- Mar 22
- 16 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
Campaign Report: Attending the Kampagne für eine Sozialistische Partei (KSP) Conference in Germany
John Hogget
February 20, 2026
On Tuesday, Feb. 17, I flew from UK Gatwick Airport to Berlin Airport, arriving at about 9 p.m. What was I thinking? I don’t speak German, and I hardly ever leave my hometown of Reading. The last time I flew was last year for a friend’s wedding in Belfast. Then there was the time, about 10 years ago, when I took the Channel Tunnel train to perform poetry at Spoken Word Paris. The audience loved it, though I spent the next four days feeling lost, cycling round the city and crying. The only time I flew before that was in the late 80s when I traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, to see my sister for a week.
Arriving in Berlin
Luckily, my friend Matthew, who I was staying with in Berlin, talked me through getting the train from the airport to his place over WhatsApp. The next evening, Wednesday, I met Odie, my KSP Berlin contact, outside an underground station, and we chatted easily in the freezing, zero-degree cold of Berlin before moving to a Middle Eastern cafe to get a takeout. We then went to the KSP meetup at Syndicat, the hip anarchist bar they meet at.
Chatting easily was the theme of my time with the KSP. Most of them speak English well and were incredibly welcoming hosts. I was performing a piece at Spoken Word Berlin the next evening, and I told Odie about my comedy script in which I take the piss out of neurodiversity, as well as my upcoming blog entry on a critical mental health website. The piece is called “Neurodiversity – the Opium of the People.” Odie smiled, as did the other KSP folk when I spoke to them about it, whereas most people looked bemused or offended.
My friend Matthew soon arrived at Syndicat. He is a committed Trotskyist who recently organized his workplace in Berlin, and the KSP folk were interested in how he accomplished this. Odie suggested he come back another time and run a workshop on organizing for them.
Odie works in a school with children in need of extra help. Having done similar work myself, we bonded over our frustration with the authoritarian nature of schools, which often force struggling children to conform to rigid and punitive classroom rules. Odie is currently working with a Ukrainian refugee boy who is struggling in school and doesn’t speak much German. I cringed at what the school expects the boy to do and said that in my training, I learnt you build the relationship first, and then the child will learn whatever is appropriate. Odie said he did that, but it was slow, and the boy was mainly fascinated by fighter planes, which is not unusual for boys coming from war zones.
The following day, Thursday, I performed at the ultra-hip Berlin Spoken Word. The MC asked people to say what content warning they had for their pieces. I remember thinking to myself: Are these softies going to have breakdowns if you talk about scary things? Surely we go to art events partly to be scared. Isn’t that why we watch Doctor Who and horror films?
When it came to my turn, I said, “Content warning: I am very offensive!” and then started my piece about Moody Cow Disorder, which satirizes neurodiversity. A few people looked uncomfortable, but I also got increasing amounts of laughs.
The MC also warned us that they did not welcome racism, sexism, transphobia or anything else that perpetuates oppressive systems. I thought to myself: for goodness’ sake, can’t we just boo and hiss if someone says something we don’t like?
Traveling to Leipzig
The next evening, Friday, I traveled to Leipzig with Felix, a middle-aged, bearded hippy type and KSP activist. He was involved in a recent Berlin KSP project called “Childcare Islands,” which met in cafes and provided childcare during a kindergarten workers’ strike. That strike was now over. The unions negotiated a 5.8% pay increase over 27 months, so the project went into abeyance while the KSP Berlin group reflected on what to do next and what they had learned from it.
We were met at the Leipzig train station by Jann, who was my host. I could have stayed in the art studio where the conference was being held, but while I am used to staying in squats and run-down studios at conferences, I am now 66 with high blood pressure and prefer my creature comforts, not least easy access to a bathroom in the middle of the night. We briefly said hello to Jann’s delightfully scruffy dog, packed away my bag, and then headed off to the studio for the Socialist Salon: an event separate from the conference that the KSP regularly organizes in a few cities across Germany.
Jann tells me that there is a lot of suspicion about socialism in East Germany, where Leipzig is located, due to people’s memories of the Soviet era and the German Democratic Republic. I am reminded of a friend in Reading who is of Polish origin; her family settled in the UK after World War II. She told me that Stalin killed more people than Hitler and said her family had lost a small family farm to the Soviets, as did many other Poles. So this suspicion of socialism is by no means limited to East Germany.
For the Socialist Salon, I was told that the KSP usually invites other non-KSP civil social organizations to present and then answer questions in a panel-style debate. This time, however, they invited KSP organizers to present.
There were about 100 people present at the Socialist Salon, mainly non-KSP folk. I don’t understand German, so much of it went over my head, but I gathered that there were presentations on a renters’ union, an after-school tutoring project, and Felix presented the Childcare Islands project. The projects I heard about seemed successful, though others might fail or have mixed results; above all, they stressed that they were learning as they went along.
