Video: Was the German Election a Turning Point?

LeftStreamed, November 13, 2009:
Finance, Class and Politics in the European Economic Crisis: Was the German Election a Turning Point?

As a result of the recent German elections, Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was leading a coalition government with the social democratic SPD (Social Democratic Party) since 2005, will also lead Germany's next government, this time with support from the liberal FDP (Free Democratic Party). Though the social democrats expected that their party, the SPD, would continue the downward trend that began with the 2002 elections and continued in 2005, the loss of 11.2% of the vote came as a shock. The 23.0% they received in this year's election was even lower than the 29.2% with which the SPD started their electoral performance in post-war (West) Germany.

The 11.9% for the Left Party (Die Linke) does not look too impressive numerically, but it does signify the establishment of the party as a constant factor in Germany's political system. Considering that the party was only founded as a merger of East Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and West-German SPD dissidents in 2007, this is a remarkable achievement that indicates the desire for a left voice in the parliamentary arena.

At this point, the Left Party is the only party in opposition to the restoration of neoliberalism. It would also be the key point of coalescing if any further rightwing turn in German politics occurs. From this angle, the significance of the electoral boost of the Left Party lies less in increased presence in parliament. It lies in the stabilization of a political force that began, however vaguely, to advocate alternatives to neoliberalism at a time when that doctrine still seemed to be the only way of economic and social development. Whether the Left Party is ready to live up to these openings is an entirely different question. It is also possible that the party gets torn apart between the temptation of occupying government positions and building the base for independent working class political action, or even a wider rebellion.

These issues served as the basis for a roundtable discussion of Die Linke and the coming period of struggle in Germany over exit strategies to the financial crisis.

Click here to view the video and other useful resources.

Germany: Big gains for Die Linke as Social Democrats’ support collapses

via Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal:

By Duroyan Fertl

October 5, 2009 – Germany’s ``centre-right’’ Chancellor Angela Merkel was returned to power in federal elections held on September 27, but with a record low voter turnout and an increased vote for the far-left party, Die Linke (The Left).

The election was a clear success for Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Her preferred coalition partner – the free-market fundamentalist Free Democratic Party (FDP) – increased its support by 4.8 per cent to an all-time high of 14.6 per cent, enough to form a CDU-FDP government. The FDP will now replace the CDU’s main rival – the ``centre-left’’ Social Democratic Party (SPD) – as coalition partner in the government of Europe’s largest economy.

At the same time, the SPD’s support collapsed by more than 6 million votes, dropping a massive11.2 per cent to only 23 per cent – its worst result since World War II. As one leading SPD member pointed out on election night, “We have been bombed back into the Weimar Republic”. SPD leader Walter Steinmeier described the result as “a bitter day” for German social democracy.

However, while the result has been widely characterised as a shift to the right, that view is not really borne out by the results. The total vote for the centre-right parties rose by only 3.4 per cent, while the vote for the neo-Nazi New Democratic Party (NPD) dropped to just over 1 per cent, while the total left vote dropped by only 5.4 per cent.

Voter turnout slumps

The election campaign was one of the dullest ever run, with the two major parties – CDU and SPD – being overly polite to each other, neither wanting to alienate voters or lose their chance of remaining in government.

In a televised “debate”, Steinmeier and Merkel acted like old chums, and the unofficial slogan of the entire campaign became “Yes we gähn” (“Yes we yawn”). As Dietmar Bartsch, Die Linke’s general secretary, explained: "It was a very boring affair. None of them were any good. It was exactly what we had expected."

After 11 years in government, presiding over increasing cuts to social welfare and rising poverty and unemployment, the SPD lost the confidence of many of its traditional supporters, and was barely able to distinguish its own neoliberal policies from those of its main rival during the election campaign.

The SPD’s support was also impacted by its refusal to consider going into coalition with the far-left Die Linke, making a vote for an SPD government essentially a vote for the status quo, and another “grand coalition” with the CDU.

Some disaffected SPD supporters shifted their votes to Die Linke or to the Greens, but millions simply stayed home, enjoying a last warm weekend before winter. In fact, the voter turnout was the worst in 60 years, down to 70.8 per cent from 77.7 per cent four years ago, and most of those voters were once SPD voters.

While the CDU managed to retain government, it also suffered a drop in its vote, down by 1.4 per cent to 33.8 per cent, also a record low. And while the CDU-FDP coalition won a slender majority in the Bundestag – the German parliament’s lower house – various left-wing parties still have a majority in the upper house (the Bundesrat),which is made up of representatives from state governments.

The new CDU-FDP government is expected to introduce widespread cuts to social spending, especially under the influence of the FDP. Although the more conservative CDU will temper the FDP’s neoliberal urges, the new government has promised to introduce tax cuts of up to 20 per cent, reduce public spending, reverse the phase out of nuclear reactors, increase the pension age to 67 and continue Germany’s military involvement in the occupation Afghanistan.

Die Linke

The real success stories of the elections were the minor parties. The big winner was the right-wing FDP, whose increased vote makes them the third-biggest party in parliament. The Greens also entered double figures for the first time in a federal election, with 10.7 per cent, and increasing its presence from 51 to 68 seats.

The far-left Die Linke – the newest party in Germany’s political landscape – won 10.9 per cent of the vote, an increase of 3.2 per cent on 2005. It is the first time in German history that a party to the left of the SPD has scored more than 10 per cent in an election. Die Linke’s representation in the Bundestag has increased from 54 to 76 MPs, 40 of whom are women.

Die Linke was formed in 2007 when the Party of Democratic Socialism (the successor to the former ruling Socialist Unity Party of the German Democratic Republic – ``East Germany’’) merged with the Electoral Alternative for Social Justice and Jobs (WASG) – a group of disillusioned SPD members, trade unionists and socialists formed in 2005 to oppose the right-wing policies of the SPD-Green coalition federal government of the time.

Since then. Die Linke has continued to increase in popularity despite a media scare campaign about the threat of “communism”. Die Linke’s election platform of improved social justice and public welfare, the introduction of a minimum wage, higher taxes for the rich, relaxing harsh unemployment laws and cutting greenhouse gases emissions by 90% by 2050 have resonated with an electorate suffering the effects of the economic crisis.

Unemployment is already more than 8 per cent and will continue to rise as Germany’s export-dependent economy tries to ride out the crisis. Well over 10 per cent of Germany’s population already lives below the poverty line.

While more than 80 per cent of the population is opposed to the war in Afghanistan, Die Linke is the only party calling for the removal of German troops.

In two years, Die Linke has now won seats in 10 of Germany’s 12 state parliaments. In the western state of Saarland, an SPD heartland and home to Die Linke spokesperson Oskar Lafontaine, the Die Linke won more than 21.3 percent of the vote in state elections in September, placing it just behind the SPD. In Bremen, Die Linke scored more than 14 per cent, and even in the conservative state of Bavaria Die Linke’s support more than doubled, reaching 6.5 per cent.

