The Erfurt Program was adopted by the SPD in 1891, formulated under the political guidance of August Bebel and the ideological tutelage of Karl Kautsky. It superseded the earlier Gotha Program. 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 socialist was to work for the improvement of workers' lives rather than for the revolution, which was inevitable. Karl Kautsky also wrote the official SPD commentary on the program, which was called The Class Struggle. The simplified Marxism exemplified by the 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 European Left. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD – Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) is the second oldest political party of Germany still in existence and also one of the oldest and largest in the world, celebrating its 140th anniversary in 2003. ... 1891 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... August Ferdinand Bebel (February 22, 1840 – March 18, 1913) was a German social democrat and one of the founders of the SPD. August Bebel Bebel was born on February 22, 1840 in Deutz, near Cologne; he founded the Sächsische Volkspartei (Saxon Peoples Party) in 1867 together with Wilhelm Liebknecht... Karl Kautsky Karl Kautsky (October 18, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Capitalism has been defined in various ways. ... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... Karl Kautsky Karl Kautsky (October 18, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... Look up Revolution in Wiktionary, the free dictionary This article is about revolution in the sense of a drastic change. ... The phrase Second International has two meanings: For the international association of socialist parties of the late 19th century, see Second International (politics) and a successor organization, the Socialist International For one of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries of American English, see Websters New International Dictionary, Second Edition This is... The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. ...

References

http://www.spd.de

Kautsky, Karl Das Erfurter Programm Dietz Nachf. Verlag, Stuttgart, 1920

Sassoon, Donald. One Hundred Years of Socialism. The New Press, New York, 1996.