Intervention of the Gernan Communist Party by Robert Steigerwald (DKP)

At first I thank our Greek comrades for organizing this conference. We need a higher level of common international work. Especially now under the sovereign of a common European capitalist system with a common marked, a common currency, common work of the conservative and the social-democratic parties of the continent.

And also at first I beg your pardon for my terrible English. The theme of our conference is extremely important. I think a type of party-organization mainly causes our hard defeat. In the socialist countries as the ruling party destroyed at first democracy in the party and thereafter in the whole society. And that took place under the predominate concept of a so-called party of a new type.

In the work of Marx, Engels and Lenin you will not find such type to be worth for all times. The party concept of the Communist Manifesto and that of the First International Association or under the conditions of non-legality was not the same, and that was in Lenin’s work too: The party concept of "what is to be done" and that after winning the legality was quite different. Only few points were during all times unrenouncabel in the party concept of Marxism. The party has to have a proletarian character. It should be orientated at internationalism. The party must be convinced that we need an own proletarian state-power and that only help of some reforms will not reach these aims. The party is an instrument, a weapon of the class in its battle for liberation, but not an aim in it.

Concerning your main question we have to clear the conditions of our work in international and national belongings and these in objective and subjective aspects.

I think it is our common conviction that at present capitalism is internationally ruling. In our country that is sharpened by the fact that the early socialist system of the GDR became defeated (not only by extreme causes but also by such causes, too). The result is important for the mass consciousness in Germany. On the one hand masses experience a growing capitalist system. Profits and unemployment are extremely growing. All in all we have nearly seventeen millions of victims of this system in a population of eighty millions. Never in our history we have had such a situation. These masses experience the barbarism of capitalism. But on the other hand they are disappointed by socialism. That is their impression. And therefore they are in a high level paralyzed.

Our party is extremely weakened. After 1991, we have lost many thousands of members. Now we have approximately 7,000 members in a population of eighty millions. The majority of our members are old. The number of the membership is nearly in stagnation because we win a small number of new young comrades but lose nearly the same number by death. We are too poor for having a party apparatus. Concerning the age of the majority of the members, our positions in factories and trade unions, we are weak. Also in the parliaments. In the Federal Parliament we are absent and that is also in the parliaments of the federal states. Only in a few number of communities we have delegates.

In connection with the party is working a youth organization with now some hundreds of members that are slowly growing. Also exists a new student’ organization with positions now in twelve universities also growing. But in comparison to the time before our defeat, these organizations are very small. We develop a system of party education. Every year we have two or three central themes. For example, about the party, the class structures, the environment, the Russian Revolution. In our weekly "UZ" (Unsere Zeit) we publish materials for these themes and besides that special educational letters. But the work in this field is still hard. Many of the elder comrades think to know all. We miss comrades that could interesting teach and discuss in the educational evenings. But nevertheless we have successes in this field.

We have a weekly I spoke about it, a theoretical organ, appearing all two months, the "Marxistische Blatter". That is now the eldest theoretical organ in German language. While we have problems to assure the weekly theoretical organ, it is stabile on a level of 2,400 permanent receivers. We have a party school in Leverkusen, we are working together with the "Marx-Engels-Foundation", the former researching institute in Frankfurt, a M. Institute for Marxistiche Studies and Research and with the organ of this institute called "Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung". In theoretical work we have good relations to foreign countries as you can see for instance in the Marxistische Blatter. For example we organized together with other leftists and Marxists in March last year a very interesting conference in Hannover, you can inform yourselves in the Marxistische Blatter volume 2/97.

We published some books and beginning with this month we edit smaller of Marx, Engels and Lenin. The first texts are the Communist Manifesto, Wage, price and profits and the development of Socialism from utopia to science. Please think about such a situation. Since the last third of the 19-century in Germany publishing houses produced texts of the founders of Marxism. Only in the Nazi-time it was not so-and also in the time after 1989. We now have broken this very bad situation.

We corrected the style of our ideological work already before our defeat. For example, we opened our publishing organs for other left and democratic positions. We did not all times directly answer or fight against positions to which we do not agree. But we make it sure, that our friends and comrades all times are able to know what is the position of the party by publishing contributions of well-known theorists or politicians members of the party. At present we have a longer running discussion about our socialist aim concerning the analysis of the undergone socialism and about our thinking concerning the prognosis. We have a tradition in this, because we discussed such questions since the late sixties. We are obliged to line out a realistic alternative and a realistic way out of capitalism, a way step and crossing from step to step.

All times international solidarity was a central point of our politics, solidarity with Vietnam, South Africa, Cuba, now concentrated to Cuba.

We have a distinct problem. We have no money for paying comrades to work professionally for the party. Comrades who were organizing i.e. the UZ or the Marxistische Blatter are pensioners like me. We gathered our experiences in politics under conditions quite different to the present, in fascism, in non-legality, during the so-called students' revolt and the sixties’. In these time among the young generation exists some knowledge of Marxism. The socialist system was existing. In some parts of the so-called third world anti-imperialist fights took place and so on. We learned to work in theoretical and political fields in this time. But now all is quite different from this. The present young generation is quite different, is more sceptic. Most of younger people want to be in distance to parties and trade unions, etc. Not all of us are able to change their working style. We should not speak and write like in the sixties. We have to look for new kinds of speaking about our knowledge; we have to use new terms without falsification our theory. I am not sure if I say it in a right manner. But to have feelings for that, what happened in the young generation is of high importance for the future of Marxism, I think.

In consequence of our defeat we corrected our party statute. Now we are discussing problems of the party program.

What are the most important changings in the statute?

