The CWI in the Germany
| name | Sozialistische Alternative (SAV) |
| address | Sozialistische Alternative , Littentstrasse 106/107, 10179 Berlin, Germany. |
| telephone | ++ 49 302472 3802 |
| info@sav-online.de | |
| web site | www.sozialismus.info |
Sozialistische Alternative (SAV) is the CWI's German party. We organise workers, unemployed, young people, women, immigrants, homosexuals in West and East Germany. We fight social cuts, redundancies, and the destruction of the environment, racism and all other forms of discrimination and stand for the socialist transformation of society by a revolutionary mass struggle of the working class.
Germany today
We fight the neo-liberal politics of the SPD/Green government and do not consider it a "left" government but one which solely represents the interests of big business. We call on the trade unions to fight the attacks of this government such as the plans to partially privatise the pension system.
We consider the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) to be a reformist party which is rapidly moving to the right. The main strategy of the PDS leadership is an electoral one - to join local, federal state and the national government. Where the PDS has already joined local and federal state governments it has started to support social cuts and privatisations. It does not use its mass support amongst workers and youth (especially in East Germany) to mobilise against social attacks or against racism and fascism but concentrates on a solely parliamentary strategy. It completely accepts the market economy and does not put forward a socialist alternative to the dictatorship of the market. Socialist Alternative is a party for all those who want to join an organisation now, which is committed to a socialist, revolutionary transformation of society. We also stand for the building of a new broad socialist workers´ party (which would involve much wider layers of workers and youth) in Germany.
Some of our activities
We are involved in many different kind of activities. Here we can only give a few examples:
- We are at the forefront in fighting fascism and racism. In 1992 we launched "Youth Against Racism In Europe (YRE)" as a broad youth organisation to fight the right. On October 7th 2000 we organised the 10,000-strong mass demonstration against the NPD headquarters in Berlin together with other anti-fascist organisations.
- We have participated in a number of elections over the recent years. During this campaigning work we also attempted to bring different socialist and left-wing forces together to launch left-wing unity slates on a local level. Over the last years we stood in local and other elections in Aachen, Berlin, Rostock, Bremerhaven, Cologne, Siegen and Stuttgart.
- We are fighting for the rights of young people. At the moment we are involved in a campaign to stop the closure of youth facilities in Bremen, a campaign for the rights of graffiti sprayers in Kassel (and nationally) and campaigns against cuts in education in Stuttgart, Rostock and other cities.
- We are active participants in the trade union movement and in workers´ struggles. We stand for the building of a broad left opposition inside the trade unions to put forward an alternative policy, strategy and leadership. We have initiated the launch of such an opposition group inside the public sector's union ÖTV called "Network for a fighting and democratic ÖTV". We are also participating in the "Network for a trade union left" which brings together left-wing trade unionists from all unions.
- We support workers´ struggles and have in many cases launched solidarity committees to mobilise the local population against redundancies or closures of workplaces. The last case was the struggle against redundancies at Phönix, Hamburg.
- We also organise solidarity with trade union activists who are in trouble because of their activities. The most prominent case at the moment is the case of Manfred Engelhardt, a leading shop steward from the university workers in Aachen.
- We are actively involved in the struggle for women's rights and are currently producing a new women's programme which will be published for the International Women's Day in 2001
Socialist programme and propaganda
Socialists must combine the day-to-day struggle for the rights of workers and youth with the struggle to overthrow capitalism and build a socialist society. Therefore we see one of our main tasks in propagating the ideas of socialism and formulating marxist ideas for the current world situation. We do this with our monthly paper VORAN ("Forward"), pamphlets, and public meetings etc. Our main event is a Socialism Weekend full of meetings, discussions and debates on many political, international and theoretical issues which takes place every year over Easter in Berlin.
