SPD revisionist who began with the agrarian question, architect of the "policy of 4 August" and first president of the National Assembly
German politician on the SPD right. A gymnasium teacher dismissed in 1894 for his SPD activity, his argument that small peasant farms were not doomed made him the party's first revisionist. At Stuttgart in 1907 he defended a socialist colonial policy, and on 4 August 1914 he was central to the decision to vote for war credits. In 1919 he was the first president of the Weimar National Assembly, then minister without portfolio and minister of the interior.
Also known as: Eduard Heinrich Rudolph David
Activities and affiliations
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1894–1930
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)Main
Political and party leadership -
1903–1930
Germany state institutionsMember of the Reichstag
Legislature and state representation -
1919
Germany state institutionsPresident of the Weimar National Assembly
Legislature and state representation -
1919
Germany state institutionsGerman Minister of the Interior
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1894Dismissed from teaching for SPD activity.
- 1896Entered the Hessian Landtag.
- 1903Published Socialism and Agriculture and entered the Reichstag.
- 1914.08.04Helped carry the parliamentary group for war credits.
- 1918.10Under-secretary at the Foreign Office.
- 1919.02First president of the National Assembly, then minister without portfolio.
- 1919.06.21–10.04Minister of the Interior.
From agrarian revisionism to "4 August"
The son of a Prussian civil servant, David grew up in a conservative household, studied German, history and philosophy at Giessen and became a gymnasium teacher. In 1893 he and his friend Simon Katzenstein founded the weekly Mitteldeutsche Sonntagszeitung to win small peasants for the SPD; told that the first issue did not once mention "class struggle", he answered that this was exactly what would make it attractive in the countryside. This work cost him his civil-service post in 1894.
He argued that the concentration seen in industry did not carry over to agriculture and that the small peasant farm was not doomed but a form with a future. At the 1894 Frankfurt congress he called for an agrarian programme to supplement the Erfurt Programme, but the 1895 Breslau congress rejected the draft on a motion written by Kautsky. He published Socialism and Agriculture in 1903, and when Bebel attacked Bernstein at the 1899 Hanover congress David was the first speaker to defend him. For this he is called the party's first revisionist.
At the 1907 Stuttgart congress he declared that most of the German delegation backed the majority resolution, defended its first paragraph, which did not oppose all colonial policy in principle, and attacked Ledebour's logic. On 4 August 1914 he played a key part in the decision by which the SPD parliamentary group, overriding its chairman Haase, voted for the war credits. In December 1915 he demanded the expulsion of the twenty deputies who voted against, and in 1917 he drafted the peace resolution of the Reichstag majority. When the SPD first entered government in October 1918 he became under-secretary at the Foreign Office, saying that the long road "from 4 August 1914 to 5 October 1918" had been travelled.