Socialist equality party

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Socialist Equality Party, Fourth International
Party leader Ulrich Rippert (since 1971)
Deputy Chairman Christoph Vandreier
founding 1971
Headquarters Berlin
Youth organization International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE)
newspaper World Socialist Web Site
Alignment Trotskyism
Socialism
Communism
Bundestag seats no
Government grants no
Number of members 273 (as of 2016)
International connections International Committee of the Fourth International
Website Gleichheit.de

The Socialist Equality Party, Fourth International (short name SGP, 1971 to 1997 Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter ; BSA, 1997 to February 2017 Party for Social Equality , PSG), is a small German Trotskyist party . It sees itself in continuity with Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Vladimir Ilyich Lenin , Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg and is the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). She is observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and classified by them as left-wing extremist .

Content profile

The party's “declared aim” is “to unite the international workforce and to implement a transformation of society according to the principles of social equality and justice. It sees itself as an opponent of capitalism , militarism and nationalism ”. The seat of the party is in Berlin .

As Trotskyists , they see themselves as the Marxist opposition to Stalinism and condemn its efforts to “build a nationally isolated socialist society” as “an attempt to chase after a reactionary utopia”, from which for them the extensive crimes and tragedies of Soviet domestic and foreign policy result . They have comprehensively processed and presented their view of history in its historical basis.

perspective

The party orients itself on Marxism and interprets it in a sense that appears to it originally. The aim is to build a mass political movement of the working class that will fight for power, form a workers' government, and reorganize society on a democratic, egalitarian and rational basis. The SGP thus distinguishes itself from the political systems under real socialism (the SGP speaks exclusively of Stalinism) in the Soviet Union , GDR and the People's Republic of China , where the workers were powerless and the ruling state and party bureaucracy perverted Marxism. The SGP sees the cause of the failure of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc states in the disempowerment of the workers 'and soldiers' councils and the associated establishment of a bureaucratic dictatorship of party functionaries as well as in the departure from the idea of world revolution , which both Marx and Engels as well as Lenin and Trotsky, through Joseph Stalin , who instead developed the idea of socialism in one country .

program

The SGP (then PSG - Party for Social Equality) adopted its political principles and its historical foundations at its party congress in 2010. Together, these two documents show their theoretical and programmatic foundation. In addition, at its party congress in 2012, it passed several resolutions on current issues, such as the “Crisis of the European Union”, the “Return of the Class Struggle”, the “Defense of Günter Grass and the Return of German Militarism” and the “Defense of Leon Trotsky”, in particular on the historian controversy surrounding the biography of Trotsky by Robert Service . As a result of the war in Ukraine and the escalation of the fighting in the Middle East , the PSG passed a special resolution on the “return of German imperialism” and confirmed this at its regular party congress in 2014. Since then, the “fight against war” has been the focus of its work. She also published an electoral declaration for each of her electoral participation, combining her theoretical analysis of the current political situation with specific demands for a transition program .

At the center of the election declarations of the SGP is a criticism of the trade unions , the social democracy and the party Die Linke . According to the SGP, these organizations, which are related to the nation state , have lost every opportunity to defend the rights and interests of the working class with globalization and the crisis of capitalism . Because they did not question the capitalist order itself, they went to the right as the crisis increased.

In contrast, the SGP advocates an international and independent workers' movement that must have socialist goals in its election declarations. According to the SGP, the interests of the people should be higher than the profit interests of a narrow elite. In the declaration on the Hessian state elections in 2008 , for example, the party demanded an unconditional basic income of 1,500 euros per month and a maximum monthly income of 20,000 euros. Every additional euro should be 100% taxed.

In contrast to other Trotskyist parties, in the 2005 federal election campaign it refused to support the electoral alliance of WASG and Linkspartei.PDS . In 2004, the WASG referred to it on the World Socialist Web Site as a “bureaucratic maneuver” that served to stir up illusions in the old bureaucracies and prevent workers from turning to a real alternative.

The Eastern European historian Jörg Baberowski , who teaches at the Humboldt University in Berlin , is heavily criticized by the party. She accuses the historian of "falsifying history", right-wing radicalism and historical revisionism . The Humanities Forum at Humboldt University expressed its solidarity with Baberowski in relation to the dispute and spoke of defamation. In July 2017, Karl Schlögel described the actions against Baberowski as character assassination. In November 2017, Baberowski failed before the Hamburg Regional Court with a lawsuit against the SGP, which now does not have to retract its statements about the historian, since it can be regarded as an “expression of opinion” that is sufficiently well founded “by reference to the matter”. “(Baberowski's) lawyer emphasized, like the judge’s spokeswoman, that the court had not found that Baberowski was actually a history forger,” said the Frankfurter Rundschau in a report.

history

The party was built by West German supporters of the British Gerry Healy (Socialist Labor League, later Workers Revolutionary Party). Even before the party was founded, his supporters had organized themselves as a group within the journal Internationale Arbeiterkorrespondenz .

In 1971 the party was founded under the name Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter (BSA). The BSA was mainly active in North Rhine-Westphalia (especially Bochum ), Bavaria and West Berlin . From 1989 the BSA was also active in the GDR. In the run-up to the Volkskammer election in 1990 , the Round Table decided not to broadcast an election advertisement for the BSA.

In 1997 the party was renamed the Party for Social Equality (PSG), and in 2017 it was renamed the Socialist Equality Party .

Observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution

The Socialist Equality Party is classified as left-wing extremist by various state authorities for the protection of the constitution and the Federal Office for the protection of the constitution . In its annual report on 2005, the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution emphasized that the party was never interested in an alliance with the Left Party . In its report for 2017, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution stated that it had renamed itself from “Party for Social Equality” to “Socialist Equality Party” at its federal party conference on February 18 and 19, 2017 in Berlin. The organization follows "in principle the traditional Trotskyist theory of a socialist revolution as a worldwide permanent process under the leadership of workers' councils (" permanent revolution ")".

structure

The seat of the party is in Berlin , the umbrella organization is the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) are your youth and student organization. The association is international and organized in various federal states and has individual groups in Germany at the Ruhr University Bochum , University of Bonn , University of Leipzig , and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). At the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin , the local group is repeatedly represented in the student parliament with two seats (3.75%) .

Party organs

The SGP published the magazine “ egalitarian” on current political and cultural issues, which was available for sale in 44 bookshops and newspaper kiosks in addition to party events and subscription mailings. The SGP provides the German editorial team for the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). In addition, the party has a book publisher, Mehring Verlag .

Participation in elections

The PSG participated in the Bundestag elections in 1998 , 2005 , 2009 , 2013 (in which it received 4,564 second votes and thus 0.0%) and in 2017 as well as in the European elections in 2004 , 2009 and 2014 (9,852 votes → 0.0%). At the state level, the PSG ran in the state elections in Hesse in 2003 , 2008 and 2013 as well as the elections for the Berlin House of Representatives in 2006 , 2011 and 2016 .

In the 2017 federal election , the number of second votes fell by 3,273 to 1,291.

In the European elections on May 26, 2019 , she received 5293 votes, which corresponds to 0.0%. So she landed in last place of the 41 participating parties.

Election results

Results of federal, European and state elections
Federation Europe People's Chamber Berlin Hesse North Rhine-Westphalia
Association of Socialist Workers (BSA)
1983 0.00%
1985 0.00%
1989 0.03%
1990 0.00% 0.00%
1994 0.00% 0.03%
Party for Social Equality (PSG)
1998 0.01%
2003 0.05%
2004 0.10%
2005 0.03%
2006 0.04%
2008 0.04%
2009 0.01% 0.04%
2011 0.12%
2013 0.00% 0.04%
2014 0.03%
2016 0.13%
Socialist Equality Party (SGP)
2017 0.00%
2019 0.01%
  highest result (without entering parliament)

Publications

Web links

Commons : Socialist Equality Party  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Report on the Protection of the Constitution 2017. Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Home Affairs, accessed on December 13, 2018 .
  2. ↑ http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/104/1910420.pdf
  3. ^ Party for Social Equality changes name to Socialist Equality Party February 27, 2017 World Socialist Web
  4. ^ Socialist Equality Party. Retrieved February 26, 2017 (English).
  5. ^ A b World Socialist Web Site: Who is the ICFI? ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wsws.org
  6. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/politik/wahlen/wer-haben-zur-wahl/bundestag-2013/165531/psg
  7. ↑ http://www.wsws.org/de/media/documents/legacy/de/hd11-j14.pdf HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE PARTY FOR SOCIAL EQUALITY
  8. ↑ http://www.gleichheit.de/resolutionen/ Resolutions of the PSG
  9. ^ PSG: Election declaration 2013
  10. ↑ a b Senate Department for the Interior: Constitutional Protection Report 2005 (PDF; 3.4 MB). Berlin, p. 104f.
  11. ↑ World Socialist Web Site: “Elective Work and Social Justice” - A Bureaucratic Maneuver , June 16, 2004
  12. ↑ Christoph Vandreier: Jörg Baberowski's historical falsification WSWS, September 12, 2015 (accessed June 26, 2017)
  13. ^ Mobbing, Trotskyist , FAZ , December 1, 2014
  14. ↑ Public statement by the Humanities Forum at HU Berlin ( Memento from June 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ^ Regina Mönch : Smart students are the best antidote , in: FAZ , July 7, 2017.
  16. ↑ Christoph Vandreier: District Court Hamburg: Baberowski may be accused of falsifying history WSWS, November 9, 2017 (accessed November 9, 2017)
  17. ↑ Eckhard Stengel: Left criticism of right-wing historians is allowed. Frankfurter Rundschau , November 12, 2017, accessed on June 13, 2019 .
  18. ↑ http://dokumentix.ub.uni-siegen.de/opus/volltexte/2009/390/pdf/Historie_Trotzkismus.pdf The development of Trotskyist organizations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by Frank Nitzsche. P. 69
  19. ↑ http://www.ddr89.de/ddr89/texte/BSA.html
  20. ↑ Federal Returning Officer : Selected data from political associations , p. 174 (PDF, 2.53 MB)
  21. ^ Socialist Equality Party : Party for Social Equality changes name to Socialist Equality Party. In: World Socialist Web Site. Socialist Equality Party, Fourth International (SGP), February 27, 2017, accessed December 31, 2018 .
  22. ^ Glossary: ​​Left-wing extremist parties. Protection of the Constitution of Brandenburg, accessed on March 11, 2019 .
  23. ↑ groups. In: International Youth and Students for Social Equality IYSSE. Accessed December 31, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Result of the StuPa election 2018. In: nicht-passiv.de - Election portal for the student parliament of the Humboldt University. Karolin Rohne / Svea Komm, accessed on December 31, 2018 .
  25. ↑ http://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2013/07/06/wahl-j06.html
  26. ↑ Final result of the 2013 Bundestag election ( memento of the original from September 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Wahlrecht.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundeswahlleiter.de
  27. ↑ Final turnout and voting in the 2017 federal election . Federal results In: The Federal Returning Officer : Election to the 19th German Bundestag on September 24, 2017. Issue 3. Final results by constituency. P. 9
  28. ↑ tagesschau.de: Aims of the "others" - small parties in the European elections. Retrieved May 14, 2019 .