Yugoslav Social Democratic Party

Yugoslav Social Democratic Party

 

(Jugoslavenska Socijalnodemokratična Stranka, YSDP), founded in 1896 in Lju bljana, Slovenia. Although it was intended to unite the socialists of all the Yugoslav (South Slav) lands of Austria-Hungary, the Yugoslav Social Democratic Party actually functioned only in Slovenia, Dalmatia, and Istria. In 1897 it was admitted into the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDPA) and was guided by the SDPA’s Hainfeld Program (1889). In the early 20th century the leaders of the YSDP, notably E. Kristan, essentially subscribed to the tenets of Austro-Marxism, including the theory of cultural-national autonomy (seeCULTURAL-NATIONAL AUTONOMY).

The Tenth Congress of the YSDP, held in 1917, hailed the victory of the October Revolution in Russia, under whose influence the party’s revolutionary wing gained strength. The left-wing Social Democrats joined with the Socialist Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia (Communists) in April 1920, and the reformists merged with the Socialist Party of Yugoslavia in 1921.