TURNING POINT
WORKING CLASS?
WEST GERMANY During the past few weeks, "internal security, " the "Fight against terrorism, " has become the number one theme of the bourgeois press and the parlaimentary tribunal in the Federal Republic of Germany. The pretext for the campaign was provided by the kidnapping of Lorenz, West Berlin chairman of the Christlich-Demokratische Union (CDU), which was allegedly carried out by an anarchist group. The West German bourgeoisie has been able to link its new "antiterror campaign" to its earlier, and effective, campaigns during the witch-hunt against the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF — Red Army Faction) and on the occasion of the hunger strike of the RAF prisoners (during which one comrade, Holger Meins, died). The right has gained ground in West Germany during the past few weeks. It has forced "internal security" on the public as a number one theme, although this theme is not at all the prime one for the broad masses. The central questions of unemployment, short-time work, and factory shutdowns have been successfully shunted to the background. Four central points The present state of the West German class struggle can be summed up in four central points (for an overall estimation of the situation, see "The End of West German Stability" in INPRECOR No. 5-6, August 3, 1974): 1. The Social Democratic government headed by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has proven ideal for the 8
FOR THE by WINFRIED WOLF bourgeoisie under the current conditions of the class struggle. 2. The defeats for the Sozia demokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD - Social Democratic party of Germany during the state parliamentary elections continued throughout 1974 and the first quarter of 1975. Taken together, the election results reflect the fact that while the SPD continues to maintain its electoral base in the working class, a certain part of the working class, along with disillusioned middle layers, is turning away from the Social Democracy. 3. During 1974 and the beginning of 1975 the open conflict between wage-labor and capital remained at a minimum (with the exception of the strike of public service employees in the spring). At the same time, the employers succeeded in pushing through their strategy of shifting the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working class. 4. The prospect is for a sharpening of the class struggle, especially during the autumn of 1975. This perspective is already becoming apparent in the initial struggles of peripheral sections of the working class and in a few factories that have been directly affected. The first impression one gets in surveying the West German situation (especially through following the bourgeois mass media) appears to contradict this perspective of sharpened class struggle. The tendencies toward the "strong state, " represented above
all by Franz Josef Strauss, leader of the ChristlichSoziale Union (CSU - Christian Social Union, the Bavarian party linked to the CDU), and his bolstered position within the CDU/CSU parliamentary fraction, have been strengthened. The coalition government of the SPD and the FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei - Free Democratic party, a bourgeois liberal party), under pressure from the right, is moving even further away from its "reform program" and is doing everything possible to build up the instruments of bourgeois repression and to make use of repressive measures against the radical left. Nevertheless, this first impression is a superficial one. It fails to take account of the special situation that provides the groundwork for the present rightist trends. And it fails to take account of factors that must be considered in working out a perspective in this contradictory situation, factors such as the generally increased weight of the working class and the trade unions since 1969, the accumulation of important experiences during the period of the rise of struggles from 1969 to the beginning of 1974, and the important experiences that the working class has had during past months, in spite of the quiescence of the class struggle. The economic crisis It is not necessary here to go into a detailed account of the crisis of West German capitalism. (For this, see "The Relative Strength of West German Capitalism, INPRECOR, No. 16-17, January 16.) The essenfial points are these:
«the right has gained ground during the past few weeks» *As the above-mentioned article has predicted, the economic crisis has continued into the first quarter of 1975: It has deepened in some sectors and on the whole has become generalized. The approximately 2,000 million DM conjunctural program of the federal government has up to now proven ineffective. The economic growth rate for the first quarter of 1975 is negative. *The persistent and sharpened international crisis is the essential factor in the persistent crisis in West Germany. The international crisis has caused the sharpening of the crisis in the West German automobile industry and has caused economic branches that are export-oriented and had previously been spared, like the steel, chemical, and electrical industries, to be increasingly gripped by the crisis. (The DIW, German Institute for Economic Research, speaks in its March 18, 1975, analysis of the "dramatic dimensions" of the inroads made by foreign orders.) *With the passing of the 1975 federal budget by parliament on March 21, 1975, the government provided a striking example of the vicious circle that bourgeois policy finds itself caught in during the current period: The government's policy of economic pump-priming through enlarged state expenditures will simultaneously entail a policy of renewed boosting of the state debt and of inflation (an annual rate of increase of the state debt of more than 12 percent, combined with a probable stagnation of the gross national product and additional debts of 22,800 million DM accumulated through credit borrowing.
