Left shift
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| Basic data | |
| Founding year: | 1993 |
| Resolution: | 2007 |
| Seat: | Berlin |
| Umbrella organization: | IS |
| Members: | about 300 |
| Publications: | Linksruck magazine website linksruck.de (both discontinued) |
Until it was officially dissolved in September 2007, Linksruck was a Trotskyist organization in Germany that belonged to the International Socialist Tendency (IST). Instead of Linksruck, there is now a successor network called marx21 , which influences the party Die Linke .
Goals and Positions
Linksruck represented the Marxist thesis that capitalism is in crisis and that the capitalist economic system must therefore be overcome. Since power lies in the hands of "unelected managers, bankers and judges" and not with the institutions of parliamentary democracy , a change in the existing situation can only be achieved after the bourgeois state is "smashed" and through "democratic institutions from below" will be replaced. That should be achieved through class struggle .
Organization history
Linksruck's origins lay in the Socialist Workers' Group (SAG), which was founded in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1970s under the influence of the British International Socialists (IS). An important member of the SAG was Volkhard Mosler , who had been close to IS since 1966. In the 1970s, the SAG built up a nationwide structure, which, however, remained relatively small until reunification. The group's influence on the so-called home combat movement in Frankfurt am Main was relatively strong . There was criticism from those involved because of the functionalization of the young people for the party politics of the SAG. The youth organization Rote Panther played an essential role in this. The SAG first published the socialist workers' newspaper and later the class struggle .
The SAG intervened in the anti- fascist movement in 1991/92 and initiated some anti- fascists itself with great success. After a march of 2000 neo-Nazis in Dresden, the SAG initiated a nationwide appeal to hold a large anti-Nazi demonstration there. The appeal received a great deal of attention and in a short space of time gained more than a hundred supporters - individuals and organizations. At a nationwide alliance meeting in Berlin, however, there were open differences with the autonomous Antifa camp. The large demonstration did not take place. The differences meant that activists of the SAG were partially denied access to meetings of the autonomous Antifa.
In 1992 the central management under Werner Hallbauer issued the slogan "Out of the swamp", i. H. End of anti-fascist work. In many cities, however, SAG people still worked in the Antifa, as they had largely been won over through this work. The result was that the SAG shrank from around 2000 members to around 800 as a result of its swing out of the Antifa movement. According to reports from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the SAG had far fewer members at that time (1991: 150; 1992: 250; 1994: 200). In the summer of 1993, the IST's annual Marxism meeting took place in England . In response to the SAG crisis, Tony Cliff said :
"The fish stinks from the head first [...] I'll send you to the Jusos [...] that's my last hope."
The operation of sending the SAG to the SPD youth was supposed to achieve several things: On the one hand, it was a decapitation blow against the old cadre around Halbauer who was keen on independence - as a Juso member you could not be more than 35 years old -, on the other hand, the SAG members should be in the dispute with the Juso functionaries also practically lose their sectarian tendencies. The SAG thus effectively dissolved into the Jusos. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the SAG continued to exist. Meanwhile, the SAG old squad spent the winter with the magazine Socialism from Below .
In 1993 some members of the SAG began with a de-Christian strategy aimed at the Jusos and began to publish the magazine Linksruck . This was done at the direction of the head of the Socialist Workers Party , Tony Cliff. However, this entry strategy turned out to be unsuccessful, since members could mainly be won from outside the Jusos and the organization lost some "old cadres" to the Jusos. During this period, several groups, now mostly disintegrated, split off from the SAG and refused to split up into the Jusos.
