What is the nature of the crisis in the German Democratic Republic? Is it merely a spillover from the counterrevolutionary trend which has been set in motion in Eastern Europe, and which has taken on a more ominous momentum in the GDR?
Or is it a spontaneous upheaval, the result of desperate economic conditions brought on by socialized central planning? Let us consider the latter.
The two leading organs of American finance capital, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, earlier this year openly admitted that, in the words of the Journal, "at least in East Germany centralized planning is a success." This is an unprecedented admission which must not be overlooked.
A remarkable article in the Times on March 13, 1989, by Henry Kamm, a hard-line anti-communist journalist, was entitled "A Riddle for Communism." What is the riddle? "Why Does the East German Economy Prosper?"
This in a newspaper which carries many, many stories about the socialist countries with hardly ever a good word for any of them.
Was this article a fluke? On Feb. 22, the Wall Street Journal went even further in examining the success of the GDR's centrally planned economy. Barry Newman wrote from Karlmarxstadt: "This country has no debt problem. The 17 million East Germans earn 30% more than their next richest partners, the Czechoslovaks, and not much less than the English. East Germans build 32-bit mini-computers and a socialist `Walkman' and the only queue in East Berlin forms at the opera." !!!
There have been numerous stories in the world capitalist press which attest to the efficiency of the GDR's economy and the general well-being there as compared not only to other East European countries but also to some in the West. Why have they suddenly disappeared? Because of the renewed resolve by the imperialist bourgeoisie to resume their joint efforts to destabilize the GDR. The impetus came from the counterrevolutionary events in Poland and Hungary.
FRG an imperialist oppressor,
GDR an ally of liberation movementsSuddenly a great deal is being made of the higher standard of living in the Federal Republic of Germany. This is highly exaggerated, and moreover it is prone to collapse, especially in light of the impending capitalist crisis.
But it should be taken note of that the so-called prosperity of the imperialist FRG, like that of the imperialist U.S., Britain and France, is based upon the robbery of the oppressed peoples of the world. Imperialist finance capital has subjected hundreds of millions to untold aggression and exploitation. This is evidenced by the absolutely unprecedented indebtedness of the oppressed countries, much of it to West German banks which fatten on the interest.
The GDR, on the other hand, has been a source of support to the entire anti-imperialist movement in political as well as material terms. Isn't this a fundamental difference that progressive workers throughout the world must take into account?
Unfavorable objective conditions
It is true there are many objective conditions which have been very unfavorable for the building of socialism in the GDR. The country was arbitrarily carved out of a larger territory and made to stand on its own feet as a result of a military decision made in 1945 at the Potsdam conference. At this meeting between the USSR and the Allied imperialists, there were some who would have preferred Hitler over the USSR in Eastern Europe--as the 1938 Munich Pact between Britain, France and Germany had showed.
After the Cold War began, what other country could stand the strain of having three hostile imperialist powers station their military detachments right in the heart of its capital? Yet, through trials and tribulation, the GDR withstood innumerable social and military provocations.
The reactionary trend elsewhere in Eastern Europe is not an accident. It arises from the imposition of capitalist market practices and anti-socialist reforms, dating back to 1956. After the Hungarian counterrevolutionary uprising, there were successive attempts to widen and deepen these bourgeois reforms at the expense of the basically centralized socialist system.
The counterrevolution which has enveloped Poland as well as Hungary flows precisely from these imperialist-oriented developments. They are not, it must be said very categorically, a product of social and political forces which are the exclusive province of a particular socialist country.
But why a crisis now in the GDR, of all places? Is it merely being swept along by the momentum of the counterrevolutionary trend which has enveloped Poland and Hungary? Or is there more to it than the forces of predatory imperialism?
Indeed there is. It is the Gorbachev administration in the USSR which has pushed the situation to the brink of capitalist restoration and political counterrevolution.
The attempt of Gorbachev and his bourgeois economic reformers to export his prescription for change to Eastern Europe has accelerated all the evil forces of capitalist chaos, the ultimate result of which would be to return these countries to the imperialist orbit. Why is this so? What has impelled the Gorbachev administration to embark on this dangerous, self-defeating course?
Faced with difficult problems in socialist construction, the Gorbachev grouping and its economists and advisers have taken the seemingly easier course of once again seeking a lasting accommodation with U.S. imperialism. They hope to get it to abandon the arms race and extend economic and financial relations to the USSR which would enable it to advance in fierce competition with the capitalist West. The objective may be laudable, but the means thereto are treacherous.
