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The Erfurt Program of the German Social Democratic Party (1891)

[German Social Democrats shocked the patriotic middle classes when they opposed the Franco-Prussian War as a war of aggression engineered by Bismarck; each year thereafter, the Social Democrats ignored Imperial Germany’s national holiday, the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan on September 2, 1870, and commemorated instead the Paris Communards executed in May 1871. The SPD adopted the following program soon after the repeal of Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Law. It typifies the prevalent viewpoint throughout Europe within the Second International (1889-1914), which sought to combine a Marxian vision of the goals of socialism with a commitment to nonviolent methods. Its author, the Austrian Karl Kautsky, combined an introduction briefly summarizing the Communist Manifesto with a list of specific demands that would appeal to non-Marxists, but which could not be granted, Marxists believed, without fatally undermining the capitalist system. Kautsky expected that system to collapse on its own as a result of the iron laws of economics. Within a few years this program encountered sharp criticism from both the left and right wings of the Second International, but the SPD retained it with only minor modifications until 1959. Source: Gary Steenson, "Not One Man! Not One Penny!" German Social Democracy, 1863-1914 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981), pp. 247-50.]

The economic development of bourgeois society leads by natural necessity to the downfall of small industry, whose foundation is formed by the workers' private ownership of his means of production. It separates the worker from his means of production and converts him into a propertyless proletarian, while the means of production become the monopoly of a relatively small number of capitalists and large landowners.

Hand in hand with this monopolization of the means of production goes the displacement of the dispersed small industries by colossal great industries, the development of the tool into the machine, and a gigantic growth in the productivity of human labor. But all the advantages of this transformation are monopolized by capitalists and large landowners. For the proletariat and the declining intermediate classes‑‑petty bourgeoisie and peasants‑‑it means a growing augmentation of the insecurity of their existence, of misery, oppression, enslavement, debasement, and exploitation.

Ever greater grows the number of proletarians, ever more enormous the army of surplus workers, ever sharper the opposition between exploiters and exploited, ever bitterer the class war between bourgeoisie and proletariat, which divides modern society into two hostile camps and is the common characteristic of all industrial countries.

The gulf between the propertied and the propertyless is further widened through the crises, founded in the essence of the capitalistic method of production, that constantly become more comprehensive and more devastating, that elevate general insecurity to the normal condition of society, and that prove that the powers of production of contemporary society have grown beyond measure and that private ownership of the means of production has become incompatible with their intended application and their full development.

Private ownership of the means of production, which was formerly the means of securing to the producer the ownership of his product, has today become the means of expropriating peasants, manual workers, and small traders, and enabling nonworkers‑‑capitalists and large landowners‑‑to own the product of the workers. Only the transformation of capitalistic private ownership of the means of production‑‑the soil, mines, raw materials, tools, machines, and means of transport‑‑into social ownership and the transformation of production of goods for sale into socialistic production managed for and through society, can bring it about that the great industry and the steadily growing productive capacity of social labor shall for the hitherto exploited classes be changed from a source of misery and oppression to a source of the highest welfare and of all-around harmonious perfection.

This social transformation means the emancipation not only of the proletariat but of the whole human race, which suffers under present conditions. But it can only be the work of the working class, because all the other classes, in spite of mutually conflicting interests, take their stand on the basis of private ownership of the means of production, and have as their common object the preservation of the principles of contemporary society.

The battle of the working class against capitalistic exploitation is necessarily a political battle. The working class cannot carry on its economic battles or develop its economic organization without political rights. It cannot effect the passing of the means of production into the ownership of the community without acquiring political power.

To shape this battle of the working class into a conscious and united effort, and to show it its naturally necessary end, is the object of the social-democratic party.

The interests of the working class are the same in all lands with capitalistic methods of production. With the expansion of the world transport and production for the world market, the state of the workers in any one country becomes constantly more dependent upon the state of the workers in other countries. The emancipation of the working class is thus a task in which the workers of all civilized countries are concerned in like degree. Conscious of this, the Social Democratic Party of Germany feels and declares itself one with the class-conscious workers of all other lands.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany fights thus not for new class privileges and exceptional rights, but for the abolition of class domination and of the classes themselves, and for the equal rights and equal obligations of all, without distinction of sex and parentage. Setting out from these views, it combats in contemporary society not merely the exploitation and oppression of the wage workers, but every kind of exploitation and oppression, whether directed against a class, a party, a sex, or a race.

Setting out from these principles the Social Democratic party of Germany demands immediately:

1. Universal, equal, direct suffrage and franchise, with direct ballot, for all members of the Empire over twenty years of age, without distinction of sex, for all elections and acts of voting. Proportional representation; and until this is introduced, redivision of the constituencies by law according to the numbers of population. A new legislature every two years. Fixing of elections and acts of voting for a legal holiday. Indemnity for the elected representatives. Removal of every curtailment of political rights except in case of tutelage.

2. Direct legislation of the people by means of the initiative and referendum. Self-determination and self-government of the people in Empire, state, province, and commune. Authorities to be elected by the people; to be responsible and bound. Taxes to be voted annually.

3. Training of all to be capable of bearing arms. Armed nation instead of standing army. Decision of war and peace by the representatives of the people. Settlement of all international disputes by the method of arbitration.

4. Abolition of all laws that curtail or suppress the free expression of opinion and the right of association and assembly.

5. Abolition of all laws that are prejudicial to women in their relations to men in public or private law.

6. Declaration that religion is a private matter. Abolition of all contributions from public funds to ecclesiastical and religious objects. Ecclesiastical and religious communities to be treated as private associations, which manage their affairs quite independently.

7. Secularization of education. Compulsory attendance of public primary schools. No charges to be made for instruction, school requisites, and maintenance in the public primary schools; nor in the higher educational institutions for those students, male and female, who by virtue of their capacities are considered fit for further training.

8. No charge to be made for the administration of the law, or for legal assistance. Judgment by popularly elected judges. Appeal in criminal cases. Indemnification of innocent persons prosecuted, arrested, or condemned. Abolition of the death penalty.

9. No charges to be made for medical attendance, including midwifery and medicine. No charges to be made for death certificates.

10. Graduated tax on income and property, to meet all public expenses as far as these are to be covered by taxation. Obligatory self-assessment. A tax on inheritance, graduated according to the size of the inheritance and the degree of kinship. Abolition of all indirect taxes, customs, and other politico-economic measures that sacrifice the interests of the whole community to the interests of a favored minority.

For the protection of the working class, the Social Democratic Party of Germany demands immediately:

1. An effective national and international legislation for the protection of workmen on the following basis:

a. Fixing of a normal working day with a maximum of eight hours.

b. Prohibition of industrial work for children under fourteen years.

c. Prohibition of night work, except for such branches of industry as, in accordance with their nature, require night work, for technical reasons, or for reasons of public welfare.

d. An uninterrupted rest of at least thirty-six hours in every week for every worker.

e. Prohibition of the truck system [i.e., payments in kind instead of money].

2. Inspection of all industrial businesses, investigation and regulation of labor relations in town and country by an Imperial department of labor, district labor department, and chambers of labor. Thorough industrial hygiene.

3. Legal equalization of agricultural laborers and domestic servants with industrial workers; removal of special regulations affecting servants.

4. Assurance of the right of combination.

5. Workmen's insurance to be taken over bodily by the Empire; and the workers to have an influential share in its administration.