Many in Germany’s left party Die Linke are breathing a sigh of relief: a long dispute is over. On 23 October, the most popular and polarizing member, Sahra Wagenknecht, split from Die Linke and announced the founding of her own party, named after herself.
Wagenknecht remains true to herself in terms of her politics. Programmatically, the new party is a right-wing social democratic and populist party.
When she complains that journalists had falsely accused her of being inclined to support a planned economy, we have to agree with her. In fact, she offered no alternatives to capitalism. For more than ten years, her idea of economic policy has been a return to the “orderly” capitalism of the early Federal Republic of Germany.
The new party envisages a “sensible economic policy”. Industry and “small and medium-sized businesses” are to be promoted, with cheap gas from Russia and a foreign policy that secures sales markets. In this way, the party offers itself as a mouthpiece for those German capitalists that want Germany to be a more “independent” imperialist actor, doing business with all powers regardless of their affiliation in the New Cold War.
The new party’s website says: “We need future funds to support innovative domestic companies and start-ups, not billion-dollar subsidies for overseas corporations.” The party could hardly have made it clearer which side Sahra Wagenknecht is ultimately on: that of German companies and their state.
Social justice “from above”
Wagenknecht claims to stand for a higher minimum wage and higher pensions, but doesn’t call for a mass movement to strike for higher wages, for joining the trade unions or for combative wage disputes that could reverse the trend.
Her understanding of politics is one “from above”. She presents herself as the representative of working people who have no voice, no power and no possibility to change anything. In other words, she wants nothing to do with movements from below. This also applies to her peace policy.
She complains that the “geopolitical bloc formation endangers important sales markets”. But the New Cold War is the result of the global intensification of imperialist contradictions. Wagenknecht neither offers a serious analysis of this situation, nor has a perspective for the international politics of the working class. Instead, she tries to put herself in the shoes of German capital, ultimately proposing the EU should break away from NATO and become an independent third block in the New Cold War.
German energy companies may like to continue importing cheap gas from Russia, the German car industry might like to continue exporting cars to China. But the global bloc formation cannot be reversed by efforts within the framework of the bourgeois nation state. The only way to overcome the polarisation of nation states and military escalations are international mass movements from below, not calls for bourgeois diplomacy.
Wagenknecht is committed to the fight against “unregulated migration”, even if it is not in the core of her programme. She talks about “freedom of opinion” and “restricted debates”, this can and should be understood as an allusion to the supposed “left-green dictatorship of opinion” that racists, sexists and transphobes complain about. However, she more explicitly refers to the war in Ukraine and the issue of Covid. The new party obviously sees an important voter potential in the former Covid denialist movement.
Wagenknecht’s populism: right or left?
Wagenknecht’s new party is a right-wing split from Die Linke. This does not mean that it will necessarily be a right-wing populist party like the Alternative for Germany (AfD), despite somewhat similar views on migration and economic policy demands that all come from a “national” perspective.
Scandalously, die Linke supports deportations in those state governments in which it participates. Wagenknecht even goes beyond this when she blames “unregulated migration” for problems in the education system and calls for benefits to be cut to zero for immigrants and young unemployed people. Wagenknecht is deliberately tapping into right-wing attitudes in society. But racism will not be the core of the party programme, it’s a means to an end. Still, the emergence and the programme of the new party are an expression of a worrying right-wing development in society.
Under no circumstances should Die Linke sit back and hope that it will now make progress in building a left party. The split to the right is first and foremost a defeat for Die Linke. We have supported the project “Die Linke” since the foundation of the WASG (Labour and Social Justice — Electoral Alternative), because the existence of a relevant party to the left of the SPD improves the conditions of struggle for the working class — its disappearance would be a weakening.
No alternative to building a militant, anti-capitalist left
It is clear to us: Wagenknecht’s party is not an alternative. It would be nice if, after the departure of Wagenknecht and her supporters, who have dominated the internal party debates and their external perception for years, the orientation of the party could once again be discussed politically instead of personally. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. Those parts of Die Linke that are committed to participation in government coalitions and post-1990s social democracy are initially strengthened by the split, and also because some nominally on the party’s left will follow Wagenknecht’s call.
The split should be a clear warning: social democratic ideas and adaptation to bourgeois politics can lead to the destruction of the left. Against this, a change of course is urgently needed. Instead of hoping for a false peace in the party across all wings, the political confrontation must continue. The politics of the “reformers”, who focus on recognition and government participation, must be countered with a militant and anti-capitalist course. There is potential for a left party that is the only one to stand against the shift to the right of bourgeois society, to name the causes of the multiple crises that capitalism produces and to campaign for socialist solutions — it’s time to use it.
