Social Democratic Workers Party Research Articles

The many lives of writer Jef Last (1898-1972) Anti-fascist, socialist, humanist and gay rights activist

Writer, poet, painter, journalist, translator and compelling speaker: Jef Last roamed the globe, fought in the Spanish Civil War, joined the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation, and became an outspoken gay rights activist during and after World War II. His political journey started in 1917 when he joined the Social Democratic Workers Party. From there he had brief yet tumultuous stints in the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Henk Sneevliet and the Dutch Communist Party. Disappointed with socialism and the Soviet Union, he identified as a humanist in later life. Last was controversial yet appealing, and both selfish and selfless. Difficult to categorise, Last insisted on the indivisibility of his identity and experiences as an antifas- cist fighter and a gay man. This biographical article explores the many social identities of Jef Last.

Dynamics of Policy and Politics: Politics of Unemployment in Sweden during the Interwar Period

AbstractInspired by the theoretical perspective that “new policies create a new politics,” this paper explores how unemployment policies affected the politics of tripartite relations in Sweden during the interwar period. After the economic depression of 1920, strike activities began to decrease. Our panel data analysis finds that after 1920, the strength of the relationship between unemployment and strike activities decreased substantially. Historical interpretations complement statistical analysis. In the 1920s, the implementation of unemployment policies entailed the following feedback effects: First, the state reinforced its capacities, gaining increasingly firm control over strike activities. Second, the union movement was plunged into internal conflicts. In contrast to the arguments of power resources theory and the theory of cross-class coalition, neither the empowerment of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SAP) nor employers’ lockouts induced the Confederation of Labor Unions (LO) to turn towards concertation. Rather, this turnaround occurred in the 1920s while LO coped with the feedback effects engendered endogenously in processes of the implementation of unemployment policies.

The Kelsen-Bauer debate on Marxist state theory and the equilibrium of class forces

This serves as an introduction to a debate between Hans Kelsen and Otto Bauer concerning the nature and relative autonomy of the state, and the theories that informed the political practices of the Austro-Marxists and of the SDAP (Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party) immediately after the fall of the monarchy and during the early years of the First Republic. Both pieces (translated below) were published in Der Kampf ( The Campaign), the SDAP’s theoretical journal, in which many key texts of Austro-Marxist thought appeared. The debate is of theoretical interest, particularly with respect to Marxist state theory, but is potentially also of renewed relevance to an age of post-GFC (Global Financial Crisis) austerity. Bauer’s distinction between functional oligarchy and functional democracy is identified as one such potential contribution to current debate and analysis.

Affective Attachments: Women's Suffrage in Austria and the Social Democratic Struggle for Women's Votes in Die Unzufriedene.

“Human progress lies in discontent!” was the motto of the Austrian magazine Die Unzufriedene (The Discontented). It was first published in 1923 as an “independent weekly magazine” designed to reach “all women.” Yet, it was first and foremost a Social Democratic journal, established to socialize women politically and to obtain women's votes outside the Social Democratic purview in the 1923 National Council elections. Since women's suffrage had been established only a few years earlier, the struggle for women's votes was of utmost importance. This essay argues for understanding the journal as a mode and an instrument for the mobilization of affects for Social Democratic ends. Proposing the concept of affective attachments, it shows how the Austrian Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) used the journal in an ambivalent way to affectively address women and to create political moods that would attract them to the party's political agenda.

