GODESBERG - A VICTORY FOR THE LIQUIDATORS
By G GERBEL
German social-democracy adopted a new pro- paying lip-service to the ideas, in order partly to gram at the Godesberg Party congress. The gist of this document is its clear and unequivocal adaptation to bourgeois society, the capitalist state and its military defense. All changes in the social situation, all reforms of state and society, are conceived strictly within the framework of capitalism and have as their goal its protection from the consequences of crises and class strug-
The program is an equivocal abjuration of the remainder of the stock of Marxist ideas tolerated until now in the SP D. In the best case, Marxism is granted a historical place in the history of the workers' movement of a time "when there were still class struggles." The authors go back to the compost of pre-Marxian ideologies, including the Sermon on the Mount, apparently not yet rotted by the passage of history. At the same time the "socialist goal," the rudiment of which till now still glimmered in festive speeches has been abandoned in favor of formal democracy. Instead of the old, reformist way to socialism through democracy, bourgeois democracy itself has appeared. In reality the new program does not reveal any new discoveries. It is composed of waste products of the most various schools of bourgeois ideology, of which the alien class wing is the active representative inside the SP D. This ideology has already been for years the spiritual basis of a deciding part of the SPD (the NATO wing, the fraction in the Bundestag, the Rightists under the leadership of Erler, Schmidt, Arndt and Deist.) This liquidationist clique deemed it timely to make its ideology the official spiritual basis of the Party, giving thereby a programmatic legality to deeds already done.
Even though Bernsteinian revisionism is high as the sky compared with what Godesberg has allotted the German workers' movement, yet this program is an important station on the revisionist track, if not yet the terminal. This is the road from a false and erroneous class policy to a full capitulation to the bourgeois class reactionary ringmasters. This road is marked by the milestones of August 1914, the November 1918 days, the January 1919 murders, the rôle of doctor at the sickbed of capitalism during the Weimar republic, the capitulation without a fight of 1930-1933. Already in this period the SP D had ceased to be a socialist Party. In all difficult moments of social upheaval it has saved bourgeois society from collapse and from socialist revolution; but time and again it has, in such periods, hidden behind some washed-out socialist ohrases — even they were abused by the ther Right-wing. The Right had to commit this abuse, maintain the Party's proletarian basis. This it was necessary for it to do, to be able to play its rôle, as the guarantee against proletarian revolution,
Today the influence of anti-socialist, of alien and hostile class elements inside the Party is so strong, and the political consciousness of the working-class rank and file so much weakened by historical, actual objective and subjective factors, that they can take the liberty of dropping the "socialist" masquerade. In addition to which, the SP D apparatus, up to now always a buffer between the Right and the working-class rank and file, has fully subordinated itself to the will of the liquidators.
No one can be surprised by Godesberg and the preparatory "discussion" who has watched the political situation of the workers' movement in the Federal Republic and the practise of the leaderships of the workers' organizations — as well as the sporadic activity of the Leftist forces during these last years, especially after the strangulation of the movement against remilitarization. It would have been an illusion to believe that this Party would still be able to work out even a reformist program by a political discussion. When events like the First World War, the revolution and counter-revolution of 19181923, the victory of fascism in 1933, the Second World War, and the collapse of fascism and German capitalism have not succeeded in driving social-democracy back on to socialist positions, it were illusory to attribute this task to a programmatic discussion. tion to carry on such a discussion. The sham fight if Pared erracy This democracy showed of Party democracy. This its real face when about 240 proposals from the basic organizations were wiped out with a flick of the wrist on the "advice of the Party committee.
In its overwhelming majority the membership has shown no interest whatsoever in this discussion. In view of the ideologically low level at which the Party organizations are maintained, the members are scarcely capable of participating. But organizațional democracy begins with the ability to coöperate in the elaboration of principles, strategy and tactics; this ability is more important than statutary "rights."
