2013 German Federal elections

[Die Neue Zeit]

Germany’s Left Party moves into third position ahead of Greens (http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/germany-s-left-party-moves-into-third-position-ahead-of-greens-1.1524061)

Not long ago Die Linke was at about seven percent. Grand coalitions and prospects of grand coalitions have been to the benefit of Die Linke. This is a good but not new lesson for left parties who seek to paint the two biggest parties with the same brush.

Also: German far-left gets poll boost from Syria crisis (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/13/uk-germany-elections-left-idUKBRE98C0K420130913)


The Left, whose old-school socialism appeals particularly in former communist East Germany, has leapt to third place in one opinion poll before the September 22 election, thanks partly to its categorical rejection of military intervention in Syria.

[...]

The Left's strength encourages other parties, even Merkel's conservatives, to tilt in a more leftward direction, [Gregor Gysi] said.

Formed in 2007 from a fusion of western-based SPD defectors and the reformed heir to East Germany's communists, the Left now boasts more members than either the Greens or Merkel's junior coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

[...]

No German party has been so consistently pacifist since the Greens backed military deployments during their stint in power. The Left, which has railed against military action in Syria at its campaign rallies, wants to halt arms exports, bring German peacekeeping troops home from Afghanistan and also exit NATO.

[Comrade Jacob]

Ah those Germans make up your mind. It's very good to see this news, my German Grandmother is a supporter.

[TheEmancipator]

I think the fact that they are strong in the East pretty much debunks this myth of the ''Commie Hell'' our friends across the Atlantic have spread. All the opposition to the USSR has always been of a leftist nature, with the possible exception of Poland and Finland.

I see Die Linke as a proper Social Democratic party rather than a revolutionary organ. I would still vote for them though were I a German. It annoys bourgeois plans and Stalinists, and would suit my interests. That's fine by me.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=TheEmancipator;2663465]I think the fact that they are strong in the East pretty much debunks this myth of the ''Commie Hell'' our friends across the Atlantic have spread. All the opposition to the USSR has always been of a leftist nature, with the possible exception of Poland and Finland.

Probably 'ostalgie', the phenomenon whereby East German workers (who have been essentially fucked over since German re-unification) remember the GDR in a positive light, is more to do with the anti-East bias in unified Germany today, than saying anything particularly positive about the GDR.

From what i've seen, the GDR was a strong welfare-ist little nation, but a totally heartless one at that, and its structures could hardly be said to be democratic or at all in line with a Socialist conception of society. In many ways it was a caricature of 'commie hell', with the interference of the Ministry for State Security - via the Stasi - into most facets of public and personal life.


I see Die Linke as a proper Social Democratic party rather than a revolutionary organ. I would still vote for them though were I a German. It annoys bourgeois plans and Stalinists, and would suit my interests. That's fine by me.

^^^I agree.

[Tim Cornelis]

All the opposition to the USSR has always been of a leftist nature

That sounds suspiciously like a 1970s Trotskyist myth they kept telling themselves. Curious how, if the opposition was leftist, that such opposition culminated in a rightist revolution throughout Eastern Europe.

[A.J.]

Perhaps I'm missing something here but isn't the "rev" in revleft short for revolutionary?

I don't think Die Linke can be considered revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination.

[Per Levy]

"The Left, whose old-school socialism" "German far-left"

what a joke, die linke is center left at best and is only a social democratic party when its not in power(where it is in power like when they were in berlin or mecklenburg-vorpommern they are exactly like every other pro bourgeois party).

also polls dont mean much especially since there are several poll centres in germany who all bring out their own polls especially during this time so close before the elections, different polls different results.


I don't think Die Linke can be considered revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination.

well die linke is a reformist party after all, they dont even talk about revolution nor do they do anything to help raise class conscience all their answer is reform, bourgeois democracy and coalitions with the neoliberal spd and greens. but DNZ likes them quite a lot so he posts about them.

[TheEmancipator]

[QUOTE]
Probably 'ostalgie', the phenomenon whereby East German workers (who have been essentially fucked over since German re-unification) remember the GDR in a positive light, is more to do with the anti-East bias in unified Germany today, than saying anything particularly positive about the GDR.

From what i've seen, the GDR was a strong welfare-ist little nation, but a totally heartless one at that, and its structures could hardly be said to be democratic or at all in line with a Socialist conception of society. In many ways it was a caricature of 'commie hell', with the interference of the Ministry for State Security - via the Stasi - into most facets of public and personal life.Yeah but they basically thin ''Let's do the GDR again only this time without Stasi and the USSR puppet-regime."


That sounds suspiciously like a 1970s Trotskyist myth they kept telling themselves. Curious how, if the opposition was leftist, that such opposition culminated in a rightist revolution throughout Eastern Europe.

Well, Russia was because the right-wing oligarchs bought state and people-owned capital with the West's help which allowed them to control politics and media of the country to this day.

Poland voted in a left-wing government only a few years after the ''liberal effect'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_parliamentary_election,_1993

Czechoslovakia, well Dubcek and all that, and their rightisation was largely due to their split, which re-enforced nationalist parties and then the EU took over their policy direction.

I'd say all other right-wing nationalist movements and anti-communist sentiments post-89 were mainly anti-Russian sentiment, which just shows you the shit job the centralised Moscovian state did in hiding their blatant Russian nationalism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yeah but they basically thin ''Let's do the GDR again only this time without Stasi and the USSR puppet-regime.

Well, that's not really 'doing the GDR again', then.

[CyM]

Well, that's not really 'doing the GDR again', then.

It is: nationalized planned economy minus the bureaucracy.

[A.J.]

Perhaps I'm going off-topic but I seem to detect a hint of GDR-bashing in this thread.

In the purely hypothetical choice of living in the former GDR or contemporary Britain I'd choose the former everytime.

Don't recall ever hearing about the existence of food banks in the GDR....

Or the existence of homelessness....

Or even the existence of fat chicks....

Communism = No fat chicks!

[Delenda Carthago]

DDR was awesome.

[Red_Banner]

Germany didn't experience a reunification, it was a hostile takover by the FRG(West Germany).

When they took over GDR culture and industry was crushed.

What they should have done was either have a customs union with an open border and maybe a common currency, or a new government should have been made.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

"The Left, whose old-school socialism" "German far-left"

what a joke, die linke is center left at best and is only a social democratic party when its not in power

How do you expect the public and this ignorant journalist to understand that there is a further left of this "radical" left, if we don't make any moves to enter into left parties nor towards building newspapers to propagate our views?

[A.J.]

DDR was awesome.

Quoted for truth...

http://r7---sn-cn3tc-ajte.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?app=youtube_gdata&devkey=AX8iKz393pCCMUL6wqrPOZoO88HsQjpE1a8d1GxQnGD m&el=videos&upn=LYgtzYNXalU&uaopt=no-save&source=youtube&itag=18&id=7a6b5043e2d1bb93&ip=90.218.0.136&ipbits=0&expire=1379226028&sparams=expire,id,ip,ipbits,itag,source,uaopt,upn&signature=19C5B18A1FB6386FE68B20AAD9336A0EEF055017 .1E279A7003C741D428A955244AAE61DE738735BA&key=cms1&cms_redirect=yes&ms=au&mt=1379197135&mv=m

The Anti-fascist State of Workers and Farmers was indeed something to behold.

[#FF0000]

Or even the existence of fat chicks....

Communism = No fat chicks!

Oh come on you should know better.

[A.J.]

Oh come on you should know better.

There was an underlying serious point here;

That being I've never seen an overweight person from an Eastern Bloc country.

Or for that matter an underweight person.

Communism is advantageous to the body mass indexes of the people.

[Die Neue Zeit]

well die linke is a reformist party after all, they dont even talk about revolution nor do they do anything to help raise class conscience all their answer is reform, bourgeois democracy and coalitions with the neoliberal spd and greens. but DNZ likes them quite a lot so he posts about them.

Where did I say I like them a lot? Where did I say I like their reformism, attachment to bourgeois rule of law, and "pragmatic" coalitionism (of their right wing)?

[Popular Front of Judea]

I am watching this as I am the Czech elections to see if the former Communists finally become part of a Social Democrat led coalition. Past time the splits in the historic Social Democratic parties are healed. It's not like the remaining Communist Parties answer to the "guidance" of the Soviet Union now.

[Fred]

I think it is important to remember the Gysi and his party I believe it was the SED, absolutely capitulated to the "hostile takeover" of the DDR by West Germany. They stifled opposition to this counterrevolution. The nostalgia, such as it is, is for full employment, a full year of maternity leave at 100% pay, free medical care and free education.

The opposition to the USSR in the East Bloc was heterogeneous -- ranging from right-wing CIA funded/pro-papists (Solidarnosc) and genuine fascists (Lithuania), to genuine socialists trying to get rid of the bureaucracy (Hungary 1956). The Stalinist bureaucrats of the USSR were probably a lot more afraid of the latter.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=A.J.;2663632]Perhaps I'm going off-topic but I seem to detect a hint of GDR-bashing in this thread.

You mean someone has dared to criticised the workers' utopia? No!!!


In the purely hypothetical choice of living in the former GDR or contemporary Britain I'd choose the former everytime.

That's a stupid scenario. More realistic - if you could choose to live in the former GDR or 1950s Britain, for example, you'd choose Britain everytime, because they had similar welfare-ism, but more democracy (albeit of the bourgeois liberal variety) and a lot less state intervention in individuals' lives.


Don't recall ever hearing about the existence of food banks in the GDR....

Or the existence of homelessness....

I agree, the GDR made some incredible welfare gains. However, at what cost? Whilst I don't recall food banks, homelessness or unemployment in the GDR, I also don't recall much in the way of socialist democracy, the ability to criticse the party, hegemony of the working class etc. There were serious problems with the GDR which prevent us from categorising it as 'Socialistic', which is a shame because one has to have a lot of admiration for what it achieved from a pretty backwards starting point. It was just absolutely un-necessary to institute such measures as the wall, the overbearing nature of the Stasi etc.


Or even the existence of fat chicks....

Communism = No fat chicks!

You should really apologise for this.

[TheEmancipator]

[QUOTE]

You mean someone has dared to criticised the workers' utopia? No!!!



That's a stupid scenario. More realistic - if you could choose to live in the former GDR or 1950s Britain, for example, you'd choose Britain everytime, because they had similar welfare-ism, but more democracy (albeit of the bourgeois liberal variety) and a lot less state intervention in individuals' lives.



I agree, the GDR made some incredible welfare gains. However, at what cost? Whilst I don't recall food banks, homelessness or unemployment in the GDR, I also don't recall much in the way of socialist democracy, the ability to criticse the party, hegemony of the working class etc. There were serious problems with the GDR which prevent us from categorising it as 'Socialistic', which is a shame because one has to have a lot of admiration for what it achieved from a pretty backwards starting point. It was just absolutely un-necessary to institute such measures as the wall, the overbearing nature of the Stasi etc.



You should really apologise for this.

The Boss, what's funny is that the usual GDR-Stalin apologists are falling into the same traps they accuse us of. The GDR was a multi-party state albeit with rigged elections (That way they could have the best of both worlds) for a good while, something Stalinists equate with Trotskyism. And then they engage in blatant sexism and reference to starvation in their own fucking Utopias, all while accusing me of chauvinism for my stance towards Albania.


The rank hypocrisy that these clowns get away with with their fanboys repping their post is almost surreal.

[A.J.]

[QUOTE=The Boss;2663848]
And then they engage in blatant sexism and reference to starvation in their own fucking Utopias, all while accusing me of chauvinism for my stance towards Albania

What on earth are you talking about?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Why are you mis-quoting me?

[A.J.]

