German
German reunification is a question that cannot be evaded by marxists. The division of Europe was jointly imposed on the working class by Stalinism and imperialism. The bloc system, of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, was a system of clamping the working classes of Europe under respectively American and Soviet hegemony.
As internationalists we are in favour of the unification of the European working class, of building stronger fighting links between its component parts as part of a struggle for a united socialist Europe. The division of the German working class is at the heart of the division of Europe. Thus we are for the right of unity of the German workers, and for the removal of all foreign troops from German soil. But quite obviously the national question in Germany is intertwined with the social question in a quite unique fashion.
Concretely, the issue is posed as to whether the unification of Germany will be achieved by the integration of the GDR into a powerful German capitalist superstate, with the destruction of the social gains of the GDR workers, or by the generalisation of those gains in an anti-capitalist direction throughout Germany. At the present time, this poses itself as the question of the self-determination of the East German workers.
We raise this slogan not because SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 21, February 1990
SUPPLEMENT reunification we think that there is an East German nationality, but because the East German workers have enjoyed historic social gains, embodied in nationalised property and an advanced welfare system, which would be under direct threat if unification were imposed against their will.
Articulating support for German reunification and the self-determination of the GDR workers in this way can only be advanced in a perspective of permanent revolution. It is not a demand that makes a precondition of the destruction of capitalism in West Germany; the condition is that the East German workers have the opportunity to defend and extend their social gains.
While sections of West German capital have been quick to seize on the demand for reunification, others have been more cautious. It is not just a question of the possibility of extending capitalist production relations eastwards; there is also the possibility that a working class committed to collectivist and socialist values could be incorporated westwards - with massively destabilising social results. The German working class, and its political organisations, including the West German SPD, is one of the most powerful and organised working classes in the world. It has one of the longest and most militant traditions of any working class. Its unification under any conditions would be, at best, a mixed blessing for capital.
Capital in West Germany would
only accept reunification on its terms - including the defeat and atomisation of the East German workers, the ending of their mobilisations, the destruction and asset-stripping of whole sectors of GDR industry, and the destruction of the state welfare system. While supporting the historic goal of reunification, again as a step towards a socialist Europe, we demand the GDR workers have the right to say "no" to the plans of Western capital.
Demanding the right of self-determination of the GDR workers, including their right to maintain the present state boundaries, does not mean yielding an inch on the demand for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the GDR's right to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. Marxists op pose the joint Gorbachev-Thatcher demand that the present bloc system must stay intact to ensure "security'.
Insofar as the West German Greens, Left Alternative and sections of the SPD base have raised the demand of self-determination for the GDR workers against the 'free social market in West Germany, their response is entirely correct. But marxists cannot in any circumstances mix our banners with those, whether Stalinists or influenced by the con cems of British and French imperialism, who oppose reunification Germany on principle. On principle, we are for reunification.
01 - "marxists cannot in any circumstances mix our banners with those, whether Stalinists or influenced by the concerns of British and French imperialism, who oppose reunification Germany on principle. On principle, we are for reunification" Page 15
Where Is The Left?
currents, initial stages. "socialist movements will inevitably develop in these countries, but these will be minority movements. Just like "communism', 'socialism' is mere rumps. also tainted in dictatorship the the popular mind in Eastern Europe" Page 16
SUPPLEMENT There are quite a few people in Eastern Europe - Christa Wolf In East Germany and Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia, to name but two of the most prominent - who see the present revolutions there as offering once more the possibility of creating what Wolf calls 'real socialism' and what Dubcek would still call 'socialism with a human face'. Such people seem to be in a minority. In this article GUS FAGAN looks briefly, and very tentatively, at the new polltical formations in Eastern Europe and makes some initial assessment of the prospects for socialist movements there in the wake of the overthrow of communism. The General Framework Any assessment has to be very tentative because the political revolutions in Eastem Europe are not over. The repressive apparatus is still largely intact in most of these countries (security police and army); in all of them the old political elite and the broader nomenklatura still have a lot of power; the formation of political political parties, programmes and class/group in- terest organisations is still in its I will look only at the countries of Eastem Central Europe, although what is happening in the Baltic states, in Moldavia and elsewhere in the USSR, bears striking similarity to what has happened elsewhere. The first and most obvious conse- quence of these revolutions is that "communism" as a political regime is finished, as is also the international "communist movement, certainly in Europe. With the holding of genuine- ly free elections for the first time in over four decades, the communist parties of Eastern Europe will become minority parties and, in many cases, After the horrors of the Causescu Romanian Com- munist Party will be lucky to survive at all. The dominant currents and par- ties that have emerged out of these revolutions look back to pre-war traditions of national and peasant movements and the church (Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary to some extent). There are also important liberal-
Eastern Europe: New Czech President Vaclav Havel democratic currents that have a lot of support among urban intellectuals and youth (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany).
The existence of these repressive communist regimes in the East has traumatised the socialist movement in Europe for more than half a century. The political revolutions, therefore, although not carried out under the banner of socialism and, in fact, hostile to that tradition, have altered fundamentally, and in a positive way, the framework in which socialist ideas will be debated in Europe.
Socialist movements will inevitably develop in these countries, but these will be minority movements. Just like "communism", "socialism' is also tainted in the popular mind in Eastem Europe. It's not just the political link hetween the two that matters (common language, like the official designation, describes these
countries as socialist) but the fact that socialists seem to be offering an cconomic system which doesn't work as well as capitalism.
This is not just a theoretical consideration. The average worker in the West eats better, has a better and cheaper supply of consumer goods, has better wages, more and better living space and an ecologically healthier environment. This is obvious to the millions of East Germans who visited the West since November 9. And, despite the widespread belief to the contrary, the average Wester
European worker enjoys a better health service and a better social welfare system than the average Russian or Pole. Talk of a "third way" or "genuine socialism' (Stefan Heym) doesn't cut much ice against such harsh realities, as interviews with East German workers in recent months have demonstrated. In all these revolutions the intellectuals (professional middle classes, writers, technocrats) play an important role, exemplified by Vaclay Havel in Czechoslovakia. And it is true that in the last decade the majority of these intellectuals, generally organised in the communist parties, have come over to the view that only some form of capitalist/market mechanism and integration with the capitalist West can bring prosperity. East Gennany may be a partial exception to this, but the extent of this difference shouldn't be exaggerated: the views of many young demonstrators and of writers like Christa Wolf and Stefan Heym reflect a real commitment to socialism as a more humane and emancipated form of society, but intellectuals in the various economics institutes of East Berlin are more inclined to talk about joint ventures, private enterprise and abolition of subsidies.
Apart from the Solidarity trade union in Poland, no significant independent working class organisations have appeared in