Talk:The Left (Germany)

"Trivia Section"

I think, that kind of "trivia"-section has nothing to do with trivia but is a politically statement to critizise the party. I am from Germany, but don´t support "The Left", but the Trivia could get into a "Critizism" section or in the article about Oskar Lafontaine - also as critizism, but not so called "trivia". I will delete that kind of trivia section because of that reasons. You could also make a "trivia" section about the Democratic Party of the United States and whrite "Althoug the Democratic Party supported slavery in the 19th Century, now they have the first black presidential candidate Barack Obama." But that where in the actuell context no kind of trivia but critizism. --80.133.190.3 (talk) 16:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

As you might have noticed: The democratic party has nothing in common with this party and slavery was more than 100 years ago. I think it is important to mention that the leader of the party just criticized it that heavily only few years ago. Would for example Bill Clinton have supported slavery in the 90ties, it would have certainly found a place in the article of the democratic party. Under this circumstances and because Mr Lafontaine did this very often in the 90ties, I think it should be left in the article. Please don't remove references, you may change the text but leave the references in. Reachtests (talk) 10:05, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Trivia sections --Soman (talk) 10:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Translation of Name?

Is it really appropriate to translate the name "Die Linke" into English? 172.174.54.138 09:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

We don't call the SPD "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" we call it the Social Democratic Party of Germany. We don't call the FDP the "Freie Demokratische Partei", we call it the Free Democratic Party. More tellingly, we don't call the Greens "Bündnis '90/Die Grünen", we call it Alliance '90/The Greens, and still more tellingly, we didn't name the article for that predecessor party "Die Linke.PDS", we called it The Left Party.PDS. It's just precedent. Oh, and not to mention: it's policy on the English Wikipedia to use English in article titles. Find me an English-language news article about this party calling "Die Linke." and I might change my mind. Lockesdonkey 18:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The official title is "Die Partei DIE LINKE" ("The Party THE LEFT"), abbreviated to "DIE LINKE." But German media are ignoring the capitals and simply using "Die Linke" or "Linkspartei" (Left Party). Standard usage for the English-language services of Deutsche Welle and dpa is "Left Party" and "The Left." "Left Party" is a reasonable translation of the party's full name, "Die Partei DIE LINKE," and "The Left" of the party's abbreviated title, "DIE LINKE."--langohio 19:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Would "Die Partei DIE LINKE" translate more clearly as "The party of the Left?" In addition, I have heard the party's name being spoken as just "Linke". Free Socialist 12:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Free Socialist (talk • contribs)

No, it wouldn't. "Die Partei DIE LINKE" is equivalent to such names as "Political Party 'Ukrainian Freedom'" in the Ukraine -- we only use "Ukrainian Freedom" as the party name in such cases. —Nightstallion 19:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Redirecting to The Left Party.PDS

I think it's sensible to do the same as was done in the German WP. Basically that would be:

- This article would be removed. - The Left Party.PDS would be renamed to The Left. - The Left Party.PDS would redirect to the new location.

The ideological and historical differences with the recent name change and addition of the WASG are very small and I think Die Linke is most approriately seen as an evolution of that party rather than a new entity.

88.72.212.200 (talk) 00:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Parteiprogramm Die Deutsche Linke 2008 und 2009

Es gibt in Bayern 2008 die Kommunalwahlen und die Landtagswahlen

Es gibt in Bayern 2009 die Bayrische Wahl des Bundespräsidenten, die Bayrische Wahl zum Europaparlament, die Bayrische Wahl der 44 Bayrischen Direktmandatebundestagsabgeordneten aus Bayern.

2009 wählen bei den Wahlen zum Europaparlament und zum Deutschen Bundestag 48.000.000 Deutsche Wahlberechtigte.

193.208.90.130 (talk) 10:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC) PC 1715 1989/1990

So, what's your point? MikeZ (talk) 09:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Observation

The article says: "It is currently observed by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, responsible for the surveillance of anti-constitutional activities in Germany." But the "Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz" does only observe some working groups into this party not the whole party. Further the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz thinks the observation of this party is no longer needed. (http://de.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idDEBUC74192320080127)87.174.38.58 (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to explain in detail, which parts of the Linkspartei like the "communist platform" are in the focus of the observation, this would be fine. But simly delete the fact of the observation has not worked in the german wikipedia and will not work here.Karsten11 (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of proven facts

Hi,

there is one anonymous IP constantly removing facts about the party. It is about its extreme tendencies, for example openly demand a change from the democratic system to a non-democratic system in Germany and its connection to terrorist groups all over the world. I don't know why the IP deletes these facts, because major parts of die Linke are openly not democratic.

