August Bebel in the context of Second International (politics)

Friedrich Ebert ([ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈeːbɐt] ; 4 February 1871 – 28 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the first president of Germany from 1919 until his death in 1925.

Ebert was elected leader of the SPD on the death in 1913 of August Bebel. In 1914, shortly after he assumed leadership, the party became deeply divided over Ebert's support of war loans to finance the German war effort in World War I. A moderate social democrat, Ebert was in favour of the Burgfrieden, a political policy that sought to suppress discord over domestic issues among political parties in order to concentrate all forces in society on the conclusion of the war effort. He tried to isolate those in the party opposed to war and advocated a split.

The Socialist International, commonly known as the Second International, was a political international of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on 14 July 1889. At a time of growing industrial working-class movements and the expansion of suffrage, it brought together autonomous national parties into a loose international federation. It continued the work of the First International (1864–1876), from which it inherited both the legacy of Karl Marx and the conflict with anarchists. The organization was dominated by the powerful Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), whose organizational and theoretical leadership heavily influenced the other member parties.

The International established the annual celebration of International Workers' Day on 1 May and popularised the demand for an eight-hour day. Its early congresses were preoccupied with expelling anarchists and defining its mission as one based on parliamentary political action. After 1900, the International was increasingly confronted with the internal divisions of the socialist movement, particularly the rise of revisionism in Germany and the debate over socialist participation in "bourgeois" governments, sparked by the Millerand affair in France. The 1904 Amsterdam Congress, which saw a major debate between French socialist Jean Jaurès and German leader August Bebel, condemned revisionism and ministerialism, marking the highest point in the influence of the International.

The Erfurt Program (German: Erfurter Programm) was the party platform adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) at its party congress in Erfurt in 1891. Drafted under the political leadership of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, and with theorist Karl Kautsky as its principal author, the program officially committed the SPD to Marxism. It was the first and most prominent in a series of similar Marxist-inspired platforms adopted by socialist parties across Europe.

The program represented a stark break from its predecessor, the Gotha Program of 1875, by rejecting the Lassallean idea of achieving socialism through state aid. Instead, it declared the impending death of capitalism and the necessity of class struggle. The program was divided into two parts. The first, the "maximalist" section, outlined the unalterable principles of a socialist transformation based on Marxist theory. The second, "minimalist" section, detailed a series of practical legislative goals to be pursued within the existing framework of the German Empire.

Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht (German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈliːpknɛçt] ; 29 March 1826 – 7 August 1900) was a German social democratic politician, journalist, and a principal founder of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). His political career was a pioneering project in steering a Marxist-inspired workers' party to electoral success and mass membership. With his long-time political collaborator August Bebel, he was a leading figure in nineteenth-century German socialism. Liebknecht served as a member of the North German Reichstag from 1867 to 1871 and the German Reichstag from 1874 until his death in 1900.

Born in Giessen, Liebknecht was radicalized as a student and became an active participant in the 1848 Revolutions. After the defeat of the uprisings, he spent thirteen years in exile, first in Switzerland and then in London. In London, he became a close associate and student of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. After returning to Germany in 1862, he co-founded the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869 with Bebel. The party, known as the "Eisenachers", was established as a mass-based political party committed to a Marxist program.