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WEST GERMANY *According to official figures, the number of unemployed at the end of February stood at 1.2 million; more than 900, 000 workers were on short time. The figures are expected to remain at this level for the month of March. At the same time, there are plans to shut down some large factories, notably the well-known VW/Audi/NSU factory in Neckarsulm, which will affect 10,000 workers directly and another 30,000 indirectly. (There are also plans to close down the Volkswagen factory in Brussels.) This short summary of the economic situation is of great importance in understanding the state of the West German class struggle, especially its stagnation during 1974 and the beginning of 1975. Stagnation of the class struggle In spite of its initial experiences during the 19691973 period, the West German working class was not prepared for the new situation opened up by the crisis of 1974-75. Massive unemployment and factory closings required responses and forms of struggle different from those of the proceding period. To this it must also be added: * That this crisis occurred under a Social Democratic government, that is, under a government led by the party that is still seen by the majority of the West German working class as their political representafive; *That the Social Democratic government and the trade-union bureaucracy worked together as closely as possible to stifle any potential struggles and to push through the low wage agreements desired by the employers. At the same time, the trade-union bureaucracy throttled oppositional initiatives by further restricting trade-union democracy; *That the employers intervened in the contract batfles in a centralized manner through their class organizations; from the outset they had a clear strategy, unlike the trade unions. Today, a balance-sheet can be drawn: The trade-union leadership capitulated to the employers' offensive all the way down the line. Given their conscious subordination to the logic of seeking bourgeois solutions to the crisis, the trade-union leaders had to fall back step by step and accept on every occasion contracis based on the latest position of the "wage guidelines" furnished by the "experts." Even if it is acknowledged that this leadership, or a part of it (as in the case of Steinkühler, the leader of the metalworkers union in Baden-Wurttemberg), was prepared to struggle to a certain extent, especially during the most recent phase, any move toward struggle under these conditions was doomed 10 to failure from the outset: The trade-union leadership had not prepared the working class for such struggles. The individual stages in the capitulation of the trade-union leadership were the autumn 1974 contract in the steel industry, the contract in the crisis-racked construction industry, the contracts in the metals industry, and finally, the contracts in the public services. (The steel contract took on special significance because in this industrial branch, which at the time was still on the upswing, the employers' arguments about declining orders, sinking profits, and threatened unemployment were not relevant; the trade union nevertheless submitted to the wage dictates of the employers.) In all these contracts, with the exception of steel, nominal wage increases were less than 7 percent. As so often in the past, the central position in this round of wage negotiations was occupied by the metals industry and by the policy of the big metalworkers union, the IGM (Industrie-Gewerkschaft Metall), which is led by Eugen Loderers, who likes to boast that he is the chairman of one of the most powerful trade unions in the capitalist world. The employers in this industry had a threefold strategy that led to a humiliating defeat for the trode unions that can have significant effects in the future: 1. In practice, the employers succeeded in attaining their long-sought goal of a central settlement. (Until then, the trade unions had attempted with some success to carry out a regional and branchbased policy aimed at turning to the workers' advantage variations in the economic situation and in the workers' ability to struggle.) Because of the countrywide unity of the metals employers, the agreement calling for 6.8 percent wage increases, which was signed in the state of Nordrheinwestfallen (NRW), led to all other areas more or less taking up this agreement. This happened even in the Unterweser areas (Hamburg, Bremen), where the pace is set by the docking industry, whose order books for the year have already been filled; thus, the employers in the area would have been especially hard hit by a metals strike, because they would have been unable to meet delivery dates. This represented a political victory for the employers.
