The PDS A symbol of eastern German identity?

Product Description Die Linke (the Left) is now Germany s third largest political party and the fourth largest political grouping in the Bundestag, Germany s parliament. Die Linke, however, is the result of a fusion in June 2007 between the left wing of the German social democratic party (SPD) and the Partei des demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS), the successor to East Germany s former, effectively Communist, ruling party, the SED. In practice, the PDS contributed 60,000 of the new party s 72,000 members, making Die Linke an essentially eastern German party. Moreover, the PDS had been unique in enjoying a level of electoral success denied to other Communist successor parties which had not turned themselves into mainstream social democratic parties within the new liberal democratic order. This book, employing the period 2001 03 for its detailed analysis, suggests that this uniqueness is best understood as either an expression of eastern German national sentiment or as deriving from a reinterpretation of Marxism attuned to the interests of a democratic, twenty-first century society, and the book explores these alternative understandings in turn. Noting both the historic distinctiveness of German capitalism and the contradictions within German communism, it concludes that the PDS, now fused in Die Linke, remains nourished by the particularism of eastern Germany. About the Author Dr Adrian Webb is a writer on European, particularly German, political and environmental issues. He was a part-time lecturer at Southampton Solent University 1996-2007, and has contributed to a number of key works of reference including European Policy Analyst, Pears Cyclopaedia, the Statesman's Year Book and the Cambridge Dictionary of History (forthcoming). His publications include the Longman Companion to Germany since 1945 and the Longman Companion to Central and Eastern Europe since 1919. Dr Webb is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.