In the states of the former German Democratic Republic, Die Linke fared even better, becoming the second-biggest party in the region after the CDU, and well ahead of the SPD. Die Linke won more than 25 per cent support in a majority of eastern electorates, and leading members Gregor Gysi and Petra Pau won their seats in Berlin with nearly 50 per cent of the vote.

In state elections held on the same day as the federal poll, Die Linke also entered parliament for the first time in Schleswig-Holstein – winning 6 per cent of the vote and five seats in the legislature – while in the eastern state of Brandenburg, it received 27.2 per cent, just behind the SPD on 33 per cent.

Can the SPD move left?

The SPD’s disastrous results, and the increased support for Die Linke, mean the SPD leadership is under significant pressure to move the party to the left and work with Die Linke, or risk losing more support. Adding to that pressure, a recent survey found that more than 50 per cent of Germans think that socialism is a good idea, but had been badly applied.

Die Linke co-leaders Oskar Lafontaine and Gregor Gysi have both called upon the SPD to “re-social-democratise” in order to build a strong left-wing alliance against the new government. According to Die Linke’s deputy leader – and ex-SPD member – Klaus Ernst, if the SPD does not change “the last one out can turn off the light”.

This may not be as easy as time seems, however, as many SPD members still hold a visceral hatred for Lafontaine. As former chairperson of the SPD and former federal finance minister, Lafontaine is considered to be a “traitor” to the SPD. Lafontaine resigned from the SPD in 2005 in protest against anti-social policies of SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. He became a central leader of Die Linke, and an outspoken critic of both SPD policy and “finance capitalism” more generally.

So, while Die Linke has eclipsed the SPD in a number of state elections, and has indicated its willingness to enter coalitions with the SPD and the Greens to fight the looming attacks on public spending, in government as well as on the streets, it is unclear if the SPD will cooperate.

Only days after the federal election, the SPD in the eastern state of Thuringia refused to form a coalition with Die Linke – despite indicating it would do so during the election campaign. Although already in coalition with Die Linke in Berlin and Brandenburg, in Thuringia the SPD have chosen instead to work with the right-wing CDU.

There can be no guarantee, then, that the SPD will move quickly to the left or develop a coherent relationship with Die Linke, a situation which means that the social resistance to the new government’s spending cuts and reforms will be weakened.

Despite its significant gains, Die Linke is faced with a new series of challenges. As the clearest opposition voice and defender of social programs and public welfare, Die Linke must now find a way to relate to the millions of disillusioned SPD voters, and to organise the strongest possible response to the economic crisis and the pro-business policies of a right-wing government.

Das Ende der SPD?

Following the recent elections in Germany (more to follow), we thought this might be worth sharing...

Germany: Die Linke, Hesse and the `super election’ year

Oskar Lafontaine

By Duroyan Fertl, via LINKS - International Journal of Socialist Renewal

January 29, 2009 -- Germany kicked off a “super election year” on January 18 when voters in the western German state of Hesse returned to the polls for the second time in twelve months. The new election had become necessary after months of negotiations to form a coalition government collapsed late last year, when four parliamentary members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) rebelled against a plan to form government with the assistance of the far-left party, Die Linke.

The SPD had benefited in last year’s poll from voter rejection of the racist scapegoating and law-and-order politics of the ruling right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Prime Minister Roland Koch. Despite its vote, however, the SPD still lacked the numbers to form government, even with its preferred allies, the Green Party, and the SPD’s leader in Hesse, Andrea Ypsilanti, turned to Die Linke for support.

In the lead-up to the election, however, Ypsilanti had bowed to pressure from SPD hardliners and promised not to deal with the Die Linke. Many in the dominant right wing of the SPD have an almost irrational dislike of the left-wing party, partly fuelled by the fact that it formed in out of a fusion of the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS – the successor to the former East Germany or German Democratic Republic’s ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party) with the WASG (Electoral Alternative for Social Justice and Jobs) – a group made up of radical trade unionists and breakaways from the SPD, included former SPD chairperson Oskar Lafontaine.

Nevertheless, when neither the SPD nor the CDU were able to form government with their preferred alliance partners – the Greens for the SPD and the radical free-marketeers of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) for the CDU – Ypsilanti backflipped on her promise in order to win government, securing an agreement with the Greens and Die Linke, but losing support in her own party.

All attempts to form government having fallen through, the Hesse parliament was left with little choice but to dissolve itself, which it did on November 19, 2008, forcing new elections, and the left-leaning Ypsilanti was forced to step aside in disgrace, to be replaced as candidate with Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, a relatively unknown SPD backbencher.

The January election resulted in a further disaster for the SPD, which has been battling poor polling for months, and is desperate to restore its fortunes by winning state government. Its support dropped thirteen points to only 23 per cent – the worst result in the party’s history, a fact made bearable only by the fact that the CDU’s showing was equally unimpressive. They managed only a 0.4 per cent increase on last year’s result of 36.8 per cent, making this its worst result in Hesse as well.

While voters punished both the SPD and CDU, the main beneficiaries in the election were the minor parties – the Greens’ vote almost doubled to 14 per cent, while support for the FDP rose from 10 to 16 per cent. Many more people simply refused to vote, however, and the election saw voter turnout in Hesse drop to an all-time low of 61 per cent.

While the SPD lost considerable support, it is perhaps surprising that Die Linke – which aims to win over disenfranchised SPD supporters – achieved only moderate gains, increasing its support by 0.3 per cent to 5.4 per cent. While failing to capitalise immediately from the SPD’s disarray, Die Linke has nevertheless managed to hold on to the six parliamentary seats it won last year – still a major breakthrough for the young party.

In the end, then, after twelve months of caretaker government, incumbent CDU Prime Minister Koch has been returned to power, in alliance with a strengthened FDP, a political constellation that many see as the likely outcome in the federal election due for later this year.

SPD in crisis

In the wake of the Hesse results, the SPD remains in total disarray, having lost considerable support due to its anti-social fee-market policies, for which it lost government in 2005. Support has dropped to a dismal 22 per cent nationwide, well behind the CDU on 37 per cent, and the SPD is desperate for political victories to revive it in this important federal election year.

Having replaced unpopular national leader Kurt Beck – who flip-flopped on the question of working with Die Linke – with the machiavellian Franz Münterfering, the SPD was hoping for a revival of its fortunes. However, as the unwilling junior partners in a federal “Grand Coalition” government alongside the right-wing CDU, the SPD is continuing to implement neoliberal policies, further alienating its traditional support base, which is already suffering the effects of the economic crisis.

When the German economy fell into recession late last year, the CDU/SPD government’s response was to announce a €480 billion “bail-out” of the country’s major banks. At the very same time, unemployment in Germany is expected to rise by nearly 1 million over the next few months, and the country is facing a poverty rate that is estimated to stand as high as 18 per cent, and it is rapidly rising.

There are already suggestions that the country’s second largest private bank, Commerzbank, is using its first €10 billion ($20 billion) handout simply to finance a takeover bid of Dresdner Bank, while the major German banks are already calling for a second “emergency bailout” to divest them of a claimed €300 in “toxic debts”.

At the same time, workers’ industrial action is on the rise in Germany. Last November, more than 500,000 metalworkers held short strikes across southern Germany, demanding an 8 per cent wage increase, and Lufthansa workers at Frankfurt airport are currently threatening strike action, also over wages.

`Super election’ year

Germans will vote this year in sixteen polls, including local, European and presidential elections, as well as state elections in Saarland, Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, before the federal elections on September 27. In the former East Germany, Die Linke maintains popular support of more than 25 per cent, where it has built on its former PDS support base. In many of these eastern states, such as Thuringia and Saxony, Die Linke is expected to outpoll the SPD, and support for Die Linke is expected to grow as the economic crisis deepens.

In the west, however, the SPD also has reason to be worried. While the PDS had failed to reach into the west, Die Linke has fared better, winning seats in every west German state election it has contested except Bavaria, which has a more complicated electoral system

In the industrial centre of Saarland, which is home to co-leader Oskar Lafontaine. Die Linke has polled as high as 29 per cent – double SPD support in that state. There is a real chance that Die Linke could poll high enough force the SPD into an alliance government – Die Linke’s first in the western part of the country.

The `red threat’

Since its official formation in 2007, Die Linke has grown to the point that it is now the third-biggest party in Germany, polling up to 15 per cent nationally. This popularity results from Die Linke’s criticism of neoliberal economic policies, and in its calls for greater social spending – on education, health, housing and employment – and higher taxes for the rich.

Oskar Lafontaine, who has been openly critical of the role of finance capital and globalisation, recently called for income tax on all “shameful” incomes – those above €600,000 ($750,000) – to be increased to 80 per cent. While many of Lafontaine’s statements are simply anti-neoliberal, he as gone as far as to identify “globalisation” with capitalism, and to call for the inclusion of sections from the Communist Manifesto in Die Linke’s constitution, stoking right-wing fears of a “communist revival”.

This rhetoric – genuine or not – is also striking a positive a chord in Germany, where economic and social problems have hit hard in recent years and enormous corruption scandals have rocked the country. As the global economic crisis has hit, Germans have found a renewed interest in Karl Marx, whose major work Capital has returned to the bestsellers list in Germany, and publishers have run out of stock. Linksjugend – Die Linke’s leftwing youth organisation – recently organised a national series of schools on the Marxist classic.

The German state has been less than positive about the rise of Die Linke. A 2007 report from the Verfassungsschutz – a German secret service agency – indicated that the government had placed Die Linke under surveillance, leading to a public outcry, and a number of legal cases. Die Linke is also opposed to militarism and calls for an end to German involvement in the war in Afghanistan, putting it at odds with every other party in the German Bundestag, and with Germany’s imperialist allies abroad.

A year of challenges

Despite its rapid growth, however, Die Linke still faces challenges in uniting former PDS members and social democrats, revolutionary socialists and left-wing radicals around a common, militant, platform.

In Berlin – where Die Linke is in coalition government with the SPD – Die Linke has been involved in implementing a number of the same neoliberal policies it claims to oppose. Klaus Lederer, Die Linke’s leader in Berlin, spoke at a recent rally in support of Israel’s war in Gaza, defying the party’s official opposition to the onslaught.

Unionists have also pointed to Die Linke’s contradictory positions in a number of recent industrial disputes, and the party has been accused of pursuing an electoralist strategy at the detriment of building the social and union movements.

These problems are often ascribed to the influence of the more socially conservative ex-members of the PDS within the party, but while Die Linke may be largely dominated by the former PDS, it has attracted thousands of more-radical members, including far-left groups, militant trade unionists and socialists, and has become a far more diverse and effective organisation.

Despite these challenges, and the ongoing media campaign against Die Linke as “neo-communist”, including attempts to link leading members with the Stasi – the former East Germany’s secret police – Die Linke has shaken up the political landscape in Germany, and has forced the four main parties to move to the left on a number of issues.

If it can overcome its own internal problems and the attacks of the mainstream media, Die Linke looks set to score major electoral wins this year, and force German politics leftwards.

[Duroyan Fertl is a member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective, an Marxist organisation affiliated to the Socialist Alliance of Australia.]

Socialism's comeback

At the beginning of the century, the chances of socialism making a return looked close to zero. Yet now, all around Europe, the red flag is flying again, writes Neil Clark in The New Statesman

"If socialism signifies a political and economic system in which the government controls a large part of the economy and redistributes wealth to produce social equality, then I think it is safe to say the likelihood of its making a comeback any time in the next generation is close to zero," wrote Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History, in Time magazine in 2000.

He should take a trip around Europe today.

Make no mistake, socialism - pure, unadulterated socialism, an ideology that was taken for dead by liberal capitalists - is making a strong comeback. Across the continent, there is a definite trend in which long-established parties of the centre left that bought in to globalisation and neoliberalism are seeing their electoral dominance challenged by unequivocally socialist parties which have not.

The parties in question offer policies which mark a clean break from the Thatcherist agenda that many of Europe's centre-left parties have embraced over the past 20 years. They advocate renationalisation of privatised state enterprises and a halt to further liberalisation of the public sector. They call for new wealth taxes to be imposed and for a radical redistribution of wealth. They defend the welfare state and the rights of all citizens to a decent pension and free health care. They strongly oppose war - and any further expansion of Nato.

Most fundamentally of all, they challenge an economic system in which the interests of ordinary working people are subordinated to those of capital.

Nowhere is this new leftward trend more apparent than in Germany, home to the meteoric rise of Die Linke ("The Left"), a political grouping formed only 18 months ago - and co-led by the veteran socialist "Red" Oskar Lafontaine, a long-standing scourge of big business. The party, already the main opposition to the Christian Democrats in eastern Germany, has made significant inroads into the vote for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in elections to western parliaments this year, gaining representation in Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Hesse. Die Linke's unapologetically socialist policies, which include the renationalisation of electricity and gas, the banning of hedge funds and the introduction of a maximum wage, chime with a population concerned at the dismantling of Germany's mixed economic model and the adoption of Anglo-Saxon capitalism - a shift that occurred while the SPD was in government.

An opinion poll last year showed that 45 per cent of west Germans (and 57 per cent of east Germans) consider socialism "a good idea"; in October, another poll showed that Germans overwhelmingly favour nationalisation of large segments of the economy. Two-thirds of all Germans say they agree with all or some of Die Linke's programme.

It's a similar story of left-wing revival in neighbouring Holland. There the Socialist Party of the Netherlands (SP), which almost trebled its parliamentary representation in the most recent general election (2006), and which made huge gains in last year's provincial elections, continues to make headway.

Led by a charismatic 41-year-old epidemiologist, Agnes Kant, the SP is on course to surpass the Dutch Labour Party, a member of the ruling conservative-led coalition, as the Netherlands' main left-of centre grouping.

The SP has gained popularity by being the only left-wing Dutch parliamentary party to campaign for a "No" vote during the 2005 referendum on the EU constitutional treaty and for its opposition to large-scale immigration, which it regards as being part of a neoliberal package that encourages flexible labour markets.

