Growing tensions and uneasiness in Germany
The crisis of capitalism is creating an unstable social and political situation in Germany. Tensions are emerging within the coalition government, elected only last year. Most interestingly, this is having a radicalising effect inside DIE LINKE, which is being pulled both left and right, with some of the leaders attracted by coalition politics while the more radical ranks react against and seek an alternative to the left.
Only five months after the General Election that brought a right-wing coalition of Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and liberal Free Democrats (FDP) into office, Germany is gripped by enormous economic and political instability, social uneasiness and tensions. Divisions between the bourgeois government parties and mutual verbal attacks reveal that they are split over a whole series of political issues.
This is a reflection of the fact that while some bourgeois have tried to create the impression that “the crisis is over” and a boom is on the order of the day, they know that the severe effects of the crisis have only begun to be felt. Unemployment is rising, with hundreds of thousands of workers on short time work, hoping desperately that demand will increase before long and that their jobs can be saved. There is a serious municipal budget crisis opening up, with an increasing number of city administrations facing huge deficits, being incapable of delivering balanced budgets, and coming under pressure to cut all sorts of spending on social and cultural facilities and to raise local rates. This is going to undermine local autonomy, as increasingly state officers from supervisory authorities are going to intervene in the town halls and effectively deprive local bodies of their power and autonomy.
Apart from the USA, Germany is the industrial country where the proportion of the population classed as working poor has grown most rapidly. A quarter of all workers are marginalized from the core staff, with outsourcing, precarious forms of work such as contract work, pseudo-selfemployment affecting the lives of millions, serving as a warning to the core staff of what will happen to them if they rebel against their bosses. Increasing pressure at work and uneasiness is affecting all sections of the working class - from labourers toiling on the poverty line to well paid employees and civil servants.
In the first few weeks of the new year, the scandal around billionaire Anton Schlecker´s drugstore chain founding his own temporary employment agency to halve the wages of his shop workers overshadowed the political debate, forcing even some conservative Christian Democrats to condemn this brazen form of wage-dumping. For some time, Schlecker was the most hated capitalist in the country.
In recent days, however, a verbal attack by FDP leader and foreign minister Guido Westerwelle on the unemployed has triggered off a heated and polarised debate. Westerwelle criticised demands for an increase in the so-called Hartz IV benefits for unemployed people as “socialism” and as an expression of ‘late Roman Decadence'. People who work, Westerwelle argued, were increasingly becoming the "idiots of the nation”, whereas many of the unemployed were lazy bones, living on the backs of those in society that got up early every morning and worked hard. This is a typical attempt to play off higher-income against low-income earners. The FDP is a faithful mouthpiece of big business and Westerwelle's phrase mongering is an indication of the sort of attacks they are going to launch in the coming period. On the other hand Westerwelle is also desperately trying to stop the erosion in support for the FDP. The Liberals had scored an all-time peak of 14.6% last September and have seen their support virtually halved according to recent opinion polls.
There is enormous nervousness on the part of all political players just over ten weeks before the crucial state elections in North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) on May 9. NRW has 18 million inhabitants (more than the DDR, the former East German state which was dissolved in 1990), and had been an SPD stronghold for decades until 2005 when the CDU and FDP got a majority there. Now there are fears on the part of the CDU and FDP that they might lose their majority there, thus also losing the conservative majority in the Bundesrat, Germany`s second chamber composed of representatives from the 16 German state governments. Some in the CDU leadership would not mind leaning on the Greens who had started 30 years ago as radical pacifists and environmentalists and are now a progressive liberal party whose social base is made up of higher-income earners. Already, the Greens are represented in coalition governments under the leadership of the CDU in the states of Hamburg and the Saarland and also in some important municipalities such as Frankfurt and Wiesbaden.
