Willy Brandt Under Fire
Pachter, Henry
N 1959, THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATSI adopted a new program. At the same time, the British Labour party also adopted a new program. Each of the two was trying to shed the image of a Marxist...
...Last year, Der Spiegel found that 56 percent of the population approved of free city transportation...
...The treatment paid off...
...But how long can the SPD leadership look on without taking action while the opposition heaps one provocation on top of another...
...The electorate then will be polarized between the SPD and the CDU/CSU which is becoming more and more reactionary...
...However, to avoid a split, the decision if someone has stepped over the line is left to the individual locals...
...N 1959, THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATSI adopted a new program...
...At such a bad moment, the party's youth is once more in rebellion...
...A new youth organization, the Socialist University League (SHB), soon broke with the party, which obviously was unable to deliver what it had promised its voters...
...further, that cooperation in action with Communists of any kind is incompatible with membership...
...As a result, his chances of being reelected in 1973 have grown slimmer...
...Recent local elections in Berlin and in the RhinelandPalatinate State were inconclusive except in one respect: they showed that the Liberal party (FDP) may not survive the next general election...
...This has given Mayor Vogel a chance to recapture the Munich organization COMMENTS AND OPINIONS by a slim margin and with all city employees alerted...
...Having served against Hitler in the Norwegian army, he has been called a traitor to the Fatherland...
...It knows that it owes its success in the 1969 elections mainly to the activism of the young, and it certainly would like to preserve "unity" with them, especially since the older generation of party workers is pretty much mired down in routine jobs...
...but if the militancy of the Left forces him to resort to repressive measures, he risks losing them to the Communists...
...A statement on the relationship of Social Democrats to the Communist world was drawn up by Richard Lowenthal, well-known authority on Soviet affairs, and a meeting in Bonn decreed, at the suggestion of Willy Brandt, that no one could belong to the SPD unless he recognized the party's program and its organizational statutes, which exclude the toleration of Leninist cadre...
...And the whole party was alerted when they joined with the recently legalized Communist party (DKP) for actions and discussions...
...other demands will be hard to realize without long-range planning and the development of new financial resources...
...Left to its own devices, the party leadership would prefer to allow many flowers to grow in its garden...
...In that election 5 million young voters will be going to the polls for the first time...
...He may achieve some relaxation of tensions with the Soviet bloc and a certain easement for the much-harassed population of Berlin...
...besides, the formidable Franz-Joseph Strauss threatens to become its leader...
...Especially fruitful for this kind of activity, so it seems to them, is municipal politics...
...The coalition partners so far have been slow in adopting needed educational reforms and have barred the trade unions' standing demand for a share in the management of all corporations (token participation exists in April 24, 1971 plants of the European Steel and Coal Community...
...A few years later the Social Democratic students in Germany began to rebel against the embourgeoisement of the party, started violent actions at several universities, and collaborated with Communists in public demonstrations...
...Which is not saying much, as they may be more youthful in style than in thought...
...but it is precisely on this point that vicious attacks are being mounted against him...
...But it had to pay a price...
...Experienced members who can recall the thirties also were appalled by the terrorist tactics indulged occasionally by the Jusos...
...But in recent months Jusos in many cities have taken to "direct action," occupying parks and houses, and making it hard for vote-conscious mayors to protect the party's moderate image for future elections...
...So far, the Jusos have succeeded extremely well: from their ranks have emerged at least two cabinet members on the federal level, many members of Parliament, and officials on the state and municipal levels...
...They have demanded day care centers and the free use of lawns in public developments for sports...
...nationalization where necessary...
...they have marched through a forest belonging to Prince Bismarck and asked for its conversion into a public recreation area...
...The government is paying undue consideration to objections the churches have raised against liberalization of divorce laws...
...SOME OF THESE DEMANDS are really picayune and lag behind proposals made by people who are not even socialists...
...After the student exodus, the younger members formed a special group, "Jung-Sozialisten" (generally called Jusos), cautiously including comrades up to 35...
...Foreign policy is the only area where Chancellor Brandt has made some progress, though his Ostpolitik is at the mercy of any accident that might happen in the power play inside the Kremlin...
...He did not think that tender regard for party democracy should be allowed to bar the party forever from power...
...Munich's Hans Jochen Vogel got 85 percent of the votes—a third more than the Social Democratic list and he is recognized as one of the most resourceful reformers...
...having now recognized the consequences of that war—the loss of the Eastern provinces to Poland and the de facto existence of a second German state—he has been called an enemy of the nation...
...Most of them are activists who plan to make COMMENTS AND OPINIONS their careers through the party or at least hope to win influence that way...
...But now all youth organizations have again come under the influence of militant student agitation, and the Jusos, meeting last December in Munich, formulated a new program...
...And inflation progresses at the same rate as elsewhere...
...This tactic has been used in other cities, and has created considerable resentment among the proletarian core of the membership...
...Instead, they try to develop their own kind of activism, involving communities and ordinary people in their daily lives...
...To make this possible he forced Willy Brandt and the party leadership to side with him...
...But it is not the ultimate aim of the Juso program that makes people angry...
...They wanted to return to the concept of class war, though most of them were not workers, and they demanded stronger emphasis on the final goal of socialism, though most of them admit it can be of no help in electoral campaigns...
...He clearly will not run for mayor again, but wants to take on the formidable FranzJoseph Strauss, the champion of reaction, in the Bavarian state election...
...Willy Brandt had them summarily expelled from the party...
...They have asked for free tramway and bus transportation, and occasionally have poured concrete on to the rails in order to prevent fare increases...
...Using "midnight tactics," the students dragged party meetings out into the late hours and rammed the votes through after the workers, who have to be at their jobs in the early morning hours, had left...
...As long as they were merely theorizing that Germany needs something like an antitrust division or SEC, that all commercial advertising should be banned, that a woman should be entitled to seven free abortions and draw a salary during the first year of her child's life, that the big banks and industrial establishments should be nationalized, that 50 percent of industrial profits should be distributed, their party elders were content to pat them on the back...
...The mere fact that the Jusos adopt a demand tends, in the eyes of many SPD members and supporters, to disqualify it...
...At the same time, the British Labour party also adopted a new program...
...Each of the two was trying to shed the image of a Marxist workers' party and to transform itself into a people's party...
...after the Jusos embraced the issue, the percentage fell to 35 percent...
...Thoughtful socialists who remember the thirties ask themselves: must every mistake be repeated...
...Up till recently, the Jusos were so loyal and quiet that it was said (ironically but truthfully) that one could find more revolutionaries in the youth organizations of the Christian Social party and the Liberal party than among the Jusos...
...This is not the time to split forces on the Left...
...Willy Brandt is caught in a classical dilemma: to pursue his Ostpolitik, which he sincerely believes is necessary in the interest of peace, he must curb the Left...
...But recently the left wing conquered the Munich Jusos and through them the Munich party organization...
...While the British did not totally repudiate nationalization of the means of production, the Bad Godesberg formula was: "Free market competition whereever possible...
...They have irked especially the SPD mayors, who are the most conservative but also the best vote-getters in the Social Democratic party...
...The party came to power, or at least now shares it with the Liberals...
...they have demanded abolition of private rooms in hospitals, closer control of rents, and eventual nationalization of real estate...
...The only winners in this squabble are likely to be the Christian Democrats...
Vol. 18 • June 1971 • No. 3
