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In the interest of peace and progress: Eduard Bernstein's socialist foreign policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

R. A. Fletcher
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Extract

Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) is now widely known as the father of revisionism and one of the more important progenitors of democratic socialism. What is often still overlooked is that almost all his theoretical work (an attempt to update the thought of Karl Marx in the light of the changed conditions of advanced capitalism) was done in England during his London exile (1888–1901) and that for the last three decades of his life he was a practising politician who manifested a close, informed and overriding interest in the major political issues of the era. Almost without interruption between 1902 and 1928 he served as a Social Democratic deputy in the German Reichstag, where he functioned as one of the SPD's principal foreign policy and taxation spokesmen. He was most influential within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) before and during the First World War, increasingly less effective after 1914. An outline of Bernstein's views on German foreign policy during the period when he was at the height of his authority as an active socialist politician thus promises to fill a gap in existing scholarship and to shed new light on the father of revisionism and his progeny.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 79 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1983

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References

1. Bernstein, Eduard, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus unddie Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie (henceforth Voraussetzungen) (Stuttgart, 1899)Google Scholar; Evolutionary Socialism, trans. Edith C. Harvey (London, 1909). The edition used here is the second edition (Stuttgart, 1921), reprinted by J. H. W. Dietz Nachf. in 1973. The best Bernstein study available in English is still Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein s Challenge to Marx (New York, 1952). Among the more important recent studies are Meyer, Thomas, Bernsteins konstruktiver Sozialismus (Berlin, 1977)Google Scholar; Heimann, Horst and Meyer, Thomas (eds.), Bernstein und der Demokratische Sozialismus (Berlin, 1978)Google Scholar; Frei, Herbert, Fabianismus und Bernsteinscher Revisionisms 1884–1900 (Berne, 1979)Google Scholar. In this paper the term ‘revisionism’ is used as a label of convenience, as it was at the time, to cover the variety of positions comprising the right wing of the SPD—theoretical revisionism a la Bernstein, neo-Kantian or ethical socialism a la Kurt Eisner, reformism as practised by Georg von Vollmar, Eduard David and so on, theoretically indifferent Praktizismus as championed by most trade union, co-operative and party functionaries, and the nationalist ‘social imperialism’ of Joseph Bloch's Sozialistische Monatshefte circle. In fact, Bernstein had little in common with any of these groups.

2. Sozialistische Monatshefte Papers, 8: Joseph Bloch to Karl Leuthner, 18 May 1909, Bundesarchiv Coblenz. Among ‘the Mohican's ’ pre-war writings on tariff policy were his ‘Prinzipielles zur Frage der Agrarzolle’, Die Sozialistischen Monatshefte (henceforth SM), 1901, 1, pp. 185–91; ‘Zum Kampf gegen die Zollschraube’, Ibid, 1901, 2, pp. 682–94; ‘Zur Bilanz des Kampfes gegen den neuen Zolltarif,’ Ibid., 1903,2, pp. 35–42; ‘The Growth of German Exports’, Contemporary Review (henceforth CR), 84 (1903), pp. 775–87; ‘German Professors and Protectionism’, Ibid., 86 (1904), pp. 18–31; ‘Englands Wirtschaftsentwicklung im letzten Jahrzehnt’, SM, 1904, 2, pp. 806–14; Die neuen Reichssteuern (Berlin, 1906); ‘Das Grundsatzliche in der Frage der Handelspolitik’, SM, 1911, 1, pp. 424–31; ‘Zollfreier internationaler Verkehr’, Ibid., 1911, 2, pp. 824–32; Die Steuerpolitik der Sozialdemokratie (Berlin, 1914).

3. See Bernstein, Eduard, Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Engels, Hirsch, Helmut (ed.), (Assen, 1970)Google Scholar, especially Engels to Bernstein, 9 August 1882, pp. 119–21.

