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...

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?

Germany: Die Linke, one year on...

By Thies Gleiss

One year after the foundation of the Die Linke (Left) party, commentators on both right and left agree that the political situation in Germany has been changed. Following three regional elections in spring 2008, Die Linke is solidly installed on the landscape.[1] On paper it is now the third biggest party in the country, whether in terms of members, elected representatives or other holders of paid political functions at all levels of the state, or again in terms of financial strength.

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Andrej Hunko who looks at the experience of Die Linke

Andrej Hunko from the Anti-Capitalist Left, a revolutionary grouping within Die Linke, addresses a day school organised by in London organised by Socialist Resistance on June 25, 2008. From http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/

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Die Linke has 72,000 members. It is represented in the Bundestag [German federal parliament] by 53 deputies; there is not a single big capitalist country where a party explicitly identifying with the left is so well represented. These deputies have been elected by more than 4 million people, and in terms of the old imperialist countries, only the Japanese CP exceeds this score. In the Länder of the east, it is a party with a broad implantation; at the local government level in many areas it is the force that counts, which “exercises responsibility”, and whose power and implantation eclipses all other parties. In the Land of Berlin, Die Linke participates in government with three ministers (senators). In the western Länder, the party has experienced success in all the provincial elections but only in Lower Saxony has it succeeded in attracting more votes than in the federal elections of 2005. For Germany as a whole, the party has 185 regional deputies, 5561 municipal councillors, 179 mayors, three Landrat (elected directors of General Councils) and 59 liaison officers of various types.

A space open to the critique of capitalism

The entire left outside of Die Linke, the social movements — in first place the trade union movement — and a growing number of intellectuals and scientists today look at the new party and are obliged to take account of this new left force in their elaboration and their manner of posing political problems.

At the level of political ideology, Die Linke occupies a terrain abandoned for some years. It has opened the space for a discourse which allows the critique of capitalism and even the demand for socialism. In this sense Die Linke reflects the already old polarisation between the winners and losers from the offensive waged by capital and the parties at its service to restore the rate of profit; it is a reflection of the aggressive “class struggle from above” of all the European governments and employers’ organisations, the reflection of violence, militarisation and growing material insecurity which affects all sectors of society.

On the sociological level, Die Linke represents in part a model of class party supposedly historically transcended, which has shown itself capable of conquering in a very short time a quite considerable stable electorate among the victims of the current policy and among the organisers of social and political resistance. Hence Die Linke clearly represents more than a protest party, on the contrary it is clear that its electoral success does not come from temporary gains from those who would otherwise abstain, but that they are obtained in spite of a rate of participation which does not cease to fall. It mobilises firstly a part of the traditional proletarian electorate of social democracy, which explains why it is above all the Social-Democtaic Party (SPD) which is challenged by the new party, both in terms of membership and voters.

All these factors lead us to consider the emergence of Die Linke as a positive event from an anti-capitalist and socialist perspective. But as always the dialectic means that with progress forces develop which hold it back, which are satisfied with what has already been won, and in the same way there are partisans and members of Die Linke who are not sufficiently conscious of this progress and who are in fact incapable of understanding that only the pursuit of the evolution to the left and the radicalisation of the party can lead to success.

Structural characteristics

Three-thousand members have joined the party since its official formation in June 2007. Around a third of the 12,000 members claimed by the WASG (Social Justice and Work Electoral Alternative) have not accompanied the unification with the Linkspartei-PDS (2), have resigned or have ceased to pay their dues and have thus been removed from the membership lists . Nearly three quarters of the membership live in the eastern Länder, a quarter in those of the west. In the east, Die Linke organises almost exclusively the victims of the reintegration of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR -- East Germany) into capitalist Germany. Two thirds of them have a university degree but have long since retired. In the east, the average age of members is more than 65. The party has won new members there but loses more, essentially because of their deaths. Nearly half are women, whereas in the west men dominate more than in the other parties, but the average of 41% over the country as a whole remains presentable. The membership gained since the creation of the party has been almost exclusively male in the west and as a whole the new members are 85% male, 5% under 30, and 1% under 20.

In the west the members are divided into two groups: the new victims of capitalism, those in insecure work and the unemployed on the one hand, and on the other wage earners, among whom those who have experience of higher education represent a large minority. Die Linke is a workers’ party which is the specific product of modern capitalism, with a particular contingent of victims of the liquidation of the GDR.

