Martin Suchanek
‘We are the hope’ – this is the opening sentence of the Left Party’s central motion, which aims to be more than mere self-affirmation and was adopted at the party conference on 10 May. A sentence that hardly anyone would have uttered a year ago – but the success in the federal elections, the consistent poll ratings of 10% and the massive increase in membership to over 110,000 form the basis for the new optimism. The Left Party wants to not only ‘propagate’ hope in the struggle for ‘a future beyond Trump, Merz and Musk,’ but also to ‘organise’ it.
In this sense, the motion is also an expression of strategic self-assurance – and an attempt to mark a break with years of internal paralysis. The vision of a ‘socialist membership party’ or ‘organising class party’ may not be new, but it is being presented with a determination that has long been lacking, as these orientations were previously controversial within the party itself. But what does the motion actually mean today – beyond appeals and symbolism? And what does it mean for developing a revolutionary practice that is neither absorbed into the government nor remain purely oppositional? What does it mean to organise hope – not just proclaim it? What contradictions remain – and what tasks do they pose for the revolutionary left, both inside and outside the party?
Changed balance of power in the Left Party
The chosen direction has been controversial within the Left Party in recent years. Sahra Wagenknecht and her followers fought to the bitter end for an increasingly right-wing populist orientation – and, after the split, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, BSW, moved steadily towards government alliances with the SPD, the Greens or the CDU. This split undoubtedly represented a breakaway of the right wing. But, of course, the government socialists, i.e. the remaining right-wing social democratic wing of the party, wanted nothing to do with a ‘class party’. As support for spending billions on the Bundeswehr in the second chamber, the Bundesrat, showed, this wing is still up to its old tricks and has no intention of vacating its posts. While most of them are more or less lying low politically, prominent representatives of this wing, such as Grigor Gysi and Bodo Ramelow, make no secret on talk shows that they have basically learned nothing from the decline of recent years. They hope for further coalitions with the SPD and the Greens at the state level sooner or later, consider a ‘moderate’ rearmament in Germany to be entirely appropriate, and continue to dream of a ‘genuine’ reform coalition at the federal level.
Within the party, however, they are holding back. The political success in the federal election has so far strengthened the left-reformist wing of the party, represented by the chairwoman, Ines Schwerdtner and the chairwoman of the parliamentary group, Heidi Reichinnek. Sören Pellmann is also close to this wing, while Jan van Aken is probably the most right-wing of the party’s four leaders. This change in the party’s internal dynamics was also reflected at the party conference. The motion adopted bears the hallmarks of left-wing reformism. Numerous MPs and a majority of the party executive can also be classified as belonging to the “movement left”, which sees itself as the ‘organising’ movement-oriented pole of the party.
In the following, we will therefore examine whether, and to what extent, the resolutions represent a change, where their limits lie, and what strategy and tactics revolutionaries should pursue towards the Left Party and within it.
Changed political situation
In the section ‘Where we stand’, the Left Party correctly states that, nationally, there has been a massive shift to the right. “The federal elections have strengthened the political right—election results of over 20 percent for the AfD are no longer a phenomenon limited to eastern Germany. … Instead of a counter-agenda based on solidarity, the SPD and the Greens have too often adopted right-wing positions.”
It goes on to state, also correctly, that “at the same time, we are experiencing a strong polarisation”, in which the task of the Left Party would be to give expression to this, to organise it and make it socially effective and enforceable. So far, so good.
In this section, the main motion also notes a number of significant changes and phenomena: increasingly unequal distribution among the classes, intensified international competition, and the continuing concentration of economic and political power in the hands of monopolies, oligarchies and authoritarian states. This will further promote the shift to the right. But what is the actual cause of this development?
We learn little to nothing about this in the main motion. Intensified competition is mentioned, but its causes, the structural overaccumulation of capital on a global scale and falling profit rates in all economic centres, are not addressed. It therefore leaves out the decisive reason for the struggle for the redistribution of the world between the old ‘Western’ and the new great powers, between the USA and China, the EU powers such as Germany and Russia and Japan, and the intensification of the exploitation of the semi-colonies, the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, which are exacerbating or provoking wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa. This is more than problematic and is not a question based on ‘analytical differences’. Those who refuse to acknowledge or understand the increase in inter-imperialist competition and the growing crisis cannot comprehend its connection to the intensified attacks on the entire working class, the racist division and super-exploitation of migrant labour, and the intensification of gender oppression. And, of course, there is no understanding of the ecological dimension of the impending catastrophe and escalation.
The crucial point is that this systemic crisis could only be ‘resolved’ within capitalism through the massive destruction of “surplus” capital and a reorganisation of the world under the hegemony of an imperialist power or group of powers – a ‘solution’ that necessarily involves enormous sacrifices in terms of human lives and nature, and a constantly increasing threat of war.
What solution?
The ruling class is incapable of solving these problems because this would require it to put its own class interests on hold. The various national bourgeoisies would have to place an imaginary ‘global’ common interest above their own. Such a renunciation would mean the downfall of individual capital in competition – and is therefore impossible for the many competing companies. In exactly the same way, the voluntary renunciation by national total capital and imperialist states of their own interests is impossible from the point of view of their ruling classes.
Therefore, there can only be two fundamental solutions to a crisis of the capitalist system. On the one hand, the destruction of inferior economic competition and the reorganisation of the global economic and political order. Ultimately, this will be fought out not only with economic means, but also with political and military means. The preparation for the latter is ultimately the meaning and purpose of the current rearmament programmes and increasing militarisation.
Or, on the other hand, the seizure of power by the exploited class, the working class, and the establishment of a revolutionary workers‘ government that expropriates capital and replaces capitalism with a democratic planned economy. As the experience of Stalinist ‘socialism in one country’ shows, such a regime could only prove itself in the long term if it were part of a global upheaval, the socialist world revolution.
Such a revolutionary seizure of power cannot rely on the apparatus of capital – it must smash the bourgeois state and replace it with a qualitatively different, temporary state apparatus. The rule of the working class must be based on councils and armed militias. Otherwise, the transition to socialism is impossible.
Transformation with state aid
Not so for the Left Party. The main motion follows seamlessly from all the party’s basic programmes, election statements and political practice. In the historical crisis of capitalism, the main task is not to prepare for its overthrow, but to ‘democratise’ it:
„The core political tasks of the party and the social left are the defence and expansion of democracy, the further development of the welfare state, the socio-ecological restructuring of society and an economic policy that serves the people and promotes solidarity in society. We also need initiatives for more democratic control. That is why the taxation of large fortunes is important. Because a lot of money means a lot of influence, both in terms of investment decisions and through lobbying decision-makers. When markets and politics are dominated by a few billionaire families and large corporations, inequality arises that is detrimental to democracy.“
These and similar passages could have been copied from almost any social democratic party programme of the 20th century. Basically, the Left Party assumes that capitalism can be made gradually more equitable through the right policies, even on the basis of the existing economic order. All that is needed, it says, is to take control of the bourgeois state and to constantly defend and expand bourgeois democracy. And one fine day, we could even wake up in socialism, because the Basic Law, we are told, is not tied to any property regime, as if the ruling class needed to mention its property relations in the law when property rights are the highest civil right. For the Left Party, classes do exist, and this is rightly emphasised – but ‘democracy’ seems to hover above them, as if the bourgeois-democratic order had no class character, as if it were not inextricably linked to the capitalist mode of production.
Here, the Left reveals its reformist character suddenly and clearly. As Lenin already noted in ‘State and Revolution’, reformism and communism do not fundamentally differ in their recognition of class struggle, but rather in the question of what this struggle is aimed at and how it must be resolved. They differ fundamentally on the question of establishing the rule of the working class, or in Marx’s words, the dictatorship of the proletariat. And this also leads to reformism clinging ironically to the utopian idea of using the bourgeois state as a means of social transformation and to the idea of a peaceful transition to socialism, despite all the real developments to the contrary.
Even if the Left Party today presents itself as an opposition party, promises mobilisation and wants to monopolise the term ‘socialist class party’, its strategy will sooner or later inevitably lead to the formation of a bourgeois reform coalition. But the party conference does not mention this.
Rebellious governing?
The Luxemburg Foundation takes a different view. In his article ‘Die Linke – ein Wintermärchen’ (The Left – A Winter’s Tale), Mario Candeias argues for a dual strategy to prevent a Merz-Weidel government and increasing ‘social fascism’: „Following the example of France, the formation of a social popular front of all progressive forces (cf. Balibar 2024; a party project à la Red-Red-Green is unthinkable with the SPD and the Greens as they currently exist, but it is certainly conceivable with disappointed leftists from these parties), from trade unions to social associations, environmental and climate movements, Antifa and Antira, to critical academia, which organises visible resistance and formulates a convincing project with a common minimum programme: around the restoration of a resilient social infrastructure, the socio-ecological restructuring of the economy and society, and the redistribution of social wealth.”
Since even Candeias knows that such a government would all too easily turn against its own base, he wants to see it pressured by an allied, yet antagonistic movement: “What is needed is an offensive and antagonistic, pole of hope, a kind of ‘transformation left’ (Candeias 2016) that prevents the popular front from falling back into the policies of progressive neoliberalism and ecological modernisation that have contributed to the bleak situation.”
Candeias once again serves up the concept of “rebellious governance” – as if the bourgeois state could really be made the starting point for a transformation, if only the government were put under enough pressure. All experience with bourgeois workers‘ governments (i.e., any government consisting solely of reformist parties) and even more so with popular front governments, i.e., coalitions of reformist and openly bourgeois-capitalist parties in situations of acute class struggle, shows that these do not implement the agenda of the working class and the oppressed, but ultimately defend that of the ruling class and its system – even against “rebellious” or even revolutionary attacks from their base.
Since the leadership and strategists of the Left Party regard revolutionary communist politics as evil and absurd, something that might have been justified at the beginning of the 20th century at most, they cling all the more undaunted to the reformist utopia.
European Union
This becomes particularly clear when we consider the issues of the EU, war and peace, and international politics in general. Just as bourgeois democracy is the be-all and end-all of the Left Party’s politics in Germany, so is the EU at the European level. The main motion rightly opposes growing nationalism, the shift to the right, the further concentration of economic power in the hands of corporations, Putin and Trump, only to arrive at a rather astonishing conclusion:
“Many large corporations and bourgeois parties are making it clear that they are prepared to adapt to right-wing radicalised politics and social order and to work with them to their own advantage. This requires consistent anti-fascism and a clear stance at all levels. We are therefore fighting for a social, environmentally-just and democratically sovereign EU.”
Why the EU, as an imperialist bloc, should become a pioneer of climate justice, social justice and democracy remains a Left Party secret. However, it is consistent with the fact that Germany and the EU are not referred to as imperialist states or blocs anywhere in the motion. Aggressive world powers are found exclusively outside the EU – Putin’s Russia and Trump’s USA.
The above passage is not a random slip-up; rather, the section entitled ‘Common stance for peace’ shows where things are likely to go if there is no clear anti-militarist and anti-imperialist opposition:
„We also continue to advocate diplomatic initiatives to contain and end wars. However, we also ask ourselves what defence capability (in the sense of structural non-aggression) actually means instead of war capability, and how we can find credible answers to the open negation of international law by the most powerful states.“
This opens more than a back door to the question of rearmament and militarisation in Germany (or the EU). Why? Because a principled rejection of any German rearmament, indeed of the entire Bundeswehr, of every penny spent on the ‘defence budget’, can only be truly justified if it follows from a fundamental rejection of ‘our own’ imperialism, if anti-militarist and anti-imperialist politics assumes that the main enemy of the working class is to be found in our own country. Therefore, we must reject all of its military goals and expenditures instead of speculating about what its ‘defence capability’ might mean. This can only lead to social patriotism and downright childish illusions when it says: “We want to make the EU a peace union that stands up for international law, détente and human rights in times of global crisis.”
Instead of opposing nationalism and the imperialist EU with the struggle for a socialist Europe, the Left Party spreads phrases that only a minority of its members believe in.
In doing so, however, it does not oppose the course of the CDU/CSU/SPD government, but ultimately forms a left flank for the slogan of making Europe ‘independent’.
At the same time, however, the party conference also showed that there is definitely a search within the Left Party for a fundamental rejection of rearmament and militarisation, as demonstrated by the resolution “Without ifs and buts: Say no to rearmament and military preparedness!”, which was adopted by a majority. Even if this text remains based on pacifism, it contains not only a clear slogan but also open criticism of the fact that the members of the state governments of Bremen and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania damaged the party when they enabled the states to approve the amendments to the Basic Law. In addition, unlike in the past, the Left Party commits itself in this motion to a series of conferences, actions, events and media campaigns to promote mobilisation against rearmament.
Peace above all
Apart from that, the party’s international policy is limited primarily to pacifism. The motion states: „The Left Party is and remains a party of peace, especially in times of increasing militarisation. Greater global justice is a prerequisite for peace and stability. As a party, we unconditionally stand up for human rights, international law and the protection of those who suffer from the wars of this world. We are committed to the recognition of and respect for international organisations such as the International Criminal Court. We also continue to support diplomatic initiatives to contain and end wars.“
The defence of democratic rights, refugees, victims of war and hunger is part of every left-wing programme. And, of course, we also defend international organisations when and where their activities are attacked by imperialists or the right wing. But the developments of recent decades also show that ‘international institutions’ are ultimately nothing more than a result of the balance of power between the imperialist powers.
Neither Russia nor Israel are impressed by international law when it comes to wars that violate international law. Neither of them, nor the United States, nor China, recognise the International Criminal Court. Just as taming capitalism in times of crisis is a utopia on a national level, it is even more so on an international level through institutions that appear to stand above states and ruling classes.
But all the appeals for diplomacy and ‘peace’ also have another, dramatic, flip side. They are directed not only against oppressive states and powers, but above all against the right of the oppressed to resist. This is particularly evident when it comes to the genocide in Gaza. This is not mentioned in the main motion. At the beginning of May, the party leadership reaffirmed its commitment to Israel’s right to exist. However, opposition to the leadership’s conformist course also emerged at the party conference when, contrary to the interventions of Jan van Aken and other leaders, a motion was passed rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and its de facto application as a binding definition by authorities, the Bundestag and local councils. In addition, the resolution also rejects the Bundestag resolutions ‘Never again is now – protect, preserve and strengthen Jewish life in Germany’ and ‘Antisemitism and hostility towards Israel in schools and universities’, which do not protect Jewish life, but rather seek to defame and criminalise solidarity with Palestine.
Organisational realignment
However, the resolution adopted beyond the main motion and the controversial debates on rearmament and Palestine also make it clear that not everything has remained the same. Of course, the Left Party remains a reformist party – ideologically, structurally and organisationally – and we have made it very clear that this is fundamentally to be criticised.
But the ten thousand new members can be won over to a different policy if we succeed in making the contradictions and limitations of reformism clear to them in practice and theory. The motion on the definition of antisemitism, which was passed against the majority of the party executive, shows that this is possible. In addition, there are promises to reorganise the party. To prevent a repeat of its decline, it wants to become an active membership party that – similar to the door-to-door election campaign in 2025 – binds old and new comrades in campaigns and activities. To this end, several priorities have been identified in addition to activity in local groups and working groups.
- The aim is to promote workplace and trade union practices and roots locally and especially where the Left Party is already strong, such as in hospitals.
- The Left Party wants to launch a nationwide campaign for a rent cap, table bills on that in the Bundestag and organise an action conference.
These and other examples show that the Left Party – like many historical parties of the labour movement – wants to build active and stable structures as a basis for strengthening and broadening its organic roots among the various strata of wage earners. As little as its programme is currently ‘socialist,’ as much as it wants to see itself as an ‘organising class party’, this represents real progress against the old understanding of the movement party. Not only did this concept fail to address the question of the agent of change, but in practice it was used to make the Left Party see itself more as a service providing infrastructure for social protests, contributing little in the way of political programme and waiting for a movement to magically spring up somewhere, rather than being the force that initiates it.
In other words, the party now wants to strengthen its social roots in the working class compared to its previous history. This is positive in itself – and raises the question for all revolutionaries who do not want to stand on the sidelines: How can we win motivated activists for socialist politics?
What should revolutionaries do?
