p In one of Shakespeare’s plays, a courtier says of the demented Ophelia:

p ..Speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection....

p The same has to be said of Herr Bernstein’s book: it carries half sense; its speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it moves the attentive reader to collection. In all questions of theory, Herr Bernstein has shown himself to be as weak as weak can be. How has it come to pass that for many years he has played the part of one of the most outstanding theoreticians of his Party? This is a question that gives food for thought. It is no easy matter to find any satisfactory answer....

p Another and no less important matter is that only faint traces of socialism have survived in Herr Bernstein’s views. In fact, he is far closer to the petty-bourgeois adherents of "social reform" than to revolutionary Social-Democracy. Yet he remains a “comrade”, arid has not been asked to leave the Party. This can be accounted for in part by the false view regarding freedom of opinion, now so widespread among Social-Democrats in all countries. "How can a man be expelled from the Party because of bis views?" it is said. "That would mean persecuting him for heresy.” People who think thus forget that freedom of opinion must necessarily be supplemented with freedom to draw closer together or part company, and that the latter freedom lias no existence wherever some prejudice makes people march together who would do better to part because of their difference of views. But this erroneous reasoning is only part of the explanation (why Herr Bernstein has not been expelled from the German Social-Democratic Party. The main reason is that his new views are shared by a fairly considerable number of other Social-Democrats. For reasons we cannot go into in this article, opportunism has won many supporters in the ranks of Social-Democracy in various countries. This spread of opportunism presents the main danger threatening it today. SocialDemocrats who have remained loyal to the revolutionary spirit of their programme—and they are fortunately still in the majority almost everywhere—will be making an irreparable mistake if they do not lake timely and decisive action to counter the danger.) Taken alone, llerr Bernstein, far from being formidable, is simply ridiculous and marked by a striking resemblance to the philosophising Sancho Pan/a. What his theory stands for, however, is a most alarming thing as a symptom of possible decline.

p (Incidentally, Herr Bernstein has written the following: "To show Mr. Plekhanov’s polemical devices in their true light, I must point out that a great if not the greater part of Russian SocialDemocrats now active in Russia have decisively adopted a viewpoint close to mine, and that in that sense some of my ’empty’ articles have been translated into Russian and brought out in separate editions."  [378•*  This is followed by the malicious remark that such a thing can scarcely fill us with joy. Leaving aside both the question of our personal sentiments and that of how our polemical devices can be characterised by the fact of Social-Democrats active in Russia drawing closer to Herr Bernstein—if that were true— we shall note that he is evidently referring to the so-called " economic" trend in Russian Social-Democracy.^^185^^ It is common knowledge that this trend, which met with some temporary success in Russia, has now been overcome by our fellow-thinkers, who see in Herr Bernstein nothing more that a renegade.  But it is not yet generally known that there has been a Russian Social-Democratic publication (issued abroad) which has failed to notice the existence of the “economic” trend, and has therefore denied it. Its editors must surely be people of keen vision.^^18^^”)

p This wretched translation of Herr Bernstein’s wretched little book has appeared in two “legal” editions, with a third one in the offing. There is nothing surprising about that. Any “criticism” of Marxism and any parody of it—if only imbued with the bourgeois spirit—is sure to be to the liking of that section of our legal Marxists which is itself a bourgeois parody of Marxism.

August 1901.