Social Democracy

Social Democracy (, SOCDEM), known as the Czech Social Democratic Party (, ČSSD) until 10 June 2023, is a social-democratic political party in the Czech Republic. Sitting on the centre-left of the political spectrum and holding pro-European views, it is a member of the Party of European Socialists, the Socialist International, and the Progressive Alliance. Masaryk Democratic Academy is the party-affiliated's think tank. The ČSSD was a junior coalition party within Andrej Babiš' Second Cabinet's minority government from June 2018, and was a senior coalition party from 1998 to 2006 and from 2013 to 2017. It held 15 seats in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic following the 2017 Czech legislative election in which the party lost 35 seats. From 2018 to 2021, the party was led by Jan Hamáček, who has since been replaced by Michal Šmarda as leader after the 2021 Czech legislative election, in which the party lost all of its seats after falling below 5%. History The Social Democratic Czechoslavonic party in Austria was a political group founded on 7 April 1878 in Austria-Hungary as a regional wing of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. Founded in Břevnov atop earlier social democratic initiatives, such as the Ouls, it represented much of the Kingdom of Bohemia in the Austrian parliament, and its significant role in the political life of the empire was one of the factors that led to the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, the party became one of the leading parties of the first Czechoslovak Republic. Its members were split over whether to join the Comintern, which in 1921 resulted in the fracturing of the party, with a large part of its membership then forming the new Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.