Here are the proven facts:

• More than 75% of the members have been member of the dictator party SED.

• At least seven members of the Bundestag of "Die Linke" are former employees of the Stasi which consistently violated human rights in East Germany by doing murders, tortures and other cruel crimes.

• Many members of Die Linke are sympathetic to terrorist groups (for example PKK, ETA, Farc and many more) and dictators . These groups are also forbidden in Germany and considered to be terrorist groups by the European Union.

Reachtests (talk) 10:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

--Hi Reachtests, I just now removed your biased language, which has no place in an encyclopaedic entry (this is the first and only time I have done so, so someone else did it previously).

• To constantly refer to the SED as a 'dictator' party is non-neutral language. This is one of your more justifiable points since the SED claimed to believe in the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. However, neither Ulbricht nor Honecker were dictators like Hitler, Pinochet, Franco, etc., control rested in the Politburo of the SED and these leaders could be done away with at their will (as was Ulbricht). As you mention in the talk page your point is to demonise the Left Party on this issue by implying that its leaders are pro-dictatorship and pro-terrorism, whereas I do not believe the SPD and CDU and FDP pages claim to have begun as 'dictator parties' due to having many prominent members from the NSDAP (as they should not). Perhaps this is just an anti-Left, or anti-DDR bias.

• • Secondly this is not a phrase in English. 'Dictator party' ( < Diktaturpartei??) makes no sense in English. Taken on face value, it would seem to mean a party that exists to support a dictator. If you were to phrase something better like, "75% of members were members of the SED, which for 40 years was in power in East Germany and led with authoritarian rule", then perhaps it would be acceptable. But what you have written is clearly emotional and biased.

• As for the Stasi, pointing out that they were involved in human rights violations when your only point is that certain members of the Linkspartei collaborated with them is unnecessary. How many members of CDU and SPD have collaborated with the CIA? Is the West German secret police as well as Verfassungsschutz not involved in any human rights violations if we use the same ideology-neutral standard for all nations? But it seems to me politically incorrect to talk about how the BRD spies on its citizens and compare this to the Stasi. In any case, your comment could be admitted if such comments for the other traditional BRD parties were more allowed and common.

• Many members of CDU, SPD, FDP, and Greens are sympathetic to terrorist groups KLA, Chechen terrorists, the Israeli Defence Force and certainly maintain relations with certain dictators and authoritarian presidents. But this information will also not be found in a typical Wikipedia article on these parties. Again a double standard used to make the Left Party look like some sort of cross of Hitler and Stalin while all other political players are supposed to be somehow normal, clean, so-called "democratic" leaders, despite how much they act against the will of the people, particularly on economic and social policy.

Hello, if you have proven facts that these parties are officially sympathetic to terrorist groups which are officially recognized as terrorist group than add this to their articles. However I only find official statements of The Left spoken by their leaders or documented in their party program that they are sympathetic to Terrorist groups which are officially recognized as terrorst groups. As for the stasi: The Stasi was part of the degrading regime of the DDR. They violated the right of free speech and thinking and it is a very well known fact that they were involved in crimes against humans. They also are linked to this party. I can't see that any other secret service (the verfassungsschutz or the BND is not a secret police) is linked to a party. As for the party SED: dictator party is the correct term. The DDR was a dictatorship which is also a proven fact and it is comparable to other dictator regime - people who thought different were killed and in this context it does not matter that hitler killed million and the SED just thousands. They did not ruled autoriterian, but constantly human-rights-violating. Keep in mind that the DDR just was a few years ago and I agree that former NSDAP members may have been found in Zentrum, CDU,SPD,FDP, KPD and of course the SED (so to say in all parties after World War 2), but this was longer time ago and most of them were checked by the Allies and there where many courts, which does not hold for the former DDR, unfortunately. But this is a different topic.

