The SPD in the Volkskammer in 1990: A New Party in Search of a Political Profile

Of all the newly-created social-democratic parties in eastern Europe since 1989, the most successful has been the Social Democratic Party of the GDR, founded in Schwante near Berlin, which became the SPD (East) in January 1990. It was the first to justify the assumption that there would now be a significant rise in the fortunes of the social-democratic parties - an assumption that, given the obvious decline in power of the communist parties and the social risks involved in the transition from a planned to a market economy - suggested itself as eminently reasonable.