Eisenacher

a member of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany, which was founded under the leadership of A. Bebel and W. Liebknecht at an all-German workers’ congress in the city of Eisenach in August 1869. Although based on the revolutionary principles of the First International, the party’s program contained certain imprecisely formulated propositions. According to the party’s charter, democratic centralism was the basic organizing principle of the party.

The Eisenachers defended the line of the First International in the international working-class movement, and they supported the movement’s Marxist wing. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, they adopted an internationalist position and declared their solidarity with the Paris Commune. The Eisenachers were staunch advocates of the unification of Germany by revolutionary means, and they carried on a struggle against the militarist police regime.

At a congress in Gotha in 1875, the Eisenachers and the Las-salleans united to form a single party of the working class (seeSOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY).