At the time of the death of Engels in August 1895, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) represented the highest expression of the class-conscious working class organized as a political party achieved up to that time. Not only did the SPD enjoy the support of a large and growing sector of the German working class, it was a party avowedly based on Marxist ideas. As a result, it was the leading party of the Socialist International, also known as the Second International.