Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

“Aufstehen” Sits Back Down

Just six months after its foundation, Sahra Wagenknecht’s “movement” has collapsed. Inspired by Mélenchon and Corbyn, the politician from Germany’s Die Linke party had attempted to build a project centered on her popularity. Using a combination of social demands and chauvinism, she had hoped to form a new government coalition.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 27, 2019
Facebook Twitter Share
Britta Pedersen/dpa

On March 10, German politician Sahra Wagenknecht announced her resignation from the leadership of Aufstehen (Stand Up), an organization she had founded six months earlier to win a majority for the left by activating people whom the traditional parties weren’t reaching. At first this “movement” seemed to succeed, as 170,000 supporters registered on the website—more than the total membership of the Green Party and the Left Party combined—and up to 200 local branches were set up.

Now, in an interview with the right-wing newspaper FAZ, Wagenknecht announced she wanted to hand over the leadership of Aufstehen to the rank and file. Other members of the movement’s leadership learned about her decision in the press. The following day, Wagenknecht added that she would not run for reelection as cochair of Die Linke’s parliamentary group.

The plan had been to develop a “Team Sahra” as an electoral apparatus tied to a charismatic leader, inspired by La France Insoumise (Mélenchon), Momentum (Corbyn) and Podemos (Iglesias), Who needs the trouble of a party’s democratic structures when Wagenknecht has 450,000 likes on Facebook, almost twice as many as her party? The internal structures of Aufstehen were completely opaque, seemingly based on the motto of East German Stalinist leader Walter Ulbricht: “It has to look democratic, but we must have everything in our hand.”

Wagenknecht’s hypothesis was that she could use her popularity to find a majority for a left-wing government including the German Social Democratic Party, the Greens and Die Linke, even though the first two made clear that they were not interested in forming a government with Wagenknecht as a minister.

The launch of the “movement” took place at a press conference in a federal government building on September 4, 2018. Wagenknecht sat alongside the mayor of Flensburg, a minor figure on the left of the Social Democracy, and a former deputy foreign minister from the Green Party who had helped organize the NATO war against Serbia. The launch featured no representatives of social movements, workers, renters, refugees … no, these were bourgeois politicians looking for a majority for “red-red-green” government coalitions. Aufstehen got 170,000 email addresses, but it was never able to mobilize more than a few hundred people to demonstrations. Bureaucratic fighting behind the scenes even led to the website going down for several weeks.

Wagenknecht’s resignation marks the end of Aufstehen, even though it might take some time for the organization to formally dissolve. Essentially, the end had come just one month after its launch, when on October 13 a broad coalition organized a demonstration in Berlin against racism and the country’s shift to the right. Wagenknecht had refused to support the demonstration, arguing that the demand for “open borders” would attract a “certain milieu.” In the end, the march surpassed all expectations, with almost a quarter of a million people on the street. The narrative about the need for social chauvinism to win masses of working people was severely damaged—alongside Wagenknecht’s belief that to overcome the electoral stagnation of Die Linke (which in two years lost 400,000 East German voters to the right-wing AfD) should abandon its pro-refugee positions.

Wagenknecht was once the young face of the post-Stalinist Party of Democratic Socialism, gaining attention with her defense of the Berlin Wall. But as she rose to national prominence, she discovered her love for the “social market economy” and “ordo-liberalism.” In recent years, she has combined social demands—against low wages, precarious working conditions and evictions—with chauvinism. She has employed the typical rhetorical tricks of right-wing populism, demanding a public debate about the problems being caused by refugees. Wagenknecht went so far as to denounce the people who protested the G20 summit in Hamburg—just a few days before it was revealed the police had invented the number of 500 supposedly injured officers!

Wagenknecht particularly attacked the demand for open borders as “unrealistic.” At a party congress last summer, a big majority voted to keep the demand in the program. Of course, Die Linke was never really for open borders. Linke ministers in provincial governments are responsible for deportations every single day. In fact, many politicians who accuse Wagenknecht of racism are themselves responsible for enforcing racist laws. Wagenknecht, isolated in her party, was attempting what is known in German as a “Flucht nach vorne,” an escape to the front. She needed her own power base, separate from her party.

Much ink has been wasted debating whether Wagenknecht or the various currents opposing her within Die Linke represent the party’s “left-wing.” In reality, all the party’s wings are eager to join government with the Social Democrats as soon as possible. Their bitter disputes are all about how best to get ministerial posts. Anticapitalist activists in Die Linke do need to build up a new left-wing movement, one that fights all the parties responsible for social cuts and neoliberal reforms, including Die Linke. In the spirit of Rosa Luxemburg, the left needs to unite in opposition to the government socialists.

This article was first published in Greek in the weekly newspaper PRIN.

Facebook Twitter Share

Nathaniel Flakin

Nathaniel is a freelance journalist and historian from Berlin. He is on the editorial board of Left Voice and our German sister site Klasse Gegen Klasse. Nathaniel, also known by the nickname Wladek, has written a biography of Martin Monath, a Trotskyist resistance fighter in France during World War II, which has appeared in German, in English, and in French. He is on the autism spectrum.

Instagram

Europe

The French Union Bureaucracy Walks Back Demand for Complete Withdrawal of Pension Reform

After calling to put the pension reform “on hold,” the Inter-Union has requested “mediation,” even though the French government has rejected outright the proposal, showing that compromise is impossible. This proposition symbolizes the Inter-Union’s strategy of defeat. We urgently need to organize the rank and file to broaden our demands and generalize the strike.

Damien Bernard

March 30, 2023
A group of protesters, in the front of whom are a line of protesters wearing red vests. In the front right corner, a white sign reds "vive la retraite," with a skeleton wearing a red hat in the middle of the sign on a black background with a text bubble on its left that reads, "oiv a bosse, c'est pas pour en crever!"

“French March”: The Right to Revolutionary Optimism

Evoking memories of '68, the students enter the fight against Macron. In our chaotic world, the future can only be built in the streets.

Eduardo Castilla

March 26, 2023

On Monday, Germany Will Experience a “Mega-Strike”

On March 27, German railway workers and public sector employees will shut down the whole country. All trains are being canceled. Airports, freeways, hospitals, and daycare centers will all be affected.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 25, 2023

France: On the Frontlines of the War Against Austerity

The French masses have raised the banner of class struggle in what is becoming the first major battle against austerity after the pandemic. Working people across the world should pay attention.

James Dennis Hoff

March 25, 2023

MOST RECENT

“We Deserve a Living Wage:” on the Limits of the New Temple Grad Worker Union Contract 

A graduate worker at Temple reflects on the limits and strengths of the new contract won in the recent strike.

Femicide: The Face of a Patriarchal Capitalist Society

On March 8, the feminist movement flooded the streets of Mexico as part of a global day of mobilization. Among these thousands of women and dissidents, the main demand was an end to femicide and sexist violence.

Yara Villaseñor

March 31, 2023

Biden’s Proposed Budget Nothing but Empty Promises 

Earlier this month, Joe Biden announced his budget proposal, with a lot of promises. But the only thing we know he’ll deliver is that “nothing will fundamentally change.”

Molly Rosenzweig

March 31, 2023

At Least 39 Migrants Die in Fire at Detention Center in Mexico. The State Is Responsible.

The events of March 27 marked one of the darkest chapters in the Mexican State’s anti-immigrant policy, a policy that is increasingly subordinated to the interests of U.S. imperialism.