That's a stupid scenario. More realistic - if you could choose to live in the former GDR or 1950s Britain, for example, you'd choose Britain everytime, because they had similar welfare-ism, but more democracy (albeit of the bourgeois liberal variety) and a lot less state intervention in individuals' lives.


Of course Britain in the 50s still had rationing, national service and identity cards.
Furthermore, given Britain's own peculiar electoral system(first past the post) it's hardly the examplery model of democracy. Even in the bourgeois sense.

In conclusion, your attempt to portray 1950s Britain as being a liberal, social-democratic paradise dosen't stand up to scrutiny.


Whilst I don't recall food banks, homelessness or unemployment in the GDR,

The GDR kicked ass!:cool:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=A.J.;2663864]Of course Britain in the 50s still had rationing, national service and identity cards.

And the GDR didn't have national service, identity cards and the effective rationing of consumer goods, let alone just food?


Furthermore, given Britain's own peculiar electoral system(first past the post) it's hardly the examplery model of democracy. Even in the bourgeois sense.

Agreed, but still better than no democracy.


In conclusion, your attempt to portray 1950s Britain as being a liberal, social-democratic paradise dosen't stand up to scrutiny.

That's not really what I was trying to do, but well concluded. :rolleyes:




The GDR kicked ass!:cool:

It didn't really, though, but I can see you're not interested in a fair and critical examination of the GDR, so let's just leave it here.

[Tim Cornelis]

The GDR was so awesome it had to erect a massive and often lethal wall to keep their people from moving away, it was so awesome that its critical and scientific mantra was "THE PARTY IS ALWAYS RIGHT." So awesome that dissent meant ruining people's lives, so awesome that suicide rates were much higher than in the West.
Tight and rigid control over your life by an impersonal bureaucracy, hooray!

[MarxSchmarx]

[QUOTE=A.J.;2663632]
Communism = No fat chicks!
You should really apologise for this.The Boss is absolutely correct about this, and consider this your verbal warning. This goes for everyone else.

I think there are some real accomplishments in health care that the DDR made and that the problem of obesity is a real issue among working class people in Germany and other countries today. But there is no need to tie these legimate concerns to sexist oppression.

The expression "chicks" is pretty demeaning to women; it conveys a dismissiveness that originates form equating women to partridges. Much less a reinforcement of unhealthy body images prevalent in capitalist culture.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

More realistic - if you could choose to live in the former GDR or 1950s Britain, for example, you'd choose Britain everytime, because they had similar welfare-ism, but more democracy (albeit of the bourgeois liberal variety) and a lot less state intervention in individuals' lives.


:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:
I have really nothing to say to this! It speaks for itself.

Perhaps, to clear things up: Being a socially active communist worker in capitalist Britain of the 50's as compared to being a socially active communist worker in East Germany of the 50's, I would without hesitation pick living in East Germany.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

The GDR was so awesome it had to erect a massive and often lethal wall to keep their people from moving away, it was so awesome that its critical and scientific mantra was "THE PARTY IS ALWAYS RIGHT." So awesome that dissent meant ruining people's lives, so awesome that suicide rates were much higher than in the West.
Tight and rigid control over your life by an impersonal bureaucracy, hooray!

You are an idiot.

Do you know anything about East Germany from any other sources than BBC?

Half my family is from the German Democratic Republic, the life for workers was objectively much better then than it is under capitalism. All East Germans I've asked about their experience always reiterated that what is always said, that the "human aspect" was so nice in East Germany (the interpersonal relationships etc.), is true.
My Uncle spent a couple of months in an East German prison, being fed only pasta. So what? He was an anti-social, self interested petty-bourgeois, who got pissed when the carpentering market he was serving was taken over by a state operation and he ran out of business. He turned to open anti-communism in order to get locked up and have the West German government pay to get him out of prison and pay to restart his life in the west, with citizenship, state housing, transportation, healthcare etc. That's what happened, he got the rest of the family to move after him. He resisted conforming to socialist society, he actively propagated against it, and so the East German State made life hard for him. So what? The majority of East Germans today miss the good old life when one of your family members wasn't either a drunk, homeless, downtrodden exhausted wage slave, or self centered Mercedes driving piece of shit.

You have no idea how East Germany worked. It was a good place to live if you accepted the Socialist dictatorship, a rather unpleasant and totalitarian place to live if you were a rabid anticommunist or idiot like my uncle.

If you just wanted to simply live your life, you never noticed the East German State.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=Workers-Control-Over-Prod;2664289]You are an idiot.

Aren't you meant to be a mod? Maybe play by the fucking rules?? :rolleyes:


Do you know anything about East Germany from any other sources than BBC?

Half my family is from the German Democratic Republic, the life for workers was objectively much better then than it is under capitalism. All East Germans I've asked about their experience always reiterated that what is always said, that the "human aspect" was so nice in East Germany (the interpersonal relationships etc.), is true.
My Uncle spent a couple of months in an East German prison, being fed only pasta. So what? He was an anti-social, self interested petty-bourgeois, who got pissed when the carpentering market he was serving was taken over by a state operation and he ran out of business. He turned to open anti-communism in order to get locked up and have the West German government pay to get him out of prison and pay to restart his life in the west, with citizenship, state housing, transportation, healthcare etc. That's what happened, he got the rest of the family to move after him. He resisted conforming to socialist society, he actively propagated against it, and so the East German State made life hard for him. So what? The majority of East Germans today miss the good old life when one of your family members wasn't either a drunk, homeless, downtrodden exhausted wage slave, or self centered Mercedes driving piece of shit.

You have no idea how East Germany worked. It was a good place to live if you accepted the Socialist dictatorship, a rather unpleasant and totalitarian place to live if you were a rabid anticommunist or idiot like my uncle.

If you just wanted to simply live your life, you never noticed the East German State.

This is ridiculous. The GDR was essentially a welfare-ist state capitalist dictatorship. So, the working class should just 'accept' the power of the elites in return for slightly higher living standards? What sort of socialist actually advises this?

What if you were a socialist? You're saying that as a socialist, you should just shut up and accept dictatorship, state snooping/meddling into your private life etc. for the sake of a bit of welfare and a quiet life? The GDR was not Socialism, it was not socialist democracy! And besides, what about when the Stasi comes and asks you to spy on your wife, or parents, or kids? You just take it like an obedient shit all for the sake of a quiet life?

Hmm.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Being a socially active communist worker in capitalist Britain of the 50's as compared to being a socially active communist worker in East Germany of the 50's, I would without hesitation pick living in East Germany.

Why? Is being ignored really worse than forced labor in a uranium mine?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

You're making assumptions here Boss.

Bourgeois slander of so-far existing socialist societies, which claims that the poor little peoples of the world were being oppressed by the mighty and sadistic communist dictators, is copied, reiterated and utilized by ultra-left comrades. It skews the reality of so far existing socialist experiments that we should learn from.

The reality is that if you were an obedient worker to the society which was perhaps the most progressive one this earth has yet produced (women's rights, free and highly qualitative education, sexual education, rich cultural activities, strong social solidarity and genuine community, no death penalty, no unemployment, equal pay for equal work, housing, food, clothing, transportation etc. etc.), you had to have no fears.

Now, of course, I'm no Socialist "in one country". I'm for a completely different society, namely one where there is no more state and where only workers collectively, equally, democratically and directly control surplus: Communism. But Communism is merely workers States implemented internationally.
If transported back in time, I naturally would be one of those people that would fight for a right to organizing a communist faction within the SED and try to implement more reforms towards workplace democracy and more social events to get workers political. But the means to actually implementing a truly egalitarian society and workers direct democratic rule, are limited in a country that is constantly forced to be ready to take the first hits in World War Three, that is, produce the most sophisticated weapons and produce obedient soldiers.

[Sentinel]

You are an idiot.


Verbal warning for flaming.

[Delenda Carthago]

That's a stupid scenario. More realistic - if you could choose to live in the former GDR or 1950s Britain, for example, you'd choose Britain everytime, because they had similar welfare-ism, but more democracy (albeit of the bourgeois liberal variety) and a lot less state intervention in individuals' lives.

Spoken like a true revolutionary.

[Delenda Carthago]

The only thing I dont like on DDR, is that it didnt had as much of a revolutionary fist as I would like yo. I mean, when you have a People's Republic that postponed for 15 years legalising abortion in order not to break its relationship with the Christian Democrat opposition, thats wrong. You simply legalise abortion, and throw all CDs to a jail. End of story.:lol:



But hey, "Tim Cornelis" says that the mantra was "The party is always right". Obviously he has studied that thing deeply for years before coming to that conclusion, right?

[Tim Cornelis]

You are an idiot.

Do you know anything about East Germany from any other sources than BBC?

Half my family is from the German Democratic Republic,

Suppose that I were to claim the superiority of the Dutch capitalist model, would you need to accept this proposition on the basis that I possess anecdotal experience under living in this particular system and you don't?


the life for workers was objectively much better then than it is under capitalism.

Firstly, it keeps surprising me how many Marxists, self-proclaimed or actual, are so ignorant of the scientific method. Anything that is a value judgment cannot be objectively asserted. You cannot state that strawberry icecream is objectively better than vanilla ice cream, even if a supermajority agrees. There is no objectivity in value judgements.
Secondly, polls reveal that 43% of East Germans prefer 'socialism' over capitalism.
Thirdly, I'm not a supported of liberal capitalism so why assert that state-capitalism is better than liberal capitalism when I support neither? The East German model, and state-capitalism in general, is superior in social welfare but inferior in civic liberties. Now, we can argue that social welfare was more advantageous and thus that the DDR was superior to the BRD, but it does not follow that therefore the DDR was "awesome" or "great" as it ignores the possibility of neither options being awesome or great.


All East Germans I've asked about their experience always reiterated that what is always said, that the "human aspect" was so nice in East Germany (the interpersonal relationships etc.), is true.

The point being here? That each system has its pros and cons?


My Uncle spent a couple of months in an East German prison, being fed only pasta. So what? He was an anti-social, self interested petty-bourgeois, who got pissed when the carpentering market he was serving was taken over by a state operation and he ran out of business. He turned to open anti-communism in order to get locked up and have the West German government pay to get him out of prison and pay to restart his life in the west, with citizenship, state housing, transportation, healthcare etc. That's what happened, he got the rest of the family to move after him. He resisted conforming to socialist society, he actively propagated against it, and so the East German State made life hard for him. So what? The majority of East Germans today miss the good old life when one of your family members wasn't either a drunk, homeless, downtrodden exhausted wage slave, or self centered Mercedes driving piece of shit.

Such anecdotal evidence is meaningless to me. Locking up people for exerting social tendencies rather than address the social dynamics from which they arise also strikes me as idealist. Additionally, opposing the DDR is not anti-communist any more than Dutch capitalists opposing takeover by other capitalists. Lastly, "Dutch majority supports capitalism, therefore capitalism is great."


You have no idea how East Germany worked.

And of course you base this on me saying something that is factual, which you don't even deny, but rather you agree with the way it worked, whereas I don't. It's not a matter of me not knowing how the DDR worked, but me opposing such systems, whereas you seem to have some emotional investment or wishful thinking attached to it that triumphs reason and scientificity.


It was a good place to live if you accepted the Socialist dictatorship, a rather unpleasant and totalitarian place to live if you were a rabid anticommunist or idiot like my uncle.

You see nothing wrong with this assertion? You sound like a rabid anticommunist yourself: obey the state and have a modest and decent life, go against the state and feel the wrath of the mighty state. You do realise that the same applies to many dictatorships not preoccupied with ethnicity? Don't engage in politics, and the state will leave you be can apply to Franco's Spain, Estado Nuovo, Pinochet's Chile, military juntas, etc.

It's a matter of you embracing the notion of obedient workers slaving away for their employer, whereas I reject this.


If you just wanted to simply live your life, you never noticed the East German State.

