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[MA] Founding declaration Roter Aufbau Mannheim
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Founding declaration of Roter Aufbau Mannheim
With the following lines we would like to explain why we founded the Communist Group Roter Aufbau Mannheim. The paper reflects the current status of our work and addresses the current situation of the working class in the Federal Republic of Germany. At some points we would also like to focus in particular on the local conditions of our political work.
We live in a time in which the crises and fractures of capitalism are visible and noticeable everywhere.
The city of Mannheim and the people who live in it have repeatedly shown themselves to be a magnifying glass of history, at least since industrialization. The numerous factories in the north of Mannheim, the lively squares, the crane and container landscape in Germany's most important inland port - all these places show what the labor of thousands of people can achieve. But there is also the other side: not only the much-quoted Benz barracks, but also the Wilhelminian-style villas in the eastern part of the city, make it easy to see who benefits from the product of this labor - and who is fobbed off with the bare necessities. The same applies today: Anyone who walks through the streets of Mannheim with an attentive eye will learn a lot about the developments that are affecting the entire country. Not because Mannheim is the center of the world, but because the course of history is not first revealed in the news that reports about it, but in the people who shape it and are shaped by it. As a result, Mannheim, as an industrial city, now stands as an example of deindustrialization and the social disruption that it brings with it.
Despite numerous achievements in labor disputes, the reality of capitalism still looks like this: those who work sell their labor to the employer. The employees do not receive anything from the value that this labor creates - but in the event of a crisis and mismanagement, they are the ones who have to pay with their existence in the event of job cuts and short-time work. Despite this liability, they have no say in company decisions that influence the fate of the company and thus their workplace. This development does not stop at production: the consequences of the neoliberalization and privatization of public infrastructure under Kohl and Schröder are particularly evident in the crisis. Because the crisis-related reductions in jobs and locations not only mean the possible loss of jobs, but also a deterioration in care - if, for example, hospitals have to close due to cost pressure, this not only deprives numerous employees of their jobs, but also the people in the city of their hospital beds. Some sectors of the economy are countering this trend with the windfall of the arms industry - including in the Rhine-Neckar region. This development does not happen in a vacuum: the competition between different capital factions for raw materials, sales markets or geopolitically valuable territories is becoming increasingly warlike as the obsession for profit increases. The workers of both warring parties are allowed to die for the rich and powerful, whether they want to or not, while the war profiteers fill their pockets regardless of the outcome.The imperialists do not stop at any means to ensure the expansion of their own capital: economic oppression, military occupation or genocide, no perfidious tool is too good for them to gain the upper hand on the international stage. But those who suffer from this development are not only at the front: Militarization always also includes the dismantling of freedoms and the welfare state, because the money that is put into war equipment is cut elsewhere - for example in child benefit, pensions and basic security. Austerity reforms are taking every last cent away from already depleted yet vital areas such as health care and youth welfare. Here, the dismantling of the welfare state not only fulfills the goal of preparing for war, but also the compulsory increase in productive power, because anyone who starves without work will accept any job that capital throws at them.
Women and all those oppressed by patriarchy are particularly confronted with social crises. Anyone who enters Lupine Street in Mannheim also sees what it means when the female body itself becomes a commodity under capitalism. The suffering associated with this step, which culminates in forced prostitution and human trafficking, does not stop at the Mannheim city limits. But you don't have to step over the Neckar to feel the power of patriarchy, because it radiates its evil in almost every Mannheim apartment. Despite the supposed achievements of liberal feminist reforms, women under capitalism are usually doubly exploited through wage and care work and at the same time are exposed to a significantly increased risk of violence from men. There will therefore be no real liberation of women without the overthrow of conditions and the abolition of capitalism. Women's struggle means class struggle!
While we're on the subject of apartments, the capitalist normal state is particularly noticeable for us there. Rising cost of living, stagnating real wages and skyrocketing rents. In the midst of multiple crises, life becomes a permanent financial and personal challenge for a large part of the population. Everyday life for more and more people is therefore characterized by uncertainty and existential fears. Powerlessness, anger and frustration are particularly useful to those who explain the current situation through reactionary narratives: This is also why the right-wing development in society as a whole is progressing almost unchecked and is specifically threatening the lives of marginalized groups, as well as the hard-won rights of workers alike. In doing so, right-wing forces specifically resort to the consciously created divisive logic of capitalism and thus exacerbate racist, anti-queer and anti-feminist thought patterns that are already part of a capitalist character. The success of this strategy can be clearly seen, particularly in classic working-class districts in the north of Mannheim. However, one thing should not be overlooked: Although the AfD is the spearhead and biggest beneficiary of this development, all bourgeois parties are taking part in it and are partly to blame for the increasing authoritarianism. This can be justified by the current crisis mode of capitalism: In this mode, the bourgeois state is tightening its control and coercion over the ruled - both internally and externally.
