Europe

Good question, I remember being a bit insecure writing that sentence. Please don't put too much trust in that comment of mine as I still have had little praxis to challenge my analysis. Anyways, my thoughts there were a bit convoluted, not sure if it came across correctly.

What I was thinking about when I wrote it was "you can't have a traditional socialist party that successful", where I meant only electoral success and only in the short-term. Yeah I'd make out mostly political climate as the cause for that.

I didn't want to say that the pursuit of a Socialist party is not worthwhile, I think it is. Although I wonder if an obvious socialist party will be able to get off the ground or whether a "Black Panthers" approach (in terms of being not-too-obviously socialist) would be more promising.

Such estimates are always speculative without praxis to probe ones conceptions though.

There are two parties in Germany that bear the label ML (DKP and MLPD), both have next to zero visibility and are under the observation of the intelligence services. They are considered to be enemies of the German constitution (not surprisingly since that grants the right to private property). I believe they are only not banned bc their influence it negligible and a legal pursuit would bind resources and give them previously unknown visibility.

I would see both as some evidence for my claims but I have to say I am not speaking from personal experience I've had no interaction with either party (I wonder if I would admit to that online).

But yeah I personally know way more foreigners here who are Socialist than Germans. In France and Italy Socialism is way more present as a concept. We have no clue what the word means. For most of us it means nothing. And for the rest its what the the dusty, old men from the "Unrechtsstaat" GDR talked about when they wanted to steal from and control the people. its a failure of the past, not a success of the future. and speaking of it is dangerous, the economy is bad as it is.

We've had the "Radikalenerlasse", the congress for cultural freedom, the CIA building up our media and intelligence services all purging Socialist knowledge from public consciousness while at the same time our "big brother" helped us to become the so-called richest nation in Europe. The material conditions have been comparably fine for us under liberalism, people fear falling back into the GDR trap.

Germany, having been in the center of US Crosshairs of cold-war efforts has left a nasty scar on us, it will take some time and probably a worsening of the economic conditions but most of all a big educational effort from us comrades to get back.

The way I see it, the next years will both make that a necessity as it was never before but also provide previously unseen opportunities for it.

Thats kinda how I see it. Sorry for digressing comrade