The following interview with Kommunistischer Aufbau from Germany, was originally done
by Supernova Revue from France. It is also available in French in Supernova Revue Nr.8
among other valuable contributions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1) To begin with, we ask you for a brief presentation of your organisation and your main positions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our organization was founded in 2014 and sees itself as a development organization for a communist party in the tradition of revolutionary anti-revisionism. We are therefore aware that we do not yet meet the requirements of such a party, but we want to contribute to its development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The basis for the decision to found a new organization in this form was our assessment of the Communist movement in Germany at the time, which, despite some positive developments, that have taken place since, still characterizes the situation today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the collapse of various attempts to build large communist organizations in the 1970s, a decades-long development of disintegration and ideological decomposition began in the communist movement, which was further accelerated by the collapse of the revisionist regimes around 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even today, the communist movement in our country is still mainly in a state of circles. Many correct experiences of the Bolsheviks, the Communist International and other revolutionary and communist movements have been discarded, but in other aspects the movement remains stuck in purely theoretical disputes, that are fought in an extremely dogmatic manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our opinion, a revolution in Germany will only be successful if it succeeds in building positively on the most important traditions of the world communist movement, such as the combination of illegal and legal forms of struggle, the organized training of cadres and professional revolutionaries, as well as the deep and diverse roots in the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, however, we are aware that material reality is constantly evolving and that we must constantly apply and develop Marxism-Leninism creatively so that it remains a suitable instrument for analyzing and changing the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since its foundation, our organization has pursued the approach that a reconstruction of our movement can not only be achieved on the theoretical field of struggle, but that practical steps must be taken from the very beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to be able to intervene in the (albeit mostly weakly developed) class struggles in Germany and to achieve a lasting connection with the broadest possible sections of the working class, our organization has therefore gradually formed a broad network of mass organizations, which are supplemented by a socialist mass newspaper that is published online and in print, as well as by various media offerings for communicating communist theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A special feature of our organization worth mentioning is that, in addition to a communist youth organization, it also founded a communist women’s organization at its 2nd congress. However, this differs from the youth organization in the way it functions. It is made up of all female members of the organization, leads the struggle against patriarchy in its own ranks and in society and plays a special role in the development of female comrades as cadres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) What new international political role does Germany play? What are the main lines of the factions of the German imperialist bourgeoisie?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany is still one of the most powerful imperialist predators in the world. Among the major imperialist powers, only the USA and China are clearly superior to it in every respect (economically, politically, militarily).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the Second World War and the defeat of German fascism, German imperialism has been denied certain positions of political power and military means of its competitors (e.g. seat on the UN Security Council, nuclear weapons), but at the same time the Western Allies, above all the USA, allied themselves with the German bourgeoisie after the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bit by bit, German imperialism was able to strengthen itself economically and, with the annexation of the GDR in 1990 at the latest, has undoubtedly become the strongest economic power in the European Union and since then has also repeatedly underlined its claim to political leadership, for which it competes above all with French imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first 15 years of this millennium in particular, the German capitalist economy was once again able to strengthen itself significantly. Especially in the severe economic crisis since 2008, German imperialism was able to subordinate smaller European capitalist countries such as Greece and large parts of Eastern Europe more directly through increased capital exports and integration into the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, cooperation with the USA’s biggest competitors China and Russia also played a certain role in this phase for the German economy, which is very much based on exports. The construction of a direct pipeline connection from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea (Nord Stream 2), which has been driven forward for many years, is symbolic of this. A project that the USA has always been very critical of and which was blown up by Ukrainian special forces shortly after the start of the Russian imperialist invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This makes it clear that the longstanding German \u201csuccess model\u201d of politically and militarily binding itself to NATO, and above all the USA, while at the same time seeking economic cooperation with all kinds of imperialist players, is