Serbian Social Democratic Party (Kingdom of Serbia)

The Serbian Social Democratic Party (Serbian: Српска социјалдемократска партија, romanized: Srpska socijaldemokratska partija; abbr. ССДП or SSDP), also known simply as the Serbian Socialist Party^[2] was a left-wing political party in Kingdom of Serbia that was formed in 1903. Prominent leaders included Dimitrije Tucović, Dragiša Lapčević, and Dušan A. Popović.^[3]

Serbian Social Democratic Party Српска социјалдемократска партија
Leader	Dragiša Lapčević Dimitrije Tucović Dušan A. Popović
Founded	2 August 1903
Dissolved	25 April 1919
Merged into	SRPJ(k)
Newspaper	Radničke novine (The Workers' Journal)
Ideology	Social democracy Marxism Antimilitarism[1]
Political position	Left-wing to far-left
International affiliation	Second International
Party flag
Politics of Serbia Political parties Elections

Members of the party shown at a May Day celebration in 1905.

The party was organized around a paper called Radničke novine (the Workers' Journal)

It ceased to exist after World War I with the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, when in 1919 the social democrats joined the new Socialist Workers' Party of Yugoslavia (of Communists) (Socijalistička radnička partija Jugoslavije (komunista)), the predecessor of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

History

The Serbian Social Democratic Party was founded on 2 August 1903 in Belgrade. The founding congress adopted a program modeled after the Erfurt Program of the German Social Democratic Party.^[4]

In 1903 a split emerged within the SSDP between the Marxists, led by Radovan Dragović and Dimitrije Tucović, and the so-called "opportunists", who insisted on the primacy of trade unionism over political struggle. In December 1904 the opportunists were expelled from the party.

In 1909 and 1910 the Marxist wing struggled against the anarcho-syndicalist wing.

The SSDP participated in the First Balkan Socialist Conference held on 7–9 January 1910 in Belgrade.

At the outbreak of World War I the Social Democratic deputies to the National Assembly refused to vote for war credits. The mobilization and the Austro-Hungarian occupation of the Kingdom of Serbia from October 1915 weakened the SSDP. During the revolutionary upswing that occurred in Serbia under the influence of the October Revolution, the SSDP merged with the Socialist Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia (of Communists) at the latter’s first (Unification) Congress, held in April 1919.

Electoral performance

Year	Popular vote	% of popular vote	# of seats	Seat change	Government
1903	2,627	0.99%	1 / 160	1	opposition
1905	2,571	0.87%	2 / 160	1	opposition
1906	3,381	0.91%	1 / 160	1	opposition
1908	3,043	0.76%	1 / 160		opposition
1912	24,665	5.37%	2 / 166	1	opposition

References

1. "Republika - Glasilo gradjanskog samooslobadjanja". www.republika.co.rs.
2. "Memorandum by the serbian socialis party upon the conditions in occupied Serbia". Washington, D.C., Serbian press bureau. 1918.
3. Nyagulov, Blagovest (2014). "Early Socialism in the Balkans: Ideas and Practices in Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria". Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Vol. 2. Brill. p. 232.
4. "Latinka Perović, O istoriografiji i istoriji levice u Srbiji". www.helsinki.org.rs. Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia.

External links

• Foster, Samuel. (2018). Reviving the Völkerabfälle: The South Slavonic Left, Balkan Federalism and the Creation of the First Yugoslavia. Socialist History. 53:47-68. Retrieved 22 April 2020.