Good News from Germany (Grossman on new Program adopted in Erfurt)

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/grossman291011.html



Once in a while there's good news from Europe -- yes, even from here in Germany. And because Germany is so central in Europe and so strong, even minor good news from this country can be important.

But, till now, there hasn't been much good news for quite some time!

The party called Die Linke, or The Left, has supplied varied news in recent years. It was formed in 2007 when the fully renovated heir to the ruling party in the (East) German Democratic Republic before its demise wed a new West German party of people angry at the abandonment of past principles by Greens and Social Democrats. In 2009, with about a quarter of East German voters and about 5-8 percent in the more populous West German states, the new party got a healthy 12 percent of the total vote, which meant getting 76 Bundestag deputies. It won seats in seven of ten West German state legislatures. Two keys to its success were its co-presidents, charismatic Oskar Lafontaine, a clear-spoken man, once head of the Social Democrats, who easily counters the nastiest verbal attacks without losing his winning smile, and the witty, skilled master of repartees and vigorous orator, East Germany's Gregor Gysi.

But this combustible challenge set off smoke alarms in older parties' offices, especially the Greens and Social Democrats, who suffered big losses and feared worse ones, so they hunted in their dumpsters to find nearly forgotten social ideals. When that proved a bit messy they simply filched -- at least in words -- the main program points of The Left. Its demands for a minimum wage law, till then rejected or ignored, were taken over, only slightly reduced. Upping the pension age to 67, once supported by the political Gang of Four and opposed only by The Left, was now given D-minus grades by Social Democrats and Greens, like their own sharp cuts in taxes for the very wealthy. Some Greens and a few Social Democrats now withdrew support for the armed participation in the Afghanistan war.

Sadly for The Left, it failed to find new, burning issues or hot slogans, though the economic crisis surely offered possibilities enough. After the Fukushima catastrophe the Greens, always stressing opposition to atomic power, pushed well ahead, while even Merkel's ruling Christian Democrats grudgingly OK'd a slow switch away from atomic power. The Left's position, similar though not so central as that of the Greens, was ignored.

Worse still, The Left was afflicted with self-inflicted boils and bunions. Its "reformer" wing, or "pragmatists," hoping to join governing coalitions on the state level as in Brandenburg and Berlin and, who knows, maybe even nationally with Social Democrats and Greens after the 2013 elections, favored less radical stands so as to avoid rejection by such possible partners.

But the "left" of The Left opposed compromises it viewed as too fundamental. It wanted to reject all deployment of German military forces, even on NATO or UN missions. Though often labeled "humanitarian," they meant extending German strength in the whole world. Hadn't two indescribably horrific extensions in the past century been enough? But extension was again an overt goal of military leaders. Yet the reformer wing wanted to leave a loophole open for possible peace-keeping exceptions, as the other parties demanded.

Many in The Left supported Palestinian rights; two delegates sailed with the Mavi Marmara when it was boarded by Israeli commandos in 2010 and planned to sail again. The media soon jumped in with "anti-Semitism" accusations -- a bit ironically since Gregor Gysi, who had become caucus chairman in the Bundestag, is the only Jewish party leader in all Germany. But some in The Left also backed Israeli policies, causing one more unhappy party dispute.

The leftists wanted a total ban on further privatization of public utilities and, as soon as possible, nationalization of giant banks and utilities, with democratic socialism as a future objective. They opposed the unrelenting condemnation of the German Democratic Republic in the daily cold water douches of the media, making it seem as bad as or worse than the Nazi era so as to squelch any thoughts of socialism. They favored a balance: condemnation of nasty oppressive features and rejection of failing democracy but appreciation of its uniquely anti-fascist base, its full employment, the ban on evictions, total medical and dental coverage, free education, child care, and abortions. Yet some in The Left joined the strident chorus.

It seemed as if such quarrels, which frequently turned personal, might tear the party asunder. The media seized upon them with glee and, as intended, this further increased the infighting. Activity aimed at winning people and economic battles decreased. In the polls The Left dropped to about half its 12 percent high; it was weakened or defeated in seven elections in 2011, failing to get into two important state legislatures in western Germany and, after ten years of coalition rule with the Social Democrats in Berlin, losing that position as well. Many began to worry about its survival.

So where's the good news?

It came from Erfurt. It was in this ancient, pretty town in central Thuringia that Martin Luther got his BA and MA and became a doubting monk. Exactly 120 years ago Germany's Social Democratic Party, till then forbidden, met here and started its growth which made it the biggest leftist party in Europe. Now The Left wanted to draw up, at last, its own program. Or would its two main wings flap so hard that the party would be grounded -- possibly forever?

The answer is NO! After months of hard work a 40-page text was worked out which somehow, without great changes, satisfied nearly everybody. Lafontaine (known always as Oskar), who had withdrawn to state politics in his Saarland home after a bout with cancer, was again playing a big part; in general he favored more "left" views but voiced them in ways which could hardly offend anyone. Gysi, as often in the past, took what he called a "centrist" position and maintained the team spirit, while they both defended the present co-presidents, East Berlin leader Gesine Loetzsch, a fighter and fine speaker but often under attack, and Klaus Ernst, an activist metal trade union man with a thick Bavarian accent, who had been jumped on by the media largely because he liked to drive an old Porsche.

Here is one sample of what was agreed upon: "We demand an immediate end to all military deployment of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces, VG). This also includes German participation in military deployments mandated by the UN. . . ."

Here is another: "Because of the horrific crimes committed by Germans against Jewish men and women during the fascist era, Germany bears a special responsibility and must combat every kind of anti-Semitism, racism, oppression, and war. This responsibility requires especially that we support Israel's right of existence. At the same time we support a peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict within the framework of a two-state solution and therefore the recognition under international law of a sovereign and viable Palestinian state as based on the resolutions of the United Nations."

In her keynote speech, co-chair Gesine Loetzsch stated unequivocally: "For us, capitalism is not the final station of history; in this question we differ from all the other parties. . . ."

And "We are now the only anti-war party and we must always remain an anti-war party!"

Gregor Gysi spoke of relationships with other parties. "The Social Democratic Party is not our enemy . . . anyone who thinks that way is wrong, I believe. History, too, has proven this to be a completely false path. We have nothing against cooperation with the Social Democratic Party, but first they must at least become social democratic again. And in my view, they will never succeed in achieving that without us."

Turning to the new party, the Pirates, which had such success in the Berlin election as a youthful protest, he said, "There is a question as to whether we must take them seriously? Yes, we must. The Pirate party takes some rebellious voters away from us. I don't want to lose any voters. In fact, I prefer winning some more. That is not so easy for some view us as being all too established. We are already looked upon as too politically tamed. And not only that. The Pirates express a new way of living. This does not only refer to computer use but to other differences as well. Unlike us, they don't speak of 'work time' and 'leisure,' but of on-line and off-line time. Sometimes I need a translator just to know what they are talking about. . . . What we must understand and what I want to point out is: we must find bridges to the younger generation! We must open up to them! . . . We must talk with them! We need not agree with everything they say. But we need to connect with them!"

One resolution, accepted by acclamation, expressed the solidarity of delegates with the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. Another demanded the nationalization of big banks and electrical utilities plus a special tax on millionaires.

Lafontaine, stating that we live in a finance market dictatorship, warned of "threatening barbarism" and added: "We need to keep an upright stature and must not let others force us onto the defensive."

As for charges of anti-Semitism leveled against The Left, especially by newspapers of the right-wing Springer company, he said: "On this subject The Left needs no lecturing. . . . I am convinced that whenever fascism raises its head it won't be the Springer newspapers or the other parties fighting against it, it will be The Left which leads the resistance!"

In an unexpectedly friendly spirit it was agreed not to deal with all of the 1,400 (!) proposed alterations but to bunch them into theme blocks. It was necessary to skip a planned Saturday evening dance but by Sunday evening compromises had been worked out on all the issues once fought over, often so bitterly. The delegates clearly wanted to make this congress succeed and get the party off to a good new start. And the final vote amazed everyone! 503 delegates -- 96.9 percent of all those present -- voted for the program! Only four opposed it and 12 abstained. With such overwhelming approval there should hardly be noteworthy opposition, in East or West, in the membership referendum planned for the near future.

No, the danger of divisive tactics has not completely disappeared, since some are already discussing who should be voted into top leadership jobs at the election congress in June. Many considered this tasteless. What is now crucial is to translate enthusiastic words into well-planned action against the economic hard times and other woes which have hit so many and threaten so many more. Only then can the party move ahead. But those who set great hopes in this party, for Germany and all Europe, can sigh with relief that the feared split did not take place and delegates headed home with enthusiasm and new ideas. They are urgently needed.

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004593



At its conference in Erfurt on October 21-23, the German left party Die Linke agreed a new programme. Edith Bartelmus-Scholich reports

Four years after the fusion of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Wahlalternative Arbeit und Soziale Gerechtigkeit (WASG), Die Linke has adopted a new programme. This replaces the shorter Programmatische Eckpunkte, which was negotiated between the PDS and WASG. The new programme deals with issues that were not mentioned in the old Eckpunkte. It also tries to provide a vision for a different society that goes beyond day-to-day politics.

