“Rupture in the political system,” “Political earthquake,” “Warning signal for Germany,” “Shock in Berlin”... These are just some of the headlines that have dominated major German bourgeois newspapers over the past week.
Similar forecasts are being made for the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania next Sunday, where the AfD is expected to increase its share by around 20 percentage points, emerge as the largest party and win approximately 35% of the vote.
The question being asked by German workers and Greek immigrants alike is: “How did we get here?” How can nationalist and far-right forces be gaining strength in Germany, a country with such a history? Why are people voting for the AfD?
What is the AfD?
Before going any further, it is worth looking back at how the AfD was formed, how it developed and what positions it advocates today.
The Alternative for Germany was founded in 2013, amid the capitalist crisis, by a group of economists, academics and conservative politicians led by Bernd Lucke, an economist associated with the so-called “Eurosceptic” current. Initially, it became known as the “professors’ party.” Among its basic positions was opposition to the “bailout” of Eurozone countries such as Greece through European loans, while it also advocated abolishing the euro. This reflected concerns among sections of the German bourgeoisie that the “bailout” packages for countries such as Greece were placing burdens on German taxpayers and potentially jeopardising the stability of the German economy itself.
In 2015, when large numbers of refugees and migrants from Syria arrived in Germany, Frauke Petry took over the party leadership, promoting anti-Islamic, racist and far-right positions. In 2017, the AfD entered the German federal parliament for the first time with 12.6% of the vote and became the largest opposition party. Many of its members and MPs have come directly from neo-Nazi organisations such as the NPD — today known as Die Heimat — or from the nationalist youth organisation Junge Nationalisten.
During the pandemic, the AfD took a leading role in opposing restrictions and other measures introduced by the German government and the EU, while also campaigning against the policy of the “green transition.”
As a way out of Germany’s economic downturn, the AfD advocates renewed rapprochement with Russia and China, the latter being Germany’s largest trading partner. With regard to Russia in particular, it calls for the reopening of the Nord Stream pipelines; party officials have already held meetings with Gazprom representatives; it demands an end to arms deliveries to Ukraine and the opening of negotiations with Russia. Regarding China, it argues that the country “is not an enemy, but a partner.”
The AfD also seeks to abandon the more “protectionist” policies pursued by the European Union, which it regards as damaging to German monopolies. “Foreign policy is not a contest in moral virtue, but a policy of interests,” it argues. The party calls for a return to fossil fuels and nuclear power, the abolition of CO2 emissions trading, lower energy taxes and an end to subsidies for wind and solar energy. In essence, it proposes abandoning the “green” economy.
Finally, it advocates a strong state that will “return Germany to its principles and roots.” It supports “decentralised administration,” with “greater autonomy” for the individual federal states, as well as a German state with greater “autonomy” within the EU. Similar proposals have also been advanced in Italy under the far-right Meloni government.
On what ground is the AfD gaining electoral strength?
Amid an intense struggle between sections of the German bourgeoisie over the economic policy mix that could restore growth, adjustments in foreign policy and Germany’s position toward the NATO-Russia war, the AfD’s policies correspond to the interests of sections of the capitalist class that have emerged as major losers from the war in Ukraine and Germany’s involvement in it — for example, energy-intensive industries and capitalist enterprises operating in agricultural production. They also appeal to sections of capital that see their prospects deteriorating amid international competition with China and the United States, such as the automobile industry.
On the war in particular, all the major political forces — Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and others — are aligned behind support for Ukraine in the NATO-Russia conflict, with painful consequences for workers and working-class households. At the same time, against the backdrop of the impasses of the capitalist economy and the war, the assault on working people by successive bourgeois governments and parties has intensified in recent years.
A series of reactionary reforms are being accelerated in social welfare and health care — including drastic reductions in pharmaceutical subsidies, cuts to sickness benefits, the abolition of family insurance and further reductions in preventive medical examinations. Pension reforms include raising the retirement age and increasing social insurance contributions, while attacks on labour rights include the 13-hour working day and the calculation of working time on a weekly basis.
Thousands of layoffs, inflation reaching as high as 6.7%, rents consuming up to two-thirds of wages, energy prices rising by 40%, bread and cereal prices by 37%, and oil and butter by 65% are among the burdens facing working people. Cuts have been imposed across government ministries, with the exception of Defence: €2 billion from health care, €4 billion from pensions, €1 billion from housing and rent benefits, and €500 million from parental leave benefits. Meanwhile, additional taxes on sugar, plastics, tobacco and alcohol are expected to raise as much as €3.4 billion — money taken directly from the pockets of working people.
All of this has played, and continues to play, a decisive role in the deterioration of living conditions for workers and the German people. It fuels popular discontent and the search for an alternative outside the “traditional” forces of the bourgeois political system, whose credibility has been severely eroded.
On this terrain, particularly in the states of the former East Germany, nostalgia has grown for the “better life” associated with the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The AfD has sought to exploit this sentiment, going so far as to appropriate even the GDR national anthem at its events. Yet it remains a thoroughly committed vanguard of anti-communism in Germany, in alignment with the other bourgeois political forces.
It is also significant that, over the past year and in the run-up to the elections, AfD-backed candidate lists have appeared in workplaces belonging to major German multinational corporations, including Mercedes, Porsche, Volkswagen and Krupp, attracting a considerable number of votes. Their demands included state support for the competitiveness of German corporations, protection of industry and jobs, and criticism of the energy transition. They also denounced changes to the pension system and demanded substantial support for families, maternity benefits and young families.
The “geopolitical” dimension of the AfD’s rise can also be seen in the allies it is gaining among bourgeois forces in other countries — including the United States, Turkey and Russia — which, amid intensifying rivalries and the reshaping of imperialist blocs, are seeking to strengthen their footholds within the political system of the EU’s largest economy.
Flesh of the system’s flesh
The stance adopted by the other bourgeois parties, both before and after the elections, confirms that the AfD is flesh of the flesh of the bourgeois political system and was created from the very same political material that serves the interests of capital.
False dilemmas and debates over whether the party should be declared “legal” or otherwise, together with court rulings over whether it should be classified as an “extremist organisation,” have fostered illusions that nationalism and the far right can be defeated through repressive measures imposed by the bourgeois state. At the same time, the policies pursued by these very parties have deepened the dead ends confronting the people, while their positions — particularly on migration — have increasingly converged with those of the AfD.
The “Alternative” has thus been utilised within the ongoing processes of reshaping the political system. It has been presented as a dangerous “anti-system” force, when in reality it constitutes an alternative of the system itself, emerging amid the rapid deterioration of working-class living conditions caused by economic recession and war, which in turn is generating a powerful wave of popular discontent.
Under these conditions, the need becomes all the more evident for a mass Communist Party with a revolutionary strategy and deep roots in the working class.
Following the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, the other bourgeois parties have called for the strengthening of “democratic” and “anti-fascist” fronts. Particularly revealing is the stance of Sahra Wagenknecht — leader of the alliance bearing her name and a former Die Linke MP — who has offered her party’s seats to the AfD so that it can form a government. The common ground between the two parties is none other than their position on the war and on Germany’s relations with Russia.
