Ten Questions, Ten Answers

1. Why does a person seek membership in DIE LINKE party?

Five million people voted for us in the elections for the Bundestag in 2009. To vote for us, one must not necessarily be a member of our party. Why don't many people consider it enough to merely vote for us? Why do they want to become a member of our party? There are two decisive reasons: First, they want to change the society they live in together with like-minded people. Second, they want to belong somewhere in a society which gets ever more fragmented. They need a political homeland. They want their life to have a meaning. They need practical solidarity. If members get the feeling that their party does not change society and that their party does not offer a political homeland, they will withdraw from active work or even quit the party. A party should not only be a learning system but also an acting one. Our members want to change society already now, and not wait until DIE LINKE gains absolute parliamentary majorities. The reference to existing majority situations in the parliaments which nearly always result in our proposals being turned down or to difficult coalition partners unwilling to reform often has a de-motivating effect on our members. They are not prepared to put up with turned-down proposals and rejected concepts. Every member of our party must feel that he/she is needed and able to independently act in the spirit of our programme.

2. What can a left-minded master baker or plumber do in our party?

Let us assume that a person would like to join our party though never having read Marx, Engels, Gramsci, Negri, or Zizek. What do we have to offer to him or her? A party does have to discuss strategies, theories, and tactics, but if it is to create identity, any of its members should be able to exist in a party simply as a politically thinking person. If our party manages to be an oasis of solidarity amid a neo-liberal desert, we will not need recruiting campaigns; people will flock to us on their own in order to help restore solidarity to society. To do so a comrade does not need a seat in any parliament. Solidarity can be practiced by any member anywhere. Solidarity is the strongest weapon against rampant neo-liberalism, against the desertification of society.

3. Are we taking ourselves seriously enough?

At the congress in Erfurt, our programme was approved by a majority of 96.9 per cent. With great intensity, calm, and wisdom the delegates very responsibly decided on very complex questions. If thereafter we take our programme really seriously, we are required to change ourselves. In our programme we call for more democracy. People will watch us very closely whether or not we ourselves live up to this demand. Rightfully our members will expect to be more actively involved in party decision-making. We must not merely attribute problems within our party to poor communication. Communication certainly requires to be improved. If, however, members do not identify themselves with party decisions, this may as well accrue from their feeling that those decisions are not theirs. This is why we must take our members more seriously again. The party apparatus is there for the members - not vice versa.

4., What is our answer to the ownership question?

A central point in our programme is the ownership question. Is it a question we should leave to be answered by the next generation or shall we answer it now? We do have to answer it right now. The current crisis which protagonists of neoliberalism prefer to describe as a public debt crisis is in fact a crisis of distribution and ownership. The existing property relations are leading to the unfair distribution of wealth in Germany, Europe, and the whole world. Ever more often people are confronted by the ownership question in their daily life. Why is electricity so expensive? Why do house rents in the big cities keep soaring? Why is so much money spent on the war in Afghanistan and not on the repair and modernization of schools? After all, we will not manage tomorrow to expropriate the power companies, build flats ourselves, and outlaw wars and arms exports. Yet what we can do is to reflect on solidarity-based forms of ownership, found cooperatives in which members themselves fix their house rent. This, however, requires of us to change our self-conception. A mandate in a cooperative may be as important as a mandate in the Bundestag. We have to again intensify extra-parliamentary work and assign it greater value. It is not a supplement of parliamentary work but an essential prerequisite of implementing our programme.

5. How can we jointly organize socio-ecological reconstruction?

The Land organizations are true treasure troves. Digging up this treasure is essential for translating our programme into reality. I suggest that each Land organization develops a reference project for implementing the party programme. These may relate to the struggle for minimum wages, against the privatization of hospitals, houses, theatres, and municipal enterprises. Reference projects may relate to fighting neo-fascism, establishing European partnerships, to environmental protection, power networks, and/or political education. There is no limit to suggestions. I imagine a Federal Party Congress at which 16 functioning reference projects are presented by 16 self-confident Land organizations. This will provide us with examples to show how we have changed society without having reigned in the Chancellors office for a single day. This would inspire many people to take up those projects and try their own ideas.