God forbid people be political and seek their improve their lives through political means! The double standard amongst some state-capitalist apologists is amazing. 'Don't be political, and the coppers wont bother you'. If the proletariat were to attempt to self-emancipate through social revolution the state apparatus of the DDR would have attempted to crush the authentic workers' state.

The absolute insanity of constructing a gigantic wall with barbed wire, glass, mines, and snipers to keep people from moving away from your country, yet people, dare I say idiots, support it because their uncle got locked away for alleged "anticommunism".



But hey, "Tim Cornelis" says that the mantra was "The party is always right". Obviously he has studied that thing deeply for years before coming to that conclusion, right?

I have never caught you making an argument, all you do is ridicule the opposing comments. That the SED used the slogan "The Party is Always Right" is not something I inferred from their conduct, but is their explicitly used slogan in their party hymn.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lied_der_Partei

Stop substituting arguments with empty ridicule.


You're making assumptions here Boss.

Bourgeois slander of so-far existing socialist societies, which claims that the poor little peoples of the world were being oppressed by the mighty and sadistic communist dictators, is copied, reiterated and utilized by ultra-left comrades. It skews the reality of so far existing socialist experiments that we should learn from.

The reality is that if you were an obedient worker to the society which was perhaps the most progressive one this earth has yet produced (women's rights, free and highly qualitative education, sexual education, rich cultural activities, strong social solidarity and genuine community, no death penalty, no unemployment, equal pay for equal work, housing, food, clothing, transportation etc. etc.), you had to have no fears.

You sound like you got the Right-Wing Authoritarianism bug. Obedience? Socialism the free association of equals, its very realisation is the opposite of obedience. Obedience to a bourgeois state is anticommunism.

Some time ago a psychologist went to find out why people keep supporting brutal dictators, and he articulated the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Melvin Lerner was prompted to study justice beliefs and the just-world hypothesis in the context of social psychological inquiry into negative social and societal interactions.[3] Lerner saw his work as extending Stanley Milgram's work on obedience. He sought to answer the questions of how regimes that cause cruelty and suffering maintain popular support, and how people come to accept social norms and laws that produce misery and suffering.[4]
Lerner's inquiry was influenced by repeatedly witnessing the tendency of observers to blame victims for their suffering. During his clinical training as a psychologist, he observed treatment of mentally ill persons by the health care practitioners with whom he worked. Though he knew them to be kindhearted, educated people, they often blamed patients for their own suffering.[5] Lerner also describes his surprise at hearing his students derogate the poor, seemingly oblivious to the structural forces that contribute to poverty.[3] In a study on rewards, he observed that when one of two men was chosen at random to receive a reward for a task, that caused him to be more favorably evaluated by observers.[6][7] Existing social psychological theories, including cognitive dissonance, could not fully explain these phenomena.[7] The desire to understand the processes that caused these phenomena led Lerner to conduct his first experiments on what is now called the just-world hypothesis.

You have the same psychological mindset of conservatives and right-wing authoritarians: obey or suffer, and if you suffer it's your own fault.


Now, of course, I'm no Socialist "in one country". I'm for a completely different society, namely one where there is no more state and where only workers collectively, equally, democratically and directly control surplus: Communism. But Communism is merely workers States implemented internationally.
If transported back in time, I naturally would be one of those people that would fight for a right to organizing a communist faction within the SED and try to implement more reforms towards workplace democracy and more social events to get workers political. But the means to actually implementing a truly egalitarian society and workers direct democratic rule, are limited in a country that is constantly forced to be ready to take the first hits in World War Three, that is, produce the most sophisticated weapons and produce obedient soldiers.

Communism is the free association of equals, it has nothing to do with top-down states. There was nothing that indicates that the policies as enacted in Eastern Europe would at some point have lead to the transformation of wage-labour into associated labour. Thus adopting reformism within Eastern Europe is the same as adopting it in Western Europe, a futile excision.

[Edelweiss]

The success of Die Linke nowadays has very little to do with any pro-GDR sentiments within the (East-)German population. At least not anymore. Time to wake up, Leninist dreamers! I don't think many of their voters are electing them as the former GDR state party (rather despite of that) but because of their current political positions, which are traditionally social democratic. They are just filling the gap that the SPD left after their rightist shift during their government with the Greens. Remember, Die Linke is a unification of the PDS (the former SED) and the WASG (a leftist splinter of the SPD).

Nevertheless, there is still quiet a few communists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Platform) organized within Die Linke, but especially in the west, where the membership of Die Linke is much more dogmatic, and not in the east.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

There was an underlying serious point here;

That being I've never seen an overweight person from an Eastern Bloc country.

Or for that matter an underweight person.

Communism is advantageous to the body mass indexes of the people.

Actually plenty of athletes grew overweight in the GDR due to Stasi's coercion and then forcing of them taking steroid derivatives, firstly under the pretense that they were 'vitamins' and secondly under the pretense that your family would disappear if you didn't let them dope you.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

@TimCornelis
First off I'd like to apologize for calling you an idiot. This is obviously not true. You simply do not understand the direction from which I approach the issue.

First off, I've grown up around personal praise and horror stories about East Germany. Coming from an anti-fascist, and stemming from that, a generally very critical attitude towards capitalist society, I naturally drifted to the ultra-left camp as well and tried to explain to all who knew of my radicalism that that was not "real" communism etc. etc. Telling me that I advocate the political latency of the mass of workers, even under countries where communists govern, is really an absurd accusation. There simply are limits to what workers can actually do once taking power within a limited territory.

Obviously, from an independent humanist perspective we couldn't support any kind of State because of the morally complex relations that States find themselves in in order to keep their territorial monopoly on violence (kidnappings, exploitation of degenerate living conditions, tactical arming of terrorists who are enemies of states the socialist state is an enemy of etc.). But history shows that the workers must have a Party and an Army to defend the rule of the working class (I don't believe I have to dig into quotes from the book that split the 1st International, do I?).

What it comes down to is that the vision of the abolition of capitalism for communism is an international question; that is, so long the class enemy and suppressors of true human freedom continue to hold the guns, the territories in which a new cooperative and democratic society is to be achieved will see themselves forced, if they want to retain a socially just rule, to form their economy (and hence society) in a way which serves the needs of the State.

Whether what existed in East Germany was "State Capitalism" or whether it was "Socialism" doesn't matter the least bit. In some East German enterprises I've heard and read about, the workers actually controlled production in a collective way. But they did not control surplus, that is, what happened with production. Why not? Because there were material necessities that East German Society demanded in order to reproduce itself: building of new Atomic Energy plants in order to fuel the building of new military rockets that would be capable of reaching equal distances that the new NATO rockets stationed in West Germany could reach. Does me understanding that reality mean I support fucking rockets or atomic energy? In no way of course.

Things are very complex when you hold state power and that power turns out to be inferior to the power of the class enemy's states on the global balance of strength. That is why I advocate the "strategy of patience" and international/transnational mass party movement building we're always talking about, in order to divert the necessity of strong states and not go down the dead end road which the 20th century socialist experiments proved to be.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Actually plenty of athletes grew overweight in the GDR due to Stasi's coercion and then forcing of them taking steroid derivatives, firstly under the pretense that they were 'vitamins' and secondly under the pretense that your family would disappear if you didn't let them dope you.

Well, a family member of mine was actually a runner in the GDR and was forced doped. But statistics show that East German athletes were not disproportionately doped. I don't know why the East German state should be so much worse than any others to be honest, beside the massive one-sided western capitalist propaganda against it that says otherwise..

[A.J.]

Actually plenty of athletes grew overweight in the GDR due to Stasi's coercion and then forcing of them taking steroid derivatives, firstly under the pretense that they were 'vitamins'

Testamony to the acheivments of the GDR in the field of medical science.

In this case performance-enhancing drugs.

[Tim Cornelis]

First off, I've grown up around personal praise and horror stories about East Germany. Coming from an anti-fascist, and stemming from that, a generally very critical attitude towards capitalist society, I naturally drifted to the ultra-left camp as well and tried to explain to all who knew of my radicalism that that was not "real" communism etc. etc. Telling me that I advocate the political latency of the mass of workers, even under countries where communists govern, is really an absurd accusation. There simply are limits to what workers can actually do once taking power within a limited territory.

There is no reason to presuppose that the limits of workers' power necessarily need to take the form that they did in Eastern Europe, firstly. Secondly, the precondition of the emancipation of the working class is that this working class usurps political power, which happened nowhere in Eastern Europe. There was nothing unique in the class character of the Eastern bloc, only the social character gravitated towards social welfare. Social welfare is insufficient to transform the totality of social relations, unless we accept the social-democratic degeneration of Bernstein. Hence support for the Eastern bloc amounts to reformist, gradualist social-democracy, not revolutionary socialism.


Obviously, from an independent humanist perspective we couldn't support any kind of State because of the morally complex relations that States find themselves in in order to keep their territorial monopoly on violence (kidnappings, exploitation of degenerate living conditions, tactical arming of terrorists who are enemies of states the socialist state is an enemy of etc.). But history shows that the workers must have a Party and an Army to defend the rule of the working class (I don't believe I have to dig into quotes from the book that split the 1st International, do I?).

The workers need a workers' state, a vanguard party, and an armed wing to defend its rule. None of this existed in the Eastern bloc. The state ruled over the working class, and indeed expected rigid obedience to it, the army, secret police, and conventional police were tools for the oppression of the proletariat, and the party the political and ideological justification and legitimisation of de fact one-party rule )over the proletariat).

A workers' state is a semi-state, and consists of workers' associations to manage production and workers' councils to administer political affairs, it's a central network of organs of workers' power. The semi-state resembles not the structure of a conventional state, whereas the Eastern bloc was nothing but conventional states: conventional police, top-down legislative organs, heads of state, ministers.


What it comes down to is that the vision of the abolition of capitalism for communism is an international question; that is, so long the class enemy and suppressors of true human freedom continue to hold the guns, the territories in which a new cooperative and democratic society is to be achieved will see themselves forced, if they want to retain a socially just rule, to form their economy (and hence society) in a way which serves the needs of the State.

This presupposes that the political structures of the Eastern bloc would enable the transformation toward socialism, one that I do not uphold. I see no reason why the welfare policies of the Eastern bloc would have eventuated in a societal system based on freely associated and equal producers. If a particular workers' state becomes isolated it will direct its armed wing toward outside forces seeking to undermine their social revolution. It will still be a semi-state, central but from below, based on workers' power -- not on obedient wage-labourers subservient to a bureaucratic state machinery that governs from above.


Whether what existed in East Germany was "State Capitalism" or whether it was "Socialism" doesn't matter the least bit. In some East German enterprises I've heard and read about, the workers actually controlled production in a collective way. But they did not control surplus, that is, what happened with production.

I'm highly skeptical of this claim. Any self-proclaimed socialist country claimed, to some extent or another, that workers exercised control over their productive affairs. Albania, Soviet Union, North Korea, Yugoslavia. Usually this amounted to consultative management by the plant or workplace manager, allowing workers to give input and managers implementing it wherever possible. In Yugoslavia, as far as I know, "workers' control" was the most extensive, yet amounted to nothing more than co-determination of workers and party-state bureaucrats, much alike works councils and co-determination in much of Western Europe, or even contemporary Kerala, Amsterdam, and Cambodia in political affairs.

East Germany was a highly oppressive bourgeois state managing capital claiming to rule on behalf of the proletariat, without accountability or workers' power. I could never support a state that needs to build a gigantic lethal wall to keep its citizens in, as if a gigantic prison. Socialism needs to be worthy so that workers choose to follow it. If socialism cannot retain producers or workers then it has failed by any stretch of the imagination.

