(The following interview with Ernest Mandel was published in the February 15 issue of the Berliner Lehrer-Zeitung, the Berlin teachers magazine. The translation is by Russell Block. The introduction is by Berliner Lehrer-Zeitung.]
(The following interview was conducted by Helmut Horst and another teacher who preferred to remain anonymous because he does not yet have tenure.) Ernest Mandel, a lecturer at the University of Brussels and member of the Belgian trade-union federation (ABVV-FGTB) for the last twenty-five years, has become internationally known as a Marxist scholar and leading member of the Fourth International. His most important publications, Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory (1967), Marxist Economic Theory (1972), and Late Capitalism (1974), have already sold well over 100,000 copies in West Germany.
At the beginning of 1972, Ernest Mandel was banned from entering the country by then Federal Minister of the Interior Genscher. In this way the state effectively barred him from assuming a post he was offered at the Free University of Berlin. So, Mandel was one of the first group of socialists and communists to be penalized for his political views. His case was one of those that introduced systematic political screening by the states' Agencies for the Defense of the Constitution of all job applicants, regardless of whether they apply for blue-collar, white-collar, or civilservice jobs.
This trend has now reached its high point so far, with state thought-control being accompanied by a propaganda campaign. Its political, constitutional, and social-psychological consequences have become clear. In the following interview, Ernest Mandel speaks out about this trend.
Question. Why did the federal government issue an order forbidding you to enter the country in 1972?
Answer. I think we have to distinguish here between the pretext and the underlying reasons. It's generally known that I was nominated for a professorship by the Berlin Free University at that time, and that the West Berlin Senate vetoed this. This led to a protest demonstration in West Berlin. The senator for the interior wanted to prevent me from taking part in this demonstration, and to this end asked the federal minister of the interior, Genscher, to prevent me from entering the country.
When the question of this denial of an entry visa-which originally was applied just to this one occasion-was raised in the Bundestag, the then federal minister stated: "Professor Mandel will not be permitted to enter the country as long as he maintains his revolutionary views."
In practice, that meant that a person could be denied entry into West Germany solely on the basis of his convictions. Everyone knows very well that my political activities in the Federal Republic, which had been going on for years, involved nothing more than lecturing and writing. What is in fact at issue here is a matter of convictions.
This, of course, is a very serious matter. In reality, if people who wish to overturn or change the system-even those like me who have always emphasized that this must be done with the support of the majority of the population-are not allowed to express this view in the Federal Republic, then freedom of opinion and pluralism have been restricted. On such grounds it would be just as legitimate if the Soviet Union, for example, were to deny entry to every liberal, conservative, bourgeois, or even Social Democratic politician, since such people represent what amounts to a radical, qualitative change in the system there.
Now what is the real reason? The refusal of entry visas expresses a deep lack of confidence on the part of the governmental parties and the big bourgeoisie in the FRG [Federal Republic of Germany].
It is no accident that in the 1950s and 1960s I was free to enter West Germany and speak and write as much as I pleased. Something has changed. In those days, Marxist and neo-Marxist ideas were considered ineffective, totally unimportant, crackpot theories. The self-confidence of the system was solid and stable.
Since the recession of 1966-67, since the wildcat strikes of 1969, and above all in the light of developments in West Germany since then, big business and the bourgeois and other governmental parties have become very unsure of themselves.
Let me point out a historical precedent: When the bourgeoisie in the West felt sure of itself, it was no problem for Karl Marx to write and work for decades as an émigré in England. It was no problem for Lenin and Trotsky to live and work and write as émigrés in Austria or Switzerland. The denial of entry visas is then an expression of weakness, uncertainty, and a feeling of inferiority.
I have always emphasized that if we had a real socialist workers government somewhere in the West, we would not only grant bourgeois politicians, bourgeois professors, bourgeois ideologists, full freedom of speech and the press, but that if we should find that no such people existed, we would have to invent some.
We are convinced that Marxist science, Marxist thinking, can only be developed, consolidated, and assimilated through critical debate with other philosophies, other currents. And we have enough confidence in our ideas not to try to avoid such a confrontation.
