Anyone who followed the Social Democratic Party (SPD) congress in Berlin last weekend must again answer the question\u2014\u201cAre there any limits to the decline and political bankruptcy of the Social Democrats?\u201d\u2014with a resounding \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahead of the congress, SPD headquarters in the Willy Brandt House had declared that the main task was to examine the disastrous election result in the last Bundestag (federal parliament) election in February. The SPD had secured just 16.4 percent of the vote\u2014its worst ever result. But during the congress, the leadership around party chairman Lars Klingbeil and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius pushed through exactly the same policies that had led to these massive losses\u2014and even intensified them.<\/p>\n
The real prelude to the congress had already taken place in the Bundestag, when the SPD parliamentary group, almost unanimously, voted in favour of a massive attack on refugees and asylum seekers. To sustained applause from MPs from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Bundestag voted to suspend family reunification for people granted so-called subsidiary protection status. According to Pro Asyl, these are individuals who face serious harm if returned to their country of origin, even if they do not meet the strict criteria of refugee status under the 1951 Geneva Convention. They have fled war and civil war and have often been living in Germany for years without parents, children, or partners. Now the Bundestag has taken away even the already limited possibility of family reunification. Only two SPD MPs defied party discipline and voted against this brutal, inhumane decision\u2014one that essentially adopts AfD policy.<\/p>\n
Lars Klingbeil in November 2023 with members of the German Bundeswehr Association [Photo by DBT \/ Xander Heinl]<\/p>\n
Opening the congress, party chairman Klingbeil called for unity within the party apparatus. \u201cIn difficult times,\u201d he said, it was necessary to close ranks. Criticism had to \u201cremain within limits\u201d and should not fall below \u201cthe necessary measure of solidarity among Social Democrats.\u201d Factional infighting, personal disputes, and leaks\u2014often at the expense of party leaders\u2014had caused much damage in the past.<\/p>\n
Addressing the disastrous election result and the prevailing mood of despair, Klingbeil said he kept reading commentaries and editorials claiming, \u201cActually, social democracy is no longer needed.\u201d He admitted: \u201cI\u2019ll be honest, in the run-up to this congress, I also asked myself: Have we reached a point where we must question whether social democracy is still needed?\u201d After much reflection, he had concluded \u201cthat the reality is exactly the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SPD was more important than ever, especially today, \u201cin times of great uncertainty, upheaval, economic difficulties, and attacks on peace and freedom.\u201d A party that did not polarise but built bridges was urgently needed. Klingbeil stated: \u201cEspecially in these times, we need a party that knows that military strength on the one hand and diplomacy on the other are not opposites\u2014but must be combined to shape policy for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would be hard to find a clearer description of the SPD\u2019s historical role over the past 111 years\u2014ever since it voted for war credits in summer 1914 at the outset of the First World War. In every major crisis of German imperialism, the SPD has played a key role in suppressing class struggle and keeping the capitalist ruling class in power. In the service of German imperialism, it has always been ready to subordinate its own party interests and accept electoral defeats.<\/p>\n
Whereas the party once enjoyed broader support among workers, it has now been reduced almost entirely to its apparatus, which is intimately intertwined with the state. Maintaining capitalist rule has become second nature to the SPD, which imposes social cuts and war by every available means\u2014even at the cost of its own collapse.<\/p>\n
It is from this standpoint that Klingbeil\u2019s own electoral setback must be viewed. In the vote for party chairman, he received just 64.9 percent of delegates\u2019 votes\u2014the worst such result in SPD history. But this vote of no confidence was not directed against the right-wing policy of militaristic rearmament that Klingbeil and the entire leadership pursue, nor against the social cuts that finance this rearmament, which he implements as finance minister.<\/p>\n Rather, his poor result was the delegates\u2019 way of demanding that these right-wing policies be packaged and enforced in such a manner that would not endanger their own lucrative posts at federal, state, and municipal level.<\/p>\n Next, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius spoke and repeated his familiar propaganda that Germany urgently needed to become \u201cdefensible and ready for war.\u201d He defended the insane sums\u2014amounting to trillions\u2014being spent on rearmament and military infrastructure. As Europe\u2019s largest economy, Germany must in future play a central role and make a special contribution, he demanded.<\/p>\n Citing the need to be able to \u201crespond if the security situation or the requirements of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) demand it,\u201d Pistorius justified the decisions of the recent NATO summit, which agreed to the most comprehensive rearmament of Europe since the Second World War. In the future, instead of 2 percent, 5 percent of GDP is to be spent on military purposes: 3.5 percent on purely military spending (troops and weapons) and another 1.5 percent on measures such as cybersecurity, infrastructure and barracks construction.<\/p>\n Pistorius left no doubt who would pay for this militarisation. He has repeatedly stated in earlier speeches: \u201cYou can\u2019t defend this country with social benefits and education.\u201d It is well known that the federal government has already begun shifting budget funds away from social and environmental programmes into the military.<\/p>\n When the defence minister declared that Germany had to face reality\u2014that the Bundeswehr was understaffed and that \u201cthe target of recruiting at least 60,000 additional soldiers and 200,000 reservists\u201d must be achieved\u2014his speech was interrupted by some members of the party\u2019s youth wing, the Jusos (Young Socialists). They shouted slogans such as \u201cDisarmament and democracy\u2014instead of rearmament and war\u201d and held up banners. Later, Jusos chair Philipp T\u00fcrmer took the microphone and moved an emergency motion rejecting any reintroduction of compulsory military service. A return to conscription was unacceptable, he emphasised.<\/p>\n Pistorius had already planned to include coercive measures in his draft conscription law, to apply if there were insufficient volunteers. He firmly opposed those \u201cwho think we should rule out any form of compulsion.\u201d Several Jusos spoke against this, stressing that a \u201creturn to the old conscription\u201d was unacceptable. Service in the Bundeswehr should be made so attractive that enough volunteers would be recruited, they argued.<\/p>\n In the end, the congress agreed\u2014by a large majority and with only a few votes against\u2014to postpone any decision on conscription until it becomes directly relevant. The compromise resolution adopted stated that the SPD backed a \u201cnew military service\u201d modelled on Sweden\u2019s system, as set out in the SPD\u2019s coalition agreement with the Christian Democrats (CDU\/CSU).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n