Anger, Bitterness And Increasing Opposition in Germany

Germany:

Anger, Bitterness And Increasing Opposition

SINCE THE end of July, tens of thousands, mainly in east Germany, have
demonstrated every Monday against government cuts. Last Saturday, 11
September, 10,000 blind people protested in Hanover against the Lower
Saxony state government’s abolition of extra benefits for the blind.

Robert Bechert, Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI)

Company after company is following the example set by the social
democrat-led federal government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and is
trying to force workers to work longer hours for no extra pay. Volkswagen
has threatened 30,000 job losses, 17% of their German workforce, if a
two-year wage freeze is not accepted. Opel, part of General Motors, are
talking of a wage freeze until 2009.

The countdown is continuing towards 1 January when the so-called "Hartz
IV" changes will mean huge cuts in unemployment pay for those out of
work for over a year and, for 500,000 unemployed, a complete end to any
state benefits.

The government is absolutely clear that Hartz IV is designed both to
pay for tax cuts and to force workers to accept lower wages. At the same
time, direct and indirect cuts are being implemented at every level of
society; the railways have just announced above inflation fare increases.

German ‘stability’ has been undermined as the former west Germans lose
the living standards they once had and the former east Germans realise
that the promises the German rulers gave them at the time of unification
in 1990 will not be realised. The result is a profound change in mood,
anger and bitterness and increasing opposition.

In eastern Germany this anger is much more pronounced as the unemployed
face massive cuts in benefit in an area where there are simply no jobs; at
the last official count there were 48,284 vacancies for the 1,582,181
unemployed in the east.

Political crisis

THE MAIN political parties are losing out. At present the main blows
are being felt by the chancellor Schroeder’s Social Democrats (SPD)
heading the federal government. The SPD membership continues to rapidly
fall and in elections voters are leaving them in droves. But there is no
enthusiasm for the main opposition Christian Democrats (CDU). 5 September
saw the CDU led state government in the small western Saarland state
re-elected but with a 17.9% drop in its own vote and a voter turnout lower
than in last June’s Euro-election.

In Saarland, smaller parties saw their votes rise. This included those
parties opposing the cuts like the Family Party (5,623 to 13,103); Grey
(pensioners’) Party (6,285); the PDS – former East German Stalinists, now
a social-democratic party – (4,490 to 10,237) and, worryingly, the
neo-fascist NPD (17,584, 4%).

The absence of a powerful socialist opposition movement is creating
space for the neo-fascists to exploit the crisis with their propaganda
combining social demands with nationalism. It is likely that in the 19
September regional elections in the eastern states of Brandenburg and
Saxony the fascist vote will increase, something that may temper the
predicted fall in SPD support.

But there are growing opportunities for a socialist opposition. Opinion
polls indicate that, if the left-wing WASG grouping of trade unionists and
others go ahead with their plans to launch a new Left party, it could
immediately win 11%. Last month an official report showed that currently
51% of West Germans think that socialism is a "good idea".

However, it is not certain whether the WASG leaders are willing to
immediately start standing in elections and furthermore they want the WASG
to be a "welfare state" rather than socialist party.

‘Monday demos’

BUT ELECTIONS only give a snapshot of opinion. A key change in Germany
has been the development of the ‘Monday demonstrations’. Since the end of
July these demos rapidly developed and in eastern Germany attracted tens
of thousands. Their significance is that for the first time since 1989
east Germans have spontaneously protested.

German capitalism is no longer offering, as the former chancellor Kohl
once did, a "blooming landscape" to the east. Newly elected
German President Kohler has now bluntly said that "one must resign
oneself … to different living conditions within Germany", in other
words east Germans cannot expect to catch up with the west. Clearly, the
perspective of German capitalism is that east will not develop at the same
time as west German living standards have to fall.

The trade union leaders are not prepared to seriously struggle because
they realise that capitalism is in crisis and, at the end of the day, they
are not willing to challenge the system. So at Mercedes the union leaders
helped secure a late night deal that meant thousands of workers working
more hours for no pay, a deal that they did not put to a vote.

Likewise, the DGB (trade union federation) leaders dropped their
opposition to Hartz IV once it had been passed by parliament because they
said they were "democrats". They ignored the fact that the 2002
election manifesto upon which the SPD was elected specifically ruled out
the sort of changes that Hartz IV makes. Now the DGB has declared that
they will not support the national anti-Hartz demo called for 2 October in
Berlin.

The Monday demos, industrial protests and the elections all indicate
the growing opposition. But unless this is pulled together in a co-ordinated
way to build a movement that can resist the cuts there is a danger that
there will be massive falls in living standards.

Socialist Alternative (SAV – the German section of the CWI) has argued
for the building of democratic campaigning structures involving workers,
unemployed and others. This has been linked to a combined strategy of
building support from below for a one-day general strike while
simultaneously demanding that the trade unions call such a protest as the
next step. A one-day general strike, the first in the whole of Germany
since the 1920s, would move the struggle onto a much higher level.

In Rostock, in eastern Germany, the SAV have helped build one of the
most radical protest movements. The local SAV councillor, Christine
Lehnert, has been the main speaker at the Monday rallies, despite the
opposition of the local DGB and PDS leaders. Rostock was the first and, so
far, only area to see strike action linked to the Monday protests.

If the momentum of this movement can be maintained the 2 October
protest could be a massive show of opposition to the ruling class’s
attacks. But if the attacks are going to be defeated then an on-going
offensive strategy needs to be adopted. A national mobilisation of the
German workers’ movement could not only stop Hartz IV but also open the
way to building a strong socialist opposition to capitalism.