New Left Party Success shocker in Germany!:could it happen here?

[Nigel Irritable]

I don't think I made a post on the role of Linksruck in the WASG, rather it came up in passing in a bad tempered discussion of something else.

Basically, both of the sizeable Trotskyist organisations in Germany joined the WASG. These are Socialist Alternative (SAV, part of the Committee for a Workers International) and Linksruck (part of the IST). Various smaller groups have also joined, but these are the two which are big enough to have an impact. It was correct for both to join, but the role of the two organisations within the broader formation has been very different indeed.

The WASG has a sizeable membership, who are looking for a political alternative. Because of the circumstances of its founding, it has an essentially social democratic leadership. This leadership favour a Keynsian programme. The SAV has nevertheless argued for socialist politics, what is referred to in Germany as raising "the system question". This has gained some support amongst the rank and file of the WASG but has earned them the hostility of large parts of the leadership, leading directly to attempts to bureaucratically exclude various SAV activists.

Linksruck, by contrast, has argued openly against socialist politics and for what it calls a "Keynsian" programme. In other words it has sided with the right wing of the WASG in the key political argument. Because of this it has not (at least yet) come under bureaucratic attack. At the same time, its member on the leadership body of the WASG actually abstained on the vote when attempts were made to exclude SAV members in Rostock from the organisation, including an elected city councillor. The key criticisms of Linskruck's role therefore are (a) that it politically sides with the right wing and argues for Keynsianism not socialism and (b) that it refuses even to defend the rights of others to argue for socialist ideas.

 

[levien]

(a) Is lopsided to the point of being deeply dishonest about Linkstruck part (b) could well be true if the SAV in the area were being particularly disruptive. The SWP defended Militants right to be in the Labour Party and the IST has a good record of defending people/socialists from victimisation. Though if the group was making a complete arse of itself and making working together impossible I'd be tempted to abstain....

The CWI's general analysis of neo-liberalism at present does seem to put it at odds with the IST. The transitional program followed becoming more remote from the reality of the political situation and the political development of the current oppositional movements. I can more then imagine SAV's orientation on WASG proving detrimental rather then actually pulling it to the left.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

(a) Is lopsided to the point of being deeply dishonest about Linkstruck part (b) could well be true if the SAV in the area were being particularly disruptive. The SWP defended Militants right to be in the Labour Party and the IST has a good record of defending people/socialists from victimisation. Though if the group was making a complete arse of itself and making working together impossible I'd be tempted to abstain....

The CWI's general analysis of neo-liberalism at present does seem to put it at odds with the IST. The transitional program followed becoming more remote from the reality of the political situation and the political development of the current oppositional movements. I can more then imagine SAV's orientation on WASG proving detrimental rather then actually pulling it to the left.

This is an interesting debate especially in relation to Britain as well.

It is clear from the last few months that there are important forces in motion here, particularly those from a social democratic and stalinist background. I think it's important that revolutionaries orient towards those forces and pull them over. To do that it is necessary to be non-sectarian and positive towards those people who have organisationally broken from their social democratic and stalinist backgrounds but who have yet to develop a more rounded revolutionary perspective.

I don't know much about the SAV, but I know there was a definite tendency by Militant in the Labour Party, particularly in the 1970s, to be very ultimatist and dogmatic about 'programme'. Instead of presenting things in a transitional way, the 'programme' tended to become very much more like the maximum/minimum programme - with 'socialism' as the maximum and 'the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy' as the minimum. [I remember at one LPYS conference being told that the solution to the crisis for youth was to nationalise the major football teams - wags joked about the slogan being changed to 'nationalise the top 200 monopolies and the 22 teams of the first division'.] Later the minimum programme became borrowing money from banks and issuing 'tactical' redundancy notices to 30,000 workers. Anyone who criticised these tactics was accused of betraying socialism.

One wing of the new formation in Germany - the PDS - comes from the 'sunday socialism' tradition, lots of talk about socialism in speeches, but acting right wing during the rest of the week; the other wing - the ex-social democrats and trade unionists in WASG - isn't from a socialist tradition at all, and needs some convincing to move in that direction. Putting unnecessary barriers to action and development in their way won't help the evolution of either current.

An article in International Viewpoint from one of the FI factions (ISL) says:

The SAV, the section of the CWI, considers for its part that we have to intervene in the WAsG process, but its majority wants to do so by organising itself in a fairly ultimatistic way around a “socialist action programme”, and the somewhat doctrinaire way of intervening of many (not all) of its militants does not help to get revolutionaries accepted.

However the ISL also make clear that:

The question of democracy in the new party nevertheless remains important, although certain not very experienced members are somewhat overdoing the theme of “rank and file democracy” and the “bureaucratic style” of the leadership. Thos leadership has at least to its credit to have launched the right initiative at the right time. But neither pluralism nor the rights of currents, nor the revocability and responsibility of the leaders or future MPs to the members of the new party, have been won in the WAsG. That is a problem: it remains an important issue, among other reasons for the discussion on the statutes of the new party, a discussion that has only just begun. We are trying to reply by explaining that there are reasons why the SPD got to be the way it is and why so many attempts at emancipatory political objectives have failed and continue to fail; that the mechanisms of adaptation are well-known. One of the reasons is precisely the development of uncontrollable leading layers, apparatuses and elected officials, quickly taken over by material and psychosocial temptations, and by parliamentary, or even more so, governmental institutions. That is why we have to try to build a party that is really “governed” by its members. And we have to refrain from marginalising or expelling currents: nobody can claim to have a convincing balance sheet.

If the IST group have used bureaucratic means to oppose SAV ,then that should be condemned (exactly as the Militant's support for expulsion of the SLL from the Labour Party in the 60s was opposed by the FI, and began their trajectory away from it; bans and restrictions have no place in workers organisations whether the perpetrators are sectarian or disruptive.).

The ISL also says that an artificial imposition of 'socialist programme' is not what is needed to break from social democracy. I tend to agree - the fight for a socialist programme is a much more subtle development - and think the same lessons apply in relation to Respect. It is their disagreement with this that leads the SP (E&W) to stand outside Respect - I hope it doesn't come to that in Germany.

Quotes from: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/article.php3?id_article=369#nb3

 

[john malcolm]

Grant/Woods Tendency

In defence of Marxism web site publishes a recent article from germany giving critical support to the new political formation. This appears to be a significant shift given their dogmatic theoretical position regarding the traditional parties of the working class. they have generally condemnd all movements to develop new formations outside of the traditional organisations even the SSP has come under fire as being an insignificant diversion. They are not totally consistent as one of their sections works within the PCR in Italy. Of course there are differences between the situation in germany where the wsag has support from sections of the trade union movement and the potential for a mass base among the working class, compared to Britain where the trade union leaders are more cautious and are so far hesitant about throwing their weight behind respect or more positivly directing their energy to the building of a new mass workers party.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

(a) Is lopsided to the point of being deeply dishonest about Linkstruck

No it isn't. I really am not misrepresenting them in the slightest. I am even using the words that Linksruck themselves use. They themselves talk about how a "Keynsian" programme (ie one that calls for a managed market economy) is necessary and about how it is inappropriate to raise "the system question" at this stage. I strongly disagree with them but I am not putting words in their mouth.

part (b) could well be true if the SAV in the area were being particularly disruptive.

It has nothing to do with being disruptive. It has to do with politics. The WASG leadership don't want anyone who talks about "the system question" in the organisation. The SAV openly argues for socialist politics and as a direct consequence has been the victim of sporadic witchunts. There was an attempt made to prevent prominent SAV members from joining the organisation in Rostock, including a city councillor there Christine Lehnert. The Linksruck member on the national leadership of the WASG abstained on the vote. This isn't something which Linksruck deny, although they are a bit embarassed about it.

I would point you towards some of Linksruck's own material on the subject but they don't seem to produce much of consequence in English, while the IST website seems to be on a six monthly update schedule. My information on all of this comes from SAV articles, confirmed by an ex-Linksruck member and a current Linksruck member.

As for "ultimatums", there is no ultimatum coming from the SAV. They argue for socialist ideas, they argue that capitalism needs to be overthrown, but they do not make it a precondition that others agree with them for them to participate in and build the WASG. The only "ultimatum" is from the right wing of the organisation, insisting that the left cannot argue their own politics if they are to stay members. The problem is not that SAV gives an ultimatum, but that unlike Linksruck it refuses to accept one from the leadership.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

In defence of Marxism web site publishes a recent article from germany giving critical support to the new political formation. This appears to be a significant shift given their dogmatic theoretical position regarding the traditional parties of the working class. they have generally condemnd all movements to develop new formations outside of the traditional organisations even the SSP has come under fire as being an insignificant diversion. They are not totally consistent as one of their sections works within the PCR in Italy. Of course there are differences between the situation in germany where the wsag has support from sections of the trade union movement and the potential for a mass base among the working class, compared to Britain where the trade union leaders are more cautious and are so far hesitant about throwing their weight behind respect or more positivly directing their energy to the building of a new mass workers party.

It could be argued that the PCR in Italy is the continuity of a traditional organisation, as the PCI more or less dissolved itself into social democracy and the PCR was formed from those who refused to dissolve.

 

[districtline]

i cant believe you even bother discussing this.

how many members are there in linksruck? 20? 30? even less?

there are a few thousand members in WASG and most of them are old social democrats and/or trades union people and this in a country of 80-90 million people.

they're irrelevant.

 

[jannerboyuk]

i cant believe you even bother discussing this.

how many members are there in linksruck? 20? 30? even less?

there are a few thousand members in WASG and most of them are old social democrats and/or trades union people and this in a country of 80-90 million people.

they're irrelevant.

An irrelevant bunch of people who are predicted to get 11% of the vote if they have an alliance with the renamed PDS.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

i cant believe you even bother discussing this.

how many members are there in linksruck? 20? 30? even less?

there are a few thousand members in WASG and most of them are old social democrats and/or trades union people and this in a country of 80-90 million people.

they're irrelevant.

And it's starting to get picked up by more than the usual left wing media, eg

New German left party overtakes Greens in poll
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2005-07-18 04:59

The newly-formed Left Party, composed of dissatisfied Social democrats and former East German communists, rallied in Berlin on Sunday with polls showing their voter support has overtaken the Greens.

Delegates at an extraordinary Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) congress supported the measure to join a splinter far-left party by 74.6 percent, easily reaching the two-thirds majority requirement.

With the move, the PDS will now be known, together with former Social Democrat chairman Oskar Lafontaine's Election Alternative for Social Justice (WASG) party, as "Die Linkspartei," or "The Left Party."

With only two months to go before the general election, opinion polls showed that The Left Party netting 10 percent of the vote, compared to 7 percent for the Greens, junior partners in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's coalition government.

The result would make the new party the third strongest political force in Germany after Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats with a support rate of 43 percent and Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) at 27 percent.

According to an Emnid Institute poll, The Left Party has a 23 percent support in the five states made up by the former Republic of Democratic Germany, while in the west it got nearly 10 percent of support, almost equaling with the Greens in most places.

The PDS were the successors to Erich Honecker's SED party thatruled former Republic of Democratic Germany until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After reunification, it has remained a political force in Germany's five eastern states.

By merging with Lafontaine's leftist splinter party, the PDS hope to turn The Left Party into a socialist force to be reckoned with should early elections go ahead in September, as widely anticipated. Pollsters have already forecast that the alliance could win 12 percent of the vote.