4. Among his pre-1914 writings on this subject were ‘Einige Klippen der Internationalitat’, SM, 1901, 1, pp. 252–9; Die Leiden des armenischen Volkes unddie Pflichten Europas (Berlin, 1902); ‘Patriotisms, Militarismus und Sozialdemokratie’, SM, 1907, 1, pp. 434–40; ‘The Zeppelin Movement and German Nationalism’, The Nation (principal organ of British Radicalism after 1907, edited by H. W. Massingham, an old friend of Bernstein; see A. F. Havighurst, Radical Journalist: H. W. Massingham [Cambridge, 1974], pp.34, 145, 280), 3, 21 (August 1908), pp. 736–8; ‘Die internationale Politik der Sozialdemokratie’, SM, 1909, 2, pp. 613–24; ‘Political Scene-shifting in Germany’, The Nation, 7,17 (July 1910), pp. 595–6; ‘The Backwater of German Jingoism;’, Ibid., 7, 18 (July 1910), pp. 631–2; ‘Internationale Beschliisse und ihr Anspruch’, SM, 1910, 2, pp. 100O-6; Die englische Gefahr und das deutsche Volk (Berlin, 1911); ‘Geburtenriickgang, Nationalist und Kultur’, SM, 1913, 3, pp. 1492–9. See also Hans Mommsen, ‘Nationalisms und nationale Frage im Denken Eduard Bernsteins’, in Heimann, op. cit., pp. 131—8.

5. Bernstein, Die Aufgaben der Juden im Weltkriege (Berlin, 1917), p. 32. For Bernstein's views on the Jewish question, see also idem, ‘Das Schlagwort und der Antisemitismus’, Die Neue Zeit (theoretical organ of the SPD, edited by Kautsky; henceforth NZ)’ 12 (1893–4), pt. 2, pp. 233–7; ‘Der Schulstreit in Palastina’, Ibid., 32 (1913–14), pt. 1, pp. 744–52; ‘Uberschatzte Friedensmachte’, Die Friedens-Warte (organ of Alfred Fried's German Peace Society; henceforth FW), 17 (1915), pp. 127–33; ‘Vom Patriotismus der Juden’, Ibid., 18 (1916) pp. 243–8. See also Robert S. Wistrich, ‘Eduard Bernstein und das Judenturn’, in Heimann, op. cit., pp. 149–65; Rosemarie Leuschen-Seppel, Sozialdemokratie und Antisemitismus im Kaiserreich (Bonn, 1978).

6. See Wallach, Jehuda L., Die Kriegslehre von Friedrich Engels (Frankfurt, 1968)Google Scholar; Wette, Wolfram, Kriegstheorien deutscher Sozialisten (Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 22–101Google Scholar; Berger, Martin, Engels, Armies, and Revolution (Hamden, Conn., 1977)Google Scholar; Gallic, W. B., Philosophers of Peace and War (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 66–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin Kitchen, ‘Friedrich Engels’ ‘Theory of War’, Military Affairs, 41 (1977), pp. 119–24.

7. What shocked him probably still more than the brinkmanship of Kiderlen-Wachter was Lloyd George's Mansion House speech, coming as it did from a putative Radical whose struggle with the House of Lords Bernstein had greatly admired. See Bernstein, ‘Breakers Ahead’, The Nation, 9, 23 (September 1911), pp. 803–4.

8. Bernstein, Stenographische Berichte uber die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstages (henceforth RT Verhandlungen) (Berlin, 1914), 295 (15 May 1914), p. 8888. For Bernstein's pre-1914 views on the problem of militarism, see also ‘Stehendes Heer und Uberproduktion’, NZ, 17 (1898–9), pp. 50–6; ‘Der siidafrikanische Krieg und die Sozialdemokratie’, SM, 1901, 1, pp. 99–107; ‘The German War Peril’ The Nation, 3,13 (June 1908), pp. 449–51; ‘Peace and King Edward's Visit’, Ibid., 4, 21 (February 1909), pp. 783–4; ‘Arms and the Bill’, Ibid.,.4, 25 (March 1909), pp. 927–9; ‘The Meaning of the German Chancellor's Speech’, Ibid., 9, 2 (April 1911), pp. 55–6; ‘Neue Englandhetze’, Vorwarts, 1 September 1911; ‘Wie man Kriegsstimmung erzeugt’, FW, 14 (1912), pp. 2–7. Among the secondary literature is Wette, op. cit., pp. 125–44; R. Fletcher, ‘Revisionism and Militarism: War and Peace in the pre-1914 Thought of Eduard Bernstein’, Militdrgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 31 (1982), pp. 23–36.

