Social-Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America

This article is about the 1874 socialist party that merged into the Workingmen's Party. For the 1898 socialist party that became the Socialist Party of America, see Social Democratic Party of America.
Social-Democratic Workingmen's Party
Founded1874; 151 years ago (1874)
DissolvedJuly 15, 1876; 148 years ago (1876-07-15)
Preceded byInternational Workingmen's Association in America
Merged intoWorkingmen's Party of the United States
HeadquartersNew York City
IdeologyLassallism
Political positionLeft-wing
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The Social-Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America[a] (SDWP or SDWPNA) was a Lassallist socialist party.

History

In 1868, German-speaking members of the International Workingmen's Association in America (IWA) in New York City create the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (ADAV, General German Labor Association).[1] Around this core, in 1874, dissident Lassallean members of the IWA split and created the Social-Democratic Workingmen's Party, shortly before the Philadelphia IWA collapsed.[2] The SDWP claimed 1500 members, mostly German immigrants in New York City.[3] 90% of its members were foreign-born workers.[2] SDWP founders included Pyotr Lavrov[2] and Adolph Strasser, who served as its executive secretary.[4]

In the 1874 elections, the SDWP performed horribly.[5] This encouraged Marxists within the organization to promote trade union membership over electoral participation, which they won at the 1875 convention. In turn, these results enabled the 1876 merger.[5]

In 1876, the SDWP merged with three other socialist organizations to create the Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), which would become the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP).[6]

Although the SDWP's platform contained no explicit reference to democracy,[7] its successor the Socialist Labor Party would be the first US political party to demand initiatives as a plank in their party platform.[8]

If dated from the formation of the ADAV, the SDWP was the second socialist party created in the world, after the General German Workers' Association of Ferdinand Lassalle.[1]

Endnotes

  1. ^ Sometimes spelled as "Social Democratic Workingmen's Party".

References

  1. ^ a b Ghent, W. J. (1916). Socialism: A Historical Sketch. New Appeal. p. 30. During this twelve-year period Socialism overflowed from Germany into the other countries of Europe. In the United States it had already made a beginning. Indeed, the organized movement here, which has a continuous existence from the Social Democratic Workingmen's party of 1874, is, with the exception of the two German parties which united at Gotha, the oldest in the world. If, as suggested by Hillquist, it be dated from the formation of the General German Labor Association in New York (1868), it outdates the Bebel-Liebknecht wing of the German party (1869), leaving only the Lassalle wing 1863) with an earlier origin.
  2. ^ a b c Hecht, David (1946). "Lavrov, Chaikovski, and the United States". American Slavic and East European Review. 5 (1/2): 144. doi:10.2307/2491585. JSTOR 2491585.
  3. ^ Davenport, Tim (2019). "Socialist Labor Party". Marxists Internet Archive.
  4. ^ Gompers, Samuel; Kaufman, Stuart Bruce (1996). The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 5: An Expanding Movement at the Turn of the Century, 1898-1902. University of Illinois Press. p. 564. ISBN 9780252020087.
  5. ^ a b Foner, Philip (1910). The Workingmen's Party of the United States: A History of the First Marxist Party in the Americas. MEP Publications. p. 25.
  6. ^ "Notes on the Early History of American Communism". 1 February 2014. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  7. ^ Stedman, Jr., Murray (January 1951). ""Democracy" in American Communal and Socialist Literature". Journal of the History of Ideas. 12 (1). University of Pennsylvania Press: 152. doi:10.2307/2707542. JSTOR 2707542. Students of political history will recall that in 1876 an organization known as the Social-Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America was formed. It is of interest from the point of view of this inquiry only because of its name. Aside from the title of the party, the party constitution and platform contained no references to "democracy".
  8. ^ Ellis, Richard (April 2023). "Reimagining Democracy: The Socialist Origins of the Initiative and Referendum in the United States". The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 22 (2). Cambridge University Press: 143. doi:10.1017/S1537781422000585. S2CID 258834298. A decade and a half before the People's Party famously commended the idea of direct legislation at its 1892 nominating convention in Omaha, Nebraska, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) made the demand for direct legislation a plank in its first party platform. That demand was shaped by the 1875 Gotha Program formulated by the Socialist Workers Party of Germany and informed by socialist debates during the First International and the pioneering work of Moritz Rittinghausen.