On the other hand, the SPD that suffered a historic defeat in 2009 will try to demonstrate that they have overcome their all-time low. And last but not least, the Left Party (DIE LINKE) which scored 11.9% nationally, is fighting to get a good result in NRW well over the crucial five per cent threshold and demonstrate its viability nationally and that it has firm roots in the West. DIE LINKE still has its strongholds in the East and enjoys support above-average, especially amongst blue-collar and unemployed workers, being identified as the most consistent critic of the dismantling of the welfare state in recent years.
Oskar Lafontaine is undoubtedly leaving behind a vacuum in the national party leadership. He played a historic role in the merger of the former (mainly Eastern, ex-Stalinist) PDS and the WASG, a mainly Western split-away from the SPD, into DIE LINKE in 2007. Lafontaine had been national SPD chairman from 1995 to 1999 and resigned from all political positions in 1999 in protest against the shift to the right under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a right-wing social democrat who had been elected head of a coalition government of SPD and Greens in 1998.
"Oskar is not a Marxist, but he has got more class consciousness and political instinct than many others in the party leadership", a very intelligent 93 year old party veteran told me recently. There is some truth in this. Lafontaine has got a flair for key political issues. He has raised questions such as the need for a political, all-out general strike as well as raising the question of capitalist property when in 2008 he called for the expropriation of the billionaires that own the automotive supplier Schaeffler when try tried to take over their larger rival Continental. Although Lafontaine mixes these issues with demands for workers’ shares and participation and does not pose a bold socialist programme, such statements place him far to the left of most of the other reformist party leaders. He also annoyed the party’s moderate reformist wing when he criticised the terms under which they had accepted a coalition programme for the state of Brandenburg which includes a cut in public sector jobs. He repeatedly warned against any watering down of the programme for the sake of being accepted as a junior partner in a coalition government with the SPD, pointing out that the Italian Rifondazione Comunista had been wiped out of parliament after they had joined a government that conducted war in Afghanistan and dismantled the welfare state.
Many mainstream media call Lafontaine a "populist" because unlike other aging politicians he has not adopted a more moderate and right-wing position so far. The media would like to turn DIE LINKE into a tame and obedient reformist tool since they know that the inevitable attacks on the working class, the welfare state and education will tend to strengthen the party if it is still seen as a clear and consistent left alternative, campaigning on bread-and-butter issues. Thus the ruling class and their media cadres do their utmost to drive a wedge between the "radical fundamentalists" and "sectarians" on the one hand and the "modern reformers" on the other hand. Berlin and Brandenburg, where DIE LINKE is a junior partner of the SPD in regional governments, are strongholds of the more moderate currents who believe that you can only change things by joining governments. Left Social Democrats and Greens and moderate politicians of DIE LINKE are trying to build an alternative bloc with the aim of forming a coalition government nationally after the 2013 general election. Some of them and some media claim that without Lafontaine this task would be much easier to achieve. Yet quite a few left activists in DIE LINKE fear that this might increase the temptation to sacrifice essential points of the programme for the sake of joining a coalition government.
On the other hand, the regional party in NRW is lead by more left-wing elements who are demanding some nationalisations of the energy sector and other commanding heights of the economy as well as the re-nationalisation of the Post Office and Deutsche Telekom. Now the media are waging a campaign against these "NRW sectarians", trying to portray them as "irresponsible utopians" not fit for government. Some of the right wing in DIE LINKE have even echoed these prejudices.
So a lot is at stake for DIE LINKE this spring. A very good result in NRW in May could shift the balance within the party towards the left and the West and demonstrate that you can perform well in elections with a relatively radical programme.
The national party congress will take place in mid-May, only a weekend after the NRW election. After Lafontaine's announcement to withdraw from the national leadership, a somewhat artificial new slate of candidates for the leadership was cobbled together, trying to find a balance between the different organised currents, East and West, left and right, male and female, and include Eastern reformists as well as Sahra Wagenknecht as a representative from the "Communist Platform".
