The KPD ran 20 candidates in the Land elections in Hesse in October 1973. These received 4,152 votes, or 0.1 percent of the total. On the same day, it got 6,719 votes in Bavaria Land elections, which was also approximately 0.1 percent.[205]
In October 1976 elections, the KPD received 22,714 votes, again 0.1 percent of the total. Eric Waldman reported that “The KPD also participated in Land and municipal elections and submitted candidates in 70 factory elections of shop stewards. KPD candidates were elected in 30 industrial firms.[206]
In 1976, Eric Waldman sketched the subsidiary and front organizations of the KPD. He said that “The Communist Youth League … is the youth organization of the KPD. … It considered itself as the ‘fighting organization of the working youth and the reserve of the party.’ … The KPD-affiliated student organization, the Communist Student League … is highly active in many universities. The Communist High School Student League … has its own central organ, the Sckulkamp. KPD-controlled ‘mass organizations’ include the Rote Hilfe, the product of the merger of several Rote Hilfe groups. … Another is the League Against Imperialism … which celebrated its fourth anniversary on 14 July 1975. It has headquarters in Cologne, with units in several Lander, and an official organ. … The Association of Socialist Artists … was founded at Whitsuntide 1975. … The VSK [Vereingigung Sozialistischer Kulturschaffender] has local groups in at least 12 cities.”[207]
Presumably following what it thought to be in the best interests of the Chinese, the KPD in 1975 not only endorsed the maintenance of U.S. troops in Europe but even the arming of West German troops with atomic weapons. Concerning the latter, Rote Fahne, the KPD paper, wrote that “Nuclear weapons in the hands of the West European states are weapons of justice when they serve to defend freedom and independence against the superpowers.”
As for U.S. troops staying in Western Europe, Rote Fahne said that “Today the situation is such that European countries do not have sufficient defense forces of their own to counter successfully a military attack by Soviet social imperialism, the major enemy of the European peoples and states. … The struggle against U.S. troops in our country serves only Soviet social imperialism.”[208]
By 1976, the KPD was apparently in decline. Its membership dropped from 900 to 700 in that year, and it was reported that it could only mobilize “up to 5,500 sympathizers for its various actions, or half of the number of the previous year.” Its Second Congress held in July 1976 adopted a policy of alliances with other groups.[209]
At its Third Congress in March 1980, the KPD decided to dissolve itself, by a two-thirds vote. Eric Waldman noted, The KPD left behind debts amounting to several hundred thousand DM, 250,000 DM alone as the result of legal obligations arising from the party’s spectacular occupation of Bonn’s city hall (10 April 1973) to protest the visit of the then president of South Vietnam.”[210]
Apparently the KPD remained loyal to the Chinese as long as it continued to exist. In 1978 the party Chairman, Christian Semler, headed a delegation that went to China. At the time that Vietnam moved troops in to overthrow the Pol Pot regime (supported by the Chinese) in Cambodia, the KPD announced that it “supports Cambodia in its struggle against foreign domination (i.e., Vietnam) and maintains contact with Maoist parties in Turkey and Belgium.”[211]
The Communist League of West Germany
The third significant Maoist party in West Germany and the most important one after the disappearance of the KPD, was the Communist League of West Germany (Kommunistischer Bund Westdeutschlands—KBW). It was founded at a conference in Bremen in June 1973, which was said to have merged 25 different smaller groups, most of them offshoots of the New Left SDS of the late 1960s. Its principal periodical was Kommunistische Volkszeitung.[212]
In March 1975, the KBW held its Second Conference in Ludwigshafen with 98 delegates in attendance, said to represent 1,700 members in 46 local groups. It was reported that “Representatives from 76 communist groups from all parts of the FRG [Federal Republic of Germany] attended as guests.” The conference elected a new 15-member central committee, which chose a five member “permanent committee.”
In 1975, the KBW succeeded in electing one of its members to the city council in Heidelberg. Also, on September 21, it was a major factor in organizing a demonstration of 20,000 people in Bonn against a law prohibiting abortion.[213]
In 1975—1976, when all of the Maoist groups were putting forth their attitudes toward the West German army, the Bundeswehr, and participation in NATO, the KBW denounced “as betrayal of the working class” the position of the KPD in favor of maintenance of American troops in West Germany. It was reported that “The KBW supports universal military training because it ensures that the workers will learn how to handle weapons and thereby obtain the capability to free themselves from capitalist suppression. The slogan about ‘turning the guns around’ in case of war expresses the attitude of the KBW.”[214]
In 1979, Eric Waldman reported that “One of the main efforts of the KBW is the struggle against the Bundeswehr. … The anti-military activity is based on the ‘Directives for Military Problems’ and consists of two phases. The first is the creation of conspiratorial units within the military and other security organs of the FRG. … The second phase is disruption by KBW groups of military activities when the military is employed on behalf of the ‘bourgeois.’”[215]
In 1977, the KBW took part in some local elections. It received about 0.1 percent of the total vote in Hesse. In that same year, in March, in a demonstration in Grohunde against building a nuclear power plant, “a few hundred members of the KBW transformed a peaceful demonstration of about 15,000 persons into a fierce struggle with the police.”
By 1977, the KBW was by far the largest of the German Maoist parties. It was credited with about 3,500 members “and twice as many sympathizers.” One report on the party at that time noted that “The new organizational structure divided the party into three regions and forty district units. Hans Gerhard Schmierer is secretary of the Central Committee. In 1977 the KBW bought a large building in Frankfurt for more than $1 million to serve as its new headquarters and training center. It also bought an expensive computer communication system to keep in close touch with its field organizations.”[216]
Some information is available on the sources of funding for the KBW at the apex of its influence. Some of it (about 3.4 million DM) came from membership dues, which were about $40 a month. Another 1 million DM came from “gifts from ‘mass organizations’” and an additional 2 million from the sale of the party’s literature. It was reported that “The members pay a high percentage of their income to the party and are requested to transfer their savings, inheritances etc., to the KBW treasury.”[217]
At this time, the KBW had a Communist University Group (KHG) and a Communist Youth League (KJB), which were reported to have in all about 1,500 members. Its periodical Kommunistische Volkseitung was said to have a circulation of 35,000 copies, and the party was also publishing a monthly theoretical organ, Kommunismus und Klassenkampf.[218]
205
Eric Waldman, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1975, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 184.
209
Eric Waldman, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1978, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 149.
213
Waldman, 1976, op. cit, pages 155—156; see also SED, Documentation 1977, volume 2, pages 219—235 for program of KBW, and pages 236—238 for its statutes.