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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)
Is it really appropriate to translate the name "Die Linke" into English? 172.174.54.138 09:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The Party itself calls itself 'Die Linke' on its election posters all over Berlin for the Sept 2009 elections. °°°° —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.242.133.213 ( talk) 13:27, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but I feel I must agree that the name of this article should be 'die Linke'.
In response to those criticisms set out above;
i) Precedent, while important shouldn't be overstated. If sufficient evidence exists for a change, it should trump precedent.
ii) A news article which consistently uses 'die Linke' as the name of the party.
iii) Wikipedia: Use English doesn't quite apply as implied above. The policy is not to name articles in English, it is to name articles using the most common name used in English language sources. Hence 'Michelangelo', not 'Michael the Angel', 'Bundestag', not 'Federal Parliament (Germany)', 'Pravda' not 'Truth', etc.
In terms of positive arguments towards a name change:
i) The party calls itself 'DIE LINKE (the left)' on it's English language page here.
ii) A wikipedia article should be located where it is most likely to be found by an end user. I doubt anyone enters 'The Left (Germany)' in the search box, but someone might enter 'die Linke', even if it is just a German looking for English language info on the party. More specifically 'die Linke' is a more unique name for the party than 'The left'.
iii) There are significant number of English language webpages which use the name "die Linke", doing a search for '"die linke" +party' on English language pages on google I get about 170,000. It's very hard to do a direct comparison between number of pages, given that there a lot of pages which can use the terms 'the left', 'party' and 'germany' without being associated with the subject under discussion, but I won't pretend that there aren't also a significant number which simply call the party 'the left'.
I don't plan to do anything radical here, but I would be interested to see if people's opinions on this matter have changed since 2007.
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)
193.208.90.130 ( talk) 10:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC) PC 1715 1989/1990
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)
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:
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).
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)
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)
-- Soman ( talk) 12:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Deleted
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)
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)
Note that it is possible for a party to be an established parlimentary party, and yet also an extremist party. Remember the NSDAP?
A question that arises is: does the Left intend to abolish the parlimentary democracy if it ever comes to power? It seems to have several factions: some say yes, some say no. There is already some information on the different factions, but I think the article needs more background info on each one - including which ones the Federal Govenment thinks need watching. °°°°
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)
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)
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. -- 84.137.92.162 ( talk) 14:46, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Considering the circumstances under which Category:Political parties observed by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz was created, I've nominated it for deletion. I'm OK with it if it survives, but there should be a debate IMHO. Rd232 talk 12:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
Alright, I am not going to make this an edit war but I would ask Soman to respect the conventions regarding the infobox and refrain from deleting the (sourced!) political position(s). If it is your opinion that the position within the political spectrum should not be included in articles on political parties, please bring the matter up at WikiProject Political parties and try to find support for changing the conventions there. For the time being, the position is mentioned in all articles on German parties in the Bundestag and in all articles on parties that I have come across. Personally, I think including it gives laypersons a good first overview before they delve deeper into the topic. However, it is not our place to just disregard community decisions here and act in violation of conventions without ever bringing the matter up in a discussion.
As for having two political positions: The sources simply differ on the matter. As much as I might oppose the demonisation of the left by some German politicians and parts of the media, I must acknowledge that there are substantial sources (Verfassungsschutz!) that deem parts of Die Linke to be far-left or extremist. To not include this would be a distortion and manipulation on our part. Of course it would also be a distortion (as I mentioned further above) to give this position undue weight or to represent Die Linke solely as a party of authoritarian GDR-Style communists. We must find a balance here, because both German media and politics are devided on the issue. Our own opinion on this is rather irrelevant. I think having two positions is not confusing to the reader but neatly represents the split in politics and media and is adequately differentiated with regard to the complicated situation. Opinions? Janfrie1988 ( talk) 22:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Yet again, and for the record: whether the Left is "far-left", "left-wing", or whatever is a contentious issue both among German and international media and German authorities. We have sources for both claims (see infobox). It would violate WP:NPOV to give one of these positions undue weight, especially in the lead, just because it reflects your personal political bias better. So, either we explain this complicated situation in the lead and say something horribly complicated like "...is a far-left or left-wing socialist political party..." or we keep it to "socialist" and mention the political position(s) in the infobox, as it now is. Janfrie1988 ( talk) 09:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Exiledone ( talk) 18:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
This doesn't make sense: "Some feel the Left Party has is responsible for the actions of a predecessor party..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.99.253 ( talk) 15:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
The reason why I removed the "swastika section" was the following. It is bad style always to look for some spots to nag about. It is forbidden to use the swastika, but there is always room for discussion whether it is legal to use it critizing the Nazis themselves; which was the case in the reported instance even though it was anti-Israel. And besides, let the public prosecutors take care of offenses; they need not be nagged about.
