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 born 20 April 1860 in Leeuwarden and grew up in the village of Stiens, where his father was a liberal tax inspector.

In 1890, Troelstra joined the Social Democratic League (SDB), an early Dutch socialist movement under the leadership of Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis.

From around 1903 he and Henri Polak[1] edited the Sociale Bibliotheek book series, whose publisher in 1914 was the Commissie voor de Schriftelijke Propaganda Brochurenhandel S.D.A.P.

Although the evidence against the brothers was shaky at best, they were nonetheless sentenced to lengthy prison terms, leading to accusations of class justice [nl] (legal discrimination based on wealth or education).

Troelstra was the member of parliament for the district of Leeuwarden, close to the men's village of Beetgum, and was drawn into the case after the brothers' conviction.

However, the socialists felt a moral advantage because parliament was hardly an accurate representation of the people, and they used their possibilities to the full, among other things by filibustering (each representative had unlimited speaking time).

When, in 1911 a majority of parliament refused to vote on an SDAP motion, the anger of the party was expressed by one of its most fiery speakers, Jan Schaper [nl]: In that case, the inkwells will fly through the room....

The proposed coalition had plans for universal suffrage, but a party congress renounced such a close co-operation with its traditional enemy.

Universal suffrage was eventually steered through parliament in 1917, by the liberal minority cabinet of Pieter Cort van der Linden.

He withdrew from politics in 1925 and devoted much time, despite ever declining health, to dictating his memoirs to his secretary, the later Amsterdam alderman Herman Bernard Wiardi Beckman [nl].

These memoirs (Gedenkschriften), which appeared in four volumes (Genesis, Growth, Surf and Storm) after 1925, almost became part of the furniture in the houses of many Dutch workers, further testimony to Troelstra's reputation among his followers.