Social Democracy of America

The Social Democracy of America was a short lived political party in the Old United States. The party sought to create a socialist colony in the Western United States and use the resulting community as a foothold to take political power nationwide. These initial plans were later to be found unrealistic, and ultimately scrapped. Aimless, the unionist wing of the party, led by Eugene Debs, formed close ties with the Socialist Labor Party and eventually voted to dissolve the organization and merge with the SLP. Dissident delegates lead by Victor Berger would break off and form the somewhat longer lived Social Democratic Party of America, a reformist socialist party that co-operated with progressive Republicans before being overshadowed by the SLP, eventually merging with it in 1908.

Formation
Following the defeat of the 1894 Pullman strike, the former Populist Eugene Debs converted to socialism, believing that union building alone was no longer enough to liberate the working class. At the same time, Debs was nominated as president of Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth, a political organization that sought to build various socialist colonies in an undecided Western state, allowing the state's legislature to be captured electorally and establish a foothold for socialism in America. Seeing the opportunity for the formation of a new socialist organization, Debs called a congress of what remained of the ARU, closing the organization's affairs and reorganizing and renaming the body to Social Democracy of America, adopting a Declaration of Principles endorsing industrial unionism and opening the congress to other socialist parties, including the Socialist Labor Party and it's Socialist and Trade Labor Alliance.

Operations and Dissolution
Social Democracy of America proved to be a short lived coalition of Marxists, trade union veterans, utopian socialists and former populists, along with other radicals. A three man Colonization Committee failed to locate a suitable location to establish a community, with plans regarding the purchase of a gold mine in Colorado falling through. Meanwhile, diplomatic outreach to the Socialist Labor Party had been fruitful, with Daniel DeLeon recognizing the importance of a reconstituted ARU within the STLA, and Debs the importance of the working class organizations the SLP had built over it's two decades of operating history. The organization would split during the second Congress, with Deb's Marxists and trade unionists seeking to merge the small party into the SLP, while dissident reformists led by Victor Berger protested the SLP's ambivalent attitude to political reform. Deb's faction carried the day, however, and on June 14th, 1898, the National Convention of Social Democracy of America voted to merge with the SLP.

Berger's faction would break with the organization, instead forming his own Social Democratic Party of America in October of the same year in Milwaukee. The SDPA would last for ten years, seeing some successes in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and co-operating across the aisle with progressive members of the Republican Party. Ultimately, however, the SLP would eclipse the SDPA, which would reconcile with the SLP over the course of 1908, forming a coalition for that year's election. A few months later, convinced of the logic of industrial unionism, the SDPA would fold into the SLP.