Pieter Jelles Troelstra (1860-1930) was a Dutch politician active in the socialist workers' movement. He is most remembered for his fight for universal suffrage and his failed call for revolution at the end of World War I. Troelstra was married from 1888 until 1907 to Sjoukje Bokma de Boer, who was a well-known children's book writer under the pen name of Nynke van Hichtum .
Biography
Early career
Troelstra was born in Leeuwarden on April 20, 1860 as the son of a liberal tax inspector. He went to read law at the University of Groningen. When he was finished he settled in Leeuwarden as a lawyer. He got into contact with politics and the workers' movement through a Frisian movement, later to be known as the Friese Volkspartij (Frisian Popular Party). He had originally joined this movement because of his poetry and interest in the Frisian language. Through the movement and his work as a lawyer, he got into the social-democratic part of this wide movement.
Involvement with the SDB
In 1890, Troelstra joined the Sociaal-Democratische Bond (Social-Democratic Union, SDB), an early Dutch socialist movement under the leadership of Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis. In time, he got into conflict with the anarchist tendencies of the movement. When in 1893 the SDB took a decisive anti-parliamentary stance, Troelstra no longer believed it could do any useful socialist work.
Founding of the SDAP
After trying to get some members of the SDB to join him, he was one of the twelve men who started the Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiders Partij (Social-Democratic Workers' Party, SDAP) in 1894. Unlike the old SDB, the SDAP was more like its German counterpart, then still also named the SDAP, which was taking a more reformist course, trying to get social law implemented, while still keeping the ideal of revolution up.
Troelstra's biggest political issue was universal suffrage in the Netherlands. This struggle reached its climax in 1910-1913. After electoral succes, the SDAP under Troelstra's leadership was offered a place in the coalition governement in 1913. This proposed coalition had plans for universal suffrage but Troelstra was forced to decline the offer by a party meeting that did not feel for cooperation with its traditional enemy. Universal suffrage did came to be in the Netherlands in 1917, under the leadership of the conservative-confessional cabinet of Cort van der Linden .
Proclamation of the socialist revolution
Inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the German Revolution, Troelstra made one of the moves that would guarantee him a place in parliamentary history: the proclamation of the socialist revolution (1918). Because the revolution would not stop at the border, he suggested that power be transferred to the SDAP. Unfortunately for him, the Dutch did not really feel like a revolution. Although he could defend the position that the party had never had actual plans for a coup, his reputation had taken irreperable damage. The SDAP would not be re-invited to form a government until the national cabinet of 1939.
Despite this, he was seen as a inspirational figure for many in the Dutch workers' movement by the time he withdrew from politics, in 1925. He died on May 12, 1930 in The Hague.