6. How shall we practise solidarity?

Reflecting on the current European crisis, Che Guevara's saying that "solidarity is the tenderness of peoples" comes to my mind. The German DIE LINKE is the strongest leftist party in Europe. Leftist from all over Europe are looking at Germany and are appalled. If Chancellor Angela Merkel has her way, Europe is to become more German. Our friends in Europe keep asking me: "What are you doing to fight this?" Are we doing too little? We are doing something, sure, but not enough. We write papers, launch campaigns, hold conferences, but all too seldom ask ourselves about the impact those papers, campaigns, and conferences are ultimately having. We must take our own resolutions more seriously. It takes no time to write a solidarity message. But is it followed up by practical solidarity? In what ways can we assist the peoples in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy suffering from the cuts dictated by the German Chancellor? If we want to achieve a Europe of solidarity we have to reflect anew on Che Guevara's dictum.

7. Why does our party's appeal fail to grow in these times of crisis?

We firmly believe that our proposals for solving the crisis are correct. Nevertheless, poll percentages of our party are not increasing. The crisis is booming! The ruling quarters have seized its chances for reconstructing Europe on neo-liberal patterns. The Agenda 2010 anti-labour legislation is being exported no matter whether the other European peoples want it or not. Such a reactionary revolution of conditions in Europe would have been unthinkable without the crisis. A peculiar irony of history is that the crisis has turned into a shining moment for market radicals. Why there is no resistance to this in Germany? It is often apologetically said that at times of crisis people trust in their government and do not want any leftist experiments. Precisely this is the heart of our problem: Those in government are launching one high-risk experiment after the other. The restructuring of social systems is an incredibly risky experiment with a very uncertain outcome. The euro safety net is a two trillion euro experiment the result of which even the most authoritative experts are unable to predict. DIE LINKE wants to call a halt to those dangerous experiments. The allegedly very outmoded statutory pension insurance has proved more robust and profitable than the Riester pension scheme. We are the people who want to save functioning solidarity-based systems from being crushed. Solidarity-based systems are not only fairer but also safer than neo-liberal experiments. DIE LINKE is the party protecting security systems against the protagonists of radical market. This is the message we must communicate. If it is said that every party needs its own narrative, ours can be condensed into one sentence: A society based on solidarity is better for all! This is not a new narrative, it has been told and lived through since long before the crucifixion of Christ.

8. How shall we organize resistance to market radicalism?

In my address to the Federal Congress in Erfurt I quoted Stéphane Hessel and his book "Time for Outrage!" Whoever thoroughly reads it will realize that Stéphane Hessel was not in the first instance aiming at sowing outrage. He referred to the successful struggle of the French Résistance against Hitler fascism. Today we have to ask ourselves why resistance to fascism was so powerful in France, the Soviet Union, Italy, or Greece. There are certainly plenty and different reasons for this. One important and often underrated reason is that this resistance struggle involved almost all social strata. Hessel, the Résistance fighter, has made a call on all of us today to resist in order save the democratic and social Europe from the market fundamentalists. We must promote the realization that the current policy harbours grave disadvantages for the vast majority of the people and that it is a civil duty to fight against these anti-social and undemocratic policies.

9. What can we achieve in 2012?

The entire party will support the election campaign in Schleswig-Holstein with a wealth of ideas. DIE LINKE must re-enter the Land Assembly of Kiel! At the Federal Party Congress next June we will deliberate on the implementation of the Party Programme, strategically prepare the elections for the Bundestag, and elect a new Party Executive. Some comrades fear that in the next few months substantive work will be overlaid by personnel debates. This fear will be justified if we continue engaging in conjectures on who can or cannot go with whom. After all, a party is not a therapy group. I request comrades to very closely combine personnel discussions with suggestions on implementing our programme. Which comrades are best able to do so will be finally decided at the congress.

10. How can we improve our technical skills?

I do not know anymore how many weekends I have already spent at strategy conferences. They all were very interesting. Often, however, I found that our party lacks technical skills, sometimes even the most fundamental ones. In recent day, for example, we have been returned many voting documents on the programme for the simple reason that addresses were incorrect. How are we to establish democratic socialism if we don't have the correct addresses even of party members. Too often in history great ideas were ruined by technical mistakes. We need a regular "tools conference" at which we discuss good old party craft and the introduction of state-of-the-art electronic tools. This is a task not only of general secretaries but one of the entire party.