increasingly reaching its limits, as the inter-imperialist contradictions are rapidly intensifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as Germany’s fundamental foreign policy orientation is concerned, there are currently few fundamental alternatives to continuing the alliance with the USA. Parts of the neo-fascist movement in particular are formulating counter-concepts (such as an alliance with Russia and a break with the USA). So far they stay purely theoretical though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, German imperialism is not simply an appendage of the USA, as has become clear time and time again in recent decades at key points, such as the aforementioned construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline or the refusal to participate directly in the second Iraq war. These decisions were not always made by the same bourgeois party, but by governments in different compositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, if we view the discussions between bourgeois politicians as a certain expression of the internal contradictions within the bourgeoisie, then at the moment, in terms of foreign policy, we can above all sense a conflict over the question of how aggressively German imperialism should intervene in the intensifying conflict between all imperialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, SPD Chancellor Scholz, whose coalition has just collapsed in November, is trying to position himself for the upcoming Bundestag election campaign by staging himself as a \u201cpeace chancellor\u201d who is pushing for a freeze on the war in Ukraine and, even in the face of massive pressure, refusing to arm Ukraine with certain cruise missiles that are produced by the German weapons industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our opinion, however, this is not a conflict between a warmongering and a peaceful section of the bourgeoisie. Rather, it is an expression of the objective contradiction that German imperialism is economically strong and politically influential, but does not feel ready for a major war, especially with regard to the state of its army and the mood in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n German imperialism must overcome this divergence between relative strengths and relative weaknesses in the preparatory phase of a Third World War if it does not want to permanently and massively lose influence in the imperialist world system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bourgeois politicians agree that they want to make Germany fit for war, but there are certain contradictions as to how quickly and with what tactics this goal can be achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3) Are war policies also being transformed into war economics, is there a new arms race in Germany?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We can see a clear intensification of war preparations at various levels. At the same time, we do not believe that it is appropriate to say that the qualitative leap towards a war economy has already been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This distinction is particularly important in order not to underestimate the capacities of German imperialism with regard to a coming war. Although the permanent complaints of imperialist strategists about a lack of military capabilities are justified from their point of view, we assume that, as in previous capitalist wars, economic strength can be relatively easily converted into military strength in war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We must also fundamentally take into account that the complaints about outdated equipment and alleged lack of weaponry from the mouths of imperialist apologists represent the propaganda of the class enemy. Above all, they have the inward-looking function of politically enforcing faster rearmament against resistance. This also applies to reports about failures and mishaps in the German armed forces, such as assault rifles going awry or broken helicopters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite these occurences, German imperialism is already one of the militarily most powerful countries in the world. In particular, it can probably rely on the greatest firepower in Europe in terms of land forces. At the same time, it has massive deficits in other, particularly strategically important areas such as nuclear armament, satellite reconnaissance and space capabilities in general compared to similarly strong imperialist powers such as France. This results in a particular dependence on allies at the military level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if the German press is full of complaints that the rearmament is not happening fast enough, it is obvious that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was used as an opportunity to massively accelerate it. The \u201cZeitenwende\u201d (turnaround) announced by outgoing Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz was underpinned by special loans of 100 billion euros and the guarantee that Germany would invest at least 2 percent of its GDP for military purposes every year from now on. This promise has since been kept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of 2025, around three years later, the election campaign ahead of the next general election will be fought, among other things, on the basis of various bourgeois parties trying to outdo each other in terms of their rearmament targets. In particular, the call by the leading candidate of the former \u201cpeace party\u201d, the Greens, for a further 300 billion euros and future annual investments amounting to 3.5% of GDP, is a wake-up call and makes it clear that we are not only dealing with a massive rearmament, but that it is also accelerating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An example of the development of German armament efforts can be seen in the business development of the large German armaments monopoly Rheinmetall, the company that produces the Leopard II tanks used in Ukraine and by Turkey in Kurdistan, among other things. The company is benefiting massively