From: jan.vindheim@gmail.com   
      
   Pete Bayle  wrote:   
      
   > jan.vindheim@gmail.com (jan bojer vindheim) wrote:   
      
   > > The term Social Democrat has changed its contents several times over.   
   > >   
   > > The Social Democratic parties that hold such significant power in   
   > > today's Europe are seveal generations removed from the social democrats   
   > > a hundred years ago.   
   > >   
   > > The Norwegian labour party once followed Lenin into Komintern, it now   
   > > negotiates international free trade with it's equals.   
   >   
   > Thanks, and I understand that - the changes.   
   >   
   > And I know that those of us in the US don't have good reference points   
   > for the term.   
   >   
   > But what I am trying to understand and what I think would be valuable   
   > and crucial for understanding Orwell is what the term meant in   
   > Orwell's time and before, in it's various incarnations.   
      
   The term Social Democrat is tricky. In most of Europe it signifies the   
   majority parties of the labour movement, parties that shed their   
   revolutionary rhetoric and accepted parliamentary democracy. In the   
   multiparty parliaments of Scandinavia such parties held working   
   majorities from the mid 1930s and well into the 1970s.   
      
       
      
   > It also seems true that the Norwegian was the only major Western or   
   > Central European party to "partly" and "offically" participate in the   
   > Zimmerwald movement - the movement during the First World War that   
   > attempted to find a coherent middle path peace position between   
   > right-wing social democracy who supported the war and Lenin's   
   > "revolutionary demand for a split".  Zimmerwald was mostly the fringe   
   > groups, which later split off. (p 130)   
   >   
   > Many Scandinavian and other neutrals (Netherlands) had attempted to   
   > mediate during the war. Perhaps Norway's support for Zimmerwald   
   > suggests the move to the Komintern you point out.   
      
   The Norwegian Labour Party  (DNA) was taken over by a group with a   
   revolutionary syndicalist-like ideology ("the labour opposition") in   
   1911. Leader of this group was Martin Tranmael who had experience from   
   the IWW in the US. Under his guidance the party moved strongly to   
   the left, and alone among western social democratic parties joined the   
   Comintern, which led to a rightwing splitoff of "Social Democrats". When   
   the DNA left the Comintern a few years later (as word of the reality in   
   the worker's paradise leaked out) a large group split off to form the   
   Communist Party, whereupon Labour reabsorbed the  Social democrats and   
   went on the form two governments before the German inavsion in 1940, and   
   several more with a large majority, after 1945.   
   >   
   > Eley also claims that pre-1914 there were only 4 countries which had   
   > achieved his strict defintion of democracy. New Zealand(1893),   
   > Australia(1903), Finland(1906) and Norway(1913). He points out that if   
   > you relax women's suffrage you can add Switzerland and France.   
   >   
   > (Notice the claim of Norway achieving universal suffrage in 1913 and   
   > virtual universal suffrage by 1898 is the author's point. I don't know   
   > what the distinction is.)   
      
   The male vote lost its tie to a minimum tax payment in 1898, but women   
   did not get the vote until 1913.   
      
      
   > What seems clear is that there were different levels of cooperation   
   > between the Liberal bourgeiosie and the Social Democratic proletarians   
   > in the various countries, which makes the class war rhetoric sound   
   > different to different ears.   
   >   
   > For the most part reform seems to have won the day over revolution   
   > until the dislocation of the 1914-18. Therefore the argument of the   
   > status of Orwell is an old argument that had continually marginalized   
   > the more radical view - i.e. Orwell's opponents within the left - at   
   > least until sometime in the 20s.   
      
   The point is that even  before 1900 Social Democrat could mean several   
   diffent things.  The marxist revolutionary tendencies used the label   
   social democrat: The russian social democrats after 1900 split in two   
   factions, bolsheviks and mensheviks.   
      
   The label "communist" later came to signify parties and groups that   
   kept their revolutionary ideology, while the mainstream labour parties   
   took along the label "social democrat" into the cosy atmosphere of   
   multiparty parlaments.   
      
   In the 1920s it was still possible to consider yourself a social   
   democrat while scorning the "petit borugeois   
   parliamentarianist illusions", During the 1930s this became impossible,   
   as  the revolutionaries adapted the label "communist" and the reformists   
   took the label "Social democrat".   
      
   However even today revolutionaries of various kinds prefer to work   
   within the reformist social democrat parties, especially in the UK with   
   its antiquated two-party system.  The Labour Party regularly runs purges   
   againts trotskyites and other entrists.   
      
   Most social democratic parties keep the structure and discipline that   
   was established in their revolutionary youth, which makes such purges   
   possible.   
      
   --   
   jan bojer vindheim   
   http://vindheim.net   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)