10.01.2008

Should the left manage capitalism?

Uli Franke, a candidate for Die Linke in the Hessian city of Darmstadt, spoke to Tina Becker about the pressure to govern, the new tendencies emerging in the organisation and the need for more debate

In the regional elections in the German federal state of Hesse on January 28, the newly formed party, Die Linke, could again play kingmaker: according to the latest polls, the ruling coalition of the Christian Democratic Union and Free Democrats could only be ousted by the combined forces of the Social Democratic Party, Greens and Die Linke. SPD chief Andrea Ypsilanti still rules out a coalition with the left - but the SPD and Die Linke already govern together in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. There, Die Linke has been strongly criticised for its support for privatisations, cuts and the introduction of the so-called one-euro jobs for the long-term unemployed. Uli Franke, a candidate for Die Linke in the Hessian city of Darmstadt, spoke to Tina Becker about the pressure to govern, the new tendencies emerging in the organisation and the need for more debate.

You have been involved in leftwing politics for almost 15 years, but this is the first time you have joined a political party. Why?

For six years, I was heavily involved in student politics and have since worked in a lot of networks, small local groups and single-issue campaigns. This kind of work will remain crucial and important in the future. But there is a problem of continuity and impact with this kind of political activity. In my experience, such loosely organised groups can almost never go beyond a certain size and influence.

With the foundation of Die Linke, we have a real chance to build a party ‘of a new type’. A party that works with those campaigns and networks without trying to crudely run or simply dominate them. I will continue to be involved in that kind of work, but I feel the time has come to join with people who share my political ideas and visions on a wider scale.

You are a candidate for Die Linke in this month’s regional elections. This is the first time that former members of the Wahlalternative Arbeit und Soziale Gerichtigkeit (mainly set up by ex-SDP members) and L.PDS (successor of the ‘official’ party in the east) are standing together locally - and it hasn’t all been plain sailing, has it?

There were advanced plans for both organisations to stand together in the local elections in Darmstadt in March 2006. Back then, Die Linke did not yet exist as a unified party and our local joint candidature was supposed to be the prime example for the rest of the country. But things started to go pear-shaped. We ended up standing against each other and the L.PDS got two members elected into the local parliament. The WASG’s only elected representative, Michael Siebert (who was once deputy mayor of Darmstadt as a member of the Greens), has since decided to act as an ‘independent’ in parliament without links to any organisation.

I mainly blame comrades from the WASG for this and if I had known that we would end up standing against each other, I would not have agreed to be a candidate. There was massive resistance against a joint candidature within that organisation locally and nationally. They charged the PDS with acting in an unprincipled way and carrying out a neoliberal programme in the coalition governments in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. And many people left the WASG when it became clear that the leadership was pushing for unification on a national level - a unification in which they expected the WASG to be the junior partner.

In the L.PDS, on the other hand, there were quite a few people who were critical of WASG. They pointed out how deeply entrenched many of the WASG leaders are in social democracy and how anti-communism is alive and well in that organisation.

Neither side was wrong, of course!

Quite. And a strange dynamic developed, in which loyalty to your ‘own’ organisation was stronger than the recognition that actually there were similar political tendencies in both organisations - on the left and the right.

Locally, for example, there are to my knowledge no serious political fault lines between the two organisations. The only thing I can think of is a minor dispute with former L.PDS comrades over how finances are handled and expenses paid.

Sure, there are a few differences when it comes to political practice and in my view WASG members come up with more ideas on how to build a new and different kind of party. And there was a dispute when one of our elected candidates decided at the last minute not to run after all. He thought Die Linke was not fighting for socialist or communist ideas and that many comrades are simply gagging to return to social democracy. But he is absolutely wrong. He has misunderstood the political character of the organisation.

This misunderstanding might be based on the fact that the word ‘socialism’ is not mentioned in the Hesse election programme …

It is a very realistic programme, I give you that. But most of the people who represent Die Linke in parliament and many of those who are employed by them come from communist, socialist or Trotskyist backgrounds. And “democratic socialism” is mentioned as a political aim in the national programme of Die Linke.