from Germany’s rearmament efforts and is thus developing completely against the trend of the crisis-struck German economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early on, the company boss publicly expressed the expectation that his company would benefit to a considerable extent from the 100 billion euro special fund for arming the German armed forces. Since then, Rheinmetall has built several new armaments factories in Germany and acquired smaller armaments companies from Spain and the USA. A tank factory for a modern main battle tank (Panther) is also being built in Hungary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the armaments industry in the narrower sense, there are two other levels to consider when it comes to preparations for war. Firstly, political and structural changes and secondly, the ideological preparation of society for a major war, whereby these influence each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compulsory military service in Germany was suspended in 2011 in order to transform the Bundeswehr into a professional army, similar to other European countries. Today, this step is being evaluated as a mistake by all major bourgeois parties and there are gradual efforts to reverse it. Similarly, the wave of outrage over the Russian invasion of Ukraine was used to mobilize parts of the population into the Bundeswehr reserve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, these steps are somewhat at odds with the high level of skepticism among the German population towards the deployment of their own army in war. According to surveys, young people in particular, who would be directly affected by such a measure, are overwhelmingly opposed to the reintroduction of compulsory military service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important to emphasize here that this rejection of war missions is only partly due to a politically conscious evaluation of German history and the last world wars; for the most part, it is probably based on an increasingly utopian longing for \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Transforming the pacifist skepticism towards parts of the rearmament efforts into an anti-militarist mass movement is therefore a task that lies still ahead of the communists and revolutionaries in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bourgeois propagandists and politicians, on the other hand, have recognized that the widespread unwillingness to fight and die in war is a strategic problem in view of an increasingly likely escalation of imperialist contradictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent years, their response to this has consisted of a mixture of clear statements and appeasement. The SPD Minister of Defense in particular has distinguished himself here by gradually and more aggressively proclaiming the concept of \u201cwar readiness\u201d as a national goal in recent years, only to reaffirm a little later that this is a purely defensive measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4) What weight does the working and middle class aristocracy still have in Germany?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Basically, Germany is a country in which a significant part of the working class benefits directly from Germany’s position in the imperialist world system in terms of their standard of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The classic working class aristocracy, i.e. senior employees of large corporations, is logically strongly represented in a strong imperialist country, as they manage capital all over the world from the monopoly headquarters that are situated in such a country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A large proportion of the core workforce of the largest corporations are also in a comparatively privileged economic position. They often receive net salaries of 4,000 euros or more, and if they are dismissed by their capitalist, they are sometimes entitled to severance payments of several hundred thousand euros due to their often decades-long employment and current German legislation. Examples include employees of major car manufacturers such as VW, Daimler-Benz and BMW, as well as employees of major German banks, chemical and pharmaceutical companies and mechanical engineering firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is unmistakable that German capital is making every effort to attack these very generous concessions, some of which were established decades ago in collective agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A first important step in this direction was the flexibilization of the labour market and the legalization of temporary work in the 2000s. Since then, this has been used in all major German monopolies and often leads to a massive division of workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The widespread outsourcing of sub-functions of the production process has had a similar effect. Throughout German industry, a significant part of value creation takes place either in production facilities abroad (e.g. Eastern Europe) with correspondingly low wages or in subcontracting companies on German soil, whose working conditions are also often significantly worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Politically, the privileged strata of the working class can still be seen as a significant social force. In particular, they represent the traditional basis of traditional social democracy (SPD) and the large industrial trade unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, German capitalism has been in a severe economic crisis for years. It is currently predicted that the economy will shrink for the third year in a row in 2025. The crisis has been accompanied by a level of price increases for consumer goods that was unheard of in Germany for decades. In the meantime, the annual inflation rate in 2023 was almost 10%, while wage increases have been far from keeping pace since. As a result, almost the entire working class has been affected by significant real wage cuts in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, these attacks are obviously not enough