| Share   Influence of Marxism  Political Influence  The first
impact of Marxism was felt in continental Europe. By the late
19th cent., through the influence of the Internationals, it had
permeated the European trade union movement, and the major
socialist parties (see Socialist parties, in European history)
were committed to it in theory if not in practice. A major
division soon appeared, however, between those socialists who
believed that violent revolution was inevitable and those, most
notably Eduard Bernstein, who argued that socialism could be
achieved by evolution; both groups could cite Marx as their
authority because he was inconsistent in his writings on this
question.  The success of the revolutionary socialists
(hereafter called Communists) in the Russian Revolution and the
establishment of an authoritarian Communist state in Russia
split the movement irrevocably. In disassociating themselves
from dictatorial Russian Communism, many of the democratic
socialist parties also moved slowly away from