Editing Otto von Bismarck (section)

===Socialism===
{{See also|State Socialism (Germany)}}

Bismarck viewed the growing international socialist movement and the non-violent German [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic Party (SDP)]], in particular, with alarm. Since the SDP's existence was protected by the terms of the German constitution, Bismarck found ways to weaken it, short of an outright ban. In 1878, he instituted the first of a series of repressive [[Anti-Socialist Laws]] forbidding socialist organisations and meetings, outlawing trade unions, closing newspapers, and banning the circulation of socialist literature. The SPD continued to take part in the elections, but police officers were now empowered to stop, search, and arrest SDP members and their leaders, numbers of whom were then tried by police courts (one-way socialists used to get around these harsh measures was to run as independent candidates, unaffiliated with any party). Despite, or possibly because of the laws, the SDP steadily gained supporters and seats in the Reichstag.

During the 1880s, Bismarck also tried to win the allegiance of the working classes to the conservative regime by implementing positive social benefits, such as accident and old-age insurance, as well as pioneering a form of socialised medicine{{snd}}reforms which are now grouped under the label [[State Socialism (Germany)|State Socialism]]. Bismarck himself called it that, in addition to referring to them as "practical Christianity":
<blockquote>The whole problem is rooted in the question: does the state have the responsibility to care for its helpless fellow citizens, or does it not? I maintain that it does have this duty, and to be sure, not simply the Christian state, as I once permitted myself to allude to with the words "practical Christianity", but rather every state by its very nature. ... There are objectives that only the state in its totality can fulfil. [...] Among the last mentioned objectives [of the state] belong national defence [and] the general system of transportation. [...] To these belong also the help of persons in distress and the prevention of such justified complaints as in fact provide excellent material for exploitation by the Social Democrats. That is the responsibility of the state from which the state will not be able to withdraw in the long run. [https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/429_BismarckWorker's%20Comp_130.pdf . Bismarck's Reichstag Speech on the Law for Workmen's Compensation", p. 4 (15 March 1884)]</blockquote>

Yet, notwithstanding these strategies, Bismarck did not completely succeed in crushing socialism. Support for the SDP increased with each election.