And what, in turn, do the imperialists demand for such presumed, but by no means granted, concessions? The abandonment of the socialist countries in Eastern Europe, returning them to a sort of neutralized buffer zone between East and West. This idea has long been one of the favorite themes of cold warriors like George Kennan. No previous Soviet leader has deigned to discuss it with the imperialists.
However, each succeeding generation of leaders in the USSR has sought an easing of tensions with the imperialist camp. The aim has been to reach a modus vivendi and avoid a full-fledged military confrontation. Khrushchev went as far as he could in his courting of Eisenhower during the Camp David honeymoon. But this was wrecked when the USSR was forced to shoot down an American U-2 spy plane that penetrated its airspace right in the middle of the honeymoon.
Gorbachev-Bush meeting
Within a matter of days Gorbachev is due to meet with Bush in the Mediterranean, who is sure to raise the problems which most bedevil U.S. imperialism: the anti-imperialist movements. Bush will try to get the USSR to either renounce them or to back off from continued support.
But the big concession that U.S. imperialism is seeking is precisely in Eastern Europe.
The GDR has stood firmly and staunchly in opposition to any attempt to impose a capitalist economy on it, which is seen as a forerunner to a so-called settlement of the German question, meaning the dismantling of socialist Germany.
The clique of renegades now running the Hungarian government have all but sold out whatever they could in the way of socialist construction in Hungary to the imperialist banks and foreign capitalists. When they broke their immigration treaty with the GDR, that was the signal for the mass exodus. It is impossible to believe that this group of Hungarian reactionaries could have in any way carried out such a monstrous violation of a treaty signed by all the socialist countries in Eastern Europe without getting the assent of the Gorbachev administration. And in fact, there was no condemnation from the Soviet Union of this brazen attempt to undermine a socialist ally.
Gorbachev's visit to the GDR on the occasion of its 40th anniversary was another blow. Only the most credulous could possibly believe that he came as a friendly ally. To the detriment of the socialist regime, he encouraged all the bourgeois elements who have long lain dormant. He in fact opened wide the gates to counterrevolution in the GDR.
This is not to say that everyone taking part in the mass exodus or demonstrations is a counterrevolutionary. But the whole momentum begun by the CIA-Solidarity government now running Poland, and that has now swept Hungary into its wake, has of course had an effect in the GDR.
There has never been a full-scale counterrevolution without a significant section of the masses being duped and deceived into supporting it. Witness Hitler's bloody counterrevolution, and the fascist takeover in Chile with its "pots and pans" demonstrations.
The principal cause of the reactionary upheaval in the GDR is of course the long-term conspiracy of the U.S., the Federal Republic of Germany and all the NATO imperialists. They have been relentlessly at war against the very existence of the GDR since it was founded. And this has been spurred on by the diplomatic adventure of the Gorbachev administration, which is trying to consummate a long-term, stable agreement with the imperialists at the expense of its socialist allies.
This is the basic reason for the so-called "superpower" meeting in the Mediterranean. Yet regardless of what Gorbachev has in mind, the events in the GDR can only weaken his diplomatic position and in turn weaken the political, diplomatic, economic and military situation of the USSR.
So far as the GDR leadership is concerned, they are now engulfed in a very deep crisis, one which may involve not just a political change but a transfer of power from one class to another, from the working class to the imperialist bourgeoisie. That's the bottom line of this crisis.
Whatever the problems have been in the past, they have been heightened and aggravated to the nth degree by the policies of the Gorbachev regime.
It is quite understandable that when a storm sweeps across a forest, the trees that will not sway and bend with it may be uprooted. Communist strategists going back to the days of Marx and Engels have understood the necessity for making compromises, for overcoming obstacles in order to move forward. Such was Lenin's position in his experiment with the New Economic Policy. Communists have known of the necessity to make necessary concessions or to beat a hurried retreat in the face of an enemy offensive. Even when defeat results, the beleaguered army of the working class vanguard regroups, studies the lessons involved in the defeat, and prepares for the next battle.
Didn't the defeat of the Chinese Red Army in 1934 lay the basis for the Long March and the victory of the Chinese Revolution?--to cite only the most dramatic example of historical significance.
The German CP has the deepest roots in communist experience. But having been thrust into a situation not of its own making, where its principal ally has abandoned it virtually to the wolves, the road is indeed difficult.
We on this side of the Atlantic can do no better than to affirm our revolutionary solidarity with all of the communists in the GDR, to all who are dedicated to the defense of socialism and who, in the most difficult circumstances, will not abandon the rich heritage of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and all those who died in the struggle against Nazi imperialism and in defense of the socialist revolution.