The 519 delegates voted by an overwhelming majority for the programme: only four raised their hands against, while 12 abstained. According to the party’s constitution, the programme must be passed by a poll of the whole membership before it comes into force. Here too overwhelming support is expected.

The left in Die Linke insists that the programme gives the party a clear anti-capitalist character, but this does not stand up to scrutiny. Yes, the programme starts off by blaming capitalism for economic failure, social hardship and war. But take a closer look and you will find that it is actually only the “unbridled financial markets” (entfesselte Finanzmärkte) that are concretely criticised. In this way, the aim of superseding capitalism has, in effect, become nothing more than the attempt to create a regulated version.

In Die Linke’s tamed version of capitalism, the market economy, different forms of property ownership, wage labour and competition are all to be kept on board. What is described as “democratic socialism” looks a lot like a benevolent version of the social market economy.

The organisation has borrowed quite heavily from the tool kit of social democracy. Some demands are quite supportable: more democracy in the economy, a reduction in working hours, a national minimum wage and a basic income for the unemployed (Grundsicherung). But the party falls short when it comes to the “new social idea” it set out to promote in 2007.

The party has been fighting hard for its positions on peace and war. The new programme calls for the banning of weapons exports and for Germany to leave Nato. It rejects the participation of the German armed forces in all foreign missions, even “peacekeeping missions” (chapter 7 of the UN charter). It is less clear on the role of the Bundeswehr in “humanitarian missions” (chapter 6). We can probably expect more controversy on this question, as some in the party support such missions.

Lack of democracy

Oskar Lafontaine in particular has in recent years emphasised over and over again that Die Linke is a movement for more democracy. Accordingly, the party has put forward demands for electoral reform, referendums, participatory budgets, more democracy in the workplace etc. However, programmes are one thing, reality is another: there is a lack of a truly democratic culture in the ranks of Die Linke.

The conference showed how Die Linke actually works. The party conference is not the sovereign body of the organisation, as stipulated in the constitution. In reality, it is a dutiful assembly that nods through everything the real centre of power has decided beforehand. The decisions on the crucial questions are made by an informal meeting of representatives of these four main political platforms: Demokratischer Sozialismus, Emanzipatorische Linke, Sozialistische Linke and Antikapitalistische Linke.

Just before the conference, the platforms got together and worked out compromise positions on six controversial questions: for example, the relationship to Israel, Bundeswehr foreign missions and the so-called ‘red holding lines’. The conference was urged to accept these compromises and agreed to do so almost without opposition.

In order to prevent any big changes to the lead motion, a tight schedule was put in place, which effectively prevented any real debate. Most of the 1,393 amendments were not discussed at all. In general, all amendments to each section of the programme were ‘pooled’ and then, citing time constraints, the chair recommended that they should all be rejected together in a single vote. Only very rarely did the conference reject this method - and then each amendment had to be dealt with in two minutes: one minute to move it, one minute for the objection.

A number of constitutional amendments were also dealt with in an extremely rushed manner. All amendments by the party leadership - which sought to restrict the rights of members - were voted through by the necessary two-thirds majority. But all amendments that sought to extend democracy were defeated.

Despite the tight schedule, the party leadership treated the conference to six long speeches from leading members, which took up several hours. The delegates accepted that the time for debate had to be cut short so that they could listen to their leaders, particularly Gregor Gysi and Oskar Lafontaine - and they often did with glazed eyes.

Lafontaine even succeeded in presenting former SPD chancellor Willy Brandt as some kind of figure of light to the conference. Lafontaine totally ignored the fact that Brandt is not just a former Nobel peace prize winner, but that he also introduced the Notstandsgesetze and the Berufsverbote. Incredibly, Lafontaine got conference to vote for the establishment of a “Willy Brandt peace corps in the Bundeswehr”, and this is now enshrined in the party’s programme.

The leadership consciously tried to present the organisation as a traditional working class party - by staging the conference in Erfurt (where the SPD voted for its Erfurt programme in 1891), by putting wage-labour at the centre of its programme and especially in the speeches given by Lafontaine. But the party has chosen only those traditions that have come to be characterised as authoritarian. Conference voted down a motion by the Emanzipatorischen Plattform to include the libertarian tradition of German anarchism in the range of political views that have influenced Die Linke.

When the SPD voted for its Erfurt programme it really was a growing working class party. It had survived the anti-socialist laws and emerged stronger. It was supported by millions of workers. In comparison to that, Die Linke is a Scheinriese, as former executive member Thies Gleiss has put it. It has about 70,000 members, only a small minority of whom are actively involved in the workers’ movement. Die Linke has a handful of workplace groups across Germany. A couple of hundred members have positions in the trade union movement and the organisation is hardly represented in any other extra-parliamentary organisations in Germany.

The SPD still commands a huge influence over the German workers’ movement. It is a bulwark that Die Linke has to overcome before it can present itself as a (hopefully modern) workers’ party. Because it does not have real anchorage in the working class, the organisation’s self-image as a traditional workers’ party is nothing but a mirage, which will create illusion and disappointment.

Crisis management

according to the party’s leadership, down to a “lack of solidarity” and a lack of unity. To get out of the crisis, Gysi and Lafontaine especially demand “unity” - the members should stop criticising the leadership. Instead of “looking inwards”, members should “do politics”. They fail to see that a party that unites liberals, social democrats, socialists and communists will inevitably be embroiled in arguments.

But instead of trying to work out what is at the root of these criticisms, the leadership reacts with authoritarianism. Gysi said that he understands that the Pirate Party has somewhat replaced Die Linke as the main protest party. He said that a lot of people in Germany support the pirates, because they ache for a different political culture, with an open society and radical democracy. And yet he commands the party to demonstrate unity and obedience.

In my view, Die Linke is in crisis, because the leadership has failed on a range of issues. In my opinion, these are:

- The breadth of the party’s political positions. They are supposed to make the party stronger and reflect the representation of many different views. In reality, the party is weakened by a lack of a clear vision. Where liberals, social democrats, socialists and communists work together, there will always be arguments over aims, strategies and personnel.
- The party’s participation in coalition governments. Die Linke in government has helped impose cuts in jobs and social services, and force through privatisation.
- The party lacks a strategy for opposition. For years, the party sought to create leftwing government coalitions in order to push the SPD and the Greens to the left. But after disastrous results in a number of regional elections, Die Linke currently only governs in the federal state of Brandenburg (with the SPD). Attempts to create left-leaning government coalitions elsewhere have backfired, as the SPD and the Greens have steadily moved to the right (with Peer Steinbrück as the most probable candidate for chancellor, the SPD will now move even further to the right).
- The attempt to build the party in the west of the country has failed. The leadership is still attempting to create an idealised version of the SPD. Lafontaine was supposed to bring voters and members of the SPD on board. But this has only worked in the Saarland, Lafontaine’s home region. Still, the leadership persists.
- A lack of democratic culture. For example, at the 2010 conference, delegates were forced into accepting a new leadership that was in effect put together by the old one. This carefully arranged Personaltableau reflected the different fractions in the party. That’s how mainstream political parties choose their leadership. A left party should do better.

Even though Die Linke now has a programme, it is still in crisis.



Notes

- The author is a member of the Revolutionär Sozialistischer Bund, part of the Fourth International.

- Gregor Gysi is one of the most popular politicians in the east of Germany. Just like Lafontaine, he holds no official position in the party, but they are both the de facto leaders.

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=888

I object

I object to Edith Bartelmus-Scholich’s characterisation of the informal meetings of representatives of the four main political platforms in Die Linke as undemocratic, apart from transparency issues (‘A better version of social democracy’, October 27). This is similar to what should be occurring within any party’s media. Quota sampling should be used for cooperation between tendencies, platforms and currents in an editorial organ. This would go a long way towards ensuring that key political positions are not censored from the party press.

Another statement that raised my eyebrows was: “This carefully arranged Personaltableau reflected the different fractions in the party. That’s how mainstream political parties choose their leadership. A left party should do better.” It’s rather rich when considering that the writer’s own organisation probably uses the highly problematic slate system, which, according to one Pat Byrne, is supposed to “recommend a list that consciously includes a good balance of talents and personalities, [but] in practice has allowed leaders to secure their continuous re-election, along with a body of like-minded and loyal followers”.

Ideally Die Linke should employ probability-proportional-to-size sampling in order to measure the relative strength of the tendencies, platforms and currents.

[Demogorgon]

It is a long shot this soon, but is there an English translation of the programme yet?

[robbo203]

So where's the good news?

It came from Erfurt. It was in this ancient, pretty town in central Thuringia that Martin Luther got his BA and MA and became a doubting monk. Exactly 120 years ago Germany's Social Democratic Party, till then forbidden, met here and started its growth which made it the biggest leftist party in Europe. Now The Left wanted to draw up, at last, its own program. Or would its two main wings flap so hard that the party would be grounded -- possibly forever?

