East Germany as an example

Keith said to me “You may be the only person here who witnessed first-hand the decline and fall of East Germany.  Would you be so kind as to describe that experience to us from your perspective, with any correlations to our world of today?  What, my friend, can you teach us about reforming government?”
I was only 11/12 years old when it all happened, but let's see what I can do.

In East Germany we had a government department which was called “Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit”, maybe something that translates into Homeland Security. The duty of this department was to spy on the East Germans and make sure that nothing would thrive that could be a threat to the status quo. On top of that there was the wall (not just the Berlin wall, but the wall in general) between East and West Berlin and between East and West Germany. On both walls it was mandatory for the army or patrols there to shoot everyone who tried to cross the border without permission. One of the most memorable examples is Peter Fechter who bled to death because neither side, East or West, wanted to make the effort to save him.

The restriction was free traveling to the communist countries, no traveling to the rest of the world. Very few exceptions were made.  Elections usually turned out to show around 95% for the governing party. So how did all that affect life?
Basically you had three kinds of people. Supporters, followers and opposition. Followers didn't have to agree with the ways of the government, they just accepted it and made the best of it. Most people were that way. Opposition was small on the surface but it grew and showed rapidly during the summer of 1989.

My childhood was part of it all. Pretty much everything was organised. School was a place to teach us about how evil the west is and how good the east is. You might drop the words propaganda and brainwashing though, because as a 9 year old child you don't think in those categories. You just do it and you might even enjoy it. The local children's organisation was mandatory for almost everyone. It created a community feeling, a feeling of everyone being equal, one of the main ideas in communism. And at that age, it worked for me. Economy was entirely owned by the government, so no factory owner could make private profit whatsoever. Everything was called “property of the people”, so as a child you would learn if you spit at a park bench, you harm the community because it's everybody's property you spit at.
At home it was a bit different. My father worked for the government department that I mentioned above. Restrictions? Well, you learn not to mention it to anyone if you watch a TV programme like Sesame Street. It might get you and the whole family in big trouble.

Looking back, I was in touch with all kinds of people. Even as a child. Supporters (mainly my teachers at school), followers (like my mother) and opposition (which often wasn't more than blaming “those red swines” for anything). Of course you also had the opportunists who just did what they could to get the best for themselves. The government itself was a party of opportunists, as it turned out. The tensions grew mainly because of economical problems. People wanted to consume, they wanted everything (example: bananas were sold mainly in Berlin, the rest of the country rarely ever saw any. And when they were sold, it was often at a small temporary stand on a random sidewalk, meaning that you could buy them only if word spread fast enough and you'd rush there to get your share). I myself have been running and queing up for strawberries when I was 8. Yet we had what was called “Intershop”, shops throughout East Germany where Western goods were sold to people with West German money. But who had that kind of money? Old people, because they were free to travel to the west when they were older than 65. So little bits of western things leaked into the country (like chocolate, perfume, matchbox cars).

People wanted that, and they called it freedom. They wanted to travel and shop. They didn't want democracy. They felt trapped in the country, that's all there was. And when Hungary opened the border in the summer of 1989, mass exodus happened. During that time, we also had heaps of “demonstrations”. Writers, artists, musicians were speaking up against the government and the people followed. Pressure grew and the Wall fell. People were free to travel.

But then something serious happened. People didn't want East Germany to disappear. They wanted to re-define socialism and communism. They wanted a “democratic socialism”.  Democracy and communism combined.
Politicians were different now. They came up with new ideas and perspectives. They wanted to change something, create something new. People in the country supported this.

Here's the East German perception, and also my point of view: we have los the chance to create something new. The idea of German reunification was too strong, and Western pressure was too strong. The basically bankrupt East German economy started to depend on Western sponsorship. Western companies bought East German factories and produced mass unemployment. There was no strength in the East German government, there was never really a choice. So West Germany swallowed East Germany and the country ceased to exist. Capitalism won the Cold War. End of story. But many East German people hold a huge grudge against this and how things turned out. Democracy and reunification led to mass unemployment, poverty and a rise of right wing and left wing extremism in former East Germany, because people don't know what else to turn to, as the Western system has failed them. It was virtually impossible to introduce democracy into a country that had just come out of 40 years of dictatorship. In less than a year the idea of freedom and a new way of life was crushed and destroyed by capitalism.

There is no way I can explain how people felt and still feel. Today the country is still separated and divided in people's heads, because many East Germans feel and felt like second hand Germans. The leech for the West, because it took and still takes a lot of money to rebuild East Germany. In hindsight the communist dictatorship now doesn't appear so bad after all. A great idea that failed, replaced with a not so great idea that failed long ago but keeps on going.

Best wishes

Re: East Germany as an example

Two additional paragraphs:

The reason why East Germany and pretty much the whole Eastern Block collapsed was in fact economy. Particularly in East Germany, you had the situation of security. There was literally no unemployment, so you had the perspective of going to school, getting a job, having free kindergarden and everything. No matter if you were the greatest slacker.
Now, if more people work than are needed (plus the wages) and a bad import/export situation with other countries, the companies or factories go bankrupt. But when the companies would have gone bankrupt, the government sponsored them, so they kept going and people stayed employed. Eventually the government had to go bankrupt, and this is what happened. East Germany was already bankrupt by 1988, which is why a few changes happened back then (cooperation with West German companies). This is why communism in East Europe failed, and this is why a lot of people thought “if we only change this and this, the idea of a society of equal people might work”. China is trying this today, staying communist and allowing a few things to change. But this effort is money-driven, with very little or no care for people and the environment. China is an example of how it cannot work.

