The crisis of German capitalism is deepening relentlessly. Last Sunday, elections were held in the two federal states of Saxony and Thuringia. They were won by the right-wing party ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) and the demagogic new outfit ‘Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht’ (BSW), a split-off from the Left Party. The reformists and liberals in Germany and beyond are in a state of panic, but this outcome is a measure of their own bankruptcy.
The parties of the federal government (Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals) were thoroughly punished for their attacks on working people. The conservative Christian Democrats CDU, the most important party of capital, was only able to hold on because it was perceived as the lesser evil with the best chance against the AfD. Half of its votes can be attributed to this.
On the other hand, in Saxony, the Left Party was only able to save itself in the state parliament by winning direct mandates in two constituencies in Leipzig [direct mandates are a peculiarity of the German electoral system that allow a party to win more seats than their proportion of the vote would otherwise indicate]. In Thuringia, where the Left Party was involved in two governments and provided the prime minister since 2014, support for the party plummeted.
Reformism and liberalism were massively punished in this election. The so-called political centre is collapsing in Germany, just like everywhere else in the world. Polarisation is reaching new heights; the bourgeois regime is becoming increasingly unstable both politically and socially.
Crisis of German capitalism
The basis for this development is the crisis of German capitalism. The economy has not recovered since the coronavirus pandemic. The war in Ukraine and its catastrophic effects highlighted the strategic impasse of German imperialism.
Volkswagen, Germany’s largest car manufacturer, has announced plant closures and redundancies / Image: Roger W, Flickr
The German ruling class and establishment have wound up in this situation because they have completely subordinated themselves to the interests of the USA in the Ukraine War. As a result, they have amputated their access to cheap Russian gas and oil.
Production and incoming orders have collapsed in key sectors (automotive, mechanical engineering, chemicals). BASF, the largest producer of chemical products, is closing production plants. Other chemical companies are also taking similar steps. Volkswagen, Germany’s largest car manufacturer, has announced plant closures and redundancies. Overall car production has collapsed particularly hard since 2019, and is now at the same level as in the 1990s.
With the crisis affecting large corporations, and faced with enormous energy costs, supplier companies are coming under pressure from falling sales figures. Competition for markets and investments with China and the USA is also crushing the German economy.
The cost-of-living crisis and the threat of mass layoffs are hovering over the working class like a Sword of Damocles. After two decades of austerity policies, casualisation and increasing exploitation, the mood among the working class and youth is becoming increasingly heated. Added to this are fears about climate change, war and the realisation that the whole country is in decline.
Decades of austerity and privatisation policies by federal and state governments have run Germany's infrastructure and services into the ground, with dilapidated bridges, broken railway lines, and bankrupt hospitals. Added to this is the blatant shortage of labour in daycare, schools, care homes, hospitals, administration and many other sectors. Exploitation is increasing enormously, and life is becoming increasingly insecure and stressful for the masses.
The establishment’s failed anti-AfD campaign
The federal government has nothing to offer in response to these problems. The increase in the minimum wage was not only too low, but was immediately eaten up by inflation. Harassment of the unemployed has not been abolished. The housing shortage continues to rise and the government is not fulfilling its promises on that score either.
At the same time, there is no end to warmongering. Hundreds of billions are being channelled into the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and the rearmament of the Bundeswehr [the army]. All this money is lacking elsewhere and will be paid for with cuts, meaning even worse services and even harsher exploitation.
Hundreds of billions are being channelled into the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and the rearmament of the Bundeswehr / Image: President.gov.ua, Wikimedia Commons
This has all led to a collapse in the masses’ trust in official institutions. According to new polls, 78 percent of the public has little or no faith in political parties, with 70 percent feeling this way about the federal government, 62 percent about the Bundestag and 56 percent about the economy. The ruling class is now reaping the political consequences.
The war, the economic crisis, the pandemic policy, and all the broken election promises have shaken the confidence of the working class, the youth and the middle classes in the liberal parties, the FDP and Greens, as well as in the reformist social-democratic SPD. The CDU only appears strong because it is in opposition.
But whereas the ‘centreground’ parties are tried and trusted by the ruling class, the AfD is not. The ruling class casts a distrusting eye on it, on account of its willingness to play on and whip up the anxieties of the masses through right-wing rhetoric, and above all because of its opposition to the Ukraine War, the EU and the Euro. In order to save its own skin and weaken the right-wing AfD, the ruling class and their political establishment unleashed a demagogic campaign against the AfD at the beginning of the year.