2. The terms of the contract (nominal wage increases of less than 7 percent) mean at least a freeze in real wages and, for a large part of the working class, a fall in real wages, for the inflation rate up to the fime the contract was signed stood at ó percent, and in the coming period it will certainly reach 7 percent or more. This is the first time in a long while that such agreements have been signed for broad masses of the working class.
It is noteworthy, and also unprecedented, that the trade unions had to completely abandon their initial demands for 11 percent wage increases and settle for something approaching the initial position of the employers. And this despite the fact that the votes of the "impartial" members of an arbitration board had beenexpected to grant a contract with 7 percent wage increases and some important improvements, and despite the fact that the trade-union leadership carried out a last-minute token strike in NRW in which several tens of thousands of metalworkers took part (partially spontaneously) . This point represented an important political-economic victory for the employers, a victory that will undoubtedly have salutary effects on profit rates in the current situation of crisis and ongoing processes of rationalization and concentration. 3. The employers succeeded in blocking the qualitative demands of the trade unions, which the unions had been attempting to push through ever since the conclusion of an agreement on working conditions in Nordbaden-Nordwürttemberg (the "overall wage agreement"). In those places in which such agreements were renewed, the results were well below that of the Nordbaden-Nordwürttemberg model. This has now led to a dangerous situation in which the employers in Baden-WUrttemberg threaten during labor conflicts to move the factory to a region in which more favorable conditions of capital investment exist for the employers. There were other aspects to the employers' victory: The demands of the trade unions for the abolition of Wage Group Il in NRW(a classification that serves particularly to maintain lower wages for women) were struck out; and the completely insufficient training compensation for apprentices was raised only 6.8 percent (which entails a relative deterioration in practice). This victory of the employers represents an important setback for the trade-union struggle, as the content of these demands, put forward under the demagogic but effective formulas "For improving the quality of life" and "for human working conditions, " had explosive power, and they were thus thorns in the side of the employers. New struggles The preceding year represented an important turning point in the development of a new vanguard of the West German working class. It is as yet difficult to determine what concrete changes and shifts will be produced within the working class and in the factories by the admixture of confrontation, crisis, unemployment, the SPD government, and the failures of the trode-union leadership. But it is clear that this period, like the period opened in 1969, represents a significant change. There are already concrete signs that on the one hand the general combativity of the working class has not fallen and, on the other hand, that new struggles and new forms of struggle are arising. The continued existence of general combativity among the working class was proven by the mobilization of the metalworkers during the token strike in NRW (which occurred under the unfavorable conditions of a wage struggle that had in reality already been lost and of trade-union tactics that had previously demobilized the workers) and by the mobilizations that have occurred in cases of big factories directly affected by shutdowns (VFW Focker und Salamander in Speyer, DVA-Druckerei in Stuttgart, automobile workers in Neckarsulm). *There have been demonstrations against unemployment by the unemployed. Teachers and university graduates, unemployed because of a freeze on jobs in the public school system, also participated in these demonstrations. *In connection with the Supreme Court's Final prohibition of abortion (even during the first three months of pregnancy), the women's movement has experienced a new upswing that has led to many demonstrations and protest actions. *In Whyl in Kaiserstuhl-Baden the population waged a bitter and militant month-long struggle against plans to construct an atomic reactor. In spite of a massive police occupation, the construction site was retaken by more than 10,000 demonstrators and is still being held. A veiled court order to halt construction underlines the preliminary victory that has been won. Especially meaningful, however, are some factory struggles in which the West German working class has utilized new forms of struggle. In a series of cases there have been symbolic factory occupations, and in one case, for the first time, an occupation was carried out as an offensive means of struggle against layoffs: In Erwitte bei Paderborn (in Westphalia) 150 workers of a cement-making company occupied the factory on March 10, after which 96 workers were called back and short-time was ordered for the remaining workers. The workers built a strike leadership and discussed the situation in weekly assemblies of strikers. They demanded unconditional rescinding of the layoffs and opening of the company's books. The workers also managed to make contact with other factories in similar situations so as to break down the isolation of their struggle.
