Professor Andrei Markovits, who has caused a stir in Germany with his new book on European Anti-Americanism, has an interesting article in Dissent Magazine – The European and American Left since 1945. Despite the title, the article primarily focuses on the history of German left-wing politics in the postwar era. Looking at the rise of the New Left in Germany after 1968 – political groupings outside any established parties – Markovits identifies four distinct groups:
- The first group Markovits calls "the Westerners". These were activists who protested the Vietnam War and supported third world liberation movements. But they were deepily interested in fighting ‘tyranny’ as opposed to ‘capitalism’ and therefore were generally in favor of constitutional democracy, due process and human rights. While they opposed US foreign policy, they admired much of American society and felt solidarity with the US anti-war movement. They were open to viewing liberal democracy – though capitalistic – as infinitely preferable to dictatorships – even ostemsibly Marxist ones, and felt that the US and the Federal Republic could on occasion be forces of good. Markovits sees Germany’s foreign minister Joschka Fischer as a prime example of the "Westerner" faction.
- The second group would be the "Third Worldists" who rejected completely the Western institutions, parliamentary democracy, and modern capitalism. They viewed all industrial development as destructive to the environment and were hostile to any form of nationalism. This group later morphed into the "Fundi" faction of the German Green Party, and were highly critical of the "Realo" faction led by Joschka Fischer.
- The third group would be "Orthodox Marxists", who saw capitalism as the greatest problem in the Fedral Republic and the industrial working class as the salvation. This group had roots in the SPD, in the trade union movement, and in the KPD. The Orthodox Marxists were circumspect in their criticism of the DDR, and later were vehemently opposed to reunification.
- The fourth group Markovits calls the "neo-Nationalists", a far left contingent who supported third-world liberation movements, but were also nationalistic in criticizing the limited sovereignty of the Federal Republick (seen as colonized by the US) and the DDR (under Soviet occupation). This group – like the National-Bolscheviks in Weimar Germany – eventually completed a journey to the extreme right, and are active in the neo-Nazi NPD today. Horst Mahler and Bernd Rabehl are seen as the prominent representatives of this group. (My own view is that this group was very small and did not have much of a following – at least at the universities,)
These groups eventually went their own way and lost influence in the 1980s and 1990s. The exception would be the Realo faction of the Green Party, which became the third most powerful political party in Germany – surpassing the Free Democrats (FDP). Ironically, as Markovits points out, capitalism became increasingly globalized, while the political response became fragmented an particularized.
Labor’s inability to pursue
a genuine policy of international solidarity. Marx got it right: capitalism, an
inherently depersonalized and rootless form of productive relations, was indeed
international in its structure, and this international system of production exploited
labor on an international scale. But just as Marx the social analyst was more
often right than wrong, the opposite is true for Marx the normative thinker, the
revolutionary, the activist, the political man. He believed that because capitalism
exploited the working class internationally, the working class would sooner or
later realize the international dimensions of its predicament and confront capitalism
with its own internationalist solidarity. Alas, we know from too many tragic events
how erroneous this wishful thinking was. If anything, labor has emerged as the
most nationalistic among all major social groups in advanced capitalist countries.
In the United States, Canada, Britain, France, and even in supposedly "open"
and export-oriented countries such as Germany, the trade unions have consistently
been active supporters of some sort of protectionist measures. And for a good
reason: labor indeed stands to lose an inordinate amount of power and tangible
material gains in a "free" global market subject only to the laws of
unbridled capitalism. This is a very serious problem for organized labor and its
progressive allies in advanced capitalist societies because it fosters an especially
problematic particularism.
What Markcovits misses in his provocative analysis is the rise of Neo-Liberalism as the prevailing ideology in the SPD (and the Realo-Greens). This in turn is galvanizing a new left movement as seen by the attempt to form a new political party: Wahlaltnernative Arbeit- und soziale Gerechtigkeit. (Party for Labor and Social Justice).
But what is perhaps missing in the German Left today is a pasionate vison for change – as Ulf Poschardt points out in a piece in (of all papers!) Die Welt:
Das romantischste Anliegen der Linken ist ihre Theorie der Tat. Die
Welt muß verändert werden, und zwar grundlegender als alle Kritik seit
1968 dies imaginierte. Vom Islamismus über Klimawandel bis zur
demographischen Entwicklung: Die Herausforderungen könnten nicht
anspruchsvoller sein. Tragischerweise hat insbesondere die deutsche
Linke ihren schwächsten Moment. Sie ist nostalgisch geworden. Sie
beantwortet neue Fragen mit alten Klischees, denkt klein statt komplex
und verschleift ihren naiven Idealismus mit einem nur nischentauglichen
Defätismus. Nie war die Linke mutloser und denkfauler. Nie war sie für
ihre Gegner weniger herausfordernd oder bedrohlich, nie weniger
inspirierend und argumentationsärmer. Die realexistierende Linke
braucht eine echte linke Opposition. Für die Zukunft des ganzen Landes.
(my translation) The most romantic aspect of the Left is the theory of action: the world has to be changed – and changed more fundamentally than was ever envisioned by all criticism since 1968. From Islamism, to global climate change, to demographic developments – the challanges could not be greater. But, tragically, especially the German Left now finds itself weaker than ever. The German Left has become nostalgic. It responds to questions with cliches; thinks simplisitically rather than complexly, its disposes of its naive idealism with small-minded defeatism. Never has the Left been more discouraged or menacing, never less inspiring or ideologically impoverished. The real-exisitng Left needs a true left opposition. For the future of the entire country.
