A social-democratic vision of law, self-determination, and peace
A Wartime Writing on International Order
International Law and International Politics: The Nature, Questions, and Future of International Law is one of Eduard Bernstein’s later works on social democracy and international politics. Written at the height of the First World War, it belongs among the writings in which the German social-democratic thinker and politician addressed the abrupt collapse of international socialist cooperation after the war’s outbreak. Its focus is the international order: how law, diplomacy, and democratic politics might be made to serve peace in Europe and beyond.
The Case for an Ethical, Democratic Internationalism
Bernstein’s central argument is that international relations should be guided by an ethical and democratic approach and governed by a body of international law. Law is central to his account of how peoples can secure peace and self-determination. He envisages an international union committed to safeguarding the right of peoples to self-determination. The work therefore connects socialist internationalism with a legal and democratic vision of peace, rather than treating international politics as a sphere in which states and empires simply pursue their own interests.
Against State-Centrism
Bernstein is sceptical of the state-centrism of early twentieth-century liberal proposals for developing strong international institutions. Even as he favours international law and international organisation, he doubts that a model centred primarily on states can realise the democratic peace he seeks. He is also sharply critical of militarist and imperialist political leaders and thinkers who prevented even the limited institutional proposals of the time from being realised. The work thus rejects both the existing politics of imperial rivalry and a purely state-centred approach to international institution-building.
The “Republic of Peoples”
Against these limits, Bernstein urges social democrats to campaign for what he calls a “republic of peoples.” This is a system of international economic, legal, and cultural relations that social democrats should actively pursue. The phrase names his alternative to state-centred and militarist international politics: an order in which international law, democratic politics, and the rights of peoples are integrated.
Patriotism, Class Struggle, and Free Trade
The work explores themes of patriotism, class struggle, diplomacy, and free trade. These concerns are brought into the broader question of how social democrats should relate to international politics. Bernstein treats them within the framework of a law-governed, democratic internationalism rather than as isolated questions of domestic or foreign policy.
Continuing Resonance
The work’s continuing interest lies in its attempt to combine a socialist critique of imperial and militarist politics with a defence of international law, democratic accountability, and the right of peoples to self-determination. Its themes of patriotism, class struggle, diplomacy, and free trade are presented as part of a wider argument about peace, and they continue to carry resonance beyond the wartime setting in which the work was written.
The work appears in Marius S. Ostrowski’s 2018 volume Eduard Bernstein on Social Democracy and International Politics: Essays and Other Writings, published by Springer International Publishing under the Palgrave Macmillan imprint. The volume runs to 442 pages and presents three later works by Bernstein translated into English in full for the first time. The other two works included are Social Democracy and International Politics: Social Democracy and the European Question and League of Nations or League of States.
Author Background in the Source
The source describes Bernstein as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and as best known for his reformist challenge to Marxism, known as evolutionary socialism or revisionism. It states that he questioned Karl Marx’s revolutionary predictions and advocated a gradual, parliamentary path to socialism. During the First World War, his pacifist principles led him to break with the SPD’s pro-war majority and co-found the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD); he rejoined the SPD after the war. The source also records that he served in the Reichstag during the Weimar Republic, where he continued to advocate democracy and peace, and that he died in Berlin in late 1932, weeks before the Nazi seizure of power.
