World

No quick road to unity after GDR vote

By TOM MORRIS

The victory March 18th of the conserva-
tive coalition in the German Democratic
Republic has propelled the unification pro-
cess of east and west Germany along at a
dizzying pace, with currency union sche-
duled for July 1. However, complications
have already arisen in putting together the
needed two-thirds majority required to
change the GDR’s constitution to pave the
way for political union.

As well, much remains to be settled with
respect to a united Germany’s military sta-
tus, and concerns have been expressed
regarding border issues and respect for
post-World War II frontiers.

Many East Germans clearly voted as
consumers, opting for what they regard as
speedy union with the Federal Republic of
Germany’s dynamic economy, the world’s
fourth largest. Especially in the south of the
country, East Germans solidly backed the
three-party conservative coalition Alliance
for Germany which, in reality is the power-
ful Christian Democratic Union (CDU),
the party of FRG Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
The CDU captured 41 per cent of the vote
and 164 seats in the GDR’s 400-seat parli-
ament. The alliance’s two other right-wing
parties, the German Social Union and
Democratic Awakening between them won
29 seats.

The CDU triumph is widely expected to
boost that party’s previously sagging for-
tunes in the December 1990 FRG elections.
Kohl, who personally spearheaded the
CDU’s slick, expensive campaign in the
GDR, has emerged as the father of one
Germany with his 10-point reunification
plan and last week’s election victory.

By contrast, the Social Democratic Party
(SPD), which in January was leading*in
public support, garnered only 88 seats,
although it won in Berlin. However, SPD
leader Ibrahim Bohme immediately rejected

CDU calls for a coalition government, say-
ing his party would not join in any coalition
with the right-wing German Social Union.
The Liberal Party with 20 seats may also be
considered as a coalition partner as the
jockeying begins.

Together, West German-based parties
captured 75 per cent of the ballots in an
election in which 93 per cent of East Ger-
mans participated. “The people put their
trust in him who promised a lot of money,”
said the SPD leader in the FRG who is
preparing for next December’s election.
“That’s Kohl. We’ll be reminding him daily
of his promises.”

The newly-constituted Party of Demo-
cratic Socialism (PDS), which was formed
out of the collapse of the former Socialist
Unity Party which governed the GDR for
40 years, was by far the strongest non-FRG
component. It captured 16.5 per cent of the
vote, giving the PDS and its charismatic
new leader, Gregor Gysi, 65 seats. Other
GDR parties, especially New Forum, which
rose to prominence during the mass protests
against the SED-dominated former gov-
ernment, fared badly, winning just 2.7 per
cent of the vote.

Just days after the CDU win, FRG Chan-
cellor Kohn appealed to East Germans to
stay home and declared an end to reception
centres and special benefits for GDR
citizens by July 1. Last year 344,000 people
resettled in West Germany and some 2,000
have been arriving daily this year, placing a
heavy strain on the FRG’s economy and
dangerously undermining the GDR’s. Pub-
lic opinion in the FRG is beginning to
oppose resettlement benefits and two FRG
states, Bremen and Saarland, have declared
themselves closed to more GDR settlers.

Many media interviews following the
dramatic outcome show East Germans to
be both optimistic and wary. Many express
concern over their the future of their coun-

CDU leader Lothar de Maiziere celebrates election victory; (inset) PDS leaders
Gregor Gysi (I) and Hans Modrow watch results.

try’s many social programs and the spectre
of unemployment in a united Germany,
while obviously hoping to reap the benefits
of a consumer society.

Others have expressed sadness that 40
years of effort to build:a socialist state have
been undermined and perhaps destroyed by
a former SED leadership which took power
from the people. Still others felt over-

whelmed by the zeal and power of the FRG-
based political machine which descended
on their heads and not a little apprehension
of what the future holds.

But with a combination of angst, optim-
ism and hope, most interviewed appeared
to be preparing themselves for reunification
and wondering just what it might be like.

Cold war entrenched Stalinism in the GDR

The fall from undisputed power of the
GDR’s former Socialist Unity Party (SED),
now renamed SED-PDS, raises several his-
toric issues. The following backgrounder by
Dr. Gerd Fesser appeared in the in the Febru-
ary, 1990, issue of GDR Review.

These days GDR citizens, and especially
members of the SED-PDS, are being
haunted by many probing questions. One of
them is: was there a different path of devel-
opment for the GDR? Was there a real
alternative to the Stalinist indoctrination of
the state and the party?

