2025 German federal elections: in the face of the inevitable intensification of anti-proletarian attacks, the working class will have to tear the veil of the democratic lie and get back on the path of class struggle

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For bourgeois democrats, elections are the climax of political life. For us abstentionist communists, taking part in elections seems more like an illusion, the illusion that it will advance the class interests of proletarians. In reality, voting is a means – and one of the most effective, since it is so insidious – of preventing class struggle by diverting proletarians towards an impasse. It is on the basis of this historical reality that we have made abstentionism one of the cornerstones of our political orientation. But it would be wrong to confuse communist abstentionism with indifferentism. Although decisions have long since ceased to be taken in the parliamentary arena, as Lenin pointed out as long ago as 1920 (1), we can nonetheless draw a number of lessons from elections. The German federal elections of February 23rd 2025 provide us with an opportunity to do just that.

As expected, the Christian Democrats (CDU) emerged victorious from these early elections. This result follows a major political crisis that manifested itself in November 2024 with the abrupt end of the “Traffic light coalition” (Social Democrats of the SDP; Liberals of the FDP; the Greens or Grünen), after Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed his Federal Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, over disagreements on economic and budgetary policy. Lindner advocated a halt to all new regulations, lower taxes and reduced public spending, particularly on combating global warming, provoking the wrath of the SPD and the Grünen. Beyond this cyclical disagreement, there were two real fundamental differences between the members of this motley crew. The first concerned the economic crisis that has been affecting Germany since 2023, pitting the Liberals against the Greens and the SPD on the budgetary trajectory; the second concerned the war in Ukraine and its geopolitical repercussions, with the Greens advocating a much more assertive warmongering policy than the SPD, despite the fact that the latter had initiated a historic turning point with an unprecedented investment in the German army since 1945.

In reality, these two issues are intimately linked, and it is Germany’s geo-economic reorientation in the wake of the sanctions against Russian gas that is largely responsible for the economic difficulties that the country is facing today. For years, Germany’s economic prosperity was based on cheap energy, fuelling the production of industrial goods for export. In 2011, Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to accelerate the phase-out of nuclear power, relying on Russian gas for electricity production. This explains the relatively good relations between Germany and Russia throughout the 2010s, right up to the start of the war in Ukraine. However, when Russia redirected its gas exports in response to European sanctions, the price of both gas and the electricity that was used for production soared, creating huge costs for energy-intensive industries such as steel, fertilizers, chemicals and glass. Germany has been forced to turn to liquefied natural gas, produced by the USA or Qatar. According to a study carried out by Prognos AG for the Bavarian Industry Association, electricity now costs 20.3 euro cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 8.4 euro cents in the USA or China, the main competitors of German industry. While for years Germany has benefited from trade with China – with German companies finding a huge new market for machinery, chemicals and vehicles, resulting in record profits for companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and BMW – China has gradually turned into a competitor for German industry. For example, whereas in 2010, Chinese solar panel manufacturers were still dependent on imported German equipment, today it is Chinese equipment that is driving this production worldwide. More broadly, China has largely subsidized the production of steel, machinery, solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries for these same vehicles, which are now competing with German production on export markets (2).

As for the geopolitical dimension of the crisis, it forced Germany back into the American fold, against its immediate economic interests, and led to a major acceleration in the country’s military spending. This is how a total of 100 billion euros has been earmarked as “special funds” for the army. You don't have to be a Marxist to understand that the cost of this rearmament will fall largely on the shoulders of the German proletariat, both native and immigrant, who is already beginning to feel the effects of a far-reaching anti-social policy that can only accelerate. At a time when poverty is skyrocketing, with 14 million people living in poverty compared to 3 million just twenty years ago, and housing, energy and food costs are rising at an unprecedented rate, social spending is being cut in half, from 32.82 billion euros in 2019 to 17.63 billion euros in 2022.