So we did not change the failed system and we did not apply a new one. We applied an old system that seemed to work. The result was that the East German economy broke down almost entirely. Mass unemployment, the loss of what people believed in, the failure of the new system, all that led to depression. People had the security before (which was an illusion but still), now they were unemployed, lived in poverty and social welfare, started drinking and took it out on their families. History took their system away and gave them a new one that failed them. People could not and often still cannot cope with that. In changing the world, this is a serious side effect which must be considered.

Re: East Germany as an example

Wow!  Lots here …

Question:  How did communities cope?  Was there banding together in cooperative efforts to help each other on a local level?  Or was everyone looking to the national government to solve all the problems?

Thank you Chrysalis for relaying this.

Re: East Germany as an example

We had an intense community feeling. Crime level was very low (in a city of 3 million people it was safe to walk around alone at 11pm, go figure), people living in apartment buildings had BBQs together, they knew each other and shared, no matter if 100 families lived in one building. This all disappeared when the wall fell and capitalism took over. People had to focus on themselves and they did. In this way, communism and socialism did work, at least as far as I can see. And yes, people are missing this now. These days, people say “everybody is closest to oneself”, and if you don't look after yourself, nobody will.

Best wishes

Re: East Germany as an example

Thank you for this poignant and fascinating personal narrative.

I do sympathize with the nostalgia that some former East Germans have with their bygone way of living, and it comes to show that the former GDR system also had its merits.

Its quite a dilemma though, the price of having free access to products (bananas,strawberrys, and perfume) is the loss of an entire way of life… a difficult trade-off indeed.

Upon observing the U.S.S.R's dissolution in 1991 the Chinese reversed their strategy towards development of a controlled market economy first, before making any substantial changes to the political system. Allowing people who can afford them to consume strawberrys, bananas and prada-bags, whilst keeping everyone else in their place.
-This isn't working very well either.

Is the freedom to unbridled consumption true freedom? Could communal rationality conquer endless human wants? Its hard to point out either way of life as being superior, and, indeed, the loss of one in its entirety hardly warrants a total discrediting that entire system.

Thank you for the food for thought.

Li

Re: East Germany as an example

Thank you Li. The point of my description was to give an example. Keith was wondering if there would be things to consider while changing the world, and because I have lived through the transition of one system to another (which was merely a replacement over night), he asked me to speak about my experiences. I hope it will help.

Best wishes

Re: East Germany as an example

I am so grateful for this story. Thank you, Chrysalis.

I found several correlations to things I am afraid of in my own country:
-a government department set up to maintain the status quo
-a country distrustful of its own people
-capitalism creating more and more of a wedge between community members
-a foreign government putting capitalism in place and wiping out the previous system
-growing hatred of the “colonized” people against the “colonizers”
-a wall going up with orders to shoot (Mex-US border)

Seems like people in power can't help themselves but fall into the same destructive patterns. and it seems like capitalism is so powerful that those making the money can always stamp out those who see what's going on.

will we forever be victims of this brutal consumptive system? I wonder.

I appreciate knowing the sad story of a loss of the opportunity to create something new and something that is strictly East German and nothing else. I sincerely hope that there are some distinctly East German things that will remain that way.

It is a lot to think about. thank you so much.

Re: East Germany as an example

Have you watched the movie “Good Bye Lenin”? if you do, how close is it to the story that you told us?

South Vietnam suffered somewhat like what you describe when the US Troop left Vietnam in 1975. However the political situation is the opposit with what happen in East Germany. We went from Capitalism to Communism over night. Doesn't matter wich system you are in, when it changes, our way of life suffers a big shock and it might take a few years to balance it back. It took our family at least 5 years to get back on our feet again, that because we determined to live not to give up.

Re: East Germany as an example

Thank you, Crystal for this intitial list of of threats to our project of ushering in the possible good world (PGW).

It is vital to understand the “enemy” (only in “…” because he is part of us). Hence the need for a theoretical base for any action. This phase itself can take weeks, month, maybe a whole year, depending on the intensity of the attention we “pay” to the need for understanding.

The ruling class has always feared the latent power of the majority. And rightly so. That silent, long suffering, majority can so easily be turned into a mindless, ferocious, mob by hate-filled demagogues and “agents provocateurs” who want to discredit the cry for justice. Phases of the French Revolution and of many modern revolutions is a terrible reminder of this.

Democracy and mass protests only work if the majority is fully informet and well educated–something that the modern education system tries to prevent. Otherwise protests and public opinion can be easily dismissed by the minority (“..the people are not ready to know what is good for them”).

So, Knights and Maidens of the Education Team, get to work on reforming the education system. It will take a few years but it must be done. Who will do it if not you? True, other groups are also working on this, so you need to from an effective collaborative coalition with them.
(By the way, don't forget the need for economic literacy because the current ethos of education is the result of the perception that the purpose of education is to ensure that youngsters turn out to be “job worthy” adults with a narrow, materialistic perspective.)