[AsozialerKommunist]

Important is, that the FDP will not get the 5% or more ;D

[Sam_b]

I am watching this as I am the Czech elections to see if the former Communists finally become part of a Social Democrat led coalition. Past time the splits in the historic Social Democratic parties are healed. It's not like the remaining Communist Parties answer to the "guidance" of the Soviet Union now.

I don't wish to split the discussion away from Die Linke, but I think the Czech elections will be interesting in this regard, especially since the KSČM are very likely of coming seocnd (and at least third), barring some sort of miraculous reinvention of TOP09 taking all the ODS votes. However, there are talks in the ČSSD of a minority government if they reach a high enough percentage that it would be workable.

[Tim Cornelis]

Important is, that the FDP will not get the 5% or more ;D

I doubt that. They poll at 5-6%, not 4-5%. CDU/CSU is at 40%, so I suspect many of these voters will, last minute, to strategically vote for the FDP to get them over the threshold to be able to form a coalition with CDU/CSU.

[Fred]

Firstly, it keeps surprising me how many Marxists, self-proclaimed or actual, are so ignorant of the scientific method. Anything that is a value judgment cannot be objectively asserted. You cannot state that strawberry icecream is objectively better than vanilla ice cream, even if a supermajority agrees. There is no objectivity in value judgements.
Secondly, polls reveal that 43% of East Germans prefer 'socialism' over capitalism.
Thirdly, I'm not a supported of liberal capitalism so why assert that state-capitalism is better than liberal capitalism when I support neither? The East German model, and state-capitalism in general, is superior in social welfare but inferior in civic liberties. Now, we can argue that social welfare was more advantageous and thus that the DDR was superior to the BRD, but it does not follow that therefore the DDR was "awesome" or "great" as it ignores the possibility of neither options being awesome or great.


But as other comrades have stated -- this false equivalence that you arrive at, between the deformed/degenerated workers' states and bourgeois capitalist nations leads directly to this formulation: Since there is/was no difference in class rule between say, Cuba, and Mexico, Since there are more nominal political freedoms in Mexico (or the US), it would be better to be in Mexico or the US. It is a very small political step to then defend the interests of the US and Mexico against Cuba or the GDR or China, or the fSU. And in the US, anyway, many ostensible leftists have gone down that road.

It starts with a non-material analysis of the class nature, in this case, of the DDR. The unification of Germany has resulted in devastation for a large number of people living in the area that comprised the GDR. It is not trivial that conditions there for working people, especially given the overall wealth of the country, were rather good. This was based on a collectivized planned economy -- the economic foundations of a workers' state.

To most people on this site, the counterrevolutions in eastern europe were unimportant or even trivial. To the people that have suffered the return of capitalism and barbaric nationalism it has been quite the opposite.

This wrongheaded view of the fSU and DWS has led historically to supporting immensely reactionary forces by some of the left, including the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan, Solidarnosc, and in some cases supporting the US military (e.g., in the former Yugoslavia). To paraphrase Trotsky: Those that cannot defend the gains already made by the working class cannot make new ones.

If the government of the GDR had been replaced with revolutionary leadership via a political revolution, they would not have had to reorganize production. But the restrictive/oppressive bureaucratic vice grip on all political discussion surely would have ended.

As an aside, I spent a couple of weekends, long ago, at a retreat, where every year they had a GDR week! I kid you not. I never attended those (as I probably would have been tarred and feathered and thrown in the lake), but I always imagined sitting around the campfire and singing songs in praise of Eric Honecker :). Which is to say that, of course, the GDR was no workers paradise and was not socialist. But it was qualitatively different from western europe -- in a way that Revolutionaries should be able to see.

[Tim Cornelis]

But as other comrades have stated -- this false equivalence that you arrive at, between the deformed/degenerated workers' states and bourgeois capitalist nations leads directly to this formulation: Since there is/was no difference in class rule between say, Cuba, and Mexico, Since there are more nominal political freedoms in Mexico (or the US), it would be better to be in Mexico or the US. It is a very small political step to then defend the interests of the US and Mexico against Cuba or the GDR or China, or the fSU. And in the US, anyway, many ostensible leftists have gone down that road.

This is fallacious logic in and of itself. The conclusion, to you, is uncomfortable, therefore it must be wrong.


It starts with a non-material analysis of the class nature, in this case, of the DDR.

On the contrary, the assertion that there was working class rule because of the subjective conditions (as argued by Leninists) is idealist, whereas I look at the objective conditions, the real social dynamics -- that is, materialist analysis.


The unification of Germany has resulted in devastation for a large number of people living in the area that comprised the GDR. It is not trivial that conditions there for working people, especially given the overall wealth of the country, were rather good. This was based on a collectivized planned economy -- the economic foundations of a workers' state.

What does "collectivised planned economy" even mean? The economic foundations of a workers' state is necessarily workers' control over economic affairs.


To most people on this site, the counterrevolutions in eastern europe were unimportant or even trivial. To the people that have suffered the return of capitalism and barbaric nationalism it has been quite the opposite.

There was no return to capitalism.


This wrongheaded view of the fSU and DWS has led historically to supporting immensely reactionary forces by some of the left, including the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan, Solidarnosc, and in some cases supporting the US military (e.g., in the former Yugoslavia). To paraphrase Trotsky: Those that cannot defend the gains already made by the working class cannot make new ones.[

Again, fallacious logic. It doesn't matter whether it leads to this or that as this omits the question of whether it is accurate or not.


If the government of the GDR had been replaced with revolutionary leadership via a political revolution, they would not have had to reorganize production.

Does this mean you advocate the perpetuation of wage-labour and commodity production? A political revolution would have been insufficient, only a transformation of the totality of social relationships would have been sufficient: the transformation of wage-labour into associated labour, the transformation of monopolised ownership into social ownership, and the transformation of production for exchange with production for use.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

There is no reason to presuppose that the limits of workers' power necessarily need to take the form that they did in Eastern Europe, firstly.

Oh no, that's sure. In fact, the form which the GDR took was due to a complete revision of Stalin's supposed proletarian politics.

So, of course the SED (the party which was formed by a merger between SPD and KPD on Stalin advice) was a party which did not represent genuinely independent proletarian political organization, a "vanguard".

But to call the East Germany where the most books of Marx and Engels were ever published, of which workers in Germany (like myself) still reap the benefits of over 40 years of free leftist publication on german and global history (I would not be what I am today if it were not for the Marxist [perhaps, Marxian?] books published in East Germany), where students were given free access to the rich source of knowledge which is Marxism, where knowledge of scientific socialism for the individual pupil was an integral part of going through and passing education - to call this East Germany that catapulted Left thought into socially acceptable discourse, "bourgeois" is really unbelievable.

Do you not think that people actually read the communist material that was published? They knew, just as many Cubans know today, what Marx wrote in the critique of the Gotha Program, the basic Marxist concept of surplus was wide knowledge etc.

Naturally, I'm not going to defend the GDR much more. But you have to understand that a significantly different social system existed there which was neither bourgeois nor communist. If you want to call it "Stalinism", Socialism in one Country, or Socialism doesn't matter, the point is that this mode of production and social system will always be recreated the world over if there is no clear understanding of what conditions made every single socialist revolution fail at reaching communism.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think, in the abstract, I would have rather lived in the GDR than the FRG, though, concretely, I think I would have been happier in the FRG's oppositional youth culture of hippies/K-groups/squatters/etc.

That said, whereas Die Linke isn't going to be restoring the GDR, it all seems a little irrelevant, eh?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I would choose the GDR over the FRG, simply because the combination of having to be ruled by ex-Nazi fucks in the FRG, and the temptations of the RAF (taken in historical context - I have no interest in defending their terrorism today), would probably have seen me explode.

At least in the GDR I could either choose between being a politically dictated-to worker, or sit smugly in Hohenschonhausen in the knowledge that I was right about those stalinoid fucks.

[Fred]

This is fallacious logic in and of itself. The conclusion, to you, is uncomfortable, therefore it must be wrong.



On the contrary, the assertion that there was working class rule because of the subjective conditions (as argued by Leninists) is idealist, whereas I look at the objective conditions, the real social dynamics -- that is, materialist analysis.



What does "collectivised planned economy" even mean? The economic foundations of a workers' state is necessarily workers' control over economic affairs.



There was no return to capitalism.



Again, fallacious logic. It doesn't matter whether it leads to this or that as this omits the question of whether it is accurate or not.



Does this mean you advocate the perpetuation of wage-labour and commodity production? A political revolution would have been insufficient, only a transformation of the totality of social relationships would have been sufficient: the transformation of wage-labour into associated labour, the transformation of monopolised ownership into social ownership, and the transformation of production for exchange with production for use.

A planned collectivized economy, where there is little if any private capital, where production is not primarily for profit. How is that for a material reality? Long-term, of course I don't advocate the perpetuation of wage labor and commodity production. The main task of a revolutionary GDR would have been to spread the revolution -- that would be the shortest (and only) route to socialism. But in the short-term, you can't create socialism in one country and there would have been the necessity for wage labor lest the economy collapse. I would argue that production was for use and there was social ownership in the GDR. The transformation of wage labor into associated labor would have to wait a few years. This was what the Bolsheviks struggled with in the early days of the USSR.

I'm confused -- are you arguing that the USSR and Eastern Germany of today are not capitalist? Or are you saying, as I thought was your position, that there was simply never any difference?

[Tim Cornelis]

A planned collectivized economy, where there is little if any private capital, where production is not primarily for profit. How is that for a material reality?

It's quite arbitrary to be honest. "Primarily" how do you quantify that? A social enterprise in the UK making a profit but not as primary motivation would be non-capitalist? Profit-and-loss calculations were integral part of the production scheme of Eastern Europe. Private capital would imply there's such a thing as public capital, and thus capitalism in state form.


Long-term, of course I don't advocate the perpetuation of wage labor and commodity production.

In the short term you do advocate the perpetuation of capitalist institutions (wage-labour and commodity production)? Why is that?


The main task of a revolutionary GDR would have been to spread the revolution -- that would be the shortest (and only) route to socialism.

This implies that the DDR had any relation to socialism. To me it sounds the same as advocating for the Netherlands or Norway to spread the revolution. Any system based on wage-labour and commodity production is in essence capitalistic and does not turn socialistic without social revolution against those maintaining it (in this case the DDR or its state).


But in the short-term, you can't create socialism in one country and there would have been the necessity for wage labor lest the economy collapse.

That's a ridiculous assertion. How then do you propose a socialist revolution commences: we maintain the capitalist mode of production as it exists, but then wait until all socialist parties around the world manage capital and then we can begin deconstructing it? That is idealistic hogwash.

The basis for the emancipation of workers is that workers assume control and power over affairs of politics and economics. The social revolution consists of the transformation of all social institutions: wage-labour into associated labour, monopolised property into social property, commodity production into production for use. Evidently, commodity production will permeate into the transition period but if workers remain wage-workers then the capitalist system is perpetuated irrespective of idealistic intentions. The materialist reality is that the workers are 'enslaved' to the capitalist class as wage-workers and this recreates class dynamics, and thus class society. It does not move us an inch further in the direction of socialism.


I would argue that production was for use and there was social ownership in the GDR.

Production was for exchange as evidenced by monetary-commodity exchange relations. Production for use and exchange are incompatible. It's factually incorrect to assert that exchange did not exist as modus operandi in Eastern Europe. Social ownership means that productive resources are owned commonly or by workers collectively. Neither of this was true, as the property was owned by the state and this state was alienated from the proletariat because, as you admit, wage-labour exist (i.e. workers sold their labour-power to the state).


The transformation of wage labor into associated labor would have to wait a few years. This was what the Bolsheviks struggled with in the early days of the USSR.

