André Brie; March 12, 2007; Editorial column for „Disput“, March

The New Left and Oskar Lafontaine

 

By André Brie

 

I thought for several months whether I should publish these thoughts. The creation of a new Left Party has come close. This, for the Left in Germany is a unique chance. For the members of the PDS who after 1989, against the sharpest pressure from outside, against their own pessimism and with a rare capacity to learn and change developed the party and freed it, at least in East Germany, from social ban and isolation, this is a profound change of era. Mainly, however, it will have to become a completely new possibility to do social, democratic, and peaceful policy with and for millions of people in the Federal Republic who want and need such a policy and its alternatives. That is the yardstick to which I subordinate everything else. That is the responsibility to which we need to live up to.

 

The new creation of the Left Party is indispensable to that end, even if many of us – among them I myself – will give up much we cherish. The organisational process and the Founding Party Congress will create decisive prerequisites to that end. They may not be put on line. Yet there are a number of equally decisive prerequisites that won’t be guaranteed by far that way and about which too little debate is taking place at present: programmatic clarity is not a secondary question, even less so political strategy in a country where all other parties (with important nuances) conduct neoliberal policies; however, a majority of the population and of the voters apparently favours social alternatives; the political culture of the new party should be a matter of chance even less. Let us only stay here at the last problem: The PDS issued from the SED in a manner at times almost anarchical. In difficult confrontations, it developed not only a democratic-socialist profile for its policy, but also a deeply democratic discussion and decision-making culture. In the PDS it was unthinkable that party congresses would – like in the CDU or in the SPD – usher through programmes and electoral programmes in minutes and almost without any opposition. That should, that also must remain this way in the new party as well. Criticisms from comrades, other democratic left-wing standpoints are a necessary and desirable necessity also for the majority. Dissidents have other convictions, other experiences, other standards and not lower motives – as those in favour of the Berlin governmental coalition, for instance, are accused of having. There can, there should, there must be the good will for discussion of political views. Yet, it should take place on the basis of mutual respect, reflection, listening and not prejudice or personal denunciation.

 

It seems to be settled that Oskar Lafontaine and Lothar Bisky will become the two chairmen of the new Left Party. Bisky is a man of equilibrium and led the PDS in the 90s with great skill, intellectual radiance and success; he also got it out of a self-destructive crisis and sharp political confrontations after the electoral defeat in 2002. Oskar Lafontaine is more controversial. I for one also belong among those who have some distance to some of his political positions and to some cases of dealing with dissidents. That my wife belongs among those, whom he has repeatedly asked to be excluded from the party, is part of my problems. I am still convinced that he should become chairman of the new party. First of all, I appreciate his political life. Second, like no one else in the PDS and the WASG, he defends left-wing, highly competent positions in the criticism and on the alternatives of world financial policy or present-day economic and social policy. Third, because I think, hope that he will let himself be convinced in matters of German asylum law policy or also about the need to consider democracy in the PDS – be it topsy-turvy at times - not only as a problem of quick decisions, but mainly as a chance for the sustainability of a modern Left and as an important contribution to a more reflective political culture in society as a whole. Fourth, and later on this will also become a great problem of the new Left if it deals with that the same way as the former PDS did: Without Gregor Gysi, Lothar Bisky and Oskar Lafontaine, the new Left won’t reach the eight percent of 2005 and not the possible 10 and more in 2009. Don’t have any illusions! We may be as convinced as hell of our papers, resolutions, demands or of the quality of many of our other politicians (women and men) - people need much more at election time. Without Oskar Lafontaine, the new party won’t get more than 2% of the vote in West Germany. Cardinal Retz, one of the leaders of the pre-revolutionary French fronde – brought it to a head in his memoirs: “I needed only one name to endow with life what without a name would have been only a figment of imagination.” Lafontaine brings in more than the name, competence, a heart that beats left, and consequence. And after all, all together we bring in a lot as well.

 

Translated by Carla Krüger, March 14, 2007