9. For his pre-war views, see ‘Eine Theorie der Gebiete und Grenzen des Kollektivismus’, NZ, 15 (1896–7), pp. 204–13; ‘Stehendes Heer und Uberproduktion’, op. cit; ‘Sozialdemokratie und Imperialismus’, SM, 1900, pp. 238–51; ‘Allerhand moderner Spuk’, Ibid., 1912, 1, pp. 340–7; ‘Politische Schwarzmalerei’, Ibid., 1912, 1, pp. 338–44; ‘Das Finanzkapital und die Handelspolitik’, Ibid., 1912, 2, pp. 947–55. See also H. C. Schroder, ‘Eduard Bernsteins Stellung zum Imperialismus vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, in Heimann, op. cit., pp. 166–212; R. Fletcher, ‘A Revisionist Looks at Imperialism: Eduard Bernstein's Critique of Imperialism and Kolonial-politik, 1900–1914’, Central European History, 12 (1979), pp. 237–71.

10. This indebtedness is most apparent in a report of a lecture (entitled ‘The Alternatives of Imperialism’) which Bernstein delivered before the Sociological Society in Vienna in November 1912. See ‘Der Imperialismus, seine Bedeutung und seine Zukunft’, Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna), 15 November 1912. Bernstein repeatedly expressed his admiration of Spencer and Positivism, claiming in 1924 to have been more strongly influenced by this school than by any other. See Bernstein, Entwicklungsgang eines Sozialisten (Leipzig, 1930), p. 40. I find Peter Gay and Thomas Meyer unconvincing in their refusal to take Bernstein at his word on this point.

11. Bernstein, ‘Die Kolonialfrage und der Klassenkampf’, SM, 1907, 2, p. 989.

12. Idem, ‘Der Sozialismus und die Kolonialfrage’, SM, 1900, p. 562; ‘Sozialdemokratie und Imperialismus’, op. cit., p. 244. Bernstein's other colonialism writings included ‘Zusammenbruchstheorie und Kolonialpolitik’ (1898), in Zur Theorie und Geschichte des Sozialismus, 4th edn., 2 (Berlin, 1904), pp . 79–97; Voraussetzungen, pp. 206–12; ‘Paris und Mainz’, SM, 1900, pp. 709–18.

13. For the party and International context of Bernstein's views on imperialism and colonialism, see Haupt, Georges, Socialism and the Great War (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar, especially chapters 1, 2 and 7; Paul, Hans-Hoiger, Marx, Engels und die Imperialismustheorie der 2. Internationale (Hamburg, 1978)Google Scholar, chapters 4–6.

14. This began with ‘Breakers Ahead’, ‘Neue Englandhetze’ and Die englische Gefahr. It clearly emerges from his support for Hugo Haase's imperialism analysis at the Chemnitz party congress in 1912 (Protokoll iiber die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der SPD, abgehalten zu Chemnitz, 15–21. September 1912 [Berlin, 1912] pp. 419–21, 432). On Bernstein's post-Agadir role, see Chickering, Roger, Imperial Germany and a World Without War: The Peace Movement and German Society 1892–1914 (Princeton, 1975), pp. 278–9Google Scholar. The basic continuity in Bernstein's position may be verified by reference to his ‘Handelspolitik und Volkerbeziehungen’, Dokumente des Fortschritts, 9(1916), pp. 77–84; ‘L'Imperialisme economique et la “Sozialdemokratie”’, La Revue politique international, 6 (1916), pp. 3–27.

15. See Walther, Rudolf, ‘aber nach der Sintflut kommen wir und nur wif:’ ‘Zusammenbruchstheorie’, Marxismus undpolitisches Defizit in der SPD 1890–1914 (Frankfurt, 1981), pp. 117–56, 248–9Google Scholar. Aspects of this part of my argument have been treated in some detail in Fletcher, R., ‘British radicalism and German revisionism: the case of Eduard Bernstein’, International History I. H. Review, IV, 3 (1982), 339–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Bernstein, ‘Die sogenannten nationalen Lebensfragen’, Internationale Rundschau, 1 (1915), pp. 536–7.