A ridiculous notion. Those that employ wage-labour are the exploiting class. In other words what you propose is that capitalist relations of production remain intact, and thus that there is capitalist class of employers and a proletariat, employees (in other words class dynamics, class relations, class society -- incidentally meaning the state will not wither away). Then once these capitalists, the 'socialist' state, have taken over the world they will emancipate, benevolently, the workers by setting them free. It's absolutely contradictory to any notion, in accordance with the materialist conception of history, of how history will unfold, of what the preconditions of the emancipation of the proletariat are, and what a workers' state is.


I'm confused -- are you arguing that the USSR and Eastern Germany of today are not capitalist? Or are you saying, as I thought was your position, that there was simply never any difference?

I don't understand the question. They transformed from one form of capitalism into another.

[Fred]

A ridiculous notion. Those that employ wage-labour are the exploiting class. In other words what you propose is that capitalist relations of production remain intact, and thus that there is capitalist class of employers and a proletariat, employees (in other words class dynamics, class relations, class society -- incidentally meaning the state will not wither away). Then once these capitalists, the 'socialist' state, have taken over the world they will emancipate, benevolently, the workers by setting them free. It's absolutely contradictory to any notion, in accordance with the materialist conception of history, of how history will unfold, of what the preconditions of the emancipation of the proletariat are, and what a workers' state is.

It is completely ahistorical and idealistic to believe that immediately after the overthrow of capitalism in a single country you will immediately have no wages. THere will still be international capital to deal with and you will still need armed forces to defend against attack. The workers in a workers state own the means of production, the bureaucrats do not. They had extremely limited say as to what could be done with all but a small fraction of the surplus. And production was not organized around profit. What a strange form of capitalism it seems to be. What is the "state" in the cases we are using? Is it the bureaucracy? That certainly is an odd idea. Is it the armed forces defending collectivized property forms? What is this entity you call the "state" that owns the means of production?

Production in the fSU was not for exchange, because surplus could not be freely exchanged and converted as it can under capitalism.

[Bea Arthur]

A planned collectivized economy, where there is little if any private capital, where production is not primarily for profit. How is that for a material reality? Long-term, of course I don't advocate the perpetuation of wage labor and commodity production. The main task of a revolutionary GDR would have been to spread the revolution -- that would be the shortest (and only) route to socialism. But in the short-term, you can't create socialism in one country and there would have been the necessity for wage labor lest the economy collapse. I would argue that production was for use and there was social ownership in the GDR. The transformation of wage labor into associated labor would have to wait a few years. This was what the Bolsheviks struggled with in the early days of the USSR.

I'm confused -- are you arguing that the USSR and Eastern Germany of today are not capitalist? Or are you saying, as I thought was your position, that there was simply never any difference?

The sale of labor power as a commodity with an exchange value, and by definition part of a wider network of value relations in the economy, yet you want us to believe the economy was rationally planned for use rather than exchange! Wage labor is not rational, Fred! It, along with its sidekick value, embody post-hoc planning discharged by individual parties carrying out autonomous economic functions in a competitive way. Not rational, and certainly not independent of exchange value! For as long as there is wage labor, production is dominated by exchange value and value and not use value for human needs. Marxist economics 101!!

This is almost as confused as Ismail's formulations about Albania being too economically backward to have gay movements but not backward enough to prevent them from establishing full socialism!

I guess to somebody who embraces Leninist cultist forms of organizing, these contradictions appear only as so many dialectical puzzles rather than outright shilling for dictators like Lenin and Trotsky!! Shame!!!

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Not a full post here but....

the DDR, fSU, etc were not socialist-the working class did not collectively control the means of production, but they weren't capitalist either.Capitalism is general commodity production based on the reproduction and expansion of capital.This did not exist under "actually existing socialism". Society was not ruled by a class who's necessary perogative is the reproduction of capital. Instead (to use a Maoist phrase in an ironic sense) "politics was in command".The needs of the ruling bureaucracy was pursued politically rather tan capitalistically.

The FSU, etc. were collectivized economies.There were gains in terms of social welfare; education, women's rights and overall social solidarity.Yes they were repressive straight jackets.Yes, the working class aas atomized, ironically under the name of socialism. No one can deny though that the quality of life for the average Soviet or Eastern European worker was much better than it is today.

[Fred]

It's quite arbitrary to be honest. "Primarily" how do you quantify that? A social enterprise in the UK making a profit but not as primary motivation would be non-capitalist? Profit-and-loss calculations were integral part of the production scheme of Eastern Europe. Private capital would imply there's such a thing as public capital, and thus capitalism in state form.



In the short term you do advocate the perpetuation of capitalist institutions (wage-labour and commodity production)? Why is that?



This implies that the DDR had any relation to socialism. To me it sounds the same as advocating for the Netherlands or Norway to spread the revolution. Any system based on wage-labour and commodity production is in essence capitalistic and does not turn socialistic without social revolution against those maintaining it (in this case the DDR or its state).



That's a ridiculous assertion. How then do you propose a socialist revolution commences: we maintain the capitalist mode of production as it exists, but then wait until all socialist parties around the world manage capital and then we can begin deconstructing it? That is idealistic hogwash.

The basis for the emancipation of workers is that workers assume control and power over affairs of politics and economics. The social revolution consists of the transformation of all social institutions: wage-labour into associated labour, monopolised property into social property, commodity production into production for use. Evidently, commodity production will permeate into the transition period but if workers remain wage-workers then the capitalist system is perpetuated irrespective of idealistic intentions. The materialist reality is that the workers are 'enslaved' to the capitalist class as wage-workers and this recreates class dynamics, and thus class society. It does not move us an inch further in the direction of socialism.



Production was for exchange as evidenced by monetary-commodity exchange relations. Production for use and exchange are incompatible. It's factually incorrect to assert that exchange did not exist as modus operandi in Eastern Europe. Social ownership means that productive resources are owned commonly or by workers collectively. Neither of this was true, as the property was owned by the state and this state was alienated from the proletariat because, as you admit, wage-labour exist (i.e. workers sold their labour-power to the state).



A ridiculous notion. Those that employ wage-labour are the exploiting class. In other words what you propose is that capitalist relations of production remain intact, and thus that there is capitalist class of employers and a proletariat, employees (in other words class dynamics, class relations, class society -- incidentally meaning the state will not wither away). Then once these capitalists, the 'socialist' state, have taken over the world they will emancipate, benevolently, the workers by setting them free. It's absolutely contradictory to any notion, in accordance with the materialist conception of history, of how history will unfold, of what the preconditions of the emancipation of the proletariat are, and what a workers' state is.



I don't understand the question. They transformed from one form of capitalism into another.
For most of the existence of the USSR, profit was not the main goal. Managers were under pressure to meet their output targets, whatever they were. In fact, this caused problems where managers would horde expensive parts or advanced machines that were not even needed so that they could exceed the targets. Capitalism simply does not work that way.

I'm game, you find an organization in the UK that produces for social use and not for profit -- I will officially declare that the entity is not capitalistic.

Marx was very specific about this. He said that capital existed only as separate competing capital. I will try to scare up the quote if that would help.

Production in the DDR was not organized around profit. And labor/wages were not a commodity freely convertible into almost anything. Capitalism was overthrown there. Then came the counterrevolution. You didn't notice the slight change after the wall came down?

Don't be stupid, comrade. A socialist revolution begins with the overthrowing of the bourgeoisie in a given country. But, according to Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, you cannot build socialism in one country. So you do what you can to strengthen the workers state and commit massive resources to furthering the world revolution (as the RCP did). But you don't arrive at socialism by fiat (a la Stalin) -- you can't just pull it out of your ass.

In the USSR, production was simply not for profit -- in the 60s they tried to move toward that and it failed. So your argument boils down to: Wage Labour = Capitalism.

Ideally the next revolutions that occur will happen in countries with a higher level of material wealth and industrial capacity than Russia and a much larger proletariat. The revolution will spread quickly and we can once and for all do away with wage labor, etc. But history happens the way that it does. The Soviet Union was in a certain circumstance whereby the Tsar would have been back in 6 months if they implemented what you are suggesting. But to say that because they did not get rid of every aspect of capitalism within a year or two of coming into existence, that they were the new bourgeoisie makes little sense.

Yeah, it was just another form of capitalism those Bolsheviks -- at what point does quantity turn to quality for you?

[Stalin Baratheon]

Funny to see this "Stalinist Hell" where homosexuality was legalized before Federal Germany and where nudist parades were organized in Berlin. But I guess it is better to believe in the anti-communist propaganda, shout some generic and useless statements against "bureaucracy" and take the politically correct stance before defending a socialist country where free housing was granted and full employment achieved.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Die Linke: Rotten politics and rotten terms (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/978/die-linke-rotten-politics-and-rotten-terms)



This weekend’s elections will be a test for Die Linke, argues Ben Lewis, especially when it comes to the coalition-making that will follow

As Germany prepares to go to the polls on September 22, there are enormous issues that confront both Europe’s most important power and the continent as a whole. Given Germany’s dominance of institutions such as the European Central Bank, the commission and so on, there is a sense in which the outcome could have more of an impact on the populations of Spain, Greece or Portugal than their own national elections, especially in light of the EU’s recent attempts to ‘delegitimise’ elected governments not intent on fulfilling its demands.

Yet, as is so typical of bourgeois politics in this particular period, there appears to exist a kind of inverse relationship between the seriousness of the political matters at hand and the level at which these problems are addressed in political discourse, campaigning and the media. Even in the more serious sections of the German media, the parties’ battle for hearts and minds has hitherto been characterised more by silly gaffes than by serious strategic debate and ideas. In public at least, Eurobonds, the possibility of a banking union or the role of Germany in Europe have thus taken a back seat to things like the ‘Stinkefinger incident’ (Social Democrat Peer Steinbrück pictured sticking up his middle finger on the cover of a leading magazine), infighting within the Free Democratic Party that is currently governing in coalition with Merkel’s Conservatives, or the Green Party’s suggestion that Germans should enjoy a meat-free ‘veggie day’ once a week.

Common agenda

It is hard to tell what exactly lies behind this Politikverdrossenheit, this voter apathy and indifference towards the political process in times of such upheaval and change across Europe. It may reflect the simple fact that there appears to be very little to choose between the two forerunners for office - the CDU and SPD - and their preferred coalition partners. Fundamentally, both major parties are agreed on the need for austerity in the form of low wages, ‘labour flexibility’ and increasingly harsh sanctions against the unemployed.

Indeed, the foundations for this contemporary ‘common sense’ agenda were laid by the SPD (and the Green Party) in the form of the neoliberal ‘Agenda 2010’, of which Merkel’s proposals are a mere continuation. It says everything about the current outlook of the SPD that Peer Steinbrück, its putative replacement for chancellor Angela Merkel, was one of the chief architects of Agenda 2010, alongside Gerhard Schröder, the German, and ever so slightly less self-serving, version of Tony Blair. The SPD has even attempted to market its ‘vision’ for Germany under the title of … you guessed it, ‘Agenda 2020’. Wow.

Chancellor Merkel, the continental queen of austerity, remains popular. This is in part thanks to the hard yards put in by Schröder and Steinbrück in imposing Agenda 2010 on the trade unions. The organised working class has by and large passively endured Merkel’s austerity agenda, including the freeze on wages and living standards that, or so it is claimed, lies behind the exports-based German economic ‘recovery’. However fragile this may be, and however much it has come at the expense of the peripheral countries of the EU, it is undoubtedly true that, as of yet, austerity has hit nowhere near as hard as in Greece, Portugal or Spain. Merkel has thus had a relatively easy ride.

There is also very little between the parties when it comes to imposing austerity abroad - ie, across the euro zone - despite the hollow exchange between Merkel and Steinbrück on this very matter in their recent televised debate (the latter labelled Merkel’s strategy “disastrous”, whereupon Merkel pointed out that the SPD had voted for it from the outset).