Thus, "usage of swastika" is nothing for us here to critizise. If there is a thing to critizise, it is what the swastika was used for. And used was it for the Nazi -- State-of-Israel equalization which, regrettably, is by no means a thing that happened somewhen (in that case, we'd better forget it with the remark that even Nazi history can't help people being stupid), but rather a commonplace among leftists. In German, public opinion (though not law) outlaws this, and it is whispered only (among leftists); France logically is not so eager to cry out, and the most regrettable compound "Israheil" is far from being unknown there. It is still a heavier affair as accompanied by a anti-Israel boycott, which arises memories of the antisemitic boycotts of the Nazi regime.
But I said let somebody describe this who is able to; and this'd include an appropriate description about the party's (as a whole, not only a bundesland office) relations to Israel, the Jews, etc. There is no plain use to complain about a usage of a swastika in a byproduct of the party, which, though it apparently happened to be used in patterns of - what can be described as - leftist antisemitism (or, as leftists prefer and openly profess, antizionism), was apparently not used as pro-Nazi, but as anti-Nazi-critizing-others-to-be-nazilike. The latter is not forbidden in Germany.
And all that not for any reason of political sympathy with the Left Party. I'm most of the time a CSU voter (the party they dislike most); PDS never as yet, and never plan to do. I just dislike tossing aroung dirt, instead of giving real criticism in a friendly (or popularly polemical) way.--
91.34.249.95 (
talk) 17:46, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
German sientists says the party have strong anti-Israel and Antizionist tendencies.-- 95.114.223.5 ( talk) 18:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Should the first section be called "Formation" rather than "Foundation"? It seems when I am describing a political party I would say it is formed, rather than founded, but I could be mistaken. Magicwalltree ( talk) 21:58, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
What is the general consensus on the political position of this party (on the German political spectrum)? I know a lot of individuals who are left-leaning may disagree with a 'far-left' description but the party is certainly controversial given the allegations of political extremism and antisemitism, which, if they were common against a right-wing party, would normally lead to a party getting the far-right label in it's Wikipedia info-box. I am pretty sure no one is suggesting calling this party centre-left, so really the debate is whether people want Left-wing, Far-left or Left-wing to Far-left. I would support any of those, but my personal preference is Left-wing to Far-left.-- Jay942942 ( talk) 18:46, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
The article claims that the districts in Berlin were gerrymandered in 2000. Now, as far as I know, this isn't possible in the same way as in the US (where the term comes from). The language is also suggestive of a conspiracy against the party, which would require ample evidence, in the way of the majority of news articles claiming this. However there is no reference whatsoever. What I could find (on wikipedia) on the 2000 re-districting in Berlin is this (German). The only thing happening were district mergers. I'm removing this point for now unless anybody can come up with a reason for its existence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arjuna92 ( talk • contribs) 09:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus to move after over a month of discussion. Cúchullain t/ c 14:07, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
The Left (Germany) → Die Linke – Isn't Die Linke the most commonly used name of the party? Charles Essie ( talk) 21:54, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
The title used in reliable English-language sources both inside and outside the political party's county (in scholarly works and in the news media), should be preferred. ... For example, Plaid Cymru, Bloc Québécois, Likud, Kadima, and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami are used because their English translations are rarely used even in the English-language media, either inside or outside the country.Whether or not other articles use the English title for their subjects is therefore irrelevant (and smells of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). It is difficult to test conclusively because "the Left" is such a generic term, as others have pointed out, but as far as I can tell Die Linke is far more commonly used in English. As an example, a search on Google Books for '"die Linke" Germany' returns 38,200 results, as against '"Left Party" Germany', which returns 7,020. — Nizolan (talk) 11:13, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm sorry to bring this up again (this has been probably discussed multiple times before) but after reading the article I'm seriously wondering what would it take for a party to get branded far-left on Wikipedia. This party is called extremist by the German authorities, it has many extremist factions such as the Communist Platform, even on the federal level a third of its MPs were under surveillance for extremism (Protection of the Constitution) until 