The revolution devours its children!
The revolution devours its children!
“The future of the Left is a future without Sahra Wagenknecht”
It almost seems as if the federal board of the Left is acting as an agent for the AfD.
Wagenknecht is now being asked to give up her mandates by “unanimous decision of the party board.”
Co-chair Wissler justifies this move with the fight for “the unity of the party and against all attempts to divide it”, saying the board
would not tolerate that voters are unsettled by the threat of the founding of a new Wagenknecht party “by the end of the year.” The fact that she isn’t simply expelled fails only due to the hurdles of a direct party expulsion; after all, The Left is a democratic party, and the majority would probably oppose expelling Wagenknecht. Former Left party leader and WAsG veteran Klaus Ernst sees the decision as a signal to “all members of the Left who want to continue on the path to a modern, democratic-socialist party with a clear concept of international solidarity.” Opposition comes from comrades who are likely perceived by the left-liberals as “authoritarian”:
Faction leader Mohamed Ali criticizes the decision as “unworthy of a party that claims solidarity and plurality as its core values.”
The majority of Left voters do not want this death blow to the party; the ‘old PDS’ around Bartsch, Brie, and Gysi does not want this death blow – co-chair Schirdewan’s interest in creating “a strong left-wing force in this country (…), a strong socialist party of justice” without the controversial anti-heroine who, however, is the backbone of the party’s remaining success, is utopian.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the now already legendary Wagenknecht Party (WKP) will not be a new type of party that skillfully
removes the new German fascist and bourgeois structures from parliament in a heroic act.
However, a survey by the polling institute Kantar for Focus shows that 19% of all respondents (1012 representatives) would
consider voting for the Wagenknecht Party.
These 19% are symbolically even more impactful as the AfD also reached exactly 19 alarming percent in the last prominent election survey.
Fascist Weidel sees Wagenknecht as direct competition;
“Ms. Wagenknecht receives great support from large parts of our voter base. (…) Naturally, a certain competition has emerged, which we have to confront.”
According to the Kantar survey, 60% of AfD voters can imagine casting their vote for Wagenknecht in the future.
50% of Left voters surveyed who say they would switch to the new hypothetical party
underscore the aforementioned suicide of the left-liberal self-coup plotters.
The competitive situation between AfD and the Wagenknecht Party is a double-edged sword.
Such a weakening of the most significant fascist recruitment reservoir in this country gives, for the first time in a long time, a certain reason
to breathe a sigh of relief.
The most important factors for the AfD’s success are the reactionary asylum “policies” and, most recently, opportunistic pacifism
regarding the war in Ukraine, combined with queer hostility and racism.
Now, the concern that one must have as a leftist – especially from a left-conservative Wagenknecht in many respects – is that the WKP will
become just another fascist-leaning party that finds no progressive synthesis in the contradiction between reactionary and socialist ideas.
With the undoubtedly massive influx of (ex-)AfD members
who will join the WKP, I find it hard to believe that the party leadership (even if composed entirely of progressive forces) could steer around the conservative, inherently anti-communist, and reactionary mindset that now permeates significant parts of the base. The ideal scenario is that the new party leadership nonetheless succeeds in overcoming the anti-communism of the conservative party newcomers
and establishing a stable (even if reformist) workers’ party that likewise weakens the fascist and conservative parties in
Germany.
We must hope that Wagenknecht does not combine all this with exaggerated anti-identity politics; in the hands of conservative forces,
this would quickly degenerate into queer hostility.
Lenin writes: “As long as you are not strong enough to tear apart the bourgeois parliament and all other reactionary institutions,
you are obliged to work within these institutions, because there are still workers there who have been stupefied by priests and by life in rural backwaters. Otherwise, you risk becoming mere chatterboxes.”
We can only hope, then, that the rural backwaters and priests of the liberal and reactionary forces in the federal German parliament
are redirected toward progressiveness by a fresh worker-oriented party. This is what must be worked toward; the situation must be observed and, as soon as possible,
infused with progressive, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and queer ideas.
It is also important to remain realistic about the opportunities and risks, especially in light of the fascist-leaning environment among incoming cadres.