I think it is up to the reader making up his own mind given him a few proven facts. Reachtests (talk) 10:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, Reachtests, here is one such reader. Let me make up my mind. Your claim that these seven members were 'former employees of the Stasi' is NOT borne out by your source, which says that they were 'informelle Mitarbeiter.' Spin as much as you like, it's not the same thing. (And you should know how many people worked for the Stasi 'informally' for all kinds of reasons, many involuntarily.) That article from Der Spiegel by Bernd Musa, its anti-left (I won't say 'reactionary') POV is abundantly clear--and for the record, its most often-used argumentative strategy is declaring guilt by association. Lafontaine = Batasuna = ETA, that sort of thing. Well, no. In both cases, then, 'a few proven facts' is more than a misnomer: it's a falsheood. Drmies (talk) 02:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Recent editing

In the past week Reachtest (talk · contribs) has done 18 edits in this article. Seeing the overall contribution (edit diff) the sole purpose seems to be to portray Die Linke is an as negative light as possible. Perhaps the user should reflect a bit on his/her intentions in the editing process, is it to enhance the quality of the encyclopedia or just push a point?

First of all, Reachtest seems to be anxious that his/her edits make it into the lead of the article. This is not a very good practice, and certainly doesn't go well in line with WP:UNDUE or WP:LEAD.

The Spiegel article is clearly an opinion piece/commentary. Just look at the ending of the article "Der Linkspartei ist es eine Herzensangelegenheit, Solidarität mit nach Freiheit strebenden Völkern zu üben. Parteichef Lafontaine wäre deshalb gut beraten, die Frage der Rechtmäßigkeit von Gewalt glaubhaft zu beantworten. Heiligt der Zweck wirklich die Mittel? Und was ist wichtiger: Mensch oder Ideologie?" Hardly a newspiece or academic work.

The Focus article states that the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi files, Marianne Birthler, claims that seven left MPs had been 'IM'. Any mention of this cannot go in the lead, and it should be clear who makes the accusation, rather than stating it as a fact. Moreover, I wouldn't translate IM as 'employee', the IMs were informal cooperants of Stasi. The IM page uses the term 'informer', I think its a bit misleading but better than employee. What needs to be taken into account is the width of the Stasi networks in East German society, the IM-ship was by no meand limited to the SED core. --Soman (talk) 10:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Der Spiegel is "Europe's largest and one of the most influential weekly magazines with a circulation of more than one million per week.". Focus (German magazine) "It is the third-largest weekly newsmagazine in Germany". If these magazins are not WP:RS, there could be none. If you want to improve the article by using better translations: Please do! But suppressing relevant information declaring the leading german political magazins "not reliable sources" ist not helpfull.Karsten11 (talk) 08:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Noone is disputing that Der Spiegel is a very notable publication, both in Germany and internationally. This article, however, is an opinion piece, a commentary. It is not comparable to a newspiece or an academic article. --Soman (talk) 08:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but that´s wrong. It´s not a commentary. It´s a regular article, describing, the paramentary initiative of Ulla Jelpke MP (die Linke) to legalize PKK in Germany, the contacts of Helmuth Markov MP to ETA and much more. But if you dislike the Spiegel. What´s about this source Die Linke parlamentary group in the Bundestag: Legalize PKK in Germany. I know: It´s not a newspiece or an academic article... To avoid edit wars: Can we proceed like this: You post the issues you don´t belive in (or in the sources). Then we can add additional sources or improve the text. Karsten11 (talk) 12:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Two issues: Which newsarticle ends itself with the following words "Heiligt der Zweck wirklich die Mittel? Und was ist wichtiger: Mensch oder Ideologie?" It is clearly an opinion piece, a commentary. One could claim that it is a notable commentary, but its still a commentary. 2) Does wanting to change terrorism legislation make you a terrorist? Is critique of the current EU policy of arbritary terrorism listings terrorism in itself? I suggest a through reading of WP:NPOV. --Soman (talk) 12:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Der Spiegel is a (left wing) political magazin. Please don´t expect an academic article. But this is not requested for a reliable source. Have you read the text, you have deleted. The text was not "The Left is a terroristic organization" The text was: "Die Linke is sympathetic to terrorist groups". That´s exactly what the Spiegel-Link (as well as the Die Linke-link, I´ve posted) is describing. But finaly: Do you agree with the approach I´ve suggested?Karsten11 (talk) 19:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't agree with your approach, nor the passage that the party is "sympathetic to terrorist groups". You might want to read WP:TERRORIST. --Soman (talk) 11:24, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I´ve changed the passage according to your arguments. If you like to continue reverting, please read Wikipedia:Vandalism.Karsten11 (talk) 10:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The last edit is by no means an improvement. With the risk of being repetitive;