The German electorate is probably all too aware of the fact that, in the possible absence of a clear outcome, the two main parties may even end up being forced into a ‘grand coalition’ anyway, as they were in 2005. This outcome would certainly upset their supporters and not come without certain costs to both. Yet, as we draw closer to September 22 with things still tight, that possibility is starting to be broached in the German media.

After all, last Sunday’s Bavarian results have highlighted how this most boring of elections might just have us all glued to our television screens. Hopefully presaging the fate of the Liberal Democrats on these shores, the German ‘liberal’ FDP, upon whom Merkel depends for the moment, took a hammering, receiving barely 3% of the vote. This may reflect some of the ‘particularities’ of Bavaria, not least the near dominance of the Christian Social Union. Yet if the miserable showing of the FDP, which has stumbled from internal crisis to internal crisis, is replicated on a national scale, then the party would not even make it past the (extremely undemocratic, purportedly anti-totalitarian) 5% hurdle to win representation in the Bundestag. Would this happen, then it would be bad news for Merkel.

Should it not make 5% of the vote, then the FDP could join such luminaries of the electoral process as the rightwing, anti-EU Alternative For Germany (AFG) and the Pirate Party. However, AFG appears not to have been very successful in seeking to pinch votes from CDU rightists disgruntled with bailing out so-called ‘lazy Greeks’ when there is the alternative of returning to the halcyon days of the Deutschmark. Even the Pirate Party, once hailed by some as a glorious example of the supposedly ‘new’ politics in the age of Facebook and the 160-character sound bite, appears to have hit the rocks.

Tolerate

What of the other parties? It is to the tried and tested Green Party that the SPD is turning for a loyal government partner. When pressed on the matter of a ‘grand coalition’, leading Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel retorted: “We are fighting for red-green - nothing else.”

The fate of the Green Party should be of interest to the left, in that it underlines how there is nothing like the lure of office to undermine both the principles and supporter base of a petty bourgeois party. It may have taken Joschka Fischer, former leading Green Party parliamentarian, just over 30 years to be transformed from a leather-jacket-sporting ‘68er’ clashing with police into the foreign minister overseeing the bombing of Kosova, but the Green Party’s fate was sealed much more quickly. The Greens’ claim to uphold environmentalism, peace, social justice and other nice things evaporated into thin air when they first sat on a ministerial chair.

They may be the most successful Green Party in Europe, but their credibility as a force for any kind of serious change has been irreparably damaged. As Joachim Jachnow argues in New Left Review, “The Greens may still play king (or queen)-maker in Berlin. There was a time when that prospect might have caused anxiety in Washington, but the Greens are the American embassy’s favourite German party nowadays. And why not? The Green Party has reduced the struggle for radical reform to the small change of ‘organic’ and ‘fair trade’ consumerism. The harmless memory of a dissident past now serves as a inexhaustible source of legitimacy, not just for their own actions, but for German power and the state apparatus itself”.

Plagued by the ‘veggie scandal’ and now by accusations of paedophilia against its leader, Jürgen Trittin, the party is losing more and more support - so much so that it is now polling between one and two points below the left party, Die Linke. Its predicted 10% share of the vote could, in circumstances where both the preferred coalitions of the SPD and the CDU proves to be arithmetically impossible, and where government pretenders are looking for help onto the throne, turn out to be an important player.

Can Die Linke go the way of the Greens? It has always insisted that there are “red holding lines” that will determine whether it plays a part in coalition government or not. Yet that is far removed from any kind of commitment to fundamentally changing the system. Instead of utilising its share of the vote to expose the pro-capitalism of the SPD and the Greens, several leaders of Die Linke are making it rather obvious that these “holding lines” are both flimsy and not particularly red.

In a recent interview with the Berliner Zeitung, Die Linke co-chair Bernd Riexinger extended a conciliatory hand to the Greens and the SPD: “If there is a majority against Merkel then I will not rule out any option.” There is now talk of ‘tolerating’ a red-green government - ie, voting with the SPD and Greens to form a government and elect a chancellor, but not becoming part of that government. Riexinger is certainly not asking a lot in exchange: “a minimum wage, fair pensions, social security, an end to cuts in social services - that would be the minimum programme of a government that we would support”. Quite aside from the obvious shortcomings and lack of ambition involved in such a strategy (all of the major parties, with the possible exception of the FDP, now see the need for a minimum wage), Riexinger’s memory appears to be short: in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin, so-called ‘red-red’ local government alliances between the SPD and Die Linke’s forerunner, the Linkspartei, did little other than provide ‘left’ cover for “cuts in social services”.

Gregor Gysi, leader of Die Linke’s parliamentary fraction, went even further. He rejected SPD/ Green Party accusations of being an “unreliable government partner”, stating: “If it came down to it, we would be more disciplined than the SPD.” Fear not, capital! Riexinger’s co-chair, Katja Kipping, who has been regarded as being on the left of the party, and whose election was seen as an embrace of the ‘social movements’, simply repeated the conditions outlined by Riexinger, adding only the need to stop German combat missions abroad. The fact that she also assured her readers that “ministerial posts are not decisive for us” and that “we do not merely want to avoid the worst, but to change something” does nothing to obviate the absolute dead-end strategy of the left administering the capitalist state.

Anti-capitalism

Only the most naive should be surprised by these developments. Some of Die Linke’s demands for a (paltry) minimum wage of €10 an hour, a ‘Robin Hood tax’, a basic pension and so on, together with its level of support, political ‘breadth’ and Sunday school nods in the direction of “democratic socialism in the 21st century”, will certainly have excited many an advocate of ‘broad anti-capitalist parties’. Yet Die Linke’s pro-capitalist, social democratic outlook has been obvious for quite some time.

Die Linke’s 30,000-word programme is a fudge of epic proportions. Vague platitudes and generalities substitute for clear politics and principles. The odd ‘anti-capitalist’ bone is thrown to the left of the party, but the main question - under what conditions Die Linke would enter a government - is consciously, studiously, cynically tip-toed around.

Nothing more could really have been expected. Die Linke resulted from the coming together of a section of the former ruling ‘official’ Communist Party in the German Democratic Republic and a split in the middle ranks of Germany’s trade union movement in the west, which in part came as a response to the Schröder ‘reforms’ outlined above. It did, however, provide an opportunity for revolutionaries to fight within it for working class independence and Marxism.

Yet, both in Germany and abroad, most of left has simply tailed the reformist outlook of Die Linke, sowed a whole number of illusions in the nature of the party and held it up as some kind of a ‘model’ to which 21st century revolutionaries must aspire. Take Marx 21, the group within Die Linke dominated by the German section of the Socialist Workers Party’s International Socialist Tendency. Marx 21, whose members now have become Die Linke MPs and have served as loyal lieutenants in the party’s bureaucracy, have fawned over the allegedly “clear anti-capitalist character” of Die Linke’s programme. Excuse me? Moreover, according to Wladek Flakin, the coalitionist fever spreads far beyond the leadership of Die Linke. Apparently, Janine Wissler of Marx 21 has argued that forming a government would be OK “if the terms are right.”

Taken abstractly, of course, there is nothing wrong with such an approach. There would be no problem in forming a government based on a clear commitment to dismantle the German capitalist state. Moreover, if the SPD could be convinced to join a government based on the arming of the masses, the abolition of the standing army, the socialisation of production and so on, then any serious revolutionary would be mad to dismiss such “terms”. Yet this is Germany September 2013, not June 1920. The terms, as things stand, are wrong. Die Linke’s election material has made it patently clear that it is not out to win a majority for the revolutionary transformation of society.

It goes without saying that all communists and partisans of our class should call for the biggest possible vote for Die Linke this weekend. A big vote for a party of the ‘left’, however fuzzily defined and strategically forlorn, can provide some cause for hope across Europe. Yet in calling for such a vote it would be criminal for us to remain silent about the true nature of the project, about the reality behind the purportedly ‘anti-capitalist’ rhetoric and about the current leftwing fantasy of joining capitalist governments as some kind of ‘step towards’ socialism and human liberation.

Whatever the result of Sunday’s election and the governmental forces that crystallise as a result, for those of us involved in the discussions around the outlook of Left Unity and the fight for a principled political alternative in Britain and beyond, Die Linke should serve as a warning, not a model. Fudge and compromise are invariably in the interests of the right.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

So, the article thinks that Die Linke will act as the Social Democrats they are and participate in the managing of capital.....so what the working class should do, according to the article, is vote for Die Linke?

Sounds legit. :rolleyes:

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I almost joined Marx21 actually. Funny and nice to see it in the WW.
I knew last year when the former trade union head Bernd Riexinger was elected as co-chair that it was a political humiliation of the Left party waiting to happen. Can anyone say "working with trade unions"?...

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

So, the article thinks that Die Linke will act as the Social Democrats they are and participate in the managing of capital.....so what the working class should do, according to the article, is vote for Die Linke?
. . .

Nooo.. what the communist working class should do (since Ben Lewis is addressing the minuscule audience of the 'Weekly Worker') is encourage the public campaign of Die Linke on that grounds that it just so happens to be a party that openly proclaims its Marxist affiliation.

If the FDP secures its 5% (thereby maintaining the current government coalition) and Die Linke can be helped to get more than its forecasted 10%, it would be a pseudo-Marxist pillar of opposition in Germany for four more years; and let me remind you that in the instability of our times 4 years is a long time.

After the elections Die Linke will be faced with where it will want to go and the various wings of the party will have to put forward their vision. It would most likely continue its headlong rivalry with the SPD/Gruence in Parliament and the left wing ("communist platform", Marx21 etc.) within the party would have the the opportunity of four more years of building a stronger opposition against the reformists within the party, exposing the political traitors and building a stronger workers party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So, the article thinks that Die Linke will act as the Social Democrats they are and participate in the managing of capital.....so what the working class should do, according to the article, is vote for Die Linke?

Sounds legit. :rolleyes:

There are more prominent reformists who will get into bed/coalitions in a heartbeat, and there are less prominent reformists who have at least seen time and again the follies of that crap. A strong Die Linke result combined with a Grand Coalition will only enhance the standing of the latter in the party.

The ultimate strategic question for small-lettered left unity isn't "reform or revolution," but government vs. growing opposition. This is also a question that big-lettered Left Unity should address head-on.

[Red Commissar]

I know there is a thread about Die Linke's opinion polling results, but I think it would be appropriate to have one specifically on the German elections itself.

Looking at news about the elections (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24197994), Merkel's Christian Democratic Union got a comfortable majority, though their Free Democratic Party partners are under the 5% threshold. Back in 2012 and 2010, I remember some analysts pointing to state elections in NRW (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Rhine-Westphalia_state_election,_2012) as a possible indicator of trouble for the CDU in the national stage. A lot seems to have changed since then though since they managed to increase their share in the parliament.

The other party here is the AfD (Alternative for Germany) which as best I can gather appears to be a right-wing anti-euro party.

So far we have via exit polling (previous election share in parenthesis)

CDU/CSU: ~42% (33.8%)
SPD: ~26% (23%)
Die Linke: 8.5% (11.9%)
Greens: 8% (10.7)
AfD: 4.9% (NA)
FDP: 4.7% (14.6%)

and from ARD (http://www.ard.de/home/ard/ARD_Startseite/21920/index.html)

CDU/CSU: 41.7% (33.8%)
SPD: 25.6% (23%)
Die Linke: 8.5% (11.9%)
Greens: 8.4% (10.7)
AfD: 4.7% (NA)
FDP: 4.7% (14.6%)
Pirate: 2.2% (NA)
Others: 4.2%

The two main parties increased their share of votes, CDU greatly more so than SPD. Die Linke and the Greens decreased their share of votes, and the FDP had a spectacular decline from the 2009 elections. The AfD or FDP can probably still manage to get just over the 5% threshold to get a seat though.

