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Social Democratic catastrophe in Germany paves the way for right-wing Coalition

Martin Suchanek

The formation of the next German government is now only a question of formalities. Even the new government’s programme, leaving aside the inevitable horse trading of coalition formation, is a certainty. It will be a right-wing government committed to a swingeing attack on the working class on a scale that has not been seen since the consolidation of postwar capitalism in the early 1950s.

Why did the Christian Democrats and Liberals win?

The two previous governments, the so-called “Red-Green” coalition of the Social Democrats and the Greens as well as the “Grand Coalition” with the Christian Democrats, in a certain sense, prepared the way with Agenda 2010, the Hartz laws and the wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. Under both governments, the trade union leaders defended “their” government rather than the interests of workers. For years, but particularly during the crisis, they made sure that the effects of the crisis on the working class were softened through measures such as short term working so that the really big massacre of jobs was postponed and will now be carried out under the Christian Democrat-Liberal government.

As a result of this, however, the ruling class gained a new self-confidence. The increase in votes for the Liberals and the strengthening of the right wing, openly neo-liberal, wing of the CDU during the election, and the clear preference of all the employers’ organisations for the new coalition is a clear signal: they want a government committed to a general offensive!

The gains for the Liberals are a huge boost for a party that presented a clear profile. More than any other party, it stood for neo-liberalism and deregulation, that is, for a policy that, while it did not originate in the historic crisis of the system, was certainly demanded by it. The party stands for the poverty of the billions and the wealth of the billionaires.

Even though the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) saw a 3% decline in their vote and are now licking their wounds, their leaders are celebrating the victory of the new coalition in the wake of the Liberals. The minister president of Lower Saxony, Wulff, announced that there is now a ” CDU pure” from which the Liberals will not find it so easy to distance themselves. Alongside a programme for strengthening the monopolies and German imperialism (the EU, Afghanistan) that will be implemented sharply but seamlessly, the new government will take up the slogan of “lower taxes”. In the future, this rallying cry, which had been monopolised by the Liberals, will be taken up by the whole government as a means of justifying a dramatic redistribution from the poor to the rich, possibly prettified by some tax breaks for the better off among the middle layers.

The historic catastrophe of the SPD

That the Christian Democrats and Liberals could once again win a majority in a period of historic crisis of capitalism appears at first sight to be a paradox. Shouldn’t these parties that made a mess of administering the existing system and stand most clearly for a market economy (whether that is “social”, “new social” or ” pure”) at least be “punished” as much as the SPD?

The truth is that elections are not a barometer of justice but of power relationships and the formation of classes and class alliances. What the elections show is that the ruling class used the crisis to form a new block that did not need the SPD in the long-term. It is very different for the working class.

The SPD had no answer to the crisis except to call for a “national effort” and a few more “regulations” on the financial markets. But, once it had itself put the banks back on their feet and, with help of the trade union leaders, made sure there was no militant response from the factories, the Moor had done his work; Steinmeier, Steinbruck and company could go, either to the opposition benches or onto the executive boards of various companies (perhaps Magna will make an offer).

It would be difficult to overestimate the scale of the SPD’s disaster. Since 1998, the party has lost half of its electors: from around 20 million (40.9%) down to 10 million (22.9%). Only some 23% of the unemployed and 18% of the first-time voters voted SPD. Among workers and salaried staff, the figures were between 24 and 21%. Only among pensioners was the SPD above average: and that was a miserable 29%. The much lower turnout in comparison to 2005 was the result, above all, of SPD voters deserting their party but not transferring to other parties. Compared to 2005, 2 million SPD voters stayed at home. The origin of the crisis is not difficult to see: participation in government since 1998, from the “Red-Green” through to the “Grand Coalition”, has weakened and undermined the basis of the SPD in the working class and even in the trade unions.

Through 10 years in government the SPD has governed itself to self-destruction. Now the party is facing ruin – and it fully deserves it! Any compassion for their plight would be misplaced. On the contrary, the time when the SPD had a monopoly over the organised working class is coming to an end. There are no grounds for expecting a rapid recovery. That is already shown by the threat of making Steinmeier the Leader of the Opposition. But this will lead to a crisis in the SPD and, almost more importantly, to a crisis in the relationship between the SPD and the trade unions. This will become particularly clear if there is a full-scale attack on the organised working class in the coming months.

The success and strategy of the Left Party

We should warn against drawing the wrong lessons from the bankruptcy of the SPD. The Left, especially Lafontaine, maintained that the SPD could have been spared their crisis had the Red-Green coalition followed his policy, and not that of Schroeder, since 1998. Perhaps then there would have been no need for The Left Party. At first sight that may seem plausible and many disillusioned Social Democrats agree with it. However, what is more important is that the leadership of the Left Party has the strategic aim of using the next period of government as a preparation for an alliance for a “new politics” and the “re-social democratisation” of the SPD.

