The trade unions and the Left Party must take up an independent and combative class position
The end of the coalition between the SPD, the Greens and the liberal FDP on the evening of Wednesday 6 November did not really come as a surprise. The government’s crisis had steadily deepened in recent weeks and months, and the coalition parties had increasingly shown themselves to be incapable not only of formulating a common policy, but even of holding joint summits on the economic crisis. The outcome of the elections in three East German federal states in September, the continued economic crisis and the ever louder demands of the capitalists for an ‘economic turnaround’ had increased the pressure on the coalition.
With Donald Trump’s election victory in the US announced just hours before the government fell, it is clear that many people are deeply concerned about the instability of the situation and about their future. Trade unions and the Left Party (Die Linke) must respond to this with a decisive alternative programme to all pro-capitalist parties.
Conflicts among friends of capitalism
The conflicts in the now-shattered coalition express conflicting ideas among different representatives of capitalism about how their system can best be maintained. No part of this government represented the interests of working people. There is agreement on many issues: improving the conditions for profit for banks and corporations, supporting the Ukrainian war and Israel’s war against the Palestinians, arming the Bundeswehr and militarising society, restricting migration and deporting refugees. Their disagreement is about the best way to achieve these goals.
Put simply, two strategies are clashing: a frontal assault on the working class or an attempt to involve the trade union leaderships and carry out attacks in a somewhat less harsh or piecemeal fashion. The conflict over the ‘debt brake’ (the constitutional limit on government debt) expresses this in a distorted form – distorted because some capitalists also favour a reform of the ‘debt brake’ in order to gain more leeway for state investments that serve their profit interests (i.e. not to enable socially useful and necessary investments in education, health, the environment, social services, etc.).
FDP: a headlong leap?
The background to the collapse of the coalition, provoked mainly by the FDP, is also the daily growing demands of capital representatives for a so-called ‘economic turnaround’. By this they mean drastic attacks on the rights and living standards of the working class, tax breaks for capitalists, etc. – something we have been warning against for months and why Sol members launched the ‘Wir schlagen Alarm’ (‘We are sounding the alarm’) campaign together with other militant trade unionists. The document by FDP leader Lindner, which was made public a few days ago, presents a programme for this ‘economic turnaround’ demanded by the capitalists. At the same time, as stated in the bourgeois media, it was a ‘divorce paper’ and a provocation towards the SPD and the Greens, who could not leave it unanswered without losing face. Apparently, Scholz and the Green leader Habeck then decided to reject Lindner’s provocative demands and to make the suspension of the ‘debt brake’ because of the declaration of an emergency due to the war in Ukraine a breaking point.
Politically, the FDP has taken a headlong leap with its approach. It remains to be seen whether this will be successful or turn out to be a ‘suicide out of fear of death’. But all the parties represented in the ‘Ampel’ (‘traffic light’) coalition must have weighed up in the last few weeks whether continuing muddling through in a permanent crisis and a de facto ten-month election campaign until the regular election date in September next year would have improved their starting positions. Apparently they have come to the conclusion that this would not have been the case and that a brutal end would rather offer the chance to make up ground in a now intensive four-month election campaign for the new elections proposed by Scholz for March.
SPD will signal left
Scholz’s strategy became clear in his speech to the press on Wednesday evening. On the one hand, he is signalling to the left by attacking the FDP as anti-social and anti-working class (rightly so) and probably raising some left-wing demands such as an increased minimum wage, a collective bargaining law, etc. At the same time, Scholz defended the rearmament programme and support for the capitalist and nationalist Zelensky regime in Ukraine as a ‘security policy’ while making offers of ‘constructive cooperation’ to the opposition conservative CDU/CSU until the new elections. In doing so, he wants to drive the conservatives into making policy decisions and show themselves up over the next four months. It is not surprising that the CDU/CSU is not enthusiastic about this, and the SPD and the Greens will have foreseen the vociferous calls from all sides (CDU/CSU, FDP, AfD, BSW, employers’ associations) for faster new elections, but will probably be able to sit these out.
It is uncertain whether the minority government consisting of the SPD and the Greens will be able to find a majority in parliament for any measure in the coming months, but ultimately this is of secondary importance. With the end of the coalition, the election campaign has now begun anyway. It cannot be ruled out that the prospect of new Bundestag elections will influence the course of the talks to form new governments in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia after their recent state elections. Given the problems in forming governments in these federal states it is possible that new elections could also take place in one or more of them. Even before the Ampel coalition ended the BSW (Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance) in Saxony broke off exploratory talks with the CDU and SPD over joining a coalition in that federal state. It would be a tightrope act for the BSW in particular to play the role of the fundamental opposition in the federal election campaign while at the same time entering into coalitions with the SPD and/or CDU in some of the eastern German federal states.
