Quiz: Evolutionary Socialism

All 45 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. What does Bernstein say most agricultural labourers want?

   Membership of industrial trade unions The socialisation of agricultural production Emigration to the towns To get their own land
2. 2. What does Bernstein say democracy is in relation to socialism?

   A bourgeois illusion to be discarded after the revolution A matter of indifference to the workers A tactic suited to England but not to Germany Not only the means but also the substance
3. 3. How does Bernstein treat the Manifesto’s sentence that the proletarian has no fatherland?

   As a forgery inserted into the text by later editors of the Manifesto As true in the 1840s, but less so as workers become citizens As a timeless truth forbidding socialists any defence of national interests or borders As applying only to agricultural labourers, who own no land of their own
4. 4. How does Bernstein prefer to define democracy?

   As direct rule by local communes As the dictatorship of the working class Negatively, as the absence of class government As government by the majority without limits
5. 5. Which name does Bernstein think most appropriate for the Marxist theory of history?

   Dialectical and Historical Materialism Scientific Socialism of Marx and Engels Sociological Theory of Historical Progress Economic Interpretation of History
6. 6. According to the argument Bernstein takes from Beatrice Webb, what dilemma faces purely productive associations?

   Selling abroad or selling only to members Joining a union or employing non-members cheaply Giving up equality to grow, or keeping it and staying small Borrowing from banks or selling to the state
7. 7. Why does Bernstein think Ralahine proves little about associations of agricultural workers?

   It was run and financed by the Irish government Its members were Belfast factory workers, not farm labourers It lasted too short a time and depended on its founder and agent It was too large to be typical
8. 8. How does Bernstein define socialism at the opening of Chapter III?

   As a science of society deduced from Marx’s theories of value and of surplus value As the class struggle of the workers for political power, and as nothing besides As the ownership and management by the state of all the means of production and exchange As a movement towards, or the state of, a society based on association
9. 9. What evidence from Capital does Bernstein cite against Plekhanov’s view that the worker’s position is hopeless?

   Marx’s praise of the co-operative movement in volume III Marx’s chapter on Ireland and the emigration after the great famine Marx’s statistics on rising real wages among German miners after 1850 The “physical and moral regeneration” of Lancashire textile workers under the Factory Law of 1847
10. 10. What does Bernstein conclude about British industry from the factory returns and the census?

    Britain is industrially behind France Medium and small businesses employ more people than the large industries Small workshops have disappeared from Britain Almost all British workers are employed in factories of over fifty workers
11. 11. By how much does Bernstein say the socialist vote rose from 1893 to 1898?

    50 per cent 18 per cent 87 per cent 25 per cent
12. 12. What is Bernstein’s position on Germany’s lease of Kiaochow Bay?

    The party need not condemn it on principle, as it gives Germany a voice in China It was irrelevant because Germany had no trade with China The party must condemn it absolutely as colonial robbery and piracy It should be extended into a full partition of China among the European powers
13. 13. What name does Bernstein suggest one might give socialism?

    “Municipal communism” “Scientific democracy” “Industrial feudalism” “Organising liberalism”
14. 14. How does Bernstein characterise the trade unions?

    As the democratic element in industry As schools for revolutionary insurrection As the future owners of every branch of production As temporary coalitions with no lasting role
15. 15. How does Bernstein answer Kautsky’s objection at Stuttgart?

    He withdraws his claim about the growth of property-owners and accepts Kautsky’s figures He argues that Marx never wrote about the concentration of enterprises at all He says the proletariat is shrinking in absolute numbers, as the census shows He meant property-owners, not enterprises; Kautsky confused capital with capitalists
16. 16. What does Bernstein use the English Sewing Thread Trust to illustrate?

    That trusts invariably fail within a few years That trusts drive down wages faster than independent firms do in the same trade That even huge combines spread ownership among thousands of shareholders That foreign, chiefly American, capital now controls much of British industry
17. 17. What does Bernstein urge Social Democracy to appear as, since that is what it is in reality?

    A trade-union federation without political aims A democratic, socialistic party of reform A revolutionary party of the proletarian dictatorship A party of national unity above classes
18. 18. What does Bernstein say the dictatorship of the proletariat means where workers lack strong economic organisations and experience of self-government?

    The dictatorship of club orators and writers A return to absolute monarchy Government by the peasantry The rule of the trade-union bureaucracy and officials
19. 19. With what does Bernstein compare Marx’s value, conceived as a purely abstract entity?

    Ricardo’s theory of differential rent on land of unequal fertility The final utility of Gossen, Jevons and Böhm-Bawerk Adam Smith’s invisible hand guiding the market price Malthus’s principle of population and its geometric ratio
20. 20. What does Bernstein accuse Rosa Luxemburg of leaving out in her account of credit?

    The history of John Law and the Mississippi bubble Its role in speculation Its effect in sharpening crises Its constructive side, which Marx expressly included
21. 21. According to Bernstein’s Saxon income-tax figures for 1879–1894, which groups grew fastest?

    The middle band of £80 to £165 All groups grew at exactly the same rate as the population The two capitalist classes, with incomes above £480 The poorest incomes, up to £40
22. 22. What trend does Bernstein find in the agriculture of Western Europe?

    The number of holdings is unchanged since 1850 Large estates are steadily absorbing peasant farms almost everywhere Farmland is passing rapidly to joint-stock companies and mortgage banks Small and medium holdings are growing while large holdings decline
23. 23. Which work by Engels does Bernstein cite for the end of the age of revolutions by small minorities?