It all started with the publication of an article in the liberal media outfit Correctiv, which accused the AfD of planning mass deportations. This article was picked up and publicised by all the leading bourgeois media outlets, parties and associations.
They then organised ‘democracy’ demonstrations, and public campaigns for ‘diversity and democracy’, which were supported by bourgeois mouthpieces such as Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Handelsblatt, Wirtschaftswoche and Tagesspiegel, together with 700 companies, foundations, associations, universities and NGOs.
In view of the EU elections and the state elections in Germany, the CEOs of Siemens, Mercedes, Deutsche Bank and many others have taken a public stand and called on people not to vote for the AfD.
At the same time, the establishment is utilising the state's repressive apparatus. For example, the domestic intelligence service is monitoring the AfD as a “suspected case” of political extremism, and its youth organisation Junge Alternative as “definitely right-wing extremist”. They have also initiated investigations into AfD politicians on account of the alleged receipt of money from Russia and/or China.
However, these means proved to be largely ineffective against the rise of the AfD. What the ruling class in Germany has achieved is the opposite of national unity. Instead of returning to stability and strengthening the ‘political centre’, it is destabilising its own system even more.
Racist campaign by the establishment
The working class has remained largely passive on this issue because the establishment cannot inspire them to take up their cause against the AfD. So the establishment switched to stealing the AfD’s clothing by themselves whipping up the racist migration issue.
While the establishment played up as defenders of freedom and democracy, the German government tightened asylum laws, which could soon be largely suspended. But this did not help to strengthen the centre either. The establishment's racist demagoguery was therefore escalated further and further in an effort to desperately claw back political support.
Sahra Wagenknecht has managed to capture some of the anger and resentment of the masses / Image: Superbass, Wikimedia Commons
The knife attack in Solingen provided a golden opportunity for the government to pose as the defenders of ‘law and order’. All of a sudden, everyone was calling for changes to the asylum system and weapon laws. Green politicians demanded another ‘Zeitenwende’ [a ‘historic turning point’, a phrase picked up by Scholz to justify a turn to rearmament], while SPD politicians called for special funds to arm the police and secret services.
In just a few days, the German government pulled a new ‘security package’ out of the drawer, which included the cancellation of social benefits for asylum seekers who are obliged to leave the country or who have already been registered in another EU country; the enabling of deportations to Afghanistan and Syria; the revocation of protection status for those entitled to asylum when travelling to their country of origin; and expansion of the authorities' powers of surveillance.
In an address to the nation, Vice-Chancellor and hypocrite Robert Habeck of the Greens, emphasised these anti-immigrant policies in the most ‘humanistic’ language. But that could not hide the fact that the self-proclaimed ‘democratic’ parties are pursuing precisely the same policies that the AfD is calling for. In January, the elites were still conjuring up the danger of mass deportations. Now they are creating the legal framework to carry them out.
The CDU is calling for even tougher measures, in unison with the AfD. The BSW, a peculiar outfit that split from the Left Party, has also declared that, for them, these measures don’t go far enough. The around-the-clock publicity given to the knife attack in Solingen is pure incitement to hatred, and a distraction from the real problems of capitalism and the violence that those in power inflict on the masses on a daily basis. The purpose is to sow division and hatred of Muslims, migrants and refugees – despite all assurances to the contrary.
But even this desperate attempt to switch tracks has neither strengthened the ‘political centre’, nor weakened the AfD. Instead, another demagogic party – the BSW – is on the rise, particularly in the East: the creation of former Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht, who has managed to capture some of the anger and resentment of the masses.
Dead-end of the AfD and BSW
Despite its anti-establishment posturing and the attacks it has faced from the more ‘traditional’ capitalist parties, the AfD is just as much in favour of austerity, armament and tax breaks for the rich. It also wants to reach deep into the pockets of the working class in order to pay for the crisis of German capitalism.
While its demagogic calculus leads it to reject the Ukraine war, the AfD is in favour of NATO’s two percent target and would even like to exceed it. It has also spoken out in favour of rearming the Bundeswehr and the special fund that Scholz established to finance it. Moreover, it stands behind Netanyahu and Israel's genocide in Gaza. In this way, this party is participating in the arms race and the imperialist crimes of the West.
The AfD also has nothing to offer the masses in terms of social policy apart from agitation against migrants. While it wants to abolish wealth, inheritance and business taxes, it wants to cut social benefits for the poorest, i.e. reduce the welfare state to benefit the profits of capital.
The BSW cannot rightly claim to speak for the interests of the working class and youth either. It stands for the same racist agitation against refugees as everyone else. It wants more East German managers in the economy, in universities, in administrations – but it stands for nothing that could bring an improvement to the masses in the East. This is pure identity politics of another sort – not ‘woke’, but nationalistic. It is no less divisive and just as much a distraction from the country’s real problems.