Instead of standing on the sidelines and contenting ourselves with the self-assurance that we always knew that reformists are class traitors, we must actively seek debate at a time when strategy is being discussed. For reformism is, in short, an ideological form in which wage earners express their interests under capitalist conditions, but within the limits of the system. It is the political reflection of economic struggles that do not question the system itself, but ultimately reproduce it. This is one of the reasons why it remains deeply rooted despite over 100 years of class betrayal. This is also one of the reasons why it will not expose itself “by itself”, but will reappear in various forms, and why we must therefore develop concrete tactics against reformism and intervene in processes of reorganisation that mobilise tens of thousands.
On the other hand, a revolutionary orientation within the Left Party only makes sense if reformism is consistently criticised and fought against in practice. Those who do not break through this illusion remain trapped within its limits. Without such criticism, revolutionary intervention in the Left Party is impossible and doomed to failure from the outset. Furthermore, no one should harbour the illusion that the party is on the road to becoming a revolutionary party. On the contrary, reformism is not only deeply rooted as an ideology and in its daily parliamentary, municipal and trade union practice, but the party is dominated—despite all wishes for more control over its parliamentary representatives—not by its members, but by a well-entrenched apparatus. No one should harbour the illusion that even a layer of this apparatus, let alone its majority, can be won over to communist politics.
The 60,000 new members themselves certainly belong to different wings of the party and, overall, certainly hope that the Left Party will really help to stop the shift to the right and change social conditions. This process cannot and will not take place without opposition, but will inevitably give rise to conflicts within the party on many issues – anti-fascism, the question of war, rearmament, Palestine, the attitude towards the trade union bureaucracy, etc. – which must be brought to a head. The main areas of focus should be:
Class struggle against the new government and the general offensive: Against Agenda 2030! Against rearmament and militarisation! Against the shift to the right and racism! For international solidarity!
The goal here must be to build a broad anti-crisis alliance that a) mobilises against the government’s coming attacks and b) fights for concrete improvements for the working class, such as a higher minimum wage or a reduction in working hours for the whole of society. It must be made clear that the shift to the right cannot be stopped by fighting for economic improvements alone, but that active anti-racist solutions and an internationalist orientation must also be integrated into such movements in order to help overcome the divisions that have already arisen through joint struggles. On the other hand, the whole thing raises another, more immediate question: if we are against the Merz government, what are we actually for – and how do we get there?
Class-struggle politics on the streets and in the trade unions! Break with social partnership!
The Left Party’s policy that ‘every member of the Left Party should also be a trade union member’ is more than welcome. However, it is not enough to sneak your own members into the trade unions or to replace the SPD in its position as the dominant force in the trade union apparatus, only to ultimately pursue the same state-supporting policies that cause millions of colleagues to suffer real wage losses, or to fail to exploit the potential of social movements because you are afraid to strike. Instead, we need a consistent programme for the democratisation of the trade unions, the basic features of which we have set out in our action programme.
Build counterpower: No to reformism, for a revolutionary, internationalist fighting party!
It means using the Left Party as a battlefield – not as an end goal – and raising awareness of the limits of reformist politics and the necessity of a revolutionary break. This means building a revolutionary faction within the party that openly criticises the party apparatus while at the same time organising the basis for socialist politics. The goal is not to win 10 members for your own small organisation, but to wage struggles at a level where the question of revolutionary strategy is discussed at a higher level – with the aim of actually advancing the struggles. This is only possible if we unite and intervene on several levels:
a) Programmatically: developing and jointly promoting a socialist action programme based on transitional demands.
b) Organisationally: building up supra-regional structures of comrades with a revolutionary perspective – e.g. as a current or platform.
c) Tactically: Clear positioning in conflicts (e.g. Palestine, NATO, nationalisation) – including motions, initiatives for change and counter-proposals to party conference resolutions.
d) Anchoring: Connection to real struggles such as anti-fascist mobilisations, strikes, tenant protests, participation in the party’s own projects on the tenant question or the initiative in the workplaces and unions, the establishment of strike and action committees in schools, universities and workplaces.
The window of opportunity for such debates is not permanent. Even if many members are currently impressed by the success and cohesion of the ‘new’ Left Party and dismiss more in-depth discussions as a waste of time, the question of what the core of the party is will arise at the latest during the Berlin Council elections or social struggles: capitalist co-management or socialist revolution? It is the task of socialists to fight where life is – and to show how the latter can actually be achieved.