THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY (SPD) founded in 1875 grew into the most powerful workers party the the politically authoritative of the Socialist International. But when the first imperialist war broke out in 1914 the SPD leadership supported the war and their own ruling class. The repercussions split the world workers movement into its social democractic and communist components cond and Third Internationals. The roots of this tragedy lie in the history of the SDP.
Unlike the British Labour Party, which arose out of the decision of the trade union leaders to break with Liberalism and form their political party, the origin of the SPD was in the competing schools socialist thought which grew up after the defeat Right from the beginning the German socialists debated crucial questions of theory.
In 1863 Ferdinand Lasselle found. ed the German General Union in Liepzig. . Its aim was univer sal suffrage and the achievement of socialism by the actions of the state, "freed' from the bourgeoisie. idea immediately brought Lasselle into conflict with Marx.
Lasselle, influenced by Hegel, and his followers regarded the state as a force supposedly standing above the classes for the purpose of promoting 'rational government progress Marx and Engels insisted that on ment of class rule which could not be captured by the working class and wielded for its own ends. Lasselle's view of the state led him into important political errors and was a source of constant conflict between himself and the founders of socialism - Marx and Engels.
German socialism's other major component WHIS founded Bebel and Wilhelm whose organisation, the League German Workers Clubs, also dates from 1863. After three years of loose associaton with me noctar weren Peoples Party and two years of internal faction fighting, they established Socialist Challenge 26 November 1982 Party.
founded the SPD.
gramme of the SPD on two most party throughout its history tionary even if its form is national:
socialism, - the SeThe organise itself at (it own form'. of the states... (1) MAINCI Workers This class action.
and cultural and potentially "liberation' for its replacement by power based on socialist relations:
scientific the other.
the revolutionary by ine proletariat. 12 League b Wing class political failed _TO their own Social Democratic Labour The two trends fused in 1875 and Marx and Engels took issue with the founding provital issues which were to haunt the SDP and revoluand the capitalist state. Marx insisted that the class struggle is immediately and inevitably international in its content, *Lasselle in opposition to the Communist Manifesto and to all earlier Ine worker tional standpoint, It is altogether self-evident that to be able to fight working class must home as a class and that its own country is the immeatate arena or as stuggie, in so far as its class struggle is national is) not in substance but as the says.
But the framework present day national state', for in Empire, its turn economically *within the framework of the world of the world system of Marx is insisting here that there can be no 'socialism in one country' He also complained that the internationalism of the SPD was posed in a for purely idealist way with talk of the brotherhood of peoples' rather than Marx viciously attacked the conception of the state held by both wings of the party as above society of class constraints. He insisted that the task of socialists was to prepare not for the of the existing state, but a new state economic "Between capitalist and communist tionary transformation of one into There coresponds to so a pondea mansion period mn which the state can be nothing but dietatorship of Thus right from the beginning the SPD had an inadequate theoretical grasp of two central parts of a workprogramme which was to tell heavily in 1914. It understand firstly the Wilhelm Liebknacht Democratic Workers Party necessity for revolutionary internationalism; a complete refusal to side with one's own ruling class at the expense of the international working class. Second, it lacked an understanding of the class nature of the state the need for its revolutionary overthrow by the proletariat In the elections of 1878 the SPD won 493,000 votes and 12 deputies in the Imperial Parliament. The growth SPD, coinciding growth of the working class itself, was rapid. Before long the SPD had 24 national journals over subscribers. Another important factor in its expanding influence was the founding of the trade unions under SPD leadership: by 1875 they had 50,000 members This frightened the ruling class. They launched a massive propaganda campaign against the socialists, Villlfying them in the foulest terms. When in 1878 a former member of the SPD attacked the Emperor William Bismark moved to introduce his anti-socialist laws — the Law against the Publicly Dangerous Endeavours of Social Democracy.
Banned This draconian legislation banned virtually all SPD activity and publica tions, Huge penalties were imposed transgressors SPD could be deported' from their home towns by the police.
While the party organisation col lapsed the savagery of this persecution, the SPD leadership reorganised a centre to co-ordinate illegal activity from over the border in Zurich. But crucially SPD electoral activity was not dealt with under the new law, By 1884, 9,000 copies of the illegal Sozialdemokrat were circulating in Germany. The party was beginning to pull itself together. During this period Marx and Engels once again clashes with a section of the SPD leadership in Zurich.
