In 1899 Eduard Bernstein, Engels's literary executor and a Social Democratic deputy in exile, publishes The Preconditions of Socialism, known in English as Evolutionary Socialism: capitalism is not collapsing, the middle classes are not vanishing, and the party should become what it already is in practice, a democratic party of reform. The revisionist controversy that follows, with Kautsky and Luxemburg against Bernstein, splits Marxist theory for a century.
Tagged: Marxism
The Event
- Date
- 1899 (exact)
- Era
- The Internationals and Lenin; Standard periodization of Marxist history
- Location
- Berlin; today Berlin, Germany
- Traditions
- Marxism
- Streams
- Marxism
- Key figures
- Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg
- Key texts
- Evolutionary Socialism
Primary Sources
- Bernstein, Eduard. Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus. Stuttgart, 1899.
Secondary Sources
- Anderson, Perry. Considerations on Western Marxism. London: New Left Books, 1976.
- Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
- McLellan, David. Karl Marx: A Biography. London: Palgrave Macmillan, fourth edition, 2006.
Provenance: HIST-1455; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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World View
Marxism
Marxism explains history as the struggle of classes over material production, and aims at a classless society in which exploitation and alienation are ended.