Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
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The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, in German Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SAP / SAPD, has been the name of two political parties in Germany.
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The fore-runner of today's SDP
The first, which lasted from 1875 - 1890, was a left-wing German political party created in Gotha when Ferdinand Lassalle's ADAV merged with the SDAP formed by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht.
The party congress at which the unification of the Marxist "Eisenachers" of the SDAP and the more moderate Lassallians came about took place from June 22 - 27 1875. The Gotha programme was finalised at the same time. Three years later, the law banning socialism passed by Bismarck pushed the party underground. While its deputies were still allowed seats in parliament, there was a ban on meetings, organisations and news publishing.
In 1877, the SAPD won 500,000 votes in the Reichstag elections. In 1890, still before the anti-socialism law was abolished, the party won 1.4 miillion votes, making it the strongest in Germany.
The anti-socialist laws were a result of Bismarck's fear of the socialists; he believed they were responsible for two assassination attempts. They were renewed every three years until he left politics in autumn 1890; immediately, the SAPD renamed itself Social Democratic Party of Germany; this is the name it has kept until today.
The splinter group, 1931-45
The second SAPD was a left-wing splinter group which split off from the SPD in autumn 1931. In 1932 some Communist Party dissenters joined the group, but its numbers remained small.
From 1933, the group's members worked illegally against National Socialism. When the Nazi dictatorship was over, the majority of the group's members rejoined the SPD.
In his autobiography, Willy Brandt wrote: In autumn 1931, Nazis and German nationalists, the SA and the men in steel helmets joined together to form the "Harzburg Front". ... It was just at this time that the left wing of the social democrats split off, as a result of measures connected to organisation and discipline by the party leaders. A few Reichstag assemblymen, a number of active party groups - above all in Saxony - and not least a large proportion of young Socialists followed the people who were calling for the founding of a Socialist Workers' Party.
In his home town of Lübeck, Willy Brandt joined the SAPD, against the advice of his mentor Julius Leber.
See also
External links
- Introduction to the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Korsch, 1922 at marxists.org (http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1922/gotha.htm)
