Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP)
독일 사회민주노동자당
A German socialist party founded by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht at the Eisenach congress of August 1869. Known as the Eisenachers after its founding city, it aligned itself with the International Workingmen's Association. At Gotha in 1875 it merged with Lassalle's General German Workers' Association into the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, the forerunner of today's SPD.
In depth
The Social Democratic Workers' Party was founded at Eisenach on 7–9 August 1869 by activists of the Federation of German Workers' Associations and dissidents from the General German Workers' Association. Bebel and Liebknecht led it, and its organ Der Volksstaat, edited by Liebknecht, appeared from October 1869. Marx and Engels steered it towards Marxian socialism, and it was linked with the International Workingmen's Association as far as German law allowed. Its programme called for a 'free people's state'.
When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Bebel and Liebknecht abstained on the war credits in the North German Reichstag, and in September the party executive, the Brunswick Committee, issued a manifesto against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, after which its members were arrested. In 1872 Bebel and Liebknecht were sentenced to fortress imprisonment for preparing high treason.
At the Gotha congress of May 1875 the party merged with the General German Workers' Association into the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). The Gotha Programme adopted there was the target of Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme. The merged party has used the name Social Democratic Party of Germany since 1890.