The party is made up of around 2000 rank and file organisations in the east and 260 in the west. They are nearly all based on administrative subdivisions and correspond to localities. There is only one workplace group. Male-female parity is on the statutes for internal and external elections but is rarely respected at the local level. It is implemented carefully but with difficulty at the regional and intermediary level and at the summit of the party — the two male co-presidents[2] are well known. At the federal level and in the regional parliaments this rule is regularly ignored under the pressure of male cliques. If the electoral lists for different parliaments are broadly parity-based, this is not the case for the assistants to the elected representatives and the party full timers.

The party’s administrative apparatus comprises 77 full-time posts at the head office and 160 for the regional offices. It is financed essentially by state subsides under the party financing rule and by the dues of the parliamentarians. The average contribution is around 7 euros per month. Moreover, most of the public expression of the party goes through the parliamentary fractions, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and their public financing. It is then certainly not wrong to consider that the existence of Die Linke depends at a level of 80% on state money, of which there is no need to be ashamed — it has nothing to do with presents from big companies and slush funds — but which should be constantly borne in mind. .

Parliamentary swamp

Left activists who wish to durably change the relationship of forces inside society through this type of organisation should try to take into account these structural brakes on each campaign, each action, to transcend them in practice. But this it is not what happens. There is no effort at basic transformation of the structures by extra parliamentary actions, the setting up of workplace groups and the increasing of the share of financing coming from the dues of members and the gifts of sympathisers. It is not then astonishing that Die Linke is becoming parliamentarised at a very rapid pace. All the activity today turns almost exclusively around electoral campaigns. The party members are divided into two parts, a great number of paper members who can be mobilised at best during the electoral campaigns, and on the other the activists who group around the elected representatives. This phenomenon is accelerated by three characteristics that no other party presents in such a striking fashion:

— In the first place an underlying submission, perceptible above all in the ex-PDS, which yearns to be accepted and taken seriously by the capitalist enemy. The wish expressed by Gregor Gysi to see inscribed on his tomb “And yet we were nice” is a telling anecdotal evidence of this...

— Second a fear of the media which is almost clinical. One of the 77 full timers at the central office is regularly occupied in sorting out the “good” and “bad” press articles and calculating the percentage of each.

— Third, an authoritarian structure reflected in an allegiance to the presidents, a tailism which is a little sickening and a frenzy for centralisation on the part of the apparatus which ends up in smothering the creativity and imagination, and thus the living potential of the party.

These “qualities” as one can see at nearly every party meeting, are embodied by the old cadres of the PDS in the east and by the old guard of the SPD in the west, trained in the bureaucratic structures of the SPD and the unions. The weight of these elements increases and does not fall, most of those who join now share this approach which is moreover helpful to the increasing number who seek a post or a career.

It remains the fact that Die Linke regularly receives the support of 10% of voters and that it is also a party which on all the big questions and mobilisations, from the anti-war movement, via the march on the G8 summit, actions against the neo-Nazis and challenges to democratic rights, to support for trade union and workplace struggles — with the exception of the train drivers strike led by the GDL union[3] — has until now energetically supported the anti-capitalist forces of this country and has allowed them to go further than would have been possible if it had not existed. But it is also a party whose whole structural weight leads to the loss of this progressive role, which channels its own forces and smothers them, and which threatens to sink straight into the parliamentary swamp, undoubtedly as minority member of a coalition government.

This process can only be stopped by having an extremely clear consciousness of the weight of the structures as described here, and thanks to the violent and frequent pressure of struggles and social mobilisations. If only one of these two elements is present, things could continue as now, but if both are missing things will go badly.

[Thies Gleiss is a member of the coordination of the International Socialist Left (isl, one of the two public factions of the German section of the Fourth International along with the Revolutionary Socialist League, or RSB) and a member of the national coordination of “Antikapitalistische Linke”, a left current in Die Linke. This article first appeared in the July 2008 International Viewpoint.]

NOTES

[1] 1. At the federal elections of September 2005, the electoral alliance of the PDS-Linkspartei and the WASG won 8.7% of the votes and 54 deputies. In regional elections this year, Die Linke has won 7.1% in Lower Saxony, 5.1% in Hesse, and 6.5% in the Land of Hamburg

[2] 2. Oskar Lafontaine, former secretary general of the SPD, and Gregor Gysi, former secretary general of the PDS

[3] 3. This union is not affiliated to the DGB.

Germany: Die Linke hold historic first conference

On the weekend of 24-25 May, Germany's new left-wing party "Die Linke" ("The Left") held it's first ever conference in Cottbus. Below is an article from Green Left Weekly summarising some of the conference (although a lot more went on, I'm sure).

