K group

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The K-groups originally referred to the mainly Maoist- oriented small parties and other associations that emerged with the process of disintegration of the Socialist German Student Union (SDS) and the associated decline of the student movement in the 1960s , which mainly in the first half of the 1970s in West Germany played a certain role within the New Left . The term "K-Gruppe" was mainly used by competing left groups as well as in the media. It served as a collective name for the numerous often violently divided groups and alluded to their common self-image as communist cadre organizations .

Nationwide relatively influential groups in the extra-parliamentary milieu of the political left were primarily the Communist Party of Germany / Marxist-Leninists (KPD / ML) with its numerous splits, the KPD / AO, later the KPD, and the Communist League of West Germany (KBW). The Communist League (KB) in northern Germany, the Communist Workers 'Union of Germany (KABD) in the southwest and in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Workers' Union for the Reconstruction of the KPD (AB) in Bavaria were also of regional importance .

In the mid-1970s, the various K groups had a total of around 15,000 members, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. However, after the death of their leading ideological figure Mao Zedong in 1976, they quickly lost their importance. In the period that followed, numerous activists joined the newly formed peace and environmental movement and the resulting Green Party . Maoist activists from factory interventions and factory groups, who had initially hoped for an immediate revolution, now became long-term active in works councils and unions.

Originally not counted among the K groups were Trotskyist groups, the DKP , which was oriented towards Eastern European real socialism , and the West Berlin SEW . Today, however, the term is sometimes used vaguely in the media as a collective term for all socialist or communist -oriented small parties and organizations beyond the parties Die Linke and the SPD .

Development of the "historical" K groups

Roots in the student movement

The “historical” K-groups emerged from around 1968, towards the end of the high phase of the student movement in the 1960s . Most of them came from different currents and regional groups of the crumbling Socialist German Student Union (SDS). Although they tried hard to recruit apprentices, workers and especially old members of the KPD , which was banned in 1956 , most of the K groups remained shaped by students and intellectuals.

A characteristic of many K groups was an elitist habitus of their members. Unlike the student movement, they often propagated an ascetic way of life. In cultural terms, the K groups were often based on the workers' literature of the Weimar Republic , Chinese socialist realism, or Albanian folklore.

According to one of Gunnar Hinck's theses, the adoption of authoritarian power and submission techniques by children with a middle-class background was often a result of family breaks from the war and post-war period and a period of orientation that gave rise to a strong need for recognition and group membership, including sectarianism.

Ideological role models

Almost all K groups saw themselves as legitimate heirs of the historical KPD. They were also united in their rejection of Eastern European communism since the de-Stalinization from 1956, which they rejected as " revisionist ". Instead, they mostly referred to Mao Zedong's Chinese model of socialism or to the Soviet Union before de-Stalinization. After Mao's death and the associated change of course in China, some groups also oriented themselves at times to Albania under Enver Hoxha or the regime of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia .

It is true that all K groups claimed for themselves to represent the Marxism founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and differentiated by Lenin or to develop it further in the present. But opinions were always divided on the question of which of the communist tendencies, leaders and states of the time represented the line of true Marxism and the earlier KPD, between the individual K groups or within them. This resulted in controversies, splits and new foundations that were often difficult to understand for outsiders, with one group rejecting as “revisionist” precisely what the other favored as the true path to communism. Critics have often accused the K groups of having a tendency towards ideological “self-tearing” and political sectarianism . There have been attempts to put common content in the foreground and to overcome the fragmentation among each other. Occasionally, there was even collaboration with previously heavily rejected Trotskyist groups, for example when the VSP ( United Socialist Party ) was founded in 1986. At this point, however, the K groups had already lost a lot of their importance.

Transition to the new social movements and to the Greens

None of the K groups at that time was able to directly gain any noteworthy political influence on the federal or state level in West Germany. Occasionally, K-Gruppe functionaries had influence in works councils and some unions. Some K groups played a more important role in the student bodies of larger universities in the 1970s . Representatives of K groups also contributed their content to the activities of parts of the New Social Movements , such as the environmental movement , the peace movement or the anti-imperialist movement.

Through these movements, numerous former activists later found a new political home with the Greens, such as Winfried Kretschmann , Ralf Fücks , Winfried Nachtwei , Krista Sager , Joscha Schmierer ( Communist League of West Germany ) or Jürgen Trittin ( Communist League ). Antje Vollmer was a member of the League Against Imperialism . Occasionally, former K-group members also found their way to the SPD ( Ulla Schmidt ) or - from 1990 - to the PDS ( Andrea Gysi ).

Overview

K groups in the Federal Republic of Germany (by year of foundation)

K groups in Austria (by year of foundation)

  • Marxist-Leninists Austria (MLÖ) - 1966–1967, split from KPÖ , see MLPÖ:
  • Marxist-Leninist Party of Austria (MLPÖ) - since 1967, renamed MLÖ majority stream; publishes the magazine "Rote Fahne", founded in 1963.
  • Association of Revolutionary Workers Austria (VRA) - founded in 1968 by the MLÖ minority, no longer active since 2000, published the magazine "For the People's Power" until 2000.
  • Communist Federation of Austria (KBÖ) - 1976–1981, political weekly newspaper "Klassenkampf", monthly theory magazine "Kommunist"; Partner organization of the KBW
  • Communist Action - Marxist-Leninist (KOMAK-ML) - 2002–2007, a small group formed from the amalgamation of Communist Action, Initiative Marxists-Leninists and Viennese supporters of Bolsevik Partizan, published the "Proletarian Rundschau" quarterly.
  • Communist Initiative (KI) - Orthodox-Marxist split from the KPÖ that has existed since 2005 .
  • IA.RKP (Initiative for the Building of a Revolutionary Communist Party) emerged in December 2007 from the renaming of KOMAK-ML at its 7th conference. The magazine was also renamed "Proletarian Revolution", which appears around 5–6 times a year with around 50 pages.

K groups in Switzerland

Similar organizations in other countries

In other states of Western Europe as well as North America , in which there were left-wing extra-parliamentary student movements in the 1960s, groups and splinter parties that were similar to the German K groups in terms of content and structure, which were also ideologically at odds with one another, appeared and continue to exist.

In some countries (Italy, Belgium , Austria), Maoist parties emerged from around 1963 as splits from the Moscow-oriented communist parties.

K groups in relation to established communist parties

The socio-political appearance of the K groups was relatively independent of the existence of established and influential socialist and communist parties , as was the case above all in Western Europe, for example in Italy or France and some other countries in which large communist parties represented pluralism recognizing Eurocommunism as a relatively strong political force are represented in the respective national parliaments to this day.

Associative modifications in relation to the CDU

In allusion to the quality of the K groups as a sworn circle, the term was also applied in West Germany to other political contexts that were ideologically opposed to the original K groups. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, the circle around young politicians from the right wing of the CDU , whose last name begins with the letter K , was referred to several times in the media as the K group . For example, an informal network around the (West) Berlin CDU politician Peter K ittelmann (with Dankward Buwitt , Eberhard Diepgen , Klaus Finkelnburg , Wighard Härdtl , Jürgen Klemann , Klaus-Rüdiger Landowsky , Heinrich Lummer , Peter Radunski , Peter Raue , Gero Pfennig , Wulf Schönbohm , Heinz-Viktor Simon and Jürgen Wohlrabe ) or the later prime minister of Hesse Roland K och .

literature

German-speaking area
  • Sebastian Gehrig, Barbara Mittler , Felix Wemheuer (eds.): Cultural revolution as a model? Maoismen in German-speaking countries . Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-631-57641-0 .
Germany
  • Author collective: We warned the strongest of the parties… Experience reports from the world of the K-groups . Rotbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-88022-177-4 .
  • Jens Benicke : The K groups. Origin - development - decline, Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2019, ISBN 978-3-658-24768-3 .
  • Frank D. Karl: The K groups. Development, ideology, program. KBW, KPD, KPD / ML. Dietz, Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-87831-240-7 .
  • Heiner Karuscheit: On the history of the West German ml movement. 2nd, shortened edition. VTK-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-88599-023-7 .
  • Gerd Koenen : The red decade: our little German cultural revolution 1967–1977 . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-02985-1 .
  • Andreas Kühn: Stalin's grandsons, Mao's sons. The living environment of the K groups in the Federal Republic of the 1970s . Campusverlag, Frankfurt / New York 2005, ISBN 3-593-37865-5 .
  • Gerd Langguth : The Protest Movement in the Federal Republic of Germany 1968-1976 . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1976. (See also the extended edition under the title: Protest Movement. Development - Decline - Renaissance. The New Left since 1968. Cologne 1983.)
  • Joscha Schmierer : "K-Gruppen" or: The brief bloom of West German Maoism. In: Christiane Landgrebe: 68 and the consequences. An incomplete lexicon . Verlag Argon, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-87024-462-3 , pp. 133-137.
  • Jürgen Schröder: Ideological Struggle vs. regional hegemony. A contribution to the study of the K groups. In: Berlin workbooks and reports on social science research 40th Berlin 1990. (mao-projekt.de)
  • Christian Semler : Revenant. Experiment about the afterlife of the K-group motives. In: Christiane Landgrebe: 68 and the consequences. An incomplete lexicon . Verlag Argon, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-87024-462-3 , pp. 133-137.
  • Jochen Staadt : Trying to pull your bald head out of the swamp. The K groups. In: Gabriele Dietz, Maruta Schmidt, Kristine von Soden: Wild + tame: the seventies . Elefanten Press, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-88520-613-7 .
  • Richard Stöss (Ed.): Party Handbook. The parties of the Federal Republic of Germany 1945–1980 . 2 volumes. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1983. (Special edition in 4 volumes 1986)
  • Anton Stengl: On the history of the K groups - Marxist-Leninists in the FRG in the 1970s . Zambon Verlag, Frankfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-88975-177-5 .
  • Winfried Wolf , Kurt Beiersdorfer: Critique of West German Maoism . Frankfurt am Main 1975.
for Austria
for Switzerland
  • Angela Zimmermann: Maoists in Switzerland. The long red decade of the KPS / ML in the context of the Swiss left 1972–1987. unpublished master's thesis. Zurich 2006, OCLC 637485412 .
  • Angela Zimmermann: The long red decade of the Communist Party of Switzerland / Marxist-Leninists (KPS / ML). Memories of an almost forgotten chapter on the Swiss left. In: Sebastian Gehrig u. a. (Ed.): The cultural revolution as a model? Maoismen in German-speaking countries. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-631-57641-0 , pp. 77-106.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the eyewitness report by Rainer Knirsch: David versus Goliath - works in the BMW motorcycle factory in Berlin 1975–2003. In: Work - Movement - History . I / 2017, pp. 102–117.
  2. ^ Andreas Kühn: Stalin's grandsons, Mao's sons. The living environment of the K groups in the Federal Republic of the 1970s. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-593-37865-5 .
  3. ↑ Gunnar Hinck: We were like machines. The West German left of the 1970s. Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 2012.
  4. ^ Mathew D. Rose : Berlin. Capital of felt and corruption. P. 18f.