In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Left Party Chairman Oskar Lafontaine speaks about his party's chances in the upcoming elections, its alleged drift to the left and why Angela Merkel needs to work through certain aspects of her communist past.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Lafontaine, is Germany embroiled in a class struggle?

 Oskar Lafontaine, the chairman of Germany's far-left Left Party. Oskar Lafontaine: The US billionaire Warren Buffett answered this question much better than the Left Party ever could. "It's class warfare; my class is winning," he said. To which I would add: The class that has been losing for years is starting to stir again.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Greed, avarice, selfishness and irresponsibility of the ruling class," the rich who "want to make even more money out of a lot of money" -- your party's draft platform for the upcoming German national elections sounds like Marx and Engels. Do you really believe that you can appeal to voters with such strong slogans?

Lafontaine: When the German president (Horst Köhler) talks about "monsters" and (Social Democratic Party leader) Franz Müntefering speaks of "locusts" and "losers," then we have actually made it into the center of society.