This is based on the idea that the SPD, if forced to the left, could become a partner for a “reform government” at the federal level. Evidence for this comes from the Saarland where a coalition of the SPD, Left Party and Greens is a real possibility, depending on the decision of the Greens. In Thuringia and Brandenburg there could also soon be SPD-Left Party governments at provincial level. However, the SPD’s politics did not fail because they administered the state apparatus and governmental power badly, as the leaders of the Left Party like to think. Even a bourgeois reform policy, and the left Keynesianism of a Lafontaine is nothing more than that, is severely restricted within capitalism. Those restrictions are the pre-conditions needed by capital to make profits.

In the period of the “economic miracle” it was possible to combine increased profits with increased wages as well as the building of the “welfare state” on the basis of unusually advantageous conditions for a relatively long period. The origins of this were the highly beneficial circumstances for West German capital in the 1950s and 60s. However, that period is long gone. Profit rates sank from the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Seventies. Most sectors have been dominated by overproduction, even during globalisation.

In this phase, speculation on the financial markets became a means of preventing the tendencies to crisis within capitalism coming to the surface by pumping surplus capital into the money markets and thereby artificially increasing global demand. The politics of “social reform”, however, were no longer possible in this period, that is, during the time of the Red-Green government. Whether they liked it or not, the SPD had to introduce “counter reforms” if they wanted to stay in government.

The bourgeois state, as Lafontaine found out to his own cost, cannot simply be used to the advantage of this or that social interest. It is the state of Capital and will and must act as such. There is nothing to be gained from yet another purely parliamentary reform government which tries for the hundredth time to make the state act as a balance between rich and poor, wage labour and capital. This is the lesson that must be drawn from the SPD disaster. A new edition of the SPD’s politics by The Left will ultimately bring no other results than it did for the SPD.

The crisis is still there

We are by no means at the end of the historic crisis of capitalism. Even if there is some return to economic growth, the costs of the crisis still have to be paid. The votes for The Left (and partly also the abstentions among SPD voters) in any case show that the Grand Coalition offered no perspective for the working class and that the SPD has bankrupted itself.

For millions of workers, The Left offered a means to express their rejection of neoliberalism and, to some extent, of the existing system as a whole, and also their preparedness to fight. Within the working class, The Left has seriously challenged the monopoly of the SPD. Among the unemployed, The Left overtook the SPD to become the strongest party with about 26%. At 18%, their support among blue-collar workers was also above-average. They have undoubtedly also increased their share amongst trade union members. Thus The Left have clearly emerged strengthened from the elections. Now, however, they have to be tested in practice in the struggle against the new government. It is not enough to talk about minimum wages, justice and safeguarding jobs; one now has to fight for them! It is not enough to cuddle up to the trade union leaders when all too often the same people are agreeing to “social plans” and redundancies in the factories. It is not enough to demand the right to take general strike action, now one has to fight for it by preparing and leading it.

In this respect, the statements by the leading politicians and functionaries of The Left after the polls closed were anything but positive. There was much talk of the need to “re-socialdemocratise” the SPD. In Brandenburg, the SPD was repeatedly called on to form a coalition with The Left. Lafontaine said that the Left wanted to make more use of the Federal Council, that is the second chamber, to stop the new government. How exactly that is to be done when there is a majority of the CDU/CSU and FDP he did not explain.

Even if there were a majority of SPD, Greens and The Left in the second chamber it would be grossly negligent to rely on the “determination” of such an “opposition”. Did not Lafontaine himself once, as “Leader of the Opposition” in the second chamber, vote for the “asylum compromise”, in effect, the annulment of the asylum right?

How to build the resistance

What is most noteworthy, however, was what the leaders of the Left Party chose not to deal with, namely the question how the future government is to be fought on the streets, in the factories and in the universities and schools. That, however, will be the decisive question in the coming months in the struggle against the threatened mass redundancies, social cuts and the billions to be cut from the budgets of local government. Against a general offensive, only a generalised political struggle can win! For that we need a plan for mobilisations and struggle that should be discussed and decided upon at the German Social Forum in October, at the conference of the Trade Union Left (October 31/November 1) and at the Anti-Crisis Alliance in November. The Left must show its colours! We propose the following demands, actions and perspectives:

Against all sackings! For a 30 hour week with full pay and no redundancies! Share out the work under workers’ control!

For a sliding scale of wages and benefits against inflation!

For a minimum wage of €11 per hour! Down with the Hartz laws and pensions at 67! Unemployment benefit and minimum wage for pensioners of €1600 per month, financed out of a progressive tax on wealth and capital!

No to the “rescue packages” and programmes for the capitalists! Open the books and accounts to workers’ inspection!

Expropriate the banks without compensation, fuse them into a single state bank under workers’ control!

Expropriate the corporations under workers’ control, beginning with those firms that cut wages or post redundancies!

Factory occupations, blockades and strikes up to a general strike!

Build action committees and local anti-crisis alliances and coordinate them nationally and internationally!

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