Erfurt Program

The Erfurt Program was adopted by the SPD during the SPD congress at Erfurt in 1891. Formulated under the political guidance of August Bebel and the ideological tutelage of Karl Kautsky. It superseded the earlier Gotha Program.

Related Topics:
SPD - Erfurt - 1891 - August Bebel - Karl Kautsky

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In good Marxist fashion, the program declared the imminent doom of capitalism and the necessity of socialist ownership of the means of production. The party intended to pursue these goals through legal political participation rather than by revolutionary activity. Kautsky argued that because capitalism by its very nature must collapse, the immediate task for socialists was to work for the improvement of workers' lives rather than for the revolution, which was inevitable.

Related Topics:
Marxist - Capitalism - Socialist - Kautsky - Revolution

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Karl Kautsky also wrote the official SPD commentary on the program, which was called The Class Struggle.

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The simplified Marxism exemplified by The Class Struggle is sometimes referred to as "vulgar Marxism" or the "Marxism of the Second International." The popular renderings of Marxism found in the works of Kautsky and Bebel were read and distributed more widely in Europe between the late 1800's and 1914 than Marx's own works. The Class Struggle was translated into sixteen languages before 1914 and became the accepted popular summation of Marxist theory. This document came to define "orthodox" socialist theory before the October Revolution of 1917 caused a major split in the international socialist movement.

Related Topics:
Second International - October Revolution

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