Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)
The Party of Democratic Socialism (German: Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) was a left-wing populist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007.[8] It was the legal successor to the communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which ruled the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as the de facto sole legal party until 1990.[9] From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing "party of the East". While it achieved minimal support in western Germany, it regularly won 15% to 25% of the vote in the eastern new states of Germany, entering coalition governments with the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.[10]
Party of Democratic Socialism Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus / Die Linkspartei.PDS
PDS
- 16 December 1989 (SED-PDS)
- 4 February 1990 (PDS)
- 17 July 2005 (Die Linkspartei.PDS)
16 June 2007
Karl-Liebknecht-Haus Kleine Alexanderstraße 28 D-10178 Berlin
Red
In 2005, the PDS, renamed The Left Party.PDS (Die Linkspartei.PDS) entered an electoral alliance with the Western Germany-based Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) and won 8.7% of the vote in Germany's September 2005 federal elections (more than double the 4% share achieved by the PDS alone in the 2002 federal election). On 16 June 2007, the two groupings merged to form a new party called The Left (Die Linke).[11]
The party had many socially progressive policies, including support for legalisation of same-sex marriage and greater social welfare for immigrants.[12]
Internationally, the Left Party.PDS was a co-founder of the Party of the European Left and was the largest party in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in the European Parliament.[11]
History[edit]
Fall of communism[edit]
On 18 October 1989, longtime East German leader Erich Honecker was forced to resign from his post of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), under pressure from both civil rights movements in the German Democratic Republic and the party base itself. He was replaced by Egon Krenz, who was not, however, able to stop the collapse of the party and the government. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, borders between East and West Germany were reopened and on 1 December 1989 the Volkskammer abrogated the constitutional provisions that gave the SED a monopoly of power in the GDR.[13]
On 3 December 1989, Krenz and the entire SED politburo resigned and were all expelled from the party by the central committee, which in turn dissolved itself soon after that.[13] This empowered a younger generation of reform politicians in East Germany's ruling socialist class, who looked to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika as their model for political change.[14] Reformers like authors Stefan Heym and Christa Wolf and attorney Gregor Gysi, lawyer of dissidents like Robert Havemann and Rudolf Bahro, soon began to re-invent a party infamous for its rigid Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy and police-state methods.[9]
A special party congress convened in the Dynamo-Sporthalle in East Berlin on 8–9 December 1989 and elected Gregor Gysi as new party Chairman, along Hans Modrow and Wolfgang Berghofer as his deputies.[15] By the time of a special party conference on 16 December 1989, it was obvious that the SED was no longer a Marxist-Leninist party. During the second session the party accepted a proposal from Gysi that the party adopt a new name, "Party of Democratic Socialism". Gysi felt a name change was necessary to distance the reformed party from its repressive past. The proposal came directly after a speech from Michael Schumann highlighting the injustices perpetrated under the SED, and distancing the conference from certain high-profile party leaders – notably Honecker and the country's last Communist leader, Egon Krenz. Above all Schumann's speech opened the way for the party to reinvent itself, using a phrase that was later much quoted: "We break irrevocably with Stalinism as a system!"[16][17] A brief transitional period followed, during which the party was named "Socialist Unity Party of Germany - Party of Democratic Socialism" (SED - PDS).
By the end of 1989, the last hardline members of the party's Central Committee had either resigned or been pushed out, followed in 1990 by 95% of the SED's 2.3 million members. On 4 February 1990, the party was formally renamed the PDS. However, neo-Marxist and communist minority factions continued to exist.[18] By the time the party had formally renamed itself into Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and had expelled most of the remaining prominent Communist-era leaders from its ranks—including Honecker and Krenz.[19] Meanwhile, a faction of hardline Marxists-Leninists opposing reforms had split away from the party and had re-established the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which included Erich and Margot Honecker in its ranks.[20]
This was not enough to save the party when it faced the voters for the first time in the 1990 East German elections—the first and only free elections held in East Germany. The party was roundly defeated, winning only 66 seats in the 400-seat Volkskammer, finishing a distant third behind the East German wings of the Christian Democratic Union and the recently refounded Social Democratic Party.[21]
Controversies[edit]
Stasi connections[edit]
After German reunification, leading members of the PDS were frequently suspected of having connections to East Germany's secret police, the Stasi (State Security Service). Shortly after the 2005 federal election, Marianne Birthler, the official in charge of the Stasi archives, accused the Left Party of harboring at least seven former Stasi informants in its newly elected parliamentary group.[23] At about the same time, the media revealed that Lutz Heilmann, a Left Party Bundestag deputy from the state of Schleswig-Holstein, had worked for several years for the Stasi.[24] While the first accusation proved to be false, Heilmann's connection with the Stasi remained controversial. Though Heilmann had served as a bodyguard, not as an informant or secret police officer, he violated a Left Party regulation obliging candidates to reveal Stasi involvement. Nevertheless, the Left Party membership in Schleswig-Holstein narrowly passed a vote of confidence in Heilmann, and he continued to serve in the Bundestag.
Charges of a Stasi past were also a factor in the Bundestag's decision to reject Lothar Bisky as the Left Party's candidate for the post of parliamentary vice president. Though Bisky's candidacy was supported by the Greens and by some Christian Democratic and Social Democratic leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, after two failed votes the party withdrew his nomination. Five months later, the Left Party's Petra Pau was elected vice president.
In the Saxony, the chairman of the Left Party group, Peter Porsch, faced losing his mandate in the Saxon parliament because of his alleged Stasi past. In May 2006, all parties represented in the parliament, except the Left Party, voted to initiate proceedings against Porsch. However, in November, the state's constitutional court dismissed the complaint against Porsch on technical grounds.
SED assets[edit]
The SED had sequestered money overseas in secret accounts, including some which turned up in Liechtenstein in 2008. This was returned to the German government, as the PDS had rejected claims to overseas SED assets in 1990.[25] The vast majority of domestic SED assets were transferred to the GDR government before unification. Legal issues over back taxes possibly owed by the PDS on former SED assets were eventually settled in 1995, when an agreement between the PDS and the Independent Commission on Property of Political Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR was confirmed by the Berlin Administrative Court.[26]