Eduard Bernstein, born in Berlin, Germany, on January 6, 1850, was one of the first socialists to attempt a revision of the tenets of Karl Marx. Called the "father of revisionism," Bernstein advocated a type of social democracy that included private enterprise as well as social reform. His father was a railroad engineer, and the family's financial resources were limited. At the age of sixteen, Bernstein became an apprentice in a bank, rising to bank clerk within a few years. Perhaps through the influence of his uncle, Aaron Bernstein, editor of a Berlin newspaper that supported the progressive working class, young Bernstein announced, in 1872, that he was joining the Social Democratic Party. In this, he shared the aspirations of many educated Germans of the time, who called for national unity and democracy. A genial man, Bernstein was drawn to the pacifist Social Democrats over the more authoritarian General German Workers'...