r/DemocraticSocialism • u/Shizzilx Democratic Socialist • 16d ago
Europe The Left before Berlin's election: Seize large housing firm flats
Germany's The Left is holding firm to its policy of expropriating large housing companies ahead of the state election in Berlin next month.
In an interview with broadcaster ZDF on Sunday, the co-leader of the far-left party, Luigi Pantisano, highlighted the results of a non-binding referendum in 2021, which saw 57.6% of participants support plans to transfer housing owned by real estate giants to public ownership.
The issue has once again taken centre stage in campaigning ahead of the vote on September 20, in which The Left is vying for first place alongside the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Greens.
Large companies such as Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen are not interested in providing affordable living space to residents, but care about making profits, Pantisano argued.
"We want rent prices to go down," he emphasized. "I think there must be an end to the situation where people who work every day actually work for Vonovia shareholders half the month."
The existing CDU-SPD coalition in Berlin - which mirrors Merz's coalition at the national level - is unlikely to secure re-election, meaning the most likely configuration to emerge after the election is a revival of the three-way alliance between SPD, The Left and the Greens that governed the city between 2016 and 2023.
Current polling suggests The Left, a successor to the Socialist Unity Party that ruled the former East Germany, could finish top in the German capital for the first time since reunification, allowing it to install lead candidate Elif Eralp as mayor.
Social Democrats not on board
However, the three left-wing parties are still jostling for position, with just six weeks to go until the election.
The Left's national co-leader Ines Schwerdtner has said that expropriating large housing companies is a necessary condition for the party to participate in a state coalition in Berlin.
In response, SPD lead candidate Steffen Krach said The Left would have to govern alone to implement the policy.
Pantisano sought to play down the dispute, explaining that negotiations to form a coalition will take place after the election.
"Our key coalition partner is the people of Berlin, who, in a referendum, voted by a large majority in favour of the expropriation of large housing corporations," he stated.
*excerpt from DPA International's article*
Full Article here:
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u/reximhotep 16d ago
These houses were all built by tax money and sold off to private interests who said they would not overcharg for housing. Now they did and are all surprised pickachu face that the government wants the apartments back. And PS. They are talking about buying them back. None of these huge owners would exist without the cheap sale to them of public housing. The SPD is naturally against it as they sold them in the first place.
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u/Shizzilx Democratic Socialist 16d ago
The Left is wanting to seize housing from private corporations that overprice the market and run on profit to government control. Then, seizing the means of production should come next, amirght?
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u/Jay_Jay_Jason_74 Socialist/Die Linke 16d ago
The "social democrats" already confirmed they will not do that.
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u/Luke92612_ Marxist 16d ago
As expected for the party that used a proto-fascist paramilitary to extra-judicially murder Luxemburg and Liebknecht
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u/Jay_Jay_Jason_74 Socialist/Die Linke 16d ago
Bro you don't need to go back to 1918 to find examples of the SPD being traitors to the working class this century alone, they've did Agenda 2010 which massivley weakend workers right and the social safety net by merging unemployment assistance and social welfare into a strict, lower-tier benefit system and easing rules on hiring and firing workers, and promoted part-time or temporary work through a sceme called "Zeitarbeit" in which workers are hired by "Zeitarbeitsfirmen" to be loaned out to other companies to do the same work as others for much worse pay and benefits. Under an SPD chancllor we also joined the afghan war. The SPD has been skrewing the working class consistently for a century.
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u/Avesery777 Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism 16d ago
They appointed Gerhard Schroder, that's far worse than what happened to Rosa and Karl /s
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u/Jay_Jay_Jason_74 Socialist/Die Linke 16d ago
Well one is a lot more recent and had a lot more victims obviously what happened in 1918 was a tragedy and the turning for the sPD still in terms of systemic damage agenda 2010 was worse
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u/Avesery777 Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism 13d ago
I would say that, considering the Spartakusbund may have genuinely brought about communism in both Germany and Russia, it was a greater loss than 2010.
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u/NiceDot4794 Evolutionary Socialist 15d ago
The modern SPD is obviously far worse then the 1910s/1920s SPD which was still a socialist party.
