Social Democratic Party

“ It has created a vast political party of irreconcilables in the country, men who have been led to feel that they have neither part nor promise in the national life, and who therefore elect to stand outside it. "Our Social Democratic party," writes von Bülow, "lacks a national basis. ”

“ In the Reichstag elections, these Social Democrats had cast four and a quarter millions of votes, while the labor unions, which in Germany worked hand and hand with the Social-Democratic Party, numbered no less than two and a half millions. ”

“ Even the German Social Democratic Party cannot be shown to be other than of the same stripe, and its success in point of numbers has lain in the political sagacity of its leaders, which has effected the assembly of liberal elements on a large scale under the apparently revolutionary banner of socialism. ”

“ The Social Democrat in Germany is almost an outcast. Although one third of the members of the Reichstag belong to this party, its members are never called to hold office in the government; and the attitude of the whole of the governing class, of all the professors, school-teachers, priests of both Protestant and Roman Catholic religions of the prosperous middle classes, is that of violent opposition to the doctrines of Social Democracy. The world must entertain no illusion that the Social Democratic leaders speak for Germany. ”

“ Social Democracy, therefore, is the only possible political party of the proletariat. The Social Democratic Federation is a part of this International Social Democracy. It, therefore, takes its stand on the above principles, and believes—
1. That the emancipation of the working-class can only be achieved through the socialization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and their subsequent control by the organized community in the interests of the whole people. ”

“ With a political system which proceeds ultimately out of a society with a feudalistic basis, the normal attitude of political parties is long maintained. The party of structure, the Conservative party, holds by the ancient feudalistic ideals which are really, in the large sense, socialistic, though a socialism based on a foundation of established inequality, and so altogether unlike the democratic socialism promulgated [383] to-day. The party of function, the Liberal party, insists on the break-up of this structural socialism to meet the new needs of progressive civilization. ”

“ Revolution has, even here, been replaced by a slow and orderly development.
The rapidity with which the medieval empire will be democratized will depend upon the formation of a genuine liberal party that will enlist those citizens who are inclined toward modernism but cannot be enticed into the Social Democratic or Radical parties. When such a party is formed, and an alliance made with the Social Democrats, then the transformations will be rapid. [46] Among the most significant accessions to the Social Democracy are many professional men: lawyers, physicians, engineers, etc. ”

“ At a recent conference of the Social-Democratic Federation the chairman declared, in his opening address: "There can be but one Independent Labour Party, and there ought to be a united Socialist party. ”

“ But this policy, which made Social Democracy the ally of bourgeois parties and the support of the Government, was fiercely attacked by the Opposition, which finally constituted itself as a separate party. * * * The bloc policy and action of the masses are mutually exclusive policies; those who themselves belong in the Reichstag to the majority which supports the Government cannot create the atmosphere in which alone a united action of the masses is possible. Nor, indeed, was that the intention of the German Social Democratic majority ”

“ In order to secure the successful development and unification of Social-Democracy, broad democratic principles of party organisation must be emphasised, developed and fought for; and this is particularly necessary in view of the anti-democratic tendencies that have become revealed in the ranks of our party. ”

“ The ‘conquest of power within the existing states’ became the watchword of that section, which took the name of ‘Social Democracy.’ The first electoral successes of this party at the elections to the German Reichstag aroused great hopes. The number of the social democratic deputies having grown from two to seven, and next to nine, it was confidently calculated by otherwise reasonable men that before the end of the century the social democrats would have a majority in the German Parliament, and would then introduce the socialist ‘popular state’ by means of suitable legislation. ”

“ Localized in political districts to adapt itself to the election laws and stretching feelers in all cities and rural communities, the Social Democracy built up the unique structure of the political organization of the German proletariat with its many-branched bureaucratic hierarchy, its one million dues-paying members, its four million voters, ninety-one daily papers and sixty-five Party printing presses. ”

“ The Social Democrats.—Nominally revolutionary, the German Social Democracy comprises in fact a very orderly organization whose economic-political tenets are at many points so rational that they command wide support among people who do not bear the party name. Throughout a generation the party has grown steadily more practical in its demands and more opportunist in its tactics. ”

“ There was a time in my life, before I became a Socialist—when I was still young and had the vanity of youth and the ambition and enthusiasm of a boy—when I permitted myself as a member of the Democratic party to be elected to a State Legislature. ”

“ The means by which the party proposes to bring about the transformation is the industrial and political organization of the working classes. In respect to its aim, its ideals, and its means, the French Socialist party, while ready to support the immediate reforms demanded by laboring people, is to a greater degree than the German Social Democracy a party of class struggle and revolution. ”

“ I have often heard it said—and I think it probable because in governmental circles it is supposed that the Social Democrats could be crazy enough to take such a course—I have often heard it said that exalted persons have long nursed the idea of preparing the same fate for all the leaders of the Social Democracy as was meted out in 1870 to the members of our party executive. ”

“ When the anti-socialist movement came in the year of shame of our enemies, in the year of honor for the Social-Democracy, then we had already a strong, widespread organization, Each and every one of us was strengthened by the feeling that he possessed a mighty support in the organized movement that stood behind him, and no sane person could conceive of the downfall of the party. ”

