A LEFT TURN AMONG GERMAN SOCIALISTS

...and abolition of a government directive forbidding the employment of Communists and Nazis in civil service and education...

...Likewise, the leadership will meet radical demands whereever they are realistic...

...The new middle class places a premium on nonconformism and ideological concerns, conceives of itself as an avant-garde, and refers to the old crowd of plodding trade union officials and parliamentary party secretaries as "canal diggers...

...but it clearly drew the line where alignment with the Communists begins...

...While this evolution has alarmed the coalition partner, a bourgeois-liberal party, and might pass for radical in the U.S., the left wing in the SPD has found it wanting in direction and militancy...

...A methodical build-up of a mass party may no longer be the task of the leadership in an age when TV has replaced the house visit by the local ward-heeler...

...This neutralist philosophy, which is also attractive to German patriots of nonsocialist persuasion, has strong supporters even in the leadership...

...To an American observer, however, one would like to suggest comparison with the McGovern campaign: for all the concessions the SPD has made to its coalition partners, it still retains the image of a workers' party...

...One is tempted to compare the new face of the old SPD with the popularity of Palme in Sweden, with the performance of Allende in Chile, and with the Popular Front turn in France—or one might even speak of a world wide renaissance of leftism among democratic socialists...

...Ps: Willi Brandt now has become the spokesman of Europe in its new independent position vis-h-vis the U.S...

...Thus roughly one-third of the members of the new Presidium may be counted as "leftists," and a goodly number of its "centrists" can also be expected to support radical solutions for Germany's economic and social troubles...

...One of the old-timers ridiculed the students' concern with "consumerism" while many workers still earn less than 1,000 marks [$300] a month and would like to consume more...

...With such tactics, the party's left wing managed to have 30 percent of the delegates at the Hanover Convention and to block the election of most "rightists" to the presidium...

...Kissinger's project of a new Atlantic Charter would not go down well with the Europeans...

...Juso speakers at Hanover were able to quote a theological textbook to that effect...

...Party boss Wehner delivered himself of some strong anti-American statements after seeing Swedish Prime Minister Palme, and Willy Brandt's principal adviser on foreign affairs, Egon Bahr, is the author of a controversial plan to "neutralize" Germany in three stages...

...If the Godesberg program timidly called for the control of investment and monopoly "in order to prevent abuses," the new long-range program envisages positive, qualitative directions for corporate investment...

...The appeal of these ideas touches all classes and it may help to hold the party's Center and Left together (if by the "Right" we mean those leaders, now deprived of power, who are strongly committed to the Western alliance...

...The great reform planks were and still are Mitbestimmung, i.e., workers' representation in the management of enterprises...

...Their terrorist methods helped oust Munich's reform Mayor Vogel...

...Observers of the German Social Democrats (SPD) who never graduated beyond Robert Michels and the early Lukacs may have been surprised by the spirit that ruled its April 1973 Convention in Hanover...

...CORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD 285 SOME OF THE RESOLUTIONS on social and economic policy which were carried by the left wing at the Convention clearly point that way: while not changing the operational code of the "social market economy" (this is what the Germans call the welfare state), they aim at specific controls and redistribution of income, wealth, and power, which eventually would place the entire economy under the direction of public bodies...

...No "iron law" of logic forces a labor party to choose either sectarian ineffectiveness or the shallow opportunism and the bureaucratic machine rule of a mass party...

...Though these "leftists" count among their followers some older workers, their main strength is found among students and teachers who have little knowledge of the hard fights the traditional party had to win before it was able to distribute posts and influence...

...Its speakers repeatedly stated that they accepted the idea of equal status of Marxists and ethical socialists, pragmatic trade unionists and idealistic students, routine parliamentarians and supporters of direct action—all within one large party...

...In some respect the Juso program may even be called less radical than the rhetorics of young Catholics and Free Democrats...

...The Godesberg program, which was adopted in 1959, had been admittedly non-Marxist, antisectarian, a deliberate opening to the Right, and an appeal to nonproletarian strata...

...Willy Brandt, in turn, condemned "limited liability capitalism" which allows socialization of the losses while protecting property when there are surpluses...

...3. Expansion of public ownership in enterprises that already enjoy a monopoly or threaten to acquire excessive power...

...These planks had been amply discussed by the membership and in the nonsocialist press, and in their ensemble constitute a new approach to politics: their appeal can be tested in the light of the Brandt government's accomplishments between now and the next election...

...a more decisive denunciation of the "new capitalism" or "corporate state" (a small group that characterizes the present conditions as "state monopoly capitalism" meanwhile has switched to the CP...

...The SPD owes its present strength to Willy Brandt, a man known for his honesty, good judgment, and responsible action: bold not in words but in deeds and—a point often overlooked—a man who has come out of the movement itself...

...closer collaboration with the East German state...

...It assured the voters that private property would be respected and that a market economy was the best technique to obtain a better distribution of income...

...The most vocal section of the party's left wing are the Jusos (the Young Socialists), officially the party's youth organization but distinct in complexion and style...

...On two important issues only the centrist leadership offered resistance...

...And simultaneously, while making a sustained, sin cere, and convincing effort to become a "peo ple's party" with a generally meliorist outlook, it also attracts militant young people whose concern is ideological rather than economic...

...By contrast, the planks that were added to the SPD program in Hanover had grown and been developed out of the experience of the SPD in government during the past five years...

...The left-wingers wanted no checks at all, the right-wingers gave up the blanket formula and agreed that each case should be decided on its individual merits...

...The party's left wing has de manded a return to the formulas of Marxist class war...

...2. Distribution of bonus shares to a "growth fund," which would nominally belong to the workers but practically be voted upon by their representatives or by public authorities...

...To these proposals the Convention added a specific tax program for the redistribution of income and an ingenious profit-sharing scheme that would shift share ownership and thereby control of the enterprise away from investors toward publicly controlled workers' funds...

...and Osipolitik, i.e., an opening to the East and de facto recognition not only of the Communist regimes but of the geopolitical consequences of World War II...

...The left wing is in a good position to take over the party, provided it can maintain unity with the older, more reformist members...

...The party is becoming increasingly middleCORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD class in composition, and if its new ideology is middle-class, too, the term "middle-class ideology" needs redefining...

...Since the days of Bebel, when working with one's hands was considered a mark of distinction, the party has come a long way...

...Other resolutions would strengthen the steeply progressive tax platform of 1971 and place on the agenda for the near future four measures that—in the hands of a determined government—might crack the framework of private capitalism: 1. Mitbestimmung, i.e., the participation of workers' representatives in management decisions...

...In large urban centers they constitute up to one-third of the party's membership, and they use their freedom from work to draw party meetings out into the wee hours of the morning...

...None of them are prepared to defend the present Federal Republic and all are to some degree hostile to NATO and to U.S...

...a popular front with the minuscule Communist party...

...There was a party that has been part of various government coalitions since 1967 and yet attracts the discontented Left...

...4. Municipal ownership and management of real estate in urban conglomerations...

...It may not take too much courage these days to call for the control of multinational corporations, but the new long-range program is, to my knowledge, the first platform of any party in the world that clearly says growth of the so-called national product is not to be considered as an absolute value...

...He plainly told Nixon in Washington that Dr...

...A compromise, which many centrists and rightists feel went too far, was reached on the employment of Communists and Nazis in government and education...

...Private enterprise wherever possible, public management where necessary," was the slogan...

...When the Jusos called Willy Brandt "the chancellor of the Americans," he answered indignantly and asserted that the Ostpolitik must not mean a loosening of the ties to the West or a lowering of the guard toward the East...

...286 There can be little doubt that the soothing reports in the American press, assuring its readers that radicalism had been averted at Hanover and the core of the party machine still has all the levers of power, do not reflect the SPD as it emerges from this important convention...

...The theory that corporations should be nationalized if and when their operations are a threat to the commonweal is common to the youth organizations of all parties...

...With this program the SPD crashed the fatal 33.3 percent barrier and won 36 percent of the vote in 1961, 39 percent in 1965, 43 percent in 1969, and 46 percent in 1971...

...then, when the workers have gone home, they adopt resolutions and elect delegates to their liking...

...Jusos have not always fought according to the rules...

...a party that ought to have become eroded by routine—and yet the majority of delegates is under 40 and roughly one-third of the members of its new presidium are counted among the "Left...

...influence...

...The contrast to McGovern is obvious: in the United States, where personalities count for much in politics, the candidate failed to inspire confidence precisely because he was a one-issue man and had little background in grass-roots movements...

...withdrawal from NATO...

...The opposition in the SPD was not out to win total control, but it recognized from the start the need to maintain the unity of the party and to preserve its populist character...

...The Jusos have supported squatters who occupied buildings that were to be razed, have poured concrete into street-car rails to obtain "free transportation," and they consider anyone who distrusts Communists a cold warrior...

...The second difference, I would suggest, lies in the nature of the issues: what the McGovernites imposed was a collection of illassorted planks dear to the hearts of the groups in the McGovern coalition but, especially with the deescalation of the Vietnam war, there was hardly any cause that could unite the nation around a new program...

...It clearly represents something very different from the old sectarian radicalism, namely, a widespread trend toward syndicalism among young people of all parties...

...a more democratic educational system (only 10 percent of all Germans graduate from high school, only 5 percent from universities...

...The left wing also has supported a university reform that makes a mockery of scholarship and has turned out a generation of high school teachers who tend to transform the classroom into agitprop sessions...

...Moreover, the socialist mayors--precisely those who counted among the party's "right-wingers" —have developed a drive for public control of real estate in urban areas and for more comprehensive planning of the human environment...

...Even Helmuth Schmidt, a "rightist," recommended that the party should learn from the planning experiences in neighboring East Germany...

...The explanation of such a paradox may be given on many levels—sociological, political, and historical—but foremost the credit must go to the person at the helm of the party...

...In their desire to oppose present policies some will go so far as to accept uncritically the Communist regime east of the Elbe...

...a party that has borne responsibility for some economic mismanagement in the last years and yet is preparing itself to become the majority party for the first time in the next elections...

...It remains to be seen whether the young enthusiasts will become "canal diggers," too, or whether the straw fire of revolutionary enthusiasm will burn itself out...