Social Democratic Labor Party (Germany)
The Social Democratic Workers' Party ( SDAP ) was one of several precursor parties to the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). It was founded in Eisenach on August 8, 1869, at the initiative of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht , and existed until it merged with the General German Workers 'Association (ADAV) to form the Socialist Workers' Party (SAP) at the unification congress in Gotha at the end of May 1875.
Founding party conference and program of Eisenach
The SDAP emerged from the Saxon People's Party , which had existed since 1866 , the Association of German Workers' Associations and former members of the ADAV . 262 delegates and a further 110 supporters of the incumbent ADAV chairman Johann Baptist von Schweitzer were gathered at the founding party congress . The agenda included discussions about the program and organization (speaker August Bebel), the relationship with the International Workers' Association (IAA) (see also International ), the party organ and the trade union issue.
In her Eisenach program she represented a political line based on Marxism . The struggle for the liberation of the working classes should not be understood as a struggle for class privileges and privileges, but for equal rights and duties and for the abolition of class rule. The Social Democratic Workers' Party therefore strived for the full yield of labor for every worker and for the Free People's State while abolishing the existing mode of production . The new party saw itself expressly as a branch of the IAA. In addition, the Eisenach program demanded the same, direct and secret voting rights , as well as the granting of sufficient diets, direct legislation by the people, the introduction of a militia in place of the standing army , the separation of church and state , the abolition of all indirect taxes Freedom of association, association and the press , a nominal working day, restriction of women's labor and a ban on child labor, as well as state support for the cooperative system . Day policy, the party claimed, among others, against the monarchist of Prussia dominated trends in the North German Confederation , the forerunner of the company founded in 1871 the German Empire . There were certainly ideological differences between the ADAV and the SDAP in terms of detail, but the national question in particular determined the competitive situation between the two parties. If the SDAP was Greater German and anti-Prussian, the ADAV committed itself to the Little German solution under the leadership of Prussia.
The leadership of the party was formed by a five-member committee. This was made up of members from the “suburb” ( Braunschweig headquarters ). There was also a control committee based in Hamburg . The committee ( Wilhelm Bracke among its members ) was controlled by the party congress, which met once a year and also had to decide on the respective suburbs. The organization itself was based on the shop steward system.
The journalistic party organ of the SDAP was the newspaper Demokratisches Wochenblatt , which was taken over from the Association of Workers' Associations . From October 1869 it appeared three times a week under the title Der Volksstaat .
The international trade unions, founded in 1868, were closely associated with the party . These were in competition with the General German Workers' Association in the vicinity of the ADAV.
Development and positions
The first ordinary congress of the new party took place in Stuttgart in 1870 . 66 delegates were represented, representing around 11,000 members. Discussions were on the trade union and cooperative movement , the political position of the party and the land question . A central question was the debate on participation in the Reichstag elections. The parliament should basically be used as a platform to present the class position. During the congress, the Bavarian members of the ADAV joined the party.
The clear separation of the social democratic labor movement from the bourgeois democratic and republican movements was by no means undisputed within the new party. The debate prompted August Bebel to write the program Our Goals in 1869 . He made it clear that the party understood by the term working class not only industrial workers, but also artisans, small farmers, intellectual workers, writers, elementary school teachers and minor officials. About the concrete way (revolution or reform) to achieve the political goals, Bebel expressed himself reluctantly, also with regard to the authorities. He also considered speculations about the new social order to be of little help, especially since “because the demands of the future result from the criticism of the existing in broad outlines” and by such systems of thought “differences of opinion are caused which at the moment when it applies to intervene practically, to be settled by themselves, because then the current conditions describe the natural path. "
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 led to a first crisis within the SDAP. The MPs August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht (still elected as candidates of the Saxon People's Party) abstained in the North German Reichstag on the question of war credits, while the MPs of the ADAV and Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche voted against. This led to the contradiction of the Braunschweig party committee, which spoke out in favor of the loans, since it regarded Germany as innocent of the outbreak of war. Karl Marx was asked to mediate between the two views. In this context, Marx called on the party to oppose the planned annexation of Alsace-Lorraine , as this would result in further wars with France and Russia. The Braunschweig Committee expressly agreed to this after the victory in the Battle of Sedan and called for an immediate honorable peace with France in the Braunschweig Manifesto . As a result, the members of the committee were arrested and taken to a fortress on the Russian-German border. Even Johann Jacoby was detained on the basis of similar statements. In the Reichstag session of November 28, 1870, all Social Democratic MPs now voted against further war credits, since with the capture of Napoleon III. the original war aims had been achieved. One consequence was that Bebel and Liebknecht, among others, were arrested, charged with high treason and held in custody until the end of March 1871. The trial before the Leipzig jury court did not take place until 1872. It ended with the sentencing of Liebknecht and Bebel to several months of imprisonment and the withdrawal of Bebel's mandate in the Reichstag. However, in the by-election that became necessary, Bebel was able to regain the parliamentary seat.
