 According to Henry Tudor and J.M.Tudor, Bernstein's rationale to reform Marxism was to secure “the rights of individuals and promoting their material wellbeing without undermining their independence.” He believed that the predominant problem of socialism was to “prevent the sheer size of the modern state from submerging the individual and nullifying democratic control.”

The crisis of Marxism encompassed the “Breakdown Controversy” which was an argument among Karl Kautsky, orthodox Marxists, Bernstein and his revisionists over the predicted breakdown of capitalism due to its internal contradictions.Orthodox Marxists held the opinion that capitalism's collapse was imminent, which would result in a revolutionary conjuncture.