Members and supporters of the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) will distribute the following statement at the rally “Stop the genocide in Gaza,” which will take place on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Berlin in front of the Brandenburg Gate. In addition to Sahra Wagenknecht and the BSW, rappers Massiv and Bausa, rock musician Peter Maffay, actor and comedian Dieter Hallervorden and journalist Gabriele Krone-Schmalz are calling for participation.
The horrific genocide in Gaza and the reckless drive to war against Russia are not simply the result of misguided policies that can be halted by putting pressure on the government, but are the outcome of a deep crisis of global capitalism. As before the two world wars, the capitalists have only one answer: war at home and war abroad. During the financial crisis and the pandemic they poured hundreds of billions of euros into the banks and corporations. Now they want to claw this money back, along with the vast sums for rearmament, through social cuts and war.
The existence of the financial oligarchy, which has amassed fabulous wealth, can no longer be reconciled with the needs of humanity. That is why authoritarian forms of rule are growing across the world. In the United States, President Trump is establishing a dictatorship, deploying the army in the cities and hunting down immigrant workers. In France, President Macron had tens of thousands of police club mass protests against his austerity and war policies off the streets. Here in Germany too, anyone who opposes the war madness and genocide is attacked.
Working people face a fundamental alternative: either the ruling class once again drives humanity into war, dictatorship and barbarism, or workers rise up and put an end to the rotten capitalist system. Only if the masses around the world intervene independently in political life, expropriating the big banks and corporations and placing them under democratic control, can catastrophe be prevented.
The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) therefore fights for a socialist perspective directed against the warmongers in our own country and for the unification of workers across all borders in the struggle against war and its root cause, capitalism.
With its support for the war crimes of the Israeli state in Gaza, the German government has proven that it is not concerned with “peace” and “human rights,” but with naked imperialist interests. To this end, it not only accepts the mass murder of children but also risks the survival of all Europe and the world.
In order to bring Ukraine under its control and secure Russia’s raw materials, the government is escalating the war against Russia regardless of the consequences. Instead of responding to the recent violation of Polish airspace by drones with de-escalation and diplomacy, as in the Cold War, NATO is reacting with escalation and war hysteria. The danger of a nuclear world war threatening humanity’s future has never been greater. This is already shown by the government’s horrendous rearmament plans.
The costs of this madness are to be borne by the working class. Mass redundancies are to prepare industry for war and trade war. The government also plans massive cuts to education, health and social services. Every sphere of social life is being subordinated to the war machine. With the return of conscription, an entire generation will be subjected to military drill, only to perish again on the battlefields of the rich.
The socialist perspective of mobilising the working class internationally is the only realistic means of preventing catastrophe and defending workers’ rights. The objective basis for this is developing rapidly. The mass mobilisation against the genocide in Gaza, the strikes against austerity in France and the rising anger of the working class show that resistance is growing. The decisive issue is the political perspective with which these struggles are conducted.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance defends capitalism
Most of the participants and artists who join today’s demonstration do so out of genuine concern and outrage over genocide and the war policy. But the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a split-off from the Left Party, is pursuing political goals directed against a socialist perspective and of a reactionary character. This is clear from the statement it has issued for the protests.
Wagenknecht fosters illusions in capitalism and thus paralyses the growing movement against social attacks and war. She claims there can be a peaceful Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) that serves only for defence, and that a third world war can be prevented with a little more diplomacy. “Diplomacy instead of militarisation” is a central demand of her statement.
These phrases have nothing to do with a struggle against war. On the contrary, they serve to defend German business interests in the face of growing tensions between the great powers—particularly against the United States.
“We must represent our interests, we must stand up for our interests,” Wagenknecht demanded in her speech at the last BSW party congress. “Especially in today’s world,” she said, “we really need a European Union that once again stands up for European interests, instead of behaving like the extended arm of the US administration.” In its election programme the BSW called for a “comeback for the German economy.” Germany must remain a leading industrial nation that requires “cheap energy and security of supply,” she argues.
Wagenknecht not only defends German capitalism but also its global hunt for raw materials and markets, which is the driving force of the pro-war policy. On this basis she will abandon her pacifist phrases just as quickly as the Greens once did. That is why the BSW has no problem forming coalitions with the establishment parties of war at state level, and shifting the costs of rearmament onto the workers through social cuts.
Wagenknecht’s real agenda is most clearly revealed in her vile agitation against migrants and refugees. She opposes a united struggle of all workers against war and makes desperate people fleeing NATO’s wars the scapegoats for social problems caused by the billions handed to the rich and by rearmament. Refugees are held responsible for “knife crime, sexual offences and religiously motivated terrorism,” according to the BSW election programme, which demands the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of people without residence permits.
This stance is completed by the BSW’s recognition of the right of the Israeli state to exist in its present form, and its support for a “two-state solution”. While the Israeli state is committing genocide in Gaza, massacring Palestinians in the West Bank and expanding settlements, the BSW seeks to protect it. Wagenknecht, however, rejects a united struggle of Palestinian and Jewish workers for a common socialist state with equal rights for all.
The socialist perspective of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei
The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP) opposes Wagenknecht’s nationalism with the international working-class unity. As Karl Liebknecht stressed more than a century ago, a world war can only be prevented if workers in every country fight against their own warmongers, their own ruling class, and counter capitalist barbarism with a socialist perspective.
Such a movement requires a conscious break with all the parties and organisations that bind workers to capitalism and ultimately support the war policy. The Left Party, of which Wagenknecht was a member until two years ago, also defends German capitalism. It even supports NATO’s war against Russia and whitewashes the genocide in Gaza. In the Bundesrat (upper house of parliament) it has voted in favour of war credits.
The trade unions have long ceased to be workers’ organisations. They enforce the mass redundancies and pay cuts demanded by corporations in order to wage trade war and maximise profits. The more conflicts between the great powers intensify, the more closely they align themselves with the government, support rearmament and the conversion of civilian to military production.
The SGP fights for the independence of the working class from all these organisations. As the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), it stands in the tradition of the Trotskyist movement, which has defended socialist principles against social democracy and Stalinism. These principles are now of decisive importance.
We call for the building of rank-and-file action committees in which workers can unite to fight against the pro-war policy and social attacks. Every factory, every workplace and every working-class neighbourhood must become a centre of coordinated struggle. These action committees must link up internationally, independently of all capitalist parties and trade unions.