Tina, who worked on the tutoring project, said when I asked her later that she enjoyed the tutoring and that it enriched her life. She said she wouldn’t do it otherwise and that it was important to work on projects that interest you, so you are likely to stick with them long term. Doing what you enjoy was something other KSP activists also stressed to me. It seemed to be a message that got drummed into them quite early on, and I liked this a lot.
The tutoring project is called “Freie Lernhilfe” (“Free Learning Support”), and it has attracted retired teachers, university students, and children.
The KSP Conference: Discussions on Civil Society
The next day, Saturday morning, is the day of the conference, and at 10 a.m. I arrive at a run-down art studio. We sit on hard wooden office chairs and go around introducing ourselves; there are about 20 people present. We break into small groups to discuss the themes of the day’s workshops. We have a break, then come back and listen to reports on different projects (child care, tutoring, tenants’ unions, community kitchen, strike support, art and sport projects). One of the KSP members, Rudi, whispers translations in my ear as I take notes; I remember the whole scene feeling familiar, even though I haven’t been to a meeting like this in many years.
We break into small groups to discuss “What is civil social organizing?” There might have been different subjects discussed in other groups, such as “What do we expect from civil social organizing?” or “Are our expectations being met?” But hey, I’m English and hard of hearing, and Rudi, though charming, can’t capture everything.
In the workshop on “What is civil social organizing?” the heart of the work became apparent. The usual big sheet of paper on the wall and a thick pen to write up summaries of the discussion came out. The KSP activists said that civil society was the part of society not organized by the state; for example, the Church was not organized by the state. They explored the differences between state, employer, capital, and society, and asked whether small businesses were part of civil society. They also raised the history of civil social organizing and how, over 100 years ago, a worker could go to a community cafe to eat, attend socialist sports clubs, and have much of their life revolve around other civil society organizations.
The discussion turned to the difficulties of trying to engage people. One person said a friend had asked him what he got out of his KSP activities, and he said “nothing,” and she wasn’t interested after that. Obviously, he should have said he got a lot out of it; as Tina said about the tutoring project, it enriched her life, and she wouldn’t do it otherwise. It reminded me of trying to organize tenants in Reading. A woman who lived in the flat above me, when I suggested inviting people in the block round for tea to talk about what it was like living there, said to me, “What do I get out of it?” The place had its problems: crack dealers used to come into the block to collect drugs, one tenant smashed up her room, and another died, and I had to call the police to break down his door. I stopped trying to organize the tenants at that point and eventually moved out; I couldn’t do it on my own.
The KSP activists reflected that what they were experiencing might be that the tradition of organizing has faded, perhaps because the state provides so much that people expect it to look after them. But as I type this report on Monday after the conference, I am sitting in Cafe Engels in Berlin next to my friend Matthew. He smiles at me over his laptop and says that the union he is organizing at work had a meeting yesterday; nearly everyone was there, and they are planning to recruit more. Sometimes, when conditions are right, things can come together, and organizing works well.
I also reflect that the KSP is only three years old. It started in 2023, yet already has people and projects all over Germany. To me, that seems a success.
The discussion eventually turned to how the state is now entwined with civil society; for example, how elderly care might be provided for by the state, or at least funded by it. KSP members raised the question of how independent of the state various forms of civil social organizing are. Someone said, “We want civil society, but we don’t really know what it is.” The group reflected that once a civil social organization gets big, the state moves in and tries to take it over. Sometimes they violently shut it down, too.
One example I was reminded of was the Battle of the Beanfield in the early 1980s under Margaret Thatcher. This happened when police violently dispersed travellers who were living in old buses and heading towards Stonehenge for the annual Stonehenge Free Festival. At the time, there was a wider network of free festivals across Britain where people gathered every summer, but that scene soon faded away in the years that followed. Hitchhiking also disappeared during the late 1980s as a common way of traveling the country.
Aside from the more abstract question of what civil society is, KSP members also talked about more practical matters, such as how the kindergarten project had brought striking kindergarten workers together with parents, and that the parents may have begun supporting the workers. The parents and kindergarten workers learned something from the KSP activists, and the KSP activists, in turn, learned something from the parents and workers.
As I sit in these circles, the German language washes over me, and by the end of the day, I am beginning to make out the vowels, consonants, rhythms, and cadences of German speech; give me another week, and I’d be speaking the language.
We have a lunch break and go to a Syrian restaurant. I have hummus and flatbread. Max, a man with glasses from the tenants’ union, asks me what the most disappointing part of the conference has been so far. I say, “That’s a bit direct!” Max replies that he is German and that this is the German way. I think it has all been delightful so far, so I say, “The lack of elderly gay men (really, I mean young) to flirt with.” They laugh, and Rudi says, “Wait till this evening at the bar!”
