BERLIN, April 15 (UPI) -- A leader of Germany's Left Party said he is calling for portions of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to be officially adopted as official party policy.
Oskar Lafontaine said sections of the Communist Manifesto to be "very contemporary," and should be adopted into the party, Die Welt newspaper reported.
The segment he would like to include reads: "For exploitation veiled by religious and political illusions, (the bourgeoisie) has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."
Lafontaine's Left Party, which is popular in the eastern states, is Germany's third most popular political party, after the ruling right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD), the newspaper said.
Lafontaine, 64, is a former Social Democratic state premier who ran for chancellor. He is also a former German finance minister.
Speaking to the newspaper, Lafontaine also called for the nationalization of postal, telecommunications and electricity services.
"The neo-liberal privatization of the energy sector has led to monopoly prices," he was quoted as saying. "The power grid belongs to the public."
