It is easy being green, but it's best to be red: German Greens 
prove Leninism necessary

ITAL Many of the new people drawn into Green politics by the Nader 
campaign have not seriously studied the history of the Green 
movement or other movements against war and environmental 
destruction. The Green Party in Amerika models itself after the 
older, more established Green movement in Europe. We can learn 
important lessons -- albeit negative lessons -- from the 
experiences of the European Greens. That is why we reprint this 
MIM Notes article and some of the discussion it generated on the 
Internet. END

MIM Notes 187 June 1 1999

On May 13th, the German Green Party caved into its militarist 
Social Democratic Party allies and voted down a resolution to end 
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. This was a reflection on the rank-and-
file of the Green Party and not just its government leaders who 
had already supported NATO's actions. The Green Party stance 
proves that the Greens are no alternative to real internationalist 
communism when it comes to leading the peace movement.

The Social Democrats currently rule in Germany in an alliance with 
the Greens. The Green Party's votes in the German legislature 
guarantee power for Social Democratic Party leader Chancellor 
Gerhard Schroeder to rule in Germany.(1) Voting for the resolution 
"would probably have brought down the Government of the Social 
Democratic Chancellor," according to the New York Times and 
MIM.(2) The Green Party could only oppose the NATO bombing by 
quitting the government and pushing along new elections or a 
different marriage partner for the ruling Social Democrats.

Greens usually list "nonviolence/peace" as one of their top 
principles. A description for German Greens reads as follows: "In 
the field of security and peace, Bndnis 90/Die Grnen advocate a 
policy of non-military solutions to conflicts. We want to 
strengthen the OSCE process instead of enlarging the NATO. German 
peace-keeping contingents should operate only under a clear 
international mandate and not be structured as military 
forces."(3) 

Yet, Green parties never require anti-militarism of its 
imperialist country members. Hence, how Greens put together their 
supposed values is rather murky and we get the results we got in 
Germany. 

In World War I, it was the "Social-Democrats" of various European 
countries who went back on their windbag speeches and resolutions 
and supported the war. Today, the role of key warmonger may fall 
on the German "Green Party."

The Greens are a grab-bag of various environmentalists, pacifists, 
anarchists and ultra-democrats. The average Green is a foggy 
friend of the proletariat. In the May 15th MIM Notes, we reported 
some internal strife in the Green Party over the issue, but thus 
far, the majority appears to support the leadership. Just as in 
the main right-wing bourgeois party the Christian Democrats, 68 
percent of Greens support the bombing. Apparently two out of three 
NATO citizens support the bombing and the average Green is no 
different.(4) 

Over two-thirds of all Germans do not believe bombing will work, 
but it does not matter what party one is in on that question. 
Likewise, the members of all parties oppose sending ground troops. 
Of note on the question, the Social Democratic Party has above 
average support for sending ground troops; although The Economist 
article does not explain if the difference is "statistically 
significant."(4) 

To the credit of the PDS (ex-phony communists), only 27 percent 
support the bombing. Given that party's history of supporting the 
Soviet Union, we cannot be too sure there is much principled in 
that political opposition either.(4)

In former East Germany, the majority opposes the bombing. Thus the 
ex-communists may make some headway in bourgeois elections 
there.(4)

Meanwhile, in other tensions for Germany, a deputy Defense 
Minister said he doubted initial NATO claims that an outdated map 
caused the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Likewise, a 
German newspaper reported a senior NATO official as saying NATO 
had a correct map with the Chinese Embassy clearly marked.(1)

The Greens could have been a falling domino against bourgeois 
stability if they had come out against the war. From MIM's point 
of view, the German situation is again one where war clarifies 
political reality. Trailing off into "deep ecology" religion, 
witchcraft and other unscientific and petty-bourgeois 
philosophies, the Greens just do not have an intellectual basis 
for opposing the war. It is further proof that vaguely populist 
strategies do not work when the chips are down or when it counts. 
There is no short-cut to social change; the painstaking work of 
Leninism is necessary -- building a party and coming to a 
scientific understanding of imperialism and war.

Notes:

1. Peter Graff, "Russia Takes Hard Line on Kosovo Mediation," 
Reuters, 13 May 1999. Redistributed at 
http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/features/Kosovo/home.html

2. The New York Times 14 May 1999

3. http://www2.europeangreens.org/europeangreens/germany.html

4. The Economist 24 April 1999, pp. 50-1.

Well, is it really "easy to be green, best to be red?"

One persyn responded to MIM's claim that "German Greens prove 
Leninism necessary" as follows: "No they don't. If anything, what 
has happened is an example of them becoming more Lenninist/Maoist 
in terms of the idea of the heroic leader. Nothing in the 
dictatorship ideas of Mao or Lenin will prove any sort of 
solution."

To which MIM replied: "So you consider the German Green leader 
Joschka Fischer a heroic leader? You consider your 444 votes by 
the Green delegates for the bombing  of Yugoslavia (NYTimes 
Magazine, 30May99, p. 31) to be proof there is no need for Lenin? 
Marxism has been around longer. We have experience. Those people 
should have been purged from the party before they ever got a 
chance to be such hypocrites, before they got a chance to lend the 
legitimacy of the Green Party to the militarist state. Now all the 
work of the German Greens is not only not good, it is counter-
productive. The reason is that the Greens were intentionally foggy 
on principles including the need for

centralism."

Another thread raised the usual shibboleths about Communists being 
butchers because Communists admit to using force as a tool to 
eradicate the far more severe violence of starvation, disease, and 
predatory war. MIM argues that Mao, who admittedly used violence 
against class enemies of the proletariat, did more to eradicate 
violence than the supposedly non-violent Ghandi. Famine remains 
endemic in India to this day, while under Mao hunger was 
controlled to the extent that Chinese life expectancies caught up 
to and surpassed those in India.

One reader criticized this argument: "Since when is utilitarianism 
the root of all ethics? I know it's very attractive because you 
can do the math with it, but are the numbers really an appropriate 
ground on which to base all ethics? Something tells me you've 
listened a little too much to Mr. Spock."

MIM replied: "Yes, we admit to being admirers of Mr. Spock. 'The 
good of the many outweighs that of the one.' Utilitarianism is an 
ethics. However, the calculations are not a part of ethics. Those 
can be made scientifically. 

"This thread started with a discussion of 'non-violence.' Yet 
there is no place in this world except historically existing 
'primitive communist' tribes that have non-violence in practice 
and that's why calculation enters. What matters is  what happens 
in practice. 

"The various Greens in the world can claim to be for "non-
violence," but if so, we Maoists say they should be Maoists. In 
the hands of the Greens "non-violence" is an abstraction that ends 
up in applications of diverse sorts, including support for bombing 
in Kosovo. In the hands of Maoists, "non-violence" is closest to 
actually being implemented.

"Of course, we have to rebut the fools who know Mao had people 
shot and are insensitive to the violence all around them -- 
starvation etc. -- to such an extent they don't even count it 
anymore."