Eduard Bernstein
Marxism-Bernsteinism is a socialist ideology which seeks to bring about socialism and anti-capitalist reforms through participation in democratic societies rather than through revolutionary means. The ideology is named after German Marxist theorist and politician Eduard Bernstein (1850–1930). While Marxism-Leninism rose to become the most prominent ideology of the left-wing communist movement in the 20th century, Marxism-Bernsteinism would see political success throughout many countries in the 20th and 21st centuries from the Coalition of the Rhomanian Left in 1950s Rhomania, the successes of the Democratic Republic of Georgia before its annexation into the Soviet Union in 1921, the formation of a socialist government in Danubia in 1947, the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Ilhan Omar's victory in the Somalian presidential Election in 2019.
History[]
Life and beliefs of Eduard Bernstein[]
Eduard Bernstein's works played a huge role in the development of what would eventually become Marxism-Bernsteinism. Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but he began to identify what he believed to be errors in Marxist thinking, leading him to criticize views held by Marxism when he investigated and challenged the Marxist materialist theory of history. He rejected significant parts of Marxist theory that were based upon Hegelian metaphysics and rejected the Hegelian dialectical perspective. This made him despised among orthodox Marxists, who smeared him as a revisionist. Bernstein also opposed violent revolution and viewed it as counter-intuitive towards progress being made by socialists who were being elected. In his most famous work, Evolutionary Socialism, Bernstein criticizes the more revolutionary aspects of the Communist movement and the philosophy of revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxembourg.
Marxism-Bernsteinism rose to prominence following Eduard Bernstein's exile from Germany in 1916 during the Great War due to his beliefs "harming the German war effort". This led to Bernstein going into exile into New York City and living amongst the large Jewish diaspora in the city. During his final years in the United States, Bernstein met with several high-ranking American socialists such as Eugene Debs, Emil Seidel, and Upton Sinclair. Bernstein became an influential socialist journalist in the United States, writing for the Workingmen Times based out of New York City and also supported the American war effort during the Anglo-American War which brought him supporters from Americans who did not closely identify as socialists. Bernstein also met with several members of the newly formed Communist Party of the Confederate States during his trips to Richmond throughout the late 1920s. Bernstein died in 1930, but had gone on to influence several left wing movements, parties, and unions throughout the North American continent.
Bernstein criticized the newly formed Soviet Union due to its treatment of non-Bolshevik socialists such as the Mensheviks (who ideologically aligned with Bernstein) as well as the nation's aggression towards its neighbors and hostility towards democracy and state-control of the means of production rather than worker-control of the means of production. These criticisms cemented the divide between Marxist-Leninism and what would eventually become Marxist-Bernsteinism.
Coinage of Marxism-Bernsteinism and rise[]
The term Marxism-Bernsteinism was coined by writer Wesley Anderson of the Chicago Tribune who wrote in a 1937 article: "The only way to stop the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union is with the Marxist-Bernsteinism of the United States". While some parties such as the Socialist Party of the United States adopted Marxism-Bernsteinism during the Great Depression, the American movement died out after Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was elected President in 1932 under the Progressive Party.
Marxist-Bernsteinist parties would begin to develop in more developed countries which had industrialization and stronger democratic systems allowing for reformist socialism to take place. During the Cold War, most of the Marxist-Bernsteinist parties and nations such as the Coalition of the Rhomanian Left, took an anti-Soviet and anti-Marxism-Leninist position. Meanwhile, other left wing parties such as the Liberty Unity party of Danubia allied with the Soviet Union and took an anti-First World approach to the Cold War. Other Marxist-Bernsteinist parties took a neutral approach and favored non-alignment during the Cold War such as the socialist government in Kenya and the Marxist-Bernsteinist government of Koji Ariyoshi in Hawaii.
Post-Cold War[]
Since the end of the Cold War in the 1970s, Marxism-Bernsteinism has become more prominent in several communist and socialist parties as Marxist-Leninist nations began to fall.
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