The party calls for a society where the values of "human dignity, equality and solidarity" are most prominent, and has been scathing in its attacks on what it describes as "the culture of greed", brought about by "a capitalism based on inflated bonuses and easy money". Like Die Linke, the SP campaigns on a staunchly anti-war platform - demanding an end to Holland's role as "the US's lapdog".

In Greece, the party on the up is the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), the surprise package in last year's general election. As public opposition to the neoliberal economic policies of the ruling New Democracy government builds, SYRIZA's opinion-poll ratings have risen to almost 20 per cent - putting it within touching distance of PASOK, the historical left-of-centre opposition, which has lurched sharply to the right in recent years. SYRIZA is particularly popular with young voters: its support among those aged 35 and under stands at roughly 30 per cent in the polls, ahead of PASOK.

In Norway, socialists are already in power; the ruling "red-green" coalition consists of the Socialist Left Party, the Labour Party and the Centre Party. Since coming to power three years ago, the coalition - which has been labelled the most left-wing government in Europe, has halted the privatisation of state-owned companies and made further development of the welfare state, public health care and improving care for the elderly its priorities.

The success of such forces shows that there can be an electoral dividend for left-wing parties if voters see them responding to the crisis of modern capitalism by offering boldly socialist solutions. Their success also demonstrates the benefits to electoral support for socialist groupings as they put aside their differences to unite behind a commonly agreed programme.

For example, Die Linke consists of a number of internal caucuses - or forums - including the "Anti-Capitalist Left", "Communist Platform" and "Democratic Socialist Forum". SYRIZA is a coalition of more than ten Greek political groups. And the Dutch Socialist Party - which was originally called the Communist Party of the Netherlands, has successfully brought socialists and communists together to support its collectivist programme.

It is worth noting that those European parties of the centre left which have not fully embraced the neoliberal agenda are retaining their dominant position. In Spain, the governing Socialist Workers' Party has managed to maintain its broad left base and was re-elected for another four-year term in March, with Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero promising a "socialist economic policy" that would focus on the needs of workers and the poor.

There are exceptions to the European continent's shift towards socialism. Despite the recent election of leftist Martine Aubry as leader of the French Socialist Party, the French left has been torn apart by divisions, at the very moment when it could be exploiting the growing unpopularity of the Sarkozy administration.

And, in Britain, despite opinion being arguably more to the left on economic issues than at any time since 1945, few are calling for a return to socialism.

The British left, despite promising initiatives such as September's Convention of the Left in Manchester, which gathered representatives from several socialist groups, still remains fragmented and divided. The left's espousal of unrestricted or loosely controlled immigration is also, arguably, a major vote loser among working-class voters who should provide its core support. No socialist group in Britain has as yet articulated a critique of mass immigration from an anti-capitalist and anti-racist viewpoint in the way the Socialist Party of the Netherlands has.

And even if a Die Linke-style coalition of progressive forces could be built and put on a formal footing in time for the next general election, Britain's first-past-the-post system provides a formidable obstacle to change.

Nevertheless, the prognosis for socialism in Britain and the rest of Europe is good. As the recession bites, and neoliberalism is discredited, the phenomenon of unequivocally socialist parties with clear, anti-capitalist, anti-globalist messages gaining ground, and even replacing "Third Way" parties in Europe, is likely to continue.

Even in Britain, where the electoral system grants huge advantage to the established parties, pressure on Labour to jettison its commitment to neoliberal policies and to adopt a more socialist agenda is sure to intensify.

Hessians and Mercenaries in German Politics

By Victor Grossman
Political Affairs Magazine

BERLIN – In George Washington’s day, “Hessians” was a synonym for mercenaries – German soldiers bought and sold by King George III to defeat the American Revolution. In today’s West German state of Hesse, where those soldiers came from, the word “mercenaries” is currently being applied to just four people, not foot soldiers but delegates to the state legislature. Were they bought and sold? By whom? The question is still open. What is known is that they betrayed their party, the Social Democrats, stymieing hopes to oust the local tyrant, minister president Ronald Koch. Their betrayal has consequences – not only for the six million people of Hesse. It is of symbolic importance.

Last January, after nine years in office, Koch, 50, campaigned for a third term for his so-called Christian Democrats (CDU) and their equally far-right ally, the Free Democrats. Correctly fearing that more and more Hessians were sick of them, he stooped to the nastiest of attacks against “young immigrant thugs” and “criminal foreigners.” His posters played on the foreign-sounding names of the leaders of both Social Democrats and Greens, and on the attempts of the new party, the Left, to get into the legislature: “Stop Ypsilanti, El-Wazir and the Communists”. His Free Democrat allies resorted to the worn old “Freedom or Socialism” slogan.

This time it didn’t work. Koch’s CDU got only 36.8 percent of the vote, a loss of more than 12 percentage points and its worst defeat in years. Andrea Ypsilanti, a dynamic, competent, pleasant-looking new figure on the political scene, whose program was more socially-conscious than that of her fellow Social Democrats on the national level, made big gains and achieved 36.7 percent. This was sensational – but still one tenth of a point behind Koch.

That is where the new party, The Left, came in. In its very first try, it had won 5.1 percent, slipping over the 5 percent hurdle and getting 6 seats in the state legislature. Unhappily, in response to heavy-handed pressure from the national Social Democratic party during the election campaign, Ypsilanti had promised not to form any coalition with The Left, the pariah of almost all German media. But the addition of a fifth party meant that no combination of only two parties could attain a majority. A third one was required. None seemed available.

Therefore Andrea Ypsilanti, twisting her promise a tiny bit, worked out a deal whereby the SPD and the Greens would form a minority government which could stay in power as long as the six deputies from the Left agreed not to join it but to support it with their votes. The media raged, but The Left, after a referendum of its members in Hesse, agreed to this, with reservations on certain issues (like refusing to back further extension of the immense international airport at Frankfurt, Hesse’s largest city). The Greens also agreed and the deal seemed shaky but certain - until one Social Democratic deputy suddenly found that she had abhorred the East German Democratic Republic far too strongly to support any agreement with the Left, which had most of its roots there, although almost none of the Left deputies came from East Germany. Thus, at the last moment the deal floundered.

For months the state remained in limbo, with Koch staying in office on a care-taker basis, but without having the votes to really rule. The three parties opposing him, Social Democrats, Greens and the Left, combining their wafer-thin majority, forced through some decisions, most importantly the reversal of a law requiring students at state-owned colleges to pay tuition charges.

Meanwhile Andrea Ypsilanti kept trying to work out an agreement to “topple the tyrant.” Again ignoring her earlier promise to reject support from the Left, she visited and checked out county organizations of her party all over Hesse and found them all willing to stay together and make another bid. Even with that one delegate sticking to her refusal, they could just manage to oust Koch after all by a single vote. The Greens and The Left were still willing and the vote was scheduled for November 4th. That was Election Day in the USA; it was probably felt that this might keep the result out of the day’s main headlines, which would meet it with cold hatred or violent fury.

