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In 1934, the Social Democratic Party adopted a new party program, “Denmark for the People”, which was to be the party’s response to the crises and political unrest of the 1930s. The program was the preliminary culmination of the Social Democratic Party’s shift from class party to people’s party.
By: Henning Grelle and H.U. Petersen
About Denmark for the People
At the 21st Congress of the Social Democratic Party in Copenhagen in June 1931, it was decided to set up a committee to review the 1913 program of principles. A new program was to be ready before the next congress and approved by it.
A few days after the congress, Stauning announced that 16 prominent ministers and members of parliament had been elected to the program committee. They were supplemented with people from the party, the trade union movement and the cooperative movement. Hans Hansen (later Hedtoft) became secretary of the program committee.
Almost three years later, Stauning presented the program Denmark for the People at an executive board meeting on 23 May, where it was adopted after a short debate.
Denmark for the People was written by Stauning and was therefore not considered by the program committee set up in 1931. The explanation for this was first given in a report to the party congress in June 1935. It urged the congress to support Denmark for the People, which focused on the immediate practical tasks to be solved, rather than drafting a new program of principles at a time when social developments and political conditions were unstable.
The recognition of the changes in world development thus indicated naturally justifies putting theories and programs to the test, for what once seemed fixed and unchangeable has long since been subject to the law of transformation.
Whether the transformation is complete, however, is still uncertain, and it is therefore appropriate to wait with the formulation of principles and programs until society has assumed forms that show more firmness.
The Social Democratic Party needed popular support for an expansion of the people’s government and a solution to the economic problems, not least in agriculture. From the south, the growing Nazism in the east was threatening dictatorship. The bulwark was an intimate collaboration in Denmark as a nation, a collaboration between workers and farmers and capital and labor.
Through Denmark for the People, the Social Democratic Party wanted to take the lead and bridge the differences into open cooperation. Together with songs, films and books, Denmark for the People became one of the best-known party programs in Denmark.
Sources
In the archive and library collection, there is also Social Democratic material that sheds light on the political context of the program. We have digitized and transcribed some of it and put it here for free use.
Denmark for the People, the Social Democratic Party’s program from 1934.
Th. Stauning: Denmark for the People. Socialdemokratiets Nutids-Program (The Socialist 7/1934)
The Workers and the Crisis, AOF 1934.
Collection of material from AOF containing a number of texts about the work on the new program (the complete publication).
Ib Kolbjørn: The People for Denmark. The Workers and the Nation, Arbejderungdommens Forlag, 1935
Denmark for the People, AOF 1936.
Sheet music for “Denmark for the People” with lyrics by Oskar Hansen and music by Oskar Gyldmark.
DKP: Program and Practice. In front of the Social Democratic Congress, Kommunistisk Tidsskrift 1935.
Literature
Bertolt, Oluf: En bygning vi rejser : den politiske arbeiderbevægelses historie i Danmark. Kbh. : Fremad, 1954-1955. Volume 2
Bryld, Claus: Det danske socialdemokrati og revisionismen : en analyse af socialdemokratisk samfundsforståelse, strategi og taktik før 2. verdenskrig med udgangspunkt i forholdet til marxismen og revisionismen. Kbh. 1979.
Planned economy and popular front : about Social Democracy and DKP in the interwar period / [by] Jørgen Bloch-Poulsen, Hans Erik Avlund Frandsen and Morten Thing. Kbh 1979.
Socialdemokratiet og krisen i 30’erne / [By] Karin Hansen and Lars Torpe. Århus 1977.
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