On a sunny, bizarrely warm February afternoon, Berlin鈥檚 central streets are alive with what feels like a festival-like atmosphere. Young people sip beers overlooking the Spree River, having dipped out of work earlier than usual. Many older people seem to have an extra smile at their disposal today.
It is also the dead of winter and a Monday, but it鈥檚 just hours since Germany鈥檚 election results came in. The far-right Alternative for Deutchland鈥檚 (AfD) has nearly doubled its vote, becoming the country鈥檚 second-largest political force.
So why is this notoriously left-leaning city celebrating?
Berlin turns red 鈥 again
Die Linke (The Left), the country鈥檚 democratic socialist party, staged a huge upset in the capital, Berlin, winning 21.8% of the city鈥檚 vote, taking every former East Berlin district aside from Marzahn 鈥 which went to AfD 鈥 and winning its first ever direct mandate in the former West Berlin.
Perhaps it鈥檚 because Berlin ist nicht Deutschland (Berlin is not Germany), they say. It鈥檚 a bubble, famously a bastion of progressivism and radicalism, a city that was so detested by Adolf Hitler, that he wanted it reconstructed from the ground-up as the capital, Germania.
Even outside of Berlin, Die Linke was perhaps the election night鈥檚 second biggest winner after the AfD.
The party had been polling so poorly at the start of the year that it risked passing into oblivion, barely managing more than 3% (the threshold for Bundestag representation is 5%). In the European Union elections last year, it didn鈥檛 even make 3% percent nationally.
In the 2021 federal election, the party won 4.9% of the votes, only making it into parliament because of a loophole that allows parties with three direct mandates to enter.
So it was a shock to see Die Linke pick up 8.8% of the vote nationally in this election, its third best result since it formed in 2007 as a merger between the East German post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the West German Social Democratic Party (SPD) split, Labour and Social Justice 鈥 The Alternative.
I joined Die Linke after moving to Berlin in 2018, but left the party by 2021. My initial sense of the party as the mass, working-class party that was desperately needed within and outside of parliament (鈥渙ne foot in the parliament and one in the streets鈥) was overtaken by a sense that it was dying as a political force.
Its membership had largely been made up of pensioners from the former German Democratic Republic, even as it became a party of 鈥 in urban centers like Berlin 鈥 middle-class youth wedded to identity politics and participation in cultural questions that didn鈥檛 interest most blue-collar workers. The party鈥檚 pluralism 鈥 which I think can and should be a strong characteristic of a truly democratic working-class party 鈥 seemed to be tearing it apart as some of its more prominent members wanted a return to labour.
This return seemed to come by way of a split, when Sahra Wagenknecht 鈥 once seen as Germany鈥檚 most popular politician 鈥 left in September 2023 along with several other MPs to form the imaginatively named Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Yet, the new party鈥檚 focus on the worker seemed to come by tailing the far right, putting forward positions on migration that on the surface one could barely distinguish from Alice Weidel鈥檚 AfD.
The BSW entered a few state parliaments in the east, but perhaps most illustrative of their approach was entering into a CDU-led government in Thuringia. Perhaps not so surprising, as the BSW refers to itself not as a socialist party, nor even a left-wing party, but simply 鈥渘ot a right-wing party鈥.
Enter Die Linke鈥檚 pivot back to the working-class and their focus on bread and butter issues. Already ahead of the campaign kick-off in January, the party looked much more determined, at least in Berlin.
Die Linke campaigners knocked on my door for the first time in seven years, weeks later. A young party member asked if he could sit with me for 15 or 20 minutes to ask what my main concerns were around the cost of living. Was it groceries? Was it rent? I was actually fairly taken aback.
Days later, Die Linke put up posters in my district of Mitte, organising a town-hall to address spiralling rent costs and the fact that many tenants of the municipal housing corporation WBM were paying too much in rent.
Was Berlin an anomaly? The party says campaigners knocked on more than 600,000 doors in the run-up to the election across the country.
Die Linke鈥檚 saving grace 鈥 in terms of a personality to resonate with especially younger voters 鈥 has undoubtedly been Heidi Reichinnek, the 36-year-old tattooed co-leader in the Bundestag. Reichinnek gave a fiery speech against the AfD that went viral, when the CDU (and the BSW) voted with the AfD on anti-migrant legislation.