Instead, the media triumphed! Just one day before the vote the fan got hit in Hesse! At a hasty press conference not just one but four Social Democrats announced that they had suddenly discovered their anti-Communist consciences. Despite solemn promises to Ypsilanti, without even consulting her, in fact, they refused to support any coalition dependent on votes from that terrible Left. This “Gang of Four,” as they were immediately called, were all right-wing party members; their leader had been passed over in his wishes for a top ministerial position with Ypsilanti. After brief statements to the delighted press they rushed off to a secret location, where they waited until the worst of the anger and disappointment had eased. There were demands that they give up their seats in the legislature, since they had defied the wishes of nearly all Social Democrats. Of course they refused. They were expelled from the Social Democratic caucus and will hardly be nominated again. But they will probably find no lack in job offers.

Why did they opt out at the very last moment? Several theories emerged. What occurs first is that Koch and his team bribed them. A variant: various economic interests in Hesse bribed them – most plausibly those eager to enlarge the Frankfurt airport, regardless of opposition from environmentalists, the surrounding countryside, the Greens and the Left. Another possibility is certainly that the top leadership of the Social Democrats, still engaged in a coalition with Christian Democrats on the national level, feared any leftward trend in their party, and above all acceptance or cooperation with the growing Left party in any form, especially with national elections due next September. The national chairman of the Social Democrats, Kurt Beck, was almost literally chased from office ten weeks ago because he had wavered in this absolute taboo and even mildly supported Ypsilanti, telling her she could act as she and the party in Hesse saw fit. His replacement, Franz Muentefering, looks principally rightward and rules the party with an iron hand, despite catastrophic losses in popular support in recent years. Men like Muentefering, and his local supporters in Hesse, often with ties to business circles, prefer almost anything to a leftward trend. The leader of the “Gang of Four”, though obviously motivated in part by personal jealousy of Ypsilanti and ambitions of moving upward himself, has openly stated his preference for a coalition with Koch and his Christian Democrats to any kind of agreement with the Left.

On November 19th the Hessian parliament finally ended the month-long stalemate, officially dissolved itself and voted to hold new elections on January 18th. Andrea Ypsilanti remains party leader but gave up her attempt to become the only female minister president of a German state (the second in history). The man chosen to replace her as candidate for that job is a virtually unknown man with a less than charismatic face and name, Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel. He faces a tough uphill battle. Many voters are tired of the internal quarrels among Social Democrats and the media now predict a victory for Koch and his allies. Of course, they also predict that the Left will no longer take the five percent hurdle. Perhaps this is all their wishful thinking. But an election campaign during the Christmas season is always a difficult thing.

Once again, as so often in history, the powers-that-be, including those running the Social Democratic Party, prefer turning to the right to turning to the left, no matter what the consequences. Anyone challenging this often fateful tradition faces the constant danger of being thrown to the wolves – or at least thrown out of leadership.

And meanwhile, rumbling menacingly in the background, the giant automobile manufacturer Opel, a subsidiary of General Motors, is threatened with bankruptcy. While the legislators in Wiesbaden, the capital of Hesse, worry about seats in the next legislature, thousands if not tens of thousands of working people in Opel’s huge central offices and main plant in Russelsheim, a bare 15 miles away, or in many supplier plants, are worrying about their jobs, their homes and families. More years with Koch, more likely again, would probably be the worst possible solution. What would be the best one?

The NPA, a new experience of building an anti-capitalist party

From International Viewpoint

Reply to Alex Callinicos
François Sabado

Alex Callinicos’s article shows well the changes that have taken place in the radical left in recent months. The characteristics of the situation, and in particular the deepening of the crisis of the capitalist system and the social-liberal evolution of social democracy, confirm that there is a space “to the left of the reformist left”. This space opens up possibilities for the building of new political formations or for initiatives like that of the Conferences of the anti-capitalist left, a process which requires clarifications.

François Sabado

Photo: JMB

Certain experiences involve a diversity of currents. Although the political frontiers between these currents do not always appear clearly, on the other hand, in order to go forward, the question of support for or participation in centre-left or social-liberal governments is a fundamental dividing line in the politics of alliances or regroupment.

There are not only “paths that diverge”, but different politics and distinct projects. When Callinicos’s article, “Where is the radical left going?”, evokes “more positive experiences” in connection with Die Linke in Germany and the NPA in France, it is in fact a question of two different projects.

In the case of Die Linke, we are dealing with a left reformist party: a party integrated into the institutions of the German State, a party the great majority of whose members come from the ex-PDS - the party of the bureaucracy of the former GDR -, a party which has come out in favour of a common government with the SPD, lastly a party whose project of society comes down to the “return to the Welfare State”. Admittedly, this party also reflects, in the west of Germany, a movement of radicalisation of certain sectors of the social movement, a step forward for the workers’ movement. But revolutionaries should not confuse these processes with the leadership of Die Linke, its reformist policies, its subordination to capitalist institutions, and its objectives of participation in government with the SPD.

The NPA on the other hand presents itself as an anti-capitalist party. A party whose centre of gravity is centred on struggles, on the social movements and not in parliamentary institutions, a party whose founding characteristic is the rejection of any alliance or any participation in government with the centre-left or with social-liberalism, a party which does not stop at anti-liberalism but all of whose politics is directed towards a break with capitalism and the overthrow of the power of the ruling classes.

In all these cases, we are confronted with political formations: there are delimitations, programmes, policies, but they are not the same ones.

Anti-capitalist party or united front of a particular kind?

Also, we cannot share the approach of Callinicos on the characterization of the new formations of the radical left as “a united front of a particular kind”… The SWP’s conceptions were formulated by John Rees, one of their leaders, in the following way: “The Socialist Alliance [the precursor of Respect] is thus best seen as a united front of a particular kind applied to the electoral field. It seeks to unite left reformist activists and revolutionaries in a common campaign around a minimum programme”. [1] This conception, originally linked to the British experience, was generalized as “the SWP’s conception of the nature of the new formations of the radical left”. We disagree with this conception.

To use the term “united front” for the building of a party or a political formation really is an innovation.

The united front is a response to the problems that are posed by the united action or the unification of the workers or of the social movement and of their organizations. The united front and the building of a party are two distinct things. An anti-capitalist and/or revolutionary workers’ party – over and above its precise definition - is a delimited political formation, on the basis of a programme and a comprehensive strategy of conquest of power by and for the workers. An anti-capitalist party cannot be the organic expression of “the whole class”. Even though it must seek to constitute “a new representation of the workers”, or the convergence of a series of political currents, it will nevertheless not make the other currents of the social movement or even the organizations that are “reformist or of reformist origin” led by bureaucratic apparatuses, disappear The question of the united front remains posed.

