Two women comrades from the VSP, Lilo Lottermoser in Hamburg, and Anna Schulte in Rhineland-Westphalia, were elected from the PDS lists. However, only Winfried Wolf, a leading member of the VSP, editor-in-chief of SoZ (the VSP journal), economist and high-profile critic of the "car society" was elected at the head of a list, in Baden-Württemberg. The winning of the four eastern constituencies meant that the western votes "counted" and Winfried Wolf was elected to the Bundestag with 0.8% (42,976) of the vote.
### Voice
The VSP and its candidates have not "disappeared in the scrum", as have other elements from the radical left which support the PDS. It has published its own material to ensure that its voice is heard. For example, back in 1993 it published a leaflet with a detailed critique of the PDS programme, which it characterised as interesting, but reformist, and neither having clearly broken with post-Stalinism nor having a proper vision for society. During the elections, four-page pull-outs in SoZ gave a rundown of the Kohl government, re-unification and the policies of the opposition parties, and set out its own revolutionary proposals. The fact that PDS practice is at times more right-wing than its programme, the dangers of integration within bourgeois democracy and so on were all analysed. At the same time the VSP published discussion documents aimed at renewing their revolutionarysocialist identity and that of the left as it recomposed itself. Winfried Wolf himself led an extremely active campaign, and ran into some conflict with the regional leadership of the PDS. Both he and the VSP ended the campaign with a large number of new contacts, including young members of the western PDS.
The perspective which is beginning to emerge is that dialogue and co-operation must be sought both inside and outside the PDS. This has been adopted by the general assembly of the PDS Young Comrades and will be the object of dis-
With the success of the campaign and the election of Winfried Wolf we are in a stronger position than ever before, all the more so because there is 22 increasing discussion within the union movement. More and more, people are feeling the need to come off the defensive, and to revive three main themes: Firstly, the need to regain a vision of alternative society; secondly, the need to attack all huge fortunes, not just industrial profits; and thirdly, the need to internationalise our action. The ideal would be a new and combative current within both the trade union and new progressive social movements, and the relaunching of a vigorous recomposed left wing, the most important component of which would be the PDS
It is true that the system still seems very strong. But more and more people, and in particular the young, know that it will lead to ruin. To quote Karl Marx: "Better a horrible end than horror without end!" *
M ANY people on the
left were surprised when you headed the PDS list in the federal state of BadenWürttemberg, given that the party is still considered Stalinist by some.
The PDS has only a short history — five years. Although the PDS emerged from the SED, the former ruling party in East Germany, the SED had some 2.5 million members while the PDS has only 130,000. This means that the PDS is a totally different party. I would never have been a member of the SED, except perhaps in its last few months, from October to December 1989. I could imagine becoming a member of the present PDS due to its democratic internal life, with its open debates, and possibilities for currents, tendencies and factions. However, I was an independent candidaBut don't you think it remarkable that the PDS leadership raised no objection to you, a known revolutionary marxist, member of the VSP and editor-in-chief of its paper "SoZ" (Sozialistische Zeitung) heading one of its lists?
One third of the PDS parliamentary group are not Party members. There are, for example, radical feminists and well-known trade unionists, although I am the only person who belongs to another political organisation, the VSP. In the main 1
Winfreid Wolf was approached as a specialist in ecology and transport. My VSP membership was apparently not an obstacle to my participation. Why did your candidacy attract such harsh criticism from others on the left?
The PDS has changed. It is not a Stalinist party. It's a socialist party to the left of the SPD and Greens. It is a party with different currents. It is no secret that there is a tendency within it which accepts capitalism and the market economy. For part of the left, the so-called "Radikale Linke" (ultra-left) around the paper Konkret, and some intellectuals, the PDS has already become a party of national consensus. They have taken an almost cynical position of refusing any political position, and so would not give any concrete support during the elections. Their view is that of a very small minority. A large part of the left take the view that the PDS is still a bureaucratic, semi-Stalinist party, because it has been incapable of debating its own history.thoroughly. Accordingly I did not find it very easy to be an independent candidate on the PDS list.