Even before election night, the party experienced its quickest growth ever. Two days after the election, they announced they had surpassed 100,000 members, a stunning result that easily makes it the fastest growing political force in the country.
Mainstream parties can鈥檛 fight fascism
It seems evident that there is a direct correlation between the rise of neo-fascism on the one hand and the rise of Die Linke, on the other. When the CDU鈥檚 approach of fighting the far right is to become more like them, they must be fought with just as much strength.
Incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz is not of the soft-right, centrist mold of former leader Angela Merkel. He has always been much more firmly positioned on the right flank of the party, and even Merkel herself criticised him for breaking the brandmauer (firewall) against collaboration with the AfD.
Nor can anti-fascists trust the SPD. Its worst ever election result since the end of World War 2 was hardly a surprise. Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz came into office in 2021 promising to effectively change nothing from the Merkel years, and spoke against engaging in class war. The only problem is that class war is being waged consistently, regardless, on behalf of the ruling class and their monopolies.
Scholz openly abdicated the SPD鈥檚 traditional role as the party of workers by telling them to not punch back. Largely cosmetic overhauls of a broken social welfare system didn鈥檛 do much to appease the neediest and most vulnerable.
His reliance on the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) was represented in the person of finance minister Christian Lindner, now voted out of parliament entirely. On migration, Scholz also stepped to the right, re-applying border controls that contravened European Union law as they fed into fear-mongering around 鈥渃riminal migrants鈥. The SPD鈥檚 scapegoating of asylum seekers presented with a slightly more liberal packaging than the CDU or AfD.
One issue has united all of the parties of the outgoing coalition: the SPD, the FDP and the increasingly hawkish Green Party, along with the CDU and the AfD. That is the question of support for Israel鈥檚 genocide of the Palestinian people.
Scholz and his foreign minister Annalena Baerbock unquestionably have been responsible for the facilitation of the mass slaughter of those in Gaza, with Scholz famously saying in October, 鈥渨e have delivered weapons to Israel, and we will continue to deliver weapons鈥. This was long after it was clear that the Israeli state had committed heinous war crimes, and as the International Criminal Court was deliberating on whether to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
Germany is responsible for around a third of weapons exports to Israel, which they see as part of staatsraeson (reason of state), which assumes Germany鈥檚 debt to Jews should be manifested in support for the state of Israel rather than to Jews as people. Perhaps this doesn鈥檛 make the SPD or the Greens fascist 鈥 but there must be a word to explain the heinous nature of their position, and it certainly means they cannot be seen as part of any genuine anti-fascist alliance.
Die Linke鈥檚 foreign policy contradictions
But what about Die Linke鈥檚 position? Hasn鈥檛 it also been somewhat complicit in the genocide due to an often murky, confusing narrative on the question?
Die Linke doesn鈥檛 call what鈥檚 happening to the Palestinian people a genocide. The party says it opposes all weapons shipments, but some members seem to say the opposite, whether in the case of Israel, or Ukraine.
The party has put forward candidates in local elections tied to Antideutsch, a nominally left-wing organisation most known for its extreme support of Israel under any circumstances. Bodo Ramelow, Die Linke鈥檚 former minister in Thuringia, is widely known for his pro-Israel stance.
Die Linke鈥檚 character as a broad, mass socialist party can be a strength, but can also at times be frustrating and lead to indefensible positions. The party鈥檚 official stance is for an end to the occupation of the West Bank and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. It celebrated the ceasefire and opposed Israel鈥檚 invasion and bombing of Lebanon. However, privately and publicly, individual members have taken positions that seem to defy this.
That being said, one of Die Linke鈥檚 new MPs gives us reason for hope in a more firmly anti-imperialist orientation for the party. Ferat Ko莽ak, a member of Berlin鈥檚 state parliament since 2021, became the first member of the party to secure a direct mandate in the former West Berlin, winning Neuk枚lln district with 30% of the vote.
Ko莽ak, born to Kurdish immigrant parents, opposes Turkey鈥檚 genocidal war against the Kurdish people, and has been open about labeling Israel鈥檚 actions in Gaza a genocide. His anti-fascist work in the district and his principled stance on Palestine will be a welcome breath of fresh air in the parliament for a party that otherwise seemed to try sidestepping questions of war and peace during the election campaign.
