Is Die Linke’s Comeback Built to Last?
Germany’s socialist party Die Linke has been revitalized by its recent election breakthrough. With the Social Democrats cravenly backing Friedrich Merz’s conservative and militarist agenda, Die Linke has to offer a bold oppositional message.
Ines Schwerdtner, party cochair of Die Linke, sings the Internationale together with delegates at the end of the federal party conference in Chemnitz, Germany. (Hendrik Schmidt / Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
This month, Die Linke met for its congress in Chemnitz, under the motto “Organizing Hope.” Such a slogan would have seemed out of touch the last time it held such a meet-up in October 2024. Back then, activists were surely hopeful for Die Linke’s future, despite a damaging split by the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). Yet in many polls, the party didn’t even register, and it feared falling out of parliament altogether.
What happened to change the mood? Between the two congresses, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government had collapsed, snap elections had been called for February 2025, and in that contest Die Linke achieved one of its best-ever results, with 8.8 percent of the vote nationally. Unlike the nail-biting federal election in 2021, when it relied on a technicality to return to the Bundestag, this year’s results night in Die Linke HQ saw a party mood.
The Chemnitz congress, then, saw a party whose fortunes had turned around almost overnight. But for the success to last, it was also decisive to agree on what had worked — and how it might be replicated in future.
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