Likely result is the CDU can't continue their desired partnership with the FDP and will have to look to the SPD to make a working coalition government.

I don't want to comment much more than that since I don't keep up with politics outside the US, so others can tune in here. We're doubtlessly going to see more talking heads pointing to the results here as support for austerity measures and "tough" approach against the weaker, debt-laden nations in the EU that Germany has been going for.

[John Lennin]

Voted Die Linke.
(actually I'm starting to feel bad about participating in the bourgeois "democratic" system...)



The other party here is the AfD (Alternative for Germany) which as best I can gather appears to be a right-wing anti-euro party.
Right-wing nationalist bastards.

[KurtFF8]

(actually I'm starting to feel bad about participating in the bourgeois "democratic" system...)

Why's that? It's not as if voting for Die Linke took away from potential revolutionary action.

[Die Neue Zeit]

A grand coalition is the best immediate outcome for the small-l left in Germany.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Voted Die Linke.
(actually I'm starting to feel bad about participating in the bourgeois "democratic" system...)


Right-wing nationalist bastards.

Gut gemacht Genosse! Now the CDU/SPD elephant coalition looks likely, which is going to set Die Linke as the main opposition to government. Like Gysi said today, the press can't ignore the main opposition. Die Linke and it's leftist arguments will be included in and given a stage on every single relevant public political issue.

We Communists could not have asked for a more advantageous political outcome from these elections.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

A grand coalition is the best immediate outcome for the small-l left in Germany.

No one understands what you mean with such cryptic language, comrade.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's not cryptic. That's obvious. A grand coalition boosts opposition arguments about the two main parties being joined at the hip with one another, and boosts opposition prospects for the next round. This is what happened under Oskar Lafontaine's former leadership.

[Red Commissar]

Right-wing nationalist bastards.

So a German version of the Swedish Democrats? Or are they a sugar-coated NPD?


Gut gemacht Genosse! Now the CDU/SPD elephant coalition looks likely, which is going to set Die Linke as the main opposition to government. Like Gysi said today, the press can't ignore the main opposition. Die Linke and it's leftist arguments will be included in and given a stage on every single relevant public political issue.

We Communists could not have asked for a more advantageous political outcome from these elections.

Granted it's appearing that they will be third largest party in parliament, but they'll still have less seats than before. What will give them more attention than the Greens who have roughly the same? I guess one good thing for them is at least the Pirate Party didn't repeat the embarrassments that happened in the Berlin and NRW state elections where they got votes at the expense of DL (though this could have happened again...).

Criticism of electoralism aside, what would you guys attribute to the decline in DL's vote share? Turnout? Disillusioned members? Weaker supporters going back to SPD? Anger at their current policies? Organization?

[KurtFF8]

The Wall Street Journal seems to think (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323342404579076732199547014.html) that Die Linke will face problems primarily getting young voters to support it.

Although I'm not sure how serious their analysis should be taken considering another major point they make is that they need to "moderate" to become a serious party.

[KurtFF8]

That's not cryptic. That's obvious. A grand coalition boosts opposition arguments about the two main parties being joined at the hip with one another, and boosts opposition prospects for the next round. This is what happened under Oskar Lafontaine's former leadership.

It may help to increase Die Linke's polling numbers again, but it wouldn't be any sort of game changer for the Left considering Merkel started governing via a grand coalition.

[Per Levy]

So a German version of the Swedish Democrats? Or are they a sugar-coated NPD?

they are more like the teaparty, quite libertarian, more market liberal then the fdp, more conservative then the christdemocrats, against immigration and all that.

as for the elections, while it made my day yesterday that the fdp is gone(that was really the most laughs i had in a while) merkel won, wich wasnt suprising at all, now it only is interesting wich party wants to commit suicide and join a coalition with her.

anyway, i did vote(just to get the fdp out) and i felt dirty afterwards, to support this disgusting bourgeois spectacel, bah.

[Delenda Carthago]

We Communists could not have asked for a more advantageous political outcome from these elections.
We communists have nothing to do and expect from an opportunist party like DieLinke that was begging for a coalition with SPD and promotes the idea that the parties of the Capital can be "pushed a litle more people-friendly".

We communists fight for the overthrow of capitalism, not its decoration.

[Red Commissar]

The final break down of votes

CDU: 41.5%
SPD: 21.7%
Die Linke: 8.6%
Greens: 8.4%

-----
under 5% threshold

FDP: 4.8%
AfD: 4.7%
Pirates: 2.2%
NPD: 1.3%
Marxist-Leninst Party of Germany (MLPD): 0.1%

plus what ever remainder, lot of other groups including Social Equality Party though they didn't registered over 0.1%

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70076000/gif/_70076818_german_results_624.gif
(via BBC)

[A.J.]

I think that that "pirate party" has become something of a busted flush!:lol:

[The Intransigent Faction]

The final break down of votes

CDU: 41.5%
SPD: 21.7%
Die Linke: 8.6%
Greens: 8.4%

-----
under 5% threshold

FDP: 4.8%
AfD: 4.7%
Pirates: 2.2%
NPD: 1.3%
Marxist-Leninst Party of Germany (MLPD): 0.1%

plus what ever remainder, lot of other groups including Social Equality Party though they didn't registered over 0.1%

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70076000/gif/_70076818_german_results_624.gif
(via BBC)

Just for a bit of context, what's the voter turnout this time around/was it typical of German elections? Thanks!

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

We communists have nothing to do and expect from an opportunist party like DieLinke that was begging for a coalition with SPD and promotes the idea that the parties of the Capital can be "pushed a litle more people-friendly".

We communists fight for the overthrow of capitalism, not its decoration.

Yes, but in order to do that we have to first fight for the "political hegemony of the working class" (Communist Manifesto) as Marx puts it. A revolution is not a revolution if the majority of the People do not understand and take sides with the ideas of the left.

[Red Commissar]

Just for a bit of context, what's the voter turnout this time around/was it typical of German elections? Thanks!

According to wikipedia turnout was at 71.5% or so though some places put it at 73%. From articles I'm reading this would be low compared to other German elections- it's only better than the turnout in 2011 which was the worst in German history (70.9% or somewhere in the 70s...) but they're otherwise presenting it as relatively high.

[Delenda Carthago]

Yes, but in order to do that we have to first fight for the "political hegemony of the working class" (Communist Manifesto) as Marx puts it. A revolution is not a revolution if the majority of the People do not understand and take sides with the ideas of the left.
In order to do that, you need to have autonomous working class politics. DieLinke is not a working class party. So, it cannot provide nothing but making the workin class a tail for its political schedules, which will never serve their interests.

[A.J.]

Gut gemacht Genosse! Now the CDU/SPD elephant coalition looks likely, which is going to set Die Linke as the main opposition to government. Like Gysi said today, the press can't ignore the main opposition. Die Linke and it's leftist arguments will be included in and given a stage on every single relevant public political issue.

We Communists could not have asked for a more advantageous political outcome from these elections.

This opportunistic delight you seem to express at the election results is highly reactionary, IMHO, as it only serves to sow illusions in their being a road to socialism via parliamentarism, within the broader framework of bourgeois legality.

On the contrary, the principal overriding strategical objective of communist participation in such elections is to expose the limitations of bourgeois democracy to the wider working class. The actual election results should be considered, at best, secondary.

Your failure to appreciate this reveals yourself to be objectively social democratic.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

This opportunistic delight you seem to express at the election results is highly reactionary, IMHO, as it only serves to sow illusions in their being a road to socialism via parliamentarism, within the broader framework of bourgeois legality.

On the contrary, the principal overriding strategical objective of communist participation in such elections is to expose the limitations of bourgeois democracy to the wider working class. The actual election results should be considered, at best, secondary.

Your failure to appreciate this reveals yourself to be objectively social democratic.

First off, your last sentence is utter posturing and has no place in honest critique. But I suppose since you suffer the delusion that I am not genuinely Communist, i.e. do not uphold the theories and fundamental strategic principles laid out by Marx and Engels, you feel that you have the right to behave like a reactionary.

"Highly Reactionary... it only serves to sow illusions in their being a road to socialism via parliamentarism"

You are making assumptions.

No where did I state that socialism can exist under a bourgeois state. In fact, read my quote, Kautsky strikes down this exact fallacy you countless and constant narrow minded comrades throw around.

Besides that though, I believe you don't know much about Die Linke and what its position in Germany is. While it certainly is a reformist party, its constant defence of working class material and social interests (as well as some of its leaders constant utilization of Marxist theory and open defence of working class martyrs) has made the German press try to drown it out and defame it as Communist, constantly try to frame its actually rather reformist arguments as Communist arguments. The fact that this Party - which has been decried as for more than 6 years and successfully perceived by a large number in the population, to be 'Communistic' (and indeed a lot of its leaders' arguments come from scientific socialism) - will now be the main opposition to government, the third biggest party in Parliament, is quite substantial. The main stream media will not be able to ignore it any longer, meaning that the party needs to more clearly define what its positions are.

Because of the strong polarization and hysteria this large and well funded party (11 Million Euros each year from public funds) creates among the ranks of the class enemy, we German Communists organize within it. Almost every little active communist group uses it as a grounds to recruit its millions and millions of leftist working class supporters to our revolutionary worldview and political program.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

In order to do that, you need to have autonomous working class politics. DieLinke is not a working class party. So, it cannot provide nothing but making the workin class a tail for its political schedules, which will never serve their interests.

Look, I'm clearly not saying that Die Linke is the party of salvation for humanity and eternal proletarian glory blablabla. If it won a majority it would simply take over the administration over capital I believe as well. Yet Die Linke is a political phenomena which serves our interests as Revolutionaries quite clearly. If you don't see the benefit of having the only opposition to thoroughly corrupt bourgeois government come from the left (AfD not making it, FDP not making it, absolutely fantastic results! Not a single Conservative opposition), and a pseudo-Marxist left at that, then you're blind.

Here is the scenario: Say that the Euro crisis hits Germany this or next year. If the CDU/SPD government in Germany starts doing what it has told other countries to do (austerity, which it most likely will because they're corrupt), the whole European and thereby world economy will crash. Unlike all the others who get millions from German capitalists, Die Linke is the only party in Parliament which hasn't gotten and gets not a cent in donations from German businesses.

There is no reason to believe that the right wing of the party will be able to stop the Party's propaganda against War, for better Pensions, for higher Wages, free child day care, and solidly oppose any austerity by elephant coalition government. For that, the radical left is too organized within the party already. There are podcasts, youtube videos, and more means that radical leftist platforms produce through Die Linke's funding. A success by the right wing and turn around from working class interests would create a split within the party. Eventually, that split will probably come, if not before Die Linke win government then certainly at that point that it takes over the class enemy's tasks for everyone to see its anti-worker nature, and that's where the communists within the party would have to draw the line and form a mass communist party.


How many people in Greece are against austerity? If I remember the polls correctly, it's something around 70% or the like, if not more. If the main public force opposing austerity and arguing against it in the daily press is from the left, because the right wingers haven't won any seats in Parliament - then it is only highly likely that people will start opposing austerity with leftist arguments and start thinking left.

It's just politics, and as we all know politics really are not the solution. But they're helpful.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yes, but in order to do that we have to first fight for the "political hegemony of the working class" (Communist Manifesto) as Marx puts it. A revolution is not a revolution if the majority of the People do not understand and take sides with the ideas of the left.

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20130923-52043.html


The left-wing party now has more than enough reason to celebrate, as it waves goodbye to one political rival and overtakes another, not to mention winning absolute majorities in four separate constituencies in the capital. While Die Linke are still a long way from government and are likely to stay so, they can legitimately claim to be a serious opposition party.

