Germany's two separate labor parties, both threatened…

Germany's two separate labor parties, both threatened by Bismarck's policies, unite to form the 
Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (German: Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SAPD) at a congress in Gotha from May 22-27, where fifty-five SDAP delegates have joined seventy-three ADAV delegates.

The resultant Gotha Program is a mixture of socialist and liberal capitalist ideas.

Though it largely satisfies the conventioneers, the new policies will be denounced by Karl Marx himself in the scathing essay Critique of the Gotha Program (1875).

Marx had sent programmatic suggestions to the Gotha Congress, but the newly united socialist party adopts an essentially Lassallean policy.