The answer is NO! After months of hard work a 40-page text was worked out which somehow, without great changes, satisfied nearly everybody. .

I fail to see where the good news happens to be in all this . The original Erfurt Programme of 1891, though fatally compromised by the flawed "dual strategy" of seeking to combine reformist and revolutionary apsirations - like trying to mix oil and water - at least paid lipservice of sorts to the goal of a communist society. This bunch of insipid, uninspiring and trendy single issue demands does not even appear to do that.

[chebol]

http://links.org.au/node/2604

Germany: Die Linke's road to an anti-capitalist program


http://www.die-linke.de/uploads/pics/111021_tagungssaal_erfurt_01.jpg
By Dick Nichols, Erfurt
November 18, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal (http://links.org.au/node/2604)/Green Left Weekly (http://www.greenleft.org.au/) -- Late on October 23, 2011, a chilly Sunday afternoon, the culminating vote of the program congress of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke) came in Erfurt’s cavernous Congress Centre: 503 delegates raised their voting cards to support the document as finally amended by the congress, with only four against and 12 abstentions.
After operating since 2007 on the basis of the (http://www.die-linke.de/fileadmin/download/international/programmatic_points.pdf)“programmatic key points (http://www.die-linke.de/fileadmin/download/international/programmatic_points.pdf)” that created Die Linke from the fusion of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_of_Democratic_Socialism_%28Germany%29) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_and_Social_Justice_%E2%80%93_The_Electoral_ Alternative), Die Linke’s new program depicts the 75,000-strong party’s “genetic code” much more sharply—anti-capitalist, anti-Stalinist, feminist, ecological, pacifist, internationalist, resolutely against discrimination and for social justice and democratic rights.
Most of all, the program pinpoints capitalism and its property relations as the source of the planet’s social and environmental ills: “Die Linke is convinced that a crisis-free, social, ecological and peaceful capitalism is not possible.”
It also situates Die Linke as an heir to the radical European working-class movement and champions the working people against the “rulers of the universe”—as evoked in the stirring Bertolt Brecht (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht) poem “Questions from a Worker Who Reads (https://www.msu.edu/%7Esullivan/TransBrechtWorker.html)”, adopted by the congress as the program’s preface.
The first drafts
This 96.9% yes vote showed overwhelming support for a document whose initial draft, drawn up by the party’s former party co-chairs Lothar Bisky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothar_Bisky) and Oskar Lafontaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Lafontaine), first saw the light of day in March 2010.
Over the rest of the year an exhaustive discussion took place—in Die Linke branches, its 16 state organisations, on its web site (http://www.die-linke.de/dielinke/aktuell/), in the pages of the left daily Neues Deutschland (http://www.neues-deutschland.de/) and other publications, and at events initiated by the affiliated Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (http://www.rosalux.de/english/foundation.html). This phase culminated in an 800-strong program convention in November 2010.
In March 2011, an editorial commission under new party co-chairs Klaus Ernst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Ernst) and Gesine Lötzsch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesine_L%C3%B6tzsch) evaluated all feedback from this first phase, and in July the party’s executive board sent out an amended document as the congress’s “main motion”.
The feedback reflected Die Linke’s involvement in many areas of struggle as well as the wide range of left currents that had flowed into it both through and after the PDS-WASG fusion. It made the second draft more radical, concrete and clearly structured.
The main social and economic features of what Die Linke means by democratic socialism were spelled out, and explicitly based on the vision of the Communist Manifesto: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”
Economically, that will require “economic democracy”, based on democratic socialisation of large-scale industry, key sections of the finance sector, infrastructure, utilities and transport, combined with an extended cooperative sector and with space for small and medium private enterprise and the self-employed.
In a greatly expanded treatment of women’s oppression Die Linke was defined as a “socialist and feminist political party that wants to eliminate patriarchal and capitalist relationships”. Three new sections dealt with the roots of women’s oppression, the new inequalities suffered by women under neoliberal capitalism, and the consequent need for a “fair distribution of all jobs between the sexes”.
An extensive rewriting of objectives and policies for working life and trade union rights was included. This was developed under the rubric of “good work”, defined as forms of employment that underpin decent living standards, full employment and gender equality at home and at work. These changes reflected a many-sided discussion, in particular involving issues arising from the (changing) gender division of labour in Germany.
There was a major upgrading of the demands relating to the environmental crisis and global warming, the defence of ecosystems and animal rights. This was explicitly recognised as a “system issue”, requiring “ecological taxes with an effective guidance function aimed at reducing resource consumption”, free local public transport “as a vision that we want to work towards in the long term”, and the immediate decommissioning of Germany’s nuclear plants.
The party’s anti-war vocation was more clearly specified (“war must never again emanate from German soil”).
Other changes included:


a more detailed spelling out of the party’s goals in expanding democracy at all levels, from Europe to municipalities and including the legal system;



more precise specifying of objectives with regard to social security, education, aged care and pensions, housing and health;



a new or rewritten section spelling out the right to information and internet policy;



more specific demands in the areas of discrimination against migrants and national minorities (Danes, Frisians, Sorbs, Sinti and Roma);



a new section covering Die Linke perspectives at the European level.

The introduction described the party’s heritage more clearly, with greater emphasis on its anti-Nazi identity, affirmed that the PDS’s “break with Stalinism applies equally for Die Linke”. It also added a greater recognition of the positive aspects of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), along with a sharper critique of post-war West Germany’s “social market economy” and of Germany as a class society.
The road to democratic socialism was described as “a great transforming process of social restructuring … characterised by many small and large steps towards reform, by ruptures and upheavals of revolutionary profundity”.
That process would necessarily involve international solidarity and a willingness to learn from all experiences of struggle—“the complexity of the problems and starting conditions prohibit any claim to a leading role for any country, specific movement or individual political party.”
Finally, there was also a clearer specification of the “red stop-lines” setting out Die Linke’s conditions for participation in coalition governments. It stressed that “Die Linke must be recognisable by its programmatic profile and its basic positions of substance in all political constellations. We want another policy and are fighting for hegemony in the public discussion …
“Die Linke seeks participation in government when it will enable us to improve people’s living conditions. In that way the political power of Die Linke and the social movements can be enhanced and the feeling of helplessness and lack of alternatives that many people have can be assuaged.”
In also added that “left policy must always be able to rely on the trade unions and other social movements and the mobilisation of extra-parliamentary pressure”.
1400 amendments
After such a thorough testing of party opinion, it might have been expected that few amendments would be submitted to the second draft. Yet, in just two months, Die Linke members, ideological platforms and working groups offered nearly 1400 changes to this new text!
Why? And how were the congress delegates meant to discuss and vote on all these in the space of three days (and consider amendments to the party statutes as well)?
With hindsight, it was predictable that the party program process would accentuate the many different perspectives that cohabit in Die Linke and each with their own interpretation of what its red flag means. It is probably the broadest of all European left organisations, covering trends from revolutionary socialist to left social-democratic and containing four major organised currents, some of them enjoying formal party recognition as platforms.
They are:


the Democratic Socialist Forum (http://www.forum-ds.de/), originally part of the PDS, which tends to support Die Linke participation in state coalition governments;



the Anti-capitalist Left (http://www.antikapitalistische-linke.de/), which focusses on promoting discussion on strategy for socialism and is wary of participation in coalition governments, holding that it should be dependent on a set of minimum criteria;



the Socialist Left (http://www.sozialistische-linke.de/), containing many former WASG members, which stresses the contradiction between capital and labour and working-class struggle, is inspired by left Keynesian traditions and fights for social-ecological restructuring through increased public investments;



the Emancipatory Left (http://www.ema.li/), followers of libertarian socialist principles. It stresses the need to build socialism “from below” and reserves a critical role for social movements in the process.

Other currents inside Die Linke include the Reform Left Network, originally formed as a tendency in the PDS and supporting collaboration with the SPD and Greens, and the Communist Platform, also a PDS tendency, dedicated to “building a new socialist society, using the positive experiences of real socialism and to learn from mistakes”.
Main questions in dispute
The main questions in dispute were:


Under what conditions to participate in government? The first pole here is made up of those inclined to support Die Linke's participation in Social Democratic Party (SPD) majority governments. Their main argument is that this is what the party’s voters expect of it—especially in East Germany, its strongest base of support—and that the resulting administrations have always been better than otherwise (see articles by Stefan Liebich and Steffen Bockhahn in [I]The Left in Government--Latin America and Europe Compared (http://rosalux-europa.info/publications/books/the_left_in_government/)). Against are those who stress that Die Linke, in the words of Lafontaine, “must always make very clear that we do not belong to the neoliberal party cartel”.



A guaranteed minimum income or not? The Emancipatory Left current supports this measure so as “to uncouple the right to a secure existence and social participation for everyone from employment”. It is resisted by the party’s trade unionists who see it as potentially undermining the struggle for jobs and decent wages and conditions.