    His 1894 preface to the third volume of Capital The Origin of the Family His 1895 introduction to The Class Struggles in France His 1882 preface to the Russian edition of the Manifesto
24. 24. What did the resolution Marx drew up for the Geneva Congress recommend to workers?

    Co-operative stores rather than co-operative production Co-operative production rather than co-operative stores Avoiding co-operatives altogether in favour of trade unions Seeking state credit for co-operative banks
25. 25. What danger does Bernstein see in cartels and trusts for the working class?

    They make protective tariffs impossible They will certainly cause a final world crisis Monopolist unions against workers and public, they could bring a new serfdom They raise wages so high that trade unions will soon become unnecessary
26. 26. What does Bernstein say Marx’s programme in The Civil War in France most resembles?

    The Jacobin Constitution of 1793 Lassalle’s Workers’ Programme The Blanquist dictatorship of revolutionary clubs The federalism of Proudhon
27. 27. How does Bernstein explain his sentence that the “final aim of socialism” is nothing?

    He meant that the final aim had already been largely achieved in England He meant that socialism as a goal should be abandoned altogether He meant indifference to the final form of things, not to socialist principles He meant that only a revolution could decide the final aim
28. 28. What does Bernstein call the English book’s principal aim?

    To defend the dictatorship of the proletariat To stress the every-day work of the socialist party (Gegenwartsarbeit) To prove the labour theory of value To refute the Fabian Society
29. 29. What does Bernstein say about universal suffrage and Bismarck?

    It served Bismarck for a time but finally made him serve it It never affected Bismarck’s policy It was introduced by the Social Democrats against Bismarck’s will Bismarck abolished it outright with the Anti-Socialist Law of 1878
30. 30. Why, according to Bernstein, do small bakeries survive despite profitable bread factories?

    Because the state and the towns subsidise the master bakers’ guilds Because of their advantage in trade with nearby consumers Because guild law forbids factory baking Because bread factories cannot yet bake fine bread efficiently
31. 31. Where, according to Bernstein, are the best-placed workers often found?

    Only in agriculture In trades with a very high rate of surplus value In trades with a very low rate of surplus value Only in state employment
32. 32. According to Bernstein, what gives the historical legal title to the use of land in the colonies?

    Prior occupation by the native inhabitants Purchase from the native rulers Its cultivation, not its conquest Its conquest by the stronger power
33. 33. How does Bernstein explain the apparent contradiction between Marx’s statements on crises in Volumes II and III of Capital?

    The Volume II passage is a mistranslation of Marx’s German manuscript Engels inserted the Volume III passage himself after Marx’s death in 1883 Marx was quoting Rodbertus in Volume III and not stating his own view of crises Volume III’s passage dates from 1864–65, Volume II’s from about 1878
34. 34. The ideas of the book were first set out, Bernstein says, in what?

    His preface to an edition of the Communist Manifesto A pamphlet written for the Fabian Society A speech to the Reichstag in 1898 A letter to the party congress at Stuttgart in 1898
35. 35. Which passage of Marx does Bernstein say he had in mind when writing that the ultimate aim is nothing and the movement everything?

    The Civil War in France line that the workers have no ready-made utopias to realise The Theses on Feuerbach The closing words of the Communist Manifesto The preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy on social epochs
36. 36. Where did the German party debate the book for three and a half days in 1899?

    At its Erfurt congress At its Hanover congress At its Dresden congress At its Gotha congress
37. 37. To whom does Bernstein compare the materialist?

    A Hegelian without dialectics A Darwinian without nature A utopian without a plan A Calvinist without God
38. 38. On what point does Bernstein say Proudhon was right against Louis Blanc?

    That the associations were “no economic force” That property is theft That co-operative stores lower the wages of shop assistants That the state should fund the social workshops with credit
39. 39. With what sum does Bernstein say the co-operative movement of the Rochdale weavers began?

    £28 £12,500 £280 £15,000,000
40. 40. What, according to Bernstein, is the position in Marxist theory “to-day”?

    All contradictions in the theory have been resolved Marx and Engels never changed their views One can prove everything out of Marx and Engels Nobody reads Marx and Engels any more
41. 41. Which distinction does Bernstein use to sort the parts of Marxism?

    Pure science and applied science Utopian and scientific socialism Use value and exchange value Base and superstructure
42. 42. What does Bernstein say has happened to the number of members of the possessing classes?

    It has stayed exactly the same It is larger, not smaller It has shrunk to a few great magnates It has fallen as the Manifesto foresaw
43. 43. What “dualism” does Bernstein find in Marx’s Capital?

    It mixes English factory statistics with German philosophical argument and Hegelian jargon It alternates between Hegel’s dialectic and Kant’s critical philosophy from one page to the next It aims to be a scientific inquiry but also to prove a theory fixed before it was written It treats agriculture and industry by two quite different and incompatible methods
44. 44. Whose agrarian programme does Bernstein discuss, agreeing with it in principle while noting that it would in practice protect the peasants?

    Liebknecht’s Schippel’s Lassalle’s Kautsky’s
45. 45. Which classification of associations, from Oppenheimer, does Bernstein find most useful?

    Urban versus rural associations Associations for purchase versus associations for sale Religious versus secular associations Associations with versus without state aid