The composition of the party congress, at which 25% of those qualified to vote had not been elected, but possessed delegates' rights on the strength of holding an office, shows another side of the
18 Party's "democracy." The other delegates were sifted out by a voting system which works like a sieve: in the Party units, scarcely 10% of the the beg am and the extraordinary tiarty congress vere discussed — so that the vote at Godesberg, and all commanded and consecutively arriving declarations of consent cannot be considered as the decision of the membership. The greater part of the elected delegates came from the Party, trade-union, laender and municipal bureaucracy.
16 delegates summoned up courage to vote against the whole program. This dwindling minority demonstrates the weakness of the Left among the middle layers of social-democratic functionaries, and shows the present narrow oasis of a Left-wing inside this Party. These votes represent, in the best case, a socialist nucleus.
A more particularized picture was given by the lause-by-clause voting. Thus 99 delegates voted against the decisive clause on economic policy. This figure comes closer to the real division of votes and the real influence among the membership. It is very significant that the largest number of opposition votes should have been recorded on this clause. This was a ! last endeavor to cling to the old goal of socialization. Exactly at this point, and more than on foreign or cultural policy, the Party members see through the total adaptation of the SPD to the existing property relations. Therefrom comes the influence of the Munich asic program of the D GB (trade unions) and the exploitation of the Ahlen struggle against the "Chiani}s,» * ogram in the
By far the greatest part of the delegates, however, capitulated on the final vote under the massive pressure of the praesidium and the Party leadership. After voting against an important and decisive clause, they gave their votes to the whole program. That was a capitulation before the massive unity of the Right plus the Party apparatus. The apparatus did 'not, as many Left-wingers had hoped, combine with the workinglass rank and file against the Right — as it did some years ago against the ballast-throwers -but exercised, together with the Right which it found tar more congenial, exerted pressure on the "Left" and consciously pushed it in the desired direction. ROLE OF HERBERT WEHNER
The most important rôle in the demoralization of the Left has been played by Herbert Wehner. Te not only defended the draft program in the liscussion before and after the Party congress, ut, in a steam-rollering and stalinist way, tried o unleash a pogrom against the critics. That is the practice of a real renegade, who wants to liberate himself from even the pretense of a past.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Not even a glorious past, however, is in question. His way to the Communist Party of Germany and his comet-like rise therein took place at a time when this Party had degenerated, emasculating thereby both itself and the working class. By a false perspective (fascism was already in power with Brüning, von Papen, etc, exhaustion of the Nazis within a short time); a false strategy and tactics (splitting the trade unions by means of the RGO - Red trade-union opposition, the SP D viewed as the Left-wing of fascism, the theory of social-fascism, the concept of the united front from below, the common struggle with the Nazis in the Prussian "Red referendum" against the SPD government); and by the complete Stalinization of the Party organization, the KP D leadership cleared the road for the victory of fascism. Wehner's activity against the Left-wing rank and file in 1959 was in no way different from his rôle, as part of the Stalinist bureaucracy, against every critic during the years 1928-1933 and during the first years of the emigration who had the courage to warn against the fatal development of the K PD. At that time he denounced these comrades as agents of social-fascism. Today he insinuates that those who warn against the fatal development of the SP D are agents of the Socialist Unity Party (east German Stalinists.) When, at the Party congress, appearing in the character-part of a repentant Marxist, he warned against the totality of Marxism, he forgot that he has never been a Marxist, that in the KPD he embraced "Marxism" in a Stalinized form. His personal characteristics — egocentrism, disdain drove him into the arms of the anarchists, have of people and of the masses — which at one time eased his path in the Stalinist as well as in the social-democratic bureaucracy. The example of Wehner shows the inherent evolution of the bureaucrats of various hues.
The capitulation at the final vote will contribute to a deepening of the apathy among the proletarian base of the SP D, which as a result of the Godesberg program is perceptibly extending. A still smaller number of workers will take part in the internal life of the Party; to a still greater extent the influx of fresh, activist elements into the Party will dry up.
