Socialist Alternative (SAV)

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Socialist alternative
logo
founding 1994
newspaper Socialism.info
Alignment Socialism
Trotskyism
Colours) red
Number of members approx. 300 (2015)
International connections International Socialist Alternative
Website socialism.info

The Socialist Alternative - SAV is a German Trotskyist organization. It forms the German section of the International Socialist Alternative .

profile

The SAV sees itself as a "revolutionary, socialist organization in the tradition of Marx , Engels , Lenin , Trotsky , Luxemburg and Liebknecht ". It stands by its own admission "for resistance, solidarity and socialism".

According to its statute, its goal is “the abolition of the capitalist economic system and the establishment of a socialist democracy on the basis of the transfer of the means of production into common property and a democratically planned economy, in Germany and internationally”. This permanent change in the power and property relations is only possible if, as it is said, “the masses have a powerful organization” that carries these ideas into the left and the labor movement and if they take root there. They want to build such an organization.

The SAV distances itself from " Stalinism ". All states in which capitalism had been overthrown had become states with "state ownership of the means of production and with a totalitarian one-party dictatorship ", but so far "no country in the world was socialist". According to this view, it was not the working class that ruled there, but a bureaucratic elite. There were “privileges for the functionaries, suppression of criticism and critics, rule from top to bottom instead of free and equal discussions at all levels”.

history

The SAV emerged as a party from the Voran group in 1994 and was initially called the Socialist Alternative - Voran . The part of the name Voran became obsolete with the renaming of the central body in 2002 and is no longer part of the name. The SAV sees itself as the German section of the London- based Committee for a Workers' International and recognizes its resolutions. The German SAV has around 380 members (beginning of 2005) who are regionally organized in local groups. (At the beginning of 2005 the SAV was represented in 26 cities.) The SAV publishes the monthly Solidarity - Socialist newspaper .

On September 30, 2001, the SAV founded the pro forma independent youth organization Resistance international! which dissolved itself in 2003, at least in Germany.

In the state elections in Hesse in 2003 , the SAV ran a direct candidate in the constituency of Kassel-Stadt II and received 356 constituency votes, corresponding to 1.0% at constituency level. In the general election in Bremen in 2003 , the party only ran in the Bremen electoral area and achieved 542 votes, corresponding to 0.2% of the vote.

At the municipal election in 2004 she was awarded in 2004 with 4,222 votes (2.5%) a seat in the Rostock citizenship in the 2009 municipal elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with 3,409 votes (1.6%) a seat. Members of the SAV were in the city councils Represented by Cologne and Celle as representatives of municipal electoral alliances. Furthermore, in the elections on September 17, 2006, one SAV member was elected to the Berlin district council assemblies of Pankow , Mitte and Lichtenberg on WASG lists .

The SAV organizes the "Socialism Days" annually, mostly at Easter. This event had around 250 (2000) to 400 (2003-2005) visitors. Current, historical and theoretical topics are discussed there.

In March 2005, in the course of working in the WASG, the claim to be a party was finally given up, the self-designation “party” was replaced by “organization” in the statutes of the SAV.

In April 2005, the SAV began to publish the theoretical organ socialism.info , with the subtitle "Magazine for Marxist Theory and Practice".

The membership increased from 300 in 2000 to 400 in 2007.

In the summer of 2013, the SAV was represented in the Bundestag for a few weeks when the member of the left-wing parliamentary group Heidrun Dittrich became a member of the organization.

In 2016, the SAV founded the Manifest Verlag which, starting with the November issue (No. 160), also publishes Solidarity .

At the end of July 2019, the majority of the federal board of SAV u. a. announced on their homepage that the organization, like the international association CWI , will split up. The federal board majority accuses the other sections of the CWI, especially those from Ireland, Greece and the USA, of merely pursuing "identity politics". The published appeal was signed by numerous SAV members. A countercall against "unnecessary division in the CWI and the SAV" was also published on the SAV homepage and supported by Lucy Redler and rapper Holger Burner , among others . At a federal conference in September 2019, the majority of the members decided to remain part of the majority of the CWI. A minority then left the organization, including the majority of the federal executive board and the federal management. Those who left founded the new Trotskyist organization Socialist Organization Solidarity (Sol) on September 8, 2019 .

organization structure

The SAV is divided into regional and city associations as well as local groups. Conditions for membership are recognition of the basic program and statute, active participation and payment of a monthly membership fee. The activities of the respective branches are coordinated by an elected board. Internally, the SAV coordinates itself according to the principle of democratic centralism .

The highest body is the federal conference, which takes place at least every two years. It is made up of the delegates from the respective locations, decides on the political guidelines of the organization and elects the control commission and the federal board. This elects the federal management from among its ranks, which conducts the official business between the board meetings.

Functionaries do not receive more than a skilled worker wage, must give the members an account of their activities at all times and can be voted out of their area of ​​responsibility on the initiative of a qualified majority. Resolutions are made after an open internal discussion and should then be borne by all members.

SAV, WASG and Left Party

Elective alternative work & social justice

When the WASG party was formed , the SAV massively called on its members to participate. The aim was to implement a "combative course, democratic structures and a socialist program". There was a discussion about the incompatibility of SAV and WASG membership, which was triggered by the IG Metall official and WASG founding member Klaus Ernst . He argued that the SAV was a “voter shock”. The SAV, on the other hand, argued that the WASG only had a chance to oppose neoliberalism as a gathering movement of all forces fighting against social cuts . This dispute ended with the federal conference of the WASG from 6 to 8 May 2005 in Dortmund , at which the pluralistic character of the WASG was recorded. The SAV called for the Left Party.PDS to be elected in the 2005 Bundestag election . In the process of unifying the WASG and the Left Party.PDS, she advocated the merging of both parties and wanted to give the new left the character of a socialist workers' party. As a prerequisite, she called for the Left Party.PDS to end government participation in Berlin .

