Germania, partiti, sinistra Wsws 06-03-09
Emergono divisioni nel partito della sinistra tedesca
Lucas Adler
Tesi: Linke e WSAG possono proporsi come alternativa di “sinistra”
solo se non assumono responsabilità di governo.
WASG-Like.PDS: liste
comuni o separate per elezioni prossimo settembre per governo regionale di Berlino
e Mecklemburgo-Pomerania, dove Linke.PDS
è al governo con la SPD?
Berlino: 91 delegati
WASG su 142l favorevoli a liste indipendenti (WASG = Alternativa elettorale per
l’Occupazione e la Giustizia Sociale). La decisione che deve esse ratificata dal
voto di tutti gli 820 membri di Berlino.
Mecklemburgo-Pomerania:
WASG pone come condizione a liste comuni l’uscita di Linke dal governo
regionale, dove forma una coalizione con la SPD.
Linke ha risposto arrestando il processo di fusione previsto
per 2007.
Berlino: SPD-PDS hanno messo in atto tagli di bilancio per
€260 000; negli ultimi 4 anni tagliati 15 000 posti di lavoro nel PI.
Nel gennaio 2003, il Senato di Berlino (è il nome dato al
governo regionale) ha abbandonato l’associazione dei datori di lavoro locali
per non essere costretto ad accettare un accorso salariale elaborato dal
sindacato del PI Ver.di; ha imposto tagli salariali del 8-12%.
Il tasso di disoccupazione ufficiale a Berlino è del 18,6%;
oltre 530 000 abitanti sotto la soglia di povertà di €600 mese.
Mecklemburgo-Pomerania: vi sono i salari più bassi di tutta
la Germania Est; il 41% degli occupati non ha un contratto, è il tasso più alto dell’Est.
Il tasso di disoccupazione ufficiale è del 22,1%; con la
coalizione SPD-PDS il numero di coloro che dipendono dai sussidi pubblici è
aumentato da 6000 a circa 70 000.
WASG ha cercato di ignorare questi fatti a livello nazionale,
non è altrettanto facile localmente.
Secondo il protocollo parlamentare tedesco, i deputati di
due organizzazioni che si sono unite possono formare un gruppo parlamentare
unico solo se i due partiti non competono tra loro a livello regionale.
La maggioranza del gruppo parlamentare di Linke è costituita
da ex PDS; ma se i deputati WASG, che hanno ottenuto il mandato ponendosi nella
lista dell’ex PDA, rischiassero di perdere
il posto si sposterebbero con Linke.
La maggior parte dei membri WASG di Berlino e Mecklemburgo-Pomerania
sono ex PDS. WASG è stata creata come nuova edizione social-riformista; il suo ruolo
è quello di raccogliere gli elettori disincantati con SPD ed evitare che rompano
con il social-riformismo.
Wsws 06-03-09
Divisions
emerge in Germany’s
Left Party
By Lucas Adler
On February 25, members of the Berlin Election
Alternative for Employment and Social Justice
– (WASG) decided by a large
majority to stand independent candidates
in the Berlin
state government elections to be held September 17. The decision is a slap
in the face for the Left Party, which is in the process of fusing with the WASG
and proposes to stand its own candidates in the Berlin election.
The
Left Party came into being at a congress in July 2005 when the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism—successor to the ruling Stalinist
party of East Germany) renamed itself and opened up its ranks to
members of the Election Alternative, which is based mainly in the west of Germany.
Of the 142 delegates at the WASG convention in Berlin, 91
voted in favor of the resolution for
a separate candidacy from the Left Party. The decision must be now ratified by a vote of the WASG’s total membership of 820 in
Berlin,
to be decided by March 7.
A similar issue arose in the eastern
German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where
the regional organization of the WASG
resolved that any joint candidacy of the WASG and the Left Party in state
elections was dependent on the
Left Party quitting the state government, where it governs in coalition with the SPD (Social Democratic Party).
A final decision on the question is to be taken at a conference of
state members of the WASG at the beginning of April.
– The Left Party reacted in both states by immediately putting a halt
to the fusion discussions aimed at uniting the two
organizations by the year 2007. The chairman of Berlin branch of the
Left Party, Klaus Lederer, accused the Berlin WASG of “bailing out of the
project for a new Left Party,” and his party colleague Kay Spiess, speaking
on behalf of the Left Party in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, stated: “We can
no longer continue discussions with one another on this basis.”
The national
chairman of the Left Party, Lothar Bisky, urged that WASG members not let
political differences stand in the way of an alliance of the two organizations.
