Social democrats

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Social democrats
Party leader	Mette Frederiksen
Party leader	Mette Frederiksen
Group chairmanship in the Folketing	Henrik Sass Larsen
Political spokesman	Maja Panduro
Party secretary	Lars Midtiby
founding	1871
Place of foundation	Copenhagen
Alignment	Social democracy
Headquarters	Frederiksberg
Number of members	40,060 (2016)
Youth association	DSU
Electoral list	A.
Sit in the Folketing	48/179
International connections	Socialist International , Progressive Alliance
MEPs	3/14
European party	SPE
EP Group	S&D
www.socialdemokraterne.dk

Socialdemokraterne ( S , Danish for social democrats ) is the social democratic party of Denmark . The term Socialdemokratiet , Danish, is also in use . for social democracy. It uses the list designation  A for elections .

history

Early years

Louis Pio (1841-1894). Party founder in 1871 and chairman in 1876/77.

The party was founded in the autumn of 1871 by Louis Pio , Harald Brix and Paul Geleff under the name Den internationale Arbejderforening for Danmark as a division of the First International . Their aim was to organize the rapidly growing working class in Denmark on a socialist basis. Since the middle of the 19th century, the Danish farming community was in a process of industrialization . Large parts of the rural population moved to the cities and became workers. Social democracy emerged from the demand for social justice and democratic rights.

In the winter of 1871/72, many members of the new party joined, and in May 1872 they organized a strike of the journeymen masons to limit working hours. On May 4th, Pio, Brix and Geleff were arrested along with their closest comrades. The next day, a large demonstration formed, which led to the first violent clash between state power and workers. This event became known as Slaget på Fælleden (Battle of the Commons) and is one of the founding myths of Danish social democracy.

It was not until August 1873 that the Supreme Court made a final judgment against the accused: Pio received five years in prison and his comrades-in-arms Brix and Geleff each received three years in prison. A few days later the International was banned in Denmark. Two years later, the three workers' leaders were released early because Pio threatened to die in custody. Despite the prohibition of the organization, social democratic-minded folk killing candidates continued to be put up, and union work did not come to a standstill.

Gimle Program 1876

At the congress from June 6th to 8th, 1876, the first party program was adopted, which bears its name after the Frederiksberg pub "Gimle". It consists of three sections, the first two of which show the long-term goals, while the third part deals with specific requirements. As the basic principles of the party " freedom, equality, fraternity among all nations" are formulated.

Specific requirements are z. B. the abolition of child labor and the introduction of a welfare state .

The program formulated “the task of the social democrats to liberate labor from capital” in a class-struggle manner and declared “all parties that do not recognize this task as a state goal, as a direct reactionary mass against social democracy”. More precisely, “Danish social democracy seeks public power in society and, with the help of this legal weapon, the conversion of all means of production into common property . Only when the current production controlled by private capitalists, stock corporations, the state and municipalities comes under the direct control of the people, that is, by abolishing existing wage labor, will it be possible to distribute profit according to a fair measure. "

The Social Democrats wanted to achieve this in a democratic way and demanded, among other things, complete freedom of the press and assembly , universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage for men and women over 22, popular sovereignty and the introduction of referendums in Denmark .

The impending management crisis was already evident during the deliberations on the Gimle program. Pio and Geleff found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the delegates did not automatically follow their ideas. The Danish state increased the pressure on the labor movement and fewer and fewer dared to openly join it. In 1877 Pio and Geleff were bribed to emigrate.

Socialdemokratisk Forbund

In 1878 a new party organization called Socialdemokratisk Forbund (Social Democratic Federation) was founded. In 1882 Peter Knudsen became party chairman, who was to shape social democracy until his death in 1910.

In 1881 Emil Wiinblad became editor-in-chief of the party newspaper Social Democrats . In a short period of time, the readership doubled and the newspaper made enough profits to help finance the party.