WASG Berlin and BASG

The SAV gained nationwide attention in the dispute over the candidacy of the Berlin WASG for the 2006 parliamentary elections. The regional association of the WASG accused the Linkspartei.PDS of a neoliberal government practice, which it had practiced in the Berlin Senate and in the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with the SPD as a coalition partner. That is why the regional association voted in a ballot against a joint election with the PDS. Many WASG members, who supported the later merger of the Left Party and WASG, then ran for the House of Representatives on the PDS list. The Berlin WASG state board member and SAV member Lucy Redler was elected the top candidate on the WASG state list.

With 2.9% of the votes, the WASG was unable to move into the Berlin House of Representatives, but the WASG lists for the district representation elections overcame the 3% hurdle in seven of the twelve districts. After the nationwide merger of Linkspartei.PDS and WASG on June 16, 2007, the Berlin regional association founded an independent regional association under the name Berliner Alternative für Solidarität und Gegenwehr . This was supported by the SAV.

The left

While the majority of SAV members in West Germany joined the Linkspartei.PDS or Die Linke , the East German groups formed outside of this party. They accused her of having “supported a policy against the interests of the majority of the population” in local and state governments. The Eastern SAV also accused the party in the old federal states of excessive bureaucracy and a lack of democracy. In 2008 there was a change of position. The SAV announced the entry of its East German members into Die Linke . One intends to strengthen the “Marxist forces” in the party after the attempt from outside, e.g. B. by the BASG to exert pressure had failed. There were objections against accessions, for example by the deputy left chairman Klaus Ernst , which the party committees largely approved. This was justified with the assumption that SAV members would not adhere to the resolutions of the elected party authorities. Lucy Redler and others tried again the following year to join Die Linke , which this time succeeded.

The SAV also increased its participation in the youth association leftjugend ['solid] , with the aim of building a “combative, active, socialist youth organization”. SAV members were represented in the state spokesperson councils of the left youth ['solid] state associations in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg and Rhineland-Palatinate in 2016/2017 .

Political and Regulatory Reviews

There is hardly any perception of the SAV in political science literature. Occasionally it is described as a "Trotskyist splinter party" and part of a "rainbow" of small left alliances, or an attempt is made to classify the SAV positions within the left spectrum.

In the 2015 annual intelligence report by the BfV , the SAV was classified in the category of left-wing extremism . This has been the official assessment for years. The observation by the Federal Office showed that the SAV had participated in nationwide protest actions and campaigns, in particular that it mobilized to participate in the protests on the occasion of the opening of the new building of the European Central Bank ( ECB ) in Frankfurt am Main. She was represented "with numerous members from different federal states" at the blockades and at the demonstration. Her main focus is on the fields of action “anti-militarism” and “anti-globalization”. The long-term goal, however, is the "creation of a communist society".

Web links

Commons : Socialist Alternative (Germany)  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution: 2015 Constitutional Protection Report, page 139
  2. ^ Socialist Alternative (SAV) on "Bavaria against left-wing extremism"
  3. ↑ a b c Statute of the SAV (PDF file; 266 kB)
  4. ^ Basic program of the SAV
  5. ^ SAV: What does the SAV want?
  6. ^ Basic program of the SAV, [1] .
  7. ↑ Stalinism: A Wrong Path in History .
  8. ↑ [2]
  9. ^ SAV members in local parliaments
  10. ↑ Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution: Constitutional Protection Reports 2000–2007
  11. ^ A publisher with a program , www.sozialismus.info, November 16, 2016
  12. ^ Split into CWI and SAV. In: Homepage of the SAV. July 31, 2019, accessed on August 2, 2019 (German).
  13. ↑ The struggle for socialism continues - Socialist Organization Solidarity. Retrieved September 9, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Klaus Ernst: Letter to the board of the WASG ( Memento of the original dated November 16, 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.kalaschnikow.net
  15. ↑ Fight together for work, education and social security!
  16. ↑ Small majority confirmed: WASG Berlin competes independently
  17. ↑ State Returning Officer: election results (PDF file; 5.6 MB)
  18. ↑ Lucy Redler: Interview
  19. ↑ Leaflet: Socialist Opposition Necessary!  ( 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. (PDF file; 106 kB)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.sozialismus.info  
  20. ↑ Press release Die Linke Berlin
  21. ↑ SAV: Why we are re- entering the Left .
  22. ↑ Solidarity No. 68, April 2008
  23. ^ SAV: Departure in left youth 'solid NRW
  24. ↑ KgK: What's going on at 'solid Hamburg? Interview with Katharina Doll
  25. ^ SAV: Departure in the Hamburg Left Youth
  26. ↑ Left youth Mainz: For a combative, socialist youth association!
  27. ↑ Linksjugend Mainz: Report of the state assembly of members
  28. ↑ Frank Decker / Viola Neu (eds.), Handbook of German Parties, Wiesbaden 2007, 2nd revised and expanded edition, p. 372.
  29. ↑ Leandros Fischer, Between Internationalism and State Reason, Wiesbaden 2016, p. 281.
  30. ↑ See for example: Report on the Protection of the Constitution of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for 2002, Düsseldorf 2003, p. 142.
  31. ^ Constitutional Protection Report 2015, p. 179f. .