“ But I shall not stand alone, for the party that has my allegiance and may have my life, the Socialist party, the party of the working class, the party of emancipation, is made up of men and women who know their rights and scorn to compromise with their oppressors; who want no votes that can be bought and no support under any false pretense whatsoever. ”

“ There is, therefore, no refuge at present politically, for the reasonable men of liberal inclinations; and it is these liberal men who must themselves create a liberal party: a party, membership in which will not entail a loss of business, a loss of prospects of promotion and social degradation. ”

“ The party attempts to attract the most competent and elite element of the people, to ensure that its members adhere to basic socialist ideology, and to maintain the power to direct and control all other groups involved in major social and governmental activities. The mass organizations support the party and carry its programs to special interest groups. ”

“ As your polls rise and your audiences get larger, your opponents will challenge you for being a self-identified “socialist.” It is best to pre-empt them. Your socialist beliefs seem in-line with social democratic parties in Western European nations. ”

“ What holds together political parties, especially when like the Social Democrats they have great historic tasks to accomplish, are their final goals; not their momentary demands, not their views as to the attitude to be assumed on all the separate questions that come before the party. ”

“ The local popular representative bodies aim to increase and protect socialist property, to improve constantly working and living conditions and promote the social and cultural life of the people and their collectives, raise the level of civil and legal consciousness and preserve law and order, consolidate socialist legality and safeguard the rights of the citizens. ”

“ Consequently, we have the distinctive term Social Democrat, indicating the man or woman who desires through Democracy to gather the whole people into the State, so that the State may be trusted with the rent of the country, and finally with the land, the capital, and the organisation of the national industry—with all the sources of production, in short, which are now abandoned to the cupidity of irresponsible private individuals. ”

“ Competition there will be, not in the struggle for existence, but to excel in good work and in social service. Every child will then have an equal chance to grow up in health and vigor of body and mind and an equal chance to rise to its full stature and achieve success in life.
Socialist Ideals.
These are the ideals of the Socialist party and to these ideals it has consecrated all its energies and all its powers. The members of the Socialist party are the party and their collective will is the supreme law. The Socialist party is organized and ruled from the bottom up. ”

“ The Social Democrats filled their office with the greatest political self-control, and I heard from a really well-informed source that in these critical days no kind of difficulties had been made by any Party—difficulties whose consequences no one could have foreseen, because not only must they have brought with them the paralysis of the Administration, but the splitting of the energies of the labouring masses. ”

“ The Socialist party is the only party which honestly represents the working class in this campaign and the only party that has a moral right to appeal to the allegiance and support of the workers and producers of the nation. ”

“ Until a fitting opportunity arises for putting forward Socialist candidates to form the nucleus of a Socialist party in Parliament, it will confine itself to supporting those candidates who will go furthest in the direction of Socialism. ”

“ In the late national election, for the first time, the hand of the working class was clearly seen.
The Socialist party is distinctively the party, and its vote is distinctively the vote, of the working class. ”

“ In contrast with the Republican and Democratic conventions, where politicians were the puppets of plutocrats, the convention of the Socialist party consisted of workingmen and women fresh from their labors, strong, clean, wholesome, self-reliant, ready to do and dare for the cause of labor, the cause of humanity. ”

“ They disappeared without a single enduring and beneficent achievement to their credit. In like manner there have been many similar organizations or so called parties since the civil war, such as: Greenback, Liberal, Silver, Populist, Socialist, Social Labor and Prohibition. ”

“ I know further — few, I think, know better than I — the difficulties and disadvantages of organizing a new political force, like the Republican party, and the obstacles it must encounter in laboring without prestige and without patronage. But, understanding all this, I know that the Democratic party must go down, and that the Republican party must rise into its place. The Democratic party derived its strength, originally, from its adoption of the principles of equal and exact justice to all men. ”

“ The first necessity, therefore, is the formation of large and coherent parties, not merely for the purpose of accomplishing what is desired by the majority of the people, but also for suppressing agitation and social disturbance on behalf of what may be called merely objects of passion or private interest with comparatively small groups, at least until those objects enlist the support of a large minority. ”

“ With regard to political matters, the main impression 46one receives is that the revolutionary party is admirably organised, and although there are dissensions among it—as, for instance, between the Social Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats—they are willing if not ready to coalesce at any given moment against the Government, whereas the body of people who do not side with the revolutionaries are split up into various groups, differing on some of the most important points of policy. ”

“ In his view all who felt the weight and oppression of the capitalist system, the poorer middle classes and the peasants, as well as the proletariat of the towns, should come together, and by a programme of legislative reform, the Socialist Party should prove the aptitude of Socialism to serve the common interests and thus dispel the prejudice felt against it. ”

“ These Maisons du peuple are admitted to be well managed, even by those who dislike their politics. The socialist party look upon them chiefly as a means of organizing and educating the working classes for political and economic emancipation, and of providing funds for political warfare. ”

“ These independent voters care little for the radical and distant tenets of the socialist party leaders, and these, to attract wider support, are forced to place increasing stress upon immediate and moderate reforms. On the other hand, men of larger qualities of leadership in the older parties are constantly adopting and advancing pending measures of social reform. ”