A semi-victory for the Kohl government THE DAY AFTER the elections to the West German parliament, the stockmarket in the second most powerful imperialist country plunged. Nonetheless, the conservative and bourgeois liberal parties the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) -- won the January 25 elections and once again formed the government. The "red and green chaos" feared by the West German bosses, that is, a majority for cies had begun to set in motion the machinery to respond in the necessary fashion. Work has already begun on organizing a march on Washington for next April 25, with a simultaneous action or actions on the West Coast, to demand an end to US intervention in Central America and an end to apartheid in South Africa.
These demonstrations will be the best response to the dirty business which has actually been going on for years behind the backs of the American people, but which has only now begun to be exposed.
It is not only the illegal contra aid that we want stopped - we want all contra aid stopped! And it is important to keep in mind that the activities of the US government would not be significantly different if some other capitalist politician besides Ronald Reagan were president. We know that the same kinds of activites went on under Democrats like John F Kennedy (Bay of Pigs), Lyndon Johnson (Vietnam) and Jimmy Carter (Iran) - not to mention other Republicans like Richard Nixon.
The revelation that US foreign policy is a cynical game of greed and murder and has nothing in common with the values of working people is a problem for the entire ruling class, not just for Reagan. Conversely, it is the working class - not its Democratic Party "friends" - who should respond to the current crisis.
If Reagan's presidency is the only casualty of this affair, then we will have missed our opportunity. Working people of the United States should do their best to turn this scandal into the unraveling of the entire bipartisan counter-revolutionary foreign policy of our government and use it as a strong argument in favor of a break by the labor movement from its policy of giving support to the capitalist politicians of the Democratic and Republican parties.
the social-democratic SPD and the WINFRIED WOLF
Another contradictory index of this election was that the mood in the left and in the factories and officies, among organized workers and activists in the various movements can be summed up in the phrase: "We were lucky again - we had feared much worse."
If you study the results of this election more closely, and look at it against the background of this country's political and economic development, you find enlightening explanations for these apparent contradictions.
Overall, the government parties -the CDU, CSU and FDP - got 53.4% of the vote and a corresponding majority of the seats in parliament. (In West Germany, there is a proportional representation law). The SPD got 37% and the Greens 8.3%.
If you add up the votes for the SPD and the Greens - which, as will be seen, is only a mathematical exercise without a lot of political mean. ing, then "red" and "green" parties together got 45.3% Thus, they missed a majority by exactly five percentage points. From this standpoint, the Kohl government's victory seems convincing.
The result looks different against the background of the previous elections and the general mood that has prevailed in the Federal Republic since the second half of 1986.
In September 1982, the 13-yearlong era of "Social-Liberal" governments formed by the SPD and the small liberal party, the FDP, came to an end, when under the pressure of big industrialists and banking circles the FDP changed coalition partners and formed a government together with the CDU/CSU.
Greens, had not come to pass.
In the March 1983 election, the CDU/CSU got exactly 56% of the vote. The SPD got 38.2%, and the Greens, 5.6%, getting into parliament for the first time. (West Germany maintains a 5% threshold for representation of parties in parliament.) This conservative electoral success was generally taken as a grave defeat by the left and the organized workers.
In the subsequent period, running up to mid-1986, there were a series of developments that fostered hopes that the Kohl government could be ousted in the 1987 parliamentary elections in favor of an SPD government that in one way or another would collaborate with the Greens.
The landmarks of this period were as follows:
* The Kohl government became involved in a series of scandals, the biggest of which was the discovery of massive operations by the big industrialist Flick and other capitalists and banking circles to influence the CDU, CSU and FDP.
In 1984, the biggest West German union, IG Metall, won an important victory with an agreement for a 38.5 hour workweek. That broke the bosses' and the government's taboo on shortening the 40-hour week.
* In 1985, when the Kohl government introduced a law designed to undermine the right to strike and got it through parliament, the unions staged successful mass mobilizations and political strikes, a new experience for the West German unions, which have suffered from a parliamentary fixation.
* For several years, the core of a new movement against nuclear
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International Viewpoint 23 February 1987
power plants developed around Wackersdorf in Bavaria. The concrete issue was the planned construction of a reprocessing facility. After the catastrophe in Chernobyl, anti-nuclear demonstrations developed throughout the country.