• Why is the link to left-wing politics removed in the lead?
• Why is the BfD issue put in the first section of the lead? Clearly undue.
• ggysi.org is clearly not WP:RS
• Why is the {{fact}} tag removed from the passage "More than 75% of the members have been members of the SED". I agree that the majority of PDS members might have been SED members, but from where does the figure 75% come?
• The Focus article issue has already been dealt with above (employees vs. IM). It is clearly misquoted.
• The Spiegel link does not back up the sentence "The whole party Die Linke is sympathetic to PKK, ETA, Farc and other militant groups and dictators". The next sentence is highly insinuatory.
• The RBB passage on the 'Cuba crisis', where is the motivation for its inclusion in the lead. Moreover, i don't think this is a factual representation of the views of Die Linke on the Cuba issue.
• As per vandalism claims, you may want to study WP:VANDAL more indept. Content disputes are not vandalism, and you may note the passage "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it."

--Soman (talk) 12:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

First off all: Thank you for bringing forward some arguments.

Why is the link to left-wing politics removed in the lead? Redundancy: In the box you can read ideology = Democratic socialism. But this simple redundancy should not be reason for an edit war...

Why is the BfD issue put in the first section of the lead? Clearly undue. This ist the most objective source to identify the relationship of political organisations to the principles of freedom and democracy (in German: "Freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung"). Everybody who is mentioned in this BfD report can request for deletion on independent German courts. The Left did so in many cases and the reports have been confirmed.

*ggysi.org is clearly not WP:RS I agree. But: Why did you not mention this earlier? I´ve changed the sources.

Why is the {{fact}} tag removed from the passage "More than 75% of the members have been members of the SED". I agree that the majority of PDS members might have been SED members, but from where does the figure 75% come?. I´m sorry. This is a c&p error

The Spiegel link does not back up the sentence "The whole party Die Linke is sympathetic to PKK, ETA, Farc and other militant groups and dictators". Could you please offer an recommendation, which wording is better?

The next sentence is highly insinuatory Sorry for my bad english. What´s "insinuatory"?

The RBB passage on the 'Cuba crisis', where is the motivation for its inclusion in the lead. Moreover, i don't think this is a factual representation of the views of Die Linke on the Cuba issue. The original text of Reachtest (talk · contribs) mentioned "terrorists and dictators". I assume, that he meant the relationship between The Left and the Cuba regime. This relationship is worth to describe. And the fact that the executive committee (german: Das Präsidium) declares that it´s not compliant with the parties policy to criticize human right violations is a clear fact on the views of Die Linke on the Cuba issue. But: As before: Feel free to improve the wording but don´t try to suppress the facts.Karsten11 (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Erroneous Stasi claim deleted

Deleted

At least seven members of the Bundestag of "Die Linke" are former employees of the Stasi which consistently violated human rights in East Germany by doing murders, tortures and other cruel crimes[2].

as the claim was later corrected by the original source (Marianne Birthler, the official for the Stasi-document archive) - not seven, but an unknown, lesser number; and not Bundestag members, but Left Party candidates.[3] Rd232 ^talk 14:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

and of course not "employees", but "unofficial collaborators". Rd232 ^talk 09:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

"Totalitarian" and "extremist"

I have removed (twice now) additions to the introduction made by an editor. These included statements that used words such as "extremist" and "totalitarian", which violate WP:NPOV. --Linkswechsel (talk) 01:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

You have vandalized the article by removing referenced facts. It is certainly not "POV" to cite the Verfassungsschutzbericht - the official, authoritative report on political extremism in Germany. It is vandalism to remove it.

If you believe the GDR was not totalitarian, you should note that it is mentioned already in the introduction of the article on totalitarianism. I'm certainly not interested in discussing with people who thinks Nazi Germany or GDR were democracies. Jörg ÖA (talk) 18:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks, such as claiming that I am a supporter of the DDR. This is an encyclopedia, which is not supposed to present a point of view. "Totalitarian" and "extremist" hold a particular connotation, and therefore should be avoided. The Left Party is now one of the established parliamentary parties, and therefore labeling it as "extremist" is suspect. The list you cite as you list as your source is simply a watch list, and it includes almost every group to the left of the Social Democrats. If you continue to insert POV statements in Left Party-related articles, I will seek Arbitration. --Linkswechsel (talk) 01:25, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You are a blatant POV pusher, as seen already from your political user name, and the repeated removal of referenced and highly relevant information constitutes a blatant breach of Wikipedia policy. I'm not labelling the Left Party extremist (Straw man), German authorities are, whether you like it or not. This is relevant information that ought to be included. If you continue vandalizing, you may be banned from Wikipedia. Jörg ÖA (talk) 23:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Well you added a quote ("a clear extremist threat") from a politician at a press conference and made it sound like the official judgement of the BfV. If that was intentional it was clearly POV-pushing; but there's no reason to assume anything other than an honest mistake. Let's be civil and non-judgemental and I'm sure we can reach a compromise. Rd232 ^talk 14:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I did not add a quote from "a politician", but from the Federal Minister of the Interior at the official presentation of the yearly federal Verfassungsschutzbericht - when he told why the Federal Ministry of the Interior will continue to observe the Left Party - which is something very different than a random quote from a politician. As the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz is subordinated the Federal Minister of the Interior, the judgement of the Minister is ultimately even more important. He can decide whether a party will be observed or not. But I have no problem with sticking to the wordings used in the report. Jörg ÖA (talk) 05:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