What’s next?
According to the latest opinion polls, it is clear that the next Chancellor will be called Friedrich Merz and there is much to suggest that there will be a government made up of the CDU/CSU and SPD, formerly known as a ‘grand coalition’. It can be assumed that the SPD will – as it has done so often in the past – reach for the ministerial chairs in the name of ‘statesmanship’ and will be able to come to terms with a Chancellor Merz. The FDP and the Left Party have to fear not getting into the next Bundestag, but the BSW cannot not be too sure either, as its three most recent opinion poll results were only six percent nationwide, just one point over the entry bar. But today’s polls are not the results of the new elections and a lot can happen in the remaining four, or possibly two, months. There is no doubt that the far right populist AfD could benefit from these developments.
Trade unions
For trade unions and the Left Party, the new situation is a challenge. The social-democratic trade union bureaucracy will praise Scholz for sacking the neo-liberal FDP man Lindner and will more or less openly campaign for the SPD. Trade union activists should not go along with this and should criticise it. Above all, the unions must now fight to preserve the jobs that are under threat in many companies and they must prepare resistance against the attacks on the rights and living standards of the working class that can be expected from the next federal government. This means intervening in the election campaign with clear demands and using the politicisation to organise workers.
Where cuts are already being made at the expense of the working class, the trade unions and union activists, as well as those affected and left-wing and social organisations, should take the initiative to resist and form protest alliances, as is currently happening in Dresden, for example, with the participation of Sol members.
The Left Party
It would also mean that trade unionists should speak out in favour of voting for the Left Party in the upcoming elections, because – despite all its limitations, mistakes and adaptation towards the SPD and the Greens – it is the only voice of a left-wing opposition that can make it into the Bundestag. A Bundestag without the Left Party would shift the political balance of power in the Federal Republic to the disadvantage of the working class. That is why Sol will also call for and campaign for the election of the Left.
In the coming days and weeks, we will make proposals for a militant and socialist election campaign for the Left Party and put them up for discussion in the Party. We will not refrain from criticising the Party’s policies and orientation, which failed to initiate a necessary change of course at its recent federal party conference. The campaign for doorstep conversations, which began under the motto ‘Everyone talks, we listen,’ must now be turned into an election campaign – and the spirit should be: ‘We have answers to the crisis of capitalism!’
The Left Party should wage a militant election campaign with a focus on a few central issues, such as saving jobs at VW and other industrial companies by implementing a socialist plan to convert production to meaningful and sustainable products, repairing the ailing health care system and public transport – financed by the profits of banks and corporations and the wealth of the super-rich, creation of affordable housing, opposition to capitalist wars and arms deliveries to Ukraine and Israel, and measures against the still far too high prices and too low wages.
The demands and measures to solve these grievances must go to the very foundations of the capitalist system, otherwise they will be ineffective: democratic public ownership instead of private ownership of corporations and banks, massive taxation of the outrageously high accumulated private wealth. An integral part of the election campaign must be an anti-capitalist concept for the fight against climate change that does not ask the masses of the population to foot the bill and guarantees all jobs, and a message of solidarity with all discriminated minorities – migrants, refugees, LGBTQI* people, disabled people – with women who are also affected by discrimination, with all groups fighting for their legitimate rights.
If the Left Party convincingly approaches such an election campaign, if its candidates follow the example of its new chairpersons Ines Schwerdtner and Jan van Aken and declare that they will only accept the inflated parliamentary allowances that correspond to the average wage of a skilled worker and donate the rest, if the federal party finally distances itself from capitalism-friendly government policy of the Left Party in Bremen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia, then a mobilisation of the party’s members and supporters could be achieved that would carry the party over the five-percent hurdle in the federal elections.
Together with consistent struggles by the trade unions for the interests of workers and against cuts at all levels, this would also be the best way to keep the AfD in check.
This would not yet overcome the crisis of the Party, but it would halt the decline for the time being, and then a necessary debate could take place on what contribution the Left Party– together with other forces from trade unions and social movements! – can make to creating a mass party of workers and young people with a socialist programme, which is so urgently needed to represent the interests of the working class and to change society.
