Strengthen the struggle against the rightward development of the government! Attention: splitters at work

Dear friends, dear comrades,

we publish a flyer with a CC declaration „Strengthen the struggle against the rightward development of the government! Attention: splitters at work“

It is being spread broadly with 300,000 copies, e.g. at the weekends' rally in Berlin with 240,000 participants. The Internationalist Alliance with the MLPD participated with a significant block and appearance

(photos: https://www.rf-news.de/bildreports/unteilbar-herbstdemonstration-2018-in-berlin). We are excited for your opinion and experience in the struggle against the rightward development of the governments and to learn about the debates about building an anti-imperialist and anti-fascist united front!

 CC MLPD, Internationalism Department

Declaration of the MLPD Central Committee

Unquestionably a strong movement against the rightward development of the government and the bourgeois parties is forming. More than a million people have already taken part in protests and militant actions this year: against new police laws, against clearing and police operations in the Hambach Forest, against the agitation of Seehofer and Co., for sea rescue and a progressive refugee policy, against the AfD and fascist activities, for better care, affordable housing, day care centers, and for the future of the youth. There is growing indignation about the monopoly policy in the criminal emissions fraud of the car companies, growing poverty among the elderly, intensified exploitation, wage pressure and division in the companies. The starting point for this progressive change of mood was trade union labor struggles. At the beginning of 2018 more than 1.5 million people took part, permeated with the struggle for every job and training place in various factories and for the harmonization and improvement of working conditions in East and West.

Within one year there have already been three open government crises. The crisis of confidence in the government and its parties CDU, CSU and SPD (Christian Democrats, Christian Social Union, Social Democrats) is deepening. According to a Forsa survey, 57 percent of all persons entitled to vote no longer trust any party to solve the problems in Germany. By the way: Even if the AfD (Alternative for Germany) gains in some polls, only three percent of the eligible voters believe them capable of really solving the problems! The grand coalition has lost its majority in almost all surveys, and the criticism of its reactionary policies is widespread. Well over 8,000 cultural workers have signed a declaration demanding the resignation of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer. The demands made by the MLPD in summer for Seehofer’s resignation and new elections as “dismissal” to the whole government increasingly are becoming mass demands. In current surveys, 49 percent¹ are in favor of electing a new government. With individual social concessions and incredible demagogy, the government is trying to conceal its rightward development. On the other hand, on 25 September the head of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Dieter Kempf, demanded that “politics must dare more business”; “simply more social policy does not solve any of the problems”². In plain language: assert the interests of the monopolies more quickly and more consistently. In workplaces, activities are increasing against the rightward development of the government and the bourgeois parties. This begins with hot discussions, continues with clear positions at works meetings and signature collections, and goes as far as proposals for political strikes against the rightward development. For the latter, intensive persuasion work is still necessary. But it would not be the first time in Germany that workers’ struggles and strikes bring down laws or a government. Like the big miners’ strike in 1997 with 130,000 miners involved. It brought down the plans of the Kohl government to dismiss 68,000 miners. This strike with the slogan “The Fat Man Must Go”, among others, marked the beginning of the end of the ultra-reactionary Kohl government. The workers’ movement must build on these experiences. In order for the active resistance to gain the power to stop the rightward development, the working class must be the leading force in it.

Where is the movement against the rightward development headed?

What has proved to be a remarkable strength and appeal factor of the movement against the rightward development in recent months is this: different people, from “revolution to religion”, from Marxist-Leninists to social democrats, from workers to artists, from football fans to feminists work together here on an equal footing and without regard for party affiliations.

Right in the middle, as a recognized asset and backbone of the movement: the MLPD with its youth league Rebell. It is a pioneer in the struggle against the rightward development and has been significantly involved since 2016 in the founding of the Internationalist Alliance, which now has 31 supporting organizations and 24,000 supporters. In its rank-and-file work, the MLPD wins active supporters for this protest, organizes equal cooperation, and assumes responsibility for organizing the protests. The MLPD consistently advocates that the movement against the rightward development of the government should both become ever broader and remain independent. The MLPD answers the growing search for social alternatives with the revolutionary alternative to capitalism, genuine socialism. This means liberation from capitalist exploitation and oppression, broad democracy for the masses, and struggle against all reactionary attempts to reestablish the old exploitative order. And that means learning from the achievements of socialist construction, but also from the mistakes that led to the betrayal of socialism in all formerly socialist countries. Strengthen the MLPD and its youth league Rebell!

No wonder that those in power view this development with concern. Already at the beginning of the movement the CSU in Bavaria, the FDP (Free Democratic Party), and the Association of German Criminal Officers in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) openly demanded the exclusion of the MLPD from the protests. This did not divide the movement. Reiner Burger, writing in the mouthpiece of the monopolies, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on 25 September, is currently worried: The “anti-extremist consensus” dissolves in protest movements, such as on the Hambach Forest. But that is a “core element of the liberal-democratic order”, i.e. the ruling capitalist order. And this includes the “obligation to distance oneself ... not only from the right side of the political spectrum, but also from the left”. Such an equation of left and right, of fascism and socialism, is pure anticommunism and a dangerous trivialization of fascism.

Right in line with this, in September alliances against police laws were split relatively simultaneously in Bavaria, Bremen, Göttingen, Lower Saxony, and Saxony with the exclusion of the MLPD and the Internationalist Alliance. In the Hambach Forest, on the occasion of the big demonstration in Hamburg, “We’ll Come United”, or at Kurdish demonstrations, representatives of the SPD, the Greens, Attac, “Anti-Germans” or from the trade union apparatus simultaneously put forward identical “arguments” as a pretext against the appearance, flags, etc. of the MLPD. This is a liquidationist³ attack against the whole movement! For the MLPD, the most elementary democratic rights and freedoms should not apply, and its right of coalition should be denied or restricted. Objectively, what is demanded here is what is law in countries such as in Eastern Europe with proto-fascist governments: Victor Orban in Hungary, for example, had Marxist-Leninist party flags and symbols banned.

Who coordinates these attacks in the background?

The driving forces behind the split are functionaries of the SPD/Jusos (Young Socialists) and Alliance 90/The Greens/Green Youth, as well as Attac and Anti-German groups. Yes, exactly the SPD, which is losing support and prestige at a tremendous rate and has long since lost the right to call itself a workers’ party. In its desperation it borrows moth-eaten methods from the anticommunist Adenauer with his persecution of communists. The representatives of the Greens apparently want to make people forget that their party in all federal and state governments diligently supported and supports the monopoly policies. From Agenda 2010 to foreign deployments of the German armed forces to new police laws or the clearing of the Hambach forest.

In Lower Saxony, the SPD-led state government plans to tighten the reactionary police laws. The Greens in Baden-Württemberg, together with the CDU, were the first to bring through essential cornerstones of the new police law. Also in CDU-Green-governed Hesse, such cornerstones were decided in June 2018. So precisely those who have “co-authored” this rightward development in federal and state governments are now trying to act as “agents” in the movement.

The alliance in Lower Saxony was split by Jakob Blankenburg, Juso state chairman in Lower Saxony, in a spirit of harmony with Paula Rahaus and Timon Dzenius, spokespersons for the Green Youth of Lower Saxony. And with extremely undemocratic methods. A vote was pushed through in a surprise move, without informing those affected and the 120 supporting organizations – in a meeting with an arbitrary composition and an above-average number of Green Youth supporters.

In Bavaria and Bremen, the SPD and Green forces also participated in the split in a leading position. In Lower Saxony, all those who belong to the Internationalist Alliance or have no incompatibility ruling towards the MLPD were excluded. For example, the non-party affiliated Women’s League Courage or the VW Committee. This follows the definition of the so-called “front organizations” of the MLPD, which comes directly from the secret service “Verfassungsschutz” (Office for the Protection of the Constitution – domestic intelligence agency). A choice of words by the way, against which the Women’s League Courage recently clearly won in a lawsuit against the “Verfassungsschutz”. Ultra-reactionary Stefan Laurin boasts on his blog “The Ruhr Barons” (Die Ruhrbarone) that he had fostered the division in Bavaria by making material available.⁴ As early as 2010, Laurin himself reported anticommunist-motivated “research visits” to the NRW “Verfassungsschutz”. Are methods such as spying, anticommunist intrigues or slander now finding their way into the movement? Isn’t this exactly what the movement wants to fight? Whoever takes part in these attacks, whether they call themselves anarchists, Anti-Germans or something else, is involved in this business. The methods are mostly completely arbitrary and extremely anticommunist. One has heard that where the MLPD works, there is “stress”. What is meant by it always remains in the dark. Not a single alleged “proof” has held water so far. The “stress” is caused only by the splitters and anticommunists who want to “clean” the MLPD out of alliances, come hell or high water. Who else would be disturbed by the completely stress-free and equal participation of the MLPD, an MLPD flag at a demonstration or the MLPD representatives at alliance meetings of up to 120 organizations?

What is the aim of the liquidators?

It is a matter of directing the mass protests into watered-down, capitalism-compliant, parliamentary, and thus for those in power harmless channels. This would destroy their independent character and their clear direction of attack against the government and all government parties. The MLPD and other revolutionary and consistent forces with their fundamental critique of capitalism stand in the way. If revolutionaries and Marxist-Leninists are “purged” from this movement, then it is dead!

The behavior of Attac in North Rhine-Westphalia shows where the journey is supposed to take us. A member of the nationwide Attac Coordination Council (Sabine Lassauer) blurted out at the meeting of the NRW alliance on 25 August 2018 that the failed anticommunist attempt to split the NRW alliance had been agreed upon in July in the Attac Germany Council. Already in 2003 and 2004, the Attac organization excelled with divisive maneuvers against the independent and mass Monday Demonstration movement against the Hartz laws and the Agenda 2010. The attempted exclusion of the MLPD in NRW went hand in hand with the attempt to transform the struggle against the new police law into a “critical monitoring” of the legislative process and thus to accept the essence of the new police law. This was formulated in an e-mail of a group around Sabine Lassauer in the night from 24 to 25 August 2018 in these words: “As before we consider it immensely important to accompany the legislative process critically and with bundled forces. ... For many reasons, we do not consider another major demonstration at state level to be a tactically sensible form of protest and will not participate in its organization.” This open abandonment of the struggle against the CDU/FDP state government was rejected by the large majority of the NoPG (No to Police Law) alliance.

The website “Belltower” shows itself to be a source of material for red-baiting and defamation aimed at the MLPD. It is an organ of the so-called “Anti-Germans”. This reactionary “movement” is completely irrelevant among the mass of the population. On the leash of ultra-reactionary imperialist forces from Israel or the USA and secret service circles in Germany, it was used in the last months as an ankle biter against the MLPD. They shower their opponents with abstruse accusations of “anti-Semitism”, according to the motto, “If you repeat it long enough, people will believe it”. In fact, they are the ones who are supporting the extreme rightward development of the Israeli imperialist government, which does not even adhere to UN resolutions calling for the most elementary human rights. The above-mentioned website wrote after anticommunist attacks at an antifascist demonstration in Solingen: “At the latest after this renewed scandal (which they themselves provocatively organized - the author) a left-wing consensus is necessary that the appearance of this Stalinist, antidemocratic sect MLPD will no longer be tolerated during leftist demonstrations in the future.”⁵ This website belongs to the Amadeo Antonio Foundation, which is financed to 52 percent by funds from the German federal government (870,000 euros per year). Stephan Kramer, President of the Thuringia Office for the Protection of the Constitution, sits on the board of trustees!

The Thuringian secret service stands for the promotion of the fascist gang of murderers, NSU, and is notorious for covering up its entanglements. To this day, this has neither been fully investigated under Kramer, nor were the old structures smashed. Such forces often hide behind a pseudo-antifascist mask. But: to reduce oneself to the fight against anti-Semitism, to deny the role of the communists in the antifascist resistance – that is bourgeois “antifascism” on the basis of anticommunism. This splits the antifascist resistance contrary to a wide consensus – since “Dresden Nazi-free” at the latest – of a broad, non-party-affiliated, antifascist movement!

It is necessary to recognize these various productions of a second-rate theater as what they are: the organized attempt of bourgeois parties and reactionary forces to destroy the independent political movement. Such forces are not part of the movement, but agencies of the rightward development in Germany. They have no place in the movement! The machinations of the liquidators encounter growing problems, questions, and resistance. Everywhere the forces increase which stand for a non-party-affiliated, equal cooperation, which appreciate the MLPD, and are indignant over the undemocratic methods. The mass demonstrations in Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, and Hambach Forest on the weekend of 28/29 September showed this. There the exclusion attempts found no sympathy and the MLPD was an active and formative component. On 28 September 2018, the executive board of the Lower Saxony Left Party passed the following resolution: “1. At the last plenary session of the state-wide alliance, the representatives of our party also were completely surprised at this ad hoc motion for exclusion (against the MLPD and others - the author). They complained that the placing of such a far-reaching alliance issue on the agenda should have been announced, and that under such circumstances, such a decision certainly cannot be subject to a simple majority of the persons present. ... 2. The state executive board expressly confirms this behavior of our representatives* ... on this question of the alliance (meaning the rejection of the exclusion - the author) and recommends to our members who work in local alliances to act in the same spirit. ... 4. At the same time, everything must be done to ensure that the NoNPOG (No to the Lower Saxony Police Law) alliance, after a good start, considerably increases its political impact instead of dealing with internal sensitivities!”

An activist from a refugee council formulated at a nationwide alliance meeting against the police laws: “I find it strange that there are people here speaking out above all against the MLPD. If, then it is SPD and Greens who do not belong here.”

This is what matters now – active resistance instead of capitulation in the face of the rightward development of the government!

There is an urgent need to join forces. A strong, organized movement must grow that can stop this worrying development. Who is not concerned about the imperialists’ preparation for war, the dismantling of democratic rights and freedoms, the growing social inequality? In order to become effective and strong, the movement needs clear principles: real non-party affiliation, openness regarding world outlook, broad democracy in decision-making, financial independence; equal cooperation on the basis of common struggle, fair and respectful; a democratic culture of debate, and close solidarity with the working-class movement.

The MLPD will not allow itself to be deterred from strengthening and further developing the struggle against the rightward development of the government and the bourgeois parties together with many allies in democratic alliances – also with honest members of the Greens and the SPD. It is committed to ensuring that the major demonstration on 13 October 2018 in Berlin becomes a signal of the joint, resolute struggle against the rightward development. This, too, must prevail against a course that makes the mass movement the plaything of bourgeois parties and their election campaign and distorts the demands into illusions of a “peaceful and social capitalism”.

For active resistance against the rightward development of government and bourgeois parties – instead of division and capitulation!