 |
 |
Report from German Left Party Congress Oct 21 - 23, 2011 By Pat Fry October 30, 2011 Erfurt, Germany Culminating nearly two years of discussion and debate, the 519 delegates of the Die Linke Party of Germany united overwhelmingly around a new program at its Congress in Erfurt, Germany, October 21 - 23. The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism was one of 43 Communist, Socialist, left parties and organizations making up the international delegation, and was the sole representative from the United States. The 44 page draft program, issued in March 2010, was discussed at meetings of local and regional bodies, resulting in 1,300 amendments presented for Congress deliberations. The program was adopted nearly unanimously following 3 days of debate. It will provide the political platform for Die Linke candidates in the 2013 federal elections. The Congress was held against the backdrop of momentous events in Europe. The Eurozone debt negotiations to save bank profits led by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the general strike in Greece in opposition to the outcome of those negotiations dramatically framed the weekend's deliberations. A representative of the Synaspismos Party (Coalition of the Left of Greece), Alexis Tsipras, delivered an impassioned greeting of solidarity bringing the Congress to its feet. "The war in Greece is between capital and labor, not between Greece and Germany," said Tsipras. "Greece is the guinea pig of the Eurozone. We are committed to defending democracy in Greece before it is too late for you," he said. The adoption of the Die Linke party program marks a milestone in the process of forging of a new left all-German party of democratic socialism. Founded in 2007, the party is a merger of east and west political parties and traditions - the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) founded in the ashes of the collapse of the GDR, and the west German WASG (Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice) founded by left wing social democrats in 2005 in a split from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) after its embrace of austerity policies under the Schroeder government. The program document opens with an overview of the rich history of the left in Germany including a critical assessment of the GDR and its experience in building socialism. "It has become clear that an experiment in socialism that is not democratically shaped by the majority of the people but is controlled by the government and party leadership in an authoritarian manner will inevitably fail sooner or later. No socialism without democracy," states the program. While renouncing "Stalinism" with its violations of "the rule of law" and "separation of powers," the program takes issue with an "unhistorical" assessment of socialism in the GDR, and defends its many contributions to economic justice and security, intellectual life, art and culture. A personal eye-opening experience was learning of the enormous pain and suffering endured by the people of the former GDR following REUNIFICATION. Part of my week-long trip was spent with people in east Germany who have lived through this period and have never recovered from the loss of jobs, income, educational opportunities, social programs and, in particular, the sense of security that protected the general welfare of people in a socialist system. The history of the socialist east and the capitalist west within the same country shapes the development of the Die Linke party and makes it unique in all of Europe. At the Die Linke founding Congress in 2007, the new party adopted minimal "Programmatic Key Points" that all acknowledged was only the beginning step in consolidating a new all-German left party. It was more of an orientation than a program but provided a basis for campaigns in the 2009 federal, state and European Parliament elections. As a result, Die Linke holds 76 of the 620 seats in the Bundestag (Parliament), and is the 4th largest party behind the Christian Democrats (237), the Social Democrats (146), and the center-right Free Democrats (93). The Green Party holds 68 seats. The new program adopted by delegates but subject to a vote of the party membership in the coming weeks will provide the electoral platforms for the 2013 federal elections. It represents a huge step forward from the founding document of 2007. The Congress took place a month after disappointing results in local elections in Berlin, where the Die Linke lost considerable ground, mainly due to votes that went to the newly emerged Pirate Party, a spin-off from the Swedish Pirate Bay hacker movement of young people dedicated to internet freedom and social networking but also disdain for all political parties. The phenomenon has spread to offshoots in a number of other European countries. Other reasons for the losses were attributed to fierce red baiting and cooptation of aspects of the Left Party program by Social Democratic and Green Party candidates. While many of the delegates at the Congress were young, the majority were older veterans of left parties and social movements. In his keynote speech Gregor Gysi, a founding chair of Die Linke who now chairs its Parliamentary group, talked about the importance of connecting to youth. A delegate from the Die Linke socialist student organization, SDS, discussed programmatic proposals that they had developed regarding internet neutrality and against measures restricting the internet. "We need to call for the internet for everyone," he said. There were many references hailing the Occupy Wall Street movement which had spread to Germany the week before with an occupation in Frankfort in front of the European Central Bank. "People no longer accept that a small group of people are able to rip off everyone else," said a young delegate about the encampment. On October 15, many thousands of people rallied in Berlin in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. Reformers and Radicals The long period of debate preceding the Congress and tensions in floor debate reflected the political differences and backgrounds within the Party. Factions are built into the party structure, including the Communist Platform, a Marxist- Leninist grouping identified with the Communist Party of Germany (DKP) based in the west. Throughout the debate compromises were made and unity achieved in votes on 1,300 amendments forwarded to the Congress for consideration. Debate went far into the night both Friday and Saturday. Gysi highlighted the importance of Die Linke's political diversity and pluralist traditions. "We are a modern party and have great diversity within it," said Gysi. He coined the differences expressed in the debate as between "reformers" and "radicals." Both are needed, he said. "If we were only reformers Die Linke would become like the Social Democrats; if we were only radicals the Party would become irrelevant," he said. One of the most contentious debates was over the use of military intervention. The "reformers" argued against foreclosing "case by case" considerations of some future use of the military (a "just war" scenario). This was defeated and the "radicals" won the debate. This aside, there was no disagreement on an exceptionally strong stand on withdrawal of all German troops from other countries, particularly Afghanistan, prohibiting the use of the military inside