Kohl continues
International Viewpoint #262 December 1994
MANUEL KELLNER explains the situation facing the left following Kohl's narrow reelection, and FRANÇOIS
VERCAMMEN talks with
WINFREID WOLE, a leader of the United Socialist Party
(VSP) and a supporter of the
Fourth International, who was elected to the Bundestag
(German parliament) at the head of a local Party of
Democratic Socialism (PDS)
list.
YOU HAVE to go to bed late and get up early to beat socialism", the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU, main party of the German bourgeoisie), Helmut Kohl, declared in 1976. Since 1982 he has been Chancellor, first of the former Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) and, since unification, of the whole of Germany.
For Kohl, socialism was not only the so-called "Real Socialism" of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) but also all politics to the left of those of his own party, including social democracy.
### Defensive
Since 1990 the "Real Socialist" non-capitalist bureaucratic regimes have collapsed. The GDR is no more. Socialist ideas, whether moderate or not, are on the defensive in Germany as throughout the world. And while in 1976 Kohl led the opposition to a social democrat dominated government, today he has been re-elected — although only Just — by a parliamentary majority after having led the government for twelve years.
In the years following the Second World War, for the majority of Germans the political and moral consequences of Nazism were clear. There should never again be fascism, and so there should never again be capitalism. Nor should there ever again be militarism. The connection between "industry" — large-scale capitalists" — the 20
### GErmANY army hierarchy and the Nazis was still fresh in people's minds. In the first few years after the War even the newly created CDU believed in the "socialisation of the major means of production" and rejected re-armament (the Ahlen programme). However, the decision of the Western Allies to support the construction of a West German anti-communist and anti-East German rampart, combined with the prolonged world-wide capitalist boom, led to a period of restoration which lasted from 1948/9 until the
The FRG, under the CDU Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, became the authoritarian bridgehead of the Cold War, with anti-communism as State doctrine - the German Communist Party was outlawed and dissolved in 1956. Many former Nazis were given high-ranking positions in the State and in the large corporations which still controlled the economy. For its part, the working-class began to believe that there could be capitalism without crisis.
The recession of 1966/7 signalled the end of the above period. For the times it was a huge crisis for hundreds of thousands to be unemployed. As the first signs of the economic crisis began to appear, so did a new wave of workers' struggles, which partly escaped the control of the union bureaucracies. At the same time youth and students became radicalised, protesting against authoritarianism, the war in Vietnam, and the refusal of their parents' generation to accept responsibility for Nazism. Part of this protest movement began to rebel against the capitalist system.
However, the system was still too strong to be challenged in any real way, and the image of "socialism" in the GDR, the regime forced to imprison its "subjects" behind walls and barbed wire, was too close to home.
Yet the late 1960s did see liberalisation of the political climate and and cause for optimism for reformists. It was in the interests of capital to channel all this into what it viewed as a "constructive" direction. From the point of view of the system this was an innovative position. In 1969 a Social-Democrat/Liberal (SPD/FDP) coalition came to power, led by Willy Brandt. Its main slogans were: "Dare more democracy! Social reforms!
A policy of peace with the East!". In effect Brandt became the architect of Ostvertrage, the treaties with Poland and the former Soviet Union, and the dialogue for peace with the GDR. Social reforms, however, were thin on the ground and, so far as democracy was concerned, it is the banning of "leftwing extremists" which springs to mind.
From 1974, under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, pro-capitalist management took the place of "reformist" rhetoric, while support for over-arming by the West and anti-terrorist hysteria were pretexts for still further erosion of democratic gains. Schmidt's slogan was "A model Germany" - the model of an arrogant rich country, combined with a model of social dialogue which prevented "class struggles" from escaping State control. In a way the Shmidt government prepared the way for that of Kohl.
### Counter-reforms
During' the recession of1981/2 the government began a policy of social counter-reforms, leading to a wave of protests. In 1982, for the first time, (Social-Democratic!) trade union leaders organised protests against the policy of a majority Social-Democrat government. However, in October 1982 the FDP changed sides - and Kohl became Chancellor without an election, by a "vote of constructive confidence" in the Bundestag (parliament). He proclaimed a "political and moral turning". What
It meant the forming of a programme aimed at rolling back the gains made since 1968/9: Re-establishment of authoritarianism at every level; simplisic anti-communism; confrontation with the East; rejection of women's aspirations and those of working-class children for higher education; and re-establishment of Germany as a great and unresticted power, with Nazi crimes erased from collective consciousness. Economically, it meant combatting the recession by promoting German competitivity, taking on the "excessive social State" and increasing wage differentials.
Events even before the 1983 elections showed how things would go: The budget for 1983 cut social spending by 5.65 thousand million marks; the first
International Viewpoint #262 December 1994 financial scandals emerged, for example, the Schwarz-Schilling affair, where the Minister for Post profited directly as an entrepreneur from his ministry; and the Turkish dictatorship enjoyed increased material support.
The end of the 1981/2 recession, which was unconnected with government policy, helped Kohl and his Christian/Liberal coalition to win the elections. The government pursued an austeprogramme - but unemployment continued to rise, even during a period of economic upturn, from 1.8 million to 2.2 million in its first two years.
At the end of 1989 the main caring organisations published figures which showed that under the Kohl government the number of poor, according to the official criteria, had risen to 6.2 million — or 10% of the population in one of the richest countries in the world. Between 1982 and 1988, while profits had increased by 74%, salaries had risen by only 18.2%.
Privatisations, flexibilisations, the dismantling of laws protecting women's rights and young people at work, severe restrictions on the right to strike, increasingly harsh treatment of asylum seekers and immigrants, increasingly nationalistic official rhetoric, and the growing relativisation of Nazi crimes — all these characterised both Kohl government policy and the social climate which it created.
By the beginning of 1989 the government, which had become extremely unpopular, appeared to have run out of steam. It was the collapse of the GDR which gave Kohl & Co. a second chance.
While millions in the GDR were still aspiring to an alternative to the bureaucratic regime which could also be a united and democratic alternative to Western capitalism, no-one could believe that the conservatives would gain from the situation. But the democratic socialist alternative was too weak and too vague. German re-unification occurred in the style of a conquest, and in the almost exclusive interests of the bourgeoisle.
In the first few months after re-unification West German capital delivered consumer goods, cars and electronic bric-a brac to the former GDR - and so escaped the world capitalist recession of 1990. There was, however, a terrible price to pay in structural, social, political and moral terms.
By 1992 industrial production in the former GDR had fallen to a third of its 1989 level. Unemployment was 1.2 million, adding to the 2.5 million in the former West Germany. While the "colonisation" of the former GDR created some winners, the general impression of its inhabitants was that they had become disinherited second-class citizens.
The government continued to pursue privatisation and flexibilisation in the period up until the October 1994 elections. This period has also seen a disturbing echo of our Nazi past in the blossoming of extreme right-wing groups and explosion in racist attacks. It is clear that official policy has served to encourage this tragic development.
How can such a government have won once more?
The government is of course weaker than before. The Christian conservatives and their FDP partner now have only a tiny majority in the Bundestag
All the opposition parties increased their vote. The Social Democrats (SPD) obtained 36.5% of the vote, compared to 33.5% in 1990. This does not mean much, as the party has a policy of de facto coalition with the government parties, has supported the dismantling of the right to asylum, and privatisation of the post and railways and so on. It could not even demark itself politically in its own election campaign.
### Interesting
The Greens achieved 7.3% of the vote, up from less than 5% in 1990. This is an especially interesting result given that their vote fell in the east, where their profile is less left-wing (and more anticommunist) than in the west. The Greens have become integrated within parliament and the capitalist system. Nevertheless they are still a force with a policy of real opposition and a series of progressive demands.
The PDS returned to the Bundestag with 4.4% of the vote (2,067,000), an increase from 2.4% (1,129,000) in 1990. Votes in the former GDR are still counted separately, and it did so thanks to these. It was unaffected by the 5% threshold for entry into the Bundestag due to a peculiarity in German electoral law: 5% need not be achieved if a party wins at least three constituencies. The PDS won four constituencies in East Berlin.
Is the PDS the party of the former rulers of East Germany? This would not explain its gains in the east, nor the beginning of its establishment in the west. On the one hand, the PDS appears committed to defending the interests and dignity of the eastern victims of unification. On the other, it also appears committed to the reclamation of democratic socialism, defending those below against those above, aspiring to a united and less inequal society. The PDS is also "public enemy number one" so far as the established political forces are
While technically the PDS is the continuation of the SED (the former ruling party in the former GDR) and 90% of its 130,000 members belonged to it, the SED had 2.7 million members. The vast majority of these have joined the bourgeois parties or the SPD, taken up a career as a capitalist manager or fled politics altogether. Nearly all those who are now in the PDS are nonbureaucrats, non-careerists, idealists — because these days there are more disadvantages than advantages to being a member of the PDS. For example, they are the first to lose their jobs in the pri-
The east-west split in the PDS vote is extremely striking. It obtained eighteen times more votes in the former GDR than in the west. Yet its vote was still considerably less than in 1990. In the west, although its vote remained modest, it increased over three-fold, from 109,294 votes in 1990 to 369,038
In the east the PDS obtained between 16.5% (Thuringen) and 24% (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) of the vote. In East Berlin, where lives the oppositionist and reformist intelligentsia of the former GDR, the PDS won the highest vote, with 34%. The highest constituency (as opposed to party list) vote was for Gregor Gysi in Berlin Hellersdorf-Marzahn, who took 48.5% of first preferences. The percentage of the vote for the PDS in the west ranged between 0.6% (Bavaria) to 7.5% (Kreuz-
The PDS has only 1500 members in the west and so its organisational force and prospects for establishment are still extremely limited. Accordingly its electoral prospects rest upon its force in the
The VSP (United Socialist Party), founded in 1986 from the fusion of the German section of the Fourth International with an ex-Maoist organisation, is a small radical left party.
In autumn 1993 the VSP agreed a policy of critical support for the PDS in the elections to the Bundestag. At the same time, it decided that its members could stand as candidates on the open PDS lists. The opening up of the PDS to representatives of the revolutionary-
21
International Viewpoint #262 December 1994 socialist currents is admirable when it is remembered that it was under strong pressure from the established forces to disassociate itself from anything which could be said to be communist, radical or anti-system.