Ein Staat stirbt: Österreich 1934–38 by Georg Wieser

Reviewed by: Ein Staat stirbt: Österreich 1934–38 by Georg Wieser Britta McEwen Georg Wieser, Ein Staat stirbt: Österreich 1934–38. Vienna: New Academic Press, 2018. 260 pp. Ein Staat Stirbt has a fascinating backstory. The book was written on the eve of the Munich crisis by an Austrian living in exile named Otto Leichter, writing as Georg Wieser. It is cinematic, punchy, and fast-paced as it narrates the demise of independent Austria in a partisan tone—the author was no fan of the Ständestaat. But the book itself was forgotten for years, languishing in the Augustinerlesesaal of the Austrian National Library until scholar Béla Rásky, managing director of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, found it there and began reading. He has now brought it to light again, offering a helpful introduction to the text and ensuring that it would be reprinted. It deserves to be read by a wide audience, both in Austria and America. The era of the Ständestaat is receiving more attention as of late, although it remains a very politically charged topic to write about. Wieser's account, [End Page 103] written so close to the source, is of particular interest. It was accessible to exiles, not Austrians, at the time of publication and was intended as a plea for international intervention against fascism in all its forms. Yet it captures the concerns of Austrians, and particularly the Viennese, during the 1930s in a way that few accounts can claim to. As Rásky so rightly describes it in his introduction, the book is written in a style similar to a crime novel, tight and breathless, yet here the crime is the annexation of Austria. Wieser spreads the blame around: on those who crushed the workers in 1934, on Dollfuss and Schuschnigg for setting up a dictatorial regime, on the Catholic Church for abetting them, on Mussolini for inventing fascism and then getting so diverted in Abyssinia that he failed to protect Austria, and on Hitler for his unending greed. Wieser's thesis is that independent Austria died with the workers' freedoms in 1934; the ensuing four years were a farce that played out according to the whims of dictators. The tension between international politics and internal rule in Austria was too great for Dollfuss or Schuschnigg to overcome, according to the author, and thus they dug themselves deeper into authoritarianism and were blind to the "brown threat" of Nazism. Along the way, the reader gets fascinating sketches of daily life in the Ständestaat, including a chapter that opens with the drop in butter and veal consumption in the latter part of the 1930s as an illustration of the dip in quality of life that authoritarianism brought to the Viennese. Terror and fear are the watchwords of this slim book. Wieser opens with the Nazis marching into Vienna and the mobs attacking Jewish citizens and closes with the Aryanization of businesses and economic misery of the summer of 1938. In between, he explores how Fascism and authoritarianism behave in all sorts of situations: how dictators treat each other, how regimes crush resistance, how resignation creeps into the population, how governments gloss over the loss of democracy. Readers also learn that the Social Democratic Workers Party of Austria did not give up in 1934 but rather continued to organize, smuggle in copies of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and work for a return of labor power. Yet terror and fear remain the overwhelming motifs of the book, leavened only by the disdain the author uses to sketch the personalities of people like Dollfuss, Schuschnigg, and Starhemberg, who so misunderstood the stakes of their posturing. In one of the most trenchant chapters for scholars of this period, Wieser outlines just how few people supported Schuschnigg in 1936. Group by group, he shows that the Ständestaat simply was seen as a lesser evil, rather [End Page 104] than a supported entity, in the waning days of independent Austria. Perhaps 30 percent of the population backed the government, in his estimation; surely not enough to make it a viable alternative given the "red" and "brown" undercurrents it was suppressing. This sobering assessment of...

Trotsky and his role in the revolution of 1905 - 1907 in Russian

Trotsky is dialectic and one of the most important thinkers of socialist thought in modern times. He is a distinguished preacher and influential writer in the labor movements that undermined the cesarean section of Russian both in the Revolution of 1905 and in the revolution of 1917. The research in its first part included the birth and origin of Trotsky ,The second part emphasized Trotsky's political activism until the end of 1898, his joining a group of revolutionaries, The third axis focused on Trotsky's intellectual activity until the dissolution of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, where he joined in Siberia with the stream of socialist democratic ideas and became a leader in his own name, While the fourth axis dealt with the issue of splitting the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The fifth axis dealt with Trotsky's role in the Russian revolution of 1905-1907, his leadership of this revolution and his contribution to supporting workers' councils throughout Russia.

