ABSTRACT
During 1896 five major political controversies forced Kautsky and Bernstein to develop further their understanding of Marxism. Polemics on South Africa and the Ottoman Empire raised concerns about capitalism expanding abroad. Defense of the suffrage in Saxony and the issue of Polish independence prompted Bernstein to challenge using the expectation of catastrophe to excuse inaction on important matters. These two issues and the London Congress renewed the question of finding reforms appropriate to a particular stage of economic and social evolution. Twice, certain judgments believed to have been made by Marx in decades past were found by some to be no longer relevant. The five controversies generated discussion of how one should correctly employ Marxism--as a method of research and analysis or as a model of how history would occur and a set of prescribed policies. During the second half of 1896, Kautsky and Bernstein debated the meaning of Marxism in polemics over theory, too. By November the disputes over theory merged with those over politics as their views on Marxism as a philosophy of history and approach to the writing of history became associated with their stands on South Africa and the Ottoman Empire. There appeared a connection between one's understanding of theory and one's political tactic.