for the capital side. The depth of the crisis is particularly evident in the fact that numerous large corporations are now carrying out or threatening to carry out redundancies in 2025. A particular novelty is that the above-mentioned core workforces, i.e. the most privileged sections of the working class, are also being directly attacked. One example of this is VW, the largest German car company, which is threatening to close plants in order to enforce massive wage cuts on its own workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as the social democratic-led trade unions are, as was to be expected, agreeing to play their role as co-managers, it is unclear whether this will lead to immediate resistance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the moment, it can therefore only be stated that the bribed sections of the working class are an important stabilizing factor for the capital side, but that the intensification of imperialist contradictions is apparently reducing the budget from which these bribes are paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5) The German parliamentary left is divided. We have new formations as in the case of Sahra Wagenknecht’s party, which seeks a left-wing populist path, centred on an \u2018economic protectionism\u2019 that inevitably clashes against the current figure of the international worker… What is your assessment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We think we even need to put it a little more sharply: The German parliamentary left, which has been represented by the DIE LINKE party for the last two decades, is disintegrating. It is being gradually pulverized in the face of war preparations and the capitalist crisis. We clearly see this party as a social democratic force, even if it has at times represented more left-wing positions than the traditional social democracy (SPD) in Germany. However, a revolutionary overcoming of the capitalist system has never played a role in this party programme since its foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we have just explained, capital is obviously less and less willing to buy social peace in Germany by giving parts of the working class a share in the imperialist extra profits with lavish concessions. As a result, the economic basis for a traditionally successful social democratic policy is increasingly disappearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarah Wagenknecht was one of the most popular politicians among the party’s supporters. After years of conflict within DIE LINKE, she finally decided to leave the party’s parliamentary group in the Bundestag (German national parliament) together with political allies, thus splitting the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The name of her new party \u201cB\u00fcndnis Sarah Wagenknecht\u201d makes it clear how much the whole project is built around her person, which certainly calls the stability of the party into question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Politically, the party represents a mixture of social democratic demands, utopian-reactionary illusions of a return to pre-globalization capitalism and racism, in contrast to DIE LINKE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With these policies, Sarah Wagenknecht’s party is currently achieving consistently better poll results than her old party, which in turn is unlikely to pass the five percent threshold to enter the German Bundestag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We do not believe that this process of decomposition of the various social-democratic and social-chauvinist bourgeois parties has reached its end yet. In the long term, however, there is every indication that DIE LINKE and the Sarah Wagenknecht alliance will not be able to exist side by side in the parliamentary landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the racist anti-migration policy of the current German government or the even harsher racist demagogy of the fascist AfD though it remains clear, that there is no way German imperialism will achieve its goals without a further influx of migrant workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The increasingly aggressive racist tone in which the election campaign is now being conducted is primarily intended to create the necessary social atmosphere to promote militarization both internally and externally and to justify a migration policy that serves the German economy’s hunger for labour more and more directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This means in the first place to grant a legal status to highly qualified workforce, while illegalizing less highly educated parts of the migrants and thus pushing them into the poorest working conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6) The war in Ucraine and subsequently the war in Palestine has deeply divided the alternative left and the revolutionary left itself. It created a gulf between those who are anti-imperialist and those who instead defend from the \u2018left\u2019 the values of western Atlanticism. In France the anti-imperialist sectors were deeply attacked, the demonstrations for Palestine were initially abolished, mass mobilisation made it impossible for the French government to maintain the restrictions. What is the situation in Germany?