Why should we not regard anti-capitalist parties as frameworks of the united front? Because if that were the case, it would amount to regarding these parties as a simple alliance or unitary framework - even of a particular kind - and thus to underestimating building them as a framework or a mediation necessary for the emergence of the revolutionary leaderships of tomorrow. To consider the NPA as a united front framework would amount to “toning down” its political positions to make them compatible with the realization of this united front. For example, we do not make the unity of action of the workers’ and social movement conditional on an agreement on the question of government. Is that a reason for the NPA to give up or even relativise a battle on the question of government? No, we do not think so. The NPA made the question of government – the refusal to participate in governments of class collaboration - a decisive delimitation of its political combat. This example obviously demonstrates, but we could also evoke other examples, that the NPA is not a united front framework. We want to build it as a coming together of experiences, activists and currents but especially as a party. To regard it as a “united front of a particular kind” amounts to underestimating the battles that are necessary in order to build a political alternative. This conception of “a united front of a particular kind around a minimum programme” led the leadership of the SWP to reproach the leadership of the LCR with having “a negative and sometimes ultimatist attitude towards the collectives”, when the LCR was putting at the centre of its political battle the refusal to take part in a government with the leadership of the Socialist Party (PS). With hindsight, dos the leadership of the SWP still think that these reproaches were well-founded?

And today, when Jean Luc Mélenchon, one of the organizers of the socialist left, leaves the PS, while maintaining the continuity of his reformist conceptions, his positions on participation in or support for the Mitterrand and Jospin governments, and declaring that he wants to build a French “Die Linke”, what should be the attitude of revolutionaries? To support him and join in his proposals and projects for alliances with the French Communist Party, which maintains the perspective of governing tomorrow… with the PS, or to take into account his break with the PS, have a positive approach to unity of action with his current, but not confuse the building of an anti-capitalist left with the building of a left reformist party… Once again, yes to unity of action - as we engaged in at the time of the No campaign in the referendum on Europe - and to debate, but knowing that the differences on the relationship to representative institutions and the attitudes concerning the question of government separate the electoral alternatives and the projects of building parties. The building of a French Die Linke, in relation to the history of the revolutionary movement and to what has been accumulated by the NPA, would constitute a retreat for the building of an anti-capitalist alternative. Whereas a whole sector influenced by the anti-capitalist left has taken its distance from the leaderships of the traditional left, to constitute a new left reformist force would represent a a step back for the workers’ movement. We would once again involve all this sector in “reformist manoeuvres”. Conceptions of the type of the “united front of a particular kind” could then disarm us in defining a clear policy vis-à-vis this type of current.

This conception, which underestimates the strategic range of the differences on the questions of government and representative institutions, throws light on some of your international positions. It can thus explain, in the policy of the comrades of the IST in Germany, a relativisation of the critique of the policies of the leadership of Die Linke on the question of participation in governments with the SPD.

In the same way, we can also note the indulgence of the comrades towards the new leadership of bloc Rifondazione Comunista in Italy. At the last congress of Rifondazione, a “left” reaction by its members put the partisans of Bertinotti in a minority. However the policy followed by the new leadership is in continuity with the historical positions of Rifondazione Comunista, and continues to endorse the policy of alliances with the Democratic Party in all the regional executives governed by the centre-left.

Lastly, didn’t this conception of “a united front of a particular kind around a minimum programme” contribute to disarming the leadership of the SWP vis-à-vis Galloway, for whom Respect had to “[sustain] alliances with local Muslim notables who could deliver votes”?

To consider an anti-capitalist party as a united front framework can also lead to sectarian deviations… If the united front is realised, even in a particular form, might we not be tempted to make everything go through the channel of the party, precisely underestimating the real battles for unity of action? Because the anti-capitalist party must combine the party activities of a party and an orientation of unitary action… because we have not forgotten, contrary to what Callinicos suggests, that reformism continues to exist, that the movement of the workers has divisions, differentiations, and that it is necessary to intervene to draw it together, to unify the workers and their organizations.

Once again, the united front, in all its varieties, is one thing. Another thing is the building of a political alternative, which is the choice of the NPA.

What kind of revolutionary party?

Alex Callinicos tries to catch us out by explaining to us that, although the NPA is an anti-capitalist party, it is “not a revolutionary party in the specific sense in which it has been understood in the classical Marxist tradition”. We can discuss the classical Marxist tradition, extremely rich in its diversity.

Depending on the history, the degree of strategic clarification, on principles and organizational tactics, without forgetting the various interpretations of this or that revolutionary current, there are several models. It is true that the NPA is not the replica of the revolutionary organizations of the period after May ‘68. Anti-capitalist parties like the NPA do not start from general historical or ideological definitions. Their starting point is “a common understanding of events and tasks” on the questions that are key for intervening in the class struggle. Not a sum of tactical questions, but the key political questions, like the question of a programme for political intervention around an orientation of class unity and independence.

In this movement, there is a place and even a necessity for other histories, other references coming from the most varied origins.

Does that make it a party without a history, a programme and delimitations? No. It has a history, a continuity: that of class struggles, the best of the socialist, communist, libertarian and revolutionary Marxist traditions. It situates itself in the revolutionary traditions of the contemporary world, basing itself, more precisely, on the long chain of French revolutions from1793 to May ‘68, via the days of 1848, the Paris Commune and the general strike of 1936.

The NPA is also a type of party which tries to answer the needs of a new historical period – which opened at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century - and to the need to refound a socialist programme faced with the combined historical crisis of capitalism and of the environment of the planet.

Faced with such challenges, the NPA affirms itself as a revolutionary party rather in the sense given by Ernest Mandel in the following lines.

“What is a revolution?

A revolution is the radical overthrow, in a short time, of economic structures and (or) political power, by the tumultuous action of broad masses. It is also the abrupt transformation of the mass of the people from a more or less passive object into a decisive actor of political life.

A revolution breaks out when these masses decide to put an end to conditions of existence that seem to them unbearable. It thus always expresses a grave crisis of a given society. This crisis has its roots in a crisis of the structures of domination. But it also expresses a loss of legitimacy of governments, a loss of patience, on the part of broad popular sectors.

Revolutions are, in the end, inevitable – the real locomotives of historical progress - precisely because domination by a class cannot be eliminated by the road of reforms. Reforms can at the most soften it, not suppress it. Slavery was not abolished by reforms. The absolutist monarchy of the ancien regime was not abolished by reforms. Revolutions were necessary in order to eliminate them.”

“Why are we revolutionaries today?”

Ernest Mandel, La Gauche January 10, 1989.

It is true that this definition is more general than the strategic, even politico-military hypotheses which provided the framework for the debates of the 1970s, which were at that time illuminated by the revolutionary crises of the 20th century.

Anti-capitalist parties like the NPA are “revolutionary”, in the sense that they want to put an end to capitalism - “ the radical overthrow of economic and political structures (thus state structures) of power” - and the building of a socialist society implies revolutions where those below drive out those above, and “take the power to change the world”.

They have a strategic programme and delimitations, but these are not completed. Let us recall that Lenin, including against part of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, changed or substantially modified his strategic framework in April 1917, in the middle of a revolutionary crisis. He went from the “democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants” to the need for a socialist revolution and the power of the workers’ councils… Certainly, Lenin had consolidated over the years a party based on the objective of a radical overthrow of Tsarism, on the refusal of any alliance with the democratic bourgeoisie, and on the independence of the forces of the working-class allied with the peasantry. And this preparatory phase was decisive. But many questions were decided in the very course of the revolutionary process.