For more information Die Linke also has some material in english on their website, some of which has been reproduced in LINKS, and the wombats have covered the rise of Die Linke here before (as a quick search will show).

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Germany's Die Linke: ‘We have the wind of history in our sails’

By Duroyan Fertl

May 30, 2008 -- After a year of stellar successes, almost 600 delegates from Germany’s new left-wing party, Die Linke, came together for the party’s first ever congress, held in the east German city of Cottbus on May 25 and 26. Former East German communist Lothar Bisky and former Social Democratic Party (SPD) national president Oscar Lafontaine, once dubbed by the media as “Europe’s most dangerous man”, were re-elected as co-chairs of the party, and a social justice-oriented platform was adopted for the coming period, which includes state elections in Bavaria this September and federal elections next year.

Die Linke was officially formed in 2007 as a fusion between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS — the successor to the former East German ruling party) and a collection of militants, unionists and socialists from the west organised as the Electoral Alternative for Jobs and Social Justice (WASG). Die Linke now has almost 80,000 members.

Anti-neoliberal revolt

The PDS, still popular in the east, had failed to win electoral support in the west. However, the anti-social “Hartz IV” laws of the SPD government of Gerhard Schroder led to a grass-roots rebellion against the SPD in the west. Thousands of militant unionists and community activists revolted against Schroder’s neoliberal policies, forming the WASG. They were joined by Lafontaine and a left-wing split from the SPD in the lead up to the 2005 federal elections.

After the PDS-WASG joint ticket out-polled the Greens in these elections — winning 54 seats — the two groups fused into Die Linke. Having won representation in 10 out of 16 state parliaments, it is now Germany’s third largest party, after the right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the centre-left SPD. While it is polling at around 14% nationally, in Saarland, Lafontaine’s home state, Die Linke has reached 29%, almost double the support for the SPD.

Die Linke’s success can be attributed in part to the failure of Germany — with Europe’s strongest economy — to translate economic gains into social benefits. While the neoliberal policies of the CDU/SPD “grand-coalition” government have cut unemployment, they have done so by increasing the working poor — forcing many people into extremely low-paying jobs.

According to a government report, up to 18% of Germans were living in poverty in 2005, and a quarter of the population earns less than US$24,000 per year. The country has also been rocked by a series of tax avoidance scandals, while the gap between rich and poor continues to widen drastically.

While this travesty continues, Die Linke has begun to set the political agenda. Their policies, such as introducing a minimum wage, higher taxes for the rich, and paid maternity leave — once considered taboo among the other parties — have suddenly re-appeared on the mainstream national agenda in an attempt to neutralise Die Linke’s popular appeal.

As a result, Lafontaine is now referred to by many as “Germany’s secret chancellor”.

At the Cottbus conference, Lafontaine gave an electrifying speech laden with references to Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and the Polish-born revolutionary Rosa Luxembourg. He slammed the “perversity of financial market-driven capitalism” for causing unemployment and poverty in the name of profit, and argued that fighting the influence of markets is “the central question of our times”.

In April, Lafontaine also proposed including sections from the Communist Manifesto in Die Linke’s program. Conference delegates also called for greater public expenditure on health, education and environmental repair, a ban on layoffs by profitable firms and higher property, corporate and inheritance taxes.

Die Linke remains the only German party opposed to the war in Afghanistan, and Lafontaine — who has called US President George Bush a terrorist and praised Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez — railed against NATO at the conference, calling it a US-led machine that violates human rights around the world.

Die Linke is also the only German party to oppose the new European Union constitution, on the grounds that it is entirely pro-business, and was the sole opposition in the Bundestag (the national parliament) to a recent proposal to increase politicians’ salaries.

‘Extremists’

The rise of Die Linke has lit a fire under big business, which is worried about a left-turn in Germany, and the German media has led an ongoing attack on the party. The security services have taken part in the onslaught — a recent security report decried “extremist” elements within Die Linke.

While these attacks have failed to dampen support for Die Linke, the party has vulnerabilities. Where it has entered coalition government with the SPD, in eastern states like Berlin, Die Linke has joined in the implementation of neoliberal policies, causing a revolt by local members.

While in the west, the SPD has refused to deal with Die Linke, the left-wing party remains open to coalitions with the SPD. There is a danger that Die Linke might be drawn into fruitless governing coalitions unless the party adopts a set of clear policies in relation to the question.

There is a potential fault line in Die Linke between a more moderate wing and a radical wing that includes Lafontaine, many unionists and a number of smaller, explicitly socialist platforms. The direction Die Linke takes will be determined in the struggle to forge a party with a platform that seems to genuinely put people before profits, both in the streets and in coming elections.