In the Folketing election in 1884, Christen Hørdum and Peter Holm, the first two Social Democrats, entered the Danish parliament. One seat was lost three years later, but in 1890 the Social Democrats doubled their number of votes and won three seats. The 1880s were marked by a strengthening of the Danish trade union movement. At first it was the urban skilled workers who held the leadership, but gradually the unskilled and agricultural workers also gained more influence. There have been successful strikes for wage increases.

The first co-operatives came into being when grain prices fell, without this having a positive effect on bread prices. The labor movement then created a number of cooperative bakeries.

In 1888 the Gimle program was expanded. The balance shifted from protest and labor disputes to parliamentary compromise. The tone of voice became more moderate, which was also a consequence of the parliamentary work in the Folketing.

Among other things, the demands for equality of servants with normal workers and free municipal school meals were new . Agricultural policy moved away from the demand for the nationalization of land and subsequent leasing. Instead, it was now intended to be parceled out and cheap access to working capital for smallholders and landowners.

In the decades around 1900, Danish society went through fundamental changes. The class struggle gradually turned into cautious cooperation. The parliamentary democracy won over the labor disputes are becoming increasingly important.

In the course of the economic improvement at the beginning of the 1890s, the workforce continued to organize itself. In 1898 the trade union federation Landsorganisation i Danmark was founded, which still exists today and represents most of the Danish working people. In the same year the employers' association Dansk Arbejdsgiver- og Mesterforening was formed on the opposite side .

From the takeover of government in 1924 to the end of the Second World War

At the Folketing election in 1924 , the Social Democrats were the strongest party with 36.6% of the vote. For the first time in the history of Denmark, you were able to form a government with Thorvald Stauning at the helm with Radikal Venstre as a coalition partner. In 1926, however, she and her coalition partner Radikal Venstre lost government power to an alliance of Venstre and conservatives. In 1929 social democrats and radicals found their way back to power.

During this period, the social democrats and radicals, partly in collaboration with Venstre, carried out a large number of reforms that laid the foundation for the Danish welfare state ( velfærdsstaten ). During this time, the social democracy changed from a class to a people 's party and achieved the best result in its history in the 1935 election with 46.4% of the votes.

After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht on April 9, 1940, the Social Democrats were at the head of the all-party coalition that had now been formed. In contrast to the situation in Germany , the social democrats remained legal and were able to act (largely) unhindered.

Jens Otto Krag (1914–1978). Prime Minister 1962–68 and 1971–72

Opposition 1982–1993

The critical economic and political situation led to a gathering of the bourgeois forces. The government led by the conservative Poul Schlueter carried out reforms that had been rejected by the social democrats, who were attached to the classic welfare state.

Return to power in 1993

Poul Schlueter's minority government only ended with a solid political scandal. With the return of the left-wing liberals to the side of the Social Democrats, the decisive weight was shifted.

Opposition since 2001

With Nyrup Rasmussen's election defeat in 2001, not only did the supremacy of social democracy end, but for the time being also the Danish political model, which was based on cooperation across the political center. The bourgeois governments Fogh Rasmussen and Løkke Rasmussen established a fixed bloc policy that comparatively rarely sought alternative majorities involving all camps.

2011 election victory

In the shadow of a global financial crisis and a worsening situation on the Danish labor market, the left-wing camp achieved a narrow majority in the 2011 Folketing election . It is true that the Social Democrats recorded the worst election result in over 100 years with less than 25 percent. The gains made by Radikalische Venstre and the socialist Enhedsliste , however, were enough to bring a government into office under the leadership of the Social Democratic party leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt .

Since Mette Frederiksen took over the leadership of the party, there has been a rapprochement between the Social Democrats and the right-wing populist Danish People's Party , which had overtaken the conservative Venstre for the first time in the previous election and is now the strongest party of the classic center-right led by Venstre -Blocks in the current legislative period supported a minority government led by Venstre.

Positions

Climate crisis

A study from 2019, which looked at the voting behavior of parties on climate policy issues in the EU Parliament, rated the Social Democrats as “defenders” of climate-friendly politics.

Aliens Policy

Under the leadership of Mette Frederiksen, the social democrats' positions on foreigners policy have been closely aligned with those of the Dansk Folkeparti and are more comparable to those of the German AfD than to those of the SPD.