How Marxist history of science can inform a pedagogy of science for social justice

The scope of this paper is to examine the perspectives for a pedagogy of science for social justice situated in the framework of Marxism by proceeding to an analysis and a contemporary evaluation of the work of the scholars who are considered as the initiators of the Marxist history of science. In this paper therefore, I review N. Bukharin’s and B. Hessen’s seminal papers as presented in the 2nd International Congress of History of Science and Technology in 1931 in London. This Congress was marked by the appearance of the Soviet delegation influencing a generation of radical scientists in Britain with the most prominent figure being J. Bernal. I present J. Bernal’s views as developed in his most important work “The Social Function of Science” with an emphasis on his writings on science education and the role of science teachers for the emancipation of society. Finally, I present the work of the Austromarxist and member of the Left Vienna Circle E. Zilsel on “The Social Origin of Modern Science” contemplating on his work as an adult educator in the period that Vienna was governed by the Austrian Social Democratic Workers Party. Emphasis is placed on the role of science and education as a vehicle for raising proletarian self-awareness. The analysis of the legacies and works of these scholars of the Marxist tradition in the history of science shows that it can form the basis for a Marxist pedagogy of science that can change society and its practices in our epoch when education in science and pedagogy of science are considered one of the most important pillars of contemporary science policy.

Russian Jewish socialists and antisemitism: the case of Grigorii Aronson

ABSTRACTAmong all the socialist strategies and responses to antisemitism, those developed and applied in Russia before 1917 command our attention because of the violence and ubiquity of antisemitism, and because of the principal role of socialists in promoting democracy and revolution in the Russian empire. A significant part of the socialist movement to in Russia was in the hands of Jewish socialists because of the disproportionately large number of Jews in Russian revolutionary parties. This was even more the case in the Pale of Settlement, where Russia's Jewish population was concentrated and where the first Marxist party in the Russian Empire, the Bund, flourished. Jewish members of socialist parties were, however, inhibited from pleading the case of Jews due to the internationalist, even anti-nationalist, political position of most socialists. Surh's article explores the response to antisemitism among Jewish socialists, primarily in the Pale, by considering the career of the revolutionary Social Democrat, Grigorii Aronson, in the period before 1914. Aronson joined and worked with the Bund for a short while but, for most of his career, he was a member of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDRP), first as a Bolshevik and, from 1917 until the end of his life, as a Menshevik. Although most Jewish socialists joined the Bund or a number of Zionist socialist parties, quite a number joined Russian parties including, besides the RSDRP, the Socialist Revolutionary Party and a number of anarchist groups. These are the parties whose attitude and stance towards antisemitism that Suhr's article explores through Aronson's biographical journey.

Georgien, die Bolschewiki und die deutsche Sozialdemokratie (1917–1921)

The contribution focuses on the fate of the First Republic of Georgia (1917-1921), from Karl Kautsky’s point of view, and on the German Social Democrats’ changing view of the October Revolution. Starting out from the dictum: “Who addresses Stalin, must also address Lenin, who speaks of Stalinist crimes, must also discuss the October Revolution”, Kautsky’s view of the “Menshevist” Social Democratic Workers Party, which ruled Georgia between 1917 and 1921 and was the German Social Democrats’ “brother party”, and of the “Social Democratic Farmers Republic of Georgia” and its sad end is presented. For Kautsky, the fate of Georgia was exemplary evidence for the correctness of his scathing criticism of the Bolshevik “October putsch” which, as he said, had annihilated the achievements of the February Revolution.

Trevor Griffiths' ‘Absolute Beginners’: Socialist Humanism and the Television Studio

This article examines how conventional studio production strategies were active in the construction of political meaning in the 1974 television play ‘Absolute Beginners’, written by Trevor Griffiths. Produced for the BBC anthology series Fall of Eagles, the play dramatises Lenin's involvement with the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP) and explores the contradictions between personal ethics and political necessity. Through close textual analysis and contextual discussion of other plays in the series, this piece demonstrates how shot patterns and spatial and performative devices in ‘Absolute Beginners’ supported the drama's socialist-humanist and feminist themes. Drawing on existing writing about the studio mode, it argues that the qualities of intimacy and presentational distance that it engendered were highly appropriate for the personal and the political dialectic in ‘Absolute Beginners’. While using authorship as a convenient category for referring to the coherence of Griffiths' thematic concerns and dramatic structure during this period, the article complicates notions of the television dramatist as author by arguing for the importance of visual style and showing how ‘ordinary’ studio form was operational in the play's political meanings.