Is Die Linke a pacifist party? The strong pacifist tradition in Germany, product of the country’s militaristic past, is reflected inside the party in a broad rejection of any German military operation. The opponents are those who point to humanitarian disasters that might have been avoided by military intervention—such as in Srebrenitsa, Rwanda and Darfur. They argue that Die Linke policy should allow for a case-by-case approach.



Should Die Linke oppose all reductions in public service employment? Privatisation of public services has led to some to demand no cuts to public service numbers. This is opposed by members, mainly in the east, who point to declining population (and hence declining demand for services and public sector jobs).



Should Die Linke continue to build the “publicly supported employment sector” (ÖBE in its German initials)? This program was initiated in Berlin to provide socially useful work for the long-term unemployed. Berlin members involved are staunch defenders of the program, but its critics say that it is an instrument of “labour market flexibilisation”, even though paying at least the minimum wage set by the Berlin Senate.



Is opposition to Israel anti-Semitic? Die Linke participation in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and the first Gaza flotilla provoked a media barrage about “left-wing anti-Semitism”. Die Linke has since withdrawn from these campaigns, disappointing its supporters of Palestinian rights.

These tensions and differences did not operate in a vacuum. They were heightened by the stagnation in support for Die Linke in the seven state polls held in 2011, culminating in the result of the September Berlin selection, where its vote fell by 4.5% and for the first time a new political force appeared on the party’s left flank—the Pirate Party (http://www.piratenpartei.de/).
The pirates’ success haunted the conference, with concern that, in Berlin at least, Die Linke had ceased to be the "cool" anti-establishment party for young people.
The 18 months of program discussion also coincided with a manufactured media scandals over its supposed “anti-Semitism”, a congratulatory letter to Fidel Castro on the occasion of his 85th birthday, and the refusal of a number of Die Linke parliamentarians to participate in a ceremony commemorating the deaths of people trying to escape East Germany, as well as the “personnel debate”—endless media talk about the performance of Ernst and Lötzsch as compared to predecessors Bisky and Lafontaine.
The party program debate itself also became another media stick with which to beat Die Linke—with lurid publicity given to the “mad” positions of some members in such areas as drug reform. The SPD, always thirsting for revenge against their bête noire Lafontaine (former SPD president, minister of finance and candidate for chancellor) also smelled blood: SPD leader Sigmar Gabrielkept up a steady drum beat of “invitations” to Die Linke trade unionists to “leave the madhouse” and return to their rightful home.
At the same time the other parties were pouring over Die Linke policy with a view to pinching whatever attractive bits could be slotted into their own platforms. The maximum expression of this process was Chancellor Angela Merkel’s sudden conversion to supporter of a legal minimum wage, even though her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) version of this is a ghastly parody of the Die Linke proposal (http://www.die-linke.de/nc/presse/presseerklaerungen/detail/zurueck/presseerklaerungen/artikel/pseudo-mindestlohn-der-cdu-ist-eine-taeuschung-der-bevoelkerung/).
As a result of all these pressures, polls in Germany (http://www.infratest-dimap.de/en/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/sonntagsfrage/) have been showing only 6-7% national support for Die Linke since September, half its 2009 result (12% of the vote and 76 Bundestag seats). All this could only exacerbate tensions within the party, whose members and supporters were daily confronted with headlines like “The Exhausted Party” or “The Rise and Fall of Die Linke”.
The compromise
In this atmosphere it was clear that the decision on how to handle the conference amendments wasn’t just a big organisational challenge—the party had to decide what the political impact of a public fight over its differences would be, especially as a close vote on any of them wouldn’t resolve differences in reality.
The first step, taken by the executive board a week before the conference, was to incorporate amendments acceptable to it into an amended text. This amended document, now a third version of the draft program, integrated a number of compromise positions on some of the controversial issues: for example, guaranteed minimum income was to be a subject of ongoing discussion and Die Linke would propose a “Willy Brandt Peace Corps” to help in case of humanitarian crises in place of the present-day use of the Bundeswehr in this role.
This removed around 270 amendments from the discussion and produced new sections on equality, cultural policy, agriculture, democratisation of the internet, for open borders for people in need and against fortress Europe, youth and aged rights, transgender and intersex rights, religion and sport.
The Die Linke demand for the minimum wage was set at 60% of average earnings.
Other accepted amendments committed the party to exploring “new possibilities to influence political action through the potentials of the internet”, a “solidarity economy” favouring local production, further elaboration of demands that would underpin “good work”, the active participation of young people in social decision-making”, and a more detailed aged policy.
The next step was to propose a procedure for dealing with the remaining 1100-plus amendments. The presidium proposed that only amendments proposed by party organisations or at least 25 congress delegates be submitted to discussion and vote. Once agreed, that procedure removed around 500 more amendments from discussion.
The second was to ask congress not to vote on amendments that had been judged to be purely editorial by the editing commission: removing around another 180 proposed changes.
The delegates were then asked to support a procedure that would group the approximately 570 remaining according to the sections of the draft program: congress would vote whether it wanted to move to discussion of individual amendments. If it did, there would be two speakers for and two against each proposed change.
Originally, movers of amendments would not have been heard before congress voted on whether it wanted to treat amendments singly. However, a motion of a delegate from the Die Linke youth affiliate Solid (http://www.linksjugend-solid.de/) proposing that all amendment movers have a minute to motivate their amendment was adopted.
The congress then overwhelmingly voted for the whole procedure—no alternative was proposed—but it caused a certain discontent because the work of the congress became an enormous task of working through an 110-page amendment book, with insufficient time to debate key issues in much depth.
Executive board and program editorial board members Sarah Wagenknecht (Socialist Left) and Matthias Hoehn (Democratic Socialist Forum) next appealed to the congress to accept the positions where compromise had been possible and not reopen debate. Wagenknecht said: “Let’s pass a program that you know we can all support.”
The discussion
Unsurprisingly, after voting for this filtering process, the single amendments discussed came to about 350 and those finally adopted to only 18. One committed Die Linke to opposition to genetically modified organisms, while most of the rest involved the reinforcement of the party’s identity and stances of principle (on anti-fascist work, use of German military and police overseas and sexual freedom, for example).
An amendment on the fight against neo-fascism and racism supported the party position of banning all extreme-right organisations, but added that “a ban does not substitute for social discussion”, and committed the party to support anti-fascist and anti-racist educational work in schools.
However, one amendment that was carried was to cause controversy (and give the media something to scream about)—a proposal to eliminate the distinction between soft and hard drugs. When carried 215-195 it had the effect of seeming to commit Die Linke to the legalisation of hard drugs. Gregor Gysi, the party’s Bundestag [parliamentary] fraction leader sought to explain that it only meant to make hard drugs available where needed medically, but that was not in the wording.
A special amendment to the amendment was then proposed to make this clear. The delegates voted by large majority to support this despite some sharp comment from one delegate to the effect that “why do we bother to have discussion anyway”.
In the debate on whether to support German military engagements, the case-by-case position was soundly defeated.
The statute section of the congress was devoted to updating the statutes to eliminate the PDS and WASG as legal entities within Die Linke. The session produced two revealing debates. The first was over a proposal to limit the number of Die Linke comrades who are elected officials or party employees to a 50% presence on the executive board. This proposal received 70% support, but, because many delegates had left, less than 50% of the total delegate list had voted in favour, so the proposal could not be adopted.
Similarly, the proposal to set up a federal women’s council as part of the formal structures of Die Linke failed because it did not get the 55% vote needed for a statute change. However, the congress voted to set up a federal women’s body independently, in order to provide a forum for ongoing discussion and debate of questions of feminist policy, campaigning and representation.
The speeches
After two and half 12-hour days of grueling work the delegates’ job was done. To fit everything in, breaks were shortened and the Saturday evening dance cancelled.
However, the conference was not one unending grind through the amendment book. Political inspiration and clarification came from the feature speeches of co-chairs Gezine Lötzsch and Klaus Ernst, Bundestag fraction head Gregor Gysi and Oscar Lafontaine.
Gezine Lötzsch situated Die Linke in a long tradition of rebellion beginning with Martin Luther and Thomas Müntzer and exploding nearly 500 years later in the “Occupy” movement even as the congress was meeting (and with which it expressed its special solidarity). She linked the debate over the program and the final text with the need to give outrage a political expression, calling on delegates to remember the five million who had voted Die Linke in 2009 and not to disappoint them.
A special part in her speech was reserved for solidarity with Greece, counterposing this to the “bailout” packages driven from Berlin, Paris and Brussels—all aimed at saving European banks, not the livelihoods and living standards of Greek people.
Alexis Tsipras (http://www.syn.gr/en/tsipras_alexis.htm), president of the Greek left-ecological coalition Synaspismos, spelled out what this means to the Greek people in a special guest address to the congress (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIjY42MbVzw&feature=relmfu).
Klaus Ernst stressed the heritage of the roots of Die Linke in the European labour movement going back to Marx and Engels, the Paris Commune, Rosa Luxemburg, the anti-fascist struggle of the 1930s, the anti-Stalinist fight inside the GDR and the anti-globalisation movement.. He underlined the very different “political biographies” that had come together in Die Linke, and the party’s achievement in having forged a common program from so many different political traditions and identities.
In particular, he asked the delegates to appreciate the value of what they had achieved, and the value of each other’s contribution in spite of at times quite serious differences.
Gysi stressed the achievement involved in Die Linke’s having adopted a program “from the bottom up” (by contrast with the 2007 PDF-WASG agreement). The job now, he half-joked, “is to make it intelligible to the women on the check-out counters—our natural supporters... I am not sure that the bus driver who starts to read it will read on.”
