Twenty
years ago as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down the bourgeoisie in
the west was euphoric, rejoicing at the “fall of communism”.
Twenty years later things look very different as capitalism has
entered its most severe crisis since 1929. Now a majority in former
East Germany votes for the left and harks back to what was positive
about the planned economy. After rejecting Stalinism, they have now
had a taste of capitalism, and the conclusion drawn is that socialism
is better than capitalism.
The
year 2009 is a year of many anniversaries, including the murder of
Luxemburg and Liebknecht, the founding of the Communist International
and the Asturian Commune. None of these anniversaries find any echo
in the capitalist press. But there is one anniversary they will not
forget: On the 9th of November, 1989, the Border separating Western
from Eastern Germany was effectively opened.
The
fall of the Berlin Wall has passed into history as a synonym for the
collapse of “Communism”. In the last 20 years since those
momentous events, we have witnessed an unprecedented ideological
offensive against the ideas of Marxism on a world scale. This is held
up as decisive proof of the death of Communism, Socialism and
Marxism. Not long ago, it was even presented as the end of history.
But since then the wheel of history has turned several times.
The
argument that henceforth the capitalist system was the only
alternative for humanity has been exposed as hollow. The truth is
very different. On the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of
Stalinism, capitalism finds itself in its deepest crisis since the
Great Depression. Millions are faced with a future of unemployment,
poverty, cuts and austerity.
This
vicious anti-Communist campaign is being intensified during this
period. The reason for this is not difficult to understand. The
worldwide crisis of capitalism is giving rise to a general
questioning of the “market economy”. There is a revival of
interest in Marxist ideas, which is alarming the bourgeoisie. The new
campaign of slanders is a reflection of fear.
Caricature
of socialism
What
failed in Russia and Eastern Europe was not communism or socialism,
in any sense that this was understood by Marx or Lenin, but a
bureaucratic and totalitarian caricature. Lenin explained that the
movement towards socialism requires the democratic control of
industry, society and the state by the proletariat. Genuine socialism
is incompatible with the rule of a privileged bureaucratic elite,
which will inevitably be accompanied by colossal corruption,
nepotism, waste, mismanagement and chaos.
The
nationalised planned economies in the USSR and Eastern Europe
achieved astonishing results in the fields of industry, science,
health and education. But, as Trotsky predicted as early as 1936, the
bureaucratic regime ultimately undermined the nationalised planned
economy and prepared the way for its collapse and the return of
capitalism.
In
the 1980s, the USSR had more scientists than the USA, Japan, Britain
and Germany combined, and yet was unable to achieve the same results
as the West. In the vital fields of productivity and living standards
the Soviet Union lagged behind the West. The main reason was the
colossal burden imposed on the Soviet economy by the bureaucracy –
the millions of greedy and corrupt officials that were running the
Soviet Union without any control on the part of the working class.
The
suffocating rule of the bureaucracy eventually led to a sharp fall in
the rate of growth in the USSR. As a result, the Soviet Union was
falling behind the West. The costs of maintaining high levels of
military expenditure and the costs of maintaining its grip on Eastern
Europe imposed further strains on the Soviet economy. The emergence
of a new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 signalled a major
turn in the situation.
Gorbachev
represented that wing of the Soviet bureaucracy that stood for reform
from the top in order to preserve the regime as a whole. However, the
situation deteriorated further under Gorbachev. This inevitably led
to a crisis, which had an immediate effect in Eastern Europe, where
the crisis of Stalinism was exacerbated by the national question.
Ferment
in Eastern Europe
In
1989, from one capital to another, a tidal wave of revolt spread,
overthrowing one by one the Stalinist regimes. In Romania, Ceausescu
was overthrown by a revolution and sent to a firing squad. A key
factor in the success of the popular uprisings was the crisis in
Russia. In the past Moscow had sent the Red Army to crush uprising in
East Germany (1953), in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). But
Gorbachev understood that this option was no longer possible.
The
mass strikes in Poland in the first part of the 1980s were an early
expression of the impasse of the regime. If this magnificent movement
had been led by genuine Marxists, it could have prepared the ground
for a political revolution, not only in Poland but throughout Eastern
Europe. But in the absence of such a leadership, the movement was
derailed by counter-revolutionary elements like Lech Walesa.
