Grim choice for German workers
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-03-03Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 4
THE choice that will be facing the West German electorate this Sunday is summed up by reading the election spread in the International Marxist Group's Paper 'Was Tun' foliowed by the coverage in the 'Economist'.
'Was Tun' doesn't even mention the 'Conservative' Parties - the CDU & CSU - and dismisses the Ecology Party ('The their concern for the present social order, they do not base themselves on the working class.
'Was Tun' acknowledges that most workers still look to the SPD ('Labour Party') as their Party, and announces support for it in the election, whilst calling on it to implement real socialist measures, in particular nationalisation of industries declaring redundancies, a 35 hour week with no loss of pay, full equality for women and immigrants, an end to support for US imperialism, disarmament; and no US bases in Germany.
The bosses' weekly, the Economist, makes its position quite clear too. Its greatest fear is that the 'Conservatives' will lose control. An SPD government - with or without the support of the Greens - is seen as the most dangerous thing imaginable.
The reason? They will defer deployment of US missiles, so the Russians will have no incentive to disarm, and the political split between America and Germany could destroy NATO!
The economic consequences of an SPD government are also feared. It would 'stop growthpromoting capital projects such as the nuclear-power construction programme' and this would lead to a panic on financial markets' The answer, says the Economist, is for the CDU's leader Helmut Kohl to win the election, but to need the support of the tiny 'Liberal' party, the FDP. In this way, Kohl could keep out of power the "erratic' (read: extreme right)_ CSU leader Franz Josef Strauss.
Only in this way will the CDU be able to maintain the consensus politics necessary to ensure that Pershing-2 missiles can be sited in West Germany!
Unfortunately, faced with the record of SPD governments over the last 13 years which, especially recently, have allowed the effects of recession to fall exclusively on the working class, the West German electorate may well return the 'Conservatives' . to power.
Scan page 5
Beeti, sAr
Organiser 122 March
----- pull-quotes -----
Greens') because, despite environment and changihe