Martin Suchanek
‘We want to put Germany back on top’. This is how the new German chancellor Friedrich Merz summarised the coalition agreement between the conservative CDU/CSU parties, and the social democratic SPD. Although the new grand coalition still has to be formally voted in by parliament at the beginning of May, its formation is a done deal.
Friedrich Merz, a long-standing representative of the neoliberal, socially conservative and US-oriented wing of the CDU, will head the new government. It is not without a certain irony that he will have to lead German imperialism in a period of open rivalry with the USA. At the same time, no one should be under any illusions about the new government’s determination to take on the challenges posed by Trumpism in the struggle for the redivision of the world.
In line with EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, the German government’s answer to ‘Make America Great Again’ is ‘Make Europe Independent Again’. At home the programme of the Merz government amounts to an all-out attack on the working class and all the oppressed at all levels. Here are just the main points:
1. Rearmament and militarisation
In response to the upheaval in transatlantic relations under Trump, on March 18 the German parliament passed a gigantic rearmament programme. In 2024, the military budget was 71.75 billion euros (2.1% of GDP). Starting this year, it is to rise to 3.5% of GDP or €120–150 billion per year. On top of this, the EU wants to set aside €800 billion for the rearmament of its member states.
In addition, compulsory military service is to be reintroduced, and a separate European nuclear arsenal is to be pushed forward with France. The size of the army is to be massively increased and, albeit within the framework of Nato, the basis for a future EU army is to be laid.
2. Investment programme for capital
The historic rearmament programme was supplemented by the CDU/CSU and SPD with a correspondingly enormous package for investment in German infrastructure. A special fund of €500 billion has been created outside the budget for the next 10 years.
The coalition parties never tire of presenting the investment programme as a boon for all. In reality, of course, it serves the interests of German capital and its international competitiveness—on the one hand as an economic stimulus package worth billions, and on the other as a renewal of the social capital and an increase in productive power in terms of transport, communication and IT infrastructure.
Nor is the pressure on municipal and social spending to be relieved, encapsulated in the so-called ‘debt brake’— a constitutionally enshrined austerity programme. On the contrary: while €1 trillion is being freed up for war and capital, services for refugees, the unemployed, pensions, education, daycare and health are being cut further.
3. Strengthening the EU as an imperialist bloc
In the struggle for the redivision of the world, the EU and Germany have fallen behind the USA and China in recent years, but as a world power they have also fallen behind Russia. Therefore, a further attempt is to be made to make the EU, as an imperialist bloc under German and French leadership, fit for global competition and to overcome its internal contradictions.
4. Racism, deportations, ‘regulated migration’
In the coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU and SPD announced massive attacks on migrants and refugees. The right of asylum will be largely abolished, border controls tightened, and benefits for asylum seekers and refugees drastically reduced. In addition, migrants who have German citizenship are also threatened with having it withdrawn if they oppose German state policy, for example in support of Israel. At the same time, highly skilled workers and cheap labour are to continue to be recruited from abroad, but under constant legal uncertainty, in order to make them even easier to exploit.
5. Massive attacks on jobs, working conditions and incomes to ‘save the competitiveness’ of German capital
These racist policies are not only intended to undermine the far right, but also to split the working class and thus undermine its ability to fight.
Layoffs, rationalisation and flexibilization of working conditions are on the agenda throughout big industry. In addition, weekly working hours are to be made more flexible.
Secondly, support for the long-term unemployed and poor (the so-called ‘citizen’s income’) is to be cut. Above all, sanctions against the unemployed are to be tightened and benefits cancelled if they do not comply with every chicanery of the authorities. The retirement age is not to be raised any further, but an ‘active pension’ is to be introduced so that pensioners can continue to be employed as flexible workers at lower wages and tax-free.
Massive cuts and privatisation are looming in the social sector, in education, schools, health care and nursing, which will primarily affect women workers and proletarian women, LGBT+ people and the racially oppressed. At the same time, the new coalition is planning a series of tax breaks and subsidies for German capital. Under the label of ‘de-bureaucratisation’, social and ecological regulations for companies are also to be suspended.
A general attack
All in all, this represents a general attack on the entire working class, on the oppressed, on ecological and social movements, which will also be supplemented by further restrictions of democratic rights. The criminalisation of Palestine solidarity and of environmental activists is unfortunately only a harbinger of further surveillance measures.
The justification for all of this is the change in the international situation and the geostrategic orientation of the USA under Trump. Now, ‘democratic’ Germany is threatened not only by Russia and China, but also by the USA as a rival and potential enemy. The transatlantic partnership and its institutions are now at stake. And like everyone who fears that they will lose out in the realignment of the world, the German government, its allies and the EU Commission are justifying their programme of political, economic and military strengthening as an act of self-defence against evil. There is hardly a talk show, hardly an editorial, hardly a statement from the ruling centre that does not try to shake us up in this ‘fateful hour for our democracy’. Of course, one hears nothing about Germany’s economic and geostrategic imperialist interests.
These lies are still only being spread by the bourgeois media and parties. The trade union leaderships and the works councils in the big corporations are also joining the chorus of German defenders of the fatherland. Under their leadership, the trade unions are a mainstay of the new government. They present the investment programme as a great success on their part—they have no fundamental objections to rearmament, though for some left-wing bureaucrats it may be going a bit too far, while others hope for well-paid jobs in the arms industry. They remain silent on racism. Only on social issues and workers’ rights is there discontent, but they would rather solve this through negotiations, as in the collective bargaining rounds of recent years, than through strikes and mobilisations.
The right
The leaderships of the trade unions and the SPD, which are closely linked to one another, therefore present the main obstacle to the defensive struggle against the arms race, the war threat, anti-immigrant racism and attacks on the working class’s gains. They form the bulwark of ‘social peace’ and demobilisation.
The policies of the grand coalition and the support for them by the trade unions are accelerating the growth of the right, especially the right-wing populist AfD (Alternative for Germany). The AfD received 20.80% of the vote in the elections and is now at 24% in the polls—and rising.
In all the eastern German states (except Berlin), the AfD has become the strongest party. What is particularly dramatic about this is that it was not only able to win over small business owners and the petty bourgeoisie, but it also did particularly well among people in a poor economic situation (39%), blue-collar workers (38%) and the unemployed (34%).
It also became the second strongest party among young voters (18 to 24 year-olds). These results are alarming. Even though the AfD is not a fascist party, but a racist, right-wing populist force, the approximately 10 million votes cast for the party are, in their vast majority, not ‘stray’ protest votes, but a consolidated voter base that votes for the AfD not in spite of, but because of its racism, which it, similar to the FPÖ in Austria, sells as a reactionary answer to the social question.
The Left Party
In contrast to the general right-wing trend in the federal elections, Die Linke was able to achieve success. As recently as mid-2024, it seemed unlikely that, due to the 5% hurdle it would be represented in the next parliament at all after catastrophic defeats in European and a number of state elections. However, a reversal of the trend was already visible at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025, even though no one at the time would have expected 8.77% in the elections. This development has continued ever since. It is now at 11% in the polls.
The Left did particularly well among first-time voters. Among 18 to 24 year-olds, the party became the strongest force with 24% ( an increase of 17% compared to 2021), followed by the AfD with 21%, which reflects a strong left-right polarisation among the youth. In particular, young women voted for the Left Party at a rate of 37%, while young men were dominated by the AfD.
The success of the Left Party is due to several factors. Firstly, it has gained a massive number of new members since the split with Sahra Wagenknecht; over 60,000 have joined since the end of 2023. Die Linke now has more than 110,000 members. This has been accompanied by a rejuvenation of the membership.
Millions voted for Die Linke because it is perceived as the only opposition to neoliberal attacks, cuts, militarisation and racism. The party’s left-reformist programme, which presents the welfare state, social redistribution, disarmament and pacifism as the solution to all problems, is attractive because it corresponds to the prevailing reformist consciousness of these voters.
At the same time, the reformist, bourgeois character of these policies is evident day after day. The Left Party focuses one-sidedly on the so-called ‘social question’, i.e. on social reforms. Of course, the fight against rent gouging, against price increases, for social security is very important. But at the same time, it tries to avoid other central questions. For example, it presents itself as anti-racist and anti-fascist, but it does not understand the fight against racism and fascism, for equal rights for all migrants and refugees, as an integral part of the class struggle. Therefore, it focuses on popular-front-type alliances with bourgeois parties and the church, instead of a workers’ united front, and rejects the struggle for open borders, full citizenship rights and the development of self-defence structures against racist and fascist attacks.
Above all, however, Die Linke, which currently also embraces ‘socialism’ and ‘class politics’, shirks international questions. It is at a loss for words regarding the reactionary Trump-Putin deal on Ukraine. It rejects it, but its alternative to this appeasement lies in the utopian invocation of UN peacekeeping forces to secure the peace and a nebulous ‘European security structure’. In principle, it does not question the Bundeswehr and Germany’s ‘defence capability’. Even though it voted against the rearmament of the Bundeswehr in the lower chamber of the Bundestag in March, its members in the state governments of Bremen and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania voted in favour of it!
The party also remains internally divided on Palestine. For months, it refused to call the genocide a genocide. The pro-Zionist wing of the party wanted to overtake the government in moving to the right, and some of these figures finally turned their backs on the party in 2024. At the same time, the party leadership also expelled the well-known anti-Zionist Ramsis Kilani for ‘damaging the party’s reputation’. This actually shows the political inability to react appropriately to the coming attacks from within and without.
All this shows that the success of the Left Party stands on politically weak reformist foundations. However, it also proves that it was politically correct to give critical support to the Left Party in the federal elections. Tens of thousands of new members and over four million voters represent a potential force to resist the attacks of German capital and the next government. Only by successfully mobilising them in the workplaces, in the trade unions and on the streets will it be possible to draw broader sections of the working class along with them, to change the course of the trade unions and to mobilise disaffected members and voters of the Social Democrats, the Greens and non-voters and to actively oppose their parties.
In this situation, the task of revolutionaries is to explain how resistance to the next government can be formed, to advocate a united front against the general attack, in the Left Party, in the radical left, in the trade unions and workplaces.
The fact that the leadership of the Left Party has no plan for such a struggle must not be an obstacle to active intervention by revolutionaries among the party’s members and voters. On the contrary, it opens up a field for joint struggle against the next government and for subjecting reformism to revolutionary criticism. And it opens up the possibility of bringing the discussion of building a revolutionary party and a new revolutionary International to the fore.