ABSTRACT
At the end of August 1897, an exchange of letters between Bernstein and Kautsky recorded both their slowly diverging understandings of what Marxism meant and also the profound change in Bernstein's thinking during his repeated confrontations with Liebknecht, Bax, Hyndman, and now Mehring too. Perhaps in reply to a proposal from Kautsky, Bernstein wrote, "That I would not edit the N. Zt. in a ' strict Marxist' fashion I set aside entirely, for I hope that you do not do so either. Or you give the term 'Marxist' a very broad meaning. It Bernstein reminded his friend that long ago they had discussed what it meant to be followers of Marx:
You will want to be bound as little as I by all the applications Marx and Engels derived from their theory. Even as disciples or perhaps ... because we are their disciples we must act critically towards M. and E.