This slate, however, was worked out behind closed doors and will tend to strengthen the parliamentary element in the party and the fulltime party apparatus. That is why it is all the more urgent that the rank and file decisively intervenes in the political debate, tables as many left motions as possible and puts pressure on the congress, demanding a bold approach against the capitalist crisis and a clear socialist programme. DIE LINKE is rightly calling for the nationalisation of the banks. But we need to nationalise the major industrial enterprises and monopolies as well if we are going to offer a way out of the crisis of capitalism in the interest of the working class and the vast majority of the population.
German elections usher in a new period of instability
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Sunday’s elections reveal an enormous shift within the German electorate. Of particular importance is the massive decline of the SPD vote, mirrored by a huge increase in support for DIE LINKE which stands to its left. The victory of the right-wing parties means the German capitalists are preparing for an offensive against the biggest and most powerful working class in Europe. Interesting times lie ahead.
It is not an accident that on the morning after the elections the share prices of the two main electricity suppliers, RWE and E.on, went up sharply as the companies are hoping that the new coalition will strengthen nuclear power as a highly profitable source of energy and allow the old plants to continue production for many more years.
Bankers and industrialists are also happy now that the SPD has been so discredited by their actions that big business won`t have to make any deals with them. Against the background of a deep crisis and impending mass redundancies, workers, unemployed, pensioners, students, and youth, i.e. the overwhelming majority of the population, will suffer. The bourgeois parties now control the Bundestag as well as the Bundesrat, Germany`s second chamber based on the representatives from the 16 federal states, and they have the Federal President on their side as well.
This is a landmark and milestone as after 11 years in office, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) received a devastating vote and will now end up in opposition. At the same time, the arch-neoliberal FDP will be back in office for the first time since 1998 when the last CDU/CSU/FDP coalition government was defeated by an alliance of the SPD and the Greens.
The FDP is the purest of the bourgeois parties – in the sense that it directly represents big business ‑ and it is going to exert a decisive influence within the new government, as they saved Chancellor Merkel's office, and have provided her with the key number of votes to be able to remain in office.
While the SPD lost 11.2 per cent and has been thrown back to the level it had back in 1893, the CDU/CSU also lost quite a few votes last Sunday. It was only the spectacular 4.7 per cent growth of the FDP and the peculiarities of the electoral systems that gave the bourgeois camp a relatively cosy majority of 332 out of 622 seats.
This was an election of negative records: the lowest turnout in any national election since World War II and the biggest loss of any party in the last 60 years. Only 70.8 per cent bothered to vote this time. With 23 per cent of the votes cast for the SPD they scored much worse than even in 1953 when they won over 28 per cent.
An indication of how drastic the SPD losses are, is revealed by the following figure: in 1998 ‑ when the CDU/CSU and FDP lost their majority after 16 years in office and there was a strong wind of change ‑ the SPD won more than 20 million votes. Last Sunday they got less than ten million, losing more than half of their support over the last 11 years.
This is a severe blow and the result of 11 years of “reformism without reforms” – in reality counter-reforms ‑ to the detriment of workers, the unemployed and pensioners. When the then SPD-Greens coalition, led by the right-wing Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, lost its majority in 2005, the SPD leaders sought to cling to power through a "Grand Coalition" with the CDU/CSU. The result has been a severe crisis of the SPD that is assuming historic dimensions.
Workers are not stupid and have not forgotten that in the 2005 election campaign the SPD agitated against the "Merkel tax", i.e. the CDU/CSU proposal to increase VAT by 2 per cent. However, eventually the Grand Coalition agreed to increase VAT by three per cent. That was indeed a “compromise” whereby you end up conceding more than was being asked for originally!
