
New party in Germany is no alternative for working people
Since this statement was issued BSW members of the German parliament, on January 31, voted in favour of the “influx limitation law” produced by the CDU/CSU Christian democrat bloc. The right populist AfD, as well as most liberal FDP MPs, also voted in favour. This draft law, which was defeated, would, among other measures, have made it the aim of the state to “limit” migration and abolish the right to family reunification for most refugees.
The BSW has a good chance of entering the Bundestag. This is above all an expression of the justified anger at the prevailing conditions, the unpopularity of the established parties and the desire for change and a new political force in the opposition (including beyond the AfD).
The world is increasingly falling apart and social injustices in Germany have not been so widespread and obvious for a long time. Many BSW voters quite understandably want to see a change in politics, social investment, taxation of the super-rich and a renunciation of rearmament and support for war by the federal government.
The Socialist Organisation Solidarity (Sol) shares some of the BSW’s demands, such as an end to arms exports and more workers being covered by collective wage bargaining. We are also convinced that a political alternative is needed to counter the out-of-touch, warmongering and anti-working-class establishment – and that the Left Party (Die Linke) does not sufficiently live up to this claim. But the BSW is not an alternative for workers.
Problem #1: Conforming for government posts
The party itself has already shown how little voters can hope for a change in policy via the BSW. Within a very short time, the BSW has found its way into two state governments, in Thuringia it is even in coalition with the conservative CDU. How a policy for the so-called ordinary people is to be made with pro-capitalist parties, such as the CDU and SPD, remains Sahra Wagenknecht’s secret. The BSW Bundestag (federal parliament) member Sevim Dağdelen went the whole hog and described the coalition agreements in Brandenburg and Thuringia as ‘historic’. But the clear positions demanded by the BSW against arms deliveries did not even make it into the agreements; only in Brandenburg is there explicit criticism of the stationing of US medium-range missiles in the agreement. Apart from such symbolic sentences, which all parties involved interpret differently anyway, the coalition agreements are just as unambitious as those of previous state governments when it comes to concrete social improvements. Concrete measures mainly involve tightening the way refugees are treated. As always, all measures are subject to funding. The BSW is thus proving that it is in no way inferior to the reformists and coalitionists in the Left Party when it comes to willingness to adapt and will participate in governments that, at best, leave social conditions as bad as they are and, at worst, are willing to accept cuts and deteriorations. This is a recipe for voter disappointment and thus for a potential strengthening of the AfD.
Problem #2: Turning away from self-organisation and class struggle
A central question for any party is how it intends to enforce its demands. The BSW rightly demands a minimum wage of 15 euros; taxation of large fortunes or an end to state-financed arms deliveries. But the BSW does not rely on social struggles and movements, on protests and strikes or on the self-organisation of workers, unemployed or young people in trade unions, tenant networks, the anti-war movement or political parties to achieve this.
The BSW leadership gives sympathisers the impression: if you vote for us, distribute our material and donate to us, we will do the rest for you. There is no question of the BSW being a democratic member-based party or actively building resistance in workplaces, neighbourhoods, schools and universities. Yet class struggle from below and self-organisation are the central means for improvements in the interests of the working majority. All the achievements of recent years, including the introduction of the minimum wage, staffing levels in hospitals or the (short-lived) Berlin rent freeze, were the result of pressure from social struggles and trade union and political mobilisations.
Even the doors of the BSW are anything but open to interested people. Admission is strictly limited and the federal executive committee rules from above. When there was a dispute with the Thuringian chairwoman Katja Wolf about the draft coalition agreement, the national executive committee (presumably to shift the balance of power) unceremoniously accepted 21 new members without consulting the local state organisation and, according to media reports, the party grew by a third within a few days. A bureaucratically controlled electoral organisation is not an instrument for fundamentally changing society.
Problem #3: Wrong and dangerous positions on migration and the unemployed
A central problem is the BSW’s position on the migration issue. In this regard, the party has been singing from the same hymn sheet as the established parties and the AfD in recent months. Sahra Wagenknecht, in particular, has played a pioneering role in attributing the causes of social ills, violence and crime in the country to the influx of migrants – as she has repeatedly done in recent years.
In doing so, she is abetting the government’s diversionary manoeuvre: they want to blur responsibility for a dilapidated infrastructure, a severe shortage of affordable housing, the state of the health and education systems and a lack of investment. The blame for this lies not with refugees, but with the government, which has made policy for banks and corporations but not for the working people in recent decades. Secondly, the BSW conveys a false picture of the actual number of refugees coming here or, for example, of the extent to which violence (including terror) and crime can be traced back to refugees and migrants, and – above all – that it is primarily social causes that drive violence and crime.
Sahra Wagenknecht’s statements against recipients of social benefit and her demands for even more sanctions follow a similar pattern, because in doing so she places the unemployed under general suspicion of enjoying themselves at the expense of the general public.
