Social Democratic Victory: Healthy Turn in Germany
Eckstein, George
THE WEST GERMAN ELECTION this past September could mark a turning point in the political history of a country dominated, since its inception, by conservative forces. A positive answer has...
...Willy Brandt's government has a precarious majority...
...continuation of the reform of criminal law begun under the preceding government (unfortunately under a much weaker Minister of Justice...
...The APO's major component, the SDS, is far more political-minded than its U.S...
...In foreign policy, a government's freedom of action is severely limited, and any West German government is additionally hampered by its dependence on U.S...
...The NPD is actually less a neo-Nazi party than one of the nationalistic groups which in Germany periodically gather the votes of disgruntled people...
...In less than a year, the threat of depression was eliminated by a strong infusion of federal funds into the economy and a steady boom that reached record proportions by mid1969...
...Ex-Nazis form only a small part of its membership...
...Unemployment stood at an all-time low of 100,000, with 850,000 jobs unfilled, and a foreign work force of over 1.5 million...
...In fact, there were no strikes of any kind from 1964 to mid-1969: a yearly average of 5 days lost per 1000 workers, versus 862 in Italy, 447 in the USA, and 30 even in peaceful Sweden...
...strengthening of the federal government's role in education and science...
...As election day drew near, many ADF and APO people seem to have followed the pattern of American radicals in the 1968 election, and wound up giving at least one of their two votes to the SPD...
...how much the settlements will represent an increase in real wages will depend on the extent to which prices are kept stable...
...I don't think much has been lost when this demand was dropped...
...Brief as it was, this spontaneous strike movement will undoubtedly leave a mark on the consciousness of the German workers...
...still this can make a substantial difference in certain areas...
...Within a capitalist setup, such an institution is more likely to lead to a fiction than to the actuality of workers' participation in management...
...counterpart, although by no means more sophisticated...
...On the whole, they had the press and the public on their side, and the negative effect on the SPD vote feared by many did not materialize...
...It alienated many potential voters when its Security Service roughed up opponents at its meetings, and it provoked mass counterdemonstrations in all the larger cities...
...the "new, educated middle class" of administrative, managerial, professional, and academic personnel now makes up 10-11 percent of the SPD vote (doubled in the last four years...
...But unless the Russians and East Germans soften some of their conditions, only cautious change can be expected...
...The union leaders were taken completely by surprise and roundly booed when they initially tried to have the contracts respected (which mostly had two to five more months to run...
...it seems to attract a number of young people, especially in small Protestant towns...
...continuation of Schiller's neo-Keynesian economic policy of stable growth and balancing of economic forces, including a stronger antitrust law...
...Yet, the workers cold-shouldered the clumsy attempts of some New Left students who tried to enter into the strike movement...
...Fearful of continued unemployment, which at that time stood at one million, the unions promised Schiller in late 1966 a virtual moratorium on wage demands and accepted a modest rate of increase, together with long-term contracts, as late as early 1968...
...The most remarkable feature of the boom was its price stability...
...The SPD has also attracted the sympathies of a good many intellectuals, with Gunter Grass particularly active in the election campaign...
...some streamlining of the administration...
...THE WEST GERMAN ELECTION this past September could mark a turning point in the political history of a country dominated, since its inception, by conservative forces...
...In eight years, from 1962 to mid-1969, industrial prices rose only 1.5 percent (all of it in the last year), and the cost of living index only 19 percent (of which 2.7 percent occurred in the last year...
...Change may here be more atmospheric than basic...
...For the SPD and its leading strategist, Herbert Wehner, the election was the payoff for a COMMENTS AND OPINIONS policy that had started by transforming the party from a workers' party to a people's party (not without initial opposition from the old Left), and a demonstration that the SPD could be entrusted with the affairs of the nation...
...To fully appreciate this event, one must remember that there have been virtually no wildcat strikes in the history of the German workers, with their strong attachment and obedience to their unions...
...Much of the program he has presented is modest and noncontroversial...
...For the SPD, with revolution simply no longer in the cards, it was essential to break out of the position of a permanent minority party...
...This parliamentary vote foreshadowed the formation of a fairly homogeneous "Small Coalition" of SPD and FDP...
...It means also that the higher bureaucracy, so long a fief of conservatism, can no longer take its position for granted...
...Revaluation was put into effect as one of the first acts of the Brandt government, but it may have lost some of its hoped-for impact...
...There is very little rhetoric today, so maybe there is hope for success...
...The election was greeted by Brezhnev "as an unmistakable success of the democratic forces...
...A major contributing factor was the recent turn toward the Left by the small but decisive Free Democratic party (FDP), at the cost of most of its conservative vote...
...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS Another demand of the unions (and in the program of the SPD) has been sacrificed on the altar of the coalition: the expansion of "codetermination," the representation of unions on the boards of directors of all large corporations...
...The important question will be whether the new men will turn out to be ordinary careerists who see in the new SPD little more than a vehicle for their own ambitions—or whether they will move Germany forward to a more solid democratic foundation...
...These tactics no longer pay off, which illustrates the change that has come over the German people...
...A positive answer has been given to two important questions: (1) whether the strategy of the Social Democrats (SPD), evolved three years ago, of joining the Christian Democrats (CDU) in a "Great Coalition" would pay off in a sufficiently increased vote to dislodge the CDU from the government...
...These demands are likely to be met...
...But then, in the past the worst aspect of German socialism had been that it concealed its failures and defeats under radical rhetoric...
...If one considers that in the U.S...
...allied themselves with the Communist party in the ADF (Action for Democratic Progress) and, together with students, make up the APO (Extra-Parliamentary Opposition), The APO boycotted the election with the brilliant slogan "Pigs rule, asses vote...
...The unions have already raised their wage demands to 58 percent in five years, with about 11 percent each in 1969 and 1970, and 6-8 percent thereafter—together with a shortened work week...
...This strike movement developed its own leaders, chiefly from among the elected members of the plant councils...
...With a largely Social Democratic government, one can expect a continued if moderate militancy...
...Only later did they cite the temper of the workers to obtain fast concessions from a management, which by then had been thoroughly scared into acceptance of most of the demands...
...Wallace managed to get 13 percent of the vote, the mere 4.3 percent of the NPD is a sign of the Germans' growing political maturity...
...It did participate in the campaign—but by disrupting meetings of all parties and painting Hitler moustaches indiscriminately on the pictures of all candidates.* In the ADF, the newly re-formed, but not reformed, CP managed to assemble the usual complement of innocent and not-so-innocent fellow travelers, mainly pacifists and professors...
...For by now the German price stability has become shattered, and an upward price movement has begun which may not reach the present inflationary level of the U.S...
...Now, for the first time since the formation of the new German state, the CDU has been forced into opposition, and this may well bring out the differences between its left wing of Catholic workers and its right wing of reactionary farmers and businessmen...
...11i WILLY BRANDT WANTS his government to be known as one of "internal reforms...
...This is a healthy development— especially in Germany with its still shaky democratic tradition...
...reduction of the term for military service and extension of substitute civilian service (to reduce the high number of conscientious objectors...
...military protection...
...Song My The horrifying news of the massacre at Song My was broken just at the time we were closing this issue of DISSENT, too late for us to be able to comment...
...This feat was achieved through increased productivity and the cooperation of the trade unions...
...A fair number of intellectuals (and ministers...
...During one of these disruptions, Franz JosefStrauss of the Christian Democrats' right wingmade his now famous remark about "those animals to whom human laws need not apply," which evoked frightening memories...
...It aims at "modernization" and could be subscribed to by all but the most conservative members of the opposition: tax reform favoring the low- and middle-income groups...
...We will of course come back to this in our next issue.—Ed...
...According to sources quoted in the Spiegel, the SPD made its largest gains in areas with heavy administrative and service enterprises...