Gysi focused on explaining Die Linke’s fall in the polls: the 2009 12% vote had followed on the experience of a SPD-Green government and the SPD-CDU “grand coalition”, which had introduced cutbacks and taken and kept the country to war in Afghanistan. However, “now the SPD and the Greens are, at least formally, opposition parties in the Bundestag like us. And those who like the SPD, always want it to be as they imagine it. Then thereare the people who believe them, they hope that they have finally become what they call themselves—social and democratic."
He also urged the party to “take the Pirates seriously—this is a warning sign for us. It says we are being seen as establishment when we are not. If we don’t re-win youth support, we are lost."
“The Pirates express a new way of living. This does not only refer to computer use but to other differences as well. Unlike us, they don't speak of 'work time' and 'leisure', but of on-line and off-line time. Sometimes I need a translator just to know what they are talking about... What we must understand and what I want to point out is this: we must find bridges to the younger generation! We must open up to them! ...We must talk with them! We need not agree with everything they say. But we need to connect with them!"
Gysi also explained that Die Linke would also probably suffer because in a period of crisis people become wary of “experiments” and Die Linke is still seen, especially at the federal level, as an experiment.
As for the tensions within the party, Gysi remarked that it was far better to have a variegated Die Linke than the “sickening” old unanimity of East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Unity_Party_of_Germany). “We need both our wings. If we had only our ‘reformist’ wing we would be too like the SPD; if we had only our radical wing we would be isolated socially. What constitutes our charm is that we have both and have to learn to deal with both of them to develop compromises that address the population.”
But the party has paid a price through the whole process, albeit necessary, of developing the program: it had become self-absorbed and “self-absorption is destroying us politically”. Undisciplined comment to the media by individual Die Linke members was also not helping.
Gysi, who was happy to identify himself as a “centrist”, also warned the factions against seeking total victory—a win for the factions would probably be a loss for the party as a whole. Die Linke now has to turn all its energies outward. That meant learning to “translate” the program into language and examples people could grasp, Gysi said.
The Bundestag leader urged the delegates to appreciate that the new program was a magnificent weapon with which to outgun Die Linke’s political rivals: Greens who are not green nor peace-loving, Social Democrats who don’t support workers’ rights, and the small business-loving Free Democrats, who effectively vote to ruin small business.
Where could the party start to regain traction with its program? By highlighting its policies—opposing the sale of German tanks to Saudi Arabia; by resolute opposition to privatisation, by spelling out what we mean by democratic socialism, including the role the market will have it in it, and refusing to be set up as Ostalgists (“state socialism has failed, we want a democratic socialism of an entirely different stamp”); and by standing intransigently for democracy and equality—between men and women, west and east, native German and immigrant.
Gysi finished by saying that, in a world of financial and economic crisis about which leading conservative ideologues were conceding that Die Linke had been right, it was high time for Die Linke members to acquire the same conviction and “end our self-absorption from tomorrow”.
Lafontaine addressed two issues: the need to end defensiveness before the incessant media barrage, and the need for members to give solidarity to the leadership, even when it might be making mistakes.
Lafontaine took up Gysi’s point to address the issue of government alliances: “Our dispute over getting involved in government is pointless. I would really ask that we not carry on with it. The question is not whether we enter government, yes or no. I am someone who was in government for decades. The question is always and only whether in government we can achieve something for our voters. And if they give us good marks after participation in government, we have done right. And if our participation in government leads to a worse result we have done something wrong. Then we need to work to fix ourselves up.”
For Lafontaine too the vital issue was one of political self-confidence—“standing straight”. “The financial crisis can be for us what Fukushima was to the Greens—it gives us an invaluable opening to convince millions about what has to be done about the banks and the economy.”
Lafontaine then spelled out how he thought the party should talk about the economic and financial crisis and promote its policies: “I say in all confidence: we are the only party that provides useful responses to the financial crisis—the need to build the public banking sector again.”
He urged the delegates to turn confidently outward now that the program had been adopted: “We are needed there more than ever before in history. We need to walk upright. If you meet people in the pub who ask, ‘Aren’t you with Die Linke?’, don’t duck away in fright. Look them in the face and say, ‘Aren’t you? It’s about time you were’.”
Reactions
In post-congress comments, the point most commonly made has been that the adoption of the program, besides being an historic success and step forward, also marks a turn to the left. Indicative of this was the failure of the Democratic Socialist Forum to persuade the congress to amend the program preamble to remove a dot-point summary of its key positions.
Reaction from the organised currents to the congress has been mixed, cautiously positive, but with some sharp criticisms.
The Emancipatory Left decried Gysi’s intervention to amend the drugs policy as making a farce of democratic process and stated that the whole decision-making process had been compromised because the congress “operated under the pressure of media observation”.
For this trend, the congress was an application of “the Hollywood principle”, where a “shit film” is compensated for by the presence of George Clooneys, i.e., Gysi and Lafontaine. The supposedly undemocratic method followed was a triumph of “personality over content”.
The Emancipatory Left also criticised the refusal of the congress to recognise anarchism as one of the contributory streams to the broad Die Linke river, along with the reduction in the rights of sympathisers to be elected on party bodies at a time when the SPD was opening up its structures: “Are we really again a tight, highly organised cadre organisation? Do we want to be that?”
Federal spokesperson for the Democratic Socialist Platform, Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff, greeted the formation of the Federal Council of Left Women, but warned that the differences over program had not disappeared with the near-unanimous congress vote. Other Democratic Socialist Platform members echoed this assessment, pointing to the complete ban on any German participation in any UN military operations and the effective removal of support for Berlin’s “publicly supported employment sector” as areas of unresolved contradiction.
For the Democratic Socialist Platform, the key test would be whether the tendency of disappointed members to quietly leave the party could be reversed, and whether Die Linke would manage perform well in the 2012 state parliamentary election of Schleswig-Holstein (the only state election before the next federal poll in 2013). The result there would tell whether Die Linke is “back on track” in the public mind.
The Socialist Left, associated with Lafontaine and Wagenecht, gave a wholly positive assessment of the congress, commenting that the party had adopted a program that enables it to become a “liberation movement against the dictatorship of the financial markets—it stands on the side of the 99%.”
The Anti-capitalist Left welcomed the program, stressing that by incorporating least conditions for participation in government it contained a clear renunciation of the course of the adaptation to SPD and the Greens. This current also welcomed the stress given to “the property question” and demands for the socialisation of the banks and key industries. Particularly positive were the demands covering German foreign policy (dissolution of NATO, withdrawal of German armed forces from all foreign engagements).
The Anti-capitalist Left balance sheet added: “Further demands important for us are the ban on public make-work schemes, the prohibition of mass sackings, a clear strategy against right-wing populism, the demand for the abolition of [European border security agency] Frontex and for open borders, the setting of the demand of a minimum wage at 60% of the national average wage, the renunciation of the Lisbon Treaty of the EU, the demand for a 'reboot' of—and new contractual basis for—a different, better Europe.”
Some comment since the congress has concentrated on the supposed lack of democracy involved in the congress’s decision-making method. Thies Gleiss, an acting speaker of the party in North Rhine-Westphalia, argued in the October 29 issue of left daily Junge Welt against the intra-platform compromise presented to congress and said a better method would have been to organise the discussion around the main points in dispute, registering a majority and minority vote on each theme.
The doubt must be whether such an approach, which may have better clarified the issues for delegates, would have been possible given the decision to accept amendments from all members and the 1400 amendments consequently submitted.
The question is also raised of whether such an approach would have led to premature decisions on important issues. The program debate piled a lot of material and discussion in front of unaligned “non-platform” delegates (the majority?), who felt they needed more time to think it all through. One such area of concern was the guaranteed minimum income. Such delegates were happy to vote for compromises that would allow the party to face the world and begin the fight to recover its position in German politics.
It seemed clear that after a year and a half discussion more experience and reflection about it will be required to fill in the gaps and—hopefully—resolve whatever contradictions the program adopted at Erfurt contains.
What the 97% vote in favour really represents will become clear in that process, which may also soften existing alignments and differences (and even produce new ones).
Certainly, it would not be a step forward if the path of Die Linke in future were continually set by compromise deals between the factions—that would further weaken the sovereign role of party congresses.
Another important reason is that many members don’t identify with any faction. Congress delegates found themselves supporting now one, now another, position according to the issue under discussion.
Yet whatever criticisms can be made, whatever positions need to be tested in practice and whatever discussions remain to be held, the new Die Linke program remains a big step forward for the party, not the least because it makes socialism a point of discussion in mainstream German politics.
In a situation where the world socialist movement is still struggling to overcome the double fiasco of the failures of Stalinism and social democracy, the existence of Die Linke is, in the words of Gregor Gysi, “a tremendously important factor in the Federal Republic of Germany and Europe”.
[Dick Nichols is the European correspondent for Green Left Weekly and Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal. He attended the Die Linke congress as a delegate for the Australian Socialist Alliance. A shorter version of this article appears in Green Left Weekly. The new Die Linke program will be available in English translation on the party’s web site (http://www.die-linke.de/).]