Election results

Folk elections

Since the introduction of proportional representation in 1918 (source: Folketingets Oplysning )

1918 28.7% 1920 (I) 29.2% 1920 (II) 29.8% 1920 (III) 32.2% 1924 36.6% 1926 37.2% 1929 41.8% 1932 42.7% 1935 46.4% 1939 42.9%

1943 41.7% 1945 32.8% 1947 41.2% 1950 39.6% 1953 (I) 40.4% 1953 (II) 41.3% 1957 39.4% 1960 42.1% 1964 41.9% 1966 38.2%

1968 34.2% 1971 37.3% 1973 25.6% 1975 29.9% 1977 37.0% 1979 38.3% 1981 32.9% 1984 31.6% 1987 29.3% 1988 29.8%

1990 37.4% 1994 34.6% 1998 35.9% 2001 29.1% 2005 25.8% 2007 25.5% 2011 24.8% 2015 26.3% 2019 25.9%

Party leader

Chairperson	from	to
Louis Pio	1871	1872
Carl Würtz	1872	1873
Ernst Wilhelm Klein	1874	1875
Louis Pio	1875	1877
Chresten Hørdum	1877	1877
AC Meyer	1878	1878
Saxo W. Wiegell	1878	1879
Chresten Hørdum	1880	1882
P. Knudsen	1882	1910
Thorvald Stauning	1910	1939
Hans Hedtoft	1939	1941
Alsing Andersen	1941	1945
Hans Hedtoft	1945	1955
HC Hansen	1955	1960
Viggo Kampmann	1960	1962
Jens Otto Krag	1962	1972
Anchor Jørgensen	1973	1987
Svend Auken	1987	1992
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen	1992	2002
Mogens Lykketoft	2002	2005
Helle Thorning-Schmidt	2005	2015
Mette Frederiksen	2015

literature

• Claus Bryld: Den socialdemokratiske idéarv. Politiske grundværdier i dansk arbejderbevægelse før velfærdsstaten . Roskilde Universitetsforlag , Frederiksberg 2004.
• Gerd Callesen, Steen Christensen, Henning Grelle: Udfordring og omstilling. Bidrag til Socialdemokratiets historie 1971-1996 . Fremdad, Copenhagen 1996.
• Kristian Hvidt: Det folkelige gennembrud. Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie, Volume 11 (1850–1900) , ed. by Olaf Olsen. 2nd Edition. Gyldendal / Politiken , Copenhagen 2004.
• Klaus Petersen: Velfærdsstat, principiel politik og politisk pragmatisme. Studier i Socialdemokratiet and Velfærdsstaten i efterkrigstidens Danmark med særlig henblik on 1960'erne and 1970'erne (Diss.). Institute for History, Copenhagen 2000.
• Benito Scocozza, Grethe Jensen: Politics Etbinds Danmarkshistorie . Politics Forlag, Copenhagen 2005.
• Maria Eysell: History, Program and Politics of the Danish Left . In: Hans Rühle , Hans-Joachim Veen (Hrsg.): Socialist and Communist Parties in Western Europe. Publication of the social science research institute of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung . Volume 2: Nordländer (= Uni-Taschenbücher . Vol. 762). Leske + Budrich (UTB), Opladen 1979, ISBN 3-8100-0241-0 , pp. 201-292.

Web links

Commons : Socialdemokraterne  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Web presence of the social democrats

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Membership figures 2016 Folketingets Oplysning, accessed on October 28, 2018.
2. ↑ Scocozza / Jensen, p. 257
3. ↑ Scocozza / Jensen, p. 263
4. ↑ nordschleswiger.dk ( Memento from February 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ DEFENDERS, DELAYERS, DINOSAURS Ranking of EU political groups & national parties on climate change. In: caneurope.org. April 2019, accessed on May 14, 2020 .  (PDF)
6. ↑ Alexander Preker: Mette's right bet: How the Danish social democracy opens up to the populists. In: Spiegel Online . May 22, 2019, accessed May 14, 2020 .