2014 (when the Federal Interior minister decided that they would stop surveillance of even extremist factions of the party), it is the successor to the SED of the communist GDR, a large percentage of the party's politicians are known or suspected agents of the former East German secret police Stasi, four western German states consider the party to be entirely extremist and the party's vice president is a member of the Communist Platform. Also many international news sources consider the party as far-left, including the BBC, the Guardian, France 24, AFP, Euronews and Der Spiegel [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. At the same time Wikipedia describes the political positions of multiple right-wing populist parties as far-right or "right-wing to far right", despite them being about as equally far from the centre ground as Die Linke. These populist parties include Sweden Democrats, Danish People's Party or the National Front. The same situation is found also among other fringe parties on the left of the political spectrum such as Left Party (Sweden), French Communist Party, which are not branded as far-left despite them being probably even further from the centre ground than the forementioned right wing populists. I'm not sure whether all of this is intentional, but the trend certainly isn't a good thing for Wikipedia, since Wikipedia has been accused of having left wing bias multiple times before. Regards -- Ransewiki ( talk) 17:58, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
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Helper201 do I really have to explain political theory 101 to you like you are a child and I am your tutor? PLease educate yourself on the most simplest of facts before you edit a topic. Demcratic socialism opposes capitalism. The Democratic socialism page makes that clear in the opening lines. "Democratic socialism is a political ideology that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production, often with an emphasis on democratic management of enterprises within a socialist economic system as a replacement for capitalism" Take note of the last four words in the quoted section. Also do not accuse me of edit warring or say you are tired of my edit warring when I am not the one who broke the 3RR on Fianna Fail page. Apollo The Logician ( talk) 20:53, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
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"Through the PDS, the party is the direct descendant of the ruling party of the former East Germany (GDR)" and "Founded 16 June 2007"... Actually technically it's still the same party. They only renamed and rebranded a couple of times. Reason for this is also access to funds from the former GDR. -- 105.12.6.99 ( talk) 22:52, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Given the fact that one of the groups within the party is Communist Platform (Germany) Shouldn't under ideology it say faction that is Marxist or communist? 3Kingdoms ( talk) 04:48, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Please, please Davide King, I have asked you repeatedly, just take this matter to Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics or Wikipedia:Community portal or some other part of Wikipedia where a large amount of editors can comment upon this matter before doing what you are doing in unilaterally doing mass drive-by fundamental changes of the long-standing format of political party infoboxs across Wikipedia based on your sole interpretation of Wikipedia guidelines. If you are so confident you are doing the right thing then I see no reason why you wouldn't. Helper201 ( talk) 16:19, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Helper201, the Nazi Party is a precedent (same thing was done for the National Fascist Party), and as stated here (the onus is usually on those wanting to add stuff to prove it is due), we should follow my proposed compromise until there is consensus to add further stuff. Davide King ( talk) 06:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
I am little confused on the party colour. Die Linke uses the colour red as official party colour, for example the party's logo uses red. However in the media, people uses magenta for the party not purple. Can some clarify on this. 159753 ( talk) 20:13, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
The following statement is synthesis: "Outlets including the BBC,[114] The Guardian,[115] Euronews,[116] and Der Spiegel[117] have described the party as far-left." [8] If you want to discuss how the media has presented the party, you need source that addresses that. I note these sources are from 2009 and 2014. While some sources used the term far left to describe parties to the left of the SDP and other Socialist International member parties, that description at least among experts has been discontinued as misleading and derogatory. None of these parties for example call for the violent overthrow of capitalism or for supporters to disobey the laws of the countries they live in. TFD ( talk) 14:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
Read the paragraph:
If you don't think the sentence about the BBC et. has nothing to do with the sentences before or after, what is it doing in this paragraph. Note that paragraphs are dedicated to a single issue and are not an indiscriminate collection of random sentences.