OK. But I didn't use the word "random", and as I'm sure you know, spoken statements by a Minister (a politician) are rather different from written statements in official documents. Never mind. Rd232 ^talk 23:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Editors (perhaps the same person) have tried to reinsert the text here and here. This is disputed text, and in my opinion should remain out of the article until this is resolved.

As a compromise, I have added what I think is neutral wording about the BfV list here. If you disagree with the wording of the text, please discuss it. If someone/anyone reinserts the POV text again, I will seek administrator assistance. --Linkswechsel (talk) 16:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Well I've followed the German Wikipedia in removing mention of it from the intro and having a proper subsection. (Mention in the intro is especially problematic in English Wikipedia as readers will be less familiar with the issues and out of context quotes will be particularly misleading.) What do people think? Rd232 ^talk 14:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I think this approach is well balanced. I see no problem keeping your version. --Linkswechsel (talk) 16:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm also happy with the wording introduced by Rd232. However, perhaps the passage 'Despite the changes within the party since 1989' needs to be reworked as it talks not only about Die Linke but PDS as well. --Soman (talk) 04:03, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

A separate and more detailed section on the observation is fine, but clearly this information also needs to be mentioned briefly in the introduction (analogous with the article concerning the National Democratic Party of Germany, a similar case) - as it is very important concerning the nature of the party. Jörg ÖA (talk) 05:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the other editors currently here disagree with you. German Wikipedia disagrees with you also ([4]), and I give substantial weight to that. And I gave a reason above why having a mention in the intro would be more problematic than in the German Wikipedia (readers will be less familiar with the issues and a passing mention out of context is likely to be misleading). Finally, I notice that you today created the category Category:Political parties observed by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz [5]. Of course The Left was the first party you added to the category, since it's pretty obvious you only created the category in order to be able to add The Left to it. I'm minded to suggest the category for deletion, but I'm busy now and I'm hoping you might see on reflection that this was not perhaps the way to go, certainly in the context of the current discussion, and without discussing it first - and do so yourself. Rd232 ^talk 22:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

NPD is hardly a comparable case just because it's under observation as well. Or did I miss the NPD's conversion to inclusive, democratic politics, thereby making a comparison with The Left something other than offensive? Rd232 ^talk 22:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. German governments have attempted to ban the NPD, while no such actions have been taken against the Left Party. Further, the report emphasizes that segments of the Left such as the WASG are "non-extremist" (nichtextremistischen). Comparing a minor, semi-legal group with Germany's fourth largest party demonstrates an unwillingness to be neutral. --Linkswechsel (talk) 23:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The "verfassungsschutz" is not observationg the "The Left" as a whole, but indeed observating some comunistic groups within the "The Left": e.g. the Kommunistische_Plattform Therefore it should imho be mentioned within the text but not within the introduction.

Eurocommunism

Adding Eurocommunism to the article is quite twisted. SED was never Eurocommunist, on the contrary they were one of the main opponents of Eurocommunism in Europe. --Soman (talk) 21:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about that, I can just about see where the user's coming from. But your statement about the SED is correct and applying it to the PDS or Left Party probably doesn't make sense since Eurocomm was about relations with the Soviet Union which doesn't exist any more. But possibly there are elements of inspiration or overlap - I wouldn't want to rule that out but it would need evidence to put it in. 88.251.77.247 (talk) 21:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

on the other side the left are socialdemocrats now as you can see from the former name pds —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.137.92.162 (talk) 14:39, 26 December 2008 (UTC)