On nearly all fronts, the SPD leaders have been doing the dirty work for the capitalists and as a consequence they are responsible for pushing the SPD into a deep crisis. Considering the recent role of these leaders, why should any worker in the recent election campaign have shown any enthusiasm for SPD leaders such as Franz Münterfering and Frank Steinmeier who are ossified Schröderites and Blairites and decisive architects of Schröder`s programme of counter-reforms known as "Agenda 2010"? During the recent election campaign, the SPD leaders refused point blank to raise the idea of collaboration with the Left Party (DIE LINKE) and in fact were hoping that they would be needed to patch together another Grand Coalition. How could any party activist find the will to fight for such a perspective? Just one example of the mood at the rank and file level I witnessed a day before the election. I met a fulltime SPD party worker and loyalist and she told me that she would rather see a majority CDU/CSU and FDP government, because the continuation of a Grand Coalition would virtually destroy the party. This was symptomatic of the mood of party activists.
On the other hand, the fact that DIE LINKE got a double-digit result is of historical significance for Germany, as there has not been any workers´ party of considerable strength to the left of the SPD since the 1930s.
Because of this, once again, the mainstream media and right-wing politicians tried to launch an anti-communist and red scare campaign against DIE LINKE during the last few weeks, but failed to achieve their objective. DIE LINKE grew by more than a million votes ‑ from 4.1 to over 5.1 million ‑ and not only consolidated its historical base of support in the East at around 28%, but it has also built a base in all parts of the country, gaining well over ten or even 15 per cent in many working class and inner city areas in the West. In the East, the former DDR [German Democratic Republic], DIE LINKE has decisively eclipsed the SPD which was down from 30.4% to 17.9% of the votes cast. DIE LINKE attracted above all the votes of workers and of the unemployed (31 per cent of the latter), thus consolidating a solid class base. In the East there is in fact still no majority for the bourgeois parties. In the West, DIE LINKE has increased its share from 4.9% to 8.3%.
What is significant, and also an expression of the increasing political change and instability, is the fact that the two traditionally "big" parties ‑ SPD and CDU/CSU ‑ have both seen their support melt away. Whereas in the past they could always secure some 80 or 90 per cent between them, they now do not even reach 60 per cent nationally, let alone a two thirds majority. In both camps, of the "left" and the "right", the "smaller", and apparently more consistent, parties gained and benefitted from the disappointment of the electorate with the two main big parties. This shows that traditional ties and loyalties are increasingly being dissolved.
Another feature in this election is to be found in the fact that the extreme right-wing and neo-fascist parties were hammered and between them only scored a total of two percent. Even in the East where the biggest of them, the Hitlerite NPD, had built some base in certain areas, their vote shrunk from 3.6 to 3.1 per cent. In the West they stagnated to around 1.1 percent.
The new Merkel government will quickly have to show what it has to offer under conditions of capitalist crisis. Lafontaine and other left leaders are predicting that a new economic crash will come inevitably. Mass redundancies will sharply increase unemployment in the coming months. The new government will make the workers pay for the crisis and for the rescue operation to bail out the banks.
All this will undoubtedly increase social unrest in the country. The union leaders, who had hoped that their friends at the top of the SPD would remain in the government and thus leave open a channel for their diplomatic talks and petitions, will find themselves in a situation in which they have to mobilise their rank and file to fight back against attacks.
DIE LINKE is now faced with an enormous responsibility. Many workers who are fed up with the SPD are looking towards the party. Thousands will join, and the party now needs to organise a sound basis in workplaces, unions, neighbourhoods, schools and social movements. Above all, DIE LINKE needs a socialist programme and must raise the question of public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy as a decisive lever to get out of the blind alley of capitalism.
Election results at a glance
| Total turnout | | 70. 8% | -6.8 |
| CDU | 11,824,794 | 27.3% | -0.5 |
| CSU | 2,830,210 | 6.5% | -0.9 |
| SPD | 9,988,843 | 23.0% | -11.2 |
| FDP | 6,313,023 | 14.6% | +4.7 |
| DIE LINKE | 5,153,884 | 11.9% | +3.2 |
| Greens | 4,641,197 | 10.7% | +2.6 |
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