Eduard Bernstein Biography

Dromo's Den

BERNSTEIN, Eduard (1850-[1932] ). A German social-democratic leader, born in Berlin. From 1881 to 1890 he was editor of the Sozialdemokrat. His socialistic views made it desirable for him to withdraw to London in 1888; after the publication of his criticism of Marxist doctrines he was permitted to return to Germany, where in 1902 he became editor of the Dokumente des Sozialismus. He also became editor of a weekly paper, Welt am Montag. Bernstein is one of the ablest critics of the doctrines of Karl Marx. He rejects the materialistic conception of history as inadequate to explain modern social evolution; he regards the Marxian labor theory of value as untenable; and through careful statistical studies he endeavors to show that the prediction of Marx regarding the extinction of the middle class through concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands has been disproven by the course of events. The conquest of political society by the proletariat through mere increase in mass he regards as an illusion; he therefore urges all the democratic elements in society to work together for the democratization of the German state and the securing of social reforms. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1902, failed at the elections of 1907, but was again returned in 1912. His published works, besides an edition (1891-93) of the speeches and writings of Lasalle (translated into English, 1893, by E. Aveling), include: Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie (1899; 1909), Eng. trans. by E. C. Harvey (1909); Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Sozialismus (1900; 1904); Die heutigen Sozialdemokratie in Theorie und Praxis (1905) ; Parlamentarismus und Sozialdemokratie (1906); Die Geschichte der Berliner Arbeiterbewegung (1907-10).

The New International Encyclopaedia Vol III. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 189-190.