Here it must be stressed that in 1945, both
the Communist Party (KPD) and the Social
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) —
which later united to form the Socialist
Unity Party (SED) — aspired to take an
independent path to socialism and demo-
cracy. Ina public appeal on June 11, 1945,
the KPD suggested striving together for the
“establishment of an anti-fascist-democratic
regime, a parliamentary-democratic repub-
lic with all the rights and freedoms for the
people.”

It was firmly opposed to “enforcing the
Soviet system upon Germany”. Four days
later, the national executive of the SPD
advanced the slogan: “Democracy in the
Community and in Society.” In _ the
No. 1/1946 of the periodical Einheit (Unity),
Anton Ackermann, on behalf of the KPD
Political Bureau, came out in favour of “a
special German road to socialism.”

In the years following 1949 (when the
GDR was formed — Ed.), there were also
certain factors in the GDR which delayed
and modified Stalinist indoctrination.
Firstly, the Soviet leadership continued for
many years to pursue its aim of creating a
unified, neutral Germany. Secondly, the

‘Honecker and the SED leadership ignored the historical chance
that presented itself to the European socialist community after

1985.’

SED leadership had to take into account
that there was a second German state and
an open border.

However, decisions were made even
before the foundation of the GDR, which in
the end resulted in the Soviet Stalinist model
of socialism being imposed upon anti-
fascist-democratic development in the east
of Germany. The conflict that had been
going on between the USSR and Yugosla-
via since 1948, revealed that the Soviet lead-
ership under Stalin was not prepared to
accept an alternative model of socialism
within its sphere of influence.

The cold war, which was unleashed by
the Western powers, also furthered the
development of Stalinist structures and
thought patterns in the SED. In 1948 the
SED leadership introduced a “‘new type of
party.” And this signified the copying of
Stalin’s party model.

Stalinist structures and mechanisms
were introduced in the SED and in the

overall political system in the GDR. The”

history of the party was almost exclusively
limited to that of the KPD, while the demo-
cratic traditions of the SPD, which could
have acted as a corrective against Stalinist
indoctrination, were ignored. This process
culminated in the official subjugation of the
state apparatus under the SED leadership’s

— Gerd Fesser

claim to autocratic rule in 1960 and the
embodiment of this “leading role of the
SED” in Article 1 of the GDR Constitution
in 1968.

Although the multi-party system was
retained, the scope of political action for the
“bloc parties” was considerably curtailed,
especially in the 1980s. Critical remarks
from these parties were arrogantly dis-
missed by the “‘party and state leadership”
around Erich Honecker.

The way I see it, a profoundly different
path was not possible before 1985.

The events of 1953 (civilian unrest in
GDR), 1956 (Hungarian revolt) and 1968
(invasion of Czechoslovakia) had shown
that the Soviet leadership was still not wil-
ling to accept ‘a genuine democratization.
Obviously, they didn’t believe in the possi-
bility of democratic socialism.

The agonies of the Stalinist system in the
GDR set in in the 1980s. Today everyone is
shocked and outraged at the cases of abuse
of power and corruption which have been
revealed. However, I don’t think this by any
means represents the main guilt of the polit-
ical bureaucrats around Honecker. Abuse
of power and corruption have existed and
continue to exist everywhere in the world.
Here we need only think of the many scan-
dals which take place in the FRG.

Stalinist structures, in my opinion, favour

abuse of power and corruption, because of
the absence of democratic control mecha-
nisms, but they do not produce them auto-
matically. Senior party members have told
me that such deformations would have been
hardly possible under former leaders Wil-
helm Pieck and Otto Grotewohl. The first
signs were beginning to show under Walter
Ulbricht, but the full bloom was reached
under Honecker in the years since the mid-
1970s. ‘

A far more serious mistake than these
deformations was the fact that Honecker
and the SED leadership ignored the histori-
cal chance that presented itself to the Euro-
pean socialist community since 1985. To
begin with they cut themselves off from the
process of democratization underway in the
Soviet Union, and then _ increasingly
adopted a_ barely-disguised anti-Soviet
stance.

This was a betrayal of the interests of the
people and the party. The consideration
that the GDR had less political freedom of

‘movement than the USSR, because of its

sensitive location, could have been involved.
But I am firmly convinced that it was not
the main reason. Honecker and other lead-
ers were afraid of democratization like the
devil fears holy water because they feared
for their personal positions of power and
unjustified privileges.

It was in October, 1989, at the 11th hour,
so to speak, that a mass democratization

’ movement brought about the downfall of

the Stalinist Honecker. At the beginning of
December, the SED broke with Stalinism.
And, despite the pressure of time, it has
taken the first important steps at its special
party congress for a critical analysis of Stal-
inism.

Pacific Tribune, April 2, 1990 + 7