TFD ( talk) 03:29, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
For a very long time and through many discussions, the page has been stating Die Linke's political position as "left-wing" with a note stating: "A broad left-wing party, The Left includes some far-left factions."
Locaf1985 has been wanting to change this to "left-wing to far-left". Three citations were given to support the change: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article215227820/Janine-Wissler-Eine-Trotzkistin-will-an-die-Linke-Spitze.html, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/gohlke-linke-afd-verfassungsschutz-1.4795496, https://www.bpb.de/themen/linksextremismus/dossier-linksextremismus/264080/linksextremismus-in-der-deutschen-parteienlandschaft/
I've read the three citations and from what I've read, they fail to verify "left-wing to far-left". They all refer to small factions in the party as "far-left" or extremist, none refer to the party as a whole. They in fact support what we had: "A broad left-wing party, The Left includes some far-left factions". Robby.is.on ( talk) 20:24, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 08:07, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
"Extremism" should be cashed out.
But much worse is the section which just says it's popular. The idea that leftism being popular is bad does not make any sense.
I came here because I heard someone say that the part has fascists in its ranks - something actually bad - but instead this page just tells me that the party believes their policies and their policies are popular. CrickedBack ( talk) 23:39, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
I really like the tree chart in section "History". I'd like to suggest to add a line which leads from "KPD" to " KPD-Ost". Ceeesa ( talk) 15:00, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
The redirect The Left (German Political Party has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 21 § The Left (German Political Party until a consensus is reached. Utopes ( talk / cont) 07:25, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
https://www.voanews.com/a/populist-left-leader-moves-to-launch-new-german-party-/7322313.html
There's four reliable, neutral sources that call Die Linke Far-left. This very wikipedia article calls it the "furthest left party in German parliament," and it is the literal descendent of the East German communist party. Change this, please. 172.58.166.10 ( talk) 01:15, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
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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)
Is it really appropriate to translate the name "Die Linke" into English? 172.174.54.138 09:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The Party itself calls itself 'Die Linke' on its election posters all over Berlin for the Sept 2009 elections. °°°° —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.242.133.213 ( talk) 13:27, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but I feel I must agree that the name of this article should be 'die Linke'.
In response to those criticisms set out above;
i) Precedent, while important shouldn't be overstated. If sufficient evidence exists for a change, it should trump precedent.
ii) A news article which consistently uses 'die Linke' as the name of the party.
iii) Wikipedia: Use English doesn't quite apply as implied above. The policy is not to name articles in English, it is to name articles using the most common name used in English language sources. Hence 'Michelangelo', not 'Michael the Angel', 'Bundestag', not 'Federal Parliament (Germany)', 'Pravda' not 'Truth', etc.
In terms of positive arguments towards a name change:
i) The party calls itself 'DIE LINKE (the left)' on it's English language page here.
ii) A wikipedia article should be located where it is most likely to be found by an end user. I doubt anyone enters 'The Left (Germany)' in the search box, but someone might enter 'die Linke', even if it is just a German looking for English language info on the party. More specifically 'die Linke' is a more unique name for the party than 'The left'.
iii) There are significant number of English language webpages which use the name "die Linke", doing a search for '"die linke" +party' on English language pages on google I get about 170,000. It's very hard to do a direct comparison between number of pages, given that there a lot of pages which can use the terms 'the left', 'party' and 'germany' without being associated with the subject under discussion, but I won't pretend that there aren't also a significant number which simply call the party 'the left'.
I don't plan to do anything radical here, but I would be interested to see if people's opinions on this matter have changed since 2007.
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)
193.208.90.130 ( talk) 10:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC) PC 1715 1989/1990
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)
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:
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).
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)
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)
-- Soman ( talk) 12:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Deleted
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)
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)
Note that it is possible for a party to be an established parlimentary party, and yet also an extremist party. Remember the NSDAP?