However, we do need more debates around these types of basic questions. Since the day Die Linke was founded, there has been one election after the other. This welds people together, but it doesn’t leave much time for debate. We need to find out where our differences and agreements are. But, from what I can see, the political fault lines go through both organisations.

And they are now starting to cohere on a national level. I understand that there are a number of new internal tendencies.

For a start, there is the Socialist Left, of which I am a member. This consists mainly of the former members of Linksruck [the Socialist Worker Party’s German section, which officially disbanded a few months ago], left trade unionists and some independent socialists. We have about 500 members nationally and were formally constituted as a tendency a couple of weeks ago. I know of your criticism of the SWP’s practice in Britain. But in my view, Die Linke would be a lot poorer if it wasn’t for these comrades’ input. In my experience, this kind of bureaucratic and hierarchical behaviour is more common in the small Trotskyist organisation, Der Funke [which is linked to Alan Wood’s Socialist Appeal and whose members are also involved in Die Linke].

Probably because the ex-Linksruck comrades are in a clear minority.

I don’t know. I get on very well with them. Our slogan is ‘Radical and realistic’. We exist in order to discuss what socialism is, what steps could be taken towards socialism, and how we want to bring this discussion into the party.

Then there is the Emancipatory Left, with whom we work together quite often and share similar viewpoints, especially on the question of civil liberties. However, where I strongly disagree with them is on the demand for a ‘basic income’ [Grundeinkommen - a long-standing demand of the L.PDS]. Of course I’m not arguing against the demand that nobody should live in poverty. But the EL seems to think that introducing such a basic income for everybody could be a way around the need to abolish capitalism. That socialism could be introduced through the back door, through such legislation. And this is a point on which the Socialist Left firmly disagrees. It is an illusion to believe that the ruling class would simply stand by and allow such a ‘peaceful transition’ to socialism.

There also is the Anti-Capitalist Left, in which the Communist Platform of the L.PDS is involved in leading positions. They tend to bark up the wrong tree a lot, in my view. Often, all they do is to criticise capitalism in the strongest possible terms and insist that the word ‘socialism’ appear as many times as possible in the party’s literature. But there is no link between that goal and how to get there.

… and most members of the Communist Platform have a pretty soft view of ‘real existing socialism’ in East Germany and the Soviet Union.

Yes, but not all members of the Anti-Capitalist Left hold that view and I think we could in the future work together in a lot of areas.

Then, last but not least, there is the Forum of Democratic Socialists, which is mainly based in Berlin and the east. The comrades are polemically dubbed Regierungssozialisten (government socialists). A number of leading members of the old L.PDS are involved in this network, which exists mainly to cohere the regional party’s involvement in the coalition government - which I am very critical of.

I would not be surprised if quite soon - after more political discussions within the party - those political tendencies break open and the political fault lines shift. You have to remember that this is a very new organisation. At our launch conference in June 2007 many people didn’t even know who the candidates for the leadership were, for example. We haven’t had time to grow together organically and cohere politically.

I am surprised that Die Linke still hasn’t got a newspaper where such questions could be discussed. In my view, this would help immensely to weld the party together and provide it with a strong weapon.

Some of the organised groups in the party publish their own material. Former Linksruck members, for example, run the website, www.marx21.de, and a magazine of the same name, but this is obviously not a publication for the whole party and I would be surprised if the print run is bigger than 1,000. The parliamentary fraction publishes a newspaper, but it is not the kind of newspaper I think would be necessary. We’re not there yet.

The L.PDS in its 17-year existence did not publish a newspaper, so it won’t happen automatically.

I wasn’t aware of that. However, in the meantime there is Junge Welt [www.jungewelt.de; formerly the newspaper of the Freie Deutsche Jugend, the youth organisation of the ruling East German SED. It was privatised in 1990, closed down in 1995, then relaunched as a cooperative and is now owned by just over 600 private shareholders]. It does a very useful job in critiquing Die Linke from the left.

