The SPD got 16.4% of the vote and 121 seats in the German Elections on Sunday. It was reported to be the worst result for the party since 1887.
Below is the commentary of Engels on the 1887 result
Some qualification is required. The SPD of 1887 was a socialist party aiming at peacefully getting rid of capitalism and it was influenced by Marx and Engels. In 2025 neither is the case.
The 1887 Election took place under Bismarck’s anti-socialist law which aimed to make it very difficult for the SPD to operate without completely banning them.
In that Election the SPD got 10.1% of the vote up from 9.7% in 1884. However they ended up with 11 seats whereas they had previously had 24.
Engels was right to focus on the importance of the increasing number of votes for the SPD rather than seats. In the 1890 Election the SPD got 19.75% of the vote and 35 seats. Bismarck scrapped the anti-socialist law as it clearly was not working
We have good reason to be satisfied with the elections in Germany.
The increase in the number of votes is marvellous, especially consider-
ing how much pressure is being exerted not only by the government but
also by the industrialists who, wherever feasible, presented the workers
with the choice either of being dismissed or of voting compulsorily for
a Bismarckian. I fear this will again be in evidence in the second ballot,
the results of which are not yet known over here. The Pope is forbid-
ding Catholics to vote for us, the men of Progress voluntarily prefer a
Bismarckian to a Socialist, while the industrialists exercise outright
coercion—so if in these circumstances we capture one or two more
seats it will be a victory truly won. But it’s not the number of seats
that matter, only the statistical demonstration of the party’s irresistible
growth.
Engels to Sorge 3rd March 1887
Bismarck did not “scrap” the Anti-Socialist Law. It expired after he failed to persuade the Reichstag to make it permanent, and the SPD got its largest vote yet in the election a month later. This was one of the things that led to his resignation.
noted!