Stakes are high for workers in German reunification plan

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If East Germany is absorbed by capitalist West Germany, the euphoria of toppling the Berlin Wall will soon fade away.

¿Notes on discussions in Donetsk When millions of German workers from the East and the West knocked down the Berlin Wall on Nov. 8, 1989, they sent a clear signal that on both sides of this artificial border there is one German working class.

Since that historic day, hundreds of thousands of marchers in East Germany have staged weekly demonstrations in Leipzig and other East German cities to demand: "Free elections in all of Germany!" — "Twelve years of Nazis and 40 years of STASIS [East German secret police] is enough!" - "No unemployment!" — "Independent trade unions and the right to strike!"

After the Berlin Wall came crumbling down, the imperialist nations and their Stalinist cohorts were quick to point out that the demand for German reunification was "not realistic at this point" and that "stability" in Europe comes first.

Within months of the collapse of the Wall, however, the East German economy began to crumble. Production approached a standstill, as raw materials and parts were no longer delivered—mainly because of strikes (in the construction, health, and transportation industries), slowdowns, and a lack of workers.

Thousands of East German workers—in addition to the hundreds of thousands who had already left—continued to cross the border daily into West Germany. The opening of the Brandenburg Gate had not relieved the pressure and halted the mass exodus, as the imperialists and the Stalinists had hoped would occur.

This, in turn, created tremendous strains on the West Germany economy and society, as hundreds of thousands of newly migrated East German workers demanded unemployment insurance, housing, jobs, and education which were already in short supply for West German workers.

The West German imperialists sent out an alarm signal that unless something was done quickly, the East German economy would simply collapse, and West Germany would run the risk of being destabilized.

Kohl's capitalist reunification West German Prime Minister Helmut Kohl began to push for a unified German currency and international aid to prop up the East German Stalinist bureaucracy. His stated goal was to link the East German economy to the West German capitalist system. Specifically, he proposed that a unified German currency be established as soon as possible.

The imperialist powers, 14 SOCIALIST Ottawa, Canada, understood that the process of German reunification was inevitable-in fact, it was already taking place independently of their will-and that they had to support it in order to steer it on a political course best suited to promote their own interests.

They also understood that the East German Stalinists, with Gorbachev's endorsement, were now willing to acquiesce to the overturn of the socialized property relations in East Germany to maintain some of their own privileges.

For West German imperialism, a capitalist reunification of Germany would open the possibility of German imperialism going its own way to take full advantage of its imposing economic power in Europe.

For the United States and the other Western European imperialist powers, on the other hand, the specter of a reunified capitalist Germany—80 million strong and potentially the world's third largest military power—is highly problematic.

A united capitalist Germany would dwarf the other countries in the European Economic Community and challenge U.S. economic and political domination. This explains the U.S. insistence that a united Germany remain in NATO and that U.S. troops I've recently returned from a stay in Donetsk, in the Soviet Union. Our small group was invited by coal miners in the area. Through our trip, we became aware of a severe problem of division among the coal miners, fostered by the bureaucracy, and a concomitant decay in morale.

The life expectancy of a below-ground miner is less than 50 years. Few can work more than 15 years without being crippled by loss of the lung's capacity to deliver oxygen to heart and brain.

They consider the age of full pension eligibility of 55 to 60 a cruel joke. The fact is that no miner expects to remain healthy. or for that matter, to even live long enough to collect his pension.

As a result, by the time a miner approaches his early thirties, concerned for the future of his wife and kids, he is compelled to search for an above-ground job. Here the bureaucracies of the mine management, the official trade union, and the Communist meeting in Party control the only routes out. Yet these ACTION MARCH 1990 David Burnett CONTACT remain stationed on German soil.

East German left opposes Kohl Opposition to the Kohl reunification plan -though not to German reunification per se-has been strongly expressed in East Germany by such groups as New Forum, Democracy Now, and the United Left.

Hans Jürgen Fischbeck, a spokesperson for Democracy Now, explained that Kohl's proposed unified currency would lead to the collapse of the East German economy and the erosion of the social gains of the workers' state:

"No one would buy our goods at the same price as West German goods," Fischbeck said. He added that this would lead to the closing of East German factories and to mass unemployment. (New York Times, Feb. 17, 1990)

A recent news article also reported that tens of thousands of West Germans are making legal claims on former family or business property lying in East Germany. "With economic union approaching, West Germans are racing to reassert property rights, prompting a near panic among thousands of East German tenants," wrote Baltimore Sun correspondent lan Johnson (Feb. 18, 1990). are the very agencies responsible for condition of the miners.

The bureaucrats take full advantage. Before they hand out a job, they insist that the miner demonstrate that he is housebroken, that he will betray his class. This naturally creates suspicion between miners.

We saw that the most militant, mature, and respected miners were from the thirtyish age group. Those approaching their forties had mostly learned to keep their complaints to themselves or were even already known careerists, having secured above-ground jobs or even jobs with one of the bureaucracies.

In a few conspicuous cases, the miners had elected members of this older group to high positions in their organizations. Five thousand workers at the Kalinin mine elected one of them as president of the official trade union. "He was in the mine for over 10 years," we were told, "and is known to us as an honest man, even if too soft with management."

Yet, even here, there was grumbling about the fairness with which the union president Birgit Rausch, an official with the East German housing administration, told the Sun: "The tenants feel very insecure when they see West Germans looking around. No one wants to end up homeless like in the West."

The organizations of the East German left, however, are oriented almost exclusively toward the self-reform of the East German Stalinist bureaucracy and have no perspective for uniting the German and European working class in a struggle for socialist democracy.

Where socialists should stand What should the position of revolutionary Marxists be on the question of German reunification?

Revolutionary Marxists should take a position, without any ambiguity, for the right to self-determination of the German working class.

West German Prime Minister Helmut Kohl is for German unity-but on the condition that capitalism is safeguarded. The people in East Germany are not about to oust the bureaucrats just to replace them with capitalist bosses. What they are fighting for is their emancipation, not a change of masters.

Their mass demonstrations have combined the demands for (1) an end to bureaucratic rule, (2) German reunification, and (3) the defense of the conquests of the workers' state (full employment, and guaranteed job security and social welfare).

Revolutionary Marxists must strongly oppose Kohl's reactionary capitalist reunification plan. It is essential to explain that the proposed unified German currency would mean the end of the East German monopoly of foreign trade and planned economy.

We must call for the unification of the German working class based on the mobilization of the workers in the East against bureaucratic oppression and in the West against capitalist exploitation. We must advocate a united, socialist Germany as part of an overall call for a united, socialist Europe.

But the recognition of the right to self-determination is the condition for being able to wage a serious fight for a Germany without bosses and bureaucrats.

Common initiatives around the fight against unemployment and austerity and for the defense of the conquests of the East German working class will prepare the conditions for genuine, working-class reunification.

To accomplish the task of unifying the German working class, East and West, a Trotskyist party based on the "Transitional Program" of the Fourth International and rooted in the struggles of the entire German working class is essential. had handed out passes to the members for a resort-style vacation subsidized by the union. At a union meeting we attended, several militant delegates reprimanded him on this practice.

The bureaucracy promotes every possible division in the workers' opposition. One of its central goals is frustrating all efforts to improve the miners' pension plan and working conditions.

Procrastination is one of the bureaucracy's methods. Gorbachev signed onto the miners' demands, including a retirement age of 40 to 45 and pension elgibility with 15 to 20 years service. But then, four months later, he announced there would be a country-wide reform law covering pensions. So now there are study committees working on the law, assigned by the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet.

But the coal miners and their leadership are in the dark. Nobody knows what will be passed or when it might be enforced. The miners need every bit of solidarity in their struggle to improve their working conditions.

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