FEDERATION
By Manfred Ernst
Frankfurt
The twenty-second annual congress of the Sozialistischer Deutsche Studentenbund [SDS -- Socialist German Student Federation] met in Frankfurt, Septenber 6-8. The meeting displayed the action and high theoretical and political debate which have made this student organization, the only legal left opposition in West Germany today, a dynamic arena in which a new generation of youth have boldly challenged their country's ruling class.
They are the horror and scandal of their fathers, as the sensational newspaper coverage here reveals, but a new and promising revolutionary cadre is being assembled within their ranks.
The delegated conference represented all SDS groups in West Germany and there were more than 200 invited guests, ranging from a delegation from the Soviet Union to a delegation from the Fourth International.
The spirit and temper of the conference was symbolized by a large flag of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front dominating the wall behind the presidium. The SDS has sparked and organized a series of impressive actions and demonstrations in solidarity with the NLF in the recent period. [See World Outlook, September 8, p. 767.1]
In fact, during the conference itself, SDSers seized the opportunity to demonstrate their modus operandi: A pro- American, ClA-subsidized institution in Frankfurt, American House, had imprudently sponsored a symposium at this time on "Vietnam -- Is the American Effort Sufficient?" to which they invited West German journalists and representatives of Newsweek magazine to participate.
To the consternation of the organizers, a delegation of the SDS led by Rudi Dutschke of the Berlin SDS took over the platform, raised an NLF flag, and opened the meeting by singing the "Internationale." Dutschke then introduced an American professor who spoke on Vietnan.
With some 100 SDSers in the audience and SDS control of the podium it was clear that the pro-American organizers had lost control of their meeting and they called the cops. One hundred officers took on the SDSers and finally succeeded in driving them out of the hall.
But once out, the students reinforced and reformed their ranks and staged what they call an "anti-
discussion." The entire action was admi-
rably and smoothly organized with a thor-
oughness that has characterized most of
the Berlin SDS actions. In this case it
served as a laboratory demonstration for
the youth leaders from all over Europe
who had been invited to the congress -- a
demonstration initiated and led by the
Berlin section of the SDS to illustrate
their thesis that in the present context
of West German politics, spirited action
is needed in order to break up the image
of smug conformity that seems to dominate
all of West Germany.
The Berlin section of the SDS is
the dominant tendency inside the SDS and
succeeded in establishing its leadership
of the SDS at this congress.
A major debate on the congress
floor on the role of the working class
brought the Berlin tendency in confronta-
tion with a loose coalition of tendencies
which can roughly be described as spokes-
men and sympathizers of the illegal West
German Kommunistischen Partei [CP -- Com-
munist party].
The CP is actually a small appara-
tus kept alive for its possible usefulness
ultimately in bargaining between East and
West Germany.
The Berlin students, beginning
their political lives with wholesale re-
jection of the West German bourgeois es-
tablishment, also tend, like many American
students, to overlook the revolutionary
potential of a largely conservatized work-
ing class.
This has led to the popularity of
Herbert Marcuse, whose writings find a
ready echo in the students' own present
experience. In a sense they are being
victimized by Marcuse, who represents an
old generation that saw all its hopes
destroyed by Stalinism and fascism. Pre-
ferring to forget its own responsibilities
for that dark period, it takes a lugubri-
ous revenge by denying the class struggle
and the historical role of the working
class.
But these students have nothing in
common with the old, defeated and sour
survivors of the past. That Marcuse now
sees progress through classless conscious-
ness of a presumed elite brings his views
into a temporary accord with a new genera-
tion of students who have entered the
political stage -- and see that they oc-
cupy it almost exclusively.
Formally and to a large extent ab-
stractly, the other tendency in the con-
gress, which the Berlin group calls pro- Stalinist, defended the Marxist view on the role of the working class. This, of course, is the weak side of the Berlin group and it leaves them wide open to attack.
But when it comes down to basic decisions of what to do now and how to do it, the Berlin group shows its superiority. The others gave the very strong inpression of being rather passive elements who would like to put the SDS at the disposal of the trade-union bureaucracies.
