ABSTRACT
By the time the German Democratic Republic was set up in October 1949 control by elements subservient to Moscow had been virtually secured. Parliament consisted only of representatives of the five official parties and the ‘mass organisations’ and was thus a rubber stamp. The parties and the mass organisations had been purged of most leaders who might have displayed any independence, and, in any case, their organisations were held firmly within the corset of the National Front. The radio, cinema and most of the press were under the control of the S E D, as were the police, education and the economy. Apart from the Soviet secret police, an East German security police was being built up. This work was completed with the founding of the Ministry for State Security-Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit-in February 1950. In all spheres the tendency was towards centralisa tion. For instance, in July 1952 the Lander were abolished and replaced by 14 weak districts or Bezirke subject to central authority. Despite all these measures unorthodox views were still sometimes
heard. Representatives of the churches criticised various aspects of official policy as did members of the CDU and LDPD. CDU Chairman Otto Nuschke spoke out, at his party’s congress in November 1949, against single-list elections. Such elections were nevertheless carried through in October of the following year. They followed what was by that time standard practice in Eastern Europe. There was not only a single list with one candidate per seat, but no opposition was permitted. The mass media exhorted the electorate to vote greatly over-simplifying the issues, large numbers of agitators went round urging the reluctant to go to the polling stations, and in some cases they were marched there en bloc. On arrival all they had to do was to collect their ballot paper, fold it and put it into the box. Only those wishing to cross out names of the National Front candidates needed to go to the cubicles provided. By so doing they were drawing attention to themselves and it is not surprising, therefore, that few availed themselves of the opportunity. It might be wondered why the regime bothered with such manifestly unfree elections. Yet every regime
wishes to appear to be based on the popular will and by showing they can force their citizens to conform, authoritarian systems demoralise their opponents. The Communists also regard their elections as a means of popular education for the ‘campaign’ lasts for several months, during which the regime’s immediate and long term aims are discussed. Another question which needs clarification is why those in effective
control of East Germany maintained five political parties when all had the same aims, methods and policies, and were not allowed even the slightest degree of autonomy. Once again there was the need for window-dressing; five parties look better than one, for there is then the illusion of choice. Secondly, a one-party state might have re minded the East Germans too much of the Third Reich and led them to conclude the regimes were similar. Thirdly, the four ‘allied’ parties helped to win for the regime supporters who would not want to join the S E D, officially a Marxist working-class party. As its name proclaims, the Christian Democratic Union sought to win Christians for its objects, which since its sixth party congress in October 1952 had been, ‘in the spirit of Christian responsibility, to mobilise all our energies in the struggle for Peace, Unity and Socialism’. Such a party would cater for the tiny handful of genuine Christian socialists or pacifists prepared to cooperate with the Communists, the very much larger group of middle-class business and professional people and some pastors, who tried to save what they could of their old values and way of life, and those who felt they need to indicate some degree of acceptance of the regime but do not want to get too deeply involved. Further, the continued existence of this party meant that many of the original members, who joined before the fate of the CDU became clear, could be ‘trapped’ in their party and utilised for the regime. Finally, there were those who had been ordered into this party by their SED superiors. The membership of the other “bourgeois’ parties is largely made up
of the same type of people with the same reasons for joining, except that the n d p d was set up to win over former nominal Nazis and officers for the regime, and the LPD aimed more at the non-church orientated middle class. The ‘bourgeois’ parties of East Germany also served as bridges
between the DDR and bourgeois groups in West Germany and other countries. The L D P D, for example, had exchanges with the Free Democrats of West Germany and with the British Young Liberals, the CDU with Left-wing Catholic groups, and so on. The SED found it difficult to make these contacts. The years 1948-53 were in very many respects grim years in
Eastern Europe. They were the years of Stalin’s purges, forced industrialisation and intensified class struggle. East Germany fitted into this general pattern. First there were purges in the Christian Democratic and Liberal Democratic parties designed to remove those who still showed independence. Then came similar moves in the Socialist Unity Party. In September 1948 the Unity Party’s executive committee announced
decisions which were to bring East Germany into fine with what was happening in the rest of East Europe. In June of that year the Communist Information Bureau or Cominform, made up of the Communist parties of Eastern Europe (excluding the S E D) and those of France and Italy, expelled the Yugoslav party. It was claimed the Yugoslavs had ‘pursued an incorrect line on the main questions of home and foreign policy, a line which represents a departure from Marxism-Leninism’. The Yugoslavs were further accused of ‘seceding from the united socialist front against imperialism, have taken the path of betraying the cause of international solidarity of the working people, and have taken up a position of nationalism . . . ’ Tito’s main ‘crime’ was his refusal to subordinate the interests of Yugoslavia to those of the Soviet Union, and his refusal to imitate the Russians in every sphere. Stalin feared that Tito would find friends and allies in the other countries of the Soviet bloc. He therefore unleashed a purge which was to lead to the deaths of leading Communists throughout Eastern Europe. The Socialist Unity Party could not for long remain uninfluenced by this development especially as East Germany was under Soviet military rule at the time. The September decisions of the s E d executive represented its recognition of this. The executive called for a ‘struggle against nationalism, the slandering of the Soviet Union and Peoples’ Democracies, and against the theory of a special “German road to Socialism’”. Another executive decision was the establishment of a party central control commission, similar to that of the Soviet C P, to supervise party members and, if necessary, to discipline or expel them. The S E D four-day conference of January 1949 was another decisive
step along the road to changing the nature of the party. The conference demanded that the S E D must become a ‘party of a new type’, in other words, a Leninist or Moscow-type organisation. It would accept Leninism including Democratic Centralism, as well as Marxism, and abolition of the parity principle under which former K p D and former s p D members were equally represented at all levels, and become an 6lite party. In future would-be members had to serve for one or two years, depending on their social background, before they could become full members. The conference decided on the
setting up of a Politburo to lead the party, this too was on the Soviet model. In July 1950 the third congress of the S E D was held. It introduced a
Soviet-style constitution for the party including the replacement of the executive committee by a central committee. Walter Ulbricht, widely regarded as Moscow’s chief agent in East Germany, was elected secretary general of the party-the key position in any Communist state. Another change in the S E D agreed at this congress was the change in structure. Henceforth, party members would belong where possible to a unit at their place of work rather than where they live, though residential units were not abolished. This again was in line with the k p d and Soviet tradition. In August 1950 the first major purge in the S E D took place.