Speaking on German radio, he warned that local
opposition to a united Left Party comprising the Party of Democratic
Socialism and the WASG would damage the
national project and weaken the left in Germany.
The background to the dispute
is the thoroughly right-wing policies of
the Left Party in the two German states where it shares power. In both Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania, the Left Party/PDS governs in a coalition with the SPD, and in both
states it has played a prominent role in far-reaching attacks on the working
class.
In
Berlin, the
SPD-PDS coalition has made its priority the
implementation of drastic budget cuts at the expense of the population as a
whole. Over the last four years,
it has cut more than 15,000 jobs in the
public service and slashed the state’s salary budget by more than 260,000 euros.
To ensure it would not have to
accept the terms of a wage agreement worked out by the public service union Verdi, the Berlin Senate decided in January 2003 to
withdraw from the association of local employers. The Senate was then able to impose wage cuts of between 8 and 12 percent.
Meanwhile, the official
unemployment rate in the German capital has risen to 18.6 percent, and over
530,000 citizens live below the official poverty level of 600 euros per month.
In
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the consolidation
of the state budget was also carried out at the expense of the living
standards of working families. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has the lowest wages of all the states in
eastern Germany.
In addition, 41 percent of
those working lack a proper labor contract—the highest rate in the east.
The official unemployment level is 22.1 percent,
and the number of people
dependent on welfare handouts has increased under the SPD-PDS coalition by approximately
6,000, to over 70,000.
On
a national level, the WASG has sought to studiously ignore such facts and present
the Left Party as some sort of social alternative, but for the regional organizations
in Berlin and
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania this task is not so easy.
Practically no one in these states would look upon the WASG as a possible
alternative to the official policy of welfare cuts if it went ahead with plans
to fuse with the discredited Left Party/PDS, which carries out precisely such
cuts.
Besides threatening the national plans
for fusion, the stance adopted by the two state WASG organizations endangers
the activities of the two organizations in the German parliament (Bundestag).
According to parliamentary
protocol, deputies from two organizations that have merged can create a joint
parliamentary faction only if the parties involved do not compete with one
another at the state level.
The majority of the Left Party
parliamentary faction is comprised of members of the former PDS, but there is
little doubt that if faced with the loss of their lucrative parliamentary
posts, the WASG deputies would switch their membership to the Left Party. In the event, the WASG deputies obtained their mandates in
national elections last autumn only by placing their names on a list of
candidates drawn up by the former PDS.
The deputy chairmen of the Bundestag factions of both the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) and the SPD have used the latest conflict to challenge
the right of WASG and Left Party deputies to their mandates. Wolfgang Bosbach
(CDU) declared that the Left Party could no longer use a special
arrangement to maintain the status of its parliamentary faction if the dispute
between the Left Party and WASG cold not be resolved. And Fritz Rudolf Körper (SPD)
told the Stüttgärter Nachrichten that there was no basis for a special
arrangement “because the two parties oppose one another in two states of the Federal Republic.”
In typical fashion, WASG leaders are
avoiding the political issues at the heart of the dispute. At the time of
its foundation, which was based on a break with the anti-welfare policies of
the SPD, the WASG likewise sought to obscure the underlying political issues. Now
the two state organizations of the WASG are indignant about the anti-social
policies of the Left Party, but are once again trying to avoid any broader
political discussion.
The reason for this is not difficult to
understand: Most of the members of the WASG state organizations in
Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are former members of the PDS.
Their behavior follows a definite political
logic. The rapid turn to the right by the SPD and the Left Party is a result of
the political bankruptcy of their perspective. Both parties base themselves
on social reformist conceptions which, under conditions of a globalised
economy, lead to one industrial location being played off against another. The
working class is exposed to a downward spiral of job-cuts and worsening working
and living conditions.
To the extent that the WASG follows the
same path, it merely continues this development ad absurdum. In a situation where broader layers
of the working class are turning away from the SPD because of its openly
anti-social policies, the WASG was created in a completely conscious manner as
a pale new edition of the same bankrupt policy of social reformism. Its role is to bring together
disenchanted and angry SPD voters and prevent them breaking with social
reformism and adopting a socialist orientation.
History has no place for yet another
political force which preaches the possibility of social reform. And so, just a
few months after its foundation, the WASG confronts an insoluble dilemma. As was the case with the Left Party,
the WASG can pose as a “left” alternative only when it does not assume
government responsibility. The more parliamentary influence the WASG
wins, the less able is it to prevent a break by the working class with social
reformism.