A Revisionist Looks at Imperialism

Eduard Bernstein's Critique of Imperialism and Kolonialpolitik , 1900–14

Bibliographic Data

ID9643788
AuthorsRoger Fletcher (corresponding author)
Year1979
Volume12
Issue3
Pages237-271
Publication date1979-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCentral European History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-9389 • E-ISSN: 1569-1616
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0008938900022391
OpenAlexW2145592455
LanguageEN
References cited15

It is now generally accepted that prior to the outbreak of the First World War German Social Democracy did not, as a rule, count foreign policy among its more central concerns. It is often further assumed that the right wing of the prewar German labor movement was still less interested in foreign policy problems than were left-wing or centrist party spokesmen. This assumption requires qualification, for the work of East German historians and others has shown that social imperialist thought had made heavy inroads into the revisionist wing of prewar Social Democracy. In fact, revisionists and reformists from Vollmar onwards frequently manifested a deep and enduring concern with the problems of Germany's position in the world. Yet there remains in the person of Eduard Bernstein—in many ways the father of revisionism and certainly its intellectual leader and chief publicist—one prominent revisionist whose pre-1914 foreign policy position continues to defy satisfactory categorization and generalization

Democracy · Economic history · Economics · Epistemology · Foreign policy · Generalization · German · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Right wing · Social democracy · Sociology · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law · Philosophy

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