Some Good News, Lots of Bad News

Victor Grossman, Berlin

Bulletin No. 42, May 14, 2012

In a way, it’s a “good news” and “bad news“ angle. The
good news: the Christian Democratic Union of Angela
Merkel took a real whipping in the election in North
Rhine-Westphalia (usually abbreviated to NRW), the
largest German state in terms of population. Her
smiling, almost benign mien, with little bluster or
braggadocio, disguises less and less her tough advocacy
of austerity – a code word for overcoming deficits not
by hitting big banks and big biz, who caused the
calamity, but rather the people who have always been
hit worst and who are truly suffering. Americans may
recall Congressman Ryan’s cruel recipes; they are
closely related. But the election of Hollande in
France, the current tumult in Greece and demonstrations
all over Spain, in Italy, even in London, have shown
what many ordinary people think of such austerity! Now,
sixteen months ahead of next year’s national elections,
her party took the worst beating in its history in this
key state, NRW, which has more people than all of East
Germany. Her major opponents, the Social Democrats,
were greatly strengthened, their partners, the Greens,
held their own and, for better or for worse, the two
will now have full sway there. 

As for the “bad news”, not all of it is world-shaking.
The first item involves plans to open the giant new
Willy Brandt airport of Berlin on June 3rd as a match
for rivals at Frankfurt and Munich. The ballyhoo was
immense for a project fought over for decades. Recent
TV coverage centered on the amazing overnight switch
from the pleasant little Tegel airport in the northwest
of the city to the huge new site in the southeast, 20
miles away, without missing a flight. It was
overwhelming - until it was canceled, just four weeks
ahead of the opening date. The fire alarm and
evacuation systems were not quite ready, it was claimed
and, after all, safety must come first! But it soon
became almost certain that the big construction
consortium had known for months that deadlines could
not be met but hoped for a miracle and kept its
collective mouth shut. Until last week. Poor Mayor
Wowereit, officially the top official in charge, looked
very pale, and the postponement will cost many, many
millions from the airlines, the retail shops, and
transportation companies. At first, August was offered
as a new opening date, then there was talk of October –
or maybe December? 

A second blow for Berliners was in the offing; the
almost certain loss of major league status for its main
soccer team. For some – bitter tragedy! Every year the
two worst teams out of sixteen drop to second league
status while others move up. Only a miracle can save
it; if there is none in one final game then Berlin,
Germany’s biggest city, will be the only major city
with no team in the major league. At least until next
year. And how shameful! 

But alas, there was a far more earnest bad news item,
though all too few realized its significance. The same
election in North Rhine-Westphalia - NRW - which
scratched Merkel seriously wounded the other main
loser, the Left Party. It was no surprise in view of
recent polls, but a shock all the same! It not only
failed to reach the five per cent needed to keep any of
its seats in the state legislature (it won 11 in the
last election) but lost severely, getting only about
2.5 percent! This was the second West German state in a
week where it lost its representation by missing the
hurdle, and this state, due to its size, is especially
important. It is hard hit by an economic crisis
worsened by constant shutdowns of coal mines and
steelworks in its Ruhr Valley, a real German Rust Belt.
Why did these troubles, with severe cutbacks in the
budgets of nearly all towns and cities, not work to the
advantage of the Left? And why is this important, even
to people in other countries?

Of course the media played a big part in this defeat:
except for the very limited leftwing press, largely
unavailable in much of the country, TV and printed
media have a uniform strategy towards the Left. Except
for occasionally playing up internal squabbles or
problems, real or contrived, they maintain silence
about the party’s actions and activities. In NRW the
Left played an important part in preventing college
tuition charges, improving free child care
possibilities, fighting for more financial help for
local communities, and on many levels town and county
councilors of the Left Party have been truly valiant.
But all this was ignored while the catchy new Pirate
party was treated to almost daily pageantry, although
it still has virtually no program, and it reached the
rewards at the polls, with over 8 percent. But this
treatment was neither new nor surprising. It was sad
that the Left has not been able to spite this media
embargo and squeeze into positive public view via
internet, all digital channels and, most importantly,
with eye-catching, media-challenging actions and
activities in the cause of working people, young people
and pensioners, immigrants and other disadvantaged
group. Bucking the media is never easy, but constant
efforts sometimes take effect. Like OCCUPY.

But most commonly cited as the cause of the alarming
weakening of the Left after its hopeful successes a few
years ago was the inner quarreling which consumed so
much energy and provided the media occasional welcome
scandals. The fighting party program agreed to almost
unanimously in Erfurt last October would, it was
thought, heal wounds and break barriers. But it did
not. Now, after defeats in two West German states,
there are fears that the coming congress in early June
in Gottingen, when a new slate of officers is to be
elected, may not improve the situation. 

The conflict involves personalities but, more than
that, aims and strategies. The only person thus far to
offer himself as candidate for co-president in June is
Dr. Dietmar Bartsch, the unusually tall deputy chair of
the Left caucus in the Bundestag. Bartsch represents
the large Left-voting, mostly East German sector of the
party, which still averages between 15 to 30 percent in
the five East German states, the former GDR, and shares
in the government of one of them, Brandenburg. This
broad base is important as a financial and voting
percentage base for the party as a whole. Its leaders,
like Bartsch, often called reformers, are in essence
pragmatists. “We want progressive reforms in the social
system; we must fight for the social benefits now being
cut away by the Christian Democrats and their coalition
partners, the Free Democrats. To achieve success in
this direction we must be ready to ally with two other
parties now in opposition, the Social Democrats and the
Greens. Sometimes we can join with them in a state
government; and it may be possible, it is implied, that
after next year’s national elections those two parties
will need our votes to get over 50 percent of the
deputies and gain power. With such hopes at all levels,
we must be reasonable in our demands and do as little
as possible to antagonize possible future allies.
Frequent rejections of any cooperation with us can be
seen as election propaganda. 