Kohl continues
International Viewpoint #262 December 1994
What were the main themes of your campaign, and of the PDS as a whole?
The central themes were elaborated by the PDS leadership: these were anticapitalist, anti-militarist, anti-racist, and feminist. I ran an active campaign, holding forty meetings in Baden- Württemberg, where I was a candidate. The most important subject was the local economy, which is dominated almost solely by the car and armaments industries. The car manufacturers Mercedes Benz (whose headquarters are in Stuttgart, the federal capital) have an advertisement here with the slogan "Für ein Leben unter anderen Sternen" (For a life under other stars). We produced posters with red, green, black, and purple stars, symbolising socialism, ecology, self-organisation, and feminism. Our slogan was: "The star of Mercedes must be broken." Did you put forward a plan for combating unemployment?
The PDS already has correct demands: firstly, for a radical reduction in working time; secondly, for initiatives which will create new and useful jobs in social and ecological ares of the public sector;thirdly, for direct democracy in the economic field, particularly for shop stewards inside the factories. Naturally I supported these demands. What we then tried to do was concretise them in terms of Baden-Württemberg. I published a special pamphlet which analysed the socio-economic structure of the "Land" (federal state) and put forward some alternative proposals to combat unemployment. How was your campaign organised?
It was basically a PDS campaign around an independent candidate. The way it worked depended a great deal on the local situation in the different towns of Baden-Württemberg. The best example is that of Karlsruhe, where there was an alliance between the PDS and a local radical left alliance, Sozialistische Linke (Socialist left), of which the VSP is a part. It was in Karlsruhe that I spoke alongside Gregor Gysi, the leading spokesperson for the PDS, at a public meeting which attracted 1500 people. We also obtained one of our best result in Karlsruhe, 1.6% of the vote. How do you feel your election campaign went?
It was very positive. I was able to speak to more than a thousand of people, including many youth, and we doubled the number of PDS members in Baden-Württemberg. Although I was not a member I was integrated into the local PDS during the campaign. Of course, the result was very good for me personally, as I was elected to parliament. But the PDS result was good generally, and not just in former East Germany. The PDS ran a very active campaign, and in a lot of towns throughout Germany there was close collaboration between the PDS and the VSP. Now that you are an MP, what will be your main activity?
I intend to be active on transport although not specifically responsible for it. The PDS already has a very good spokesperson, a woman comrade, Dagmar Enkelmann, with whom I have worked for three or four years. My special responsibility will be the struggle against railway privatisation. I refused to take responsibility for the environment, which has a parliamentary committee separate from transport, because I didn't want to become simply the "green man" of the PDS parliamentary group. Instead, I will be responsible for international solidarity and international work. I have previously been active around unemployment and will continue to be so. I intend to start publishing a special bulletin on this and to provide a kind of national information service to trade unionists and social activists. How will you combine your work as an MP with extra-parliamentary work?
I think that being an MP with broader possibilities and resources will in fact help such a combination - and of course, when different movements and struggles emerge I will be a part of them. I will continue to edit and write for SoZ, the paper of the VSP. Have you drawn any broader political conclusions from this successful collaboration with the PDS?
We will be having a broadly based discussion in the VSP at the end of this year as the PDS are organising an important congress at the end of January. I expect that we will be present and active in the debates inside the PDS.
In the former East Germany there are about 130,000 PDS members, and in the former West Germany now perhaps 2,000. The VSP has around 180 members in the west. We remain an independent organisation, although in different regions VSP members can participate in and become members of the PDS, working in solidarity with its rank-and-file. Much depends on how the PDS foresees its own development. In some towns there is "inside-outside" collaboration. For example, in Munich there is a formal structure called "in und um die PDS" (in and around the PDS), which organises in this way. We don't want to disrupt the good work achieved with the PDS by manoeuvring. *
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