L.J.Solidarity
23rd April 2009, 13:26
In between new predictions of the economy shrinking by 6 percents next year (according to the IMF) and unemployment raising to 5 million until late 2010 (according to liberal german economists), the German bourgeoisie seems to be getting cold feet. The rather right-wing (Springer-owned) newspaper my mother reads has headlines such as "Economy crashes - DGB afraid of social unrest" on page 1 and "The worker's uprising" for a large article about German and French tyre workers fighting back against conti's works closure plans.
DGB (trade union congress) chairman Michael Sommer said that "social unreast could no longer be discounted" (http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4199145,00.html).
While I think that things are going to become interesting on the streets soon (at the latest mass protests will evolve after the elections in September, when a new right-wing government announces cutbacks and those workers that are now held on short time will lose their jobs), the Left Party's development makes me rather sad. The party leadership is moving to the right at an amazing speed and after the elections in several states due this year there will be 1-3 new coalitions with the SPD that are going to undermine worker's confidence in the party with their neo-liberal policies.
Even Linksjugend ['solid], the LP's youth organisation is on a bad course, a national conference 1 month ago decided to set education, climate change and state repression as the main topics for the coming year, with the majority of delegates refuting even the thought of a possible general strike in the near future as completely utopian and members of the newly elected central committee describing workers in Germany as a bunch of nationalist idiots who vote for the conservatives and are never going to do anything remotely protest-like.
So I guess the coming mass protests will once again take place without much help from mass organisations.
DGB (trade union congress) chairman Michael Sommer said that "social unreast could no longer be discounted" (http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4199145,00.html).
While I think that things are going to become interesting on the streets soon (at the latest mass protests will evolve after the elections in September, when a new right-wing government announces cutbacks and those workers that are now held on short time will lose their jobs), the Left Party's development makes me rather sad. The party leadership is moving to the right at an amazing speed and after the elections in several states due this year there will be 1-3 new coalitions with the SPD that are going to undermine worker's confidence in the party with their neo-liberal policies.
Even Linksjugend ['solid], the LP's youth organisation is on a bad course, a national conference 1 month ago decided to set education, climate change and state repression as the main topics for the coming year, with the majority of delegates refuting even the thought of a possible general strike in the near future as completely utopian and members of the newly elected central committee describing workers in Germany as a bunch of nationalist idiots who vote for the conservatives and are never going to do anything remotely protest-like.
So I guess the coming mass protests will once again take place without much help from mass organisations.