When this tendency introduced a debate on a motion to fight for the legalization of the West German CP, which to them was the major question for the congress, they met defeat because they refused to agree that all revolutionary groups be legalized. This would include the Fourth Internationalists in Germany. The tendency's sectarianism tripped it up.
A further debate took place on a resolution hailing the fiftieth anniversary of the October revolution. Here the division between Stalinist-influenced and left-wing students became quite clear. The left wing wanted to differentiate between the program and ideas of October in Lenin's time and the myths and parody of the Kremlin usurpers at present. One of the Berlin delegates spoke of the disastrous heritage of Stalinism and its consequences. Pointing to the East German regime, he denied that it should be called a truly socialist state and said it must be characterized as a transitional state that could lead to socialisn.
A delegate from Heidelberg called attention to the festivities being organized in West Germany by the Soviet enbassy to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. He said that Kiesinger, Strauss, Beitz and 1,696 leaders of big business, finance and the church were invited to a special party to be given by the Russian ambassador.
A high point was the announcement that a representative of the Fourth International would address the convention. The audience, which had generally kept up a buzz of conversation and moving around during all addresses, came immediately to attention and an uncommon quiet descended as Thomas Clement, the young representative of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, began to speak. He took up some of the issues in dispute, relating them to the worldwide revolutionary struggle of today, from Vietnam to Latin America. [See text of speech elsewhere in this issue. ]
Following his remarks, the Soviet delegation -- all middle aged -- left the congress, to the amusement of the majority of delegates present. They sent a letter
to the congress which was read the next
day.
It protested the appearance of the
Fourth International spokesman and what
they called the "anti-Soviet spirit" of
the congress. The contrast between the
reception given their spokesman and that
given to the spokesman of the Fourth
International was too humiliating to be
ignored. In this small but significant
episode, one can read the harsh judgment
being drawn up by a new generation of
German revolutionists on Stalinism --
straight or sugar-coated.
It is too early to predict the
final evolution of this student movement.
But obviously at the present time it is
of considerable importance in a regroup~
ing and reorienting process that is tak-
ing place in West Germany.
It would be superficial and nis-
taken to take the formal ideology of the
present dominant leadership which is
heavily burdened with Marcusian concep-
tions and read into it an inevitable evo-
lution to the right and other dire con-
sequences. To be sure, this ideology car-
ries with it an inevitable collision with
the fundamental historical tide of the
European working class.
If one accepts the basic premise
of this thinking, which posits the com-
plete passivity of the working class as
a_ class, then all prospects of a revolu-
tionary socialist transformation includ-
ing that attempted by an elite of so-
called conscious people fall to the
ground.
Then the work and sacrifices of
the SDS cadres themselves will turn out
to have had only a nuisance value. Much
more must be said about the basic propo-
sitions of Marcuse insofar as they in-
fluence the program and thinking of these
students, but this requires another arti-
cle. Nevertheless, we will see how Mar-
cuse's basically antihistorical construc-
tion stands up at the first serious test
of strength between the German bourgeoisie
and the many-millioned German proletariat.
And we are safe, I think, in con-
cluding that there is a world of differ-
ence between the Marcusian speculations
of a defeated professor in his study, and
the exhilarating self-consciousness of
students who take on the cops in Berlin
and Frankfurt.
An entire generation of German
revolutionists was destroyed by Hitler
after being betrayed by German Social
Democracy and Stalinism. The revolution-
ary socialist continuity was snapped and
its human agents were pulverized. Now the
threads of that continuity are slowly
being spliced together in the hands of a
new generation. As many times before, students are the first to take up that task and so it is in West Germany today.
Two strongly positive orientations were manifested by the leadership and cadre of the SDS which gives it big promise for the future. The first was its wholehearted identification with the worldwide struggle against imperialism and the second was its realization that it must orient to the organization of young high-school students who are, after all, the proletarians of tomorrow.
And one should mention also the avid interest these students have in ideas and program. At the very least, they will help swell a demand for revolutionary literature in Germany which will bear its own fruit. This was clearly manifested at the Frankfurt