The Stalinist Self: The Case of Ioseb Jughashvili (1898–1907)

This article explores sense of self exhibited by Ioseb (Soso) Jughashvili, Stalin in statu nascendi, during 1898-1907 period, when he served Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP) as an activist mainly based in Tiflis. Taken in its most abstract form, self is part of human condition. People of all cultures and times are aware of their separate existence. Our minds do not telepathically merge with that of our neighbors. On a more concrete level, though, senses of self vary widely from one cultural context to another. (1) The present article explores young Stalin's self-identification in its sociological aspect, by focusing on question of social classes with which he identified. I argue that he not only obviously identified himself as an intelligent but also throughout period under discussion here continued to assign leading in party committees to intelligenty. In acting as a strong defender of intelligentsia section of party, Jughashvili was inspired by a particular form of Enlightenment discourse that centered on primacy of knowledge, science, and consciousness and remained characteristic of him even as Soviet dictator. At danger of simplifying often subtle analyses, two schools on this question can be distinguished. On one hand, Lev Davidovich Trotskii treats young Stalin as a 'committeeman' par excellence, disinclined to promote workers to leading positions. (2) Isaac Deutscher's Jughashvili belonged to semi-nomad fringe of declasses of intelligentsia. Despite sense of closeness to workers that he brought along from his humble background, he nurtured an attitude ofsceptical distrust toward them. (3) Ronald Suny's treatment of Soso as a consistent defender of party's prerogatives over those of labour organisations can be placed in this tradition. (4) On other hand, a revisionist chord has been struck recently. Robert Himmer argues that Soso took great pride in his own lower-class origins, claimed a proletarian status for himself, and hoped to see intelligentsia segment of party replaced by workers. (5) Alfred Rieber's analysis of Soso's synthetic Georgian-Russian identity included a presentation of self as a proletarian. Jughashvili's claim to be a proletarian would mainly be evinced by his identification with the tendency of 'proletarian steadfastness' (Bolshevik) as opposed to tendency of 'the intelligentsia to vacillate' (Menshevism). (6) Himmer's and Rieber's suggestion that Jughashvili associated himself with allegedly proletarian values to point of creating a proletarian self-presentation seems out of proportion. Whatever he may have written about proletarian virtues, I know of no occasion that Soso was claiming a proletarian status for himself. (7) As a former student of Tiflis Seminary, he was perceived by his comrades as an intelligent, and so he was invariably described in police informers' reports. The work of social historians confirms that it would be unlikely for Jughashvili to have claimed a proletarian status for himself. Revolutionary intellectuals served as a cultural role model for workers in social-democratic movement. (8) Reginald Zelnik traces this pattern back to 1870s, when idea arose that a worker might be shaped by intelligenty into a new kind of person, resembling themselves ... a worker-intelligent. Fluid crossover identities were not uncommon in movement, but students tended only to flirt with externalities of proletarian life? Strikingly, many workers who were dissatisfied with intelligentsia dominance of RSDWP believed they could manage on their own only when they felt they had achieved an intelligentsia status of their own. An intelligent presenting himself as a worker would have struck others as odd. His actions and writings suggest that Jughashvili identified himself with an existing discourse in which members of intelligentsia were seen as agents of Enlightenment and teachers of socialist consciousness. …

The price of free lunches: Making the frontier Latvian in the interwar years

Throughout 1919 and 1920 the national ministries of the newly independent Latvia, particularly the Ministry of Interior and the Army identified the Socialist left as the primary threat to the new state’s existence. The lessons of 1917 and the war for independence (fought first against Latvian Bolsheviks and then against German adventurists) seemed to be that the Soviet state with its share of Latvian leaders provided an alternate or ‘revolutionary’ state to the ‘nationalising’ state model of Latvian nationalists (Brubaker 1996: 47, 55-78). Latvia ’s Social Democratic Workers Party was suspect to the Latvian nationalists at the levers of the new state because it was unclear which vision it supported. During the first elections to parish and municipal councils, the Ministry of the Interior carefully tracked the election of ‘untrustworthy’ elements of the political left. Only after the military front moved eastward into territory that was the home to few Latvians did government suspicion fall on minority communities. The election of representatives from minority political parties to the Constituent Assembly and their demands for guaranteed minority rights (both within the Assembly and in the League of Nations) pushed the central state to re-prioritize potential enemies and threats.

