The West German Social Democrats, 1969-1982

Profile Of A Party In Power

Gerard Braunthal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000612554
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The fall of the West German government in 1982 ended the 13-year rule of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as the senior coalition partner under Chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt. In perpetual opposition from 1949 to 1966, the Social Democrats finally entered the government as the junior coalition party in 1966; three years later they assumed primary responsibility for guiding the nation. The central theme of this detailed examination of the SPD during its years of governance is that social and economic forces in the nation had a major effect, often unsettling, on the party at a time when it had achieved the pinnacle of political power. Significant changes in the party's organization, membership, leadership, factionalism, ideology, and voter support limited its role within the political system (in the executive and legislative branches) and its influence on domestic and foreign policies. Yet, its ability to remain in power for a comparatively long period attests to its strength and respectability among the voting public. Dr. Gerard Braunthal draws on a wealth of documentation, some unpublished, located primarily in German archives and libraries. In addition, he interviewed more than 120 persons, ranging from the top SPD leaders to staff officials, members, and other specialists, to gain a greater understanding of a party that is one of the most powerful in Western Europe and in the social democratic world, and whose organization has been a model of the twentieth-century mass party.

1
Historical Overview

A survey of the Social Democratic Party from 1969 to 1982 must be preceded by an account of its development since its inception in the middle of the nineteenth century. Only then can one gain the necessary perspective to understand the roots of contemporary problems facing the party. Its ideological schisms, its factional cleavages, its leadership struggles, its difficult relationship with an SPD-led government—these problems have their antecedents or parallels in the past. If current difficulties seem to be of major proportions, a look back will show that the party has always been faced by problems and yet sooner or later was able to surmount them—only to be faced by new ones. But despite such difficulties, occurring regardless of whether it was in political opposition or in power, the SPD has shown remarkable longevity as an organization dedicated to the betterment of the less privileged classes in German society.

The plight of exploited factory workers and their families in the aftermath of the nineteenth century industrial revolution precipitated the rise of socialist parties and trade unions throughout Europe. Such organizations sought to recruit workers who had to work long hours at low wages in sweatshop conditions and to live in miserable slums, in poor health, with a bleak future. In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto providing doctrinal support to the growing urban proletariat becoming increasingly restive against the exploiting entrepreneurial class.

As the industrial revolution gained momentum in Germany, Ferdinand Lassalle, formerly a liberal leader who had turned socialist but not Marxist, founded in May 1863 the General German Workers’ Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein). Workers joined it who in earlier decades would have formed secret local political associations, officially disguised as being devoted to education and recreation in order to circumvent decrees prohibiting the formation of radical groups. The new organization, representing the beginning of the social democratic movement, sought first to extend the limited suffrage and then to build socialism by creating a network of producers’ cooperatives that would eventually supplant capitalist enterprises. With the death of Lassalle in 1864, Jean Baptiste von Schweitzer became president. By 1875, he was instrumental in tripling the association’s membership to over 16,000. But he had to compete with a new rival organization, the Social Democratic Workers Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei), founded at Eisenach in August 1869 by two Marxist leaders, August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. The new party supported the program of the short-lived International Workers Association, calling on workers in all countries to unite in a class struggle against the bourgeoisie and eliminate the capitalist states. Yet for Germany it opted for evolutionary rather than revolutionary change to gain its objective of economic and social justice within a socialist state.

Birth of the Party

The two rival organizations fought each other bitterly over such issues as centralization of state power but soon realized that their schism only benefited the hostile business and political elites. In May 1875, at a conference in Gotha, they merged forces and founded the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany (in 1891, renamed the Social Democratic Party of Germany—Sozial demokratische Partei Deutschlands). [1] Gotha Conference delegates adopted unanimously a Marxist program drafted primarily by Liebknecht, which, according to a critical Marx, made some concessions to Lassalle’s reformist theories. [2]

Three years after Gotha, Chancellor Bismarck, heading the unified Reich, launched his antisocialist campaign. His first move was to outlaw the party as a national organization by forbidding it to meet or to distribute its literature. On the other hand, its candidates were allowed to stand for election to the Reichstag (the lower house of Parliament) and its deputies were permitted to retain their seats. The outlawed party maintained a flourishing underground existence, not affected by Bismarck’s preemptive introduction in 1881 of pioneering social welfare measures. By 1890, when the antisocialist legislation expired, the party was able to capture 20 percent of the vote for Reichstag candidates.

The period of repression radicalized many party adherents, who became increasingly dissatisfied with unsuccessful parliamentary means of achieving their objectives. In 1891 (one year after Bismarck’s ouster from the chancellorship), Erfurt party convention delegates adopted a program, drafted by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, that blended Marxism and reformism. In the Marxist section, it noted the growth of monopolies, the increasing exploitation of the workers, and the gradual proletarianization of the middle class, as a consequence of which, workers would intensify the class struggle during mounting economic crises, seize political power, and then transform capitalist private property into public ownership. In the reformist section, the program dealt with goals to be achieved within the existing capitalist order—among them, a progressive income tax, an eight-hour day, universal suffrage, proportional representation for Reichstag elections, referendums and recall of deputies, and equal rights for women. [3]

The programmatic mix of orthodox Marxism and reformism, designed to please different party groups, did not just reflect the 1891 scene but was included in party programs throughout the Empire, Weimar, and early Federal Republic eras. In its day-to-day actions around the turn of the century, however, the party moved increasingly toward reformism. In analyzing the Erfurt program, Bertrand Russell in 1896 predicted accurately: “… it seems indubitable that, if the party has a future of power at all, it must purchase power by a practical, if not a theoretical abandonment of some portions of Marx’s doctrines. His influence is now almost omnipotent, but this omnipotence must, sooner or later, be conquered by practical necessity, if the Party is not to remain forever a struggling minority.” [4]

The party’s reformist wing was strengthened at the time by the emergence of a socialist trade union movement. (As in other European countries trade union federations were split along ideological lines; in Germany liberal and Christian unions were the chief, but weaker, competitors of the socialist unions.) A fraternal linkage did not emerge immediately between the twin pillars of the labor movement. The weak unions, not formed until the 1860s and not centrally organized until 1890, were at first subsidiary to the party, but by 1890 they were strong enough to claim equality—a relationship formalized in the Mannheim Agreement of 1906. Formalization aside, the unions’ numbers had already given them de facto veto power over SPD decisions inimical to their interests. Union leaders were more concerned with reforms to gain immediate benefits for their members than in Marxist theory; hence they had a moderating, conservative influence on the party.

Party reformists strengthened their case for working within the existing capitalist system by pointing to striking gains made by the SPD in successive Reichstag elections. In 1893, 1.8 million voters cast their ballots for the SPD, but one decade later the total had risen to 3 million (an increase from 23.3 to 32 percent of the total vote). As a result of its sizable Reichstag group, the party sought through legislation to improve the workers’ economic and social conditions.

These reformist policies were based on the writings of Eduard Bernstein, whose Marxist views were moderated by exposure to the British Fabians while in London exile in the late eighties. On his return to Germany, he called on the SPD “to find the courage to free itself from a phraseology which is indeed outdated; and to appear as what it really is today—a democratic, socialist reform party.” [5] He noted that some of Marx’s predictions were not accurate: The working class was improving economically, rather than becoming impoverished, and increasing its political power; the middle class was growing rather than shrinking; major economic crises had not occurred; and the capitalist system was well entrenched. Hence it was important for the party to press for gradual economic and political reforms which eventually would lead to socialism.

Bernstein presented his views at a number of party conventions, but the reformist wing could not convince its critics in the radical and centrist wings of the soundness of its position, except for its opposition at the 1906 convention to the call for political strikes for political purposes. The emergent radical wing, led by Karl Liebknecht (the son of Wilhelm Liebknecht) and Rosa Luxemburg, gained many adherents among SPD members as a result of radicalization among the unorganized urban proletariat, minor political strikes, an economic recession, and the Russian Revolution of 1905. The two leaders, holding fast to orthodox Marxist doctrine, considered the situation ripe for a general strike and other revolutionary tactics. But with no more than one-third support at the 1906 convention, the radicals, like the reformists, could not gain a majority for their position.

A centrist wing, led by Bebel and Kautsky, was ihitially sympathetic to the radicals, because the party, it argued, could rob the workers of their faith in and enthusiasm for a socialist future. But after 1903, still using Marxist rhetoric, the centrists increasingly sided with the reformists in their demand for parliamentary and other reforms.

The fratricidal disputes over theory and tactics did not preclude a further swift rise in the party’s membership support. By 1914, it numbered over 1 million (twice as many as in 1907) and had a circulation of 1.4 million subscribers for its 90 newspapers; diverse holdings worth more than 20 million marks in capital assets; and a thriving network of youth, women’s, sports, adult education, and other ancillary groups. In the 1912 Reichstag election, it received more than 4.2 million votes (nearly 35 percent of the total). Its bloc of 110 deputies was the largest in the 396-member Reichstag. [6]

In the face of political opposition from the Imperial regime and the solidly established capitalist elite, the party’s growth to become the best organized in the Western world was remarkable. The explanation lay in a dedicated corps of officials and loyal members whose worlds revolved around their own organizations. At odds with the prevailing cultural norms, they had no choice but to form a distinct subculture that provided a home for their diverse activities.

The SPD organization, a model for many other European socialist parties, consisted of a hierarchical structure of national, regional, and local organs. Policymaking was centered in the party executive, whose members were elected indirectly by the local organizations. A large bureaucracy blossomed to schedule meetings, enroll members, engage in political agitation, and organize campaigns and educational and cultural activities.

When World War I erupted, party leaders abruptly abandoned their pledge to promote international peace and working class solidarity and to fight nationalism; they supported the war effort instead. In defense of their prowar position, they claimed that their members might not support them otherwise and that the war could lead to the overthrow of the reactionary czarist regime in Russia. In reality, they had become more cautious, afraid that government leaders would crush their organization. Although on August 3, 1914, left-wing leaders voted against the new policy in a Reichstag group meeting, on the next day, bowing to party discipline, they voted for war credits in the Reichstag plenary session. [7]

In March 1916, the dissident leaders broke with the party and established their own parliamentary group. One year later (April 1917), they formed the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), consisting of a number of ideologically disparate wings held together by their opposition to the war. Among the radical groups were the Spartacists, led by Liebknecht and Luxemburg, demanding mass action and revolution as means of stopping the war. The bulk of the USPD consisted of former SPD left-centrists led by Hugo Haase and Kautsky, along with a few reformist intellectuals, such as Bernstein, who wanted the German government to drop its annexationist war aims. The USPD succeeded in capturing control of a number of SPD organizations in Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, and other cities.

In 1917 and 1918, under USPD and left-wing union initiatives, an increasing number of war-weary and hungry workers, dissatisfied by the SPD prowar stance and angry at the governments failure to make democratic reforms, staged widespread strikes. By November 1918 the strikes, added to military defeats, contributed to the downfall of the Imperial regime.

The Weimar Era

With the war’s end and the Kaiser’s removal, the political left (SPD and USPD) was catapulted by the spontaneous revolutionary fervor sweeping Germany into governing the nation. But SPD leaders had no blueprint prepared for taking over power in a republican regime. Indeed, afraid of a revolution, they would have been willing to govern under a democratic constitutional monarch. Friedrich Ebert, SPD chairman, assumed control of a six-person (three SPD and three USPD) provisional government, then known as the Council of People’s Delegates. After a period of initial turmoil, the SPD leaders gained control of workers’ and soldiers’ councils set up spontaneously at local levels and modeled partly on the soviets in the Soviet Union.