In an interview with Die Zeit, BSW leader Sahra Wagenknecht made it clear that she is in favour of a “defensive alliance” and an independent European security policy – NATO under a different name, in other words. Despite her assertion that she is in favour of ‘nuclear disarmament’ and against the stationing of further US nuclear weapons in Germany, she defends a second strike capability as a deterrent.
The BSW cannot rightly claim to speak for the interests of the working class and youth / Image: Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, Twitter
In addition, the BSW and the AfD are making clear coalition offers to the ‘old party’, the CDU, which they pretend to hate so much. Both want to get their snouts in the state's feeding trough and to be allowed to thus manage capitalism. These demagogues are only looking for their own place in the ranks of the same elite they claim to be fighting against. This will not bring about any improvements, but only deterioration of the living conditions of the masses. Those who do not want to take on the banks and monopolies cannot put an end to war, deindustrialisation and barbarism.
Government crisis and politics of the rich
The bourgeois camp is now discussing scenarios for future governments in Saxony and Thuringia. The coalition negotiations are likely to drag on, with the parties involved primarily fighting for their own positions. All of them will exploit the racist migration issue to an even greater extent – all for the ‘protection of democracy’ and ‘freedom’, of course.
In Brandenburg, the next election (22 September) will bring similar problems for the ruling class. All these potential government crises will further exacerbate polarisation throughout the country.
All of the parties are refusing to form a government with the AfD and are endeavouring to form ‘colourful’ governments [i.e. coalitions representing different party colours], or even to elevate the CDU to a minority government. The result of such posturing will be weak and crisis-ridden governments – regardless of who forms them.
Weak governments that no one welcomes, that are hated by some and seen as a necessary evil by others, will find it even more difficult to push through their programmes and to pacify the masses.
No matter what eventual governments emerge in the end, whether they are ‘colourful’ or minority governments, politics will be directed against the people in the name of the people. The crisis of capitalism demands this of the bourgeois parties. Attacks on the interests of the working class and youth will increase, and with them the pressure that must eventually lead to explosions of the class struggle.
Movements on the right and left are possible
It is possible that right-wing protests (à la Pegida or the anti-vax protests) will flare up again in eastern Germany. Right-wing radicals and fascists will feel strengthened after the elections, and the right-wing AfD demagogues could call for protests on the streets against the established parties and governments.
If their protests centre on the question of ‘who is really undermining democracy’, when the election winner is prevented from forming a state government, this could bring out big crowds.
Such a development has the potential to trigger a massive youth movement against the AfD throughout Germany. By comparison, what are the established parties doing? Their entire campaign against the AfD has been based on hypocrisy from the very beginning. Before the elections, they had some use for big mobilisations. Now the fight against the right is to be conducted exclusively by politicians and experts, through backroom deals to form governments that exclude the AfD. A new movement along these lines could begin to expose their ‘democratic’ chicanery.
On the offensive with communist politics
So far, the anti-AfD protests have been led by hypocrites who have exploited the protests to maintain their own power. While the Greens, FDP, SPD and CDU pose as ‘defenders of democracy’, they deliver bombs to Israel and fight Palestinian solidarity with police batons, false accusations of antisemitism and smear campaigns. The AfD is also joining in with these attacks.
Our task is not to ‘save democracy’ together with the liberals, who ultimately defend the same system as the right wing. We say, down with the AfD; but at the same time, down with the establishment parties, bourgeois rule and capitalism!
This is exactly what the Revolutionary Communist Party stands for. We are in favour of overthrowing capitalism in order to solve the urgent problems facing humanity. Our answer to the crisis of capitalism and bourgeois democracy is revolution.
We are in favour of expropriating the banks and corporations and managing them in a democratically planned economy so that we can halt deindustrialisation, raise wages, fund public services, and solve the housing question. Only in this way can we finally get to grips with the major problem of climate change, as well as putting an end to imperialism and war.
Protests against the right are already being organised in various cities and more are sure to follow. As a rule, these will be dominated by the established parties and ideas. It is therefore important to raise the independent banner of communism, which represents the only real way forward, and fight against the liberal ‘anti-fascist’ phrasemongering that is just grist to the mill of the AfD.
Only the workers and young, organised on the basis of communist ideas and fighting traditions, can put up a serious struggle against the right. Get organised now, convince other class fighters, and set up a cell in your school, university or workplace, and go on the offensive with us: against the AfD, the government, and capitalism!