Eisenacher program
The Eisenach program was the founding program of the Social Democratic Workers' Party decided on at the Eisenach party congress on August 8, 1869 . It contained both Marxist approaches, but also had similar demands and goals to those of the competing ADAV .
Course of the party congress
At the Eisenach party convention, the Saxon People's Party , the Association of German Workers' Associations and members of the ADAV formed the SDAP. At the beginning, the meeting took place in the Goldener Löwe inn . After the party congress was initially blown up by some ADAV supporters, the meeting held again in the hotel "Zum Mohren". Only then could the party be founded, in which 262 delegates from 193 towns in Germany took part.
The party congress decided organizationally that the leadership of the party should be taken over by a five-member committee. The members of the local group in Braunschweig designated as a suburb should elect the committee from among their ranks. In addition, there was a control commission of eleven members based in Hamburg . The highest body of the party should be the annual party congress. This was also responsible for determining the suburb. The party itself should be based on a shop steward system. The Democratic Weekly was chosen as the party organ . This was later to appear three times a week under the title “The People's State”. The party congress also called for an agreement between the unions and the formation of further unions on an international basis.
Leonard von Bonhorst , Wilhelm Bracke , Johann Heinrich Ehlers , Friedrich Neidel and Samuel Spier were elected as board members (committee) .
Eisenacher program
The central goal of the program decided in Eisenach was the "establishment of a free people's state." The advocacy of the working class is not a fight for class privileges, but the party was about the abolition of all class rule. This should primarily be done by overcoming the existing "production conditions (wage system) through cooperative work ". In doing so, the party clearly followed the ideas of the competing ADAV. Political freedom was a prerequisite for achieving this economic goal. Only a democratic state can solve the social question .
A major difference was the belief that workers' liberation could not be a local or national task. Hence the program referred to the party as a branch of the International Workers' Association (ILO).
Under the heading “the next demands”, the program dealt with specific goals beyond the fundamental questions. The SDAP called for universal suffrage for men over twenty years of age. In order to enable even less well-off people to run for parliament, the introduction of diets was called for. August Bebel's attempt to enforce the demand for women's suffrage also failed because of the majority of the delegates.
In addition to parliaments, the party wanted to enforce forms of direct democracy through the introduction of "direct legislation". In addition, the existing military should be replaced by a militia-like people's army. In addition, there were demands for the independence of the courts, the end of professional privileges, a strict separation of church and state, the abolition of all censorship regulations, the completion of compulsory elementary school instruction and the introduction of free instruction in all educational institutions.
With regard to the social issue, the program called for the limitation of working hours through the introduction of a normal working day and the restriction of women - and the ban on child labor . In addition, all indirect taxes , which as consumption taxes hit the lower classes more than the wealthy classes, should be abolished through a direct progressive income tax and an inheritance tax . Like the ADAV, the SDAP also called for the cooperative system to be promoted through state loans for productive cooperatives.
literature
- Detlef Lehnert : Social democracy between protest movement and ruling party 1848–1983. Frankfurt, 1983. ISBN 3-518-11248-1 . P. 58f.