We go back to the main meeting room of the art studio and sit in a circle. Rudi whispers in my ear, translating what people say. People report back from the workshops and then on various projects. Most of the discussion focuses on the projects themselves. This leads to a discussion about the structure of the day. “Keep the bureaucracy low, we want to hear and learn from the projects,” is the clamour from the group.
Earlier, I had spoken with Max (with the moustache, not Max with the glasses), the chair of the organization. He told me he had been completely burnt out the previous year and had to stand down. Listening to the discussion, I found myself thinking that while people wanted to keep bureaucracy low, the organization still needed enough structure to hold things together so the projects could continue and grow. The group seemed to manage that balance without too much fuss. I realised I was almost missing the chaos of some meetings I had attended years ago, where people threw order papers around, stamped their feet, burst into tears, and stormed out. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been to these sorts of meetings for such a long time?
Projects and Organising Strategy
Max (with the glasses) reported on an incident at the Frankfurt tenants’ union. It had gone really well, but there was a bit of drama because the KSP had put photographs from the project on its website and in a newsletter without permission. The main people involved in the union were no longer KSP members. This was a bit jarring, but it was completely in line with the KSP policy of starting projects without necessarily running them themselves.
A document I received later reminded me that the purpose of KSP activity is to create the conditions in which a socialist party could emerge, not to run civil social projects itself. Starting projects is their core activity, and every good community organizer knows your job is done when the group no longer needs you.
The kindergarten project reflected a similar difficulty that arises when trying to start projects. Organizers said it had been hard to get parents to see that it was their own club, not just something for them, but something they ran themselves.
Other projects the KSP was engaged with included a restaurant in Leipzig run by a mix of KSP activists and other activists, where there were arguments about whether the food should be vegan. Another project involved a man living in the countryside outside Frankfurt who was converting an old barn into an art center. His father was a construction worker and was teaching him how to do the work. He hoped the project would eventually turn into an art club, though for the moment, he was working on it largely on his own in what he described as a cultural desert.
There was also a report from a basketball project with migrants in Leipzig. The group wanted to renovate the court but said it was owned by the local council, which raised questions about how independent the project could be from the state. This prompted someone to ask whether they could raise money to buy it.
Rudi tells me, as a project idea, that he wants to open an unemployed cafe that would be open toward the end of people’s benefit payment periods, when they run out of money for food. The idea is that unemployed people could come for a cheap meal and talk to one another about their situation, rather than being left isolated at home. I comment that this could become the start of a claimants’ union. I like the idea so much that at this point, I almost want to nuzzle Rudi like an over-affectionate dog. During the austerity years of the mid-2010s, the left organized marches and speaker meetings, but almost no one organized benefit claimants and service users, who were suffering the most.
Another project involved a man running a music school where people could learn various instruments, though he was currently looking for others to help run it. In the evening, I also met a woman who told me about a socialist choir the KSP had started that sings songs by Hanns Eisler, a German Marxist composer who wrote the national anthem of East Germany.
Beyond the projects themselves, discussion also turns to the KSP’s relationship with the wider left. KSP activists talk about the Socialist Salons, where they invite civil society organizations to present their work, and say this has been going well. When they invite other left groups, however, few of them participate. Relationships with other left groups come up in informal discussions quite a bit. KSP members have appeared on leftist podcasts, spoken with other left groups, and made several attempts to engage with them. A podcaster asked a KSP member what their line on Palestine was, and he replied, “We don’t have one.” The podcaster said you have to have one, or the Zionists will come along and take over.
Jann tells me the KSP gets quite a lot of attention from the German left but that most people are simply bemused by it. I reckon this will continue until the KSP has major wins that get into the press, like a big renters’ strike, and then the left might try to take over and subvert the projects. The KSP still thinks it is worth trying to talk to leftist groups because it might educate them on the importance of organizing.
In a break, Felix makes jokes, imagining a civil society organized train station or airport (later I learn that in the Bavarian Ilztal, volunteers organize the train connection between Passau and Freyung, it runs on weekends and holidays between May and October). I think this reflects the almost unsaid question, the dark shadow that hangs around the ceiling, “how can this work? The task is massive.” Later in the afternoon, before they voted in new officers, Max, the retiring chair, said the purpose of the organizing and of the KSP was to create conditions where a socialist party could arise, and if they were not doing that, they could close down. It was a tense moment, but a reminder of the task they had set themselves.
History and Goals of the KSP
To clarify their relationship to the wider left, KSP activists showed me a document explaining who they are as an organization. They hark back to the Second International and the SPD in the years leading up to the First World War. Many KSP members have been in contact with the Platypus Affiliated Society, which studies the history of the left and critiques the contemporary left with its slogan, “The Left is Dead, Long Live the Left.” My guess is that quite a few KSP members could recite Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg backwards, but would also say that Marxism is irrelevant until there is a proletarian movement for socialism, and for that to happen the working class has to be organized. Their main activity is organizing civil society organizations that they hope will become independent of the KSP once they are established. They do all this while keeping an eye on the larger goal of creating conditions in which a socialist party might emerge.
