Greens and Reds has suffered setbacks, has been hurt by socialists today is that for the first time since the beginning of the student radicalization, we are confronted with a party to the left of the SPD, one that takes radical positions on the most important political issues of the day. They have an official position for taking West Germany out of NATO. They are the only party in parliament arguing for radical measures to solve the crisis of the environment. They came out during the strike in support of the demand for a shorter workweek to reduce unemployment.
The following interview was given to Gerry Foley in February in Zurich by Peter Bartelheimer, a leader of the International Marxist Group (GIM), German section of the Fourth International.
How do you assess the the crisis and the imperialist wardrive but Green vote in West Germany?
West Germany has become a very interesting country. important country for European imperialism and US imperialism, for the policy of and developing a new strategy toward the Soviet Union. is no longer a pillar of stability either for Europe or for America. In most recent years, we have seen a fundamental change come about in the political climate of the
There were two big shocks for the class escaped relatively unscathed in the first phase of the world economic crisis. Then in the three years between 1980 and 1983, unemployment figures tripled. Even today, with the economic upturn, unemployment continues to rise. the official statistics themselves show that about a third of today's unemployed
The second shock was the Reagan administration's decision to deploy new missiles in Europe. This highlighted the US's use of West Germany as a military base, making the West German people hostages to American military policy. The impact of this has given rise to the biggest mass movement in Germany since the SecondWorld War.
In 1983, just before the Pershing missiles were due to arrive, 2 million people participated in three great demonstrations in different parts of the country.
On top of this, in the past year, we had the most important strike in country's history, the metal-workers' and printers' strike for the 35-hour week, a trade-union alternative solution to the economic crisis.
The outcome of the strike gives a pretty good idea of what the situation in West Germany is today. This fight was a head-on confrontation between a government directly representing the bosses and a very powerful mobilization of workers that managed to achieve some gains. The unions were forced to settle for a compromise, which we consider a bad one, but the final outcome was not the defeat that the government wanted to inflict on the labor movement.
So, the salient features of the present situation are on the one side a weak conservative government, and on the other, a mass trade-union movement that has not yet suffered a decisive defeat and maintains its credibility for leading most interesting thing in situation is that the radicalization against the capitalist offensive and the war drive has found a new political expression that offers an important opening for radical socialist views to be taken among large numbers of people.
If you look at the opinion polls today about voting intentions, you find two developments. illusions of some sections of the working class that a Christian Democratic governrevive the economy by capitalist means and do something about unemployment have been exploded. Few believe in this anymore, after two years of austerity and rising unemployment. So, the parties in the ruling right-wing coalition have every reason to fear today that they will lose in new elections.
However, the threat to the right-wing government comes not so much from the Christian Democrats as from the Greens. The Greens were the big surprise in the 1983 elections. Their success was the only positive aspect form the standpoint of the left. For the first time since 1953, when the Communist Party was wiped out in the elections (it was made illegal a couple of years after that), a party to the left of the Social Democrats has managed go over the 5% threshold to gain representation in parliament. begun to change the political situation in a fundamental way. It has opened up a period of political instability.
With new national elections coming in 1987, people feel that it is possible to the Kohl government and put a completely different one in its place. Since the March 1983 national elections, the Greens have been the winner in all regional and municipal elections [this was before the March elections in Hesse and the Saarland that marked the first setbacks for the Greens].
In all these elections, the Greens have taken 8% of the vote or more. They are in most state parliaments today. They hundreds of city parliaments Today, it is not so much the SPD that is seen as the real opposition party as the Greens, who have been the most dynamic in publically attacking the Kohl govern-
The tactical problem for revolutionary
However, the Greens do not have any traditional links to the workers movement. Most of them are young people who haven't been active in the unions. have never been particularly attracted by lot of our ideas. But we cannot let ourselves be drawn away from our work in the unions and other working class struct-
Working in our own name, we have shown what a small socialist organization can do today in West Germany. been active in building a coordination structure of activists inside the unions, which was particularly important in the 35-hour week fight. project was a large congress in which we participated. On the basis of the balance sheet we made of the strike, we decided to continue putting out the bulletin of the 35-hour week movement in order to prepare workers for the next phase of the
At the same time, we are building our youth organization mainly in the movement against the missiles and in solidarity with Central America. The youth organization had its founding congress in the fall of last year. Debate in the Greens
Has the emergence of a broad radical alternative like the Greens caused problems for the GIM? Do radicalizing people who would otherwise come to the GIM tend now to be attracted more to
No. In some ways the development of the Greens makes it easier to build the
We present an overall socialist The traditional party, the SPD, is being challenged. larger percentage of society is now open
More people see the need nationalizations, to do something the crisis of the environment, Of course, the Greens are seen from an electoral point of view as the political force that can bring about changes. approach is to present an elementary program that could be the basis of a political movement for change at the governmental level, for an SPD government supported in parliament by the
Greens. This is a key issue today because all political forces are preparing for the
1987 election.