Many things have changed compared to the period after May ‘68, and more generally compared to a whole historical period marked by the driving power of the Russian Revolution. It is more than thirty years since the advanced capitalist countries experienced revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situations. The examples that we can use are based on the revolutions of the past. But, once again, we do not know what the revolutions of the 21st century will be like. The new generations will learn much from experience and many questions remain open.

What we can and must do is to solidly base the parties that we build on a series of “strong” references, drawn from the experience and the intervention of recent years, which constitute a programmatic and strategic foundation. Let us recall them: an anti-capitalist transitional programme which combines immediate demands and transitional demands, a redistribution of wealth, the challenging of capitalist property, social appropriation of the economy, class unity and independence, a break with the economy and the central institutions of the capitalist state, the rejection of any policy of class collaboration, the taking into account of the ecosocialist perspective, the revolutionary transformation of society…

Recent debates have led us to make more precise our conceptions of violence. We have reaffirmed that “it was not the revolutions that were violent but the counter-revolutions”, as in Spain in 1936 or in Chile in 1973, that the use of violence aimed at protecting a revolutionary process against violence from the ruling classes.

So in what respect does this new party constitute a change with regard to the LCR? It must be a party that is broader than the LCR. A party which does not incorporate the entire history of Trotskyism and which has the ambition of making possible new revolutionary syntheses. A party which is not reduced to the unity of revolutionaries. A party which dialogues with millions of workers and young people. A party which translates its fundamental programmatic references into popular explanations, agitation and formulas. From this point of view, the campaigns of Olivier Besancenot constitute a formidable starting point. A party which is capable of conducting wide-ranging debates on the fundamental questions which affect society: the crisis of capitalism, global warming, bio-ethics, etc. A party of activists and adherents which makes it possible to integrate thousands of young people and workers with their social and political experience, preserving their links with the backgrounds they come from. A pluralist party which brings together a whole series of anti-capitalist currents. We do not want a second LCR or an enlarged and broader version of the LCR. To make a success of the gamble we are taking, this party must represent a new political reality, follow in the tradition of the revolutionary movement, and contribute to inventing the revolutions and the socialism of the 21st century.

To avoid reformist temptations, really build an anti-capitalist party!

In spite of these delimitations, Callinicos remains sceptical: “The LCR’s solution to the problem seems to be to install a kind of programmatic security-lock – commitment to anti-capitalism and opposition to centre-left governments. But this is unlikely to work: the more successful the NPA, the more it is likely to come under reformist pressures and temptations”.

Why such fatalism? Why would the development of the NPA automatically lead to reformist temptations? It is necessary from this point of view to make the difference between a “spontaneous trade-unionism” [2], to take up a formula of Lenin, and reformism as a political project and organisation, and even an apparatus… And this “spontaneous trade-unionism”, although it can constitute an environment that is favourable to reformist ideas, can also, faced with the increasing alignment of the reformist apparatuses on capitalist politics, move towards radical anti-capitalist, even revolutionary, positions, especially when the capitalist system is entering a phase where it is reaching its historical limits. It is logical, if we build a popular, pluralist, broad, open party, that this party will come under all sorts of pressures. If it did not, that would be abnormal. But why should these pressures be expressed in crystallized reformist positions? There is and there can be a tension between the anti-capitalist character of the new party and the fact that workers, young people, even a series of personalities, join the new party quite simply because they seek a real left party, starting in particular from the interventions of Olivier Besancenot.

These new members can indeed be combative but full of illusions. This is the case with every mass party, even one that is in a minority.

That is when it will be necessary to discuss and educate. That implies even more giving a “strong” content to the political responses of the NPA and carefully maintaining the radical character and the independence of the party.

In the same way, if these parties want to play a part in the reorganization of the social movements, they must be pluralist. Many sensibilities must find their place in their ranks, including “consistent reformist” activists and currents, but that does not automatically mean that the problem is posed in terms of struggles between the revolutionary current and crystallized reformist currents which would have to be fought. The key question is that all the currents and activists of the NPA, over and above their positions on “reform and revolution”, put “the class struggle” at the centre and subordinate their positions in representative institutions to struggles and social movements. Of course, we cannot exclude the hypothesis of a confrontation between reformists and revolutionaries. But it is not very probable, with the present political delimitations of the NPA, that bureaucratic reformist currents will join or crystallize… In a first historical phase of building the party, the role of revolutionaries is to do everything they can so that the process of constitution of the party really does give birth to a new political reality. That implies that revolutionaries avoid projecting the debates of the former revolutionary organization into the new party. As soon as the NPA has taken off, there will of course be discussions, differentiations, currents. Perhaps certain debates will correspond to cleavages between revolutionary perspectives and more or less consistent reformism. But even in these cases, the debate will not take the form of a political battle opposing a bureaucratic reformist bloc to the revolutionaries. Things will be more mixed, depending on the experience of the new party itself.

Is it necessary to organize, in a separate way, a revolutionary current in the NPA?

There too, there is no model. In many anti-capitalist parties, there are one or more revolutionary currents, when these parties are in fact fronts or federations of currents. This is the case of the militants of the Fourth International in Brazil, in the framework of the “Enlace” current. Without organizing themselves as political currents related to the national political life of these parties, certain sections of the Fourth International can be organized in ideological associations or sensibilities. This is for example the case of the ASR within the Left Bloc in Portugal, and of the SAP within the Red-Green Alliance in Denmark. We can also find this type of current in other broader organizations or parties. This schema does not work for the NPA.

First of all for fundamental reasons, namely the anti-capitalist and revolutionary “in the broad sense” character of the NPA, and the general identity of views between the positions of the LCR and those of the NPA. There are and there will of course be political differences between the LCR and the NPA, a greater heterogeneity and a great diversity of positions within the NPA, but the political bases under discussion for the founding congress of the new party already show political convergences between the ex-LCR and the future NPA.

Also, even though the NPA already constitutes another reality than the LCR, even though it is the possible crucible of an anti-capitalist pluralism, it is not justified today to build a separate revolutionary current in the NPA.

There is also a specific relation between the ex-LCR and the NPA. The ex-LCR represents the only national organization taking part in the constitution of the NPA. There are other currents, like the Fraction of Lutte Ouvriere, the Gauche revolutionnaire, communist activists, libertarians, but there are not, unfortunately, at this stage, organizations of a weight equivalent to that of the LCR.

If that had been the case, the problem would be posed in different terms.

In the present relationship of forces, the separate organization of the ex-LCR in the NPA would block the process of building the new party. It would install a system of Russian dolls which would only create mistrust and dysfunctions.

Lastly, the NPA does not start from nothing. It results from a whole experience of members of the ex-LCR, but also of thousands of others who have forged an opinion in a battle to defend a line of independence with respect to social liberalism and reformism.

There is thus a militant synergy within the NPA, where revolutionary positions intersect with other political positions coming from other origins, other histories, other experiences. Only new political tests will lead to new alignments within the NPA, not former political attachments…

It is an unprecedented gamble in the history of the revolutionary workers’ movement, but the game is worth the candle.

We will advance as we walk…

This article appears in ’Critique Communiste’.

* François Sabado is a member of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International and of the National Leadership of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, French section of the Fourth International).

