As Neo-Nazis enter the German parliament and the government shifts rightward: "Away with all illusions about this system and its elections! We need a movement for revolution!"

23 October 2017. A World to Win News Service. The 24 September national elections in Germany marked a dramatic moment in the rightward lurch taking place throughout Europe: 92 neo-Nazis will now goose-step into the halls of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament. In the wake of the rise of the fascist Trump regime in the US, Angela Merkel's Germany had been held up as an alternative and proclaimed loudly as one of the remaining ramparts in the defence of “democracy” and “Enlightenment” values. Instead, the country has been swept up in the political turmoil engulfing Europe, and Merkel immediately announced a dramatic shift rightwards to appeal to the fascist movement being led by Alternativ fur Deutschland. Mainstream commentators who'd been deluding themselves that the upsurge of fascism had been stemmed by the victory of Emmanuel Macron in France's recent presidential election were shocked. The AfD is now the third biggest party in Germany, winning over a large chunk of former supporters of the country's social democrats in the SPD. Many had thought the bursting of such right-wing extremist forces onto the centre stage in Germany was not possible – that the lessons of the Nazi nightmare were indelibly etched in the country's political memory. As the traditional social-democratic arrangements and norms that have prevailed since World War 2 are thrown into disarray, this shocking result underscores the need for a revolutionary communist perspective that offers the people of Germany a way out of the looming horrors. 

Below is a leaflet issued by the Supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Manifesto Group, Europe before the elections in Germany. The text has been slightly edited.

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On 24 September parliamentary elections will be held again. These elections are of particular importance for the bourgeoisie at in a time when the political consensus on which the ruling order rests is eroding and its political stability threatens to fall apart – with the possibility of the situation sharpening by leaps and bounds.

We are experiencing times of great turmoil, unrest and emerging fault-lines. The German imperialists are confronted with major challenges and risks – with an European Union in danger of disintegrating; a migration crisis for which the rulers have no solution; the fascist Trump/Pence regime rapidly stepping up its aggressive reassertion of US world dominance and threatening to use nuclear weapons; the escalating conflict between imperialism and reactionary Islamic fundamentalism; and so on. The rise of Trump has whetted the appetite of AfD & Co. to imitate him and at the same time position themselves for heightened rivalry with US imperialism. In the rightist lurch already seen in several countries, the spectres of a dark past are emerging again, including among some sections of the established bourgeois politicians.

No matter how the elections turn out, it is already clear right now that any federal government will continue to work to consolidate and strengthen the dominant position of Germany in the world and push through the global interests of German capital. No matter how the elections turn out, growing sections of the population will be affected by impoverishment and social exclusion … the establishment of a "fortress Europe" will continue, a brutal deportation policy will be expedited and the asylum laws will continue be tightened… in the name of "domestic security" the building of a police and surveillance state will be advanced… Germany will increasingly attempt, including by military means, to enforce its interests and ambitions… climate change will take on ever more dramatic dimensions and, and, and… These elections are about forming a new regime that consciously shifts the ruling politics even farther to the right, seeking to make the deeply reactionary dreams of German imperialism a reality. We should refuse to consent to any of this!

There may well be some differences between the bourgeois parties – sometimes even important ones. But these differences never involve the question of whether this system is to be administered and preserved or whether the interests of German capital and "Germany as a place for business" are to be enforced. No, fundamentally these differences only involve the question of how this can best be done. The latest revelations about the [Volkswagen diesel engine] "exhaust scandal" make clearer than ever just how thoroughly the bourgeois political system serves the interests of big capital.

Away with all illusions about this system and its elections!
We need a movement for revolution!

We live under the dictatorship of a small minority that owns the large industrial groups, banks and insurance companies. We live under a historically outmoded system that has long since lost any kind of legitimacy. Germany is one of a handful of imperialist countries that plunder and rule over the large majority of the world's nations. The purpose of its state power is to enforce those relationships, while elections serve to legitimize all this. In reality, the interests and needs of the masses here and all over the world do not play any role at all in these elections.

It is dangerous to think that these elections can at least stop the rightist lurch in the political spectrum, let alone reverse it. These illusions disarm people and keep them away from the struggle that is actually needed – like the battle in the US against the fascist Trump regime. Such illusions fail to recognize that the rightist lurch is currently being carried out primarily by the established bourgeois parties. They also fail to recognize that the AfD, NPD and other fascist forces sprang from the soil of the ruling system and continue to be nourished by it. After all, Hitler became chancellor through the "constitutional" channels of the Weimar Republic (the "first democracy on German soil" [1919-33]) with the support of large sections of the ruling class and the acceptance or accommodation of the other bourgeois parties. 

Today the CDU/CSU/SPD government [a coalition of Christian and Social Democratic parties] has already implemented parts of the AfD programme – for example in their refugee policy. The governmental parties are adopting parts of this programme and its underlying mindset while at the same time pointing to the danger posed by the AfD & Co. to win people to support the rightist lurch they are carrying out themselves instead. Even the Greens and Die Linke [the self-styled "Left" parliamentary party] are helping to implement the German deportation policy in states where they are part of the government. Even in the name of the "lesser evil", no one should support these forces that are increasingly adopting the programme of the ultra-right.

Today, Angela Merkel is being positioned as the "reasonable alternative" to the fascist Trump/Pence regime in the US as well as the rightist governments in Hungary and Poland, and even as the leader of the "free world". In point of fact, today Merkel stands for a consensus fundamentally based on the established policies in ruling the Western imperialist countries over the past several decades. But this consensus is also moving more and more to the right. The revived debate on the "German Leitkultur" [the German culture that supposedly defines the country, in opposition to other cultures] is an expression of this. The aggressively promoted ravings about the "leftist extremism" and "violence" of the protests against the Hamburg G20 summit are a sign that the rulers are preparing for increased popular resistance and relying on intensified repression. When leading politicians of various parties talk about Germany having to assume "more responsibility" in the world, this means that German imperialism wants to fight for its global ambitions more aggressively in the future – including by military means. Germany is readying itself for sharpening competition and conflict in the world. The domestic rightist lurch is a part of this.

Forces such as Die Linke play a very harmful and dangerous role because they spread the illusion that fundamental change for the better could occur without overthrowing the existing capitalist-imperialist system. They call for "breaking" the "power of the banks" and "democratizing" the economy, warn the governing parties that "war and the threat of military force" cannot be "a means for a peacemaking policy", and speak in favour of "justice in international trade and economic relationships". With such phrases, they foster illusions about the reformability of a bloodsucking system and the state that enforces it. Even if their social reform proposals were realizable, this would only be at the cost of even more intensive exploitation by German imperialism of people in every part of the world. Objectively, forces such as Die Linke function to keep the thinking and activity of many dissatisfied people within an "acceptable" (for the system) and controllable framework.

Forward! We need a movement for revolution!

We urgently need a political movement that aims to combat the crimes of this capitalist imperialist system instead of continuing to cling to illusions. We need a movement whose goal is radical change – that aims to make revolution once the conditions for that have ripened. There is a vision and a scientific approach for building a new world where exploitation and oppression, misery, hunger, narrow-mindedness, patriarchy and the waste of human lives are all things of the past. That is the New Communism, the new vision of revolution and communism developed by Bob Avakian (chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA). This New Communism represents an incredibly liberating and exciting breakthrough for humanity. 

With it, the monumental problems facing the seven billion people on this planet can be understood, with all their complexity, in a scientific manner. It provides the general strategic orientation for building a movement for a real revolution that can actually win against the massive death machinery of this system. It provides the orientation for how we can build a society that does justice to the fundamental needs of people while at the same time opening up completely new perspectives for a cultural and intellectual ferment and creativity… for how we can really work on uprooting racism and patriarchy, including in people's thinking and values… for how we can build an economy that interacts with nature in a sustainable manner – and a society where the point of departure is not "my country" but the interests of humanity. The New Communism provides answers to these questions.

The rulers want to consolidate their system and their power. Many people think that really radical change is impossible. But the steps the ruling class is taking right now show that the emerging fault-lines and cracks will, in all probability, lead to a further sharpening of the contradictions this system has created. We have to make active preparations for a time when the horizons of more and more people are broadened and they raise their sights. 

Supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Manifesto Group (Europe)

Contact: RCMG_Supporters@email.de