While so-called skilled workers are sometimes trafficked to Germany under exploitative conditions in order to fill the gaps in the German labor market, EU border policy is also causing tens of thousands of deaths at the external borders. Hardly any other place shows so clearly how capitalist exploitation decides between life and death. State control is also increasing internally: Not only are people being forced to work more and more aggressively, but also increasing and intensified repression against opponents of the current conditions and ever new police and surveillance laws - in conjunction with internal armament - clearly demonstrate the authoritarian state restructuring. This development can also be experienced up close in Mannheim: When it comes to camera surveillance and its AI-supported evaluation, the city administration is presenting pilot projects that will become the blueprint for interior ministries and town halls throughout Germany. If we take our tour through the streets of Mannheim in the summer months, our eyes will inevitably be drawn to another global crisis for which capitalism is responsible: the climate catastrophe. Anyone who has ever been in Mannheim between May and September knows: it gets hot. Unbearably hot. So hot that life on the streets is slowly coming to a standstill - at least for those who have a cool place to retreat and are not forced to work, sleep or live outdoors. Forests are burning all over the world, sea levels are rising, floods are tearing away houses and people. Ever new temperature records lead to droughts, water shortages and hostile conditions for people and animals.Here it becomes clear: Capitalism in its eternal hunt for profit snatches everything away, no matter what it costs. This greed leads to the destruction of all of our livelihoods, millions of people are fleeing unsustainable living conditions, and tens of thousands are already losing their lives every year due to the consequences of man-made climate change. What will await us in the future remains uncertain. What is also already becoming apparent is the fact that those who benefit most from the circumstances will be the last to feel the brutal consequences of their actions. Workers, on the other hand, are feeling the effects all over the world - at the latest when resource scarcity and ecocide plunge capitalism into what may be its final crisis.
The conditions in which we live make us sick, they cost us time, energy and, ultimately, often our lives. Most of us live in absolute dependence - subordinated only to the purpose of producing ever greater and unlimited wealth for those who have them. For this goal, they and the rulers, who manage everything in accordance with this premise, have control over our livelihoods - resources, environment and land - as well as our lives themselves. In short: everything is subordinated to the compulsion to profit, regardless of the short- or long-term consequences for people and nature. Just as old as this condition brought about by humans is the resistance to its construction and existence. So the certainty is: Capitalism and everything it brings with it, such as exploitation, war, hunger and climate catastrophe, are not a state of nature. And: What is made by people can also be changed and abolished by them. With this awareness, we also want to participate in the expansion of the fight against the circumstances, in the full conviction that we will only experience real freedom in the abolition of this system and a society in which we, the workers, hold power in our hands.
It doesn't have to stay the way it is.
The conditions in which we live are changeable. We do not believe that this can be done through elections and reforms; too often history has proven otherwise. We know that this change in the world can only be initiated in one way: through the revolution of the working class. By this we mean: the seizure of power by the exploited population and the associated overthrow of the bourgeois state. We learn from history that this doesn't just happen. At the forefront of the revolution must be a communist party that brings together the most progressive forces of the working class and, at the right moment, takes on a leading role in overcoming the existing conditions. The establishment of such a party is therefore obvious, but the current circumstances within the Federal Republic of Germany are anything but optimal. However, it is important to work towards exactly such a situation. This structure cannot be designed at a desk; it must be developed in practice through joint action. Right now there are different approaches and approaches that need to be further differentiated and tested. We therefore consider the exchange of experiences between left-wing and revolutionary structures to be particularly necessary. We see the development of our own website as a central task in the current phase, which we are actively pushing forward as a revolutionary structure. One approach to pooling these forces and developing clout on the street is to build counter-power!
What does it mean to build countervailing power?
