How was the term "Social Democracy" derived?

[Red Commissar]

What was the historical origin for the term "social democracy" and its meaning? Why was it a popular name for early socialist parties?

Sorry if this may come across as stupid but I've never really gotten a clear answer.

[Zanthorus]

I believe it stemmed from their own particular interpretation of Marxism, that the uniqueness of the Marxian project constitutes it's combination of democratic and socialist goals. No sources on that come immediately to mind though.

[Joe Payne]

Well I think even earlier than when the Social democratic parties sorta took over the term it was used by pretty much everyone from anarchists to marxists. Like during the First International there was an anarchist organization called Alliance for Social Democracy if I remember right. I think it may have started as a catch all term for revolution and workers' struggles and later evolved to be taken over by the parties after the expulsion of anarchists. But I'm not totally sure.

[Zanthorus]

Like during the First International there was an anarchist organization called Alliance for Social Democracy if I remember right.

I think you're thinking of Bakunin's International Alliance of Social Democracy.

[Paulappaul]

I believe it stemmed from their own particular interpretation of Marxism, that the uniqueness of the Marxian project constitutes it's combination of democratic and socialist goals. No sources on that come immediately to mind though.

There were Social Democratic Parties before the popularization of Marxism in the Communist Manifesto. I believe it derives from the French Communist movement i.e. Left Wing Jacobins, Anarchists and Blanquists.

[Android]

To try and answer the question in the OP:


What was the historical origin for the term "social democracy" and its meaning? Why was it a popular name for early socialist parties?

I am going to use the Dictionary of Marxist Thought edited by T.B. Bottomore as it is as good as place as any to start. The entry for 'social-democracy ' is on p. 497-500 for anyone who has a hard or electronic copy. The relevant pages are missing in the version I check on Google Books so no point posting a link to it, I have a PDF version so i will try to summarise and others can judge how useful or not it is. I am not sure how useful it is reading back over this now.

It is alluded to in the OP that the meaning of social-democracy is not initially clear and the term varies depending on what is being discussed and who is using it - a problem that effects a lot of terms in the Marxist tradition.

The first mention of the term in Marx and Engels writings is in a note in the Communist Manifesto by Engels where he states social democracy is "a section of Democratic or Republican Party more or less tinged with socialism". Marx comments int he 18th Brumaire that in opposition to the coalition of the bourgeoisie after the 1848 revolution, "a coalition between petty-bourgeois and workers had formed the so-called social-democratic party".

It seems that the term was taken up in the last decade of the 19th century by those who formed the parties in Germany and Austria - which called themselves social democratic parties. A desire to assert a continuity with the 1848 revolutions was also a factor in the adoption of the name and to emphasis that they were struggle for political democracy (i.e. universal suffrage etc).

That as the social democratic parties in Germany and Austria develop into mass parties, conflict emerged over the role of violence in class struggle, the 'political mass strike' debate and parliamentarism and extra-parliamentarian forms of activity. this conflict between parliamentarianism and class struggle orientations was played out in the mass strike debate, but also infamously by Robert Michels. Michels who later ended up a fascist, argued that consequence of (legal) mass organisation was division between members / supporters and leaders / officials and that the latter goes through a process of embourgeoisement and that's how he explained reformism. Two other features that critics of social democracy raised was (1) its commitment to achieving a majority in the parliamentary / democratic system and (2) its single minded pursuit of partial reforms within capitalism. We all know what happened in 1914 so I am not going to go into that this to note the split between social democracy and communism

Then, in the post-WW2 period the meaning of social democracy shifted, with a tendency for social democratic parties to stop presenting themselves as working-class parties and as people's parties instead - e.g. SPD at its Bad Godesberg conference (1959).

[Zanthorus]

Argh, how I could I forget the French Social Democratic movement of 1848. Paulappaul and Ronan are correct, the term appears as a description for the supporters of the 'democratic and social republic' in France prior to the 1848 revolutions which grouped themselves around the Réforme paper. It was represented among others by Louis Blanc, the man who first devised the slogan 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs' and who wrote one of the first treatises on 'The Organisation of Labour'. Engels in his articles prior to the revolutions sided with the Réforme as the party which best represented the interests of the working-class as opposed to the other oppositional paper, the National, which was seen primarily as an organ of bourgeois liberalism. The social democrats are mentioned again in the Manifesto as one of the various oppositional parties supported by the Communist League. Ronan quotes only Engels' footnote to the 1888 English addition, but the quote from the original manifesto may be instructive:


The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally with the Social-Democrats against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution.

I don't know about the later social democrats trying to conjure the memory of 1848. I do recall Marx and Engels being critical of Liebknecht and Bebel taking up the label because the original Social Democrats had taken up minority cabinet positions within the Second Republic and stultified the independent political action of the working-class. Even as late as 1894 Engels had used the example of the Social Democrats to demonstrate why one should not take up positions within a bourgeois cabinet, in 'The Future Italian Revolution and the Socialist Party (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/01/26.htm)':


After the joint victory we might be offered a few seats in the new government, but always in a minority. This is the greatest danger. After February 1848 the French socialist democrats (of the Réforme, Ledru-Rollin, L. Blanc, Flocon, etc.) made the mistake of occupying such seats. As a minority in the government they voluntarily shared the blame for all the foul deeds and betrayals perpetrated by the majority of pure republicans against the workers; whilst the presence of these gentlemen in the government completely paralysed the revolutionary action of the working class which they claimed to represent.

[Paulappaul]

Insightful post as usual.

[Red Commissar]

Thanks for the input everyone. I was thinking that it had to do something with trying to get onto the current of Republicanism with a program of "socialism", to claim the revolutionary principles of 1848, and that the name would reflect that.

Still, I do recall the thing that Zan quoted and the duo's disapproval of the use of a term in a Marxist group. Yet many parties seemed to go with it regardless. Was there an intention that possibly the term sounded less foreboding to people than "socialism"?