Thousands took to the streets in Germany after the Conservatives (CDU) and Liberals (FDP) formed a parliamentary majority with the extreme right AfD to push through anti-immigrant measures. Local offices of the CDU were totally surrounded. In Bremen for example, a thousand people chanted, “all of Bremen hates the CDU”.
The protests had an immediate effect: while the CDU secured a majority on Wednesday January 29th, they lost the vote on a similar issue two days later. The AfD vote for the Conservatives’ resolution was solid, but more than 25 MPs from the CDU and FDP voted against, abstained or didn’t take part under the pressure of mass protests.
On the first weekend of February about half a million came out across Germany. 250,000 protested in Berlin. Up to 80,000 took to the streets in Hamburg, Germany’s second biggest city with the slogan “Hamburg resists”. The day before, 4,000 were demonstrating to defend the right to asylum. SAV (International Socialist Alternative in Germany) was present with many members and sympathizers, and distributed one thousand leaflets inviting people to a public meeting. It was so crowded that it wasn’t possible to have a real march and it was difficult to even move around because of the massive size of the demonstration.
In Bremen 10,000 people were at a rally organized by the “Bremen alliance against the Right”, which is composed of many different antifascist, feminist, antiracist and student groups. The organizers made sure to mention that the Greens and the SPD also play along with racist deportation politics. This was an improvement to last year’s protest wave against the AfD, but a real critique of the system was still missing. SAV members distributed about 200 flyers pointing people to upcoming meetings. We also talked with people about voting for the Left Party, which was generally well received, as the Greens and their willingness to go into coalition with the CDU despite what Merz did, is lowering their overall support from their already sceptical voters.
12,000 protested in Bonn, 8,000 in Halle, and 5,000 in both Chemnitz and Kassel. SAV Kassel was out with 10 members and distributed 800 flyers for public meetings. There were demos in at least dozens of cities, and we don’t even have a complete overview yet.
In Cologne, 40,000 came out on February 1st, following up on a 70,000 person demonstration the previous weekend. SAV had a strong contingent with a huge banner and placards. We were the only group running a stall and got a good reception to our leaflets and the slogan that a fight against the extreme right means a fight against capitalism.
The co-chairman of the Left Party, Jan van Aken, gave a substantial speech in Cologne, starting with “I’m Jan and I’m against billionaires.” He went on to say that you can’t explain the existence of racism and fascism without pointing to the rule of the billionaires. He described that racism is a tool to turn the working masses against each other, to protect the rule of the rich. He also referred to the oath of the survivors of Buchenwald concentration camp to “destroy Nazism with all its roots”. Importantly, van Aken did explain that capitalism is the problem, however, he didn’t fully take the point to its conclusion and state clearly that capitalism needs to be abolished.
The SPD and the Greens tried to capitalize on the antifascist mood. They also had speakers on the demos who criticized the CDU for their anti-immigrant agenda. But they were silent about the fact that they themselves have introduced anti-immigrant laws, have only minimal differences to the Conservatives, and are ready to go into a coalition with them after the February 23rd election, which means accepting the policies they just voted against.
The Left Party is the only political alternative. Its election campaign is very energetic. The party has been stuck at 3% in the polls, but they recently polled at 5% for the first time, which is the threshold to get into parliament. 11,000 new members joined the party just in the last two weeks, pushing the membership to 71,000, which is the highest since 2009. Thousands of mainly young activists have gotten involved, doing stalls and door-knocking activities. The target that was set in the election campaign to visit 250,000 doors was reached three weeks early.
Socialist Alternative is taking part in the election campaign of the Left Party. We have gotten good reception while out campaigning, with many young people stating, “I’m already voting for the Left Party.” While we are critical of the reformist strategy of the party and especially their wavering around on the question of war, we call for a vote for the only party that stands up against anti-worker and anti-immigrant policies.
Our slogan is “Vote for the Left Party, build resistance in the workplace, universities and neighborhoods”. It’s not enough to vote for the Left Party. After the election we’ll be confronted with a more right-wing government, which will attack social benefits, immigrants, women and queer people while spending hundreds of billions for a massive armament programme. Young people are being threatened with the re-introduction of the military draft.
To prevent the Left Party from wasting the energy of its new members for reformist, electoralist, middle-of-the-road-policies, a strong anticapitalist, socialist wing has to be built. We call on workers and young people to join Socialist Alternative to get organized to abolish capitalism.