Q. What political connection is there between the ban on your entering the country and the job discrimination against workers, professionals, and functionaries in public service, which also began in 1972?
A. It should be understood that this ban on my entering the country is not an isolated phenomenon, and that the general political context into which it fits has very serious implications for the future of democracy and the future of the workers movement in West Germany. The target here is not Ernest Mandel, and it is not any far-left "wild-eyed radicals." These groups are so weak in West Germany today that there is no objective reason for the wide-ranging repression aimed at them.
What is really at issue here is an attempt on the part of the late-capitalist state in the FRG to take preventative measures against a radicalization of the working class, and the workers organizations, and against workers struggles.
This makes my case a very important precedent. What is at stake here is not the expulsion of, or ban on, one revolutionist, but the possibility of deporting Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English, trade-union leaders if the same charge is raised against them as is raised against me-namely, speaking about and propagandizing for factory occupations.
In other West European countries, factory occupations have been organized by large trade unions with the backing of thousands if not millions of people. Such actions have been endorsed by the leaderships of the trade-union federations. With the same logic that is now being used to exclude me from West Germany, in the future leaders of mass trade union federations in West Europe can be kept out.
This throws a very particular, sharp light on the relationship of West Germany to the Common Market, the nature of the Common Market and freedom of movement within the Common Market not just for exploited labor power but for everyone.
It's taken for granted that bankers who travel around Western Europe, foreigners who shut down factories or advocate shutting down factories, that members of the boards of directors of multinational who arrange the closure of concerns affiliates in other countries, that these people do not disturb public peace and order. That's normal. That's seen as absolutely unavoidable because it is determined by eternal economic laws.
But when malicious people like me say to the workers that they should resist factory closings, even if they have to go so far as to occupy them, that is seen as disrupting public peace and order.
So it appears that under the Common Market we have got a double standard as regards rights, that is, a de facto double standard. But in West Germany the only ones who are supposed to have legitimate rights are the representatives of the capitalist class, of bourgeois disorder; the rights of those who spread disorder by unemployment, factory closings, ete., are supposed to be unlimited. And at the same time, the representatives of labor and the ideological representatives of the working class are forbidden to defend themselves against this capitalist disorder with the means they have at hand.
So, I think that just like the decree against radicals, and the political job discrimination that followed, the barriers against entering the country represent a very serious limitation on the democratic freedoms of the German workers movement in general. I think that it is necessary to form a solid united front to defend democratic freedoms against such decrees and administrative measures.
Measures directed today against the representatives of small left groups can be used tomorrow against broad sectors, even the Socialist party and the DGB [Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund-German Trade Union Federation]. If you listen carefully to Herr [Franz Josef] Strauss, if you listen carefully to other outspoken tendencies among the bosses, it is easy to see that for these gentlemen the line is not drawn between legitimate political activists and terrorists, nor between radical and moderate socialists.
Rather they aim to make outlaws out of everyone who wants to change the system at all. That is the object of these "decrees on radicals" and political jobdiscrimination measures. Fortunately the numbers of those who wish to change the system are not limited to the members of small extremist groups but stretch deep into the ranks of the Social Democracy and the trade unions.
All these measures are just as dangerous for the future of democratic freedoms for the workers movement as the notorious Paragraph 48 of the Weimar constitution. In the future, under different political conditions, under a different relationship of forces, they can be used against broad sections of the mass organizations.
That is why we must apply the general rule that we will not tolerate any part of the organized workers movement being made into outlaws or discriminated against. We have to defend the principle that democratic freedoms are for the entire population, without any exceptions, and without any reservations as regards ideas considered dangerous to the state. The fact that the state sees a threat in the mere political expression of ideas holds a terrible danger to preserving democratic freedoms.
The question of what ideas are considered becomes simply subject to arbitrary decision and interpretation. In the Federal Republic of all places it should not be forgotten that the German trade unions have already been banned once under the pretext that it was necessary to stamp out the plague of Marxism in Germany. It was this excuse that was used during the National Socialist reign of terror to liquidate the free German trade-union movement. It is a total illusion to think it can't happen again.
Q. One of the professional groups especially singled out to be penalized under the so-called radicals decree includes teachers and educators. What is the function of intellectuals in education in late-capitalist society? Why are left-wing intellectuals in education seen by the state as a danger at the present time?
