It Seemed Incomprehensible to Me That This Garbled Hegelianism Could Exert Such an Enormous Influence

When I entered the university, I, too, was a thorough statist [interventionist]. But in contrast to my fellow students I was consciously anti-Marxian. I knew little of the works of Marx at that time. But I knew the most important writings of [Karl] Kautsky [prominent post-Marxian socialist theoretician]; I was a diligent reader of the Neue Zeit; and I had followed the debate among socialists about revisionism of socialism [attempted removal of internal Marxian paradoxes and glaring unrealities] with considerable interest. I was repelled by the staleness of Marxian literature. Kautsky seemed really absurd. When I finally engaged in an intensive study of the important works of Marx, Engels, and Lassalle, I was provoked to contradict them on every page. It seemed incomprehensible to me that this garbled Hegelianism could exert such an enormous influence.

--Ludwig von Mises, Notes and Recollections with the Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves, trans. Hans Sennholz (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2013), 11.