Communist Party of Germany / Marxist-Leninists

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Communist Party of Germany / Marxist-Leninists (KPD / ML)
Symbol of KPD-ML.svg
founding December 31, 1968
Place of foundation Hamburg
fusion 1986
(merged into: United Socialist Party )
Headquarters Hamburg, Essen, Dortmund (from 1973)
Number of members estimated 800 (mid 1970s)
Website www.kpd-ml.org

The Communist Party of Germany / Marxist-Leninists (short name: KPD / ML ) was a small communist , Marxist-Leninist party in the Federal Republic of Germany.

History and program

The KPD / ML was founded on December 31, 1968 in Hamburg. The group was formed around the former KPD politician Ernst Aust (1923–1985). Competing organizations on the left called it the “ Red Morning Group ” after its central organ . Their headquarters were in Dortmund .

The KPD / ML rejected the DKP as revisionist and initially oriented itself towards Maoism , later, after the break between Albania and the People's Republic of China , towards the Albanian model of socialism . In 1974 Aust was received by the Albanian head of state Enver Hoxha for the first time in an individual audience. On June 1, 1975, CCP Central Committee member Yao Wenyuan received the CCP / ML chairman. In 1977 the final break with Maoism was complete. In 1978 the party adopted a new program at the Fourth Congress in which it distanced itself from the theory of the three worlds . In 1984 relations between the Party of Labor of Albania and the KPD / ML cooled off.

In 1970 the struggle began between the KPD / ML central committee and the KPD / ML central office under the leadership of Peter Weinfurth and Gerd Genger , which had its seat in Bochum . The organ of the KPD / ML-ZK was the “ Red Morning ”, the organ of the KPD / ML-ZB was the newspaper “Rote Fahne”. The Rote Fahne was discontinued as early as 1973 and the KPD / ML-ZB disintegrated. The KPD / ML “Revolutionary Way” was formed under Willi Dickhut , which merged with the KAB / ML to form the KABD in 1972 , and a KPD / ML new unit under Hartmut Dicke, who died on April 18, 2008 in Berlin ( pseudonym : Klaus Sender), which is now called the Neue Einheit group . After the self-dissolution of the (Maoist) Communist Party of Germany (organizational structure) on its III. At the party congress in March 1980, the abbreviation "KPD" became free again and the KPD / ML changed its name to "KPD".

Group in the GDR

In the mid-1970s, an oppositional and conspiratorial group (which mainly consisted of young workers and intellectuals) from East Berlin came into contact with members of the KPD / ML. The Albanian embassy in the GDR supported them in establishing and developing contacts with one another . Their main criticism of the SED leadership was the turning away from Marxism-Leninism, the GDR's dependence on the Soviet Union and the consistent suppression of all critical voices in the country. From this a content-related cooperation and support by the KPD / ML in the FRG developed - especially in the production of printing materials, the “Red Sting”, the “Red Morning”, the “Red Lightning” and many leaflets.

Criticism by GDR comrades in dealing with articles that came from the GDR and were ideologically changed was not taken into account due to the conspiratorial structure. As a result, the KPD / ML was the only K group to have succeeded in establishing an offshoot in the GDR since the mid-1970s. Due to negligence in the handling of data from comrades in the GDR by members of the KPD / ML in West Germany, the Stasi succeeded in 1980–1981 in arresting or paralyzing all important employees of the KPD / ML section of the GDR and thus the political work carried out in the situation analysis, the distribution of newspapers, leaflets and the painting / spraying of solutions critical of the GDR. The Stasi went to great lengths to infiltrate the group. In some sub-groups there were more Stasi agents than actual members.

After the fall of the wall, some members of the former section of the GDR made contact with the KPD / ML, but this was broken off after some time due to the discovery of major political and structural differences. The Magdeburg local group reorganized after 1989.

Transition to the VSP

Remaining groups of the KPD / ML worked together in the 80s with the Trotskyist- oriented group International Marxists (GIM), with which they met on April 4th / 5th. United Socialist Party (VSP) in Dortmund on October 1986 . Of the 364 KPD members who were entitled to vote, 83% were in favor of the association. Part of the former KPD / ML did not participate in the union; other members later broke away from the VSP.

Press and subsidiary organizations

The party published the weekly newspaper Roter Morgen as the central organ . The theoretical organ was entitled The Way of the Party (from April 1983 on Communist Issues ). Both the group around W. Eggers and that around D. Möller began again in 1986 to publish theoretical organs under the title The Path of the Party .

The youth organization of the KPD / ML and the KPD / ML-ZK was the Red Guard, from May 1981 Communist Youth of Germany (KJD). The KPD / ML-ZB built a Communist Youth Association in Germany .

On March 22, 1975, Rote Hilfe Deutschlands (RHD) was founded in Hamburg , which broke away from the KPD / ML in the early 1980s and renamed Rote Hilfe eV in 1986 .

From 1978 onwards, a revolutionary rural people movement (RLB) was set up (newspaper Freie Landvolk ), later the Free Rural People Working Group .

On 25/26 November 1978 the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) was founded.

On October 6, 1979, the Popular Front against Reaction, Fascism and War was founded in Dortmund .

At the beginning of May 1980 the university organization Communist Students (KS) was founded, but it remained completely without influence. The forerunner was the Communist Student Union / Marxist-Leninists (KSB / ML), which was replaced in 1978 by Red Guard university groups.