At first we tried to re-establish the reality of democratic-centralism. If we would have only one of the above elements we would not have neither democracy nor centralism. A leading group without signals and information by the bases will not be able to be a real center. A party without democracy can not develop the whole capacity of the membership. But a party without central leadership is not able to organize the fight against a highly concentrated and organized capitalist power.

Open not hidden discussions, concerning the theoretical and political positions of the party especially in front of a party congress are not factions.

The commission, which is responsible for the order of the party and a regular using of the statute from the central leading group. That is a kind of splitting the power. We want to prevent that the rights of members could be damaged by high-handiness or arbitrariness of leading comrades.

We have some activities and measures suring real rights of female members, especially we want to sure (but that is not easy) that more female members of leading groups. Generally we want equality of the genders in the committees. Sometimes we organized special courses only for female members coming from the working class. In other case female members in leading committees will only belong to middle strata or intellectual strata. But we need leading groups in which there will be members of the different genders, different ages and stratas or branches and regions. In other case we are not able to reflect the very different views of the problems.

Some remarks concerning our social political surrender.

I spoke already about the youth organizations, which work in connection with us. In our country exists a number of other Marxist or socialist groups or organizations. They have their own organs, i.e. the monthly Sozialismus. The group of Wolfgang Fritz Haug in Berlin edited the journal "Das Argument" and books. They also organized conferences. Left social democrats have a journal named "Sozialismus - Theory and Praxis". I spoke about the quarterly "Z. Zeitschrift fur marxistische Erneuerung".

These groups' organizations and journals are not strong but under theoretical and political aspect important. They influence especially intellectual forces i.e. in the trade unions or in universities.

These groups' organizations don’t play an important role. One of them, the so-called MLPD, is extremely sectarian and hostile to all others, held itself to be the only real Marxist force not only in Germany. To others we have contracts. Not only we are learning out of our situation. It is to say that in such groups often-young peoples are organized. Often they have a relative high level of knowledge of Marxism (in the manner of Stalin’s dogmatism). The reason is that they do not work in the public sphere. They organize more circles for studying Marxism (in the manner of Stalin’s dogmatism). Therefore there exists some borders between them and us especially concerning Stalin, the history of the Soviet Union, the XX Party -Congress. But in the south of our country some months ago some dozen of them became members of our party. With another group we have had in former years-hard fights, some members of them have been in prison in the GDR. But in March of this year we have had a first common conference about socialism. We have some common positions but also serious contradictions. Nevertheless, the conference took place in an atmosphere of solidarity.

Concerning the social democrats is to say that this party is working on the bottom of present capitalism without socialism as aim. The party is only fighting - but nearly alone in the parliaments - for some better conditions in social belonging. That is important for the life of the masses but at least is a contribution for the integration these masses into the capitalist system. With these conditions the social-democratic party holds the majority in the working population and is in fact ruling in the trade unions.

And what happens with the green party? Its leadership also became mare and more integrated into the capitalist system. They say yes to important points of NATO-imperialism (German soldiers to Bosnia, spreading the NATO to the east etc). In the leadership exist two groups; the so-called realists with Joschka Fischer and the so-called fundamentalists. Dominating is the Fischer-group. They hope Fischer will become vice-chancellor and Foreign Minister in case that after the elections in autumn a coalition of social democrats and greens will be possible. Only in the question of using the nuclear energy and in some problems of environment the party is still working in connection to its past. Those are important fields, but not crossing the border of capitalism. On the bases of the party we have still other positions in some cases Eco socialistic ones.

So the real anti-capitalist forces are the communists (in and outside of the DKP), other Marxists and left socialists.

And what is to say about the PDS? Of course, the most important left and in parts socialist or left-social democratic organization in Germany is the PDS. Concerning this party, I have a specific paper written by our comrade Polikeit. Its bases are the regions of the former GDR. There the party has a voter potential between 15 and 25 percent. In four election circles it succeeded to win the direct candidate. In the Federal Parliament the party has 29 delegates. Most of the members in the party are like in the DKP pensioners.

The DKP has problems to get influence in the former GDR, because the communists there are still members of the PDS. There exists a so-called communist platform with nearly 3,000 adherents. On the other side the PDS has problems in getting influence in the west of our country. Between the DKP and the PDS exist conflicts because the leading group of the PDS has a more social-reformist position and wants to have narrow contracts to the SPD. Therefore it is using an Anti-Stalinism-Campaign against Marxist forces in the PDS itself and against our party. It is not for us to keep cool under these conditions, but in feeling our responsibility we try to do so. For example, in the national elections in autumn we demanded that our comrades vote PDS. This party had not done well, to reject the work together with us. I.e. who shall bring their materials under the people? They have still less power in the west than we. And we are sure: The efforts of the PDS to get good relations to the SPD will not be successful: Social democrats are not willing to split the fields of work and positions with other forces. And they fear attacks by the conservative forces when having contacts to the so-called post-communists.

The trade unions during the most time are not organizing real fights like strikes. They oriented only to negotiations with the bosses and are in the fear by organizing real fights to get conflicts with the bosses, with members of the Kchl-party in the trade unions, to play supports for striking colleagues (that means to touch trade unions wealth). Besides, they live in peace with capitalism and are loosing influence during the last decade.

One result of the growing problems of unemployment is becoming distance to the present system in the federal republic especially among the youth. Because they have aversions against socialism, neo-fascist forces captured a growing part of them. They believe the propaganda foreign people would conquer their working places, would be guilty on growing criminality and so on.

Younger people will not become members of parties or of the trade unions-that is a general problem. They are against appearances of corruption, greed for positions and so on. Dear comrades, you see, we have problems and work enough more than we are able to solve.