We encounter the state and its civil instruments of power every day - both consciously and unconsciously. They manifest themselves not only in the beating of the policeman or the barrel of the army's gun, but also in the schools in which one is raised to be an anti-communist, through media incitement in which news is deliberately spread incorrectly, or in one's own home, where at the end of the month one is more likely to choose between heating or eating than asking the neighbors for support. This is also reflected in the state of the revolutionary movement. The communist movement is gaining strength again, not only in Germany but worldwide. People are forced to resist by the crises of our time and although this is usually expressed in specific protest and resistance movements, many people also become aware of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism and begin to look for new solutions. At the same time, the revolutionary left in the Federal Republic of Germany is in a state of general defensiveness. The upswing described above and the resulting potential have so far remained largely ineffective. We want to change that!
All aspects of civil power can be countered: whether on a cultural, operational or military level, the hegemony of those in power is not inviolable as long as it is properly combated. In order to gain a more concrete idea of such a countervailing power, it may be helpful to take a look at the past: militant organization, such as that which took place in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, or the construction of one's own visions of coexistence, as we observed in Kurdistan, can provide such points of reference. The realization that we as revolutionary forces are in a historical defensive position must not lead to resignation and rigidity. Rather, we need to build our own side, find ways of sustainable political work and strengthen our ties within our own movement - both locally and internationally. In a world in which capital defends its own position against and with each other across national borders, it is all the more important to make our solidarity and connection with progressive struggles internationally practical.
What exactly is this new group needed for?
Based on this insight, we have decided to come together as communists to create the framework needed to further build effective countervailing power here in Mannheim, where we live, work and have been politically active for years. What we (want to do) is nothing new: movements and groups are active all over the world that are looking for precisely these new forms of society and are also leading the fight for them on a large and small scale - in a wide variety of ways. It will become clear which approaches prove successful and which need to be converted into other approaches. We want to make a contribution to this debate, locally and to the best of our ability. Our work is not only intended to achieve selective victories within the existing conditions, but we also want to change the conditions themselves. Nevertheless, we see the need as a movement to appear open and communicative and, if it makes sense, to enter into alliances with reformist forces. In order not to get lost in the small and small aspects of day-to-day political business, to ensure long-term work and the transfer of experience and not to lose sight of the big goal of profound social change, a coordinating force is needed that formulates a strategy and plans tactical steps. A force that evaluates past experiences and evolves our current struggle. A struggle that aims to overthrow capitalist relations and with it to bring down the states that it created and that support it.We must be aware that any structure that attacks the state and the existing conditions is exposed to repressive resistance. Such a structure, which formulates the claim to change and work in the long term, can only carry out this work in a clandestine manner. By creating such a structure, we hope to give the class struggle movement in Mannheim a constant superstructure and thus a long-term perspective.
Conversely, this does not mean that politically significant work takes place exclusively in secret back rooms - on the contrary. A powerful movement arises where it reaches people, where it engages in discussion, where it grows broadly. It arises where it empowers people to work together to bring about the change they want to see in the world.
For this reason, we do not view our members as an irrefutable political elite, but rather want to remain approachable and open to criticism. The group's composition was primarily based on its wealth of experience in the various areas of struggle and resistance in political work and its high willingness to assume responsibility for the movement as a whole. A structure that aims to assume a coordinating and guiding position can only do this if it is made up of people who, on the one hand, are firmly anchored in the movement and, on the other hand, can take on this role with experience, knowledge and the necessary role model function: for a revolutionary force from the movement, with the movement, for the movement.
We don’t want to lose sight of the realistic perspective. Even if we consider our founding to be an important step in the right direction, it is far from being the end of everything. There will be great successes and probably equally great setbacks in the coming years and decades. We will celebrate victories, lament defeats, lose and gain comrades, and yet always seek confrontation with the state, capital and bourgeois hegemony. Above all, we do not want to and will not be alone. Our foundation would be out of place if it were not based on a growing movement, if there were no environment that we trust, there would be no certainty that it is worth fighting in and for Mannheim!
We will fight, in this city, for the people here and everywhere - for a life beyond these conditions, for a liberated society and an end to exploitation and oppression. For a revolutionary perspective!
For communism!
September 2026
Red structure Mannheim
Contact:bau-mannheim@systemli.org
Website:https://aufbau-mannheim-1.jimdosite.com/(Temporary)
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