Germany, demands that all foreign military bases and troops be withdrawn from Germany and the world, the destruction of all weapons of mass destruction, and an end to nuclear weapons and arms exports. The program calls for withdrawal of German military forces in NATO, the dissolution of NATO and its replacement with a collective security system with the participation of Russia. Die Linke was the only party in Germany to oppose the bombing of Libya while the SPD and Green Party supported it. The Party plays a leading role in the peace movement in Germany, most recently in mobilizing for the nationwide days of action October 7 and 8th against the war in Afghanistan. Despite the strong endorsement of diversity and full debate within the party, Gysi warned about a perception that Die Linke "deals only with ourselves" at the expense of dealing with the many problems confronting the German people. Founding co-chair Oskar LaFontaine in an address at the Die Linke Congress "We are the only party with solutions to the financial crisis," said founding co-chair and former German finance minister Oskar LaFontaine. He drew attention to the program's call for regulation of the banks and establishment of a public banking sector for people's savings - where money is saved and not used for gambling and speculation. "The German bank is already nationalized but taxpayers are not getting the profits," he noted. "The billions and trillions spent on war can be used to wipe out poverty," he said. In response to the Eurozone debt crisis, the Die Linke calls for an EU-wide property tax, the separation of state finances from the financial markets, and a European public bank to provide direct loans to the eurozone countries. Financial injections into banks would be permitted only if they are nationalized and regulated. Opposition Party and Governing Coalitions In an interview with the left leaning newspaper Neu Deutschland, LaFontaine said the new party program makes clear what the Left wants. "A key issue is the ownership question," he said. "We want profound social changes, more community ownership, more cooperatives," he said. "The crisis of capitalism reaffirms our belief that we must be radical in our thinking." In answer to a question about the "leftward shift in the party program" which may relegate it to a permanent opposition party in government, LaFontaine pointed to several regions where the Die Linke is in governing coalitions with the Greens, the SPD and other parties. "Our participation in government depends on whether improvements can be achieved for our voters," he said. Opposition is not crap," said LaFontaine, responding to the negative connotation of opposition. "There is no democracy without opposition," he said. In his address at the Congress La Fontaine, who led the breakaway from the SPD and formed the WASG, called upon his former party to "change its behavior. We are ready to cooperate but as long as the SPD and the Greens resort to police state methods, it is they that have to change, he said. "Die Linke is the only party in Germany with a program to defend against austerity and fight for peace and a sustainable environment, for women's equality and against discrimination of ethnic minorities and immigrants." This call for unity against neo-liberalism was a theme throughout the Congress. Party Co-Chair Klaus Ernst joined in challenging the SPD and the Green Party to fight austerity and war and measures to save the environment. "We are the only party that challenges the dictatorship of the financial markets," said Ernst. Gysi said "the SPD is not our enemy - if only they were real social democrats. They should reject their policies and join with us. The Left alone is too weak in Germany and Europe to impact social policy, he said. Women's Equality The program devotes much attention to equality for women in all social, political and economic spheres. It calls for equal wages for similar work between men and women and equality of the wage scale between west and east where wages and pensions are considerably less. Even in the former GDR, it was noted, women had lower wages. The Congress delegates were more than half female and a woman leader, Gesine Lotzsch, is Party Co-Chair. Report from the Die Linke Delegation to the European Parliament Die Linke has 6 members elected to the European Parliament. They are part of the 34 member European Party of the Left bloc of 750 in Parliament. It can be argued that the Party's leadership within the European Parliament has even more importance than the Party's impact on national developments in Germany. The European Parliament passes legislation that supersedes individual nation state laws and is emerging as a key arena for struggle in opposition to neo-liberal policies and the fight for a "social Europe." The Left bloc has introduced in the European Parliament two important measures related to the eurozone debt crisis - a financial transaction tax and Euro bonds that would be used to keep eurozone countries solvent and prevent the financial markets from launching speculative attacks on individual euro countries. The European Left Party bloc has led the opposition to a number of neo-liberal measures in the EP. One plan to raise the pension age was met with a revolt. "The Die Linke and their partners organized the opposition and managed the revolt," reported Die Linke EP member Thomas Handel. "It was the first time the left was able to ally with the Social Democrats, the Greens and the International Labor Organization (ILO) in the European Parliament," he said. Other neoliberal measures successfully defeated were raising the maximum number of truck driving hours from 60 to 67 a week and eliminating the right to strike. "Some think the European Union is an imperialist tool," said Handel. "We don't feel that way. We must fight for a unified, democratic, ecological, peaceful and social Europe." The Erfurt Program and Die Linke While the Die Linke does not identify itself as Marxist, it claims its place in history as "the inheritors of the Erfurt Program," a reference to the first program of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) founded as part of the Communist International of Karl Marx. Karl Liebknecht and others authored the Erfurt Program in 1891, named after the city where the Die Linke Congress was held. During the Congress, a staged reading of the Erfurt program was presented. It was remarkable how current the program's demands for labor rights over capital are 120 years later. In the concluding moments of the Congress, a group of Nazi youth converged outside the conference center and shouted "Heil Hitler" at a number of Party delegates, many of whom were young themselves. A brief scuffle broke out, a provocation by one of the Nazi youth, but they were carefully pushed back until they departed. The incident was a punctuation mark to the Congress that had just concluded with its call for an intensification of anti-racist, anti-Semitic and anti-fascist education work and a ban on all fascist organizations. ____________ Pat Fry, is a National co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy & Socialism ___________________________________________ Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. Submit via email: [log in to unmask] Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3 Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate