Sahra Stands Up

Left Party firebrand Sahra Wagenknecht and her husband Oskar Lafontaine have begun to launch their left-wing "movement" Aufstehen ("Stand Up") with the goal of uniting progressives from all political parties and counteracting the growing threat from the right-wing populist AfD party (Alternative for Germany).  The official launch takes place on September 4, but the Website aufstehen.de is already up, and the group has already signed up over 50,000 supporters.  The three left-leaning political parties (LINKE, SPD, GREENS) altogether have more voters than the conservative parties, but have been unable - or unwilling - to form a coalition government to govern Germany.  Could this new movement Aufstehen somehow break through the impasse?  

By Friday, there was more good news for Wagenknecht's platform: A poll ordered by the Focus magazine showed that more than a third of German voters "could see themselves" voting for Aufstehen if the movement transformed into a political party. The response was overwhelmingly positive among the Left voters, where 87 percent were open to supporting her initiative at the polls.

So far, the Aufstehen movement does not appear to have a coherent platform - other than expressing a vague dissatisfaction with the prevailing "neo-liberal" order in Germany.  The Website consists of a short video clips of citizens from all walks of life talking about their everyday frustrations.  There is the retired pastor Kurt complaining about how badly people treat each other nowadays; there is the "internet economist" Karl-Heinz complaining that Germany is slow to embrace digitization - while gazing at a portrait of Karl Marx; there is Andi, studying to become a teacher, who complains that students are under too much stress to achieve academic success - Germany needs a "big hammer" to shatter the current system and start afresh. 

And then there is Sahra Wagenknecht - a charismatic speaker who, however, doesn't play well with others. She is a polarizing figure, even within her own Left Party.  She has spent her entire political career vilifying leaders of the social democrat SPD and the Green Party, while attacking Western liberal postwar order that made Germany and economic powerhouse and successful democracy.  Sahra Wagenknecht first appeared on the political stage after the fall of the East Germany (DDR) as a committed Stalinist and staunch supporter of the Berlin Wall and the totalitarian system it represented.  In an interesting essay written in 1992 - three years after the demise of the DDR - Wagenknecht mourned the loss of her beloved socialist fatherland and was contemptuous of the "counter-revolution" that brought it down:

So war zum Beispiel das Bildungssystem der DDR auch in den letzten Jahren immer noch erheblich besser als etwa das westdeutsche. Andere gesellschaftliche Bereiche, in denen sich der Sozialismus sogar noch in seinem Niedergang dem Imperialismus überlegen zeigte, ließen sich nennen. Gerade in der DDR konnte trotz allem ein relativ hoher Lebensstandard gehalten werden. Der erzeugte gesellschaftliche Reichtum war zwar nicht üppig - und sehr viel geringer, als er bei einer anderen Politik hätte sein können -, aber er wurde in solcher Weise verteilt, daß in der DDR niemand so leben mußte wie das untere Bevölkerungsdrittel in den imperialistischen Metropolen. Die entscheidende Grundlage sozialistischer Politik, das Volkseigentum, bestand fort. Trotz vorherigem Niedergang war die Konterrevolution des Herbstes 1989 also ein gravierender, ein qualitativer gesellschaftlicher Rückschlag.

("Thus for example the education system of the DDR even in the final years was still considerably better than the West German system.  We can also point out other social sectors in which socialism - even in its decline - were superior to the imperialistic system. In spite of everything the DDR was able to maintain a relatively high standard of living.  Its social wealth was hardly extravagant - and much less than it could have been with different policies, but it was distributed in such a way that no one in the DDR was forced to live like the bottom third of the population in imperialist metropolitan areas.  The decisive foundation of socialist policy - the collective ownership ("Volkseigentum")  - remained in place.  Despite the decline that was taking place, the counter-revolution in the fall of 1989 was a grave and qualitative setback. ") 

Sahra Wagenknecht never completely renounced these views and still considers the west - especially the United States - as "imperialist".  She remains true to Moscow, even though Russia today is a ethno-kleptocracy with little in common with the glorious Soviet Union of her youth.  She shares Putin's view that "the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century." Does she see Aufstehen as a movement with the potential to take Germany out of its postwar western alliances  - such as NATO  - that brought 70 years of peace and prosperity?  Would such a course resonate with large numbers of German voters?  

Comments

[Koogleschreiber]

Think. If Germans voted for the SPD because they want a left government, they have been fooled again and again the last decade. Even though the majority of all voters voted left parties, the SPD decided to elect Merkel for chancellor. The AfD is the big winner now. In East Germany, the AfD is already stronger than the SPD and it could get much worse in the west, too. The left majority in Germany must organize and it is logically on the cost of the SPD.

[David]

The support for the AfD seems to be broad, but I wonder how deep? I watched the ZDF-interview with Gauland - these people have only one idea: "Keep the (dark-skinned) foreigners out of the Fatherland!" Other than that - nothing. They are incapable of governing...