[32] This controversy is known as the "revisionist movement." The revisionists' position is set forth in Bernstein's book, Die Voraussetzung des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozial-Demokratie. The Marxian position is set forth in Kautsky's reply, Bernstein und die Sozial-Demokratie. An English edition of Bernstein's book has been published in the Labor Party series in London.
[33] Protokoll, 1899.
[34] Supra cit., p. 94.
[35] Supra cit., p. 127.
[36] Protokoll, 1903, pp. 321-45.
[37] In the congress of 1907 Bebel tried to dispel the gloom by a long and optimistic speech in which he declared that their success was not to be measured by the number of seats they won, but by the number of voters. He closed by saying, "We are the coming ones, ours is the future in spite of all things and everything."—Protokoll, 1907, p. 323.
[38] One of the veteran party leaders answered my question as to the present-day influence of Marx as follows: "The bulk of our party have never read Marx. It takes a well-trained mind to understand him. Conditions have entirely changed since his day, and we are busy with questions of which Marx never dreamed and of which he could not foretell. He laid the philosophical basis for our party, but our party is practical, not philosophical."
[39] In 1900 Bebel proposed the necessity of a working coalition with other parties in Prussia to gain electoral reform. He said: "We cannot stand alone. We must attempt to go hand in hand with certain elements in the bourgeois parties—without, however, endangering our identity." But the party was not willing to go as far as the veteran, and a resolution was adopted limiting such co-operation strictly to Prussia and giving the central committee full power to veto the acts any electoral district might take in this direction.
[40] Protokoll, 1910, p. 249.
[41] Protokoll, 1910, p. 272.