Main LA Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 47, 21 November 1949, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
|
A reader send us a letter which he received from a German friend commenting on some aspects of German politics today. Following are some excerpts from it. – Ed. |
I consider that the chief difficulty facing the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) lies in the formulation of a program. With the exception of slogans such as “socialism,” “socialization” and “collective economy,” which each member can interpret as he pleases, there exists no economic program which can be taken seriously. On the other hand, they do have a fairly acceptable educational and cultural program.
Again, a health program is lacking. For example, the association of physicians of the public-health fund requested all parties to reply to 30 questions it put to them, prior tothe recent elections. The questions of course had been formulated by arch-reactionaries and were full of traps. The answers were to be mailed back within two weeks. The SPD was the only party which was not in the position to answer the questions. All other parties replied and these replies were published in the medical columns of a periodical to which every physician must subscribe.
There are numerous such failures and omissions. One of my friends went to see the party’s executive in Hanover aboue six months ago to declare to Heine, a member of the executive, that what political leadership existed in economic questions was clumsy and inadequate, and that the economic program of the Christian Democratic Union had to be countered in a manner different from hitherto. This was the reply: “My dear comrade, if only we could find the time to concern ourselves with economic problems!”
... It will be a good thing if you in New York do not harbor false illusions about the German working class. The struggle for naked existence which every individual is compelled to wage, the threat of unemployment, the result of the great Russian experiment in socialism, the postwar situation – all create an atmosphere of resignation which as a factor in politics must not be overlooked.
To come to your letter: Why, for heaven’s sake, should we get a neo-fascism – we still have the old one as well as the old economic leadership, that suffices us to the full! The SPD has been excluded from politics for years and does little else than take care of the occupational interests of the workers, and that it has not done too well.
One of my friends in the Rhine-Ruhr area compared the recent election results of his district with those of 1911. There was an increase of 3 per cent for the SPD. After two world wars, and lost ones, at that!
To be sure, the German working class is the only class capable of waging the struggle for national independence, and the conditions for this are not bad, since it will coincide with the struggle for its economic interests. There are enough examples of the fact that the entrepreneurs have far better relations with the occupation powers and get along, much better with them than the allegedly international Social-Democracy.
The German working class had an opportunity in 1918 to take the leadership of Europe into its hands; it missed it. It has no such opportunity at the present. Rather, it is England which has the chance now. Apparently this has not been understood there; how else interpret the devaluation of the pound?
Sometimes one can’t but have the impression that Churchill is more progressive, in European questions at least, than the Labor Party people! There are a number of conferences taking place in Europe, initiated by the ILP, furthering a United Socialist States of Europe. These conferences were only briefly mentioned in the press here. When I brought the invitations to the SPD here in Hamburg it was decided to send a student delegation, for fear that a more representative delegation might make, .enemies of the Labor Party people ...
|
|
K. |
Main LA Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 10 December 2022