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From Socialist Worker, No. 85, July 1968, p. 3.
The growth of the NPD is a sinister trend – but the unholy alliance of the Grand Coalition still poses the main problem
IN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT elections in Bad-Wurtemberg in April, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (the SPD) lost 8.3 per cent of their voters, while the neo-fascist New Democrats (NPD) won some 10 per cent of the votes cast.
The SPD leadership put the blame for their poor showing on the students, but the decline of the SPD began not with the mass demonstrations at Easter against the Springer newspaper group but on the day the SPD formed the “ Grand Coalition ” with the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). Since then the SPD has lost votes in all the local elections.
It is true that the growth of the NPD started in 1965, but it was promoted by the Grand Coalition.
Public opinion, deeply shocked by the election results, interpreted the climb of the NPD as the successful return of the Nazis. But in Western Germany today there is no danger of a fascist coup d’etat. The NPD is an embarrassment to the ruling class which knows that the coalition is endangered by the SPD’s loss of votes and the NPD’s victory and the important role of the SPD in the present government as a disciplinary weapon against the unions is jeopardised.
Those who call for all “democratic forces” to unite against the menace of fascism overlook the substantial differences between the NPD and the NSDAP (Hitler’s party). The real danger at the moment comes from the centre, from the present government.
Hitter’s Nazi Party was the political spearhead of a fascist movement whose strength was not drawn just from electoral votes. A majority of the NSDAP voters were already organised in paramilitary youth, women’s and combat units, whose task was to intimidate the left through systematic terrorisation.
The bourgeois state machine in the Weimar Republic had been so weakened and limited in its scope by war, inflation and deep entanglement with the Social Democratic Party that the fascist combat units had to take over the task of fighting the left and altering the balance of power of the classes so that finally a “legal” coup d’etat became possible in January 1933.
But neither the political nor the economic circumstances exist today which then forced the ruling class to rely on the support of a fascist movement. In contrast to the NSDAP, the NPD is a typical voters’ party. It can win 10 or even 15 per cent of the votes, but, apart from a few peasant demonstrations, it is not yet a mass movement. The relationship between electorate and party is just as loose in the NPD as in the other parties.
Many causes have contributed to the NPD’s success. It is strong where the Nazis were strong, in certain rural areas where peasants are threatened just as badly by the agricultural crisis today as they were before 1933, and in small towns with a stifling middle-class environment. A new phenomenon is the number of refugees who belong to the NPD.
But peasants, refugees and the threatened middle class are only part of the reservoir drawn on by the NPD. Recently the NPD has moved into the large towns and those working-class districts where the SPD has lost votes. Investigations show that the NPD’s support comes from “protest votes,” reflecting above all dissatisfaction with the coalition parties.
Thus 24 per cent of the NPD voters, but only 20 per cent of CDU voters think that the student demonstrations are partly or completely justified. The call for “more drastic measures” against the students was more frequent among CDU voters (55 per cent) than among NPD voters (52 per cent). The attitudes of many NPD voters are no different from the majority of voters.
It is true that the official cadres and the membership of the NPD are recruited from old and young Nazis but in contrast to the NSDAP. the NPD still takes considerable trouble to appear merely conservative in order not to offend the protest voters. The NPD does indeed promise to maintain peace and order more effectively than the other parties in the government, but it does not come out publicly against parliamentary democracy.
The use of fascist, paramilitary organisations by the ruling class in the struggle against the left is neither possible nor necessary. A state incomes policy through integration of the trade unions, the threat of emergency laws and the “legal” use of the state against small groups outside the parliamentary system are still an adequate instrument of domination today. At the moment the NPD cannot take over either the structure or the function of the NSDAP.
The latest election results show that the Left opposition has not been able to win support from disillusioned workers. The Communist Party and other sections of the left have drawn the conclusion from this that the protest vote should be provided with a left alternative. But the elections in Bad-Wurtemberg themselves showed how wrong this calculation is.
The “Democratic Left” – an electoral alliance between Communists and left liberals – could only win 2.3 per cent of the votes. The worker who did not vote or switched to the NPD in protest saw no reason to put more trust in the promises of the Communists than the NPD. This defeat of the Democratic Left must be a warning to all socialists that a Socialist Party cannot grow from electoral battles, but only in real class struggles.
It is not the fight against the apparent threat of fascism and the need to maintain bourgeois democracy but the fight to maintain the political and economic rights of the working class that can check the imminent danger of an authoritarian state.
The real threat comes from the CDU/SPD coalition government which is now pushing through reactionary emergency laws. This anti-strike law and the reactionary social policy of the coalition are the real dangers for the German working class.
Up to now the NPD has been only the symptom of a misdirected protest which reflects the weakness of the left. The fight for this reason must be directed primarily against the coalition and must be carried out so that the workers can recognise their own interests in the activities of the growing opposition outside parliament.
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