The Godesberg program is absolutely nothing new. It is the programmatic legalization of a policy practised for years by the alien-class elements working within the Party leadership, but above all by the Bundestag leadership. On the basis of this legality, these forces will develop a still more capitulatory policy in the wake of the CD U gov-
Their appetite and eagerness for office will grow continually. This will find its clear expression in the coming elections and in the electoral program for 1961. The spirit of this program is
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL not the "will to power," which anyway was still extant with Schumacher, but the basis for participation in ottice on the basis of bourgeois society. In the event of this wishful dream being fulfilled, the German social-democracy will show in practice that it has "learned" from the fate of the Weimar republic to trample still more upon the historic and immediate interests of the working class. To that extent the Godesberg program the German workers, Phase in the development of can introduce a new movement: the phase of the ditterentiation between the working class and the S PD. The workers do not evaluate the SP D on its program, but they will recognize and rate at heir true value its policy and its practice
It is the task of the socialist nucleus inside the SP D to see that this recognition does not demoralize the workers completely, leading to a passive acceptance of the situation. In the clear realization that along the road of the SP D there is no return from the bourgeois morass, but that a class differentiation must and will come, this nucleus must not allow the Right and the apparatus to separate it completely from the workers organized in the SP D. Without the slightest theoretical concessions, and without accepting any responsibility for this (Godesberg) program, all the existing possibilities must be utilized fully to begin a struggle within the framework of this program, and to extend it beyond the program over the cognition of the program, but a tactical attitude on the basis of the situation created after Godes-
The real Left inside the SPD must, by unompromising criticism of the program, forge the deological weapons which will enable it, in the course of the coming process of differentiation, to become the nucleus of a widely-based Leftwing which, in the practical daily struggle, pushes out beyond the program.
As a result of the Godesberg decisions, the S PD stands today on programmatic questions to the Right of the D GB (even the Ahlen decisions of the CDU are to the "Left" of Godesberg.) In the long run it cannot tolerate such a correlation. Before the great mass of trade-union officials the decision is posed thus: to stand on the Munich basic program or on that of Godesberg.
At the Stuttgart congress of the D G B a Rosenberg-inspired "improved" program was already circulating. At the next D GB congress it will be lying on the table of the house. In the meantime the SP D leadership, supported by the Right in the DGB, will develop an increased activity in support of an equivalent program of class collaboration. Here the Left has a new chance to defend the basic questions of the reconstruction
19 of society from a socialist point of view. From this point of view the Left must devote more attention to developments in the trade unions. But here also a point is valid which has already been demonstrated by the programmatic discussion in the SP D. The defence of the Munich basic program, also, cannot be carried on abstractly by participation in a program discussion. The starting points for this are to be found in an active and intensified work in the trade unions and in the shops.
The colourful picture presented by the "wildcat" strikes, which have been taking place continuously tor some weeks, shows that, in contradiction of the spirit of the Godesberg program, even in time of boom the working-class struggle exists. That this movement does not carry an extraordinarily high level of class consciousness, that it does not reach out immediately to the great political and social questions, is the product not ot the boom but of the treacherous class rôle ot the leadership of the workers' movement during the whole of the last decade. But these movements can become schools for class consciousness provided the conscious socialist forces not only support them but, after careful study of all the conditions, become their initiators.
Here the Left strikes layers which were "absent" during the program discussion in the SP D. Experience has proved that precisely the working-class youth, devoid of any experience of the class struggle, untouched by the history of the workers' movement and by its theories, take their first steps in the class struggle. In their great majority they are sceptical of the older generation and of the past of the workers' movement, but also of the bureaucratic machinations of the apparatuses of the SP D and the trade unions, and of the complete passivity of the SP D.
All this is the first stage of their class-struggle activity, which they themselves often do not recognize as a class struggle, the abstract concept of which has no attractive power for them. On this basis of a new activization of older and politically disillusioned, and younger and illusion-less, layers ot the workers, new forces for the Left inside the SP D and the trade unions can develop from the great differentiation within these organizations brought about by the developing class struggle. The discussion around the Munich basic program can become a connecting link between elemental Left movements and a conscious Left-wing. This development will then supersede Godesberg, leaving the representatives of the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie in the SP D, and the classcollaborationist elements in the trade unions, isolated on the Right, and constituting from the dynamism of the movement a new leadership on the basis of a socialist program and a revolutionary practice.
From the Archives of Marxism