Democratic socialists

The Democratic Socialists (DS) were a left-wing socialist party in the Federal Republic of Germany founded in 1982 , which had turned away from the politics of the social-liberal government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt ( SPD ) in the early 1980s . The DS was both an alternative and a basin for some Eurocommunists who broke with the DKP and the SEW . It saw itself as a “socialist alternative” to the SPD and as a “democratic” alternative to the DKP. The party disbanded in 1991.

background

An important trigger for the split of the DS from the SPD was the criticism of the DS of the support of the NATO double decision of December 12, 1979 by the ruling SPD. This decision saw a retrofit with nuclear-tipped Pershing II - medium-range missiles and cruise missiles (cruise missiles) in US bases in the area of the Federal Republic of Germany prior to again strike a balance in the Cold War to create. Previously had USSR in the western states of the Warsaw Pact SS-20 - missiles stationed. The DS rejected the retrofitting of NATO and thus supported important positions of the peace movement of the time .

founding

The DS were officially and formally founded on November 28, 1982 in Münster . Before that, the movement had existed for six months as an initiative of democratic socialists . The driving force behind the DS were the SPD Bundestag member Karl-Heinz Hansen and Manfred Coppik ( MPs to 1983). Hansen was expelled from the party on December 13, 1981 because of repeated criticism of his own faction . Coppik also resigned from the SPD out of solidarity with Hansen. Hansen and Coppik used their Bundestag mandates until the elections on March 6, 1983 to spread their political ideas in favor of the DS. With the loss of these mandates , the initially heated discussion about the DS subsided. It disappeared more and more from the public eye. Other accomplices, sponsors and “ghosts” in the background were the Bonn journalists Walter Barthel and Eberhard Rondholz .

The Democratic Socialists cooperated with dissatisfied trade unionists and the Greens founded in 1979 in extra-parliamentary initiatives. You were mainly active in the peace movement. Furthermore, the DS was also part of the Peace List , an association of various peace organizations and groups, in which mainly DKP- affiliated and Christian parts of the peace movement took part in elections. Discussions about a cooperation with the United Socialist Party (VSP) with the later goal of unification did not lead to any result.

Own press

Together with Walter Barthel , DS published the Bonner Extra Dienst as a “nationwide” newspaper between 1982 and 1985 , which was renamed Linker Extra Dienst a little later and appeared fortnightly. The Linke Zeitung was published from 1985 until it was closed in 1990, followed by Der Stachel , not to be confused with the West Berlin Greens' organ of the same name.

Decline

The DS as a party was crushed between the SPD and the Greens and was able to make less and less prominent politics, but remained perceptible as part of the extra-parliamentary movement and as a discussion group until its dissolution in 1991. The few ex-DKP defectors were given no agency.

After the loss of the Bundestag mandates of Hansen and Coppik, the DS never entered the Bundestag and did not get a mandate in any state parliament . The party was only temporarily represented in a few local councils. After their dissolution in 1991, some Democratic Socialists continued their political work in other, already existing or newly founded groups from the spectrum of the trade unions, the alternative movement or the New Left .

elections

• State election in Hesse 1983 0.10%
• State election in Lower Saxony 1990 0.01%

literature

• Uwe Arndt / Werner Mackenbach / Willi Pohl / Bertold Scheller: The Democratic Socialists. On the difficulty of forming a left-wing socialist party. Frankfurt am Main 1990. ISBN 3-7638-0473-0
• “The simple thing that is so difficult to do!” Debate on the future of the left and the attempt to build a party by the Democratic Socialists Initiative. Duisburg: Jäger Revier-Verlag, 1982. ISBN 3-922320-01-6

Web links

• Pascal Beucker: Report on DS co-founder KH Hansen ( Junge Welt )
• Interview with KH Hansen in the taz