[Susurrus]

Oh hey, I'm in the middle of reading his memoirs, didn't know he was still alive.

[Os Cangaceiros]

This is not meant to be a mean-spirited comment or anything, but I can't see why people would be excited about a new program being released from a left party. I realize that some on the left are absolutely obsessed with the programmatic content of parties, I don't get it.

Militant strikes, massive protests, riots, politically-motivated arson, sabotage, mob uprisings, on the other hand...:drool:

[North Star]

I fail to see where the good news happens to be in all this . The original Erfurt Programme of 1891, though fatally compromised by the flawed "dual strategy" of seeking to combine reformist and revolutionary apsirations - like trying to mix oil and water - at least paid lipservice of sorts to the goal of a communist society. This bunch of insipid, uninspiring and trendy single issue demands does not even appear to do that.

If you consider that in the last German elections it got over 5 million votes for almost 12% of the popular vote I think it's a pretty good sign. They are asking questions pertaining to the "system" and there are revolutionary elements in the party. Could there be improvement? Absolutely, but like the problems with the Occupy movement, such developments are still encouraging signs.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is not meant to be a mean-spirited comment or anything, but I can't see why people would be excited about a new program being released from a left party. I realize that some on the left are absolutely obsessed with the programmatic content of parties, I don't get it.

Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement.


Militant strikes, massive protests, riots, politically-motivated arson, sabotage, mob uprisings, on the other hand...:drool:

Sorry, but only the first two sound politically reasonable. The others don't express political struggle much, if at all.


If you consider that in the last German elections it got over 5 million votes for almost 12% of the popular vote I think it's a pretty good sign. They are asking questions pertaining to the "system" and there are revolutionary elements in the party. Could there be improvement? Absolutely, but like the problems with the Occupy movement, such developments are still encouraging signs.

For that much support I really wish the Die Linke apparatus conducted an aggressive campaign to recruit hundreds of thousands into their ranks. :(

[Ligeia]

For that much support I really wish the Die Linke apparatus conducted an aggressive campaign to recruit hundreds of thousands into their ranks. :(
At the moment they are even losing members which I find surprising but maybe it's because they really don't seem to do much work on the streets rather than in television debates which not many people watch.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement.

I think the programmatic tasks of the communist project transcend whatever specific program whatever (mostly irrelevant) left sect puts out. Yes, there are objectives, goals and tasks carried out in any revolution; what I'm extremely skeptical of is that these tasks will be spearheaded by any existing heir to the dinosaur left.


Sorry, but only the first two sound politically reasonable. The others don't express political struggle much, if at all.

I think you're using too narrow a definition of what's "political". Just about everything has political implications.

[Demogorgon]

I think you're using too narrow a definition of what's "political". Just about everything has political implications.
Not necessarily positive implications however. When you are proposing arson as a good idea you have a problem. It won't win you any supporters and will simply strengthen the position of those in power.

As for having a programme, it is extremely important. Most people want to know what you want before they are prepared to throw their lot in with you. If you are going to take the Sex Pistols approach as we might call it of "I don't know what I want, but I know how to get it", you may not be taken particularly seriously.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It's not that I think arson is esp. productive, I don't think that capitalism can be burned down. I just think it's cool. :cool:

It has about as much practical value toward bringing down the rule of capital as most party programs (ie none), but I like explosions and fire, whatcanisay.

As far as programs, I don't think that the success of the communist movement depends on some party having a really sensible program that is suddenly recognized one day. I think that the only way people will turn to communism and/or positions favorable to communists is because it's in their own self-interest to do so, not because they've been "converted" by official communist groups. The realization that capitalism no longer best suites their needs probably won't be brought about by communist groups and their rational arguments about how bad capitalism is, or how great their program is etc.

Honestly this discussion has been had so many times between the "official communists" and the "nihilists" that both sides' talking points sound old and stale and cliched. I think that the age of the "mass party" SPD-style as a relevant historical actor is basically over, though. (The same probably also goes for anarchist-influenced institutions like industrial unions). The only party in Europe I can think of with a fair degree of relevancy in their national political scene is the KKE (unfortunately, in the KKE's case.)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Left rhetoric and reformist illusions (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004642)



The 1891 Erfurt programme adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany was regarded as a 'return to Marxism', writes Ben Lewis. If only the same could be said of Die Linke's 2011 version

Everything that is superfluous in a programme weakens it,” wrote Friedrich Engels, commenting on the draft of German Social Democracy’s Erfurt programme. If this was true of the 1891 programme draft, then it applies a thousand fold to the programme agreed on by the recent Erfurt congress of the German left party, Die Linke.

Weighing in at almost 30,000 words, the new programme is rather more akin to an extended commentary on the current economic and political situation in Germany and across the globe. Needlessly repeating itself on several occasions (opposition to sanctions on the unemployed appears at least three times), the text could have surely been substantially cut before publication. Moreover, by referencing passing phenomena like current EU treaties, recent wars/governments, latest developments in genetic engineering (!) and so on, large parts of it will soon be out of date.

Getting through it is a bit of a slog, and it also requires much reading between the lines to work out just what is being said and why. One wonders how many of Die Linke’s members will take the time to sift through the document in its entirety. Nonetheless, its acceptance is now contingent on a poll of the party membership. While we will not know the result until mid-December, it is almost certain that the programme will receive overwhelming support.

Edith Bartelmus-Scholich’s report from the Erfurt congress was a welcome addition to our paper. For, as we will see, while Die Linke suffers from many of the opportunist and short-termist maladies of its sister parties elsewhere, it is at least an attempt to establish a mass leftwing political alternative. Its fate is of utmost interest to working class partisans everywhere.

Comrade Bartelmus-Scholich and others have kept Weekly Worker readers up to speed on developments and controversies in and around the united party that was founded in 2007, but we have not written anything on its programme for quite some time. Analysing the new programme, and focusing on its central strategic concepts will throw some light on where Die Linke is currently at and - crucially - where it is looking to go.

Ambiguity

At first sight, Die Linke’s programme appears rather promising. It opens with Bertolt Brecht’s wonderful poem, ‘Questions of a worker who reads’, and proclaims that Die Linke is a “socialist party that stands for alternatives, for a better future” (p4). Later on we are also told that “capitalism is not the end of history, but a stage in the development of humanity” (p20). Yet if this really is the case, then how does this document point beyond capitalist society by linking today’s struggles with that “better future”?

Unfortunately, the programme lacks any such structure. There are, amongst others, chapters on ‘Where we come from, who we are’, ‘Crises of capitalism - crises of civilisation’ and ‘Democratic socialism in the 21st century’, plus sections on various policy areas, but the final section is rather fluffily entitled ‘Together for a change in politics and a better society’. The preamble (‘This is what Die Linke stands for’) is probably the closest thing we get to a relatively clear formulation of demands: for a “democratic economic order”, including “decent work for all, but less work for the individual”, a minimum wage, the abolition of the draconian ‘Hartz IV’ unemployment laws, better pensions, healthcare and education, and a just tax system. There is also the call for “the expansion of civil rights and the democratisation of all areas of society”, and for common social and ecological standards across the European Union. The preamble also specifies support for political and general strikes as working class tools of struggle.

Most of these demands are eminently supportable. While, as we shall see, some of them are devoid of any content, and still others appear rather Keynesian in orientation, they are at least demands to strengthen the position of the working class in the here and now. However, the programme is characterised by vague platitudes and generalities.

It is quite clear that the historical section could be substantially cut. Lengthy historical expositions should have no place in a party programme. Party unity should not revolve around particular historical interpretations, but contemporary politics. While of huge interest, such questions are best discussed in pamphlets, party meetings and the party press (Unfortunately, Die Linke still does not have a paper).

Manage or supersede?

It would appear that the party wants to be seen to ‘look both ways’ on some key questions, not least on whether it is the capitalist system and generalised commodity production as a whole that needs to be overcome or just certain manifestations of it. Indeed, there are inconsistencies and outright contradictions in the way capitalism is portrayed.

For example, one passage broadly describes capitalism as a system based on the extraction of value from those who sell their labour for wages. Yet at several other points it is not this system, not private property and not the political power of the capitalist class as a whole which is attacked, but rather “unrestricted capitalism” (p58), “the neoliberal political model” (p56) and “deregulated financial markets” (p15).

