Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands)
네덜란드 사회민주노동자당
The Dutch social-democratic party that existed from 1894 to 1946. It was founded by Pieter Jelles Troelstra and others who broke away from the Social Democratic League (SDB) when it rejected parliamentary work, and its programme was a translation of the SPD's Erfurt Programme. Its Marxist left split off in 1909 and later became the Communist Party of the Netherlands; in 1946 it merged into the Labour Party.
In depth
When the majority of the Social Democratic League voted at its Groningen congress in 1893 to stop taking part in elections, a minority around Troelstra decided to found a new party. Its twelve founders were called the "twelve apostles"; so many were teachers, ministers and lawyers that the initials SDAP were mocked as a party of schoolmasters, vicars and lawyers. The party was founded in Zwolle in 1894 and received much financial and organisational help from the German SPD. It won its first two seats in 1897, and Troelstra became leader of the parliamentary party.
After the railway strikes of 1903 the conflict between orthodox Marxists and revisionists grew. In 1907 David Wijnkoop and others founded the journal De Tribune to attack the leadership, which expelled them at the extraordinary Deventer congress of 1909. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) they founded that year later became the Communist Party of the Netherlands. Herman Gorter, Anton Pannekoek and Henriette Roland Holst also belonged to this left.
When revolution broke out in Germany in November 1918, Troelstra demanded the government's resignation in parliament, believing revolution possible in the Netherlands too, but the government and most of the population prevented it; the episode is known as "Troelstra's mistake". Afterwards the party put the direct improvement of the workers' position before revolution, but the confessional majority kept it out of government until 1939. The German occupiers banned it in 1940, and in 1946 it merged with other parties into the Labour Party.