A question that arises is: does the Left intend to abolish the parlimentary democracy if it ever comes to power? It seems to have several factions: some say yes, some say no. There is already some information on the different factions, but I think the article needs more background info on each one - including which ones the Federal Govenment thinks need watching. °°°°
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)
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)
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. -- 84.137.92.162 ( talk) 14:46, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Considering the circumstances under which Category:Political parties observed by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz was created, I've nominated it for deletion. I'm OK with it if it survives, but there should be a debate IMHO. Rd232 talk 12:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
Alright, I am not going to make this an edit war but I would ask Soman to respect the conventions regarding the infobox and refrain from deleting the (sourced!) political position(s). If it is your opinion that the position within the political spectrum should not be included in articles on political parties, please bring the matter up at WikiProject Political parties and try to find support for changing the conventions there. For the time being, the position is mentioned in all articles on German parties in the Bundestag and in all articles on parties that I have come across. Personally, I think including it gives laypersons a good first overview before they delve deeper into the topic. However, it is not our place to just disregard community decisions here and act in violation of conventions without ever bringing the matter up in a discussion.
As for having two political positions: The sources simply differ on the matter. As much as I might oppose the demonisation of the left by some German politicians and parts of the media, I must acknowledge that there are substantial sources (Verfassungsschutz!) that deem parts of Die Linke to be far-left or extremist. To not include this would be a distortion and manipulation on our part. Of course it would also be a distortion (as I mentioned further above) to give this position undue weight or to represent Die Linke solely as a party of authoritarian GDR-Style communists. We must find a balance here, because both German media and politics are devided on the issue. Our own opinion on this is rather irrelevant. I think having two positions is not confusing to the reader but neatly represents the split in politics and media and is adequately differentiated with regard to the complicated situation. Opinions? Janfrie1988 ( talk) 22:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Yet again, and for the record: whether the Left is "far-left", "left-wing", or whatever is a contentious issue both among German and international media and German authorities. We have sources for both claims (see infobox). It would violate WP:NPOV to give one of these positions undue weight, especially in the lead, just because it reflects your personal political bias better. So, either we explain this complicated situation in the lead and say something horribly complicated like "...is a far-left or left-wing socialist political party..." or we keep it to "socialist" and mention the political position(s) in the infobox, as it now is. Janfrie1988 ( talk) 09:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Exiledone ( talk) 18:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
This doesn't make sense: "Some feel the Left Party has is responsible for the actions of a predecessor party..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.99.253 ( talk) 15:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
The reason why I removed the "swastika section" was the following. It is bad style always to look for some spots to nag about. It is forbidden to use the swastika, but there is always room for discussion whether it is legal to use it critizing the Nazis themselves; which was the case in the reported instance even though it was anti-Israel. And besides, let the public prosecutors take care of offenses; they need not be nagged about.
Thus, "usage of swastika" is nothing for us here to critizise. If there is a thing to critizise, it is what the swastika was used for. And used was it for the Nazi -- State-of-Israel equalization which, regrettably, is by no means a thing that happened somewhen (in that case, we'd better forget it with the remark that even Nazi history can't help people being stupid), but rather a commonplace among leftists. In German, public opinion (though not law) outlaws this, and it is whispered only (among leftists); France logically is not so eager to cry out, and the most regrettable compound "Israheil" is far from being unknown there. It is still a heavier affair as accompanied by a anti-Israel boycott, which arises memories of the antisemitic boycotts of the Nazi regime.
But I said let somebody describe this who is able to; and this'd include an appropriate description about the party's (as a whole, not only a bundesland office) relations to Israel, the Jews, etc. There is no plain use to complain about a usage of a swastika in a byproduct of the party, which, though it apparently happened to be used in patterns of - what can be described as - leftist antisemitism (or, as leftists prefer and openly profess, antizionism), was apparently not used as pro-Nazi, but as anti-Nazi-critizing-others-to-be-nazilike. The latter is not forbidden in Germany.