Moreover, the text also proclaims that Die Linke is committed to “a long emancipatory process, in which the dominance of capital is overcome through democratic, social and ecological forces”, eventually leading to a “society of democratic socialism” (my emphasis, p5). This is to be achieved through the management of capitalist excess by banning hedge funds (p29), etc, combined with Keynesian tinkering aimed at “boosting internal demand” (p28).

Society will gradually be pushed to the left through a fairer distribution of wealth: managers’ salaries will be capped at 20 times those of the lowest-paid workers (p27), there will be a 5% wealth tax on millionaires and financial markets will be “tamed and brought back to their actual function” (p22). As if to underline how this document is very much the child of compromise of the contending factions within the party, the programme also states that “Some in Die Linke demand a basic income” (p33) and that there is ongoing discussion on this question.

There are passages where it is almost possible to trace the compositing that has taken place between the different factions, as well as places where compromises have been arrived at over specific formulations. This has produced the pervading ambiguity. For example, Die Linke is “fighting for a change in direction of politics, which opens up the way to a fundamental transformation of society that overcomes capitalism” (p5). The ‘realo’ wing would interpret this as implying a long period of coalition government alongside the SPD and maybe the Greens, which, by some twisted, reformist logic, would pave the way for a new, higher society at some indefinite point in the future. On the other hand, the left will surely stress the “fundamental transformation of society” rather than the short-term “change in direction of politics”.

Now, some might assert that, given the strategic rivalries within Die Linke, such compromises might represent the only way forward. Yet there is a problem here: not only do such statements provide ‘left’ cover for the plans of the right wing, but the ensuing confusion and lack of clear programmatic commitments also has severe consequences for the accountability of the leadership to its membership in its future actions. You can almost see some of these phrases being rolled out to justify further government coalitions - certainly at state level. I am reminded of Paul Levi’s acerbic description of Independent Social Democracy’s left-centrist programme in 1920: “a lump of clay that one can make into a face or a gargoyle at will”. (The difference, of course, is that the USPD was far to the left of today’s Die Linke.)

Social state of law?

But if the programme is unclear as to whether capitalism should be abolished or merely reined in and controlled, it is at least unambiguous that this process will not involve the working class majority conquering political power.

True, there is the vague statement that “capitalism can be overcome if we succeed in winning majorities” (p20 - why this is in the plural is rather perplexing). Yet there is a big difference between arguing that a transition to a higher form of society requires the conscious support of the majority and claiming that “democratic socialism” can be achieved within the ‘democratic’ structures of the German constitution and a ‘social Rechtstaat’ (a constitutional state, what the Americans refer to as a ‘state of law’).

Rather than envisaging some kind of break with the anti-democratic institutions of the bourgeois constitutional order, the programme seems to imply that its goals can be achieved within them. The demands to “expand municipal democracy” amount to very little beyond calling for greater use of referenda to supplement “representative parliamentary democracy” (p33).

There is nothing proposed that could actually expand, that could make more generous Germany’s rather unrepresentative democracy (annual elections, abolition of the Bundesrat and a single chamber, representatives on a worker’s wages, etc). And, while the programme calls for the abolition of the intelligence services, it again falls well short of its 1891 namesake by merely agitating for (undefined) “democratic control [Kontrolle]” of the army and the police, not the arming of the people.

Indeed, the Erfurt programme of 2011 even goes as far as to champion the “separation of powers”, espoused, amongst others, by that well-known working class partisan, the Baron de Montesquieu! It might call for the “democratisation of the judiciary”, but does not take up the demand for the direct election of judges contained in the 1891 version. Rather, it wants them appointed by electoral colleges to ensure that they “represent all social layers appropriately” and administer justice “in the name of the people” (p35).

This overlooks the fact that the very essence of the ‘rule of law’ is the sanctity of private property and the associated inequality that comes with it. It is the very basis of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie as a class. Such loyalty to the current order is given a certain left gloss by the statement that, in Die Linke’s view, “the Rechtsstaat and the Sozialstaat (welfare state) form a unity” (p20).

Some of the formulations seem to have been drawn up with the purpose of heading off criticism from the left: eg, “By fighting for left reform projects today … we simultaneously act for our socialist goal” (p26). No Marxist could dispute this, providing that the “socialist goal” is working class power and an alternative constitutional order. But, however militantly we fight for reforms in the here and now, if our overall outlook is loyal to the constitution, and thus reformist, then we in no way bring that goal nearer. One figure often quoted in the text - Rosa Luxemburg - drew attention to this very point: reformist and revolutionary politics are not two different paths to the same destination. They are different paths but, as in January 1919, lead to very different places.

In government?

However, for all that the programme says on working conditions, the role of neoliberalism, the burden shouldered by women in society and so forth, it only has a couple of paragraphs to offer on perhaps the greatest bone of contention both within Die Linke and in German society more generally: the question of government participation. Die Linke certainly does not place itself in the tradition of radical German Social Democracy or the KPD by demanding that it will only form a government with majority support for a full socialist programme.

It states that the terrain of national government is “decisive” for a change in politics (p56). True, government participation is only sensible if it is based on a “rejection of the neoliberal model of politics” and brings about a “social-ecological” change of course. But there are no other caveats, just the usual platitudes: “Die Linke aims for government if it can achieve an improvement in the living standards of the people.” In this way, so the logic goes, the “political power of Die Linke and the social movements can be strengthened” and the feeling of political powerlessness that exists amongst many people can be forced back” (p56). Not true, of course. ‘Left’ administrations presiding over the capitalist system have historically demoralised and demobilised the working class, opening the door to the return of conservative and reactionary administrations.

There are, at least, some clear (if rather hollow) pledges that Die Linke will not take part in any national government that “carries out wars or allows combat missions of the German army abroad” or “presses ahead with armaments and militarisation”. This is a little naive, given that the programme wants to reform the existing US-led imperialist order, not abolish it. Nor will Die Linke participate in a national government that “makes worse the public sector’s fulfilment of tasks”. But it does not promise not to help drive forward privatisation at state level, as it has been doing in Berlin.

The programme stresses internationalism and, in welcome contrast to some on the British left, calls for cooperation across the European Union. By the same measure, though, Die Linke bemoans the “violence and wars” that are often carried out in violation of the United Nations charter. Yet, as Mike Macnair has argued, a ‘law-governed world order’ based on the UN charter “fundamentally misunderstands the nature of law as a social institution, and as a result, international law”, and as such the call for a law-governed world order is not an alternative to the havoc wreaked upon the world by US-led imperialism: it is merely another form of the same thing. The fact that the new Erfurt programme goes into such detail about how to “strengthen” and “reform” the UN den of thieves says much about the limits of Die Linke’s internationalism.

Things take a rather bizarre turn with the pledge to establish a ‘Willy Brandt civil corps’ of German doctors, technicians and so on, rather than armed forces, to dispatch humanitarian aid abroad.

Reaction

One thing I thought comrade Bartelmus-Scholich’s Erfurt report overlooked (perhaps understandably, given that it was a programmatic critique) was the rather odd reaction of the German bourgeois media to the convention.

Despite the fact that the programme amounts to a rather uninspiring, reformist fudge of the differences within the party, the German media condemned the programme for its ‘extremism’. Naturally, this is to be expected from those like Axel Springer’s ‘lazy Greek’-bashing rag, Bild. But more serious publications, like Der Spiegel, argued that in Erfurt the party “cemented its radical course of opposition”. If only that were true. Der Spiegel claimed that policies such as the legalisation of “soft drugs” and opposition to all German armed forces missions abroad meant that Die Linke was “increasingly isolating itself with radical positions”.

Der Spiegel was not the only one to kick up a fuss on the question of drug legalisation. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to snipe at a party still capable of taking the votes of its leftwing supporters, the SPD referred to it as “absurd”. The well-known Die Linke rightist, Porsche-driving co-chair Klaus Ernst, responded as you might expect: legalisation was for the “long term”, he said, not a proposal for the here and now.

This brings me to another rather frustrating aspect of the programme. Without explanation, it splits up its policy points into three categories: “immediate”, “perspective” and “long-term”. This rather slippery device further compounds the confusion. For example, Die Linke’s call for a grant for all students taking their first course in higher education is relegated to a “perspective” for further education courses. While the programme “opposes all privatisation” of the railways, the demand for the whole network to be in public hands is a “long-term” one, like the legalisation of drugs.

What does it mean exactly? That drugs will be legalised when Die Linke has formed a government? Or only when the new society ‘beyond’ capitalism has been achieved? And in the meantime we do not call for it to happen?

Responsibilities

I wholly agree with comrade Bartelmus-Scholich’s assessment that Die Linke has a crisis of strategy, and that the rhetoric from the German section of the Socialist Workers Party about the programme’s “clear anti-capitalist character” either reflects rather cynical attempts at manoeuvring within the official party structures or utter ignorance as to what constitutes a genuinely anti-capitalist - ie, Marxist - programme (maybe it is a mixture of both).