Karl Hoechberg and other influential leaders had circulated a letter suggesting co-operation with the upper strata of society' - that the SPD should ally itself progressive bourgeois for social reform. Marx and Engels warned:
*For almost 40 years we have stressmediate driving force of history... the class struggle it is therefore impossible for us to founder of the Social movement. the working that the above the ned by After this conflict German social 100,000 democracy began to make steady progress. The late 1880s were years of stormy workers struggle, and the trend inside the working class towards the SPD increased. 1890 elections the SPD won its most spectacular breakthrough — a genera vote of Bismark was to fall, and the anti-socialist laws were repealed. I, mense bearing on the future of German Social Democracy. Its leadership became convinced that which had survived the anti-socialist laws and won such spectacular clectoral victories was 'invincible', that its bourgeoisie in the period turned towards social reform. the practice of the SPD became in creasingly parliamentary. the progress of the "tried and tested Lactic" cectoral machc Within programme for its congress at Erfurt. The "Erfurt Programme systematised a general conception of the programme of a workers party which remains typical of parties 'maximum' and the 'minimum programme. In this scheme the party has one programme for immediate strug gies conditions other programme ultimate, far off, victory of socialism leaving ambitious exactly how this — Bebel's "day of the great sweep' day would be brought about.
Thus the SPD legitimation to a potentially reformist practice -ment, and the trade union leaders, would concentrate mediate reforms, and fail to link immediate struggles with the goal of in the goal "qualitiative', Whether Basic the co-operate with people who wish to expunge the class struggle from the The emancination of class must be con the working We cannot therefore co-operate with people who openly workers are 100 themselves andmust be freed from bourgeois and petty burge. (l philanthropic The German leadership was stun the rebuke and retreated Elaborated In the February to victory: 1,427,298 Soon This victory was to have an imthe party guaranteed. As the post-Bismark , Above all, - clections — turned into an Kautsky In 1891 the SPD drafted a new attitude. social democratic the division between the many in the improvement of workers within the system. The provides for the pose it. (3)
Debate gave theoretical - that the party in parlia solely on imparticularly The resolution of this problem of the contradiction between the daily struggles of the proletariat capitalism and the goal of socialist revolution was only solved by the notion of transitional demands and a transitional programme worked out first by the Communist Internationa.
early 1920s and further elaborated by Trotsky.
According to the theory of transi tional demands it is possible to mobilse and educate the working class in its daily struggle for the ultimate socialism by raising transitional demands which point the way to socialism For not it is possible for Capitalism to grant these demands, they contradict the logic of the func tioning of the capitalist system and insist on solutions at the level of the whole of society.
The logic of the minimum' programme is to insist on reforms which capitalism can grant, to ameliorate workers' conditions. But capitalism in crisis, argued Trotsky, cannot meet even the most basic needs of the working class.
By mobilising the working class around transitional demands, revolutionary vanguard combines a struggle both for immediate reforms and for a series of anti-capitalist measures, in the vital interests of the working class, which only a workers' government can carry through. Rosa Luxemburg raised this problem:
*The unification of the great mass of the people with a goal that goes daily struggle the revolutionary overthrow that is the contradiction Democractic Movement which must develop consistently between the loss of its mass goal, becoming sect and bourgeois retormist movement. (4)
In a later debate with Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg explained: It is not that socialism will automatically from the daily struggles of the working class' (5).
Precisely on the questions which Marx had raised, and the state, the SPD began to falter. Even Engels in some of his writings after the death of Marx, when he colclosely the SPD leadership, seemed to sanction the view that elections would be the road (The SPD's) growth proceeds as spontancousis, as steadily and a irresistably and at the same time as tranquilly as a natural process. All Бослисть acrycnon nas prov ed powerless against it. If it continues in this fashion we shall by the peasants, and grow into the decisive power in the land... terruption until it gets beyond the control of the governmental system day, that is our main task. (6)
This seemed to sanction the SPD's gradualist approach, especially as removed the text passages making explicit reference to street fighting and revolution Further the SPD began to retreat on its internationalism, especially in relation to Russia. Because Russia was regarded as the most reactionary state in Europe, the SPD began to adopt an apparently social-patriotic At the Erfurt Congress Bebel declared: "If Russia, that bulwark of savagery and. barbarism, the enemy of all human culture, were to attack Gerorder to dismember and destroy her — then we are as much and indeed more concerned that those who lead Germany, and we shall op This kind of talk prefigured Bebel's declaration shortly before his death in 1913 that there is not a single person in Germany would surrender the fatherland without a fight. This is true the
CHANNEL4 SUE MACDONALD watches two late-night programmes on Channel 4 last week. Below she gives her views on: "The Long Shadows of the Plantation' and 'Eastern Eye'.