Verborgen motieven en uitgesproken persoonlijkheden. Eer en reputatie in de vroege socialistische arbeidersbeweging van Amsterdam

Hidden motives and outspoken personalities. Honour and reputation in the early socialist labour movement in AmsterdamThis article analyses the role of personal reputations and honour codes among the first generations of socialist working-class activists in Amsterdam, in the thirty-year period that preceded the rise of the 'modern' Social Democratic Workers Party (SDAP). The 'old movement' as it became known, did not possess a strictly defined ideology or a very solid organisational structure, but was able to compensate for this by placing a strong emphasis on questions of honour and personal reputation. In doing so, the early socialists successfully appealed to existing mentalities within their class.

The Dutch social democrats and the South African war, 1899–19021

This article examines the attitude of the Dutch Social Democrats towards the South African War (1899–1902). At the beginning of the war the SDAP (Social Democratic Workers’ Party) had three seats in the Staten‐Generaal (Parliament). By 1902 this had increased to seven. The South African War created a wave of nationalism in the Netherlands. The Boers were of Dutch descent, and the Dutch generally saw the war as their own. As much as it wanted to assist the Transvaal, the Dutch government, however, could not afford to annoy Britain upon whom she depended for commercial protection of her East Indian colonies. In Social Democratic circles there was a mixed reaction to the war, particularly as their enemy, the Dutch bourgeoisie, had taken the side of the Boers. Arguments were raised for and against on the one hand, humanitar‐ianism and the law of nations, and on the other, historic‐materialistic considerations. The organs of the SDAP—De Sociaaldemokraat and later Het Volk—supported the Boer cause. Their internationalism almost compelled the Social Democrats to stand aloof from the chauvinistic Dutch bourgeoisie. They pointed out that the Netherlands, with its policy on Acheh, an independent sultanate on Sumatra, was in actual fact also an imperialistic nation. Anti‐British sentiment among the Social Democrats rose sharply when the Amsterdam diamond cutters also became victims as many lost their jobs in the wake of the war. Chamberlain (the British Colonial Secretary) and Kitchener (British Commander‐in‐Chief) were seen as war criminals. When, towards the end of 1901, the Amsterdam Water Transport Leagues attempted to organise an international boycott of British shipping, the SDAP sympathised with the plan, but did not give its official approval. Nothing came of the attempt. The Dutch Social Democrats reluctantly accepted the peace, feeling that the Boers would in the future be exploited by British capitalism.

Philosophy ? Religion ? Politics: Borochov, Bogdanov and Lunacharsky

The awakening of interest in A. A. Bogdanov-Malinovsky's oeuvre, theories and activities has lasted about two decades,1 but was and still is very fruitful. This growth of interest has given rise to plenty of studies that have contri buted to our knowledge of Bogdanov's relations with Lenin and Plekhanov,2 his attitude toward and inferences from the 1905 revolution,3 and his stand point in the context of the revolutionary events from February to October 1917.4 The relevance of Bogdanov's theories is mentioned in comparative studies of Gramsci's contribution to Marxist theory5 and by scholars inter ested in the ProletkuVt policies6 following the Bolshevik revolution. The variety of writings concerning the extent of Bogdanov's accomplish ments will restore his place in the history of Russian philosophy and Soviet social thought. We know a great deal of the history of Bogdanov's rivalry with Plekhanov and Lenin, but little was done, to my present knowledge, to reveal Bogdanov's influence outside his Party and faction (Vpered). Due to some theoretical disagreements and factional splits among Marxists in Israel,7 a new direction of "Bogdanovist" influences has been explored and we have found some surprising political and ideological implications arising from his theoretical influence. This paper deals briefly with several interpretations given by Ber Borochov, the leader of the Jewish Marxist-Zionist labour party ? Poalei-Zion ["Workers of Zion" (Palestine)], who elaborated an original theory of the "national question"8 on the basis of the "Bogdanovist approach" to historical material ism.9 Ber Borochov also wrote a critical analysis of A. Lunacharsky's theory of religion10 based on Bogdanov's empiriomonist theory,11 and on his own "virtualism". Borochov's attitude toward the achievements of the February revolution and his reservations about the Bolshevik policy of pushing forward the revolution were similar to those of Bogdanov.12 His experience abroad and the new political realities on the eve of World War I brought Borochov, in his contributions to the Third Convention of the Jewish Social-Democratic Workers Party (Poalie-Zion) in Russia (in Kiev, August 1917), to clarify and redefine some of his former theoretical positions.