At
first, the Polish Stalinists tried to hold the movement down through
repression, but in the end Solidarity had to be legalised and allowed
to participate in parliamentary elections on June 4, 1989. What
followed was a political earthquake. Solidarity candidates captured
all the seats they were allowed to contest. This had a profound
effect in the neighbouring countries.
In
Hungary Janos Kadar – in anticipation of what was to come
had already been removed as General Secretary of the Communist Party
the previous year in 1988 and the regime had adopted a “democracy
package”, including elections. Czechoslovakia was very soon also
affected and by November 20, 1989 the number of protesters assembled
in Prague went from 200,000 the previous day to half-million. A
two-hour general strike was held on November 27.
These
dramatic events marked a major turning-point in history. For almost
half a century after World War II the Stalinists had ruled Eastern
Europe with an iron hand. These were monstrous one-Party states,
backed by a powerful apparatus of repression, with army, police and
secret police, and informers in every block of flats, school, college
or factory workshop. It seemed almost impossible that popular
uprisings could ever succeed against the power of a totalitarian
state and its secret police. But in the moment of truth these
apparently invincible regimes were shown to be giants with feet of
clay.
East
Germany
Of
all the regimes of Eastern Europe, the German Democratic Republic was
one of the most industrially and technologically advanced. The
standard of life, although not as high as in West Germany, was good.
There
was full employment, and everyone had access to cheap housing, free
medicine and education of a high standard.
However,
the rule of a totalitarian one-Party state, with its ever-present
secret police (the notorious Stasi) with its army of informers, the
corruption of the officials, and the privileges of the elite, were a
source of discontent. Before the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961,
about 2.5 million East Germans had emigrated to West Germany, many
over the border between East and West Berlin. In order to halt this
haemorrhage, the regime had the Berlin Wall built.
The
Wall and other fortifications along the 1,380-kilometre border shared
by East and West Germany succeeded in stemming the exodus. This
action probably helped to boost economic growth in the GDR. But it
caused suffering and hardship for the families that were divided and
it was a propaganda gift to the West, which presented it as yet
another example of “Communist tyranny”.
By
the end of the 1980s the situation in the GDR was explosive. The old
Stalinist Erich Honecker was implacably opposed to reform. His regime
even prohibited the circulation of “subversive” publications from
the Soviet Union. On 6 October and 7 October, Gorbachev visited East
Germany to mark the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic
Republic, and he put pressure on the East German leadership to accept
reform. He is quoted as saying: “Wer zu spät kommt, den bestraft
das Leben” (He
who is too late is punished by life).
By
now the East German people had become openly rebellious. Opposition
movements began to sprout up like mushrooms. These included the Neues
Forum
(New Forum), Demokratischer
Aufbruch
(Democratic Awakening), and Demokratie
Jetzt
(Democracy Now). The largest opposition movement was created through
a Protestant church service at Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche,
German for Church of Saint Nicholas, where each Monday after service
citizens gather outside demanding change in East Germany. However,
these movements were confused and politically naïve.
A
wave of mass demonstrations now swept through East German cities,
acquiring particular strength in Leipzig. Hundreds of thousands of
people joined these demonstrations. The regime entered into crisis
that led to the removal of the hard-line Stalinist leader, Erich
Honecker, and the resignation of the entire cabinet. Under the
pressure of the mass movement, the new Party leader, Egon Krenz,
called for democratic elections. But the reforms proposed by the
regime were too little and too late.
The
“Communist” leaders considered using force but changed their mind
(with a little prodding from Gorbachev). Events were now spinning out
of control. In the following days, one could almost speak of anarchy:
Shops stayed open all hours, a GDR passport served as a free ticket
for public transport. In the words of one observer: “in general
there were more exceptions than rules in those days”. Power
was lying in the street, but there was nobody to pick it up.
Faced
with a mass revolt, the seemingly all-powerful East German state
collapsed like a house of cards. On November 9, 1989, after several
weeks of mass unrest, the East German government announced that all
GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. This was the
signal for a new eruption of the masses. Spontaneously, crowds of
East Germans climbed onto and crossed the Wall, joined by West
Germans on the other side.