The deep political crisis into which the Kohl government had fallen, explained why, in 1985 and early 1986, the question of dumping Helmut Kohl as chancellor and replacing him with a less compromised figure was being more or less openly discussed in business circles, the bourgeois parties and in the government parties. (Most often named as a possible replacement was the finance minister, Gerhard Stoltenberg.) Neue Heimat scandal
In mid-1986, roughly a half a year before the parliamentary elections, there was a drastic alteration in mood. In this, essentially five factors were decisive. First, from mid-1986 on it was not possible to develop the movements I mentioned any further. They all dried up for various reasons. In particular, the union leaders were not prepared to pursue their campaign against the undermining of the right to strike after the question was finally settled in parliament. Instead, they pointed to the elections coming in January 1987.
In this attitude of the union leaders, a second factor played an important role. It was the scandal around the union-owned home-builders firm Neue Heimat, which had been Europe's biggest housing builder. Revelations in the media and by a parliament investigating committee showed that the managers of the concern had not only led the company into bankruptcy by unheard-of mismanagement and at the same time lined their own pockets. These managers also showed themselves incapable of removing the more and more dangerous financial burden that this concern represented from the unions.
After a shady sale of the building concern to a fly-by-night speculator, the creditor banks forced the unions to re-purchase the company, with its 17,000 million in debts (and an expected loss of 1,000 million marks for 1987 alone).
For obvious reasons, the government used this scandal to mount a large-scale campaign against the unions and the SPD. The social democrats were thrown completely on the defensive, and took a safe distance from the union bosses, all of whom held SPD party cards. 14
The right managed to use the Greens in its offensive. (For example, in the parliamentary investigating committee, the Greens voted together with the CDU/CSU for the arrest of the Neue Heimat manager Lappas, which took place during the congress of IG Metall in October 1986 in a big spash of publicity.)
Third, there was the position that the SPD had in effect taken in selecting Johannes Rau, with the program he represented, as its candidate for chancellor. It meant drawing a line against the Greens, an attempt to hold them under 5% and thereby keep them out of parliament. At the same time, it meant that the party was setting its sights on winning an absolute majority. In the given circumstances, such an objective -unique in West German history - was totally lacking in credibility. Moreover, a large section of the SPD base found the attempt to draw a line against the Greens to be sectarian.
With the SPD and its candidate, Rau declaring that under no circumstances would they agree after the election to collaborate with the Greens, the only conceivable parliamentary alternative to a CDU/CSU government - an SPD-Green majority - was ruled out. That discouraged a considerable part of the SPD's ranks and of its potential voters.
Fourth, like most other imperialist countries in 1983, West Germany experienced an economic upturn, even if modest. This coincided exactly with the life of the legislature under the conservative-liberal government, which it exploited to the fullest. The preceding crisis of 1980-82 was blamed on the social democrats, while the government took the credit for the upturn.
From mid-1986 until the election, extensive media campaign was mounted, backed up by various "expert opinions," which played up the modest results of this upturn and pushed the idea that a conservative victory in January 1987 would mean that the upturn would continue.
Fifth, in the fall of 1986, the SPD suffered massive vote losses in two state parliamentary elections (in Bavaria and Hamburg) that were already being looked on as tests for the coming Bundestag election. It was absolutely clear that there was no chance that the SPD could get a majority of its "own". But the SPD leadership only stuck to its tactic and to drawing a line against the Greens.
Hamburg, where they lost their former majority but had the possibility of forming a majority with the Greens (the Green-Alternative List, the GAL), they rejected collaboration with the Greens, and
Greens arrive in the Bundestag for the fi took the first serious steps in the direction of a "great coalition," that is, collaboration with the CDU. Precisely such a policy was attributed to candidate for chancellor Rau — permitting a continuation of the CDU/ CSU-led government, if the alternative was a "red-green" majority. Scare of "red-green" chaos
In this situation, the government parties went on the offensive in the fall of 1986. The CDU/CSU struck out on a line that went far to the right. Their key slogan in the final phase of the election campaign was "a future instead of red-green." Everywhere a scare was whipped up about "red-green chaos."
At the same time there were deliberate provocations aimed at inciting strong anti-communist moods, such as Kohl's likening of Gorbachev to Goebbels, and the claim that there are "concentration camps in East Germany." The CDU/CSU leaderships and a public opinion polling agency spread the claim that a landslide victory for the government coalition was a sure thing, that even an absolute majority for the CDU/CSU alone was conceivable.
In this situation, the liberal FDP appeared as insurance against a sweep by the CDU/CSU and an associated revival of the cold war, as a guarantee of a "rational" conservative government. Promptly, the big liberal week-
International Viewpoint 23 February 1987
e in 1983 (DR) lies, Der Spiegel and Stern, the only mass-circulation publications that supported the social-liberal coalition in the 1970s, came out for a vote for the FDP as the "lesser evil" in the event of a certain victory for the coalition government. If you consider that the readership of these publications is 4 to 5 million, and that the FDP got 9.1% of the vote, that is about 3.5 million votes, the importance of the stand they took becomes obvious.