In 1971, the Society of Friends of Albania (GFA) was founded under the chairmanship of Inge Junck . a. Made trips to Albania. The GFA was renamed the German-Albanian Friendship Society (DAFG) in 1979 and gradually broke away from the political influence of the KPD / ML in the 1980s.

There was also the friendship society of the German and Spanish people .

Successor organizations

Today there are several ML groups who see themselves as successors to the KPD / ML, including:

  • KPD / ML chaired by Wolfgang Eggers with the central organ “Roter Morgen”, which, however, only appears online at the moment. This party is a member of the Communist International / Marxist-Leninists , which was founded on December 31, 2000. Comintern / ML consists of only two parties: KPD / ML (Red Morning) and New Workers' Party of the Netherlands . This KPD / ML first renamed itself KPD (SH), since November 7, 2011 it no longer exists as a national party, but as the “German Section of the Comintern / SH”.
  • KPD / ML ("Red Star") , led by Franz Pöschl. In 2011 the group was absorbed into the organization for building a communist workers' party.
  • KPD (“Red Morning”) (without the addition “ML”). This split at the Xth Party Congress in 2001 when the Central Committee excluded the long-time chairman Diethard Möller. In February 2003, the opponents of the ZK line formed the “Organization for the Construction of a Communist Workers Party”, whose organ is the newspaper “Arbeit Zukunft” . In December 2011 the remaining KPD (Red Morning) stopped their newspaper and changed its name to "KPD-Aufbaugruppe".
  • Another organization that emerged from this split in December 2002 was called “Red October”. She announced the self-dissolution in 2009.
  • The Scientific Socialism group split off from the Red October group in March 2008 .

Party congresses

Founding party conference December 31, 1968

  • 1st Party Congress December 1971
  • II Party Congress July 1972
  • III. Party Congress February 1977
  • IV. Party Congress 16.-18. December 1978 in Hamburg
  • 5th party congress 4th – 6th November 1983 ( Horst-Dieter Koch replaces Ernst Aust as chairman)
  • VI. Congress 27-29 December 1985 in Stuttgart (group around Möller) or 25-26. January 1986 in Bremen (group around Eggers); Special party congress of the KPD from 1-3. November 1985 in Dortmund
  • VII. Party Congress at the turn of the year 1988/1989
  • VIII Party Congress February 1993 (group around Möller)
  • IX. Party Congress 1997
  • Xth Party Congress 2001 (split in the KPD (Red Morning))
  • XI. Party Congress October 2005
  • XII. 2008 Party Congress

Voter turnouts

literature

  • 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
  • KPD / ML founded in the GDR. Founding declaration of the GDR section of the KPD / ML , reprint from Roter Morgen No. 6/1976 of February 7, 1976, Verlag Roter Morgen, Dortmund 1976
  • Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany / Marxist-Leninists (ed.): 1968/69 to 1978/79. Ten years KPD / ML. 10 years of struggle for a united, independent, socialist Germany , Dortmund 1979 ISBN 3-88196-012-0
  • Jürgen Bacia: The Communist Party of Germany / Marxist-Leninists , in: Richard Stöss (Ed.): Party Handbook. The parties of the Federal Republic of Germany 1945–1980 , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1983–1984 (special edition 1986, vol. 3) pp. 1831–1851
  • Gerd Langguth : Protest movement - development, decline, renaissance. Die Neue Linke since 1968 , Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1983, 2nd unchanged edition 1984 (therein pp. 65–77 Communist Party of Germany (Marxist-Leninists) (KPD / ML) , also subsidiary organizations) ISBN 3-8046-8617- 6th
  • Constitutional Protection Reports 1968 (1969) ff.
  • Tobias Wunschick: The Maoist KPD / ML and the smashing of their "Section GDR" by the MfS , BF informed, No. 18, Berlin 1997 (series of publications by the Federal Commissioner for the Documents of the State Security Service of the former GDR ( BStU ), Department of Education and Research ( BF))
  • Andreas Kühn: Stalin's grandsons, Mao's sons. The world of the K groups in the Federal Republic of the 1970s , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 2005, ISBN 3-593-37865-5
  • Jens Benicke : “From Heidelberg to Mogadishu, a path from revolutionary to counterrevolutionary action.” The relationship between the German K groups and the RAF, using the example of the KPD / ML , in: Sebastian Gehrig, Barbara Mittler and Felix Wemheuer (ed. ): The cultural revolution as a model? Maoismen in German-speaking countries , Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 133–152 ISBN 978-3-631-57641-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/zeitgeschichte-und150-1-archivdokument-2-teile-rote-umwege_aid_166722.html
  2. ^ History of the KPD / ML from today's Albanian point of view: Gjermani, endrra per socializmin shqiptar , Koha Jonë, November 3, 2008
  3. ^ Last edition of the Rote Fahne on the resolution to dissolve
  4. ↑ Tobias Wunschik: The Maoist KPD / ML and the smashing of their "Section GDR" by the MfS (BF informs 18/1997). Ed. BStU. Berlin 1997 , pp. 11, 12, 18, 22
  5. ↑ | Assessment Report of the Stasi Department XXII of the situation in the spring / summer of 1980 web site demokratie-statt-diktatur.de the Stasi Records Authority . Retrieved April 12, 2014.
  6. ^ Albanian notebooks. Bochum. No. 3 (2011): 40 years of the German-Albanian Friendship Society
  7. ↑ Comintern (SH) ABOUT US. In: ciml.250x.com. Retrieved July 24, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of July 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ undated declaration by the Red October group ( memento from June 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )