Ferdinand Lassalle (11 April 1825 - 31 August 1864) was a German-Jewish jurist and socialist political activist. In contrast with Karl Marx and his adherents, Lassalle rejected the idea that the state was a class-based power structure with the function of preserving existing class relations and destined to "wither away" in a future classless society. Instead, Lassalle saw the state as an independent entity, an instrument of justice essential for the achievement of the socialist program. Eduard Bernstein (January 6, 1850 - December 18, 1932) was a German social democratic theoretician and politician, a member of the SPD, and the founder of evolutionary socialism and revisionism.