United Left
Vereinigte Linke
Founded2 October 1989 (1989-10-02)
Dissolved~1992
Membership (1989)1,500
IdeologyCommunism
Socialism
Trotskyism
Christian socialism
ColorsRed

The United Left (German: Vereinigte Linke) was an alliance of several leftist opposition groupings in the German Democratic Republic.[1][2] Among them were Christian socialists, Trotskyists, adherents of the Titoist system of workers' self-management and some Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) members, who were critical of their party's policy.

History

Founded on 2 October 1989, only a few weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United Left demanded a reformation of socialism with the stated goal of creating a free and democratic GDR. At the end of the year 1989 the party had 1500 members with focal points in Berlin and Halle. In contrast to other East German opposition groups, the United Left received less support from Western governments and political parties. Organisational issues and internal tensions between the various ideological factions meant that the United Left only achieved limited political success during its existence.

At the first free elections in the GDR in March 1990, the United Left started together with "Die Nelken" ("The Carnations"), a Marxist party. The electoral alliance with the name "Aktionsbündnis Vereinigte Linke" gained 0.18% of the votes and one seat in the Volkskammer. The United Left fell apart in the years after German reunification, but some members were elected to the Bundestag through a party-list of the PDS or The Greens.

Election results

GDR Parliament (Volkskammer)

Election year # of votes % of votes # of seats won +/− Notes
1990 20,342 0.2
1 / 400

References

  1. ↑ Olivo, C. (3 May 2001). Creating a Democratic Civil Society in Eastern Germany: The Case of the Citizen Movements and Alliance 90. Springer. pp. 190–196. ISBN 978-0-312-29959-0.
  2. ↑ Jünke, Christoph (December 2007). "A New Formation with Potential Pitfalls: The New German Linkspartei". Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. 15 (3): 307–319. doi:10.1080/09651560701711646. ISSN 0965-156X. S2CID 144959401.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.