kidnapping of West - German Hans Martin Schleyer by mem bers of the KAF (Red Army Faction) terrorist group, one thing is already clear: who the losers will be. It will not be German capitalism, not even the Bonn Government, but the socialist movement and all those opposed to the further crosion of democratic rights in the Federal Republic.
In the fastest parliamentary passage a bill has ever seen, the Bundestag has already reacted with a new law banning all communication between olitical prisoners and the outside world, an urther demands — for the re-introduction o capital punishment, the use of specialised the tightening up of restrictions on the rights of lemonstration - are heing raised, Be many ti the right wing of the Christiar opposition The right wing press is having a feast of unrestrained red-baiting: lists are being published of so-called "erroris sympathisers", giving Yes and addresses of prominent progress ive writers and artists such as Volker Schlandorff Lost Honour of Katharina deinrich Boll (the film's author and Prize winner) and • Laus Perman director of Stuttgart's municipal theatre, Correspondent fee that McCarty lal and No wonder that even Geardian's Bonn end orego obser furber.
Dutch the New ot Tima. ceking political asylum in France, appeared on French television last week, he referred to the terrorists as 'anti-fascist freedom fighters". But is West Germany on the road to anotber fascist dictatorship, or even in the grip of neo-fascism already?
The answer to this question is, of course, no. The Federal Republic Is still a paramentary democracy, with legally existing reformist and revolutionary socialist organisations and trade unions. There is not even a fascist movement on anything like a mass acale, despite the recent publicity for the small, and apparently weil organised, neo-fascist groups involved in the abduction of Nazi war criminal Kappler from an Italian hospital.
But it is not only obviously wrong to speak of • neo-fascist danger in West Germany at the present time, it is dangerously misleading: the preoccupation with the danger of a Nazi revival can only suggest that the problem is a specifically "German" one and blind us to the intermational nature of the tendency towards strong, repressive DOUBOIS 18603. and sow confusion amongst socialists about the tasks we are facing in combatting the increasingly repressive evolution of all Western capicalist democracies.
mary the claire a duty dia.
mentary democracies in the cloped capicalist world. West Germany crane salt Ah basic desecrate rises al trong state. A qualified or a seton cal see qualified. mcluding, in West Germany. ELISHE MOLICES railwayworkers and teachers, do not have a righ to strike by law, and they, with bundreds of bousands of otber publie employees, are the mailt which prevents them from joining a party of the Over a million applicants for public jobs have stitutional Protection", the West German Special Branchi since the "Radicals Decree' was passed in entire capitalist world including Germany into a poor op come socal aa pontica instability, and the emergence of new political marked incresse in working clase militancy. The coincidence is nor accicental in west Cormany Ins in Britain and a number of minor European countries) boch the masses and sectors of the ruling class entrusted social democracy with the task of carrying out long-overdue economic, infrastructural and political reforms. Only the SPD could be expected to push through an incomes policy and the Emergency Laws without provoking militant trade union action; only the SPD could successfully neutralise the extraparliamentary opposition by selling technocratic reform of the education sector, the taxacion systems and other problem areas as democratic or unity of the qualitative strengrbening of the state's role in the economic, social nod political life of late capitalis society The liberal, non-interventionist, laissez-faire belongs to the past of an marker economy - a fact "leftin" Keynsian and the fascist variety of starte intervention into the cirisis of capitalist sociery both bet but teen valete or e totems response to the dench any of different varieties of the Naturally the role of social democracy in promoting the establishment of the strong stale can obly be Jimited, The contradictions inherent in a bourgeois workers party, the conflict between its capitalist masters and proletarian clientele, will finally tear social democracy apart and land from he and me evil by openly reactionary forces who can make muscl ruthless use of the repressive arsenal democracy helped provide — even against social democracy itsell But for the prescut the SPD's role in government and the continued support of the vast majority of workers for that SPD poses a terrible problens to the West Gerian left: that of having to light the might of the bourgools state apparatus in virtual Isolation from the organised Inbour movement. The ultra-leftist politics of despair so dominant on the German left — not just the terrorist RAF and its sympuchisers hut also most of the Macist and some of the Trotskyist organisations — are explicable in that light, but not excusable, And despice the pitfalls in drawing too mechanisric parallels beiween West Cermany and other West European countries in which the class struggle is more develope, the examples of the struggle against the Prevention of Terrorism Act and of campaigns on the Irish struggle in general in Britain face similar problems, as in CLOTAL YARDEY DILOC Union of the Left or a floally consumenated On the most general theoretical level is raised ine question or ene revolutionary lett's atlitde to bourgeois democracy and the defence of democratic Tights. In the euphorin tollowing May 68 and the historic victory of the Indochinese revolution, vorld revolution a cared to be just around the corner, and th siruznie in detence bi bourgeois democratc rights tended to be lightly discissed and left to the left reformists and liberal progressives The German exampie, but also some of the practical problems raised by the Portuguese and Spanish revolutions (where a "democratic strug sie was suddenly discovered by some of the more rightist Maoist groups as a discinct stage through which the proletariac has to pass before the socialist revolution can possibly be on the agenda), demand a thorough break with that tradition.
1972.
Even within the trade unions, a kind of Berufaverbot is in operation with all the major unions officially excluding supporters of organsations to the left of the Comenunist Party from union membership (although the goverment's decree does apply to the CP. t00). Although the trade anions are, of course, legal they are subject to a number of restrictions: the legality political atrikes, for instance, is at the very least doubtful.
All political parties and groups to the left of ocial democracy are still threalened by the 195 Constitutional Count decisio outlawing the Trotskyist organisations were tolerated since unconstitutional advocacy of violence' is already being used to contiscale left-wing iterature and pubtications. Defence lawyers in political trials Have coe connesatons wun cacois monkore and can be excluded from the court proceedings If suspocted of 'Involvement in the crime' As far as the most obvious agencies of state the police and th military — the para-military nature of the West German police where armoure steel-belmeted police equipped with submachine guns have become part of daily bite. Serve in Such the he My at i bl MEK (Barder Police) and units of the Col an otherwise aredy conscripe army are at the governemnt's disposal for dealing with any sort of disturbance of public order. And there is, of course, the NotstandsMESCLEC (Emergency Lawsi. D85s00 in 1568 which, if invoked, can suspend all democratic rights including the right to strike altogether and quite legally establish an autboritarian dictatorship of the executive and the military This üst cannot be exhaustive: in the seven years since 1969 tbe Federal Parliament passed no tewer than 32 new Jaws direcly telating to 'Enterbal security". More important, however, thon listing all the many existing and planned restrictions of even bourgeois derbocracy in West fermany is an understanding of what it al means. What are the lessons to be leared from tbe German example for socialists elsewbere, ADd what does the 'strong state" represent in terms of Marxist theary?
One of the most striking features of the West German camole Is the role naved by the social democracic SPD in strengthening the hand of the STIC Although Bundesrepublik under Adenauer was not exactly everyone's idea of a liberal democracy, the passing of the Emergency Laws and the subsequent boom in repressive legislation, the strengtbening and centralisation of the police apparatus, the Berulsverbot and so on fall into the period of SPD government (from 1966 to 1969 in a 'Grand Coalition" with the CDU, ever since in a coalition with the much smaller liberal FOP).
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 20 Datober, 1977 page 14