Görlitz program

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The Görlitz program was the SPD's program adopted at the Görlitz party congress in 1921 . It replaced the Erfurt program of 1891 and was in turn replaced by the Heidelberg program in 1925 .

Party congress and program

The Görlitz Party Congress took place from September 18 to 24, 1921 in the Görlitz town hall with 376 participants entitled to vote. The chairmen of the party congress were Otto Wels and Paul Taubadel . The agenda included the effects of the Versailles Treaty on domestic and foreign policy in Germany (Speaker Hermann Müller ) and the debate about a new party program (Speaker Hermann Molkenbuhr ).

The new program, most of which had been drawn up by Eduard Bernstein , was adopted with only five votes against. It was decidedly revisionist . However, it did not fundamentally depart from the old Marxist foundations. The aim of the new program was to appeal to voters outside of the previous proletarian core electorate. The SPD now wanted to be the “party of the working people in town and country”.

This hope was not entirely wishful thinking in the years after the First World War . After all, the AfA-Bund ( General Free Employees Association ) organized a large number of employees and the newly founded ADB ( General German Official Association ) organized a not inconsiderable part of (mostly smaller) civil servants. The DBB ( German Association of Officials ) was also at times very close to the moderate social democracy. In addition, after the revolution, the free trade unions even managed to organize farm workers in eastern Germany.

If there was no reference to the class struggle in Bernstein's original concept , this aspect came back into the program in the course of the discussion. It therefore seems thoroughly Marxist that the SPD wanted to continue to hold on to the “class struggle for the liberation of the proletariat”.

However, especially in its second, strongly reformist part, the program took into account the conviction, which has been strengthened since the November Revolution, that one's own political action must observe the framework of the given legality. Above all, however, the party committed itself to the Weimar Republic . "It regards the democratic republic as the irrevocably given form of government through historical development, every attack on it as an assassination attempt on the right to life of the people."

This change of course was also intended as a deliberate demarcation from left-wing competition from the USPD and KPD . This was also made clear by the further discussions at the party congress. The party saw a main difference to the independents in the question of whether one could enter into a coalition with the bourgeois parties. Philipp Scheidemann emphasized that the republic must be defended with all strength under all circumstances. “We do not allow anyone to surpass our love for our fatherland and our people.” The party congress approved coalitions with bourgeois parties by a large majority, provided that they also committed to the republic and supported certain basic social demands. In addition, the party congress called on the Land and Reichstag factions to finally take vigorous action against the symbols of the monarchy and called on the party members to publicly acknowledge the republic by wearing appropriate badges. In addition, the Reich government and parliamentary group were called upon to promote the dissolution of the Freikorps and the creation of a truly republican armed forces. In addition, May 1st and November 9th were to become public holidays.

Further topics were the revision of the Versailles Treaty, the creation of a republican judiciary, the question of the type of school, further education, protection of minors, tax policy and other questions. Hermann Müller (320 votes) and Otto Wels (300) were elected as party chairmen .

Political and social boundaries

The social groups identified by the party beyond the working class reacted to the program with restraint at best. It met with undisguised ridicule and rejection from the critical, left-wing public. Kurt Tucholsky wrote a long poem under his pseudonym Theobald Tiger with the title "Social Democratic Party Congress" for the party congress in the world stage . It ended with the verse:

"[...] Mr. Weismann grins and all the angels laugh.
We don't see what they're doing to us,
not the dangers of all '…
We are Skat brothers who have read Marx .
We have never been that far away
from the train that Lassall led us ! "

- Social Democratic Party Congress In Die Weltbühne , 29.09.1921, No. 39, p. 312; again in: With 5 HP , also u. d. T. emotional criticism .

The agreed program was replaced in 1925 by the Heidelberg program , which was much more in line with the tradition of the Marxist Erfurt program . The main reason for this was that by now part of the USPD had rejoined the MSPD . The left wing was thus strengthened. That is why the practical part of the Görlitz program was revised a year later. But there was also the experience during the period of high inflation and economic stabilization. It was not the trade unions (as in the first years of the republic) but the companies that now shaped economic and social policy. The Görlitz program, which can be interpreted as an initial approximation of popular party concepts, remained an episode, and the SPD remained essentially dependent on the workers' voters. However, the party also took account of the changes that had taken place in the meantime, as agricultural workers, employees and civil servants had moved significantly to the right again, largely under the impression of inflation associated with the SPD, which supported the state.

literature

  • Hermann Schöler: The Görlitz program of the SPD. A critical comment by H. Sch. Detmold 1922.
  • Helga Grebing : History of the German labor movement. An overview . Munich 1966, p. 178.
  • Franz Osterroth, Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German social democracy. Vol II: From the beginning of the Weimar Republic to the end of the Second World War . Berlin, Bonn 1975, pp. 87-91.
  • Heinrich August Winkler: Class Movement or People's Party? On the social democratic program debate 1920–1925 . In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft Issue 1 1982 pp. 9–54.
  • Detlef Lehnert: Social democracy between protest movement and ruling party 1848 to 1983 . Frankfurt 1983, ISBN 3-518-11248-1 , pp. 133f., Pp. 138f.
  • Heinrich-August Winkler: The history of the first German democracy . Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7632-4233-3 , p. 163ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Minutes of the negotiations of the party congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany held in Görlitz from September 18 to 24, 1921 . JHW Dietz successor / Vorwärts bookstore , Berlin 1921 ( fes.de [PDF; 36.3 MB ; accessed on March 20, 2017]).
  2. ↑ a b c The Görlitz Program (1921). In: marxists.org . October 15, 2003, accessed November 25, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Chronik, Vol. 2, p. 88.