The Anti-Socialist Laws or Socialist Laws (German: Sozialistengesetze; officially Gesetz gegen die gemeingefährlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie, "Law against the public danger of social democratic endeavors") was an act of the Reichstag of the German Empire passed on 19 October 1878. After its original two-and-a-half year term had been extended four times, it was allowed to lapse on 30 September 1890. Its many provisions and extensions have led to it frequently being referred to in the plural even though it was a single law. Proposed and vigorously backed by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the law banned socialist, social democratic and communist associations and prohibited meetings and publications whose purpose was the overthrow of the existing state and social order. It led to a large number of arrests and expulsions and to social democratic activities going underground or abroad. Since it did not affect electoral laws, men with known social democratic backgrounds could run as independents and if elected speak freely in the Reichstag or a state's Landtag under the protection of parliamentary immunity. The law did not accomplish its goal of suppressing social democracy even after Bismarck, in an attempt to win voters away from the workers' movement, introduced a number of social insurance programs that were groundbreaking for their time. Solidarity among workers increased, and votes for social democratic candidates to the Reichstag more than quadrupled to over 1.4 million during the life of the law. The Reichstag's failure to extend the law in 1890 played a significant role in Bismarck being forced to resign as chancellor of Germany. Source: Wikipedia (en)