August Bebel

August Bebel (1840-1913), German writer and political leader. Born in Deutz, near Cologne, Bebel settled in Leipzig in 1860 as a journeyman lathe operator. Almost immediately he identified himself with the socialist movement among the working classes. In 1867 he was elected chairman of the permanent committee of the German workingmen's unions; later the same year he was sent to the North German Diet as a member of the Saxon People's party. In 1869, at the Eisenach Congress, he collaborated in founding the German Social Democratic Workers' Party, which was closely affiliated with the International Workingmen's Association, the First International established in London by Karl Marx. The German Social Democratic Workers’ Party merged with the General German Workers' Union, founded by Ferdinand Lassalle, to form the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1875.

In 1871 Bebel became a member of the new German parliament, the Reichstag, in which he served almost continuously until his death. Bebel was imprisoned from 1872 to 1874 and again in 1886, convicted of treason against the German emperor. His forthright antimilitarism and devotion to progressive social measures earned him the enmity of the German chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck. After 1890 Bebel lived in Berlin, known as an effective orator and the most influential member of his party, which he watched grow until in 1912 it gained a majority of the Reichstag. He was editor of the socialist periodical Vorwärts (Forward). His works include Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg (The Peasants' War, 1876), Die Frau und der Socializmus (Woman and Socialism, 1879; trans. 1910), Charles Fourier (1888), and Aus mein Leben (My Life, 1910; trans. 1912).