When, in the spring of 1899, Bernstein's Preconditions of Socialism appeared, it caused a sensation. In effect, the book was a restatement and elaboration of the reformist standpoint Bernstein had been developing in a series of articles published during the previous two years. The controversy which these articles provoked had culminated in the rejection of Bernstein's position at the Stuttgart Conference of the German Social Democratic Party in October 1898. However, many felt that the issue had not yet been laid to rest. Karl Kautsky in particular was profoundly dissatisfied and he therefore urged that Bernstein produce ‘a systematic, comprehensive, and carefully reasoned exposition of his basic conceptions, insofar as they transcend the framework of principles hitherto accepted in our party’. Bernstein agreed, and the result was The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy. Hastily written and flawed as it was, it was to become the classic statement of democratic, non-revolutionary socialism.

The background

Bernstein was born in Berlin on 6 January 1850. His father was a locomotive driver and the family was Jewish though not religious. When he left school he took employment as a banker's clerk. In 1872, the year after the establishment of the German Reich and the suppression of the Paris Commune, he joined the ‘Eisenach’ wing of the German socialist movement and soon became prominent as an activist.