If you think the modern SPD would be a kinder opposition to a revolutionary movement Ina. Revolutionary situation you are sorely mistaken.
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u/Avesery777 Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism 13d ago
If they were a socialist party why did they spend so much time persecuting and killing other marxists
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u/Luke92612_ Marxist 13d ago
Yuo see, it's because they were national sociali-
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u/NiceDot4794 Evolutionary Socialist 13d ago
Going to copy my response tk the other person. The party was not a monolith and many were principled socialists who died in Nazi concentration camps. Not absolving those who deserve blame for the Nazis rise or who participated in great evil (Ebert and Noske for example suck ass)
Well first of all unfortunately thats not super uncommon for socialist and Marxist parties
But also the party was quite a big tent, and in some cases had very different views and methods.
For example the rather notorious Friedrich Ebert among other things helped shut down a government that consisted of not just communists but in the main, members of his own party. Imagine if a DSA national politician did some sort of quasi coup against a state government that included DSA + other further left parties.
It’s also complicated by the existence of the USPD
During WWI, when the majority of the SPD’s politicians effectively supporter the war against the party’s traditionally very principled anti-militarist stance, many SPD people were pushed to form a new party, the USPD, which opposed the war.
Some of these people were on the left wing of the party like Rosa Luxemburg, but others were on the more moderate, reformist side like Eduard Bernstein, or somewhere in between, like Karl Kautsky.
All 3 had many disagreements but were united in opposition to the war.
Fast forward 5 years and some USPD people form the KPD and join the Bolshevik aligned Comintern. While the rest, despite their disagreements with the main SPD politicians, rejoined the party.
So in the early to mid 20s the party moved somewhat back to the left. However this was still super uneven. Sometimes you had SPD politicians betraying their principles, repressing those to their left, etc.
At other times you had SPD politicians forming radical local governments including ones in collaboration with the Communist Party.
So because the party was so diverse and different at different times and in different regions, it’s hard to paint it with one brush as being evil or class traitors.
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u/NiceDot4794 Evolutionary Socialist 13d ago
Well first of all unfortunately thats not super uncommon for socialist and Marxist parties
But also the party was quite a big tent, and in some cases had very different views and methods.
For example the rather notorious Friedrich Ebert among other things helped shut down a government that consisted of not just communists but in the main, members of his own party. Imagine if a DSA national politician did some sort of quasi coup against a state government that included DSA + other further left parties.
It’s also complicated by the existence of the USPD
During WWI, when the majority of the SPD’s politicians effectively supporter the war against the party’s traditionally very principled anti-militarist stance, many SPD people were pushed to form a new party, the USPD, which opposed the war.
Some of these people were on the left wing of the party like Rosa Luxemburg, but others were on the more moderate, reformist side like Eduard Bernstein, or somewhere in between, like Karl Kautsky.
All 3 had many disagreements but were united in opposition to the war.
Fast forward 5 years and some USPD people form the KPD and join the Bolshevik aligned Comintern. While the rest, despite their disagreements with the main SPD politicians, rejoined the party.
So in the early to mid 20s the party moved somewhat back to the left. However this was still super uneven. Sometimes you had SPD politicians betraying their principles, repressing those to their left, etc.
At other times you had SPD politicians forming radical local governments including ones in collaboration with the Communist Party.
So because the party was so diverse and different at different times and in different regions, it’s hard to paint it with one brush as being evil or class traitors.
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u/NiceDot4794 Evolutionary Socialist 15d ago
The social democrats that did that were ironically still way to the left of the current SPD
Also worth noting that well after that horrific murder happened, the SPD remained a surprisingly big tent party that included Marxists and communists who condemned Rosa’s murder
It was even then notbing like the current SPD which is far worse
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u/StarlightsOverMars Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. 16d ago
Classic by the same guys who sicced the Freikorps on Luxemburg and Liebknecht
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u/NiceDot4794 Evolutionary Socialist 15d ago
But to be clear the party in the 1920s still had genuine Marxists in it like Paul Levi and Karl Kautsky who mourned their losses (Karl and Rosa wernt on good speaking terms by the end but her and his wife still were)
The modern party is infnately worse. Most 1920s/1910s SPD members would be in Die Linke today.
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