Until then, as Lafontaine argued in Cottbus – “the wind of history is in our sails”.

From International News, Green Left Weekly issue #753 4 June 2008.

Goethe and Die Gruenen

On Wednesday, April 16, Goethe rose from his grave, had a quick breakfast and rewrote Faust. The new storyline is even better than the last - this time, there's no space for the Devil, his henchman, unrequited love or thunderous verse. Instead, the German Greens have taken the lead role, and signed a deal in blood worthy of Mephistopheles' jealousy.

The "Olive Greens" (as they have been known for some time in Germany, because of their support for German involvement in the occupation of Afghanistan) signed up for coalition government in Hamburg with the right-wing Christian Democtratic Union (CDU).

The move leaches the last colour from the fading activist-green blouses of the Greens - after losing popularity almost continually over the past few years, they are now polling only 9 percent, and look like a party in crisis.

A recent national Greens conference split three ways over support for troops in Afghanistan, many of the "Fundys" (those whose more radical politics made them seem like "fundamentalists" compared to the "moderate" "Realos") have long since left, and the German Greens have never looked more like an opportunist petit-bourgeois enviromental lobby group in search of affirmation than they do now.

The deal also lays the foundations for a more frightening possibility in the German federal elections next year. Having now established a regional partnership with the "Realos" of the Greens, Angela Merkel's CDU is better positioned to arrange a "Jamaica coalition" (Green = Green, CDU = Black, Free Democrats = Yellow) government in 2009.

While the CDU/ CSU conservatives were forced into a "Grand Coalition" with their arch-competitors the SPD after the last election, this time around it is possible that Merkel can form government and still dump the SPD. The SPD is suffering from the success of Die Linke and a bumbling leader in Kurt Beck, who has undermined the party's already wounded credibility further by first swearing "never, ever" to deal with Die Linke, and then changing his mind, and then changing it back again.

Worse yet, the SPD's Andrea Ypsilanti withdrew her candidacy for the premiership of Hesse last month after members of the SPD refused to support her governing with the "toleration" (the loosest possible support) of Die Linke in that state's parliament. While Die Linke remain open to working with the SPD, the bitter blood left over after Oskar Lafontaine - fomer national leader of the SPD - jumped ship and took a large part of the SPD-left with him, seem to be enough to prevent even the opportunist SPD from stomaching such a deal in the name of power. And this could cost them the Bundestag next year.

Merkel has now got the SPD in her sights, declaring them "unreliable", and the Greens - also losing significance in federal politics - appear keen to seem important, somehow, anyhow - even if that means forming a "Green-Black" government with a party that served as a half-way house for many Nazis after World War II.

To be honest, Merkel isn't far off the mark on the SPD's unreliability, as their electoral woes are continuing, and their polling is sliding dangerously. Central to this is the fact that, to their left, the new left-wing party Die Linke continues to rise, putting forward a real alternative to SPD-managed neoliberalism.

Die Linke is consistently polling 14%, but in some places Die Linke is outpolling the SPD - notably in Die Linke leader Oskar Lafontaine's home state of Saarland, where the SPD sit on a miserly 16 percent, while Die Linke have reached a whopping 29 percent!

Recently, "Red" Oskar Lafontaine - "the most dangerous man in Europe" according to British newspaper The Sun - has also called for parts of the Communist Manifesto to be included in Die Linke's program, and while Die Linke is only young - having been officially formed less than three years ago - their polling results, and the obvious attraction of a real left alternative in a sea of sameness and compromise, has placed them in a strong postion to push Germany to the left.

With their first party conference on May 24-5 in Cottbus, it will soon be decision time for Die Linke: can they work out a coherent policy and platform, maintain their political momentum and build a solid movement outside of electoral politics? Or will they succumb to the twin pressures of electoralism and sectarianism that seem to consume so much of the left?

More from the Wombats as it unfolds.

Lafontaine wants passages from Marx included in Left Party programme

Wednesday, April 16, 2008: The Irish Times

GERMANY: OSKAR LAFONTAINE, leader of Germany's new Left Party, has called for passages from Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto to be incorporated into his party's new political programme.

DEREK SCALLY reports from Berlin.

Mr Lafontaine, a former Social Democrat (SPD) leader and later finance minister under chancellor Gerhard Schroder, has also called for Germanyto follow the example of Bolivia and Venezuela and renationalise public utilities.

He told Die Welt newspaper that, in his opinion, Karl Marx's manifesto - the founding document of the communist movement - was as relevant now as when it was first published in 1848.

Mr Lafontaine hopes to use Marx's attack on the bourgeoisie for imposing a free trade system where personal worth has an "exchange value".

"In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, [the bourgeoise] has substituted naked, shameless, direct,brutal exploitation," Marx wrote.

The Left Party was formed last year when disillusioned SPD members joined forces with the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED).

In the Die Welt interview, Mr Lafontaine called for the renationalisation of the formerly state-owned post and telephone companies and of Germany's privatised energy market, which he blamed for "monopoly prices and rip-offs".

Asked how the German state could take control of energy giants like Eon, worth €40 billion, Mr Lafontaine replied: "The change in ownership structures can only happen step by step."

Mr Lafontaine has made a long list of demands since returning full-time to German politics.

Those demands, and his energetic delivery, are undeniably popular in Germany - the Left Party is already the third most popular party in opinion polls.

Last year's merger helped the former PDS shake off its image as an eastern regional party.

Now it has MPs in several state parliaments - east and west - as well as the second-largest opposition block in the Bundestag with 54 seats.

The revival in Mr Lafontaine's fortunes has forced his former SPD colleagues to take their own party left in competition.

At the same time, unrest is brewing within the Left Party at what critics see as Mr Lafontaine's preference for political populism.

Younger officials in particular are worried that nationalisation demands will alienate younger voters the party badly needs to rejuvenate its ageing voter base.

Rising class struggle aids German Left

by Stefan Bornost, editor of Marx21 Magazine (via anticapitaliste)

Civil war is raging in the SPD, the German Labour Party, following the successes of the radical left Die Linke party in recent elections. The crisis has grown to such an extent that a recent opinion poll put the SPD at 22 percent, with Die Linke at 14 percent.

There are now growing splits between the right and left inside the SPD – with the right openly attacking party leader Kurt Beck and demanding he retract his candidacy for chancellor in the general election scheduled for 2009.

Beck had tacked the rhetoric of the SPD sharply to the left in an attempt to thwart the growth of Die Linke, while at the same time ruling out any cooperation with it.

When that strategy failed, Beck said that Andrea Ypsilanti, SPD leader in Hesse, could form a minority state government with the Greens and be elected the state’s leader with the votes of Die Linke.

But this brought protests and defections from the right of the SPD, and Ypsilanti did not stand.

This led to a situation where Roland Koch, the conservative prime minister of Hesse who had been voted out, is still ruling – despite not having a majority.

Up until this debacle an uneasy truce held in the SPD, where the right didn’t object to Beck’s leftward lurch in the hope that it would keep Die Linke out. This truce has now broken down.

This is partly because the bosses are exerting pressure on conservatives and the SPD alike to attack the welfare state in the face of a looming US recession.

So far the German taxpayer has been presented with a bill of roughly 20 billion euros for bank bailouts due to the subprime crisis. All experts agree that this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The conflicts in the SPD have cost the party dearly. In polls the SPD’s ratings have fallen to an all-time low, especially in their former heartlands.

Overtake

In Saarland, the political home of Die Linke leader Oskar Lafontaine, a recent opinion poll has put Die Linke at 29 percent – almost double the SPD’s 16 percent. That means there is a chance that Die Linke will get more votes than the SPD in this state’s elections in 2009.

This would be the first place in the west where Die Linke could overtake the SPD. In the east it is already stronger in Sachsen, Thüringen and Sachsen-Anhalt.

The crisis in the SPD takes place as the class struggle increases.

Despite a major public sector strike due to start in mid-April being called off, strikes involving public transport workers in Berlin and workers at the Deutsche Post are set to begin next week.

The success of Die Linke has intensified the debates inside the new party about its future course.

The rising struggle has strengthened the hand of those in Die Linke who want to build it as a working class party that bases itself inside the movements.

They also see the chance to loosen the grip of the SPD on the trade union movement – thus making an overdue revitalisation of the workers’ movement possible.

But those within Die Linke who orientate mainly on joining coalition governments with the SPD are worried by its meltdown because they see the chances of coalition dwindling away.

They are also worried that the hard oppositionist stance that Oskar Lafontaine and many party activists in the west are taking could be a barrier to an agreement with the SPD.

Lafontaine has never ruled out joining a government with the SPD, but he has put down minimum conditions, such as the withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan, an end to privatisation, the scrapping of the Hartz IV unemployment laws and the reduction of the retirement age from 67 to 65.

Attempts to water down these conditions, for example to tie the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan to exit conditions, have so far failed.

Die Linke is set to begin its first party conference on 23 May. Hopefully Germany’s new spirit of resistance will inspire the debates there.