Thus, the FDP was the only government party that managed to score a slight advance (an increase of 2.1%). The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, on the other hand, registered a loss of 4.5 percentage points. This was their worst result since the first Bundestag election in 1949, and fell even below their score in 1980, when Strauss bombed as a candidate for chancellor against Helmut Schmidt. Even if you look at it from the standpoint of the total vote for the government parties, the coalition lost 2.4 percentage points.
The drop of 1.2% for the SPD was less than expected. But this result also represented an historic low point - the party's lowest vote since 1961. The big winner on the left was the Greens. They managed to gain 2.7 percentage points over the 1983 election, thereby increasing their total vote by roughly half.
Along with CDU/SU's losses and the relative weakening of the parties as a whole, the Greens' vote is the result that prompted the feeling among the left and the organized workers that the outcome was "not so bad."
A more detailed study of the SPD and Green vote reveals the following facts:
The SPD suffered losses above all in the big cities where there is a prominent services sector and a concentration of administrative workers (such as Munich, Frankfurt and Stuttgart). Its sharp losses in Hamburg (-6.2%) can be attributed to its orientation toward a "great coalition" with the CDU.
On the other hand, in traditional industrial areas with high unemployment, the SPD gained. Throughout the Ruhr and in Saarland, the SPD increased its vote. This was most marked in solidly working-class voting districts. For the Ruhr, West Germany's industrial center, the results were the following: 54.2% for the SPD (+0.8%), 32.3% for the CDU (-4.3%), and 7% for the Greens (+2.1%).
Once again, the Greens scored their biggest wins in the university towns (such as Freiberg, Tubingen, Heidelberg, Munster), where in every case they came in second place, sometimes with more than 20% At the same time, they were able to increase their base among teachers and technical intellectuals and in the
* The results of a separate study of the voting behavior of trade-union members underscore the above observations. Out of the 7 million union members combined in the German Confederation of Unions (DGB), exactly 70% voted for the SPD, 22% for the CDU/CSU and a trace element for the FDP (around 1%). The Greens got about 8% of the union members votes. That means that their vote among trade-union members is still slightly below their percentage among all voters (8.3%).
The assertion that has often been made that the Greens have achieved significant success among workers, or among the most progressive sections, the organized workers, is therefore not tenable. It is true, on the other hand, that they are getting as high a percentage among organized workers as among the general population, attracting about a tenth of the vote that the SPD gets in this category. (1)
After the elections, the SPD made a screeching turn. The day after the election, the candidate for chancellor, Rau, already declared that his "task" was "ended," and that he "was not available for any new posts," which apparently meant that he is not a candidate to succeed Willy Brandt who will be retiring as SPD chair no later than 1988. At the same time, Oskar Lafontaine, the state premier of the Saar, said on the night of the election itself that the SPD rejection of an alliance with the Greens was a crucial error. At the same time, he indirectly announced his candidacy to be the next chancellor designate, or perhaps Willy Brandt's successor in the party chair.
Up until now Oskar Lafontaine has been seen as leader of the party's left wing. Already in 1979 he was the most important spokesperson of the SPD minority that opposed the NATO Double-Track Decision, that is the deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles. He argued for disengagement from nuclear energy production and is considered an opponent of NATO. Compromises of SPD's left leader
The London Economist of January 31, 1987, described Lafontaine as a politican "whose views shade easily into the pro-ecology, anti-nuclear and anti-NATO policies of the Greens." With the SPD "turning greenwards, the Social Democrats would startle Germany's allies.... ",
The next striking thing is how little resistance is being expressed within the SPD to Lafontaine's march to the top. The former candidate for chancellor, Rau, declared that his rejection of the Greens applied "only to this election," and there could soon be a change around. It is more the right-oriented state associations of the SPD, such as the Bavarian one, that are already declaring for Lafontaine as the next candidate for chancellor. Even big bourgeois papers are coming out for Lafontaine. Above all, they are stressing that the task of the SPD is now to draw the Greens into "mainstream politics."
In a debate with the Greens' representative Jutta Ditfurth in Der Spiegel of February 2, 1987, Lafontaine made an open offer of political collaboration and even coalitions with the Greens. Nevertheless, in the same discussion, on the three "sensitive" questions that the Economist cited, he made it clear that he is prepared to accept wide-ranging compromises in order both to hold the SPD right and to avoid frightening the bourgeoisie.
