Social Democratic Party of Romania (1910-1918)
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Social Democratic Party of Romania
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| Founded | 1910 |
| Dissolved | 1916 |
| Succeeded by | Socialist Party of Romania |
| Ideology |
Social democracy Socialism Marxism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| International affiliation | Second International |
The Social Democratic Party of Romania (Romanian: Partidul Social Democrat din România, or Partidul Social Democrat, PSD) was a Marxist social-democratic political party in Romania. A member of the Second International, the party was active between 1910 and 1916, when it was banned. Clandestine groups continued underground activity until 1918, when the end of World War I allowed the party to re-emerge as a legal political group, rechristened Socialist Party of Romania.
Founded in 1910 at the initiative of the Socialist Union of Romania, a loose alliance of socialist clubs formed across Romania around the magazine România Muncitoare, it also acted as the political wing of the local trade union movement. The party viewed itself as a successor to the Romanian Social Democratic Workers' Party, the latter having disbanded in April 1899 after a conflict between its reformist wing (deemed "generoșii" - "the generous ones"), which left in order to join the National Liberal Party, and the Marxist groups. Appealing to a relatively small working class population, whose political power was further restricted by the income-based voting system, the PSD was unable to attain any major electoral success. Nevertheless, it led an active campaign for better working conditions, land reform and peace.
The party's anti-militarist stance led it to condemn both Romania's participation in the Second Balkan War and, after the start of World War I, the social patriotic stance of Western social-democratic parties. Accordingly, it proposed a federalist solution for the complicated ethnic situation in the Balkans, and, after some internal debates, joined the Zimmerwald movement. Neutral at first, by 1916 Romania's government was increasingly open to participation in the war on the Entente side, and decided to crack down on the socialist movement, brutally repressing a pacifist demonstration in Galați in June. The PSD was banned outright when the country declared war on the Central Powers later that year.
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