And all that not for any reason of political sympathy with the Left Party. I'm most of the time a CSU voter (the party they dislike most); PDS never as yet, and never plan to do. I just dislike tossing aroung dirt, instead of giving real criticism in a friendly (or popularly polemical) way.--
91.34.249.95 (
talk) 17:46, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
German sientists says the party have strong anti-Israel and Antizionist tendencies.-- 95.114.223.5 ( talk) 18:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Should the first section be called "Formation" rather than "Foundation"? It seems when I am describing a political party I would say it is formed, rather than founded, but I could be mistaken. Magicwalltree ( talk) 21:58, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
What is the general consensus on the political position of this party (on the German political spectrum)? I know a lot of individuals who are left-leaning may disagree with a 'far-left' description but the party is certainly controversial given the allegations of political extremism and antisemitism, which, if they were common against a right-wing party, would normally lead to a party getting the far-right label in it's Wikipedia info-box. I am pretty sure no one is suggesting calling this party centre-left, so really the debate is whether people want Left-wing, Far-left or Left-wing to Far-left. I would support any of those, but my personal preference is Left-wing to Far-left.-- Jay942942 ( talk) 18:46, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
The article claims that the districts in Berlin were gerrymandered in 2000. Now, as far as I know, this isn't possible in the same way as in the US (where the term comes from). The language is also suggestive of a conspiracy against the party, which would require ample evidence, in the way of the majority of news articles claiming this. However there is no reference whatsoever. What I could find (on wikipedia) on the 2000 re-districting in Berlin is this (German). The only thing happening were district mergers. I'm removing this point for now unless anybody can come up with a reason for its existence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arjuna92 ( talk • contribs) 09:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus to move after over a month of discussion. Cúchullain t/ c 14:07, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
The Left (Germany) → Die Linke – Isn't Die Linke the most commonly used name of the party? Charles Essie ( talk) 21:54, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
The title used in reliable English-language sources both inside and outside the political party's county (in scholarly works and in the news media), should be preferred. ... For example, Plaid Cymru, Bloc Québécois, Likud, Kadima, and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami are used because their English translations are rarely used even in the English-language media, either inside or outside the country.Whether or not other articles use the English title for their subjects is therefore irrelevant (and smells of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). It is difficult to test conclusively because "the Left" is such a generic term, as others have pointed out, but as far as I can tell Die Linke is far more commonly used in English. As an example, a search on Google Books for '"die Linke" Germany' returns 38,200 results, as against '"Left Party" Germany', which returns 7,020. — Nizolan (talk) 11:13, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm sorry to bring this up again (this has been probably discussed multiple times before) but after reading the article I'm seriously wondering what would it take for a party to get branded far-left on Wikipedia. This party is called extremist by the German authorities, it has many extremist factions such as the Communist Platform, even on the federal level a third of its MPs were under surveillance for extremism (Protection of the Constitution) until 2014 (when the Federal Interior minister decided that they would stop surveillance of even extremist factions of the party), it is the successor to the SED of the communist GDR, a large percentage of the party's politicians are known or suspected agents of the former East German secret police Stasi, four western German states consider the party to be entirely extremist and the party's vice president is a member of the Communist Platform. Also many international news sources consider the party as far-left, including the BBC, the Guardian, France 24, AFP, Euronews and Der Spiegel [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. At the same time Wikipedia describes the political positions of multiple right-wing populist parties as far-right or "right-wing to far right", despite them being about as equally far from the centre ground as Die Linke. These populist parties include Sweden Democrats, Danish People's Party or the National Front. The same situation is found also among other fringe parties on the left of the political spectrum such as Left Party (Sweden), French Communist Party, which are not branded as far-left despite them being probably even further from the centre ground than the forementioned right wing populists. I'm not sure whether all of this is intentional, but the trend certainly isn't a good thing for Wikipedia, since Wikipedia has been accused of having left wing bias multiple times before. Regards -- Ransewiki ( talk) 17:58, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
