Artikel

De evolutie van de Duitse sociaal-democratie tegenover het antisemitisme, 1860-1914

---

Abstract

The evolution of German social democracy vis-a-vis anti-Semitism (1860-1914) - I argue both against the literature in which anti-Semitism is seen as present in Marxism (since Marx’s Zur Judenfrage of 1844), and against the literature in which an a priori immunity of socialists against anti-Semitism is postulated. An overview of the historical record shows that neither of these doctrinarian constructions offers adequate explanations. There has been an evolution in the SPD, in which the Marxist fraction, in order to become dominant, had to fight several tendencies which were all somehow connected with anti-Semitism. The explanatory power of Marxist ideology shielded the Marxists against according primordiality to the ’Jewish Question’. During the period of legal repression of the SPD, deep sentiments of rejection grew towards Wilhelmian society, in which anti-Semitic agitation was becoming endemic. The socialists thought this agitation to be part of the same tactics which had led to the exclusion of the party, so that resistance in the SPD to antixemitism grew very strong also. After 1890 self isolation and negative integration (Groh) had consequences for the stand of the party vis-a-vis anti-Semitism. The orthodox centre in the party minimized anti-Semitism as a sign of class polarization, and underestimated after 1893 the potency of the ideology, because the anti-Semitic parties suffered electoral defeats. Due to fixation on ’Marxist’ explanations, the SPD leadership did not realize that anti-Semitism had become more than politics, namely a sort of general culture (Volkov). Opposition to the anti-action orientated centre, created strong integrationist tendencies in the years before World War I, so that the distinction between ’emancipatory’ and ’anti-Semitic’ culture became blurred. The quick assimilation of national attitudes, and the xenophobia, especially in the right wing of the party, towards the Ostjuden are cases in point here.

How to Cite:

Denayer, W., (1991) “De evolutie van de Duitse sociaal-democratie tegenover het antisemitisme, 1860-1914”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 36(1), 16–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95063