I do wish Paul Mason (G2, 22 December) knew his history. The German Social Democrats in the 1890s were led by self-conscious Marxists who believed in revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein had worked closely with Engels in London. They were his acolytes, not his enemies. Bernstein’s revisionism was rejected by the party, but Bernstein still thought himself a Marxist. Kautsky was the ideological brains behind the SPD and definitely believed in revolution, although probably not a violent one. Europe’s other socialist parties felt much the same. The hope was that the capitalists would be in no position by then to offer much resistance.
Marx himself, of course, had suggested that the introduction of a universal franchise in Britain or Holland might obviate the need for revolution there.
Professor Alan Sked
London School of Economics
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