Far more than a victory for the Christian Democrats, we are witnessing the resounding failure of the outgoing coalition. While the former gained 4 points and 11 seats compared to 2021 – a moderate increase – the SPD lost 9 points and 86 MPs. The Greens also lost 33 seats. Finally, the FDP completely disappeared from Parliament, failing to pass the 5% threshold required to enter the Bundestag. This result must therefore be interpreted as a sanction by the proletariat and middle classes against the policies pursued by the outgoing government. The former are the designated victims of the coming wave of layoffs. Volkswagen, for example, is planning to close three factories in Germany, threatening tens of thousands of jobs – up to 30,000 – and cutting wages by between 10% and 18%. The household appliance manufacturer Miele has announced plans to relocate part of its production to Poland, resulting in the loss of 7,000 jobs, while tire manufacturer Michelin plans to cut 1,500 jobs. Last but not least, engineering firm ZF Friedrichshafen plans to cut 14,000 jobs by 2028 (3). Adding to this gloomy outlook for the proletariat is the fact that Germany is entering recession for the second year running. According to an estimate by the Destatis Institute, GDP is set to fall by 0.2% in 2024, having already contracted by 0.3% in 2023 (4). This crisis is affecting the whole of German society, including the petty-bourgeois middle classes, the Greens’ traditional electoral base, which is one of the reasons for their steep fall.

THE EXTREME RIGHT WILL NOT GOVERN, BUT ANTI-IMMIGRANT ATTACKS WILL CONTINUE TO INTENSIFY

Another important lesson to be learned from these elections, on which it has been particularly emphasized by the bourgeois media and petty-bourgeois democrats, is the historic score of the far-right (AfD). Indeed, if the CDU did not succeed to surpass the 30% threshold predicted by the polls, it was largely due to the fact that some of its voters turned to the populist party. The extent of this authoritarian turn in German politics and society should not be relativized. There can be no doubt that, against the backdrop of the crisis described above, a section of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie is seeking an increasingly authoritarian and repressive policy towards immigrants and “welfare recipients”, those eternal scapegoats. Similarly, a not inconsiderable proportion of the native proletariat may have believed – a terrible illusion! – that the populist party could offer them a better standard of living by sacrificing the immigrant proletariat. In reality, the AfD has nothing to do with the working class, and its program, if implemented, would only intensify the deterioration in living and working conditions for the proletariat, both immigrant and native. A priori, it is not likely that the far right will govern at federal level any time soon. The weight of anti-fascism, the famous “cordon sanitaire”, equivalent across the Rhine to the French “republican front”, continues, albeit with increasingly gaping cracks, to prevent any lasting alliance between the right and the far right. While this myth of an “anti-fascist” German society continues to mystify many proletarians, as witnessed by the historic turnout (82%) and the presence of almost 1.4 million demonstrators against the far right during the election campaign (5), the fact remains that, in reality, the gap separating the far right from the traditional parties continues to narrow. The CDU, the FDP and the left-wing anti-immigrant and Stalinist nostalgic party founded by former Die Linke leader Sahra Wagenknecht have joined forces with the far right to vote for a joint anti-immigration pact. This alliance of circumstance is only the most spectacular form of an anti-immigrant policy that the entire German political class, including the Social Democrats, is vigorously pursuing. As soon as October 2023, Olaf Scholz proudly announced: “We must resolve to carry out mass expulsions” (6). These words were followed by a series of ever harsher measures against immigrants, including the reintroduction of border controls, cuts in aid for asylum seekers and mass deportations, including to the “safe country” of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. So, from the radical left to the far right, via the Greens and Social Democrats, the entire political class is marching in unison to make the life of the immigrant proletarian a living hell. But while anti-proletarian and anti-immigrant policies are shared political orientations, this is not yet the case for some of the AfD’s programmatic positions. For example, exiting the Eurozone and the European Union is still not on the agenda. Nor is closing ties with Russia. However, we must be wary of a static analysis, as the change in attitude of the United States under President Trump, with an isolationist turn towards the European Union, is prompting a confirmed Atlantist like the future Chancellor Friedrich Merz to speak of an “independent” Europe from the United States (7).