International Viewpoint 22 April 1985
Everyone assumes that if present trends continue the ruling coalition will not get an absolute majority, and the various political forces are responding in their own way to that. The spokespeople of the right are whipping up a campaign about the "Green threat." They are try. ing to convince part of the SPD to reject any co-operation with the Greens and to consider a "Great Coalition" with the Christian Democrats.
The question of collaboration with the Greens is being discussed in the SPD, and it is also an issue in the unions. The same union leaderships that refused to support the fight for the 35-hour week have come out publicly saying that they would prefer a right-wing coalition to a government supported by the Greens.
We are trying to intervene in the debate that is going on within the Greens about how to bring about change on the governmental level without getting into the trap of sharing governmental responsibility with the Social Democrats. We present a position different from both of the currents that have dominated the debate.
The so-called Realpolitiker [realistic politicians] argue that while the 2 million people who vote for the Greens take on more radical positions on many questions, they also want some practical results out of the next election. They want a change in government and they want that to bring some practical changes, to stop the missiles and stop the cuts in social spendfor raising these issues but at the same time provide a way for a lot of unorganized people who would vote Green but want to see some specific changes at the governmental level and don't see their positions being defended adequately in either party.
In Berlin we have been able to get two GIM members elected to run for the district parliament on the poor neighborhood where form more than a third of the population. This indicates that we can become seen as defenders of united action including both the SPD and the Greens on the real issues involved in the government question. We know that without grass-roots mobilization, even if there is a change government, nothing fundamental will How to combine work with the Greens and the SPD
Would these electoral committees undertake actions or just propagate ideas?
They are to be action groups as well. For example, in Berlin where such a committee has been formed, it will hold a big rally to debate prominent members of the SPD and Alternative Slate question of how to form a government if the Christian Democrats are But a lot of activities of this committee state of Hessen, where there was an SPD government for two years that could only survive with toleration from the Greens. The SPD government tried to overcome this problem by calling new elections. The election did not solve anyting, so in the past period they've had an alliance with the Greens, which led to the Greens voting for two SPD budgets. We criticised
The alliance has broken down around the project of a nuclear plant. issue that involves mass mobilizations. For example, after the alliance between the Greens and the SPD in the state parliament, there was a demonstration of about 15,000 people against the nuclear plant in question. I think there will be possiblities to start mobilizations around aspects of the platform we advocate after the elections. This is a line not just for a few months but one that under today's conditions makes it possible for a small organization to force discussion on the real tasks of an SPD government.
On issues such as peace where we share some of the radical ideas of the Greens, we are trying to get into ongoing discussion with them. They have invited us to participate in their central commission on
On the local level, we are very interested in having discussions with them on questions that they don't really know that much about, especially trade union
Of course, we hope that out of such processes of discussions we will be able to reach agreements for more ing, for instance.
On the other hand, the so-called Fundamentalist current in the Greens opposes any co-operation with the SPD. We agree Greens' representative in the German bundestag (DR) with them to an extent because there is a real danger of the Greens being coopted into parliamentary politics, becoming just another parliamentary party. This would be a blow not only to the Greens but to
We are trying to get an initiative going the masses of activists both inside and outside of the Greens Party who want to get rid of this government and at the same time open the way for radical change. In the upcoming state elections in West Berlin and Westphalia, we have taken the initiative for workers electoral committees, action committees against a coalition of the Christian Democrats and the SPD, for an SPD government based on an action program.
Through these committees, we want to put forward key demands that we want to press an SPD government to implement, such as introduction of the 35-hour week, creation of public jobs.
Q. How would such a committee work, would it be a committee for the Greens?
A. It would be open to sympathizers and members of both the SPD and Greens. Its aim would be to campaign on these questions and create a public forum for debate.
There are not so many people in either party who would support such perspectives. We want to offer them a structure International Viewpoint 22 April 1985 will take place after the election.
We have the experience already in the
GIM candidates on the Green slates as has happened in Berlin.
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The world towards the Third World countries. But this phenomenon only partially explains the sensational reversal of the trend. Indeed, the trend also reflects a real takeoff of competitive national industrial branches of the semi-industrialized countries such as steel, shipbuilding, garment economic situation in 1985 and toys, electronic components and even the petrochemicals industry. It is interesting to note that a book has just appeared which deals with the issue of multinationals originating in so-called Third World countries, that is to say, controlled by Brazilian, Indian, South Korean and Hong Kong finance capital without any
In the last two years the capitalist economy has undergone a new burst of activity. Beginning in the United States, the recovery has now extended to other imperialist countries as well as to some semi-industrialised countries in South East Asia and Latin America.
However, the upturn is uneven in scope and pattern.
of the recovery in the United States are linked to the federal budget deficit, which is in itself a factor of future potential crises.
The crisis of international finance takes on a new light when looked at from the point of view of the massive debts of the main capitalist countries. The fundamental elements of a structural crisis of the market economy are still the determining factor in the development of the international
It is within this framework that the following article economic situation.
looks at the state of the world economy in the different sectors (in the imperialist countries, in the dependent capitalist countries and in the bureaucratised workers states).
ration and fostered by the sharp up- even more partial and temporary than the