Vrijzinnig Democratic Bond
The Vrijzinnig Democratische Bond (VDB) was a left-wing liberal party in the Netherlands that existed from 1901 to 1946.
history
The VDB was founded in 1901, when a motion by the board of the Liberal Union ( Liberale Unie ) to include the necessary constitutional amendments to introduce universal equal suffrage as an urgent item in the election manifesto failed to gain a majority at the general assembly. In response, the party leadership and progressive subdivisions left their previous organization and formed the Radicale Bond, the Free Democratic League (VDB).
In addition to the demand for consistent changes to the electoral law, which was the focus of interest until its implementation in 1918, the VDB also differed from the liberal mainstream in other issues. This included calls for greater socio-political commitment by the state, oriented towards “ cathedral socialism ”, and pacifist goals such as unilateral disarmament and expansion of the international legal system. Due to these substantive differences, the VDB did not join the Freedom Association ( Vrijheidsbond ) founded in 1921 , which united the other competing liberal parties and in 1928 gave itself the name Liberale Staatspartij .
It was not until the crisis-ridden 1930s, when the VDB moved away from its pacifist positions in view of the growing threat from Hitler's Germany and advocated the cooperation of all democratic forces, that the different liberal currents could grow together again. The German invasion in 1940 then marked a turning point in the independent political development of the Netherlands.
When the political landscape was restructured in 1946 and the Social Democrats, with the newly founded Partij van de Arbeid, sought to turn from a class struggle to a people 's party , the VDB, under the leadership of its chairman at the time, Pieter Oud , joined the PvdA by a majority.
Some of the former liberals left the Labor Party after a short time and took part in the founding of the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie , which represented the liberal party of the Netherlands for the following decades before the Democrats 66, founded in 1966, increasingly developed and developed a left-wing liberal profile claimed the role of the spiritual heirs of the VDB.
Position in the party system
The VDB, which had around 1,500 members in the year it was founded and only exceeded 10,000 in its prime in the mid-1920s, was one of the smaller parties in the Netherlands. In the elections before the implementation of universal and equal suffrage (until 1917) he achieved between seven and eleven seats (out of 100). The change in electoral law tended to worsen the position of the liberals, as the previously underprivileged felt more attached to the denominational parties or the socialists. However, the VDB was able to stabilize at a low level (between five and seven seats from still 100) and in 1937 for the first time outstripped the moderately liberal competition.
For a long time the VDB saw one of its main tasks as bridging the gap between the socialists and the bourgeois / Christian parties, but was never able to implement it by forming an appropriate coalition and for a long time remained limited to the role of an opposition party. It was only in the course of the partial revision of its own program in the 1930s that the VDB was willing to participate in a center-right coalition and was involved in three cabinets under Prime Minister Colijn from 1933 to 1937 . Pieter Oud, who later became mayor of Rotterdam , served as finance minister during this time. Former party leader Henri Marchant was Minister of Education from 1933 to 1935. When he lost the trust of his party and thus his offices because of his secret conversion to Catholicism in 1935, Marcus Slingenberg was appointed Minister of Social Affairs for a term of office until 1937.
literature
- Gerrit Voerman [and a.]: De vrijzinnig-democratische traditie. VDB tussen socialisme en liberalisme . Wiardi Beckman Stichting, Amsterdam 1991, ISBN 90-72575-21-0 .
- Klijnsma, Meine Henk: Om de democratie. De geschiedenis van de Vrijzinnig-Democratische Bond, 1901–1946 . Bakker, Amsterdam 2008. ISBN 978-90-351-3239-9