For example, Die Linke鈥檚 traditional position on opposition to NATO is ambiguous. The party is in favour of a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine and even put forward its own peace proposal. However, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, those party members who signed a statement attributing significant blame for the war to NATO expansion were berated by the leadership and elders like Gregor Gysi.
The AfD is the enemy, but what about the AfD voter?
Despite Die Linke鈥檚 gains on February 23, the AfD outstripped it significantly, garnering 20.8% of the vote and picking up more than 10 million votes.
Many liberal commentators would have you believe that the success of the AfD in the former East is largely to the easterners not having a significant grasp of democratic politics. For these commentators, an authoritarian streak runs through the souls of the ex-citizens of the GDR, and they are happy to embrace fascism as a replacement for Marxism-Leninism.
The reality is that the rise of the far right in the east has taken place on fertile ground.
Just like much of Europe, it finds expression in places that have endured deindustrialisation, where the mainstream parties have failed to put forward convincing programs or answers to the problems people face. Former East Germans largely still feel like second-class citizens, something that was even conceded by Angela Merkel upon leaving office in 2021.
Job and housing insecurity and a general feeling of anxiousness about the future permeate. When the economy of the former GDR was privatised in the early 1990s, more than 2.5 million people lost their jobs, accounting for 25% of the labour force. Most of those jobs and industry have never returned.
It might seem contradictory, but it makes sense why former East Germans can long for the stability and dignified lives they had in the former socialist east, while voting for a party that represents much of the opposite ideologically.
After all, most AfD voters are casting their ballot as a protest vote, not necessarily as ideological voters. They aren鈥檛 wrong to know that something is fundamentally broken about the system and to want an alternative 鈥 it鈥檚 just that the alternative presented can鈥檛 really get to the root cause of their problems, and just provides scapegoats at best.
On this issue, we have to be honest that the left has also failed in recent years. And although it won Berlin, it still was overrun by the AfD in the east, with the exception of pockets of Leipzig. Its return to bread and butter issues maybe came too late to make a tangible difference on the electoral map.
It鈥檚 not just in the east where the AfD is making inroads, though. Gelsenkirchen, located in the industrial heartland of the Ruhr valley far out west, is the poorest city in the country. Long a safe SPD district, the AfD outperformed them in total numbers even while winning the direct mandate there.
Are AfD voters racist or yearn for fascism? Some are. Most aren鈥檛, or can at least be won away from that. We are seeing a situation in which the base for the AfD and much of the far right across Europe is increasingly the working class. This is in contrast to the rise of Nazism in Germany in the late 1920s and early 30s where it was the middle class that tended to vote for Hitler鈥檚 party that had fused itself with big business.
We can either choose to blame people for the way that they vote 鈥 something along the lines of Hillary Clinton looking down on working-class Trump voters as deplorables 鈥 or engage with the issues that will win them to actual liberatory politics. This makes the necessity of a strong left all the more important. People鈥檚 anti-systemic impulses need to be given direction and clarity so that they aren鈥檛 channeled in a reactionary direction.
Looking forward to the parliament 鈥 and the streets
For my part, I am once again re-engaged with Die Linke. I do so cautiously, and with no illusions of the party鈥檚 shortcomings and defects. The indispensability of a mass working-class party and a mass anti-fascist party seems highly relevant at this moment.
If I could offer a suggestion to the blossoming Left, it would be to not wander into territory where defending democracy becomes synonymous with defending the system. Much of populism鈥檚 support these days comes from people who conflate the systemic problems with those of democracy itself. Democracy needs to be defended, but at the same time formal avenues should not be fetishised.
Sixty-four Bundestag seats is a great result for Die Linke 鈥 but parliament is just a venue for struggle, not the end all. The danger with such bourgeois structures is the conservatising effect they can have on parties that participate within them.
The streets remain primary and where real change will be initiated 鈥 and where the fight for true democracy will be brought to a head.
[Marcel Cartier is a critically acclaimed hip-hop artist, journalist and author, based in Berlin. His book Serkeftin: A Narrative of the Rojava Revolution (2019) was one of the first major accounts in English of the structures set up in northern Syria by the Kurdish forces.]