[Delenda Carthago]

Look, I'm clearly not saying that Die Linke is the party of salvation for humanity and eternal proletarian glory blablabla. If it won a majority it would simply take over the administration over capital I believe as well. Yet Die Linke is a political phenomena which serves our interests as Revolutionaries quite clearly. If you don't see the benefit of having the only opposition to thoroughly corrupt bourgeois government come from the left (AfD not making it, FDP not making it, absolutely fantastic results! Not a single Conservative opposition), and a pseudo-Marxist left at that, then you're blind.

Here is the scenario: Say that the Euro crisis hits Germany this or next year. If the CDU/SPD government in Germany starts doing what it has told other countries to do (austerity, which it most likely will because they're corrupt), the whole European and thereby world economy will crash. Unlike all the others who get millions from German capitalists, Die Linke is the only party in Parliament which hasn't gotten and gets not a cent in donations from German businesses.

There is no reason to believe that the right wing of the party will be able to stop the Party's propaganda against War, for better Pensions, for higher Wages, free child day care, and solidly oppose any austerity by elephant coalition government. For that, the radical left is too organized within the party already. There are podcasts, youtube videos, and more means that radical leftist platforms produce through Die Linke's funding. A success by the right wing and turn around from working class interests would create a split within the party. Eventually, that split will probably come, if not before Die Linke win government then certainly at that point that it takes over the class enemy's tasks for everyone to see its anti-worker nature, and that's where the communists within the party would have to draw the line and form a mass communist party.


How many people in Greece are against austerity? If I remember the polls correctly, it's something around 70% or the like, if not more. If the main public force opposing austerity and arguing against it in the daily press is from the left, because the right wingers haven't won any seats in Parliament - then it is only highly likely that people will start opposing austerity with leftist arguments and start thinking left.

It's just politics, and as we all know politics really are not the solution. But they're helpful.
Look, revleft is full of idiots who speak on situations on countries they have never been, like they are the only ones they know what is the truth. And more specific, about Greece. So, I dont want to be that guy.

I will only speak on what I know.

A. There is no such thing as "Left" and "Right" political wings. There is a working class, and there is a bourgeois class. And there are parties that serve the needs and the interests of the first(whatever wing they are from) and there are parties that serve the needs and the interest of the second. So, from that point, every capitalist party, from nazis to "center", to Left winger capitalist parties, share a lot things more that have in common, than a capitalist left winger party with a communist one. And that is why when the time comes and society has split into two camps, they always take the capital camp(both our countries have seen that in the past, in Weimar Republic and in greek Civil War).

B. History in Greece has showed that the more close these type of party coalitions come to power, the more quick they sell out. And the reason for that is of course obvious: the system is not a matter of good intentions, but has specific rules in order to function. There is no capitalism without circulation of Capital and without the Capital drawing profits. So, if you are not willing to overthrow capitalism, you have to serve its needs with every way you can. And that goes not only for these type of blur coalitions, but for communist parties that have participated in capitalist governments too. Parties that gave blood for the revolution. And that is the reason KKE refuses to take part in any capitalist government, "left wing", anti-mnemonioum or whatever.

C. History in Greece has showed that all these "radical", "revolutionary", "communist", trotskyist or whatever parties that join that type of coalitions, when the sell out is coming, they never leave and just sit there and shut the fuck up. In SYRIZA, they even self- dissoluted! Neo-trotskyist(DEA, Red, Roza etc), Neo-maoist(KOE), all these parties when the turn of SYRIZA happened from opportunist to open socialdemocrat, they completely sold out.

D. As far as I know, correct me if I am wrong, both DieLinke and the Greens have governed in the past in Germany states and they have also aplied austerity measures.

Ε. Dude, they were beggin SPD for a coalition!! Is that "Left winger" too? And if so, what the fuck does "left" means anyway? Everyone puts himself on the left of someone. So what?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Look, revleft is full of idiots who speak on situations on countries they have never been, like they are the only ones they know what is the truth. And more specific, about Greece. So, I dont want to be that guy.

I will only speak on what I know.

A. There is no such thing as "Left" and "Right" political wings. There is a working class, and there is a bourgeois class. And there are parties that serve the needs and the interests of the first(whatever wing they are from) and there are parties that serve the needs and the interest of the second. So, from that point, every capitalist party, from nazis to "center", to Left winger capitalist parties, share a lot things more that have in common, than a capitalist left winger party with a communist one. And that is why when the time comes and society has split into two camps, they always take the capital camp(both our countries have seen that in the past, in Weimar Republic and in greek Civil War).

B. History in Greece has showed that the more close these type of party coalitions come to power, the more quick they sell out. And the reason for that is of course obvious: the system is not a matter of good intentions, but has specific rules in order to function. There is no capitalism without circulation of Capital and without the Capital drawing profits. So, if you are not willing to overthrow capitalism, you have to serve its needs with every way you can. And that goes not only for these type of blur coalitions, but for communist parties that have participated in capitalist governments too. Parties that gave blood for the revolution. And that is the reason KKE refuses to take part in any capitalist government, "left wing", anti-mnemonioum or whatever.

C. History in Greece has showed that all these "radical", "revolutionary", "communist", trotskyist or whatever parties that join that type of coalitions, when the sell out is coming, they never leave and just sit there and shut the fuck up. In SYRIZA, they even self- dissoluted! Neo-trotskyist(DEA, Red, Roza etc), Neo-maoist(KOE), all these parties when the turn of SYRIZA happened from opportunist to open socialdemocrat, they completely sold out.

D. As far as I know, correct me if I am wrong, both DieLinke and the Greens have governed in the past in Germany states and they have also aplied austerity measures.

Ε. Dude, they were beggin SPD for a coalition!! Is that "Left winger" too? And if so, what the fuck does "left" means anyway? Everyone puts himself on the left of someone. So what?

On your highlighted sentence in point A, I have this to say:
Yes, eventually the time will come when Die Linke take sides with the class enemy's order. But that is not because of this or that reformist in the Party, but because it has no precisely proletarian program that sets a constitutional frame and binds its leadership to a truly domestic revolutionary course (i.e. demands for the dismantling of all the german capitalist state's armed forces, a popular militia, significant rise in wages and decrease in work hours [which would heighten class antagonisms extraordinarily] etc.). But on the foreign policy front its position is proletarian (it advocates Germany's exit from NATO [SYRIZA isn't that left]), while on macroeconomic front (while not clearly programmatically defined) its main players continue to propagate the expropriation of all monopoly capital and in the case of Oskar Lafontaine indeed the "expropriation of the capitalist class" in a very detailed and canny economic policy proposal and "the abolition of capitalism".

All this naturally attracts the traditional working class forces of Germany into the trail and ranks of Die Linke. Nonetheless, we 'advanced' Communists understand that the imprecise formulation in the party program (finally agreed on and published 4 years after the creation of the party, due to fierce internal disagreements between the revolutionary socialist and class-collaborationist wings), its lack of clearly revolutionary domestic programmatic demands, along with the significant number of opportunist and even rightist elements in the party's most active and administrative circles, makes Die Linke a party which will inevitably need to be replaced by an openly proletarian party.

However, the vast majority of our class's honest fighters do not hold this understanding that we do and are complacently organized within Die Linke in order to defend the immediate interests of the working class. Once Die Linke's anti-capitalist rhetoric and reformist demands become more popular, as you say, the largely reformist leadership will certainly be tempted to enter into concessions with capital in order to be in government. The longer this anti-worker situation occurs and the longer Die Linke's leadership are exposed to the bourgeoisie's representatives, the more the party will lose its anti working class character for all to see. This is the point.
The examples of the wrongs of class collaboration will rack up, expose Die Linke's traitorous actions, such as the Berlin Linke-SPD coalition government attack on renters and more (for which many in the party attacked the Berlin fraction). But we have to fight within the Left Party, agitate against the class alien elements in the party, tear that party apart to gain the millions and millions of left working class supporters for our own united mass communist Party with concrete programmatic conclusions drawn from the lessons of repeatedly proven failures of reformism.

[cliffhanger]

But we have to fight within the Left Party, agitate against the class alien elements in the party, tear that party apart to gain the millions and millions of left working class supporters for our own united mass communist Party with concrete programmatic conclusions drawn from the lessons of repeatedly proven failures of reformism.Parties don't really take kindly to people who join with the expressed purpose of destroying and dividing the party. If such a faction ever caused a minor nuisance to the leadership it would be expelled. Anything less would probably a good sign you were tailing social-democrats in practice. I'm not against joining reformist parties, but you should join them without some grand strategy in mind, and treat them like social clubs for people with vaguely leftish views, which might make some minor, temporary gains for the working class. Organizing a revolutionary pole inside a reformist party seems like a dead-end.

Not that it really matters, of course, individuals don't change much.

[Delenda Carthago]

I dont have anything to add to the conversation, other to repeat my points C&D and to remind that if Luxemburg and Liebenecht failed to achieve turning SPD(which was far more "left" than today's DieLinke) to a revolutionary party, my bets are that neither people that declare revolutionaries within DL will.

[John Lennin]

As much as I dislike the idea, but for germany the only way towards a mass based revolutionary organisation (or party) leads through Die Linke.
It isn't an easy way but it's the only way. There have been multiple attempts (including DKP, MLPD, KPD-ML etc.) but every single one has failed.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I dont have anything to add to the conversation, other to repeat my points C&D and to remind that if Luxemburg and Liebenecht failed to achieve turning SPD(which was far more "left" than today's DieLinke) to a revolutionary party, my bets are that neither people that declare revolutionaries within DL will.

The problem here is that the radical left has a sad and tragic culture of isolation. Abstaining from entering into any left mass parties that allow anti-constitutional/revolutionary elements in the first place is the first tactical error of today's left from my view. To not be conscious of having to wholeheartedly enter the fight for support of the worker party member base and control of crucial party positions once embracing that first tactic, is a weakness which I think drove the German Communists into ultra-leftism and political irrelevance at the most important moment in German working class history. That's all I'm going to say to that now.

[guy123]

Because of the strong polarization and hysteria this large and well funded party (11 Million Euros each year from public funds) creates among the ranks of the class enemy, we German Communists organize within it. Almost every little active communist group uses it as a grounds to recruit its millions and millions of leftist working class supporters to our revolutionary worldview and political program.

1. Why would a capitalist government(in this case germany) fund a communist/socialist party? would it be ok if a communist party where to accept donations from a big corporations ? of course not! (the gov't is a type of corporation as well). genuine communist parties should not accept funding from gov't and should only be based on members fees. this guarantees political independence, which is a must.

2. friction with bourgeois forces creates reformism. there is a reason why the bolsheviks boycotted the Constitute Assembly.

the only way forward is a mass, non-parliamentary revolutionary organazation. at this point, it's not worth the parliamentary seats.

[AsozialerKommunist]

The "Linke" trys to use the chance, that the Parties from the "Bundestag" create the government, to accomplish the Minimum-Wage. They try to attract the Green-Party (Grüne) and the SPD which also demanded the Minimum wage. The SPD refuses. Are they going to keep the promise of a Mimimum-Wage anyway? Or was it actually just a baseless promise to get some voters? If so, we can just say: "Who traited us? The Social-Democrats." -.-
BTW: I'm happy that FDP got out of the Parliament and that the AfD didn't even get into it :)

[L.J.Solidarity]

Die Linke proposed to he SPD and Greens to implement a minimum wage before a government is formed, using their majority in the Bundestag. The proposal was a correct tactical step as the refusal of the SPD and Greens to do so exposes their anti-working class character and their disingenuity - both had called for a minimum wage in their electoral manifestos.
However, the constant calls of Gysi, Riexinger, Kipping and other party leaders to the SPD+Greens to form a "Red-red-green" coalition government are completely counter-productive and reinforce illusions in a common "left camp" with these bourgeois parties.