Groepsportret SDP, Afdeling Rotterdam, Congres, 1911

Social Democratic Party of the Netherlands was founded on March 14, 1909, as a breakaway from the Dutch Social Democratic Workers' Party. In 1907 tensions arose within the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) between revolutionary Marxists grouped around ''De Tribune'' (The Tribune) and the leadership of the SDAP, who were more oriented towards more a revisionist ideology and a

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

ary and

reformist Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can ...

political strategy. As

Jan Ceton Jan Ceton (13 May 1875, Bodegraven – 21 January 1943, Amerongen) was a Dutch left-wing politician involved with both the Social Democratic Workers' Party and the Communist Party of the Netherlands. Ceton is best known as one of the founders of th ...

Willem van Ravesteyn Willem van Ravesteyn (Rotterdam, 15 October 1876 – Rotterdam, 10 June 1970) was a Dutch Communist politician and historian. Ravesteyn studied history at the University of Leiden and was involved in setting up the local branch of the Dutch Soc ...

and

David Wijnkoop David Joseph Wijnkoop (11 March 1876 – 7 May 1941) was a Dutch people, Dutch Communism, communist leader in the first half of the twentieth century. Life He was the eldest son of Rabbi Joseph Wijnkoop and Dientje Milia Nijburg. At the Barl ...

and other participants in ''De Tribune'' increasingly criticized the leadership of the SDAP. At a party congress in Deventer held on February 14, 1909 the leadership of the SDAP demanded that they stop publishing ''De Tribune'' or be expelled from the party. Wijnkoop and Ceton refused and they and their supporters, including the poet

Herman Gorter Herman Gorter (26 November 1864, Wormerveer – 15 September 1927, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels) was a Dutch poet and socialist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, a highly influential group of Dutch writers who worked together in ...

and the mathematician

Gerrit Mannoury Gerrit Mannoury (17 May 1867 – 30 January 1956) was a Dutch philosopher and mathematician, professor at the University of Amsterdam and communist, known as the central figure in the signific circle, a Dutch counterpart of the Vienna circle.J ...

, left to form a breakaway party. This split was the first such split in Western European European Socialist parties, although others followed. There had already been a split between the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

and

Mensheviks The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions em ...

in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and with the break away Tesnjaki group which broke from the

Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party The Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party ( bg, Българска работническа социалдемократическа партия, translit=Bŭlgarska rabotnicheska sotsialdemokraticheska partiya; BRSDP) was a Bulgarian leftis ...

. On March 14, 1909 the dissenters founded a new party called the Social-Democratic Party (SDP). They had a membership of around 400 spread across different cities:

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

(160),

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

(65),

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

(45),

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...

(56),

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

(25),

Bussum Bussum () is a commuter town and former municipality in the Gooi region in the south east of the province of North Holland in the Netherlands near Hilversum. Since 2016, Bussum has been part of the new municipality of Gooise Meren. Bussum had ...

(15). In the 1910s the SDAP paid much attention to attacking the newly formed SDP. The mobilization for the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, which the SDAP supported and the SDP opposed, further strengthened the differences between the parties. In the 1917 elections the SDP was still unable to win any seats. In May 1918 the Left Wing founded the journal ''De Internationale'', uniting four opposition groups within the SDP, with groups in

and

plus the Zimmerwald Left Propaganda Union. This group did not favour the

parliamentarianism Parliamentary sovereignty, also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy, is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over al ...

of the majority. In 1918 the party contested the July elections. In November became the

Communist Party of the Netherlands The Communist Party of the Netherlands ( nl, Communistische Partij Nederland, , CPN) was a Dutch communist party. The party was founded in 1909 as the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) and merged with the Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Part ...

References

{{reflist Defunct socialist parties in the Netherlands Political parties established in 1909 1909 establishments in the Netherlands Political parties disestablished in 1918 1918 disestablishments in the Netherlands