They joined forces with the German exile group of Sosyalist İşçi (SI; "Socialist Workers"), the Turkish sister organization of the SAG, to form the International Socialists Group and later united with the Initiative Socialist Internationalists (ISI) around the SAG senior squad Norbert Nelte Internationalist-Socialist Organization (ISO) founded in 1994 . The main criticisms of these groups at the SAG were a. lack of internal organizational democracy, hostility to theory and anti-feminism. Furthermore, Nelte criticized Werner Halbauer's tactics of relying on quantity instead of quality in terms of content, i. H. to hide the content in order to be able to win more - especially young people - members, which would lead to a "social democratization" of the SAG or the link shift, as well as to an organization within the organization in which the "clear cadres" have their newly won members , members who are still reformist-minded would not be given a real say. N. Nelte left the ISO in 1995 after internal organizational disputes and founded the International Socialists (IS). The ISO disintegrated in the period that followed, the SI also left the ISO, the largest of the remaining groups, the International Socialists Group , founded in 1999 , and the Left Communism Initiative , which was split off from it in 2002, represents positions that tend to be based on anti-nationalist, councilor communist and left communist roots.
After the More Pressure from Below demonstration in Bonn in 1996 and in the course of preparations for the 1998 Bundestag election , the organizational structure of Linksruck changed. It was more important to intervene in the existing movement of the population against social injustices, austerity packages of the government under Chancellor Helmut Kohl and against capitalist globalization with socialist and Marxist-Trotskyist arguments. This period of time was coined with the slogan coined by Tony Cliff that one should be “the memory of the working class”. Experience of the working class should be gathered and brought into the movement so that it might recognize that the causes of its problems are inherent in the system.
From the turn of the century Linksruck was heavily involved in the movement critical of globalization , mobilized for the protests in Genoa in 2001 and became a member organization of attac . At the same time it became more difficult for Linksruck to integrate people who wanted to become politically active into their existing structures. This was followed by a decline in membership, which could only be stopped by returning to the actual task, namely to bring revolutionary ideas into protest actions.
In 2001/02 there was a wave of withdrawals from Leftruck, which on the one hand was related to different strategies in connection with anti-capitalist movements and on the other hand was justified by the accusation against the Leftruck leadership of having covered up sexual assault and misconduct. The critics also noted a lack of internal organizational democracy. Leading people like Florian Kirner and Pedram Shahyar left the organization. Some of the critics were initially constituted in 2001 as the Seattle Bolshevik movement within Leftruck, after leaving as an anti-capitalist network (anti-capitalistas) , which has since largely disintegrated.
Another important focus of Linksruck next to anti-fascist and anti-racism work was the peace movement from September 11, 2001 at the latest, and from 2003 the protest against the occupation in Iraq .
With the worsening crisis of the SPD in 2004, Linksruck's interest is now also directed towards the WASG . Linksruck members played a key role in the creation of the alliance between the WASG and the Linkspartei.PDS for the 2005 Bundestag election , and Linksruck provided staff in the WASG district and state boards. With Christine Buchholz , a Leftruck functionary was also represented on the federal board. Since the union with the Left Party, Buchholz has been a member of the executive board of the newly formed party Die Linke . She has also been a member of the Bundestag since 2009.
The organs of Linksruck were the annual general meeting, the federal management elected there and the delegates' conference organizing council, which takes place at irregular intervals . City groups elected the group leaders at their general meetings. Every member was required to actively contribute to the success of the organization - in particular by regularly selling the Linksruck newspaper and by recruiting new members.
Linksruck recently had around 300 members, according to the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and there was a high fluctuation.
resolution
Linksruck officially dissolved on September 1, 2007. The network surrounding the magazine marx21 has taken its place . marx21 is largely identical to Linksruck, both in terms of content and personnel, and is currently concentrating its political activity within the Die Linke party primarily on the socialist left movement , from where it tries to influence the party. The own dissolution in favor of work within a superordinate organization corresponds to the pattern of deep entrism .
Differentiation from other Trotskyists
Linksruck called his Trotskyism "undogmatic," which means that not all of Trotsky's theories were adopted. Theoretically, this was expressed in the thesis formulated by Tony Cliff that the Soviet Union was not a “degenerate workers state”, but had become a state capitalist system due to material causes . Furthermore, Linksruck represented a modification of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution to explain the failed revolutions during the existence of state capitalism : The theory of diverted permanent revolution , also by Tony Cliff.