"This is an extremely important chance for us," leader of the PDS Gregor Gysi said.

http://en-1.ce.cn/World/Europe/200507/18/t20050718_4209457.shtml

 

[districtline]

An irrelevant bunch of people who are predicted to get 11% of the vote if they have an alliance with the renamed PDS.

not really. it's more a case of PDS and oscar l and a bunch of "wasg members on the lísts just for the sake of it" that are predicted to get 11% of the vote. they're just an alibi for the PDS in the west, they do after all have about ten times as many members as the WASG.

 

[jannerboyuk]

not really. it's more a case of PDS and oscar l and a bunch of "wasg members on the lísts just for the sake of it" that are predicted to get 11% of the vote. they're just an alibi for the PDS in the west, they do after all have about ten times as many members as the WASG.

So the PDS were getting 10% in the west before this alliance?

 

[treelover]

what cynicism,i think this is quite an inportant step and may have some impact here if it is successful.

'not really. it's more a case of PDS and oscar l and a bunch of "wasg members on the lísts just for the sake of it" that are predicted to get 11% of the vote. they're just an alibi for the PDS in the west, they do after all have about ten times as many members as the WASG.'

 

[john malcolm]

i cant believe you even bother discussing this.

how many members are there in linksruck? 20? 30? even less?

there are a few thousand members in WASG and most of them are old social democrats and/or trades union people and this in a country of 80-90 million people.

they're irrelevant.

LETTER FROM BERLIN htp://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,365809,00.html

Germany's East Heading Left

By Charles Hawley in Berlin

German President Horst Koehler has to decide whether or not to dissolve parliament by the end of this week. Surprisingly, however, that is not the main political story in Germany these days. The new "Left Party" is on the march. And the country's politicians don't seem to know what to do about it.


REUTERS
Co-head of the new Left Party Oskar Lafontaine. Everybody knows him, but nobody knows what to do about him.

 

[treelover]

thanks for that John , i've been looking for a 'decent' english language german news site for ages,

 

[Fisher_Gate]

thanks for that John , i've been looking for a 'decent' english language german news site for ages,

Really good site. Link to the latest polls is especially good.

http://www.spiegel.de/flash/0,5532,11564,00.html

Latest Poll published today shows PDS/WASG Left Party on 11% compared to 8% for the Greens and 27% for SPD.

 

[districtline]

So the PDS were getting 10% in the west before this alliance?

they did have ten times as many members yes, just as i said.

they didnt get 10% in the west then and neither do they now. that said, the wasg's role on the ground in this coalition is negligent, everyone knows that the PDS are using WASG as a way of getting into the west.

 

[districtline]

what cynicism,i think this is quite an inportant step and may have some impact here if it is successful.

it's an important step, of course, but the role of different trotskyte groups in the WASG is non-existent, the ex social democrats and trade unionists rule that party. the trotskytes can be counted in hundreds, if not tens.

interesting today though is that die linkspartei is now the largest party im osten with 30-31% in the latest opinion polls with cdu trailing just behind.

 

[treelover]

and thats a problem, not in my books

'The trotskytes can be counted in hundreds, if not tens.'

 

[districtline]

and thats a problem, not in my books

'The trotskytes can be counted in hundreds, if not tens.'

no, but it made the lengthy discussion earlier about the SAV and Linksruck really weird.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

no, but it made the lengthy discussion earlier about the SAV and Linksruck really weird.

You are absolutely right that the dominant forces in the WASG, and particularly in its leadership, are social democrats and trade unionists.

However, the various Trotskyists make up more than a tenth of WASG membership and are coherently organised which gives them some clout, particularly in certain cities. Their influence would be greater if the two main groups were pulling in the same direction of course but already SAV has had enough impact in raising socialist ideas to attract witchhunts from the leadership.

 

[districtline]

You are absolutely right that the dominant forces in the WASG, and particularly in its leadership, are social democrats and trade unionists.

However, the various Trotskyists make up more than a tenth of WASG membership and are coherently organised which gives them some clout, particularly in certain cities. Their influence would be greater if the two main groups were pulling in the same direction of course but already SAV has had enough impact in raising socialist ideas to attract witchhunts from the leadership.

is SAV the ones that make the Junge Welt newspaper? that one's quite good...

 

[Nigel Irritable]

SAV produce the newspaper Solidaritat.

Their website can be found here: http://www.sozialismus.info
In English their views are published here: http://www.socialistworld.net

 

[districtline]

germany probably has more leftwing groups than any other countries. i cant even keep them apart anymore. the linksbündnis is a great idea just because of that, only together can any kind of difference be made.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

is SAV the ones that make the Junge Welt newspaper? that one's quite good...

According to various web references, Junge Welt (Young World) was originally the paper of the youth wing of the ruling East German Communist Party (actually the 'Socialist Unity Party' SED), although it became an independent radical daily after reunification. [The SED became the PDS, the largest component of the new Left Party.]

 

[districtline]

According to various web references, Junge Welt (Young World) was originally the paper of the youth wing of the ruling East German Communist Party (actually the 'Socialist Unity Party' SED), although it became an independent radical daily after reunification. [The SED became the PDS, the largest component of the new Left Party.]

ah, of the youth wing (FDJ?).

what amazes me is that there seems to have been quite a few papers in east germany. neues deutschland which still exists (very very PDS loyal) and berliner zeitung which wants to be some kind of german washington post today.

 

[Oxpecker]

It is happening here - in a small way.

At Westminster yesterday Bob Crow, sharing a platform with Jeremy Corbyn and that independent socialist Welsh MP (?) announced the intention of the RMT to invite other trade unions and left-ish MPs in forming of a new working class party. This became official RMT policy at their AGM last month. Corbyn was openly challenged by Pat Sikorski (AGS) to renounce the Labour whip and stand as an independent.

There have, apparently, been encouraging noises from the FBU, UCW and PCS. Crow said that as far as he's concerned New Labour have now passed the point of no return and it's time to start from scratch and he'll be writing to all unions shortly.

Lyndsey German was on the same platform but didn't appear too impressed. She was kind of hoping that Respect would be the new party Crow had been talking about; but that's never going to happen.

I just hope this new party is a bit more long lasting and democratic than the SLP.

 

[john malcolm]

At Westminster yesterday Bob Crow, sharing a platform with Jeremy Corbyn and that independent socialist Welsh MP (?) announced the intention of the RMT to invite other trade unions and left-ish MPs in forming of a new working class party. This became official RMT policy at their AGM last month. Corbyn was openly challenged by Pat Sikorski (AGS) to renounce the Labour whip and stand as an independent.

Not sure if the RMT conference motion went as far as you suggest but lets hope this is a move in the right direction. Bob Crow has made the right noises but has not done a lot so far. whats needed is a conference to bring together the various organisations and individuals interested in such a project. In england and wales the trade unions are vital in the task of building a new mass working class party. This would be a catalyst and further undermine those union leaders who insist that the only way to win improvements for their members is to continue to fund New Labour and thereby have some influence on party policy. SWP/Respect would also have some serious thinking to do if such a new party takes off.

 

[belboid]

.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Interesting post from Oxpecker.

At the RMTs AGM before last a Workers Power member helped to put forward a resolution commiting the RMT to having a conference about forming a new workers party. This was actually passed but unfortunately it was amended to include working with the Labour Representation Committee. And the way this amendment was done watered down the committment to the conference.

Any idea of what the resolution said at the last AGM? If that happened it would obviously have massive implications for RESPECT.

 

[treelover]

Unfortunately, while i welcome this, i think any broad formation that has the Trotskyist Left in it as a component is doomed to failure, imo, they are serial splitters,and chaos merchants, they have dangerous illusions of grandeur(just see above for postings on their 'positions) and they represent few people,even the biggest of them, the SWP has no real constituency. They just cannot settle for second best and everything is geared to a final but unattainable teleogical goal


btw, in some urban cities, but certainly not all) it is the Greens who are performing the role of an Left oppositon, with great councillors, such as our own Matt S. Thought i doubt there(the GP) committment long term.

not much comment from IWCA types, let's hear other opinons