1. That is also partially true for the resistance to nuclear power plants. In the Schwandorf district of Bavaria, where Wackersdorf, the site of the planned rearoc pains of the local population side with processing is located, a considerthe opposition to this project. In this election, the SPD, which has also taken a strong position against the reprocessing plant, gained 6.7 percentage points, getting 32.7% of the vote. The CSU, previously overwhelmingly dominant, dropped from 65.3% in 1983 to 54.2%. The Greens were able to increase their vote from 3.9% to 5.6%, that is, less than proportionately.
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International Viewpoint 23 February 1987
Disengagement from nuclear power is to be aimed for only in the mediumterm. This can only be achieved when, apart from the Bonn parliament, there is a majority for it in the states, local governments and in the state energy company. This position reflects the conception of a "national consensus" that the SPD has officially adopted on this question.
The same goes for a reversal of the deployment of the Pershing II missiles. In the event of a red-green majority, the parliament is to "ask" the United States to withdraw these missiles. Lafontaine assumes that "a democracy like America will respect the decision of a parliament in another country."
The most interesting point is Lafontaine's retreat on the NATO question. While he was regarded in the early 1980s as an opponent of NATO, for some time he has been proposing a precise model "like France or Spain" - that is, membership of NATO but no military integration. Now, looking forward to his advancement, he formulated his position in the following way in the Der Spiegel interview mentioned above: "Out of NATO is not my position ... I consider NATO reformable - it goes without saying. I would like more sovereignty for West Germany."
And the Greens? Here the Economist's analysis largely fits: "They are deeply divided between a 'realistic wing, which favours some sort of links with the Social Democrats and the 'fundamentalists' who do not." The conclusion also can be agreed with: "if anything, this division hi ger and mode estabi ted party gets is becoming deeper as the
However, the speculation about this division leading to a split, which is naturally being indulged in in the SPD and the bourgeois camp, may prove premature. It is true that the proposal that the SPD is now making for the first time for red-green collaboration on the countrywide level will strengthen the "Realo" [realist] wing in the Greens on important political questions - above all the three mentioned before. It will now be tested how far the Greens will retreat from their positions and to what extent the "realist," that is, the right wing - which up until now has dominated the party's parliamentary fraction - can overcome the opposition of the "fundamentalists," who have been the majority in the party leadership. Red-green coalition experience
There is already some practical experience. For a year, the Greens have been coalition partners with the SPD in the state of Hesse. (2) The state association of the Greens in Hesse was considered a year ago to have a "fundamentalist" majority. The Ministry of the Environment in this state is now held by a Green, Joschka Fischer, while the state has the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe (Biblis).
Despite many demands for a "disengagement" of this state from nuclear energy production - especially after Chernobyl - this red-green coalition in Hesse and the assumption of governmental responsibility by the Greens (voting for the budget for the police, prisons, and so on)
has not been opposed by the ranks of the Greens. There has not even been a debate on this.
That indicates that it is possible that the Greens may arrive at an orientation of "red green" collaboration without sharp controversies or debates, to say nothing of a split. That is particularly true for the states, which are the only places the question will be posed in the next few years.
An important reason for this is the structure of the Greens. Nominally, they have 45,000 members. In reality, about 15,000 can be considered more or less active. At the same time, the Greens have 8,000 elected representatives in parliamentary bodies -on the local, city, state and countrywide level. This total, moreover, does not include the party's top functionaries. That means that the majority of the active members, those who generally come to membership meetings, are implicated in parliamentary functions. The great majority of these parliamentary representatives of the Greens have to be considered to belong to the "Realo" wing.
This takes nothing away from the fact that the 3.1 million people who voted for the Green party in this parliamentary election voted for the most progressive program that was presented. It takes nothing away either from the fact that the great majority of the 14 million people who voted for the SPD are also for a red-green alliance, and therefore criticize the SPD from the left.
The SPD and the Greens could have won several hundred thousand more votes and a chance to form a common majority, if they had posed such a red-green majority as a political possibility. Another record was set in this election - the lowest voter participation since 1949 And un.
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participation since 1949. And undoubtedly in the coming confrontations that will be provoked by beginning recession and the new strikes for the 35-hour week that are expected in the spring, such a red-green alliance will be seen as the only conceivable parliamentary alternative to the conservative-liberal government under Kohl.
Revolutionary socialists have to connect up with these expectations and advocate such a red-green alliance, while criticizing the Greens and the left in the SPD when they go back on progressive positions and policies which are in the interests of wage earners and of the various social movements.
2. On February 9, shortly after this article was written, the SPD-Greens coalition in Hesse collapsed. This was due to Joschka Fischer, the Green environment minister, resigning over the SPD's agree. ment to allow the Alkem plutonium plant to continue operating until 1996. - IV
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International Viewpoint 23 February 1987