Counter-revolution
The
Berlin Wall was a symbol and a focal point for all that was hated
about the East German regime. The demolition of the Wall began quite
spontaneously. Over the next few weeks, parts of the Wall were
chipped away. Later on industrial equipment was later used to remove
almost all of the rest. There was a celebratory atmosphere, a mood of
euphoria, more like a carnival than a revolution. But that is true of
the early stages of every great revolution, beginning with 1789.
In
November of 1989, the population of the GDR was overwhelmed by
emotional moods – a sense of liberation, accomplished by a general
feeling of elation. It was as if a whole nation was experiencing a
general inebriation, and therefore was open to suggestions and sudden
impulses. Overthrowing the old regime proved far easier than anyone
had dared imagine. But, once having overthrown it, what was to be put
in its place? The masses that had brought about the overthrow of the
old regime, knew very well what they did not
want,
but did not have quite clear what they wanted, and nobody was
offering a way out.
All
the objective conditions for a political revolution were now given.
The great majority of the population did not want the restoration of
capitalism. They wanted socialism, but with democratic rights,
without the Stasi, without corrupt bureaucrats and without a
dictatorial one-party state. If a genuine Marxist leadership had
existed, this could have led to a political revolution and the
establishment of a workers’ democracy.
However,
the fall of the Berlin Wall did not result in a political revolution
but counter-revolution in the form of unification with West Germany.
This demand did not feature prominently at the beginning of the
demonstrations. But given the absence of a clear programme on the
part of the leadership, it was introduced and gradually came to
occupy a central role.
Most
of the leaders of the opposition had no clear programme, policy or
perspective, beyond a vague desire for democracy and civil rights.
Like nature, politics abhors a vacuum. The presence of a powerful and
prosperous capitalist state next door therefore played a determining
role in filling the vacuum.
West
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was an aggressive representative of
imperialism. He used the most shameless bribery to persuade the East
German people to agree to immediate unification, offering to exchange
their Ostmarks for Deutschmarks on a one-to-one basis. But what Kohl
did not tell the people of East Germany was that unification would
not mean that they would have West German living standards.
In
July 1990, the final obstacle to German unification was removed when
Gorbachev agreed to drop Soviet objections to a reunited Germany
within NATO in return for substantial German economic aid to the
Soviet Union. Unification was formally concluded on October 3rd,
1990.
The
masses deceived
The
people of the GDR had been deceived. They were not told that the
introduction of a market economy would mean mass unemployment,
factory closures and the virtual destruction of large parts of the
industrial base of the GDR, or a general rise in prices, and the
demoralisation of a section of the youth, or that they would be
looked down upon as second-class citizens in their own country. They
were not told these things but they have found them out through
bitter experience.
Reunification
precipitated a disastrous collapse in real Eastern German GDP, with
falls of 15.6 per cent in 1990 and 22.7 per cent in 1991 cumulating
to a one third decline. Millions of jobs were lost. Many eastern
factories were bought by western competitors and shut down. From
1992, East Germany experienced four years of recovery, but this was
followed by stagnation.
Before
the Second World War, eastern German GDP per capita was slightly
above the German average, and both at that time and in the GDR,
eastern Germany was richer than other eastern European countries. But
20 years after unification, living standards in East Germany still
lag behind the West. Unemployment is double western levels, and wages
are significantly lower.
In
the GDR unemployment was practically unknown. But employment declined
by 3.3 million people from 1989-1992. East German real GDP has barely
risen above its 1989 level, and employment languishes at 60 per cent
of its 1989 level. Currently, unemployment in Germany as a whole is
about 8%, but the figure for East Germany is 12.3%. However, some
unofficial estimates put it as high as 20%, and amongst the youth
even 50%.
Women,
who achieved a high degree of equality in the GDR, as in other
countries of East Europe, have suffered most. The German
Socio-Economic Panel data for the mid-1990s indicate that 15 per cent
of the eastern female population and ten per cent of the male
population were unemployed.
In
July 1990 the “chancellor of unity”, Helmut Kohl, promised: “In
a joint effort we will soon turn [the
East German regions] Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt,
Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia into flourishing landscapes.”
Fifteen years later, a BBC report admitted that “the statistics are
bleak.” Despite the capital injection of an estimated 1.25 trillion
Euro (£843bn, $1,550bn), the East’s unemployment rate was still
18.6% in 2005 (before the present recession) and in many regions it
is more than 25%.
