David Broder takes a strongly critical view on Die Linke.PDS
Most of the British left responded with uncritical celebration to the German Left Party’s strong election results. While it cannot be doubted that their tally of 8.7% of votes was a huge achievement, we also need to examine whether we actually call for a vote for such a group.
The Left Party, a lash-up between the ex-Stalinist PDS and the WASG, an SPD split, had what was in many ways a flawed agenda for the 18 September election. Often populist, in tune with WASG leader Oskar Lafontaine’s quasi-racist comments about foreign workers, their campaign had very little of what we might see as a positive socialist programme. Nevertheless, theirs was the only manifesto to stand up to Schroeder’s attacks on the welfare state, and the WASG element is formed largely of trade unionists and ex-SPD lefts. At a time of mass unemployment, it was unsurprising that so many workers rallied round the Left Party to defend Germany’s “social welfare state”.
However, I’m not sure that the WASG comrades were right to break away from the SPD. In order to win seats in parliament, a party needs 5% of the national vote. Since WASG could never achieve this, they ended up running on the list of the PDS, renamed as the Left Party for the election. Rather than fighting within the SPD, which could well have allowed the left to have an important role in government, they stood with a reformed Stalinist party.
The PDS not only stands in the tradition of the SED, the party which ran the old GDR Stalinist regime in East Germany, but has many of the same members, including thousands of ex-bureaucrats, and much of its vote derives from nostalgia for the GDR. The PDS has very poor roots in trade unions, particularly given that merely 14% of its members are employed workers — Socialist Worker claims that this is only as many people as the number of small businessmen in the party.
So the WASG stood together with a party which not only lacks working class elements, but sullies their credibility by associating the demands of the German left with the fundamentally anti-working class regime of the GDR. Associating the WASG with Stalinism — seven Left Party MPs were recently outed as Stasi collaborators — only adds to the association with fascism made by the bourgeois media when Lafontaine attacked foreign workers.
If leaving meant aligning themselves with a current like the PDS, rooted in Stalinist and reformist oppositions to working class politics, the WASG comrades should have continued to fight in the SPD, allowing them to take on the government from within and work in the party of the huge majority of rank-and-file trade unionists. We should therefore not blindly cheer the Left Party’s success, but say that we only call for a vote for the WASG candidates, while encouraging the militant trade unionists and left of the SPD to take the fight to Schroeder within the SPD.
Comments
seems that the author of this
seems that the author of this article knows nearly nothing about the concrete state of the spd and the political situation in germany
the WASG comrades should
the WASG comrades should have continued to fight in the SPD
exactly this was impossible since decades, and it was more than time 4 a significant break with the SPD. "anonymous" above said it right! a nonsense position; and also in germany are more left groups on the voting sheet than SPD and Linke. i also dont like the linke much, but in westgermany they cant have ex-SED-members (which was the ruling party of GDR), and to describe them as PURELY ex-SED is mixing anti-revisionism with anticommunist propaganda (Linke=SED) : SED had 2,3 million members, the LINKE less than 100.000. so, over 2 mio. ex-SED is not in linke nowadays.
to call 2 vote 4 SPD in 2005, with schroeder as the candidate of all rightwing-mobs, was an serious faux pas 4 all rev. socialists. SPD is the biggest enemy of socialism; nowadays they sometimes argue right from CDU (the german torries). this continued till today: in a recent tv show against "lazy" people who shud get no more unemployment/welfare money, the SPD-debaters most agressively argued 4 the position to send hundreds of thousands to hunger and death (by cancelling all social transfers), knowing very well that most of the longtime jobless are sick &handicaped over 50,while 1 old CDU-guy, 80, told them: "money is anywhere, more than enough, more than sand, its only the quest how 2 distribute it with justice."
and ever heard about super-rascist and anti-semit sarrazin,("jewish gene") just thrown out from his position in germany´s national bank? also SPD, as many others like him!
-guenter from germany
...even more mistakes in article above
i just realised even more mistakes in the article above:
the purely socialdemocratic (and not "left") WASG was no alternative to the stalinist faction of the party; the union with WASG even pushed the PDS more to the right.
despite their stalinist heritage, one cud rather find people interested in socialism within the basis of PDS, than in WASG. so, WASG was no left critic on PDS, and the author above dont seem 2 b sure, if he wanna post a left or rightwing critic on PDS. to call 4 a SPD-vote was a rightwing critic on PDS. a leftwing critic can only call 4 an left alternative 2 PDS/die linke, but not support super-rotten SPD, the biggest hindering on the way 2 socialism. this party ended up with 22%, and rev. socialists shall help 2 make the alltime-traitors history!
with such mistakes, trotskyism cant be seen as an alternative
sorry, i must come back to what i consider as an serious political mistake: i think, this "forever"-votes 4 SPD (or new labour) or still remaining in such parties, as some trotskytes still do (IMT, 4 example) is responsible, that very many radical youth cant recognise trotskyism as an rev. socialist alternative; such habitts (SPD 4ever) even makes it easier 4 the stalinists, to denounce trotskyism as "left in words &rightwing in practice" or so. i wanna request all comrades to think about.
1 thing is, to avoid sectarianism, but another thing is, to run behind the masses: when radicalisation took place and a half million members(!-50%) have left SPD over the past years, still calling 2 vote them AND 2 work inside the party, makes people who say so look like the last persons who still wanna donor fresh blood 2 some1 already dead.