A. I would broaden the scope of this question a bit. What we should consider for a moment is the general philosophy underlying the so-called radicals decree. You can't support the academic freedom solemnly proclaimed in the West German constitution, and at the same time declare that only teaching and research that supports the state is allowed.
The idea that views inimical to the state, or views regarded as inimical to the state, cannot be freely taught and investigated is fundamentally totalitarian. It is an idea completely in keeping with the mentality of the present ruling party in the Soviet Union. The Soviet leaders say: We have freedom to teach and do research insofar as this does not endanger the existing state and social order. From a socialist point of view, from a Marxist point of view, this is a monstrosity.
Ideas never endanger a state or social order. The state and social order are only endangered by their internal contradictions. If certain revolutionary ideas become effective, it is only because they correspond to, and express, the interests of important sections of the population. In other words, they take on force because large strata of society do not agree with the existing state and social order. Otherwise the ideas would be totally without effect.
If today in the Soviet Union someone calls for a multiparty system or freedom of the press, this threatens the existing state order only because there are many people who are ready to take up these demands. If today in West Germany propagandizing for factory occupations or workers control is already considered to be a threat to the existing social order, this is only because it is felt that under certain conditions such demands can find wide acceptance among a significant portion of the population.
If an idea really is regarded only by a small portion of the population as a legitimate expression of its historical interests or aspirations, then a society that proudly proclaims to uphold cultural and ideological pluralism has no justification whatever for banning its expression, even in the schools.
We also have to take for granted that in order to develop critical thinking in students in the schools and universities, education must give them access to all the great intellectual currents of the time. Any other concept of education means, in reality, state regimentation of education, and education in state doctrine. If it could be shown that there was a l percent concentration of Marxists in the population and a 99 percent concentration of Marxists among the teachers, then there would be a certain disproportion. In this case, the teachers would be attempting to bring about a change in the political relation of forces by influencing school and university students on a massive scale.
But, of course, this is not the reality of the situation. Rather it is a question of a small minority of left socialist teachers who are to be prevented from practicing their profession.
The reality is that the powers that be want to prevent socialist ideas from being communicated through the educational system to any portion of the population whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever. This stands in absolute contradiction to academic freedom, in absolute contradiction to pluralism, and I repeat: This corresponds to a totalitarian system of dividing up intellectual currents into those that "undermine the state" and are therefore forbidden, and those that "support the state" and are therefore permitted.
The supporters of the "radicals decree" should at least muster enough honesty and objectivity to say this publicly. Then it would be easier to understand what is at issue here. They should not try to hide behind every conceivable pretext that obscures the real state of affairs, at least for part of the population.
Q. Why is it possible for communists and socialists to work in the civil service as teachers and educators in other European nations, Italy and France, for example?
A. In the first place, I think this can be attributed to a more deeply rooted democratic tradition in these countries. Curtailment of academic freedom there would encounter considerably greater resistance because large sections of the working class and the population as a whole have considerably more courage of their convictions than is the case in the Federal Republic. Secondly, this can be explained by a more favorable political relationship of forces. At any rate, that also plays an important role.
Q. Don't the "incompatibility resolutions" of the DGB and its member unions contribute to the increasing rightward shift in the political relationship of forces in the FRG?
A. The DGB is caught in a contradiction that is becoming increasingly acute. This contradiction is shared by the federal government. The government's foreign policy stance toward the Soviet bloc is positive. Big business supports this insofar as it contributes to reducing tensions in Europe. But as a result, more and more representatives of Communist governments and trade unions from the Soviet bloc are invited to the FRG.
At the same time, within the framework of European integration, more and more ties are being established with West European left trade unions that have many Socialists and Communists in leading positions, who are thereby given increasing opportunities for exercising an influence in West Germany.
When West German citizens who hold the same, similar, or even sometimes more moderate views than these visitors are hounded and driven out of the unions, the contradiction becomes clear. What sense is there in throwing a German socialist out of the DGB and at the same time sitting down at the table with Mr. Shelepin?*
*Former head of All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in the Soviet Union.-IP