Halle
in Saxony-Anhalt, once an important centre for the chemical industry
with more than 315,000 people, has lost nearly a fifth of its
citizens. Before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the “chemical
triangle” Leuna-Halle-Bitterfeld gave employment to 100,000 people
now 10,000 jobs remain. Gera once had large textiles and
defence industries, and some uranium mining. They have gone, and much
the same happened in most other state-owned industries since 1989.
Eastern
GDP per capita improved from 49 per cent of the western level in 1991
to 66 per cent in 1995, since which time convergence has ceased to
advance. The economy was growing by about 5.5% a year, but was not
creating many new jobs. As a result the East is emptying. Since
unification some 1.4 million people have moved to the West, most of
them young and well-educated. Emigration and a steep fall in
fertility have caused the eastern population to decline each year
since unification.
It
is a supreme irony of history that 20 years after reunification,
people are leaving East Germany, not to flee from the Stasi, but to
escape unemployment. Of course, some have done well. The BBC report
says: “Grand bourgeois houses, many riddled with World War II
bullet holes until 1989, have been restored to their old glory.”
Marxism
revives
Like
many other East Germans, Ralf Wulff said he was delighted about the
fall of the Berlin Wall and to see capitalism replace communism. But
the euphoria did not last long. “It took just a few weeks to
realise what the free market economy was all about,” said Wulff.
“It’s rampant materialism and exploitation. Human beings get lost.
We didn’t have the material comforts but communism still had a lot
going for it.” (Reuters report)
Hans-Juergen
Schneider, a 49-year-old trained engineer has been unemployed since
January 2004. He has sent out 286 job applications since then,
without success. “The market economy can’t solve our problems,”
he says, “big business is just grabbing the profits without
accepting any responsibility.” He is not alone. A poll by Der
Spiegel
stated that 73% of East Germans believe that Karl Marx’s critique of
capitalism is still valid.
Another
poll published in October 2008 in the magazine Super
Illus
stated that 52% of people in Eastern Germany think that the market
economy is “inept” and “rundown”. 43% would prefer a
socialist economic system, because “it protects the small people
from financial crises and other injustices”. 55% rejected banking
bailouts by the state.
Of
young people (18 to 29 years), who never lived in the GDR, or did so
only briefly, 51% want socialism. The figure for people 30 to 49
years old is 35%. But for those over 50 years it is 46%. These
findings are confirmed in interviews with dozens of ordinary
easterners. “We read about the ‘horrors of capitalism’ in school.
They really got that right. Karl Marx was spot on,” said Thomas
Pivitt, a 46-year-old IT worker from East Berlin. Das
Kapital
was a best-seller for publisher Karl-Dietz-Verlag, selling over 1,500
copies in 2008, triple the number sold in all of 2007 and a 100-fold
increase since 1990.
“Everyone
thought there would never ever again be any demand for ‘Das
Kapital’,” managing director Joern Schuetrumpf told Reuters. “Even
bankers and managers are now reading Das
Kapital
to try to understand what they’ve been doing to us. Marx is
definitely ‘in’ right now,” he said.
The
crisis of capitalism has convinced many Germans, both East and West,
that the system has failed. “I thought communism was shit but
capitalism is even worse,” said Hermann Haibel, a 76-year old
retired blacksmith. “The free market is brutal. The capitalist
wants to squeeze out more, more, more,” he said. “I had a pretty
good life before the Wall fell,” he added. “No one worried about
money because money didn’t really matter. You had a job even if you
didn’t want one. The communist idea wasn’t all that bad.”
“I
don’t think capitalism is the right system for us,” said Monika
Weber, a 46-year-old city clerk. “The distribution of wealth is
unfair. We’re seeing that now. The little people like me are going to
have to pay for this financial mess with higher taxes because of
greedy bankers.”
Even
more significant than opinion polls were the results of the recent
German elections. The Left Party registered a significant advance,
getting almost 30% of the vote in the East. In the East there is now
no majority for the bourgeois parties. What this shows clearly is
that the people of East Germany do not want capitalism but socialism
– not the bureaucratic totalitarian caricature of socialism that
they had before, but genuine democratic socialism – the socialism
of Marx, Engels, Liebknecht and Luxemburg.