The Center Can't Hold—1 Out Of 5 Germans Wants "Revolution"
02/25/2015
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Even as the German government cracks down on anti-immigration marches, the Left is growing increasingly radical and violent.
Twenty percent of Germans believe that their current living conditions won't be improved by reforms and only a revolution can reshape society. That's according to a study released by the Free University of Berlin.

The study, titled "Against the state and capital - to revolution" focused on opposition to capitalism, fascism and racism, and concluded that Germans are more left-wing in their attitudes than previously thought. The challenge for the researchers was to analyze the core structural similarities between right and left-wing extremism.

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ideological divide between the former East and West Germany is still marked, with left-wing ideas getting more support in eastern Germany. According to the study, 60 percent of Germans living in the east considered socialism to be a good idea, compared to only 37 percent of residents in the west. Almost 50 percent said they had recently noticed increased surveillance of left-wing dissidents by police and the state, while nearly one-third of Germans fear that by spying on its citizens the country may be sliding toward a dictatorship.

[20% of Germans want revolution, majority say democracy "isn't real" - study, Russia Today, February 24, 2015]

This is critical because Germany is the country that is holding the "austerity" regime together across Europe.  As Angela Merkel continues to win elections, it is unlikely she will be troubled by leftist agitation.  She may even welcome it because it makes her look more credible.

However, that will only work in the short term.  As the Left grows more extreme even as its ideas become more popular, there will be increasing pressure for a populist force on the Right opposed to immigration and austerity, the hallmarks of Angela Merkel's policies. If that happens, the German center collapses and with it, the European Union.

The troubles in Greece are marginal to most Europeans.  A revolt at the core would be earth-shattering.

On one level, this poll is pessimistic.  It's hard to take German concerns about "privacy" seriously when the German Right has been persecuted in ways that are positively shocking for a supposed democracy.  And as even this article admits leftist groups are engaging in overt violence against both the German state and their political opponents, it's not as if the threat is wholly invented.  The finding that the East rather than the West is more likely to support socialism is also depressing for those who believe that exposure to socialism and central planning inoculates a population against their return.

That said, immigration patriots should recognize that it is the European status quo that is the enemy.  The worst thing that could happen to Germany is a long period of stability that allows the demographic dispossession of the German people.  Instability, even from a destructive source like the German Left, is not a bad thing.

An actual Right needs to emerge at the center of Europe if Europe is to be saved.  Merkel, however competent she may be in economic matters, is not someone German patriots need to save.

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