Bisky suggests Left and SPD should make up, possibly even fuse

I think this is a natural development -- but only if the Left seriously enforces its long-standing policy that former "unofficial co-workers" with the Ministry for State Security come clean about their past.

This is a complication for ex-Communist parties throughout Eastern Europe--except that in countries like Poland and Hungary the former Communists themselves morphed into Social Democratic parties, but still have to deal with the legacy of politicians who were involved in one way or another with the state security apparatus.

Apart from this vexing question, the Left in eastern Germany is a good fit for partnership with the SPD because it is comprised primarily of "realos" who cooperate easily with other parties on the local and state level. Thus, tactical alliances between the conservative CDU and the Left have existed for years in local government throughout the east, while the two SPD-Left coalitions in the state governments (formerly in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and currently in Berlin) have functioned as normally as any other multi-party coalition. The same will be true in Brandenburg once the Landtag moves on from the Stasi controversy--as eventually it must.

But it's in the west--where the Left is comprised by disaffected ex-SPD members, train unionists and an assortment of left-wing sectarians--where re-union with the SPD would be more problematic. The very point for the Left's existence in the western states is as an alternative to the SPD. In the east, it's more like a second SPD (which has reduced the SPD to third-party status in three of the six eastern German states).

So one possible scenario is a split in the Left itself--with the majority of the more radical western membership (a minority of the party as a whole) remaining separate and drifting into sectarian obscurity, while the pragmatic eastern membership unites with the SPD after suitable background checks. As Bisky said, this may be a project for the "next generation"--i.e., the rising generation of Left members who reached maturity after 1989 and therefore weren't tainted by association with the MfS, and of the corresponding SPD generation whose life experience was not defined by political repression in the GDR.

I think splits should be avoided. A broad Left democratic party should be willing to accomodate various views. A continuous political education programme is a vital necessity for any party wanting major social and basic economic changes. The public will not vote for utopias they don't understand. Where ignorance prevails, the capitalist parties can get away with the most outrageous rubbish in their politics of "image", "narrative" and utter delusion like the so-called "War on Terror". The Left has a great opportunity now as the capitalist parties are in complete denial of their responsibility for the worst economic failure since 1929. Realistic critique of the failures of capitalism will find public support now, but, the Left politicians must break the cosy consensus with conservatism on so-called "social-Market" programmes. This is a contradictory term with no possibility of being realised in practice as the wasted years of SPD in Germany, Labour in Britain and PSF in France have proven.