Revisionism of the Second International

A bourgeois trend of thought formed by Bernstein, the head of the Second International, who proposed a "revision" of Marx's work. Its representatives included Bernstein, Kautsky and Hilferding.

The Second International was founded in Paris in 1889. Under the leadership of Engels in its early days, it united the working class parties of various countries to resolutely fight against anarchism and opportunism, spread Marxism widely and promoted the development of the international workers' movement. In 1895, shortly after Engels' death, opportunists in the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, such as Bernstein, opposed Marxism under the banner of Marxism, and began to a complete "revision" of Marxism in the name of "development" and "renewal". Kautsky, once a Marxist, showed wavering, but then gradually merged with Bernsteinism. The opportunists in the parties of various countries also attached themselves to Bernsteinism in their ideologies, theories and practices. The Second International was then severely degenerated and finally split. Accordingly, Lenin said: “Bernstein, a one-time orthodox Marxist, gave his name to this trend by coming forward with the most noise and with the most purposeful expression of amendments to Marx, revision of Marx, revisionism.” The word "revision" here comes from a Latin word meaning "modification" or "amendment". The term "revisionism" with this specific political meaning became widely popular after Rosa Luxemburg, the leader of the left-wing of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, was the first to summarize Bernsteinism with "revisionism" and criticize it. In 1908, Lenin used the word "modern revisionism" again in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.

Revisionism is a complete refutation of Marx's ideas in philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism. In terms of philosophy, Bernstein rejected Marx's dialectical materialism and historical materialism, proposed "going back to Kant", replaced materialism with idealism and revolutionary dialectics with vulgar evolution. In political economy, he opposed and distorted Marx's labor theory of value, surplus value and economic crisis based on the theories of various schools of bourgeois vulgar economics, advocated the "theory of super-imperialism" and "organized capitalism", and denied the Marxist theory that capitalism is bound to perish. In the aspect of scientific socialism, he attempted to revise the Marxist theory of class struggle and the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and put forward a set of programmes for the "peaceful entry into socialism" from capitalism, strongly opposing violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The revisionist nature of Bernstein's theory is best illustrated by his slogan "The goal, whatever it may be, is nothing to me, while the movement is everything". Bernstein's slogan, “the movement is everything, the ultimate goal is nothing", is the best indication of the revisionist nature of his theory.

The emergence of the revisionism of the Second International had its economic, social and ideological roots. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when capitalist countries were in a relatively peaceful and stable period of development and entered the stage of monopoly capitalism, or, imperialism, capitalists in various countries used the excess profits extracted from the colonies to buy off some of the trade union leaders and promoted to form a stratum of workers’ aristocracy within the working class as the basis for revisionist politics. Revisionism, as a legal social trend of thought, was widely popular at that time. Lenin said: “The inevitability of revisionism is determined by its class roots in modern society. Revisionism is an international phenomenon.”

After the outbreak of the World War I, Bernstein, Kautsky and other revisionists supported the bourgeoisie of their nations in the war of plundering and became social chauvinists. Following the October Revolution, they attacked the Soviet power led by the Bolsheviks, betrayed the revolutions in Germany, Hungary, and other countries, completely betrayed the proletarian revolution and became an open ally of the bourgeoisie.