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to developments in Germany, we can also confirm that not only the entire bourgeois party landscape has moved considerably to the right in connection with the war in Ukraine and Palestine, but also large parts of the \u201cnon-parliamentary\u201d left or alternative movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In both cases, the phenomenon was repeated that a large part of the peace movement, the environmental movement and the anti-fascist movement in the broader sense were unable to assert an independent political standpoint in the face of massive state propaganda and a veritable hounding of dissenting opinions staged in the media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, large parts of these movements have more or less confidently moved over to the standpoint of German imperialism on these two issues. After the invasion of Ukraine, we observed above all that large \u201canti-war demonstrations\u201d were organized under the leadership of the governing parties, which in fact in most cases turned into events demanding arms supplies for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only large sections of the more left-wing parliamentary forces quickly joined the demand for arms deliveries to Ukraine, but also certain German anarchist groupings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A quantitatively and qualitatively much less significant reaction to the war in Ukraine came from remnants of the GDR bureaucracy and revisionist communist organizations. Here, the invasion of Ukraine was sometimes offensively defended as an anti-fascist or even anti-imperialist act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the whole, few organizations succeeded in taking what we consider to be the only correct internationalist standpoint from the outset in February 2022 and distancing themselves from both Russian imperialism and the NATO powers. However, we would not say that the revolutionary movement itself has been split by this process, but rather that this political development, among other things, has made the dividing line between revolutionary internationalists and reformists clearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the commando actions of 7 October 2023, the German government quickly declared its unconditional solidarity with Israel, while pro-Palestinian protests were massively criminalized from 7 October onwards. The state’s approach seems to resemble that of France in many respects. And we also have the impression that the EU countries’ approach to this issue is based on similar principles. For example, the criminalization of the slogan \u201cFrom the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free!\u201d and numerous bans on demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The industrial extermination of around six million Jews during the Holocaust is certainly a German particularity that plays an specific role in the political arena regarding Palestine still today. For almost a year and a half now, the historical responsibility of the German people for this mass murder has been demagogically but cleverly used by those in power to justify every crime committed by the Israeli state, no matter how inhumane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, despite all the biased reporting, news of the Israeli massacres in Gaza is reaching more and more of the German population and the contradiction between government propaganda and the population’s sense of justice has grown with every month of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the often arbitrary repressive measures against people who share a picture of solidarity with Palestine on Instagram, for example, a more or less large degree of continuity remained in the Palestine solidarity movement until the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here, too, it was not the revolutionary movement itself that was divided, but rather the historically justified feelings of guilt of many reformist but fundamentally progressive-minded people were abused deliberately to isolate revolutionary and anti-imperialist organizations; for example, by denying them access to public spaces or excluding them from broad political alliances if they did not distance themselves \u201csufficiently\u201d from the Palestinian resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7) Is there a new generation of militants and activists in Germany, what role can the revolutionary left play?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When characterizing the Communist movement in Germany, the first thing that must certainly be emphasized is its weakness. After the KPD was banned in 1956, the revolutionary movement in the aftermath of 1968 also achieved a certain upswing in Germany and a number of Maoist, Marxist-Leninist or Guevarist organizations were founded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, through a mixture of repression and integration, the state and capital succeeded in destroying almost all of these organizations or forcing them into irrelevance. Only the revisionist DKP and the MLPD are relevant forces in terms of size that have survived from this phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Essentially, the Communist movement today is characterized by fragmentation and a new circle phase. At the same time, however, we can see that our organization itself is part of a certain opposite trend. Since around the time of the major economic crisis in 2007\/2008, we have seen the emergence of a whole series of small to medium-sized organizations that are once again oriented towards communism and Marxism-Leninism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of these structures only exist for a few years and at a purely local level before they disintegrate again. Even if there are ideological and political differences between our organizations, we see it as a very positive trend that, in addition to our organization, several other organizations have managed to overcome the purely local framework of their work and join together to form supra-regional structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The revolutionary and communist movement as a whole can only benefit if it succeeds in developing a common revolutionary practice and vivid theoretical discussions across organizational boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this spirit, thank you for giving us the chance to share our analisis and view points at this occasion! Our warmest revolutionary greetings to your audience!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following interview with Kommunistischer Aufbau from Germany, was originally doneby Supernova Revue from France. It is also available in French in Supernova Revue Nr.8among other valuable contributions. 1) To begin with, we ask you for a brief presentation of your organisation and your main positions. 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