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Helper201 do I really have to explain political theory 101 to you like you are a child and I am your tutor? PLease educate yourself on the most simplest of facts before you edit a topic. Demcratic socialism opposes capitalism. The Democratic socialism page makes that clear in the opening lines. "Democratic socialism is a political ideology that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production, often with an emphasis on democratic management of enterprises within a socialist economic system as a replacement for capitalism" Take note of the last four words in the quoted section. Also do not accuse me of edit warring or say you are tired of my edit warring when I am not the one who broke the 3RR on Fianna Fail page. Apollo The Logician ( talk) 20:53, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
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"Through the PDS, the party is the direct descendant of the ruling party of the former East Germany (GDR)" and "Founded 16 June 2007"... Actually technically it's still the same party. They only renamed and rebranded a couple of times. Reason for this is also access to funds from the former GDR. -- 105.12.6.99 ( talk) 22:52, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Given the fact that one of the groups within the party is Communist Platform (Germany) Shouldn't under ideology it say faction that is Marxist or communist? 3Kingdoms ( talk) 04:48, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Please, please Davide King, I have asked you repeatedly, just take this matter to Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics or Wikipedia:Community portal or some other part of Wikipedia where a large amount of editors can comment upon this matter before doing what you are doing in unilaterally doing mass drive-by fundamental changes of the long-standing format of political party infoboxs across Wikipedia based on your sole interpretation of Wikipedia guidelines. If you are so confident you are doing the right thing then I see no reason why you wouldn't. Helper201 ( talk) 16:19, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Helper201, the Nazi Party is a precedent (same thing was done for the National Fascist Party), and as stated here (the onus is usually on those wanting to add stuff to prove it is due), we should follow my proposed compromise until there is consensus to add further stuff. Davide King ( talk) 06:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
I am little confused on the party colour. Die Linke uses the colour red as official party colour, for example the party's logo uses red. However in the media, people uses magenta for the party not purple. Can some clarify on this. 159753 ( talk) 20:13, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
The following statement is synthesis: "Outlets including the BBC,[114] The Guardian,[115] Euronews,[116] and Der Spiegel[117] have described the party as far-left." [8] If you want to discuss how the media has presented the party, you need source that addresses that. I note these sources are from 2009 and 2014. While some sources used the term far left to describe parties to the left of the SDP and other Socialist International member parties, that description at least among experts has been discontinued as misleading and derogatory. None of these parties for example call for the violent overthrow of capitalism or for supporters to disobey the laws of the countries they live in. TFD ( talk) 14:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
Read the paragraph:
If you don't think the sentence about the BBC et. has nothing to do with the sentences before or after, what is it doing in this paragraph. Note that paragraphs are dedicated to a single issue and are not an indiscriminate collection of random sentences.
TFD ( talk) 03:29, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
For a very long time and through many discussions, the page has been stating Die Linke's political position as "left-wing" with a note stating: "A broad left-wing party, The Left includes some far-left factions."
Locaf1985 has been wanting to change this to "left-wing to far-left". Three citations were given to support the change: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article215227820/Janine-Wissler-Eine-Trotzkistin-will-an-die-Linke-Spitze.html, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/gohlke-linke-afd-verfassungsschutz-1.4795496, https://www.bpb.de/themen/linksextremismus/dossier-linksextremismus/264080/linksextremismus-in-der-deutschen-parteienlandschaft/
I've read the three citations and from what I've read, they fail to verify "left-wing to far-left". They all refer to small factions in the party as "far-left" or extremist, none refer to the party as a whole. They in fact support what we had: "A broad left-wing party, The Left includes some far-left factions". Robby.is.on ( talk) 20:24, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 08:07, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
"Extremism" should be cashed out.
But much worse is the section which just says it's popular. The idea that leftism being popular is bad does not make any sense.
I came here because I heard someone say that the part has fascists in its ranks - something actually bad - but instead this page just tells me that the party believes their policies and their policies are popular. CrickedBack ( talk) 23:39, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
I really like the tree chart in section "History". I'd like to suggest to add a line which leads from "KPD" to " KPD-Ost". Ceeesa ( talk) 15:00, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
The redirect The Left (German Political Party has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 21 § The Left (German Political Party until a consensus is reached. Utopes ( talk / cont) 07:25, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
https://www.voanews.com/a/populist-left-leader-moves-to-launch-new-german-party-/7322313.html
There's four reliable, neutral sources that call Die Linke Far-left. This very wikipedia article calls it the "furthest left party in German parliament," and it is the literal descendent of the East German communist party. Change this, please. 172.58.166.10 ( talk) 01:15, 20 March 2024 (UTC)