The Social Democratic Workers' Party (, SDAP) was a Dutch socialist political party existing from 1894 to 1946, and a predecessor of the social democratic Labour Party. History 1893–1904 The SDAP was founded by members of the Social Democratic League (SDB) after a conflict between anarchist and reformist factions. During the SDB party conference of 1893 in Groningen, a majority voted to stop participating in the elections. They were afraid that the parliamentary work would drift the socialists away from what socialism was really about. A minority of members led by Pieter Jelles Troelstra tried to prevent this, and later left the party in order to create a new party. The foundation of a new party was controversial within the socialist movement, because Troelstra was seen as a bourgeois force who had destroyed the unity of the SDB and the socialist movement. When the anarchist elements began to take full control of the SDB, important regional social democratic figures joined the group around Troelstra. Together they formed a group called "the twelve apostles". The twelve apostles nearly all came from the provinces of Friesland and Groningen or from large cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and most were intellectual-type men like teacher, vicar or lawyer. That's why SDB-members and other socialists mockingly called the SDAP not a workers' party but a teachers' (Dutch: Schoolmeesters), vicars (Dutch: Dominees) and lawyers (Dutch: Advocaten) party still forming the acronym SDAP. The party was founded in Zwolle in 1894. The party programme was a literal translation of the Erfurt Program of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Both parties believed in an imminent revolution which would make an end to suffering and inequality between classes and between men and women. The parliamentary work was only seen as a means to help the workers before the revolution would set off. In the first years the SDAP was a small party, searching for the best way to organise itself. It received a lot of help, both financial and organisational, from the German SPD. In 1894 the International recognised the SDAP as the labour party. The SDAP was open for other socialist organisations, such as labour unions to associate themselves with the party. In 1896, Cornélie Huygens became the first female member of the SDAP, and the first woman in the Netherlands to be a member of a political party. She was known as the "Red Lady".