According to its own account, Linksruck differed from other Trotskyist organizations as follows: While other organizations pursue a “progressive” policy in order to involve the “most progressive” workers in political work with a party with a socialist program, Linksruck often made demands that should reach the entire working class. Examples of this were the call for Gerhard Schröder's election in 1998 and the formulation of demands for government participation during the election campaign for the WASG in 2005.
Publications
Linksruck published two publications on a regular basis: the newspaper Linksruck (discontinued in 2007) and the magazine Arguments (discontinued in 2006). In addition, brochures on current topics, position papers or translations from the publications of the Socialist Workers Party were published at irregular intervals .
Criticism of left shift
The Leftruck group has been criticized by certain left-wing groups. Some other parties and extra-parliamentary groups were skeptical about the participation of Linksruck members in their working groups and plenums , as they feared that Linksruck was pursuing a strategy of infiltration towards them, as in the Jusos meetings in the late 1990s.
The internal hierarchy, the absolute lack of internal democracy and the immense group pressure were repeatedly criticized by other left organizations, but above all by dropouts. The following quote from an interview with Flori Kirner , co-founder of Linksruck, is an eloquent testimony in this context :
"And our, especially my own, rather dictatorial style of leadership has hopefully put people off in the direction of anti-authoritarian approaches [...]"
It was also criticized - such as haGalil - that Linksruck a destruction of Israel denied and the struggle of the terrorist organizations assessed groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah , designated whose members are observed in Germany by the intelligence as "legitimate resistance":
“Hamas and Hezbollah are part of this legitimate Palestinian resistance. Those who want peace, freedom and justice in the Middle East must support the resistance of the Palestinians. "
Due to the positions mentioned above, the activities of former Linksruck members in the Die Linke party are currently being viewed critically. The inner-party criticism of the former shift to the left is generally cross -stream , but is found above all in the reform-oriented wing from the spectrum of the former PDS around the reform left network and the forum for democratic socialism . However, because of its positions on the Middle East, the left-wing trend is also being attacked by more left-wing groups and people in the party who work primarily in the area of Antifa. The most important points of criticism are generally a one-sided orientation of political action towards movements, the anti-Zionist positions on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and the way in which a majority is found in the group. In addition, the open dominance in individual subdivisions of the party is displeasing. This dominance exists above all in the student association Die Linke.SDS and in some district and district associations. Dominance is currently also being sought in the socialist left movement , in whose coordinating bodies at federal and state level various former left-wing functionaries sit.
Report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution treated Linksruck in his Verfassungsschutzbericht 2005 in a separate sub-section of Section Links Wing Extremist Activities cases and reported therein Linksruck had about 300 members, who have been instructed before the early Bundestag elections in 2005, in the choice initiative WASG to engage .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Another world is possible! (No longer available online.) In: Linksruck online. Formerly in the original ; Retrieved March 7, 2008 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Volkhard Mosler: Marx is a must for the new left. In: Linksruck arguments. April 2006, accessed March 7, 2008 .
- ↑ Verfassungsschutz reports 1994, p. 61; 1995, pp. 76f., 85f. etc.
- ↑ We were like a rocket . In: Junge Welt , May 21, 2007.
- ↑ Jörg Fischer: The astonishing discoveries of Oskar Lafontaine. In: haGalil.com. March 9, 2006, accessed on March 7, 2008 : "This includes, among other things, an organization called 'Linksruck', whose members have already conjured up 'unconditional solidarity' with the Islamist terrorist organization 'Hamas'."
- ↑ Hezbollah is a terrorist organization . In: Die Welt , August 7, 2006
- ↑ a b Federal Ministry of the Interior (ed.): Verfassungsschutzbericht 2005 . Berlin May 2006, p. 177–178 ( verfassungsschutz.de [PDF; accessed on August 21, 2009]).
- ↑ Terror comes from Israel . In: Left shift . No. 221, July 19, 2006.
