The Origin of German Social Democracy

The German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or SPD) developed out of labor conflict in the late 19th century. Working conditions in Germany’s industrializing economy were often harsh and grim. In Robert Koehler’s painting (on the right), The Strike (Munich, 1886), workers confront a factory owner in front of his home. “The distance between the owner’s elegant brick villa … and the factory in the background has been aggressively foreshortened by the artist. This allows Koehler to better emphasize the workers who stream out of the factory to come support the shop-floor representative, who … confronts the factory employer…. The tenseness of the situation is expressed by the representative’s stance and his red shirt, not to mention the foreground figure who arms himself with a rock. The employer’s stiff posture, reinforced by his black suit and top hat, suggests that he is not inclined towards compromise; even his own servant, standing behind him, seems fearful of what will come after the heated exchange of words.” (German History in Documents and Images)

Besieged by workers, as in Koehler’s painting, an owner might be inclined to appeal to state authority to restore “order.” When in the late 19th century violent intervention of police and troops on the side of the employers became commonplace, workers realized that they needed to organize politically as well as in the workplace, so they were naturally drawn to the cause of social democracy.

Two new theories became influential in the 2nd half of the 19th century in Europe: Charles Darwin’s account of the biological evolution of species, and Karl Marx’s account of class society. German social democrats accepted some of Marx’s premises but cast others aside. The Social Democratic Erfurt Program of 1891 proclaimed that “With the expansion of global commerce, and of production for the world market, the position of the worker in every country becomes increasingly dependent on the position of workers in other countries.” So from the beginning the Party sought to advance international solidarity: “Proletarians of the world unite, you have only your chains to lose!”

When Germany’s legal ban on social democracy and trade unionism was lifted in January 1890, the Social Democratic Party became very popular almost overnight. From the beginning, the Social Democratic Party played a role in the cultural as well as the political lives of its members. The Party organized reading groups, cycling clubs, choirs, chess clubs, gymnastic associations and the like. To get to your vacation destination, you might take a bus or train that the Party had chartered. Social democracy became virtually a way of life.

Advocates of German social democracy included dramatists, historians, educators, and philosophers, as well as political activists.

The Erfurt Program

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was founded with the intention of combatting “every kind of exploitation and oppression, whether directed against a class, a party, a sex, or a race.” The Party’s principles are presented in the Erfurt Program of 1891. The premise here is that government should intervene to lessen suffering, oppose injustice, and advance the common good. The Program expresses hope for worldwide solidarity among workers: “The emancipation of the working class is a task in which the workers of all civilized countries are equally involved.”

How were the promises made in the Erfurt Program to be kept? Two of the leaders in the German Social Democratic Party, Rosa Luxemburg and Eduard Bernstein, arrived at different ideas about that, which might be paraphrased as follows:

Bernstein: I was born in Berlin in 1850, and I joined a socialist party when I was 22. A few years later I had to leave Germany because of laws forbidding socialism. While living in England, I saw that it was possible–gradually and peacefully— to win certain political reforms, including voting rights, higher wages, better working conditions in factories, the right to organize a trade union. It seemed to me that the evolutionary model of social change in England could work in Germany also. And I wanted to help make that happen.

Luxemberg: I was born in Poland in 1871, which would make me a couple of decades younger than Herr Bernstein, and I certainly didn’t perceive the world in the way he did. In Poland, any attempt at social or political reform was violently crushed. At age 18, threatened with arrest for my political activities, I had to leave the country. I came to believe that a revolution would be required to free not only Poland but Germany also. As for Herr Bernstein, his reformism came from mistakenly viewing Germany through tinted English spectacles.

There may be an additional layer of explanation for the different political paths taken by Rosa Luxemburg and Eduard Bernstein. Both of them had grown up in Jewish families, and although neither was a religious believer, they may have been culturally influenced by divisions internal to Judaism. Over the centuries, some Jews had responded to hatred and persecution by embracing universal values and humanism– like Moses Mendelssohn or the philosopher Baruch Spinoza whose family had fled from Portugal to Holland to escape the Inquisition. Such a wide-minded perspective—in keeping with a philosophical tradition that stretches from Ancient Greece through the European Enlightenment—sometimes motivated Jews to try to reform the societies in which they were living. Going further, some Jews, witnessing injustices to which they and others were subjected, took up revolutionary forms of resistance, such as a messianic interpretation of the Kabbalah: Tikkun olam (healing the world) calls for social transformation.

In the early 20th century, many German Jews were very interested in politics, and that’s not surprising. Their lives depended on the rights and liberties that a protective liberal state could grant. As well, Jewish Torah teaches alliance with all of those who are weak and oppressed, since “you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, because you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Most German Jews joined middle-of-the-road  political parties. But some embraced the cause of social democracy, and were, of course, drawn into the debates that divided the Social Democratic movement.

Although European social democratic parties gained respect and influence in the early years of the 20th century, the forces of militarism and war proved more powerful. Leading up to World War I, the European social democratic peace movement was defeated. On both sides of the conflict, newspapers, songs, movies, billboards, post-cards, even postage stamps extolled the war as righteous and glorious. In Germany, there was resistance to this message, especially among unionized and politicized workers, and householders struggling to feed their families. Still, millions of Germans were quite willing to join with one another in making sacrifices for the war. My own Jewish grandfather, for example, who came from Dresden, served proudly in the Kaiser’s army. In certain ways the war was appealing; the tribulations made life more dramatic and meaningful for many.

When the war was over and the monarchy fallen, what would the path forward be? From the birth of the Weimar Republic in 1918, its legitimacy was disputed
within the ranks of German Social Democrats:

LUXEMBURG: From the beginning I’ve agreed with the party’s gradualist strategy—doing otherwise would have been a reckless betrayal of the masses.  But now, our slogan must be: “All power to the workers’ and soldiers’ councils.”

BERNSTEIN: Frau Luxemburg, such a total transformation is today not a realistic option in Germany. Yes, the recent war has ripped German capitalism open at the seams. But the winners of the war—Great Britain, France, America—they will not stand by while you try to sew Germany back together along socialist lines. At Versailles, these countries have imposed the harshest terms imaginable upon us. And their guns are prepared to speak again, throttling any takeover attempt on the part of the revolutionary left. The price that you and your comrades will pay, for your misunderstanding of our situation, will be a high one.

LUXEMBURG: Once again, Herr Bernstein, you counsel despair and defeat. If we do not take the initiative here in a revolutionary way, the forces of reaction will seize the day and take over.

LUXEMBURG: Herr Bernstein, do I perceive a certain gleam in your eyes when you take pride in surviving the fire that consumed those of us who gave our lives? Yes, our movement was imperfect. And you, you have the truth on your side. Why? Because history is written by you, the living, and you can paint and repaint the past as you wish. Yes, a floundering, powerless Weimar Republic survived, but at what cost to the social transformation that we so desperately needed and that you, by your compromises and cowardice, helped to weaken and destroy.

BERNSTEIN: I am regretful too, Rosa. But what better solution was available to us? The forces that had just won a war against us—they were not going to just stand by while the left “transforms” Germany, as you say. A violent uprising against the Republic was bound to fail. Today, I sit in the Reichstag, in the company of some people I don’t agree with. But we work together. That’s the only way to bring about the changes that we all want to see.

Reichstag 1921: Commemoration of the revolution. The banner above the archways reads: “Unity and Justice and Freedom.”

Communist Party Poster: “Betrayed by the S.P.D. Vote Communist!”

Social Democratic Party Poster: “Against Papen, Hitler, Thälmann.” Papen was a militarist aristocrat who colluded with the Nazis. Thälmann led the Communist Party.

Communist Party poster: “KPD Slate 3 Down with this System”