Realization of the Communist Party's Program for the Development of Public Education

One of the most outstanding qualities of the Communist Party is its position not only as the political leader of the working class and all working people but also as the great force for culture and enlightenment among the masses. The decree of the CPSU Central Committee "On the Eightieth Anniversary of the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party" (Kommunist, No. 6, 1983, p. 6) emphasized that the "Party's guidance has a beneficial influence on Soviet society's spiritual life."

Crisis in the Party: De Tribune Faction and the Origins of the Dutch Communist Party 1907-9

The origins of communist parties continue to attract both the interest and attention of the scholarly community. The Dutch communist party is of special interest in this regard since its origins were quite different from the other European communist parties. Unlike those, the Dutch party did not have its origins in a new party founded after the Russian revolution nor was it the product of a group splitting off from an existing, post-1917, social democratic party. Finally, it was not the result of a vote taken by a social democratic section of the Second International as happened in France and Norway. The Dutch communist party had its origins in an existing marxist, social democratic party which was a rival of the Dutch social democratic section of the Second International. In 1909, three members of the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP) were expelled from the party and within a month founded a rival grouping. The new party , the Sociaal Democratische Partij (SDP) voted in 1918 to transform itself into a communist party. In 1919 it emerged as the Communistisch Partij Holland.1 The Sociaal Democratische Partij was the product of the marxistrevisionist debate so characteristic of pre-1914 European social democracy. The tensions within the SDAP were suggestive of the cleavages Kautsky-Bernstein in Germany, Guesde-Jaures in France, and the Bolshevik-Menshevik split within the Russian social democratic workers party. In the case of the SDAP, it was not possible to retain both elements under the social democratic umbrella. The Tribune triumvirate of David Wijnkoop, Willem van Ravesteijn and J.C. Ceton became the symbol of militant marxism within the SDAP. For all three, marxism was defined in terms of the party policy and ideological formulations of Karl Kautsky and the center grouping in the German social democratic party. The Tribune grouping did not begin to incline toward the left

Marxists and Imperialism: The Indonesian Policy of the Dutch Social Democratic Workers Party, 1894-1914

One of the great unresolved problems which the Second International bequeathed to its post-1914 successors was the question of colonial policy. Superficially, colonialism posed no particular difficulties. In 1896, the London congress of the Second International condemned colonial expansion as an expression of capitalist enterprise. The condemnation was renewed by the Paris congress in 1900 and four years later by the Amsterdam congress. However, an attempt was made at the Amsterdam congress to place the Second International on record as condemning capitalist colonial policy and not colonialism per se, the argument being that socialist states in Europe might retain the colonies established by previous capitalist regimes. The obvious implication of this position was that the Second International should move toward the establishment of guidelines which defined a uniquely socialist colonial policy. Although this attempt to alter the previous policy guideline on colonialism failed, the forces in the Second International which favored a revision of colonial policy tried again at the 1907 Stuttgart congress. After heated debate, the congress voted, 127-108, with 10 abstaining, to continue the formal condemnation of colonial enterprise.1 This was the last policy position on colonies which the Second International approved before the First World War.

On the seventieth anniversary of the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party

On the seventieth anniversary of the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party

The Making of a Bolshevik: Georgii Chicherin in England 1914–1918

Georgii V. Chicherin's conversion from Menshevism to Bolshevism exemplifies the intense political and ideological stress placed on Russian Social Democrats by World War I. The war split all of Europe's socialist parties, but none so deeply as the already faction-ridden Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. Even after the initial shock had passed and most Russian Social Democrats found their way to one or another of the party's factions, not all members joined a recognizable group. For some the shock was too great, and much time and wandering were needed before they found their bearings. One of these wanderers was Lenin's future Foreign Commissar.