Comrade Bartelmus-Scholich is certainly correct to argue that “the party lacks a strategy for opposition”. This is a pity, because Die Linke quite clearly still has enormous potential, and in the current climate could grow substantially and become a real political force. Yet if the leadership lacks a strategy for opposition, then this is doubly true of the party’s left. It is certainly to be welcomed that Die Linke permits different platforms to operate. This allows the revolutionary left some space - however limited - to intervene in the important strategic questions being raised within the party. Great responsibility thus falls on the shoulders of Marxists to form a clear, principled opposition to the leadership’s constitutionalism, class-collaborationism, Millerandism and general reformist illusions.

Perhaps reflecting its desire to burrow away in the depths of Die Linke in order to gain influence, the Socialist Workers Party’s German section describes the programme as a “good basis to win new members to Die Linke”. Having officially dissolved themselves into a support network for the publication Marx 21, the comrades’ strategy appears to consist of hoovering up new recruits to Die Linke by being the best fighters for its (utterly inadequate) Keynesian politics - all the while seeking to push that programme incrementally, almost imperceptibly, to the left.

However, by describing the new document in such positive terms, the German SWP comrades at least appear to recognise the need for a programme. Tony Cliff’s approach has always been that a programme is something to be avoided, since it ties the leadership’s hands and limits its ‘flexibility’. When challenged on this, SWP comrades will usually quote Marx’s letter to Wilhelm Bracke: “Every step of the real movement is worth more than a dozen programmes.” Poor old Charlie Marx. But how do our SWP comrades square this circle? How do they simultaneously greet Die Linke’s Erfurt programme, while rejecting programmes more generally?

The real Erfurt

The Erfurt programme of 1891 is as far from the rightwing SPD of the 20th century as it is possible to get, and it should be viewed as ours: an integral part of the classical Marxist tradition.

Written by August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, and enriched by Engels’ feedback, the 1891 Erfurt programme’s structure, demands and methodology reflected the approach of Marx and Engels. Unlike the Erfurt programme of 2011, it had a clear, logical order that outlined the tasks of the epoch and listed a set of radical democratic and economic demands to pave the way to working class rule, thus genuinely beginning the transition to the “better world” which Die Linke says it aspires to.

The 1891 Erfurt programme was not without its problems, blunders and omissions. Yet, updated for modern conditions, its method can inform a programme to help Die Linke become what Oskar Lafontaine has called a “movement for democracy”. Immediate demands for the election of judges, the total separation of church and state, the replacement of the standing army with a people’s militia, self-determination and self-government of the people at all levels - these can and must form part of our class’s weaponry in the 21st century.

And one key pillar of the Erfurt programme was its emphasis on the need for the working class to win majority support in order to reshape society. This is hardly irrelevant to the debate over the ‘red holding lines’: ie, under what conditions Die Linke could consider participation in a coalition government. For revolutionaries, there are key principles that have to be fulfilled. Not this or that pledge to refrain from engaging in foreign wars or cutting social welfare, but a break with the whole constitutional order on the high tide of mass mobilisation, organisation and militancy.

As things stand, Die Linke has not rejected the aim of becoming a party ‘fit for government’ - no doubt, its leaders hope, alongside the SPD. If such a coalition was formed, it would be a disaster on a far greater scale than Die Linke’s participation in state governments.

It is quite right for Marxists and revolutionary socialists to join Die Linke; but only if they fight for the basic principles such as working class independence. Of course, the main obstacle to the formation of a coherent opposition is the disorganised and sectarian nature of the far left itself. Either it stands aloof, not willing to get its hands dirty, or it plays the bureaucracy’s game and sees things through rose-tinted glasses. Yet a left that is not afraid to speak out for working class power could really make headway, and perhaps prevent the demise of yet another left unity project lured by the temptation of running the capitalist state. Any such opposition would do well to draw upon some of the lessons of Erfurt 1891.

[Q]

I was about to post above article, which nicely underlines the many problems with Die Linke's programme.

Ben makes a fine point also about the space there is for the left to organise an opposition (if they're not too busy sucking up to the apparatus, like the German counterpart of the SWP is doing :glare: ): Social formations do not spring out of thin air, they are fought for and the first order of that fight is the struggle to have a space to conduct that fight, i.e. political rights within the workers movement.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And now, some pictures of reading the 1891 Erfurt program:

http://lukrezia-jochimsen.de/images/2011/10/Plakat1.jpg

http://in.news.yahoo.com/photos/members-left-wing-die-linke-party-read-excerpts-photo-134252263.html

http://in.news.yahoo.com/photos/former-leader-die-linke-party-lafontaine-holds-copy-photo-134317118.html (Oskar Lafontaine)

http://www.taz.de/uploads/images/684x342/erfurt_linke_ur-spd_f.jpg (Gregor Gysi)

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=893



Percentages (my title: We Are The Two-Thirds: Issues with "Working class to win majority support")

This week comrade Ben Lewis wrote a fine article critiquing Die Linke’s second draft programme (‘Left rhetoric and reformist illusions’, December 1). I would, however, like to point out a bit of a contradiction between two statements of his. First, he writes of “the working class majority conquering political power”. That's well and good compared to council fetishes conning workers. But later on he writes about the need for the “working class to win majority support in order to reshape society”. There’s too much classless democratism in that latter statement.

Consider what James Turley wrote succinctly in his October 20 article, ‘A global act of refusal’: “But then, there are medium-sized concerns owned by a larger layer of capitalists, who, while hardly as flush as the transnational jet-set, still have a considerable stake in the system; and below them a large layer of small owners - the urban petty bourgeoisie, remaining pockets of small farmers and the managerial middle class - who are in a more ambiguous relationship to capital. A corner-shop owner may want the power of the corporate elite curbed; but in fact he is just as reliant on finance capital as Tesco. The working class, in turn, has interests antagonistic to, or at least conflicting with, around 30% out of the 99%.”

Assuming we maintain the scenario where the working class forms the demographic majority, still not everyone in the population is working class. This means that a [50%+1] majority in the class does not equal [50%+1] majority in the population. We need to win concrete majority political support from the working class, best measured by honest voting membership in the worker-class party-movement. A slogan like ‘We are the two thirds’ would be more class-explicit.

However, if majority political support from the working class is not enough to be the majority in the population (i.e., the latter might still oppose), then unlike Kautsky's vague formulation in The Road to Power, "Liberal Democracy" arguments be damned. ‘We are the two-thirds’ could garner support from two-thirds of the American working class, but that’s only 44% overall. Within the context of a revolutionary period, this percentage should not deter the class-conscious workers from ‘undemocratically’ capturing political power. On the other hand, if [50%+1] of the general population were supportive, but [50%+1] of the working class demographic majority [still] opposed, then I would deem any seizure of power ‘on behalf of the proletariat’ as a coup d’etat.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Third way

On Ben Lewis’s argument on Die Linke and participation in a coalition government, I am not convinced that there is not a third way, such as agreeing that the SPD can govern, but that the left will not take positions within it. This is called a ‘confidence and supply’ model: you negotiate the budget and leadership of the government, but sit outside it and can vote for or against what you like.

We can see that the Green Party, whose politics were much more transformative than the left, had their radicalism blunted and were transformed by the coalition with the SPD. So you are right - the left would be in danger from any deal. However, I think it’s a moot point, as the most likely outcome next year is that Merkel will strike a deal with the SPD to remain in power. I just can’t see the SPD, Greens and Left Party all getting along in a three-way agreement, and the Pirates are too unpredictable. A CDU-SPD coalition is the only thing that will work. The left party can thus argue about this for another five years.

James Tomkinson

[Q]

As for the original, I've recently been studying The Class Struggle (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1892/erfurt/index.htm), the Erfurt Program (http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm) and A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1891/06/29.htm) (which is about an earlier draft, which isn't online as far as I'm aware) recently with another comrade and they're actually pretty good reads. While clearly outdated here and even plain wrong there, it is pretty clear why it had such an impact on the Marxist movement of the day, including the RSDLP which based its 1903 program on it.

[Mather]

I object to Edith Bartelmus-Scholich’s characterisation of the informal meetings of representatives of the four main political platforms in Die Linke as undemocratic, apart from transparency issues.


How is it anything but undemocratic when key debates about the future direction of Die Linke are made behind closed doors and the content of such debate is off limits to ordinary Die Linke members?

When working class organisations lack internal democracy and instead rule by central committee or party 'leaders', such organisations will at some point or another end up working against the interests of the working class. Such leaderships are wholly unaccountable to their own members and the wider working class.

If this Weekly Worker article holds true, then the state of Die Linke is both depressing and seemingly hopeless.

I can't really see any good news from Germany here.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How is it anything but undemocratic when key debates about the future direction of Die Linke are made behind closed doors and the content of such debate is off limits to ordinary Die Linke members?

I said "apart from transparency issues." Please read the whole letter submission, because I alluded to demarchy, as well.