The Left Party (Linkspartie) won a spectacular 54 seats in the recent German general election. Its rapid emergence has its roots in the mass resistance that began in 2003 against Agenda 2010, the savage attacks on welfare rights launched by the Schröder
One result of that upsurge was the emergence of the Electoral Alternative for Work and Social Justice (WASG). Its initial membership was 6000, mostly in western part of Germany.
This was taken to a new stage with the May 2005 elections in North Rhine Westphalia (NRW).
Schröder's Social Democratic Germany (SPD) was heavily defeated in a region it had governed for 39 years. The WASG won 180,000 votes: Two percent was a good first result.
This prompted Oskar Lafontaine, who was formerly Schröder's Finance Minister, to announce that if the WASG and Gregor Gysi's Party for Democratic
TERI International Viewpoint This monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Articles this month include:
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Lafontaine's announcement was attractive to the PDS: which existed almost entirely in eastern Germany. Even in the East the PDS had started to lose its base because of its participation in unpopular SPD-led regional governments there. The merger offered the PDS a breakthrough in the West and a chance to shed its image as the 'former SED'.
After the NRW elections Schröder organised his own Bundestag defeat to bring about a general election on 18 September 2005.
The early election date medul doere was not enouga time for the WASG and the PDS to merge formally before the elections.
A solution was found: the PDS would change its name to the 'Linkspartei" and open its lists to other candidates in western Germany -MAR the WASG, the small German Communist Party (DKP) and some independents. The general election result shook the political establishment in Germany. It showed that the Linkspartei/WASG was now a major new political force on the left and an alternative to the established neo-liberal parties; the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), Liberals (FDP) and the SPD/Green coalition. The Linkspartei got 4 million votes and 54 MPs. It was a real breakthrough. Its nine per cent is more than double the four per cent that the PDS polled in the 2002 federal elections. Moreover, the Linkspartei polled five per cent in western Germany, where no post-war left party had polled more than one per cent. The Linkspartei won 18.5% in the Saarland (Lafontaine's homeland). Both the "red-green" coalition (Greens/SPS) and its "black-yellow" hard-line neo-liberal (CDU/FDP) rival were defeated. The Christian Democrats fell three per cent to 35.2%. The SPD fell four percent
34.8%, though doing better than expected. The Greens maintained their strength with eight per cent (slightly less than 2002) but got less than the Linkspartei, which is very significant. The ferociously neo-liberal FDP got ten per cent, a one-third increase on their 2002 vote. Of the four million who voted for the Linkspartei in 2005, a million had voted for "The SPD has won the elections, the SPD is the strongest party, and I will continue to be the chancellor". It reflected the shattering defeat. The only realistic perspective seemed to be a "blackred' 'grand coalition', led by a Christian Democrat chancellor. Continuity Fundamentally, the new government will be a political continuity of the Schröder government, and this will consolidate and reinforce the opponents of neo-liberal politics. The situation is good for the Linkspartei. Its vote was strongly a workers, wage earners, trade unionists' and unemployed vote. Even quite right-wing union leaders recognised that the Linkspartei's programme was closer to that of the trade unions than the programme of the SPD, even if they didn't call for a vote for the Linkspartei. This means that the opportunity to break the Social Democratic stranglehold on the unions is now real. For the Linkspartei and the WASG the creation of a new party, rather than the current electoral arrangement, is the big task and it is firmly on the agenda. The Linkspartei leadership first pushed for a quick, top down, process. The Internationale Sozialistische Linke (ISL) with others in the WASG and the Linkspartei, argued for an open process with more rank-and-file discussion on programme, profile, statutes and functioning. This could not only unite the 70,000 Linkspartei members with the 13,000WASG, but also could attract many more people as well. An open process has been accepted which will take one problem of a top-down process remains. For example, the PDS leadership made a clever manoeuvre to control the new parliamenThe brutal neoliberal politics of the regional
government in
Berlin is a scandal.
It led to open conflicts with the
It is incompatible with the Linkspartei's
proclaimed
opposition to neoliberal politics. tary group by introducing its own full-time staff as advisors and organisers.
A major problem to discuss is the damaging idea of participation in neo-liberal governments.
At the moment, we don't have the problem of people proposing that the left should join the federal government. Even so, both Gregor Gysi and Oscar Lafontaine are saying that, in the long term, a coalition government with 'changed SPD is possible.
On the regional level it is already a problem. The Linkspartei/PDS is the strong membership of the junior partner of SPD-led governments in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and could be soon in Lower Saxony.
The brutal neo-liberal polor two years. However, the itics of the regional government in Berlin is a scandal. the Verdi services union London in October. This and the GEW teachers his speech. union: it is incompatible proclaimed opposition to neo-liberal politics.
Therefore the ISL and others demand the Linkspartei gets out of these regional governments. In the Berlin WASG, there is a majority view to run candidates against the Linkspartei in the Berlin regional elections in 2006 if it does not resign from the regional government.
An unrealistic neoKeynesian approach is gaining ground in both the Linkspartei and in the WASG. This has to be opposed.
Defending the interests of the working class and the oppressed today requires a broad and combative extraparliamentary movement. Our MPs should not simply echo such extra-parliamentary movements, but do everything to encourage and to promote them.
A question is linked to this perspective: what kind of party we should build? We reply with the question: why did the SPD become what it became?
Why do many parties lose their progressive ambitions and adapt themselves to the capitalist system and institutions after getting mass influence?
To avoid this we need: a party governed by its members, which controls its MPs and leaders; a pluralistic party allowing platforms to express their views; a party that does not exclude the 'radicals, and consequently the anti-capitalist forces.
If the Linkspartei can be built in this way it will have a great future as a defender of the working class and as an alternative to the betrayals of Social Democracy. • Manuel Kellner is member of the WASG in Cologne, a collaborator of Sozialistische Zeitung (SoZ) and a coordination member of the ISL, an organization of the Fourth International in Germany. Manuel addressed a Socialist It led to open conflicts with Resistance public meeting in article is an edited version of