...THIS CHANGE has become apparent in other ways...
...Yet the CDU may prove a divided and inept opposition and thus may give him a full four-year tenure, or at least the opportunity to build up some achievement before a new election...
...Schiller, with the concurrence of all the leading economists, tried to dampen the export boom and to redirect it toward domestic consumption in the spring of 1969 by a revaluation of the Mark, but he was overruled by Kiesinger and Strauss for purely electoral reasons...
...In his programmatic speech before the Bundestag on October 28, Brandt promised a more realistic acceptance of the two Germanys, as well as a willingness to reestablish relations with Poland, based on a de facto acceptance of the new frontiers...
...Clearly, socialism is not much on their minds...
...The SPD's Karl Schiller, whose policies were largely responsible for this result, earned tremendous popularity, even among business leaders...
...The defense of the invasion of Czechoslovakia repelled whoever might have been fooled by the Popular Front jargon, and even in the former Communist bastion of Hamburg, the ADF got no more than 1.2 percent of the vote...
...In my own, admittedly limited, recent personal contacts with Germans in this class, who are mostly in their 30s and early 40s, I found them surprisingly open-minded, wellinformed, independent, and cosmopolitan— quite a change from the previous generation...
...but is conservatively expected to be at least 5 percent per year...
...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS THE GREAT COALITION under Kiesinger-Brandt took over from the Erhard government in 1966 at a moment of economic recession and general anxiety...
...Such confinement is demoralizing for a party of the Left, as it would not be for a conservative party that has always its economic command posts through which to exercise power...
...The ostensible excuse for the price moves are the wage boosts averaging 10-11 percent, which were granted under the impact of the series of brief wildcat strikes that began in the steel industry in early September and spread quickly to other major industries: mining, shipbuilding, chemicals, public services...
...comprehensive city planning...
...The workers, more insightful than their bureaucratized union leaders, had sensed both the strength and the justness of their position, in face of the labor shortage and tremendous industry profits...
...2) whether the vote for the NPD, the neoNazi party, could be kept below the 5 percent needed to enter the Bonn parliament...
...It has existed for years now in mining and steel, with the director who represents the workers rarely more than a figurehead tying the unions in with management and formalizing the interchangeable bureaucracy characterized by Galbraith as "technostructure...
...With most of Germany's foreign trade partners plagued by inflation, this put Germany's export industries at a decided competitive advantage...
...At any rate, the party got only half the vote it had received in the preceding Lander elections...
...It means a first taste of a two-party system with all that it implies: an acceptance of change and an incentive toward moderation...
...It is a hopeful sign for the country in general and the SPD in particular, provided the party develops an openness to new ideas, and will not get bogged down in bureaucratic mediocrity...
...Industrial production rose by 13 percent over the last year, GNP by almost 10 percent...
...Even Ulbricht was grudgingly forced into some promising gestures...
...lowering the voting age to 18 years...
...The success of the SPD was won in a campaign during which the Christian Democrats tried to play the old nationalist tune, and even attempted to exploit the fact that Willy Brandt had left the country during the Hitler era...
...The strengthening of participation in plant management, which has been promised as an alternative, could become more productive than an empty codetermination—provided it is vigorously pursued by the workers...
...These demands often consisted only of advances against and the predating of coming wage increases, adjustment of differentials within industries, and payment of time lost through strikes...
...Even though, under pressure of a labor shortage, the actual wage increases outpaced the contractual minimums, they remained well below the increases in productivity...
...Under its progressive new leader, Walter Scheel, it had earlier assured the election of the SPD's highly respected Gustav Heinemann to the Presidency of West Germany...
...The decisive feature of both his government and his party seems to be the appearance of a new crop of activists, undogmatic younger men, college-bred, with few ties to working-class movements or ideology (Marxist or otherwise), somewhat along the lines of our Allard Lowenstein...
Vol. 17 • January 1970 • No. 1
