While Stalin is making a huge comeback in Putin’s Russia, his German vassal Walter Ulbricht appears to be gaining popularity in some quarters at the LEFT party (die LINKE). Der Spiegel recently described how former GDR functionaries – now members of the PDS/LINKE in the eastern German states – are openly expressing their nostalgia for the old days of Stasi and the "Schutzmauer" (the "protective" Berlin Wall):
Selten haben frühere Spitzenfunktionäre der DDR so offen ihre simple
Sicht auf die DDR, die Bundesrepublik und die Wiedervereinigung zu
Papier gebracht. 19 Jahre nach der friedlichen Revolution ist ihre
Gedankenwelt wieder in der alten Ordnung. Die DDR war demnach ein Land,
"in dem es sich gut leben und schaffen ließ", aufgebaut "dank der
fleißigen, oft aufopfernden Arbeit seiner Bürger". In der
Bundesrepublik hingegen gehe die "Angst um den Arbeitsplatz und vor dem
Alter um". Die Wiedervereinigung sei eine "Kolonisierung" mit
"Deindustriealisierung und Vernichtung großer Teile der Landwirtschaft
und ganzer Wirtschaftszweige". "Wo bleibt", fragen die Autoren, "das
Gedenken an die Opfer der Kolonisierung Ostdeutschlands?" (Seldom have former key functionaries of the GDR so openly displayed in print their simplistic view of the GDR, the Federal Republic and Reunification. 19 years after the peaceful revolution their mindset is once again aligned with the old order. In their view, the GDR was a "great place to live and work", built up by hard self-sacrificing work of its citizens", while in the Federal Republic there was only anxiety about employment and growing old." The Reunification was a "colonization" that destroyed the agriculture and entire segments of the economy. The authors ask, "why don’t we commemorate the victims of the colonization of East Germany?")
Comments such as this pose a problem for the LEFT party, which is surging now in western Germany and seeking to form coalitions with the SPD in states like Hesse. The CDU/CSU have begun a crusade against the LEFT party, arguing that the former SED functionaries deserve to be imprisoned rather than elected to office. Of course, they conveniently overlook that their own party leader – Angela Merkel – was an opportunistic young functionary herself in the GDR.
In fact, the LEFT party is made up of 5 disparate factions, as Dan Hough outlines in an excellent recent article (pdf)on the LEFT party and its future. Firstly, there are the non-ideological pragmatists, who are actively involved in governing in the eastern German states, second, Hough identifies the modern socialists, who are seeking to develop a nationwide progressive vision of socialist reform, third, the younger alternative members, who are energized to fight against globalization, fourth the Westlinken of the old left -primarily members of far-left splitter parties that found their way to the predecessor organization of the LEFT party, and finally there are the Old Ideologues in the east – these are the former SED functionaries who are nostalgic for the Stalinist past. It is this last group, small in numbers but quite visible because of their preposterous statements, that is preventing the LEFT party from being viewed as a responsible coalition partner.