In addition to the AfD, and to a much lesser extent, a second party managed to do well in these elections: the radical left party Die Linke, formed from a merger of the left-wing of the SPD and the heirs of the Stalinist SED. It won 64 seats, 25 more than in the 2021 federal elections, despite competition from its explicitly populist split, the BSW. Die Linke is even the leading party among 18-29 year-olds (8), a position previously held by the Greens, and the leading party in Berlin. This result may come as a surprise, given that recent federal and regional elections seemed to indicate an inexorable decline for the radical left party. In fact, according to many experts, this success is largely due to the key role played by this party in the anti-fascist demonstrations organized since the start of the election campaign, which have brought together millions of people. This result testifies to the undeniable strength of the anti-fascist myth among a large proportion of the population, particularly young people, a dynamic we had already seen at work during the last legislative elections in France, where the victory of the Nouveau Front populaire coalition (New Popular Front) was again largely explained by the use of anti-fascist rhetoric, increasingly effective as the far right moves closer to power in many Western countries. This similarity between the two political formations has not escaped the attention of the veteran of the French radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who posted a message on X stating that “by aligning itself with an anti-racist and anti-liberal political break, Die Linke is doubling its score and returning to the big stage. A future becomes possible again (9)”. The “break” represented by Die Linke is very much relative. Certainly, in the face of a SPD that abandoned all reference to Marxism and anti-capitalism decades ago, and a Green Party that is far more centrist and warmongering than its counterparts in other countries, the left-wing party may appear to be a “radical” alternative. In reality, anyone interested in the program and history of this political formation will easily see that, far from proposing an alternative – indeed, what alternative exists other than communism? – Die Linke is nothing more than a “reformist” party without reforms, an organization of the left of capital, committed to the defense of – bourgeois – democracy against a supposed fascist danger. In other words, Die Linke represents nothing more than yet another avatar of left-wing social democracy, whose relative success with a section of the proletariat can only be explained by a century of retreat and abandonment of its classist methods of struggle. What should concern proletarians is not this hypothetical fascist threat to democracy, but democracy itself, an ideological superstructure that merely conceals and makes acceptable the capitalist mode of production and the bourgeois order. Because this democracy, for which the proletariat is being called to the rescue, is the very one that is multiplying layoffs, organizing attacks on proletarians, immigrants and natives alike, and promoting the militarization of society and economy in anticipation of a future imperialist war, which is becoming more likely by the day. Anti-fascist campaigns, in Germany as elsewhere in the world, have only one and the same meaning: to serve as a diversion and steer the proletariat towards a dead end. As we have said repeatedly throughout our existence: the alternative is not democracy or fascism, but socialist revolution or capitalism. It is quite clear that Die Linke has by far nothing to do with this historic struggle, and that on the contrary, the proletariat will have to run over its body if it wants to defend its historic interests.

It is therefore entirely possible for abstentionist communists to draw lessons from these federal elections: firstly, they demonstrate a weakening of the SPD’s social control over the proletariat, the main “social firefighter” since the 14-18 war. They also confirm that the bourgeoisie, far from moderating its aggression against the working class, is determined to step up its offensive. Finally, these elections confirm that the bourgeoisie is always one step ahead and is ready to play the democratic anti-fascist card to prevent any resumption of struggles, which to date has been a real success. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Spinoza, “it is not a question of laughing or crying, but of understanding”. What we do understand, with the help of the powerful determinism of Marxism, is that the bourgeoisie’s unleashing of its fury against the workers of Germany will necessarily lead the proletariat to strike back. Europe’s most numerous proletariat will then have to return to classist methods of struggle to tear up social peace and, moving from the defensive to the offensive, under the leadership of its reconstituted internationalist and international class party, engage in the fight to death with this system condemned by history. Today, this may seem unrealistic; it will be neither easy nor immediate, but the proletariat that gave birth to Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Liebknecht and thousands of other revolutionaries will know tomorrow how to be worthy of its glorious past of class struggle. “Tomorrow the revolution will rise up again, clashing its weapons, and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!” (Rosa Luxemburg, “Order prevails in Berlin”, Die Rote Fahne, no. 14, January 14, 1919) (10).

(1) “The center of gravity of political life has, at present, been removed finally and completely beyond the bounds of parliament.” (Theses on the Communist Parties and Parliamentarism, 2nd Congress of the Communist International, July 1920)

(3) https://www.tunisienumerique.com/crise-de-lindustrie-en-allemagne-des-fermetures-dusines-et-des-milliers-de-licenciements/

(4) https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2025/01/15/l-allemagne-en-recession-pour-la-deuxieme- annee-d-affilee_ 6499318_ 3210.html

(5) https://www.lemonde.fr/ international/ article/2024/01/21/ en-allemagne- la-manifestation- contre-le-parti-d- xtreme-droite- afd-a-munich-i nterrompue-a- cause-de-l-affluence.htm

(6) https://www.courrierinternational.com/ une/une-du-jour- olaf-scholz- muscle-son- discours-sur- la-question- migratoire

(7) https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/23/europe/german-election-results-cdu-afd-intl/index.html

(8) https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bundestagswahl-2025-daten-alter-geschlecht-beruf-bildung-linke-li.3203939?reduced=true

(9) https://x.com/ JLMelenchon/ status/ 1en-allemagne-melenchon- explique-la- percee-de-l- extreme-droite- par-la-politique-du-centre-gauche

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