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Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy, and the Return of Fascism in Germany

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<placeholder type="page-article-inline-link" layout="" button-text="Read more" link="/en/special/pages/pseudoleft.html" description="true" byline="false" meeting="false" overline="true"><placeholder type="media" link="workspace://SpacesStore/2a218fe5-40df-4215-9fe6-9f0b3f69f41a" caption="" usecaption="true"><p></p></placeholder><placeholder type="text-line">WSWS Review</placeholder><placeholder type="text-line">What is the pseudo-left?</placeholder><placeholder type="text-line">Byline</placeholder><placeholder type="text-block"><p>This review examines the response of pseudo-left political tendencies internationally to the major world political events of the past decade. </p></placeholder></placeholder>

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From left, Ines Schwerdtner, co-leader of the Left Party (Die Linke), Heidi Reichinnek, member of the German federal parliament and member of the Left Party (Die Linke) and Jan van Aken, co-leader of the Left Party (Die Linke) arrive for a press conference in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, the day after the national election. 

After Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz openly joined forces with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) at the beginning of February to harshen refugee policy, hundreds of thousands, mostly young people took to the streets to protest against the far-right party and the political establishment’s shift to the right. The return to fascism and militarism in Germany is meeting with fierce opposition in view of the horrific crimes of German imperialism in two world wars and the barbarism of the Nazis.

In the elections, Die Linke (Left Party) in particular benefited from this growing mobilisation, as it publicly criticised the aggressive campaign against refugees and presented itself as an anti-fascist force. Before the mass protests began in January, it was lying at 3 percent in the polls, but it then received 8.8 percent in February’s election. Among voters under 25, it even achieved the best result of all parties with 25 percent, the same as the prospective governing parties, Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU, 13 percent) and the Social Democrats (SPD, 12 percent) together. The Left Party also won in the capital Berlin with 19.9 percent, ahead of the CDU (18.3) and the Greens (16.8).

Young workers and students who want to fight against fascism, militarism and social cuts face very fundamental historical and political questions and tasks. They need a clear understanding of the Left Party, which in reality does not represent their interests and goals, but rather plays a key role in implementing social cuts and the deportation of refugees, and also fundamentally agrees with government policy on the question of war.

“There is a huge discrepancy between the hopes that young people associate with the Left Party and what it actually is. The former want to oppose the fascists, they reject the refugee agitation, and they want reasonable incomes and affordable rents. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) wrote in its 

The result of Germany’s federal election on February 23 is the product of a deep political and social crisis that will lead to explosive class conflicts.

Germany’s 2025 federal election: How the struggle against fascism and war must be waged

: “But the Left Party has no program to counter the shift to the right by those in power. It is spreading the illusion that the main parties of the ruling class can be persuaded to change course through a combination of parliamentary opposition and pressure from the streets.”

And further: “The Left Party claims it is possible to reform capitalism, not abolish it. But that is a dangerous illusion. The ruling elites’ turn to the right is not simply the product of mistaken policies that can be corrected by a bit of pressure. The ruling class everywhere is resorting to dictatorship and war because it is confronted with the deep crisis of its social system. As in the 20th century, capitalism is again leading to fascism and war.”

The Left Party after the federal election

While the SGP is fighting to develop the resistance into a conscious movement of the working class against the entire ruling class and capitalism, the Left Party is reacting to its own completely unexpected election success with a further lurch to the right.

It fears nothing more than that the outrage over fascism, social inequality, anti-refugee agitation and pro-war policy could thwart the formation of a government, escape the control of the trade union bureaucracy and take on independent forms. That is why it is not lifting a finger to organise and develop the opposition. Its leaders have abandoned all criticism of Merz’s alliance with the AfD and are downright fawning over him, ready to support his government coalition with the SPD and its militarist and anti-working class policies.

On the evening of the election, Left Party leader Jan van Aken declared that his party was “willing to talk” about cooperating with the new government on matters such as proposed legislation. What is at stake is clear. At the centre of the exploratory talks is a reform of the so-called “debt brake,” which requires the federal government to limit annual borrowing to 0.35 percent of GDP.  This is in addition to the tightening up of refugee policy and the massive attacks on all remaining social and democratic rights. Such a reform is now considered necessary by the ruling class in order to massively increase military spending and to launch new “special funds” for the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces).

The Left Party leaves no doubt that it is ready to help, especially if the government’s current efforts to organise a majority for its plans in the outgoing Bundestag (parliament) fail. “A new government needs a two-thirds majority to amend the constitution, such as to reform the debt brake or to create special funds. It cannot get around the Left Party. Or it will accept votes from the AfD. It is their choice, not ours,” wrote Left Party co-chair Ines Schwerdtner on X shortly after the election.

In an interview with broadcaster ARD’s morning show last Friday, Schwerdtner reemphasized this position: “It is the CDU’s decision whether they want to risk the votes of the AfD again for their projects or whether they start talking to the Left Party.” This alone underlines how far the party is willing to go. Merz did not “risk” the votes of the AfD when he 

For the first time in the 75-year post-war history of the German parliament, one of the major parliamentary groups has made common cause with fascists to help an authoritarian and racist motion achieve a breakthrough.

Germany’s Christian Democrats unite with far-right AfD against refugees

 to push through his anti-refugee motion in parliament, but deliberately made a pact with the fascists in order to push through his “project.”

Despite all the protestations that her party merely wants to enable more “investment,” Schwerdtner signalled that it is also prepared to help launch the “project” of a new multibillion special fund for the Bundeswehr—provided it is involved in the concrete planning. The federal government should “first show what we need for defence capability,” Schwerdtner demanded. “Where did the money from the old [€100 billion] special fund go? I cannot agree to a new special fund if we do not know where the money is going at all, what it is needed for at all.”

The Left Party fully agrees with NATO’s war course against Russia in Ukraine. “I believe that Ukraine has the right to defend itself, of course. And that it was therefore right for them to do so.” At the same time, “we have been saying from the outset that we need peace negotiations,” and Germany in particular “must initiate peace negotiations.” That had not been done so far, and now there was “a situation in which Trump is making dirty deals with Ukraine, seizing the rare earths and exploiting Ukraine.”

Obviously with the aim of not simply leaving the “rare earths” and the “exploitation” of Ukraine to the US, Schwerdtner did not rule out the deployment of “peacekeeping forces.” In her opinion, however, they should be “normal [UN] blue helmets, that is, real peacekeepers.” “We stand for peacekeepers,” she affirmed when asked, and the Left Party was “ready for debates on this.”

What Van Aken and Schwerdtner are publicly promulgating is the declared policy of the entire party leadership. Its March 1 decision states: “Trump is in the process of massively damaging international law and relying solely on the law of the jungle. The German government and the EU must respond with a—long overdue—clarity.” The party executive demands “debt relief for Ukraine” and “a suspension of the debt brake ... to free up sufficient funds for financial civil support for Ukraine.”

This is in line with the policy of the leading European powers, who are responding to President Donald Trump’s threats to conclude a “deal” with Russia over Ukraine with even stronger support for Kiev and an armaments and war offensive. Under the false guise of a supposed “peace policy,” they are feverishly working to militarise the continent and make it independent in order to continue the war against Russia and, if necessary, enforce their imperialist interests against the US.

Whatever attempts at a compromise are made and whatever the difficulties posed to London, Paris and Berlin, the direction is toward open conflict with Washington.

Amid disarray following Trump-Zelensky rift, Europe’s leaders prepare for war

A defeat in Ukraine would be a major blow to the European powers, as would the US gaining a stranglehold on mineral deposits vital to the continent’s economies. Even more alarming to the European powers is the prospect of a broader US-Russia alliance, which they see as an existential threat. This is the real reason why the UK, France and other countries are now considering deploying troops to Ukraine, risking direct war with Russia—with or without US support. 

The Left Party supports this dangerous escalation. And it plays a key role in disguising the return of Europe—and above all Germany—to aggressive imperialist great-power politics with democratic phrases. In a post on X, the party’s founding father, Gregor Gysi, writes:

The US fears that China will become the world’s number one power, which is why it believes it must become more authoritarian in order to act more efficiently. This forces us to fight seriously for our freedom, our democracy and the rule of law—against both internal and external threats. We must agree—from the CSU to the Left Party, but also with trade unions, churches, business associations, artists and scientists—that we must defend our fundamental principles of democracy, freedom and the rule of law together ... [W]e must finally realise that Europe as a whole must be capable of acting. The nation states alone have no chance against the world powers.

In fact, European world power politics, which Gysi wants to support by forming a war front of all government parties, capitalist associations and trade unions, requires the destruction of all social and democratic rights and the establishment of authoritarian regimes in Europe itself. As in the 1930s, great power politics and the preparation for war mean the abolition of “democracy, freedom and the rule of law” and a turn towards fascism and dictatorship. This is also the reason why the ruling class and Merz, whom the Left Party is now so insistently courting, are strengthening the AfD and making ever more direct pacts with the fascists.

The militarism of the Left Party is rooted not only in its right-wing leaders, but in the political and social orientation and history of the party as a whole. Despite its name, the Left Party has never been a socialist or even left-wing party. It has always been a bourgeois organisation representing the interests of the state apparatus and a wealthy upper-middle-class strata, defending German capitalism and imperialism and being rewarded for this with ministerial posts and state subsidies running into the millions. It was founded in June 2007 through the merger of two bureaucratic apparatuses, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Work and Social Justice (WASG), both of which had decades of experience in oppressing the working class.

The PDS was the heir to the Stalinist state party of the former East Germany, which in 1990 helped organise German reunification on a capitalist basis and immediately thereafter took over law-and-order functions in the new eastern federal states. The WASG was initiated by long-standing SPD and trade union officials with the aim of diverting the social anger over the SPD-Green government’s Agenda 2010 policy of welfare cuts, introduced by the then Schröder-Fischer government. The initiative for the merger came not only from Gysi, but also from Oskar Lafontaine, one of Germany’s most experienced bourgeois politicians, who had previously held leading positions in government and the SPD for 40 years. He and his wife Sahra Wagenknecht have since 

On March 17, the 78-year-old declared his resignation from Die Linke (Left Party), which he jointly founded in 2007 with Gregor Gysi.

Oskar Lafontaine leaves the Left Party

The Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) is not an alternative to the established parties, but rather an attempt to erect new props for capitalist rule in the midst of the deepest global crisis of capitalism.

From the Stalinist SED to the xenophobic BSW: The political evolution of Sahra Wagenknecht

extremely nationalist and anti-refugee BSW

The Politics of the Pseudo-Left

The media hype surrounding Schulz is not part of a “reaction” against Trump, but an attempt to utilise the “reaction” against Trump for the ends of German imperialism.

Germany’s pseudo-left Marx21 hails Martin Schulz as the “revival of Social Democracy”

 (previously part of the International Socialist Tendency), the 

The pseudo-left tendencies within and around the Left Party are reacting to the growth of the international class struggle with a sharp turn to the right.

“Socialism Event” in Germany: Pro-capitalist politics in a pseudo-left garb

(previously part of the Committee for a Workers International) or the Pabloites and Morenoites, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei has regarded the Left Party as an opponent of socialism and the working class from the outset. This is now openly visible. A party that takes such an aggressive stand on the side of imperialist great power politics has nothing progressive about it but is a thoroughly pro-imperialist force.

The Left Party and the return of German militarism

This has become increasingly clear, especially over the last 12 years. In 2013, the Left Party, with its former foreign policy spokesperson Stefan Liebich, was directly involved in drafting the infamous strategy paper “Neue Macht–Neue Verantwortung” (

The German government’s aggressive action in Ukraine and the propaganda campaign accompanying it were carefully prepared over an entire year.

How the revival of German militarism was prepared

). The paper was the blueprint for Germany’s return to an aggressive foreign and power politics, which the then Foreign Minister and current Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), his predecessor Joachim Gauck and the then Defence Minister and current EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) publicly announced at the Munich Security Conference in early 2014.

When Washington and Berlin, supported by fascist forces such as the Svoboda party and the Right Sector, organised a coup in Ukraine in February 2014 in order to install an anti-Russian regime there, this was 

In a statement on the situation in Ukraine, the Left Party’s executive has condemned “threats of military action by the Russian Federation.”

German Left Party promotes government propaganda against Russia

. Above all, the pseudo-left groups within and around the party celebrated the right-wing coup as a “democratic revolution.”

At the same time, the Left Party backed the aggressive foreign policy of the then CDU/SPD grand coalition. After 

A leading member of the German Left Party has voted in the European parliament in favour of a military intervention in Libya.

German Left Party leader votes in favour of military intervention in Libya

The Syrian opposition groups supported by the Left Party are the loudest advocates of US military intervention to topple the Assad regime.

The German Left Party’s pursuit of war in Syria

 and the intervention of German imperialism in the Middle East.

In April 2014, several Left Party members of the Bundestag voted in favour of sending a 

The April 9 vote by Left Party members for military intervention marks a further shift to the right by the party.

German Left Party MPs vote for military deployments

Young workers and students who want to fight against fascism, militarism and social cuts need a clear understanding of the Left Party, which plays a key role in implementing social cuts and the deportation of refugees, and also fundamentally agrees with government policy on the question of war.

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