Erfurt Program

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Erfurt Program" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Erfurt Program
Ratified	1891
Location	Erfurt
Author(s)	August Bebel, Edward Bernstein, Karl Kautsky
Signatories	Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the SPD Congress at Erfurt in 1891. Drafted by theorists Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, the program set out a Marxist view and superseded the party's Gotha Program of 1875. The Erfurt Program identified private ownership of the means of production as the source of social ailments, and advocated a political struggle with the goal of achieving a social revolution and an equal society without class divisions. Before this could be achieved, the program advocated reforms including universal suffrage, freedoms of speech and association, gender equality, separation of church and state, free education and medicine, and a progressive income tax. It also demanded labor protections including an eight-hour working day and the prohibition of child labor. The Erfurt Program was SPD's official program until 1921, when it was replaced by the Görlitz Program [de].