ABSTRACT
The "International Congress on and for Rudolf Bahro", held in Berlin November 16-19, 1978, was the greatest and most successful expression of solidarity for the imprisoned theoretician to date. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) was also surprised and overcome by the conception and the dynamics of the Bahro Congress. There is also something significant in the fact that trade unionists came to a Congress organized by the left. Representatives of the Italian Communist Party signed the Bahro Congress's concluding resolution, and hence have put their own party and the other Eurocommunist parties in a corner, provided they are successful in spreading this resolution internationally. The most powerful groupings, namely the communist parties as well as socialists and social democrats, are being forced under heavy fire to retreat into positions they formerly regarded as heretical. The new concept of socialism is acquiring a political hegemony wholly in accord with the real power relations.
