p Overjoyed at Herr Bernstein’s apostasy, the bourgeoisie are now lauding this “critic” to the skies; his exploits as “critic” have been proclaimed with such pomp from the housetops that a careful analysis of his arguments can provide numerous and highly interesting psychological “documents” to characterise our times. Besides, Herr Bernstein’s renunciation of materialism and his 365 striving to "return to Kant"  [365•*  are not simple errors of a philosophical mind (if one could only speak of Herr Bernstein’s philosophical mind); no, they have been a natural, inevitable and vivid expression of his present-day socio-political leanings, which can be expressed in the words: a rapprochement with the advanced sections of the bourgeoisie. "What is called Ihe middle class,” he says, "is a complex class consisting of various sections with very heterogeneous and dissimilar interests. These sections hold together as long as they are equally oppressed or as long as they are equally threatened. In this particular case we can of course speak only of the latter, i.e., that the bourgeoisie form a homogeneous reactionary mass because all their elements are equally threatened by the Social-Democrats—some in their material interests and others in their ideological interests, i.e., their religion, their patriotism, and their desire to save the country from the horrors of violent revolution" (pp. 248–49). This short quotation provides a key to an understanding of the psychology in the “revision” of Marxism undertaken by Herr Bernstein. To avoid a “threat” to the ideological interests of the bourgeoisie—and first and foremost to its religion—Herr Bernstein has “returned” to the viewpoint of “critical” philosophy, which gets along very well with religion, while materialism is utterly and irreconcilably hostile to it.  [365•**  To avoid a “threat” to bourgeois "patriotism”, he has set about refuting Marx’s proposition that the proletariat has no homeland, and speaking on German foreign policy in the tone of a “statesman” of Ihe “Realpolitik” school; finally, to avoid the “threat” of the " horrors of violent revolution" to the bourgeoisie, he has risen up against the “Zusammenbruchstheorie” (which, incidentally, he himself fabricated out of some words of Marx and Engels which he had partly misunderstood and partly distorted) and attempted to prove that "class dictatorship is a sign of a lower culture... a step backwards, political atavism”. Anyone who wishes to understand Herr Bernstein should try to understand, not so much his theoretical arguments, which contain nothing but ignorance and muddled thinking, as his practical aspirations, which account for all his mishaps 366 in the realm of theory and his backsliding. What a man is, such is his philosophy, Fichte said with much justice.

p (Religion "is the opium of the people,” Marx wrote in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbücher.^^117^^ "To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness.... The criticism of religion is therefore ... the criticism of the vale of tears."^^178^^

p This kind of language could not, of course, be to the liking either of the bourgeois philistines, who stand in need of the “opium” of religion to ensure for themselves a little of illusory happiness, or of those far more gifted and bold ideologists of the bourgeoisie who, after shedding their own religious prejudices, yet regale the masses of the people with illusory happiness exclusively to protect from those masses the real happiness of the well-endowed classes. It goes without saying that these are gentlemen that have risen up so violently against materialism and so loudly condemn the “dogmatism” of those revolutionaries who unmask the actual nature of their anti-materialist propaganda__}

p In an interesting booklet entitled Reform oder Revolution, C. von Massow, Geheimer Regierungsrath, Mitglied der internationalen Kommission fiir Schutzpflege u.s.w., in short, a most “estimable” gentleman, voices his firm conviction that "if our development proceeds in the same way as it has till now, then our Fatherland will be threatened in the future by social revolution" (Vorwort, S. 1). What is needed, in his opinion, to avoid that revolution is comprehensive reform (eine Gesammtreform auf staatlichem und sozialem Gebiet), a demand his book deals with. But his programme of comprehensive reform does not preclude a struggle against the "revolutionary forces" (die Miichte des Umsturzes). Before a revolutionary explosion takes place, those forces should be fought against with the spiritual weapon (mit geistigen Waffen), and in that struggle the efforts should be directed, first and foremost, against materialism. However, Herr von Massow thinks that the struggle against materialism will be best conducted by those opponents of the "revolutionary forces" that will cleanse themselves of the taint of materialism. "The enemy we must engage in the first place is the materialism in our own midst,” he preaches. "Social-Democracy is utterly materialistic; it denies God and eternity" (sic). "But who has that doctrine been borrowed from? Has it not come down from above? The vasl majority of the educated people of our times have turned away from the faith of their fathers....” "Part of the educated world are quite atheistic."  [366•*  And the social consequences of atheism are horrifying. "If there is neither God, life beyond the grave, nor 367 eternity; if the soul ceases to exist together with the advent of death, then any calamity, any poverty suffered by part of mankind, which suffers while another part enjoys surfeit, becomes two arid three hundred times as unjust. Why should nine-tenths of the people bear a heavy burden of life while a minority remain free of any burden?"  [367•* 

This is a question the atheist can give no satisfactory answer to. But it is therein that the social danger of atheism lies; it arouses and encourages revolutionary sentiments in the toiling masses. That is why our Geheimer Regierungsrath, etc., etc., preaches to the educated bourgeoisie repentance and a struggle against materialism. Herr von Massow is an intelligent man. He is far more intelligent than all those “Marxists” who, while sincerely sympathising with the working class, no less sincerely go in for “critical” philosophy. Such people adhere to a materialist understanding of history, but they are greatly surprised when they are told of the social, i.e., ultimately, the economic causes of that negative attitude towards materialism, and that spread of nee– Kantianism, which are to be seen among the educated bourgeoisie ot today.