17. As his correspondence with Engels reveals, Bernstein had long maintained a lively interest in Near Eastern affairs. Evidence of his pre-1914 views may be found in his ‘Kreta’, NZ, 15 (1896–97) pt. 1, pp. 687–92; ‘Kreta und die russische Gefahr’, Ibid., 15 (1896–97), pt. 2, pp. 10–20; ‘Die Sozialdemokratie und die tiirkischen Wirren’, Ibid., 15 (1896–97), pt. 1, pp. 108–16; Die Leiden des armenischen Volkes, op. cit.; RT Verhandlungen, 289 (14 April 1913), pp. 4733–6; Ibid., 295 (15 May 1914), pp. 8883–6. That the views he expressed in the German parliament were his own and not merely the ‘party line’ is clear from a letter t o H. W. Massingham (Massingham Collection 41: Bernstein to Massingham, 6 March 1913, Norfolk Record Office, Norwich).

18. Bernstein, ‘Kreta und die russische Gefahr’, op. cit., p. 18.

19. Bernstein, review of Carl Jentsch, Weder Kommunismus noch Kapitalismus (Leipzig, 1893), in NZ, 12 (1893–94), pt. 2, p. 633; ‘Der Krieg, sein Urheber und sein erstes Opfer’, SM, 1914, 2, p. 1019.

20. Idem, ‘Kreta und die russische Gefahr’, op. cit., pp. 13, 19; ‘Revolutionen und Russland’, SM, 1905, 1, p. 294; ‘Fragen der Taktik in Russland’, Ibid., 1906, 1, p. 211; ‘Abrechnung mit Russland’, III, Vorwarts, 28 August 1914; Die Internationale der Arbeiterklasse und der europaische Krieg (Tubingen, 1915), p. 16.

21. Idem, Jentsch review, op. cit., p. 633. Cf. Voraussetzungen, op. cit, p. 203, where he cautioned against taking the ‘Russian peril’ too seriously.

22. See Mogk, Walter, Paul Rohrbach und das ‘Grossere Deutschland’ (Munich, 1972)Google Scholar, and Ropponen, Risto, Die russische Gefahr: Das Verhalten der öffentlichen Meinung Deutschlands und Österreich-Ungarnsgegenuber der Aussenpolitik Russlands in der Zeit zwischen dem Frieden von Portsmouth und dem Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges (Helsinki, 1976).Google Scholar

23. Bernstein, ‘Die Transvaalwirren und ihr internationaler Riickschlag’, NZ, 14 (1895–96), pt. 1, pp. 617–18; RT Verhandlungen, 295 (15 May 1914), p. 8889.

24. Idem, Sozialdemokratische Volkerpolitik (Leipzig, 1917), p. 31Google Scholar. See also ‘Der Sozialismus und die Kolonialfrage’, op. cit, p. 555; RT Verhandlungen, 289 (14 April 1913), pp. 4740–2; Ibid., 295 (15 May 1914), pp. 8888–90; ‘Karl Marx imd Friedrich Engels in der zweiten Phase des Krieges von 1870–71’, NZ, 33 (1914–15), pt. 1, pp. 76–80; ‘Friedrich Engeis und die deutsch-franzosische Frage’, Ibid., pp. 710–17. For the party context see Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ‘Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie und die elsass-lothringische Frage’, in Sozialdemokratie und Nationalstaat, 2nd edn. (Gottingen, 1971), pp. 52–85.

25. After his return to Germany Bernstein probably wrote more on this subject than on any other. Representative of his views are his ‘Eindriicke aus England’, Neue Deutsche Rundschau, 1901, 1, pp. 561–85; Die englische Gefahr, op. cit.; RT Verhandlungen, 197 (12 December 1903), pp. 107–10; Ibid.,214(11 December 1905), pp. 222–3;Ibid., 285(14an d 18May 1912), pp. 1991–6, 2113–14; Ibid, 289 (14 April 1913), pp. 4738–9; Ibid., 295 (15 April 1914), pp. 8886–8. For a discussion of Bernstein's views, see R. Fletcher, ‘An English Advocate in Germany: Eduard Bernstein's Analysis of Anglo- German Relations, 1900–1914’, Canadian Journal of History, 13 (1978), pp. 209–35. The best available study of the Anglo-German problem is Paul Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914 (London, 1980).Google Scholar

26. Brailsford, H. N., The War of Steel and Gold (London, 1914), p. 297Google Scholar. Cf. Bernstein, ‘Kreta und die russische Gefahr’, op. cit., pp. 16, 18.

27. Graham Wallas, an erstwhile Fabian and friend of Bernstein, wrote to him in 1911: ‘If Germany becomes a liberal power, that will be the greatest event in the history of Europe since the battle of Leipzig, and will make a quasi-federal arrangement of arbitration treaties etc., leading to a reduction in armaments, at once possible’. Wallas supposed that this depended on ‘the degree of tactical skill shown by the [German] Social Democratic Party’ (Bernstein Papers, D 809: Wallas to Bernstein, 19 May 1911, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam). Bernstein quoted Wallas at length, translating ‘a liberal power’ as ‘a resolutely liberal country’ (ein entschieden liberates Land), as proof positive that it was ‘possible to be at one and the same time an internationalist in the best sense and a patriot struggling for economic and social liberation’ (Preface to Graham Wallas, Politik und menschliche Natur, trans. F. Leipnik [Jena, 1911].

28. Bernstein, ‘Breakers Ahead’, op. cit., p. 803.

29. Ibid., p. 804.

30. A. G. Gardiner, Daily News, 17 January 1914, cited in Weinroth, Howard, ‘The British Radicals and the Balance of Power, 1902–1914’, Historical Journal, 13 (1970), p. 680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Even then he remained undaunted, writing to Massingham that the war had strengthened his internationalist resolve and his ‘opinion that we have had just enough of this crime [– the Great War] to be sure that the cure of the nations will not be missed’ (Massingham Collection 41: Bernstein to Massingham, 12 August 1915). As has recently been said of John Bright, Bernstein ‘had an apparently insatiable capacity for believing that victory was just around the corner’ (Keith Robbins, John Bright, London, 1979, p. 39).

32. These views gained expression in Die parlamentarische Kontrolle der auswärtigen Politik (The Hague, 1916), Sozialdemokratische Völkerpolitik (Leipzig, 1917), Völkerbund oder Staatenbund? (Berlin 1918), Völkerrecht und Völkerpolitik (Berlin, 1919) and Die Wahrheit uber die Einkreisung Deutschlands (Berlin, 1919).

33. Miller, Susanne, ‘Bernsteins Haltung im Ersten Weltkrieg und in der Revolution 1918–19’, in Heimann, op. cit., p. 220.Google Scholar

34. Bernstein, ‘Patriotismus, Militarismus und Sozialdemokratie’, op. cit., p. 437; ‘Geburtenrückgang, Nationalität und Kultur’, op. cit., p. 1498; Volkerbund oder Staatenbund, op. cit., p. 29.

35. Idem, ‘Die Transvaalwirren und ihr internationaler Riickschlag’ op. cit., pp. 616–17; ‘Kreta’, op. cit., pp. 687–92; ‘The Zeppelin Movement and German Nationalism’, op. cit., p. 737; ‘Peace and King Edward's Visit’, op. cit., p. 784; RT Verhandlungen, 285 (14 May 1912), p. 1995; Ibid., 289 (14 April 1913), pp. 4734–5, 4741; Ibid., 295 (15 May 1914), p. 8886.

36. Idem, ‘Sozialdemokratie und Imperialisms’, op. cit., p. 249; ‘Peace and King Edward's Visit’, op. cit., p. 784; Die englische Gefahr, op. cit., p. 48; RT Verhandlungen, 289 (14 April 1913), p. 4742.

37. Cited in Hobson, J. A., Richard Cobden, the International Man (New York, 1919), p. 34Google Scholar. The ‘principal error’ of German diplomacy, so Bernstein informed the Reichstag, was that it ‘recognizes Powers and countries but accords very little recognition to peoples’ (RT Verhandlungen, 289 [14 April 1913], p. 4740. Cf. Ibid., 295 [15 May 1914], pp. 8889–90).

38. Helmut Schmidt, foreword to Kritischer Rationalismus und Sozialdemokratie, ed. Georg Liihrs et al. (Berlin, 1975), p. ix; Susanne Miller, op. cit., p. 221.

39. Willy Brandt, ‘A Plea for Change: Peace, Justice, Jobs’, in North-South: A Programme for Survival (Report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues under the Chairmanship of Willy Brandt) (London, 1980), p. 29.