For anyone wanting the full intellectual briefing, they have a document called “Campaign for a Socialist Party – Information Material for New Members.” They might hand it out if you ask nicely, or refer you instead to their shorter flyer, “What is the Campaign for a Socialist Party?”
The current campaign was founded in 2022–23. There had been a previous attempt, right after the American comrades started their campaign, but it did not work out as planned, so the KSP collapsed and restarted a little later. They now have groups in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Leipzig, Marburg and Munich, and around 50 members. They are running various projects successfully, but these are still like seeds that have germinated, pushing up seed leaves, with a few shoots showing young leaves. It all needs watering and feeding, and that is what the conference is about.
They know the task is enormous. Felix reminded me later, on the trip back to Berlin, that they are looking at a 30–40 year horizon. Felix also raised the worry of a future catastrophe, specifically the climate catastrophe. I am a resting climate change activist and think that is already unfolding. I said to Felix that if things become so catastrophic that society begins to break down, it becomes even more important that the KSP grows and develops.
Membership costs 10 euros per month, but if someone cannot afford it they can ask the treasurer if they may pay less. Members are expected to put in four hours of work each week in one of the civil society projects the KSP is running. They receive voting rights at the national assemblies, and the money goes toward the website, flyers and other operational costs.
The conference included reports from regional representatives, which invited further reflection on the civil society projects. At this time, KSP members also thanked the outgoing officers and voted in new ones, giving each of them a hearty round of applause. They then switched to a discussion of social media and how it had attracted interest, but noted that new members in more isolated regions did not always have projects they could easily take part in. Thorben later told me they once operated a “Lone Wolf” service. The CSP in America currently runs something similar for members who do not have a local group, speaking with people on Zoom and encouraging them to set up projects or join existing ones, such as food banks run by churches. Conference participants wondered whether social media should be handled by individual projects rather than centrally.
After the discussions ended, we had an evening break for the most delicious pizza, cooked outside by two young people. We came back in for the final part of the conference and then it was over, and people rushed to stack chairs, tidy up and prepare for the party.
There was a bar and tables where people sat around, with some kind of trip-hop techno playing in the background as young men rolled cigarettes. That took me back to my youth in the mid-1980s, when my housemate Michelle asked me to run the childcare for a women’s conference. I of course said yes and ran it with her boyfriend and a few hippy men I knew from the area. They took me to a party on Saturday night in a minibus, and the next day, after about four hours’ sleep, we looked after the children again. Once I was the young one at these sorts of events; now I’m the old one. Tired of chatting, I went back to Jann’s for a reasonably early bed. I had already taken my blood pressure meds. I was mildly disappointed that I hadn’t tried to cajole Thorben onto the dance floor to the trip-hop techno, and I wondered whether there had been any older gay men around I could have tried to chat up.
Concluding Observations
With the conference now over, the next morning feels more like spring than winter. It is about 8 degrees Celsius. I have breakfast in a Leipzig cafe, surfing the web while waiting for my “comrades” to wake up. I came across an article about the digitization of therapy in the UK, describing the crassness of AI therapy and how data mining from NHS therapy sessions has helped make this possible. The piece also notes that around 70% of therapists are burnt out, and that some now rely on food banks.
AI is snowballing. It is shaping up to be the next big capitalist boom. It will fundamentally change how service industries are delivered and how work is organized. The left and organized labor are not prepared for this. It will not only be therapy that becomes digitized and exploited; Uberization is spreading everywhere.
Thinking about this makes me reflect on what I had just witnessed at the conference. The KSP insists that organizing must come first, that human relationships and cooperation are the foundation of any left-wing activity, and that without them no socialist party can emerge. The KSP in Germany is still young, only three years old, with many small projects that are just beginning to take shape. Yet those small projects are rooted in human solidarity, which may be the only real antidote to the anonymous, data-driven exploitation that Big Data is accelerating.
On Monday, flying home, I find myself repeating the German safety announcements syllable by syllable. Perhaps if I find other comrades in the UK to form a British KSP or CSP, I might visit again. And perhaps next time they can teach me a bit more German.
This article was contributed by Campaign Reporter John Hoggett (submitted March 2, 2026, reprinted in Sublation with permission) If you’d like to join the Kampagne für eine Sozialistische Partei (KSP) or follow their work, email 2019ksp@gmail.com or visit their website: https://kampagnesozialistischepartei.de/ or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kampagne_sozialistische_partei
If you’d like to join the Campaign for a Socialist Party, become a Campaign Reporter, or both, please email us at campaignforasocialistpartyUSA@gmail.com
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