein voted against the armament tabling in 1913, together with the SPD fraction's left wing.

Eduard Bernstein was a member of the USPD until 1919, when he rejoined the SPD.

From 1920 to 1928, Eduard Bernstein was again a member of the Reichstag.

Eduard Bernstein was one of only a few deputies on the committee to admit Germany's responsibility for the outbreak of war, setting himself apart from the majority of Reichstag members in the bourgeois parties.

Eduard 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 centralization of capitalist industry was significant, it was not becoming wholescale and that the ownership of capital was becoming more and not less diffuse.

Eduard Bernstein indicated what he considered to be some of the flaws in Marx's labour theory of value.

Eduard Bernstein was vilified by the orthodox Marxists led by Karl Kautsky as well as the more radical current led by Rosa Luxemburg for his revisionism.

Nonetheless, Eduard Bernstein remained very much a socialist, albeit an unorthodox one as he believed that socialism would be achieved by the advancement of capitalism to social democracy and so on, not by capitalism's destruction.

Eduard Bernstein says revisionism has lost sight of scientific socialism and reverted to idealism and therefore lost its predictive force.

Eduard Bernstein advocated policy positions for Germany that were aggressively nationalist, imperialist and expansionist.

Eduard Bernstein considered protectionism as helping only a selective few, being fortschrittsfeindlich for its negative effects on the masses.

Eduard Bernstein argued Germany's protectionism was based only on political expediency, isolating Germany from the world, creating an autarky that would result only in conflict between Germany and the rest of the world.

Eduard 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.

Eduard Bernstein rejected reactionary bourgeois nationalism and called instead for a cosmopolitan-libertarian nationalism.

Eduard Bernstein recognized the historical role of the national factor and said that the proletariat must support their country against external dangers.

Eduard Bernstein called on workers to assimilate themselves within nation-states, which entailed support for colonial policies and imperial projects.

Eduard 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.

Eduard Bernstein supported colonialism as he believed it uplifted backward peoples and it worked well for both Britain and Germany.

Eduard Bernstein supported such policies in an intensely racialized 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".

Eduard Bernstein wanted strong friendship especially with Britain and France and protection against the Russian threat to Germany.

Eduard Bernstein is noted for being "one of the first socialists to deal sympathetically with the issue of homosexuality".