A good example where open debate would have been useful is the ongoing strike of the GDL train drivers union. It took more than six months before Die Linke finally issued a statement in support of the strike in November.¹

It was and is a difficult political question and I have somewhat changed my mind about it too. Many people don’t agree with the GDL’s aim of organising only one section of the working class and breaking apart the unity of the workers. It is hardly a beacon of leftwing organisation or a natural ally of ours. But in my opinion we have to look at this in a more dialectical way. The DGB [TUC] has for years clearly failed to negotiate decent wages and working conditions for train drivers. You can’t blame them now for taking separate action to push harder for their interests. If they lose their strike now after so many months, it would negatively affect the outcome of many actions to come.

If they win, on the other hand, it could force or encourage the DGB to fight for their members in a more militant way. The DGB has so far acted in a quite disgraceful way and has - sometimes explicitly, sometimes less so - told their organisers and members not to show any solidarity with the strikers. I had a real run-in with the regional leader of the DGB on this question at a recent election hustings.

Die Linke in Hesse might be in a difficult situation after the elections in January, as the organisation could mathematically prevent the continuation of the government coalition of CDU and FDP. But the examples of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern show in my view that the left should stay well clear of attempts to manage capitalism.

I would really prefer if that wasn’t one of the possible outcomes of the election. There will have to be more debate about this question, but at the moment our official position is that a change of colour won’t lead to a change of politics. The situation in Berlin is a good example of that. For us to get involved in any coalition government, the SPD and Greens would have to change their politics to a tremendous degree. In my view, that would include fighting for the introduction of a minimum wage, the reversal of privatisations and the introduction of legislative initiatives to reverse the raising of the retirement age to 67 and abolish the Hartz IV laws [which include one-euro jobs for the long-term unemployed].

Then there is, of course, the SPD’s outrageous support for German troops to remain stationed in so-called ‘conflict areas’. I am not sure yet if this should be one of the political fault lines when it comes to discussing our possible involvement in a government coalition in Hesse - on a national level it would be a crucial question, of course. We need more debate on this.

But if the SPD and the Greens were to take on board all of our key demands, we would be in a really difficult situation. We would have to explain to a lot of people who voted for us why we were preventing a change of government if we didn’t join a coalition.

But it won’t come to this, I’m sure. Firstly, the SPD leader Andrea Ypsilanti has declared she will “fight like a lion” against us and secondly, they simply won’t accept our demands. After all, it is the national coalition government, which includes the SPD, that has introduced most of the things we are fighting against.

The most realistic and preferable outcome, and one that many people in the Socialist Left support, is for Die Linke to support a minority government of SPD and Greens. In that case, we would not be responsible for the continuation of the conservative administration.

But you would be responsible for what the new government does. Which minimum demands would you put forward?

This support should in our view be unconditional. As soon as you start discussing demands, you are already responsible, you are already covered in crap. But you can’t actually make any changes for the better. A lot of people feel uneasy about this proposal of unconditional support and I can understand where they are coming from.

However, there are also others in Die Linke who criticise this position from the other spectrum: they think we should throw ourselves enthusiastically into a government coalition. I disagree.

In any case, before Die Linke can enter any government on a local, regional or national level, the members will have to be consulted in a ballot, as outlined in our new constitution. In my estimate, the vast majority of members in Hesse would only consider government participation if there was a real, clear change of political direction.

But our party was not founded to chase ministerial posts and I hope we will not be put in that situation in the near future. First, we have to change the political atmosphere in the country and help the working class, democrats and left forces to cohere and gather strength and influence. Then we would be in a totally different situation.

Notes

1. German train drivers can currently earn a maximum of €2,142 per month (£1,593) plus €300 for overtime. The train drivers union GDL, which organises almost 80% of all drivers and 33% of all train staff, is not part of the Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB), the equivalent of the TUC (which does include other rail unions). In 2002, the GDL left Transnet, the joint association with the DGB, which negotiated for better working conditions and higher wages for all  train staff. The GDL now demands a 30% wage increase and, crucially, a separate collective wage agreement for train drivers with the Deutsche Bahn, the company that runs German railways.