This attitude leads to workers and the unemployed, or migrants and those born here, being played off against each other, racist attitudes increase and the established parties are more successful in presenting scapegoats for the social problems they have helped to organise. It is the old motto ‘divide and rule’ that hinders what is really necessary: the common struggle for social improvements and against a capitalist system, regardless of origin and skin colour, which threatens the security, standard of living and future of all of us.
It is disappointing that former Lefty Party members in the BSW do not contradict this course, but it shows who is in charge of the party. The BSW claims that this course will weaken the AfD. The state elections in East Germany have shown that this is doubtful. Instead of adapting to AfD rhetoric and argumentation, it would be necessary to build a consistently left opposition to pro-capitalist politics – in parliament and outside with social movements and trade unions and without compromising on anti-racist and internationalist principles. However, the BSW is taking a different course.
Problem #4: Utopia expert government and social capitalism
The BSW has taken a big step away from the idea that it takes a fundamentally different society beyond capitalism and a change to a socialist democracy. This is a deterioration compared to the Left Party, which has not yet given up this claim. By wanting to make capitalism more social and peaceful, the BSW spreads illusions.
The BSW proposal of a ‘cabinet of experts’ made up of ‘integrous, knowledgeable and incorruptible personalities’ who ‘have the backbone to enforce the interests of the majority even against powerful interest groups’ may at first glance sound appealing and like a breath of fresh air. But all experience in other countries with such technocratic governments, which in case of doubt are subject to even fewer democratic control mechanisms, shows that they do not stop making pro-capitalist policies – no matter how noble the CVs of the protagonists read. In the euro crisis, such governments in Italy and Greece were instruments for neoliberal austerity policies.
The conservative politician Horst Seehofer once spoke the truth (probably without realising it) when he said about the political system in this country: ‘Those who decide are not elected and those who are elected have nothing to decide’. We live in a capitalist society in which the important decisions are made by or in the interests of the economically powerful, the big corporations, corporate and bank owners, and whose motivation is profit maximisation. As long as the big banks and corporations are not in democratically controlled and managed public ownership and the economy is not planned democratically according to needs, the working population will be at the mercy of the power of banks and corporations. The capitalist ownership and power relations result in the ongoing struggle of workers against wage theft, job destruction, restriction of democratic rights, etc.
The BSW does not want to fundamentally question the ‘constraints’ of the market and the logic of profit. Sahra Wagenknecht wants to pursue policies for ‘the ordinary people’ and for (German) companies – against international competition, especially from the USA. She is propagating a return to a supposedly idyllic past, with a strong German economy and a ‘social market economy’ in which capitalists and workers benefit equally. This is an illusion that will be shattered by the multiple global crises of capitalism. International competition inevitably leads to an intensification of social antagonisms, as the example of VW shows. What is needed is a consistent policy, for example, to save all jobs without workers having to make sacrifices and at the expense of the capital owners. This will not be possible within the framework of this system, even if the necessary production changes are made to produce useful goods. Global problems cannot be solved on the basis of capitalism or purely national changes. Not only to tackle climate change, but also in the fight against poverty, war and oppression, we need international cooperation and joint resistance from workers, trade unions, the anti-war movement, etc., as well as the realisation that this system must be overcome.
Left-wing voters and the fight for a new workers’ party
The ‘traffic light’ national government has also failed in the face of the daily growing demands of capital representatives for a so-called ‘economic turnaround’. By this they mean drastic attacks on the rights and living standards of the working people, tax breaks for capitalists, etc. A probable Merz government would try to go further than the ‘traffic light’ coalition, push ahead with militarisation and turn agitation against refugees and recipients of social benefit into laws. In some municipalities and federal states, the fight against social cuts is already underway.
This makes it all the more important that there is a left-wing opposition in the next Bundestag that stands against all social cuts, every form of armament and militarisation, and attacks on the socially disadvantaged. The BSW will not be that. Despite all its limitations, mistakes and adaptation to the SPD and the Greens, the Sol therefore calls for voting for the Left Party. A Bundestag without the Left Party would shift the political balance of power in the Federal Republic to the disadvantage of the working people and the socially disadvantaged.
Nevertheless, the Left Party is not what is actually needed. Sol believes that there needs to be a debate about what contribution the Left Party can make in the future – together with other forces from trade unions and social movements!– to the creation of a mass party of workers and young people with a socialist programme, which is so urgently needed to represent the interests of the working class and change society. Sol wants to contribute to this, discuss the necessary lessons from the party’s decline (especially with regard to government participation with the SPD and Greens and the focus on parliamentary work) and strengthen Marxist ideas, because these are crucial to achieving socialist change.
This does not mean waiting for such a party – especially in times when cuts and job losses are on the agenda. What is needed instead is joint resistance from all left-wing and trade union organisations and those affected. If the BSW claims to make politics for the ‘ordinary people’, it should prove it in such struggles and be part of them.