It occurs to me that there is a growing dialogue about the Cold War era that we can only begin to have as time heals wounds and we have a more objective, less sensitive, defensive perspective. While it appears that only a small minority of people actually want to return to that era, many people who lived through it now openly talk about what as been lost in the last 20 years, such as the sense of community and solidarity, the role of friendship, a certain idealism. Yet, if one is to say the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Soviet Union was a kind of tragedy, they are still considered dangerously insane. I'm sure it was terrible for many, esp. those who naturally inclined to challenge the status quo, the intellectuals, artists, dreamers, idealists, rabblerousers... Despite my hopeless infatuation with Communism now, I'm certain I'd have been among the wrong crowd had I been born in the DDR. Too romantic to ignore the injustices around me, too scared to try to escape, finding ways to get through the day, attempting suicide. I hear the DDR had a very high suicide rate. (Have you seen The Lives of Others?) But I get the impression that the average citizen then did what the average citizen does today: resign themselves to the system they've been handed, indulge in the occasional patriotism, and concentrate most of their lives on working, raising a family, domesticity, entertainments... Quiet lives of desperation. And content enough, but just enough most days. Some days miserable, some days joyous. I think the West has been resistant to accepting the universality of this phenomenon.
There was always something cool about East Germany, at least in my American psyche. Something about the aesthetic I associated with it. Severe and intelligent and modern in the old-school modern way. I don't know precisely where I got the idea from. I'm not even sure I've ever seen East German art. I don't know how I came to the conclusion, but in my young mind, East Germany, or was it East Berlin?, was crawling with hipsters. And not the poseur kind.
I can't believe it has already been 20 years... I feel like that last 20 years have been a progression of events that have chiseled away at all of the hope and optimism I was filled with watching that wall come down.
Lastly, forgive me if this has been discussed in one of the zillion of EU Parliament election diaries, but are you familiar with Sahra Wagenknecht? I saw a little item about her on Deutsche Welle and was quite intrigued. Is she absolutely fringe, or do you think she is somewhat representative of the people in this poll? She's fringe, isn't she? "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
Adding; implicit in that is internal conflict with the pragmatists who were/are in regional governments in East German states. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Did suicide statistics change in East Germany? I heard that in Baltic countries or Hungary they went worse.
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Non-Superficially, I find her a little too, dare I say, Stalinist for my taste. I think that is in fact detrimental to the party. The one thing Die Linke really needs to do is shake off the perception that it is the SED reincarnate. My opinion is that it is one of the main barriers to gaining more votes and party support from people who are left but eye the party with suspicion. The old dinosaurs of the SED and PDS, and the new dogmatic idealogues like Sarah, do not help in those efforts. "Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"
But things like Bodo Ramelow, the head guy here in Thüringia is on record refusing to admit that the DDR was a repressive state. Things like that I feel are not helpful. Germany has come a long way in coming to terms with its Nazi past, I think Die Linke, if it is to be a strong and viable party, also needs to come to terms with its Stalinist past, admit the SED was a repressive mistake and reinforce that Democratic Socialism is just that, democratic. If there were more Marxists like Bertolt Brecht, who was disgusted with Stalinism and refused to join any party, and more practical neo-marxist and practical socialists, I think the party would have more to offer people who are left of the corporatist SPD but wary of any taint of old style SED communism. "Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"
As I understood it, the main difference between Wagenknecht and Ramelow is Ramelow's belief in compromise and creating a leftist alliance with the SPD, etc. which is larger and popular but more centrist, and trying to move things further to the left in that way, whereas Wagenknecht is more of an uncompromising ideological hardliner who thinks the best way for the left is to stand its ground firmly. The way this was framed by the German news programme I was watching reminded me very much of the dynamics of the left in America. The pragmatists v. the ideologues. Frankly, I'm torn, realistically. But I'm really digging Sahra. I mean, really there is hardly a dearth of leftists ready to compromise their values at the drop of a hat, is there? The world could probably use a few more honest to goodness commies!
You write that If there were more Marxists like Bertolt Brecht, who was disgusted with Stalinism and refused to join any party, and more practical neo-marxist and practical socialists, I think the party would have more to offer people who are left of the corporatist SPD but wary of any taint of old style SED communism. It's interesting to me because I've just been reading Zizek, who was taking precisely the opposite position, arguing that "in spite of its horrors and failures, the "really existing Socialism" was the only political force that - for some decades, at least - seemed to pose an effective threat to the global rule of capitalism..." and that the Frankfurt School types may have been doing themselves no favors by unquestioningly accepting classical liberal democracy and by obsessing about Fascism. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
There is truth in this, then again, 'real existing Socialism' generated its own demise in the form of a nomenclatura wanting to sustain its control over (at least part of) the means of production by going capitalist. In other words, 'real existing Socialism' not only has a checkered record, but doesn't look like a recipe for the future -- in that, the various stripes and schools of Western Eurocommunists might be closer.
Back to the Left Party's Kommunistische Plattform, I may agree with JD if he means stuff like wanting to whitewash Egon Krenz or the Berlin Wall. Then again, when Sahra says f.e. that she is against a blanket memorial for "victims of Stalinism" because such general language include fascists, I tend to agree that she has a point, and it does matter to debate history. But, yet again, there is too much looking backward - if you want to save communism as a progressive ideology, stop that. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
That is exactly what I mean. For example, Herr Röllig who gives tours at a former Stasi prison in Berlin:
"Röllig said the Left Party, which emerged from the communist party that ruled East Germany to become a major electoral force in both eastern and western Germany, even sharing power in the city-state government of Berlin, has been propagating a warped view of the past. Left Party officials including Bodo Ramelow, the regional party leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, are on record denying that East Germany was an "unjust state.""
That was from a Big Orange diary on torture that I wrote, maybe I should repost it here.
In anycase, these sentiments are not condusive to growing the party, in my humble opinion. "Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"
There is political compromise and then there is political compromise. I certainly feel that core party platform pillars should not be compromised otherwise the party loses its meaning, its soul if you will, and it becomes another SPD. However, you have to work with others to get anything done.
I am more interested in appealing to more voters and seeing the party grow. I don't think the hard left language appeals to the average Fritz on street. What I think would me more effective is showing how left party platforms affect everyday life, work and family budget, etc. I think it is better to take the platforms out of lofty slogans and instead approach it as what they can do for you and contrast them to, say, the FDP's platform. That's kinda my practical philosophy as well, not just with other parties but what we can offer the man in the street. Yet again, that doesn't mean compromise on core principles and beliefs.
lol, I am certainly more of a Frankfurt School type, but defer to them and Zizek as they are way smarter than I. "Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"
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