NOTES

[1] John Rees, “Anti-capitalism, reformism and socialism”, International Socialism, second series, number 90 (2001), p. 32

[2] A formula of Lenin’s evoking the spontaneous trade-union reaction or feeling of workers to defend their conditions of work and existence and their demands

The Crisis In Germany, Das Kapital & The Poll Results

October 27, 2008 By Victor Grossman
Via ZNet

Berlin -- Yes, the big economic crisis is hitting Germany, too. The evidence includes the hasty meetings of top politicians and the decision by the government coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats to save the suffering banks with 500 billion Euros in credit.

Another piece of evidence: Karl Marx's famous book 'Das Kapital' is selling better than it has for years; its main publisher has already sold 1500 copies in 2008; in the past, at the very most, it sold 500 for an entire year. More people seem to be hunting for explanations and even solutions. (But the publisher warned that for laymen the book might be 'rough going'.)

A third piece of evidence: employees of the Opel auto plant in the East German town of Eisenach are now working only four days every two weeks. Opel belongs to General Motors which, we hear, is not having an easy time either. I still recall the joy of many Eisenach workers nineteen years ago when they got the chance to work for such a famous and giant company - and to buy its cars.

An even more curious bit of evidence: A recent poll of East Germans by a major magazine found that 52 percent had lost all confidence in the free market economy while 43 percent would support a return to a socialist economy. Most of those interviewed for the accompanying article agreed. Looking back to GDR days one 46-year- old worker from East Berlin said, "In school we read about the 'horrors of capitalism'. They really got that right. Karl Marx was on the ball.I had a pretty good life before the Wall fell. No one worried about money because money didn't really matter." A retired blacksmith said: "The free market is brutal. The capitalist wants to squeeze out more, more, more." And a city clerk added: "I don't think capitalism is the right system for us.The distribution of wealth is unfair. We're seeing that now. The little people like me are going to have to pay for this financial mess with higher taxes because of greedy bankers." Another Easterner recalled being delighted about the fall of the Berlin Wall and capitalism replacing communism. But, he added, "It took just a few weeks to realize what the free market economy was all about... It's rampant materialism and exploitation. Human beings get lost. We didn't have the material comforts but communism still had a lot going for it."

Such sentiments show up in the ballot boxes. The young party called The Left (Die Linke), whose origins trace back largely to the former ruling party of East Germany and whose program, despite many alterations, still calls for socialism, won second place in four out of five East German states, is the strongest party in East Berlin and, currently, leads polls of all East Germany. Since joining with a leftwing party in West Germany it is slowly but steadily spreading there as well.

All this is worrisome, indeed, downright alarming for the four parties which have hitherto ruled the German political roost. But they are not abandoning the fortress of free enterprise capitalism by any means, crisis or no crisis.

Almost every evening one or the other German TV channel explains to viewers how terrible life in the GDR used to be. Sometimes several channels compete in taking on this job. Two constant themes, of course, are the terrors of the Stasi and the horrors of the Berlin Wall. But there is also variety: how really bad GDR child care centers were, how athletes were made to suffer, how vacationers were regimented, how corrupt the big shots were, how poor the music, how heavily censored the books, plays or films. This enlightenment is often offered in the form of historical reportages, sometimes we are treated to full-length dramas and feature films, some of them very well-made. Similar message are inserted in the form of clever barbs into even the briefest, seemingly irrelevant news items.

Some of the facts are undoubtedly correct. Many of the private impressions are certainly genuine. There was far more than enough bureaucracy, dogmatism, repression and injustice during the forty years of the German Democratic Republic. But three things strike me when I watch these programs or, more and more frequently, turn them off after a few minutes.

Although they sometimes try to hook an audience by sounding impartial, admitting, often slightly sarcastically, that after all there may have been a few acceptable elements in GDR life, even then the overwhelming message soon reverts to the usual extremely bleak picture full of all the clichés, ignoring the many aspects of life which were very normal and could even be quite pleasant. But it is just such a mix of good and bad factors which I observed during the 36 years I lived in the GDR, participating in everyday life as an apprentice, a worker, a student and a journalist who visited nearly every nook and cranny of the country and spoke, publicly and very privately, with people from all walks of life. But the media prefers bashing and smashing, the rest is barely hinted at, and the media provides virtually no opportunities to talk back.

It may seem a mystery why programs telling us how tough we had it in those years of misery are not diminishing in number or ferocity, although the GDR has been dead since 1990. Why do they insist so very long on kicking a dead horse?

The recent opinion poll makes the answer more obvious than ever. True, the demise of the GDR in 1990, officially called German reunification but referred to by many as 'annexation', did bring a wide array of hard-to-get or unknown consumer goods, from bananas and kiwis to BMWs and ocean voyages. World travel became possible, retail trading expanded, houses were renovated, cafes multiplied, road traffic and advertising, from neon lights to TV commercials, virtually exploded. A certain percentage of the people certainly lived and still lives better than before, perhaps about one third.

But very many paid a heavy price, which is now being worsened by the new financial and economic crisis. Millions of jobs were lost after 1990 when East German factories were priced out of existence or bought up by western competitors for a song and soon shut down. Unemployment remained steady at double western levels (it is now about 14 percent), wages and pensions stayed just as consistently below West German levels, often 30 percent below.

Very gradually, a few areas began to pick up a little - some resort areas along the Baltic, a few auto and electronic plants, for example. But other factors worsened. Medical care became more and more expensive. Fees climbed or threaten to climb for child care and education. Taxes, except for the wealthy, moved upwards. Pensions, worth less and less, are now set at 67 (in the GDR men received pensions at 65 and women at 60). Worst of all, there is little or no security. Even those working for the few famous and established companies which did open up East Germany plants never know when their jobs will be terminated; a friend of mine lost hers exactly on her 50th birthday. For those laid off after the age of 45 or 50 it is extremely different to find a new job, and after a year with jobless pay the relief sums granted reduce their recipients to poverty and virtual subservience. And now, while the situation has not yet reached USA proportions, homelessness is also spreading. Is it any wonder that people recall GDR days when jobs were secure and evictions were prohibited by law?

But all that was known as 'socialism'. The very thought of such recollections frightens the powerful forces controlling the three main parties and greatly influencing the fourth, the once progressive Greens. Some years ago a Social Democratic cabinet minister demanded the 'de-legitimizing of the GDR'. Every trick in the book, every propaganda device is being thrown into the fight. A major battleground is the school system where, unlike TV, there is some dialogue. Leading politicians complain constantly that East German pupils are 'unclear about recent German history' and instead of listening to what teachers are ordered to teach them or what the new textbooks preach, they are often influenced by what parents and grandparents tell them about life in the old days, not only the bad but also the good. The politicians almost hysterically demand ever more forceful methods and ever more one- sided textbooks, now for the coming anniversaries of the founding of the two German states (1949) and the 'Fall of the Wall' (1989).Who will win this tug-of-war? Or rather, who will gain more ground? The next elections, on state and national levels - and maybe a few protest demonstrations or strikes - could provide some answers.

October 20, 2008