The USPD left wing, including Spartacists (the forerunners of the German Communist Party [KPD] established in December 1918), demanded the immediate nationalization of industry, the expropriation of Junker agricultural estates in East Prussia, and the purge of conservative army officers, civil servants, and judges. The SPD did not dare to endorse these bold demands for fear that political agitation and a dictatorship of the proletariat might result. Its fears and its opposition to a radical change of the old order were not entirely unfounded, as in late 1918 and early 1919 left forces sought to overthrow the transitional SPD-controlled government by means of strikes, riots, and an uprising. Reluctantly, the SPD leaders ordered the conservative Reichswehr and the antirepublican Free Corps units to quell the widespread disturbances. In their aftermath, the right murdered Liebknecht and Luxemburg. The embittered left wing in the USPD and the KPD never forgave the SPD for allying itself with the conservative forces to crush the left, thereby blocking fundamental political, economic, and social reforms. [8]

During this period of major civil disturbances, the SPD pressed for the establishment of a parliamentary system. It received the support of the nonleft parties to convene a national assembly in Weimar to draft a constitution. In January 1919, the vote for delegates to the National Assembly totaled 37.9 percent for the SPD and 7.6 percent for the USPD. Although the two left parties failed to obtain a majority, other democratic parties won enough seats in the National Assembly to help draft and enact a constitution then considered one of the most democratic in the world.

When the parliamentary system was established in 1919, Ebert became president. As the largest party, the SPD sought the USPD’s support in forming a coalition cabinet, but the USPD declined. It was unwilling to join a cabinet that would have to include members of the bourgeois parties (Catholic and liberal) to gain majority support from the Reichstag. Thus the SPD had to seek allies among the nonsocialist parties in order to produce viable governments. From February 1919 to June 1920 and from June 1928 to March 1930, SPD leaders formed coalition cabinets, but in other periods, as SPD electoral strength dipped, nonsocialist chancellors were at the helm, with occasional SPD representation. [9]

In the meantime the USPD, although gaining almost as many votes as the SPD in the June 1920 Reichstag election, split over the issue of supporting the parliamentary system. At its October 1920 convention, the left-wing majority, favoring a workers’ council system, decided to join the KPD and the communist Third International. The right-wing minority attempted to keep the rump party alive, but by September 1922 it had rejoined the SPD. From then on it became the left wing of the SPD.

When the SPD governed, it failed to enact radical economic and social reforms not only demanded earlier by the USPD but also enunciated in previous party programs. True, the SPD and the unions achieved moderate reforms (collective bargaining was institutionalized, works councils in the shops were established, and welfare legislation was passed), but no industries were socialized, other than electric power—ironically, taken over by a nonsocialist government. To justify preserving the status quo, the SPD argued that immediate material needs had to be met through higher production, reparations had to be paid, and the opposition of other parties had to be considered.

Paradoxically, the SPD reformist policies did not produce more moderate party programs. At two conventions (Görlitz, 1921; Heidelberg, 1925), Marxist calls for class struggle and nationalization remained imbedded in the programs. Such a stance obviously alienated more moderate voters (salaried employees and the small bourgeoisie), whose electoral support the party desperately needed. The SPD also had difficulty attracting enough women and young voters. To ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• TABLES AND FIGURES
• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• 1 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
• 2 THE ORGANIZATION: FROM PRESIDIUM TO LOCAL BRANCH
• 3 MEMBERSHIP: A SOCIAL SHIFT AT THE BASE
• 4 LEADERS, FACTIONS, AND INTRAPARTY DEMOCRACY
• 5 THE YOUNG SOCIALISTS
• 6 SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC WORKERS AND TRADE UNIONS
• 7 SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC WOMEN AND THE SELF-EMPLOYED
• 8 THE QUEST FOR AN IDEOLOGY
• 9 THE QUEST FOR VOTERS
• 10 NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL ELECTIONS
• 11 PARTY AND PARLIAMENT
• 12 PARTY AND GOVERNMENT
• 13 DOMESTIC POLICY ISSUES
• 14 FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES
• 15 CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX