Crisis-proof legacy: The more powerless the left, the more attractive the well-known promises of strength and mass party become. This agitation is an international phenomenon, like here in Spain.
Foto: Alamy/SOPA Images Limited
“We canceled the demonstration ‘You can’t beat us – smash right-wing structures’ in Eisenach that was planned for tomorrow at short notice.” The news from the Thuringian anti-fascists last November hit like lightning. And suddenly shed light on a problem that many had previously only marginally noticed. For months, people across the country were mobilizing for the demonstration that was now in danger of being hijacked. The group Young Struggle (YS) insisted on taking part against the express wishes of the organizers. Because YS represents anti-Semitic positions and celebrated the Hamas attack on October 7th as a “liberation strike”.
Something similar happened a year earlier in Leipzig at the demonstration “That’s enough – we’re not freezing for profits.” “Groups like Solidarity Network, Zora and Handala tried to smash the demo with their Palestine solidarity signs,” recalls Leipzig state parliament member Juliane Nagel (Die Linke) in an interview with “nd”. »They appeared as a block and understood each other that way. That’s when it became clear that they belonged together.”
Communist construction
YS and Handala belong to the environment of so-called red groups with an authoritarian, anti-imperialist orientation and cadre structure. These new actors follow a traditional left-wing line and are reminiscent of the strictly organized K-groups of the 1970s in their dogma and hierarchy. Their program includes liberation nationalism and anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism. Aggressive and one-sided support for Palestine is not new, but the groups are currently taking cover themselves, whether through the occupation of lecture halls at the Free University of Berlin, actions at other universities or attempted hijacking of many demonstrations against the AfD with anti-Israel content. Since they themselves have little mobilization potential, they try to hijack demonstrations in many places. There they are sometimes “militantly shown their limits,” as it was put in a statement about the “Together against the right” demonstration that took place in Munich at the end of January.
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Behind the currently particularly active groups is an organization called Communist Construction (KA). In Leipzig, for example, a small cell of the organization was established in 2019/20. Initially consisting of two or three people, the solidarity network, the International Youth, the Women’s Collective, the Federation of Class Struggle Organizations (FKO), Zora and Handala were formed around the KA. »My impression is that some of the same people appear again and again. The KA is structured cadre-oriented,” says politician Nagel. “They come as a block, roll out their flags, and want to form the front row.” The groups act in a non-transparent manner, trying to take over topics and organizational contexts, for example in the wake of the rent protests. »They want to put themselves at the head of a proletarian revolution. The goal is to build a new communist party.” Discussion with them is impossible, says Nagel.
Such tankie groups – as they are called based on the English term for the supporters of the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its military counterinsurgency – were also recently founded in Dresden and Freiberg. The Leipzig communist group Kappa sees targeted action: “It can be assumed that people who have already been trained as cadres were sent to Leipzig by their nationwide organizations in order to set up local groups here.” The ideology behind it comes from the past. YS, for example, organizes the Stalin reading group “Questions of the National Movement” and advertises: “In general, you don’t need any prior knowledge.”
Congruent personnel
The fact that such communist development arrives relatively late in the East may be due to the fact that some developments on the left occur with a delay. On the other hand, the East German left-wing scene, especially in Leipzig, is rather undogmatic and emancipatory. The reverberations of GDR socialization armed us against romanticization of Stalin. “The Stalinist and Maoist spectrum has tried to improve its influence on the radical left over the last ten years,” explains the Cologne-based research Antifa Alliance against Anti-Semitism (RABA) in response to a “nd” query. “They only bring several hundred participants onto the streets as part of large alliances, that is, they use alliance work with groups with a wide reach on popular current topics and then try to dominate these alliances.” This would have been the case with the Black Lives Matter, for example. Protests and the Hanau commemoration can be observed.
YS, Zora, women’s collective, but also the International Youth Rhineland are also active in the Cologne area. RABA assigns them to the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) and the FKO. They would divide up the policy areas and be active in various alliances and umbrella organizations. “Many of these groups in Cologne are under the influence of older, experienced and networked left-wing radicals.” The MLKP and FKO umbrella structures appeared to have the same personnel connection with the communist structure in Cologne, RABA gives an assessment. “We cannot answer their specific role: Are they ultimately just a flag in the demonstration block of the Mao-Stalin sects or does the KA have its own functions?” These groups tried to recruit people during social and climate protests, according to RABA. »In Cologne we are observing attempts at advances by lateral thinking cadres around Bianca Paffenholz. We are excited to see whether a cross-front that is open to the right will become a reality, developments that have already gone through the German peace movement and that are also being pushed by parts of the bourgeois left such as Dietmar Dehm or Andrej Hunko from Die Linke.«
In these contexts, according to RABA, the Left Center in Cologne-Kalk, with its concept of open and approachable antifa work, receives “a large influx of young, motivated antifas” as a starting point. Politician Juliane Nagel sees the attractiveness of the groups in their easy access and clear problem naming. »Where non-authoritarian groups branch out into all sorts of theoretical debates, there are simple answers. You don’t want to discuss internally so much as have an impact on the outside.” This activism creates group identity and conveys a feeling of strength. You also have the impression that you are doing something, even the right thing. A “revival of class struggle motifs” can also be seen, says Nagel. The Kappa group adds: “The various frontline organizations are particularly effective. Anyone who finds the concept of party building too far removed from their own reality will find a low-threshold point of contact through organizing tenants or through feminist struggles. Various open meetings, an up-to-date social media presence and the rapid involvement of interested parties in campaigns do the rest.
Confront content
How to deal with groups is increasingly being discussed within the scene. Several actors and contexts have already spoken out against any cooperation. The student council initiative of the Otto Suhr Institute at the Free University of Berlin recently published a warning: The nationwide university group of the Marxist-Trotskyist news site “klassegegenklasse.org” would run for the election of the student parliament under different names. Even if it doesn’t belong to the KA environment, the strategy behind it is the same. At the University of Leipzig, the KA groups Handala, YS, Zora, FKO perform together with the SDS as “Students for Palestine”. So far, 37 groups, including RABA, have signed the call “No cronyism with left-wing anti-Semites!” published in the winter. At the same time, they warn: »Decisions are not made in the blog or on Twitter, but by taking to the streets for the right issues and correct people organizing themselves politically for issues worth supporting. The fact that the anti-Semitic groups are gaining popularity is also due to a failure of emancipatory connections in Antifa youth work.
The Kappa group also recommends confrontation in terms of content. The authoritarian red groups must be taken seriously in their attempts to dominate, instead of ridiculing them as before. And position yourself in terms of content, which doesn’t just apply to Leipzig: “Their success is a reflection of the weakness of the anti-authoritarian radical left, which currently doesn’t seem to have much that is attractive.” There is no need to be afraid that the new groups will take over the terrain, says the politician Juliane Nagel relatively calm. »But it can be an incentive for the anti-authoritarian groups to, in addition to demarcation, focus more and more clearly on issues such as the social question, conditions of exploitation, etc. Basically, I think we should talk about the authoritarian rollback, especially with regard to left-wing history and the ideological background.
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