WEST GERMANY The following two factors are worthy of attention: First, the core sectors of the working class in the class-struggle political centers and in the big industrial factories are virtually waging no struggles at all. Even in cases where the workers are directly affected by layoffs and short workweeks or the acute threat of layoffs or short time, such factories find it relatively difficult to mobilize. (Examples of this are provided by Rollei Voigtiänder/Braunschweig, VW factories.) Second, the current new struggles are being waged above all by peripheral sections of the working class (immigrants, youth), and the new forms of struggle we have referred to are emerging in small factories in the provinces. This development corresponds to some of the features that had also appeared during the 1973 wave of wildcat strikes; but above all it exhibits parallels with experiences in other West European countries. Social Democracy and tendencies toward the strong state Undoubtedly, the West German Social Democracy has made a turn to the right under the pressure of the employers. As surprising as this may be to many people, the explanation for it is simple: In a period of stagnation of the class struggle, the Social Democracy is only too willing to bow to the strategy of the employers. During the past year this has meant two things: low wage contracts and repression against the left. Only a mobilization of the SPD's rank-and-file supporters and electoral base, the working class, will produce a corresponding reflex in the Social Democratic party, partly in the form of a sharpened process of internal differentiation. Nevertheless, the present policy of the Schmidt government already heralds the limits of the SPD's rightist retreat, limits that are set by the Social Democracy's drive for self-preservation as a partyIt can generally be said that in all the elections of 1974 and in those so far in 1975 the SPD has sustained heavy defeats (losses between 2 and 10 percent); moreover, these defeats were proportionally more severe in the cities. (In some cities, West Berlin for example, the defeats were proportionally even more severe in the working-class districts.) At the least, this means that overall support for the SPD among the working class waned (this was expressed both in abstentions and in shifts to other parties); in some cases there was even a large shift of backward sections of the working class toward the CDU/CSU. The SPD did everything to contribute to accelerating this process, not only through its practical policies, but also through its whole propaganda. The SPD 12 never named the real culprit of the crisis, the capitalist profit system, and thus could be fagged by rightist demagogy as itself being mainly responsible for the crisis. Further, the SPD did all it could to divert attention from the threat of unemployment as the major theme in the elections and instead took up the favored theme of the CDU/CSU, "internal security, "with the result that the voters preferred to opt for the CDU/CSU, which offers "better guarantees" of internal security. With the kidnapping of West Berlin CDU Chairman Lorenz (in which the participation of provocateurs cannot be ruled out at this time) a ready-made excuse was provided for taking a further step in the sharpening of repression. Throughout the preceding period, both in the actual policy of the government and in the parliamentary debate on the question of "internal security, " it became clear that regardless of any differences (real or feigned) between the government and the opposition, there was common agreement that repressive legislation should be toughened (with, for example, restrictions on the right to demonstrate and the right to defense in court, the banning of "propaganda in favor of terror and violence"), that the extension of the state's repressive power should be continued (the police, the federal border guard, the army), and that the people should become accustomed to brutal and sweeping raids like those carried out in West Berlin after the Lorenz kidnapping. In its polemic, the CSU went so far as to speak of a so-called "hazy circle" of terrorists (representing an especially dangerous terrorism) that includes the entire left, even sections of the government coalition and thus the left wings of the SPD (the Young Socialists) and the FDP (the Young Democrats). The SPD and the CDU/CSU are following different tactics under these circumstances. The SPD and a section of the CDU are stressing above all that "solidarity of all democrats" is necessary in the present situation. The majority of the CDU/CSU rejects this all-embracing tactic in favor of an attempt to place the blame on the villains of the SPD. Toward this aim, the right wing of the Christian Democracy, represented by Strauss and the CSU, is pursuing a much sharper tactic that at bottom represents the strategy of establishing a strong state. Strauss's train of thought runs as follows: 1. " personally have defended the view that we are only at the beginning of the crisis. I think that the ruin of state finances is continuing cease lessly. ... The ruin of the home economy is also proceeding step by step, the small and middle areas being most strongly affected." 2. "The crisis must become deep enough that what we hold necessary for the cure can begin on a better
psychological basis than what exists today. Most people are still living beyond their means. Serious readiness for belt-tightening does not yet exist." "There is not the slightest difference between criminal gangsters and political ones. They are all of them lawbreakers. And if we understand this and clean up properly, none of them will dare to open their mouths in Germany for the rest of this century. " 3. "The right tactic today is only indictments and warnings, but not naming any concrete formula." "Better a heavy inflation and a strong increase in unemployment, better to make allowances for the ruin of state finance than to apply what we hold to be the necessary formula. - .. Things must get substantially worse before we have the prospect of our concepts, warnings, and proposals being politically heard. These excerpts from the "Sonthofener speech, " which has since become Famous (or infamous), show that Strauss is capable of offering a clear perspective for the class he represents. (The speech was given to a closed meeting of CSU parliament members, but its contents became known through an indiscretion.) They also show that he realistically assesses the current state of the overall relationship of forces in society and therefore proposes the tactic of making destructive criticisms and then lying in wait. Strauss knows that the time is not yet ripe for the establishment of a "strong state" with a strong executive, muzzling of the parliamentary bourgeois opposition, sharp repression against the revolutionary left (including bans on organizations), and, above all, a palpable weakening of trade-union rights. Furthermore, he wants to remain in the wings as a candidate for the chancellorship, and if he is soon to stand at the head of a federal government, then he must play at being a Strauss that he would actually prefer not to be. While the overall relationship of forces stands in the way of the establishment of a strong state, it is clear that the present situation represents a threat to the revolutionary left, which is still generally isolated from the working class. Perspectives Taking as a basis our foregoing analysis and the shift in the relationship of forces since 1969 generally in favor of the working class, some of the perspecfives for the coming period can be enumerated: *In the short run, the stagnation of struggles by the core section of the working class will continue. Exceptions to this rule will occur in the cases of workers whose jobs are concretely threatened (possibly VW-Audi/NSU Neckarsulm, for example). The
May Day demonstrations will in some measure provide an expression of the extent to which the new situation has created the necessary consciousness for fresh class-struggle responses among broad secfions of the working class. *If the expected economic stabilization extends through the summer, struggles on a broader level are likely this fall. At that time, beginning from a favorable position of strength, the workers will try to make up for the insufficiencies of the contracts signed earlier. *In contrast to 1969, the trade-union bureaucracy will be prepared for such struggles and under some circumstances will quickly take up these struggles in the unions. While this implies the danger of these struggles being channeled, it also means that a new rift between the policy of the Social Democratic government and the policy of the trade-union leadership will open up. *Until that time, the marked development of new struggles and new forms of struggle will continue. This can contribute significantly to new layers being successfully drawn in by the expected struggles, provided that the isolation of such struggles is broken *Within the Social Democracy, there will be a strengthening of tendencies pursuing a demagogic policy of a class confrontation, not as the result of concrete struggles between wage-labor and capital, but rather in the form of manipulating given events, debates, etc. The SPD has already made a start in this direction with its utilization of Strauss's Sonthofener speech. Seen from this standpoint, it is possible that the electoral losses of the SPD in the coming elections in NRW, the most important state of West Germany, the one with the largest working-class base, will be relatively small. For revolutionary Marxists in the present situation, it is of decisive importance to make full use of this "turning point" situation in the working class, to intervene in the existing class struggles, and to prepare for the anticipated struggles. March 25, 1975
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Below is an interview with Comrade Saki, a member of the Political Bureau of the
Japan Revolutionary Communist League, Japanese section of the Fourth International.