Those opposed to the reformers claim that by being so
reasonable, and by down-playing or abandoning main
principles, we move so close to the Social Democrats
that voters will see no real reason for choosing us
instead of them. One basic principle involved is a
strict refusal to send German troops anywhere outside
Germany and withdraw them from their present deployment
in Afghanistan and near the coasts of Lebanon and
Somalia (with anew approved prospect of hitting those
pirates over land as well as over sea!). The Social
Democrats and Greens have approved foreign deployment
and insist on such approval; the “fundis” – or
fundamentalist Left – demand an adamant principle of
refusal on this; the pragmatist reformers would agree
to a position of  “maybe, sometimes, with possible
exceptions”.

Related, but even deeper in its implications, the more
radical fundis insist that repairs and restrictions on
the banks and big biz are only half-way measures; we
must keep alive the goal of rejecting the capitalist
system and replacing it with some form of democratic
socialism. The reformers agree that the system is
indeed dated, socialism must remain a goal, but a
cloudy distant one, and for now we must just try to
make the banking system work more justly and save
social welfare achievements, working together with the
other left-of-center parties. The retort to this is:
once Social Democrats and Greens gain power, they
always forget most social promises; in recent years
they were responsible for painful cuts in many areas.
Their leadership (though not always their membership)
always leans towards accommodating big business, where
many of their leaders land when they retire from
politics. A key issue the Left must always uphold:
there must be NO further privatization of state-owned
utilities or housing. 

A final issue: the reformers agree with all the other
parties in decrying the East German GDR as a second
dictatorship in Germany, after Hitler, to be condemned
almost in its entirety. The more radical wing, on the
other hand, says that the GDR did many bad things, it
ultimately failed, but its history must not be
simplified in black-white terms, it represented an
attempt to break with capitalism and fascism and was
able to achieve many good things, from jobs for
everyone to free childcare, free medical care and free
education for everyone. Its undoubted lack of rights
and even its tragedies cannot be equated with the
crimes of the Nazis.

One co-president in the past two and a half years was
Gesine Loetzsch, a popular leader with roots in an East
Berlin borough. Her co-president, Klaus Ernst, was a
union leader from Western Bavaria, not so popular in
general. A general rule was more or less accepted: a
double leadership – a  man and a woman , an easterner
and a westerner. Loetzsch recently resigned her job
because of the illness of her quite aged husband, and
will remain only as Bundestag deputy. Ernst has not
stated any plans, making Bartsch the only announced
contestant as yet.

But looming over the scene in a way is the charismatic
West German politician Oskar Lafontaine, one-time head
of the Social Democrats and very popular in his home
region of Saarland. It was to a large degree his  work
in the new Left Party which helped it gain the crucial
support of five to ten percent of West German voters
and thus put the party on the all-German map. He
withdrew from leadership in 2009 to fight cancer -
successfully, it seems. Will he stand for election in
June as president or co-president? And if so, with
whom? The gains he helped achieve are visibly
disappearing. Is that because of his absence or because
of the more “leftist” stance of many West German party
leaders? Many reformer leaders in the East dislike
Lafontaine, who has taken more Fundi approaches on many
questions. While losses were being suffered in West
Germany, interesting local victories were won in
eastern Thuringia, including the job of mayor of one
well-known middle size city, Eisenach, and county
leader in Nordhausen in the Hartz Mountain area. Like
most East German Left leaders they support Bartsch, as
do. It is as yet unclear whether the grass roots
membership agrees or will be enthusiastic about
Lafontaine if he returns to national leadership.


Interestingly, most victories in Thuringia were won by
women, who are strongly represented at many levels.
Perhaps the best known nationally is the East German
leader and theoretician Sara Wagenknecht, once head of
the Communist Platform group within the Left but in the
past two years one of the deputy vice-presidents, she
is a convincing speaker and writer. But she also became
Lafontaine’s partner in more than just a political
sense. Some think that the liaison has moved her ever
so slightly towards a less militant position while
moving him somewhat leftward. Their relationship would
seem to make a joint presidency look more than awkward.
It has however supplied grist for many of the media,
almost their only reporting on the party for a while.


To sum it up: the coming congress in a few weeks can
decide not only whether the Left party moves closer to
the Social Democrats and Greens or to a more
fundamental opposition, which would be more in tune
with many active younger people like those in the
OCCUPY groups: it may even determine whether the party
moves closer to a split and thus the downfall of an
imposing attempts to shake up German politics. Or can
it find new paths to an active, aggressive fight for
the rights of the majority of Germans and a move away
from Merkel’s austerity and military mobilization
policies? With Germany the strongest power in  Europe
(possibly excepting Russia) and one of the strongest
economic forces in the world, and with the Left very
important to many leftwing parties in Europe, the
outcome can have a significant effect on future
developments everywhere. 

ELECTION RESULTS IN PERCENTAGE POINTS 
(with change from last election one year ago)
Social Democratic Party  39.1     + 4.7 
Christian Democrats  26.3     - 8.2 
Greens          11.3     - 0.8 
Free Democrats   8.6     + 1.9 
Pirates          7.8     + 6.3 
Left             2.5     - 3.1 
Pro NRW (anti-Muslim)  1.5 
NPD (neo-Nazi) 0.5

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