In the first Reichstag elections in the German Empire on March 3, 1871, only Reinhold Schraps and August Bebel were able to defend their mandates. The SDAP received a total of only 40,000 votes, of which over 30,000 came from Saxony. In the Reichstag on May 25, 1871, Bebel defended the Paris Commune by saying that the European proletariat was looking hopefully to Paris. These statements increased the mistrust of the SDAP , especially among Chancellor Otto von Bismarck .
At the SDAP congress in Dresden in August 1871, 56 delegates from 81 locations were present, representing around 6,250 party members. It was decided to move the seat of the party committee to Hamburg and that of the control commission to Berlin.
The fourth congress took place in 1872. While Friedrich Engels had criticized Lassallean tendencies in advance, the congress took a conciliatory stance towards the ADAV, since it was the only ally of the SDAP. The seat of the control commission was in Breslau , the committee remained in Hamburg. Due to the negative attitude of the ADAV to the joint listing of Reichstag candidates, the next congress in 1873 again spoke out against unification negotiations. He also affirmed that the Reichstag elections should serve primarily as a means of agitation and as a test of one's own principles. The organization now had around 9,200 members in 130 locations.
During the Reichstag election campaign of 1874 , the ADAV newspaper - Der Neue Social-Demokratie - declared that it would stop its polemics against the rival party. In addition, the board decided to elect the SDAP candidates in runoff elections. Both parties together got 6.8% of the vote and won 9 seats. 6 of these were accounted for by the SDAP and 3 by the ADAV.
Since 1874 the measures of the authorities directed against both workers' parties intensified. Meetings were banned, the Reichstag deputy Johann Most was sentenced to prison, and the SDAP was banned in Munich because - so the reasoning - it threatened the religious and social foundations of the state.
Association with the ADAV
Last but not least, the anti-socialist measures of the governments intensified the efforts of the two parties to unite. Despite new conflicts with the ADAV, the SDAP congress in Coburg in 1874 was "not averse to unification." A meeting between Karl Marx and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wilhelm Blos and others in Leipzig in September 1874 also served this purpose. Concrete negotiations began in October. In January 1875 ADAV chairman Wilhelm Hasenclever also spoke out in favor of an association, but also demanded that Ferdinand Lassalle's positions should be included in a joint party program. He also advocated a centralized organization.
In mid-February 1875, 16 members of both parties worked out a program and organizational statute in Gotha. Some time later the boards of both parties called for an unification convention in May. At the same time, the anti-socialist measures reached a new high point. The Berlin public prosecutor von Tessendorff demanded: “ Let us destroy the socialist organization and there will no longer be a socialist party. “As a result, the two parties were banned in Prussia and most of the other federal states.
At the Gotha party congress in 1875, the Social Democratic Workers' Party united with the General German Workers' Association under its last President Wilhelm Hasenclever to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP), which finally formed in 1890 after the repeal of the repressive socialist laws that were in force from 1878 to 1890 renamed the SPD .
Chairperson
| Surname | Term of office | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Social Democratic Labor Party (SDAP) | ||
|
August Bebel Leonhard von Bonhorst Wilhelm Bracke Johann Heinrich Ehlers Friedrich Neidel Samuel Spier |
1869-1870 | |
| Karl Kühn Samuel Spier |
1870-1871 | |
| GA Müller Theodor Külbel |
1871-1872 | |
|
Eduard Prey Friedrich Lenz |
1872-1873 | |
|
Rudolf Praast Theodor Külbel |
1873-1874 | |
|
Paul Martienssen Ferdinand Fischer |
1874-1875 | |
See also
literature
- Franz Osterroth , Dieter Schuster : Chronicle of the German social democracy. Volume 1: Until the end of the First World War . Bonn / Berlin 1975, p. 38 ff.
- Detlef Lehnert: Social Democracy. Between protest movement and ruling party 1848–1983 . Frankfurt 1983, ISBN 3-518-11248-1 .
- Ralf Hoffrogge : Socialism and the labor movement in Germany - from the beginnings to 1914. Butterfly, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-89657-655-2 .
- Arno Klönne : The German labor movement - history, goals, effects. Diederichs, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-424-00652-1 .
- Hans Michael Hensel: "Samuel Spier" - HM Hensel [ed.], John Gatt / Rutter: Italo Svevo. Samuel Spier's pupil. Segnitz 1996, 88 f., 218 f. (Description of all persons depicted on the "chain picture " of the Lötzen chain affair 1870/71.)
Web links
- Eisenach program of the SDAP from 1869
- 125 years of social democracy
- Documentation on the history of the SPD: 1863–1890. In: SPD party executive (ed.): Social democracy in Germany - image documentation on the history of the SPD . Berlin 2002
- August Bebel Society
- Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) 1869-1875 chairman, secretaries, cashiers and assessors
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grebing, p. 65.
- ↑ On the overlaps cf. the chapter "Separation of Liberalism and Socialism" in: Ralf Hoffrogge: Socialism and Workers' Movement in Germany - from the Beginnings to 1914 . Stuttgart 2011, pp. 48-76.
- ↑ Lehnert: Social Democracy . P. 59.
- ^ Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED : History of the German Labor Movement , Volume 1, From the Beginnings of the German Labor Movement to the End of the 19th Century . Author collective: Walter Ulbricht u. A. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1966. Part of the picture after p. 352.