The Uprising of June
Brand, H.
The June uprising in East Germany was not merely an incident in the resistance that has become part of daily life in the satellite areas; for this time the whole character of the resistance was...
...these masses had to become and remain "organized" by and into the apparatus, they had to be demoralized by implicating them in their own slavery—by engineering unanimous votes in favor of norm increases, for example...
...The immediate cause of the uprising was the SED's policy reversals announced on June 11, which included a number of important concessions to the private sector of the East German economy but none whatever to the workers whose norms had been raised 10 per cent on May 28...
...3, 1953, cited in a long article pressing for higher norms in Neues Deutschland, March 13, 1953 ; reproduced in Ost-Probleme, No...
...or turning their heads into mills, were grinding up leaves and ejecting their juices...
...Similarly, the founding of the German Trade Union Federation (FDGB), though decreed in 1945 by Marshal Zhukov, was welcomed by many East German workers...
...III It would serve no purpose to analyze the contention of the SED leadership that the uprising was "provoked" by "fascists" and "imperialist hirelings...
...Nevertheless, due perhaps to the relative brevity of the Nazi dictatorship, the structure of German society was but superficially affected...
...Our march still had no leadership...
...Together with the reorganization of the SED along the lines of the CPSU, the FDGB became an open instrument of the regime...
...Works councils were re-created and granted, formally, wide Iatitude of "co-determination" in the shops...
...to act in accordance with political aims but in the absence of formal political leadership...
...The East German regime has not succeeded in obliterating class distinctions, it has not so atomized individuals as to make them incapable of concerted action...
...Interestingly, on the same day on which the work norms were increased, the food ration cards were restored to these consumers...
...The success of such a policy could not have been guaranteed...
...others diligently making excavations between their teeth with slivers of bamboo...
...2) the relatively slow growth of the working class in East Germany, that is, its cohesion and stability...
...the very term applied to these youthful surveillance units is military: they are "control posts...
...The speeches of Eisenhower (April 16) and Churchill (May 11) may have encouraged hopes on the part of the Kremlin that the possibility for a "satisfactory" discussion of the problem of Germany existed...
...With the two parts of Germany thus made into armed camps ruled by foreign powers, the likelihood of armed conflict would be greatly increased...
...Its effect—quite independent of its success—upon the satellites and possibly Russia itself, would have been inestimable...
...Such a policy was inconceivable to the American government which thinks exclusively in terms of military measures, not in terms of a social policy by which to oppose Stalinism...
...In an interview published in Neues Deutschland, June 30 and July 2, Fechner stated: 1) that strike leaders were not liable to punishment...
...Its guarantee of "due process" meant that the regime would now seriously attempt to stop the incursions of its apparatus upon the establishments of private traders, manufacturers and farmers...
...The attitude of SED-members in Berlin is characterized by their . evasion of arguments of social-democratic workers...
...It is this latter problem which proved an insuperable difficulty for the German Stalinists...
...By October 1951, 2,700 workers had been jailed because of their opposition to the collective agreements...
...In referring to the tradition of self-activity among the German workers, it is legitimate to question whether, after twenty years of totalitarian rule during which its leadership was exterminated or dispersed, one may still speak of a "tradition...
...furthermore, the constant influx of peasants into the working class has impeded the sense of class solidarity...
...It is true that "the pre-history of the 16-17th June is the history of this increase in norms" (Der Monat), but in order to elucidate the motives behind the uprising, our presentation must go beyond, although it cannot omit, the economic issues...
...reproduced in Ost Probleme, No...
...As this document shows, Ulbricht, while flexible, was totally unwilling to admit to any "mistakes...
...The instances of resistance to the agreements are from among those cited in this brochure...
...Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 33 man workers against Stalinism...
...It is the contention of these writers, among whom Hannah Arendt is perhaps the most outstanding, that totalitarianism has effectively broken down the social structure of the countries under its domination and that totalitarian rulers build their power on the basis of a de-structured society, a society in which all previous groupings, especially class groups, have been obliterated, so as to leave only a powerless mass of atomized and socially isolated individuals...
...They are characterized by a lack of historical sense, by perturbation, by an exaggerated fear of "what it all might lead to...
...However, here the decimation of the more advanced members of the working class was carried out far more radically than by Hitler in Germany...
...The June uprising in East Germany was not merely an incident in the resistance that has become part of daily life in the satellite areas...
...As the marching workers passed the Soviet embassy: "Silently, as a sign of contempt, we marched bv...
...The test of a theoretical construct comes when it is confronted with the social reality it is supposed to clarify or predict...
...7, 1951...
...13, 1950...
...The functionaries apparently had good reason to make themselves scarce...
...30, 1953...
...These were demands "which have no relationship to reality" (as the Leipzi..er Volkszeitung of July 21 put it), demands which some SED and FDGB functionaries supported (and probably had no choice but to support) and which were denounced as "nothing other than a continuation of the fighting tactics of the provocateurs and fascist agents of June 17...
...old CPers returning from the West found themselves expelled or crowded out...
...It is not excluded that after June 17 a split in the leadership of the SED developed between Ulbricht, the secretary-general, and Grotewohl, the co-chairman.' The declaration of the SED of June 23 which represents the official reaction to the June 17 events, reiterated its previous stand, namely, that the changes in policy which were made on June 11 were designed to lead to German unification, that the line which had up to then been followed "did not correspond to the all-German struggle for unity and peace," and that the "situation as a whole" caused this line, which had so far been thought correct, to be viewed in a "new light...
...Neues Deutschland, central organ of the SED, wrote in the beginning of 1951: "The collective agreements on the shop level must contain the officially determined wage rates...
...38 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 was to impose upon the workers in a country where strictly economic and technological obstacles to a decent standard of living do not exist...
...In Saxony, the most highly industrialized province of East Germany, the proportion of workers in the leadership of SED shop units was reported to be on the average only 53 per cent, but in some cases as low as 40 per cent and 30 per cent...
...shortterm credit was to be made easily available...
...The workers everywhere, while wisely shunning political subjects, openly opposed the agreements...
...long dusty locks...
...That an extraordinary event was taking place in Eastern Germany, that the theory of the homogeneity and omnipotence of totalitarianism was being challenged by unarmed workers facing Russian bayonets, that a great opportunity had suddenly presented itself to do grave damage to Stalinism—this hardly seems to have penetrated the consciousness of either the West German politicians or the American officials...
...They do not feel themselves sufficiently equipped to deal with the arguments of our opponents...
...The key conclusion drawn from this argument is that totalitarian rule so effectively destroys previous structures, and especially class structures, that resistance to totalitarianism from within is no longer a realistic possibility...
...Around it, were many chiefs, robed in long togas and presenting strange contrasts in their style of tattooing...
...This fact, in turn, consistently limited the power of the trade union and Social Democratic hierarchies and prevented them from establishing the degree of control over the workers which the labor leadership of the United States has * "The center of the East-zonal industry is located in the great Middle-German brown-coal region...
...hence a far stricter regime was now introduced in the Soviet zone...
...We've got to take along the workers from the State Opera [a construction project—HB).' All consented...
...By denouncing a man as a "fascist provocateur" a legal basis for his punishment is created...
...Shortly after this interview Fechner was replaced by Hilde Benjamin, known for her mercilessness in enforcing the will of the regime...
...In the fall of 1950, Ulbricht, general secretary of the SED, stated in an address to the FDGB Congress, then convening: "The wage structure is a means to the fulfillment of the plan...
...Tis the grand council of Vivenza," cried a bystander...
...If the U. S. continues undeviatingly on the road to German rearmament and if it succeeds, Russia is likely to see more reason for a tougher suppression of the opposition in East Germany...
...The entire working class of East Berlin, as well as that of Leipzig, Dresden, Magdeburg and the great industrial district of which the center is Halle—from all directions they marched upon the government centers, scribbling their slogans upon banners hitherto used for Stalinist propaganda.* A radio car which the Stalinist-controlled Socialist Unity Party (SED) had sent to propagandize among the marchers was seized, used by the latter and afterwards restored to the driver...
...One of the central provisions in these agreements disallows the total wage fund of all of East German industry to rise by more than 31 per cent over that of 1950 during the entire five-year period while production is to rise by 60 per cent...
...We do not mean to imply that the special conditions of Eastern Germany, the fact that the East German regime was from its beginning imported rather than indigenous, need not be taken into account...
...The workers implemented their frequent demands for "politically neutral" trade unions by means of what Neues Deutschland called "unprepared elections" which permitted the infiltration of "fascist underground agents...
...It is their task "to struggle first of all against delays in plan fulfillment, waste, bureaucratism, sloppiness and carelessness in order to unfold generalized criticism of the workers regarding all obstructions to the building of socialism...
...The reasons for these changes in policy cannot be found by looking for any general policy change in the satellites which the Malenkov regime has been said to have instituted.* Rather were they related to the German problem as a whole...
...But in East Germany at least the Stalinists have not succeeded in making machines out of human beings...
...There is no evidence for the claim that the June events in East Berlin were planned or directed by a political organization.* Yet, that the uprising was organized, that it was characterized by high discipline, that there was self-policing which made mob actions practically impossible—this is also undeniable...
...the regime had apparently not been ready until then to make the necessary provisions for the industrialization of agriculture...
...This theory cannot, for example, account for the fact that the June uprising was initiated and carried through not by mobs or "degrouped" masses but by well-structured groups of workers who took as their immediate point of departure the particular and concrete threats of the regime to their immediate economic existence...
...The abolition of the Soviet Zone equivalent of High Commissioner and its replacement by an ambassador was possibly a measure taken to placate Ulbricht's indubitable opposition to the policy reversals, at the same time that it was intended to make any future unification of Germany under the aegis of the Big Four a unification of "equals...
...June 18, 1953...
...But his difficulties had only begun then...
...but its probability was indicated by the impact of the June 17 uprising...
...The SED does not of course desire to be a purely working class party...
...Monat, op...
...and even here it was reluctant and short-lived...
...The logical concomitant to Grotewohl's views were those of the former Social Democrat Fechner, the then Minister of Justice...
...Not only the course of the events themselves but the articles in the SED-controlled press disprove the contention...
...Combined with these two factors is the disorienting influence of Stalinist ideology whose claim to being heir to the Russian revolution cannot be openly challenged in Russia...
...Since 87 per cent of all food originated from individually held peasant units, resistance by and flight of the peasants was bound to have grave consequences...
...It is this seniority in suffering which, after 1945, gave him a prominent position in the re-established SPD in Berlin...
...they were in the nature of directives from which "contracts" between lower-echelon partners could diverge but very little...
...it also made a number of important concessions to the private sector of the East German economy, to pensioners, etc...
...The chief reasons why the basic organizations [of the SED—II.B.] in Berlin have insufficient contact with the population is that some of the comrades have a fear of difficulties...
...Taegliche Rundschau, May 21, 1953 ; reproduced in Ost-Probleme, No...
...Spokesmen arose from the mass of workers whenever the occasion demanded it, expressing their thoughts with aptness, precision and utter fearlessness...
...to create such a situation is indeed beyond the power of the German workers alone...
...The indecision with which the Russians and the SED dealt with their opponents in East Germany flows from the international situation...
...The effectiveness of this indoctrination, however, can be judged from a statement of the Central Committee of the SED in October 1951: "Antisovietism, social democratism, pacifism, cosmopolitanism and the activity of [foreign] agents still prevail [within the party.—H.B...
...Claims that concerted resistance to Stalinism can come only from the Western powers have been effectively destroyed by the actions or lack of them, of the Western powers themselves...
...an uprising not only in the face of an armed oppressor but without the faintest hope of meaningful encouragement from the outside...
...and the Social Democrats hesitated to add to the embarrassment of the Western powers which was already highly evident among their Berlin representatives...
...Of the 91 words in this appeal, 14 were words of praise and the remaining 77 warned against excessive enthusi * See Norbert Muhlen, "How the West Betrayed East German Revolt," in the New Leader, Sept...
...The uprising had obviously not been "staged...
...But the absence of those brutal retaliatory measures (such as wanton shooting, an extended period of martial law) which the Soviet troops were entirely in a position to take without in any way needing to fear U. S. intervention, indicates that the Russians were not—and are not—ready to settle upon the final status of the Eastern Zone...
...This compelled them to purchase at the government-sponsored trading posts where free market prices were charged...
...Several stood erect, intent upon maintaining striking attitudes...
...Such "unforeseen" events always embarrass the smooth conduct of foreign policy...
...despite intensified ideological * "The leading role of the party can be realized only if the cadres of the intellectuals ["Intelligenz"—including engineers, administrators and the like] within our party grow relatively fastest, primarily in the party apparatus but in all the branches of science, technology and the arts...
...1953, p. 51...
...During its use those who proved unable to speak well were unceremoniously replaced until the right man was found...
...The German Stalinists did not, to be sure, proceed in a political vacuum at the time: the merger, though forced, was based on genuine sentiment in favor of working class unity, the absence of which in 1933 was held responsible for Hitler's success...
...Shop-wide agreements were eventually superseded by "contracts" between the FDGB unions and the industrial ministries...
...Party Conference and the Tasks in the Field of Cadre Policy...
...During the summer and early fall of 1953, the SED regime attempted to justify itself in open discussions at FDGB-sponsored shop meetings...
...But what is equally important, the events of June 17 have also called into question the theoretical analysis upon which the defenders of the "only hope is in the West" school of politics have rested their case...
...Let them [the workers—H.B] understand that the responsibility for the realization of the plan and of production is in the hands of management" declared Neuer Wag, the SED functionaries' publication, in March 1950...
...On the work norm increase, however, the SED did not reverse itself...
...The "new relationship" of the workers to their work was found for them by the regime, utilizing the experiences of the USSR...
...t The material on which we base ourselves in the following appears in "The Collective Agreements as System of Exploitation in the Soviet Zone" (title translated from German), published by Executive Committee of SPD, Bonn...
...speech of H. Axen, member of thesecretariat, Central Committee of SED...
...The party must get out of this mood of penitence...
...From these and many other similar statements, it is clear that the workers are continuing to create their own informal organizations and that at least the lower strata of functionaries in the SED and FDGB cannot be relied on by the Ulbricht regime...
...21, 1953...
...but the BGL became isolated islands in a hostile sea...
...for this time the whole character of the resistance was suddenly, dramatically lifted to a new stage...
...The events of June 17 proved this assumption to be false...
...Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 37 tiaining of cadres in East Germany as well as in Russia...
...Therein lies the historical significance of the day...
...The dilemma faced by the Social Democrats was this: they rejoiced in the action of the East German workers, but at the same time they could not help seeing that this action had, as one of its aspects, a profoundly nationalist character and could not therefore be blandly identified with the interests of the Western powers...
...The norm increase was a device, among its other purposes, to insure early industrialization of agriculture and thus an early "solution" of the agricultural problem...
...its leaders attested to its spontaneity...
...The June 17 uprising was also a working class action in both social content and leadership...
...As an afterthought I must say that this, too, was the smartest thing we could have done...
...despite the rejuvenation of its ranks* and replacements by socially backward, more pliable elements, the party could not withstand the disintegrative tendencies within itself that were a consequence of the opposition to its rule by the great majority of East Germans...
...22, 1953 ; and that of J. Wechsberg, on the strike at the Leuna works in the New Yorker, Aug 29, 1953...
...the improvised nature of all organized activity on June 16 in Berlin and on June 17 everywhere in Eastern Germany is indubitable...
...Leuna struck for three days in June 1951 against the higher norms and lower real wages provided for in their "contract...
...Never again can Stalinism be what it was prior to the uprising: the memory of June 1953 has become in Europe a symbol, a hope, a portent...
...One of us called: 'Let's march to the government quarters.' All agreed...
...nor did they appear to care how soon the unfortunate lunatic might demolish himself by his frantic proceedings...
...Many were nodding and napping...
...In order for these collective agreements to possess legal force, they had to be ratified by the workers...
...Ulbricht, then, proceded to whip his machine back into shape as though there had never been a June 17...
...For nationalism in the countries under the Soviet heel is not merely a prevailing sentiment but a constant political reality, a part of life of all strata of the population, all the time...
...THE WORKS COUNCILS which were to be the cells of the FDGB could not be prevented from becoming the means by which the workers sabotaged the Stalinist plans...
...If they made or were to make an armed, terrorized camp out of East Germany, the reaction of the rest of Germany as well as France and England would certainly jeopardize their immediate major goal...
...2) that the right to strike was constitutionally guaranteed...
...Ulbricht, 6th conference of the Central Committee, 13th-15th June, 1951...
...Like the Warsaw uprising before it, the revolt of the East German workers met mainly indifference and almost universal incomprehension among those elements in the "free world" that might have been expected to respond with excitement and enthusiasm...
...Consequently, there was in the German labor movement a constant replacement of rank-and-file leadership, a constant if at times not very spectacular surging up from below of new ideas and new spokesmen...
...and to get them ratified was the thankless task of FDGB functionaries...
...And the same was true of the labor movement in the West: where there should have been dramatic sympathy demonstrations there was only a limp indifference . The Social Democratic Party of West Germany (SDP) did issue an appeal to the East Germans...
...Here, in Halle, Wolfen, Merseburg, Bitterfeld, Leuna, Schkopau, were also the centers of the uprising, and in this region with its old workers and trade union tradition, there evolved out of the undirected popular movement the first forms of leadership, who indeed for a short period took over executive power and who undoubtedly could have brought about the overthrow of the regime, if the intervention of the occupation troops had not occurred...
...This factor must caution against any optimism regarding the level on which any future * "The superficial picture of violent suppression, of threats and persecutions, which is witnessed at present in the Soviet Zone of occupation of Germany, says nothing about the shift in the relationship of forces which has taken place since June 17 in all fields, politically as well as psychologically, and which still is taking place...
...Winfer 1954 • DISSENT • 43 uprising will take place...
...Winfer 1954 • DISSENT • 41 inexplicably become lost, about the stubborn inability of the workers to "understand" the SED's "new course" or any of the measures by which its rule has supposedly benefited them...
...cried Media...
...2) the attitude of the party in giving commands to the masses and terrorizing them instead of getting them to "cooperate voluntarily...
...For the uprising has lifted the opposition to a qualitatively new level of both consciousness and organization, so that one can no longer speak of the SED as a totalitarian party in the strict sense of the term.* The chief reason for this is that the SED can no longer effectively control the workers through its "transmission belt," the FDGB, partly because the FDGB has itself become a camouflage for concerted resistance...
...They would have Iooked very imposing, were it not, that in rear their vesture was sadly disordered...
...Sympathy demonstrations of West Berlin workers were shunted to areas far away from the sector borders, thus nullifying the moral effect they might have had on the East Berlin population.* The immediate response of Chancellor Adenauer was a classical example of obtuseness: "What is happening behind the Iron Curtain strengthens us in our resolve to continue our present policy...
...Today there can be no question of destroying the unions...
...CIVll—HERMAN MELVILLE Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 49...
...This involved two lines of attack: 1) the party ranks were to be purged of "social democratism...
...I consider it added evidence of the West's basic inability to combat Stalinism...
...In a speech on June 24 he declared: "The present situation is the result of a faulty policy on the part of our party...
...During 1945-1948, when the fruits of reconstruction were going into east-bound freight trains, the shop councils, by organizing the "theft" of what the members of the shop had produced and selling it on the black market for food and other necessities, helped assure the physical survival of the population...
...Entering the temple, we beheld an amphitheatrical space, in the middle of which, a great fire was burning...
...When one comes to Berlin as a stranger [from the Soviet zone] it is certainly conspicuous, that so few comrades wear party emblems...
...The latter, enjoying greatly expanded educational opportunities and the illusion of security in a 36 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 planned economy, were considered especially susceptible to being integrated into the apparatus...
...14, 1953...
...This, combined with increased delivery quotas, non-fulfillment of which was Draconically punished, caused a great exodus from the land...
...Obviously, this reduced the trade union committees to propaganda agencies of the regime...
...During the months following June 17 there was no end of complaints about functionaries who hesitate to "explain" to the workers how "wrong" they had been in striking against "their" government,** about party emblems which have * The currency reform in Czechoslovakia of May 30, the norm increase in EastGermany and the drive for higher norms in Poland (see Trybuna Ludu, Warsaw, May 10, 1953, cited in Ost-Probleme, No...
...In summer 1950 a new system of membership surveillance was created, and extensive files on the background and associations of members were established...
...34 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 won...
...One of the functions assigned to the "Free German Youth," the government-sponsored East German youth organization, is that of production surveillance...
...I shouted: `If we no there let's not go by the shortest route...
...the confidence in the West's ability to actively oppose Stalinism on the plane of social politics has proved to be unfounded by its shameful passivity in the face of the East German uprising...
...rather, it is one of "controlling" them...
...that is the only reality in this "evaluation" of the uprising...
...Russian-language broadcasts or leaflets informing the Soviet soldiers of the true nature of the uprising were not permitted by Western officials, despite the pleas of Russian emigre groups...
...Rudolf Herrnstadt, then the SED propaganda chief, burst out in Neues Deutschland: "What misery it is to watch the FDGB functionaries sneak through the shops like intimidated orphans...
...44 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 asm.* Neither the SPD nor the trade unions thought in terms of those vast outpourings of the Berlin and West German workers which had occurred during the 1948 blockade and May Day celebrations...
...Is it likely that 32 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 such an organization would have remained in complete obscurity...
...32, 1953) : "The oven presentation of our mistakes has . led, during the weeks since June 17 to the development of a regular community of penitents within the party and the state administration...
...Totalitarianism is thus seen as essentially an alliance between a ruling terrorist elite and a "mass" or mob that has issued from the breakdown of the class-structured society of capitalism...
...The evidence for this is provided by the SED leaders themselves, abiding by the standards of "self-criticism" set for it by its Russian sister party.** These statements indicate that ideologically the East German workers had put the SED on the defensive as early as 1950...
...Mardi, chap...
...The construction workers who began the uprising by marching in disciplined formations from their place of work to the seats of power, the steel workers who left their factories in ordered groups, cannot be conceived of without positing a deep sense of class solidarity, a high degree of organizing ability, and both traditions and motivations of a class nature...
...To the higher theoreticians of totalitarianism this may seem prosaic and uninspiring, but it is actually of immense political relevance to those concerned with the dynamics of totalitarian rule...
...1953...
...The Manchester Guardian has emphasized an essential aspect of this process...
...How can one account for the fact that from East Germany as well as from Czechoslovakia Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 47 we hear again and again that whatever resistance there exists is based on demands of workers for the reduction of the work norms, higher pay, longer rest periods, etc...
...Your battle and its achievements are beyond compare for a people under a dictatorship...
...thus to alienate them from the masses who were to bear the burden of these policies...
...On June 11, in accordance with decisions made by the SED on June 9, the Council of Ministers suddenly reversed the agricultural policy of * "For the productive exploitation of the work day and the increase of work productivity, technically justified, progressive work norms are to be introduced ; the struggle for the increase of norms is to be organized...
...The worker is thus a wheel, though a vital one, in the machinery of "his" state— a wheel whose motion is determined by the transmission belt...
...lie spent twelve years at the Dachau concentration camp...
...the workers at the Optima Machine Works at Leipzig demonstratively stayed away from the scheduled explanation sessions...
...The works councils were abolished in 1948 and replaced by the Trade Union Committees (BGL—Betriebsgewerkschaftsleitung) whose members were not elected by the workers in the shops, as in the case of the councils, but appointed by the SED from among them...
...That the uprising came suddenly, leaving no time for reflection, makes such reactions not less but more significant...
...The democratic traditions of the German workers became part of the national heritage of Germany...
...The impulse of workers to organize themselves has been elementary and irrepressible throughout the history of industrialism and must be regarded as a condition of their existence...
...from "Decisions of the II...
...Because of the conditions of the mass of the workers, the "philosophy" of business unionism never found widespread acceptance in Germany...
...Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 35 fare of the apparatus...
...it would be hazardous to apply conclusions regarding Germany to the totalitarian regime of Russia proper...
...the uprising reintegrated the consciousness of the workers, reaffirmed their role as a class, and in doing so, posed with unprecedented sharpness the problem of the future of Stalinist totalitarianism...
...in Neues Deutschland, Apr...
...It consisted in the imposition of collective agreements to which the partners were supposd to be the local committees of the FDGB and the administration of the industry affected...
...The resurgence of the labor movement as a central factor in the revival of the productive plant after 1945 could not have taken place without the existence of considerable numbers of workers who had a first-hand knowledge of the need and value of organization...
...How account for the fact that the key problems that concern the Stalinist rulers in these countries are low productivity, high rates of absenteeism, lack of enthusiasm for "socialist competition," etc...
...and Oct., 1953, p. 605) : `0...
...The regime chided the ministries in charge of the consumer goods sector for not meeting the needs of the population...
...The uprising was an intervention on the plane of international politics by people who had been its most tragic victims...
...The elementary, merely "convulsive" level of opposition to totalitarianism was left behind...
...A German variety of Titoism has never developed, nor is it likely to develop...
...In its own, entirely transparent, manner the Kremlin did not hesitate sharply to countermand the progress of "socialization" (short of such steps as would run afoul of its own requirements) in the Soviet Zone, so as to give evidence of its "good will...
...This test the theory of the "mass society," at least with regard to the satellite countries, has not met...
...The history of June 17 is the history of the struggle of the East Ger * "There was nothing which allowed the powerful outbreak of the June uprising to be expected...
...The events of June 17 have furnished— or should have furnished—an object lesson to those people who have been blandly declaring that the working class was "finished," that it no longer had any resources of activity and rebellion...
...IV The reaction of the spokesmen of the West to the East German events was largely confined to laudatory words...
...The events of Berlin occurred not because the workers dreamed of the four freedoms but because they wanted to lower the work norms...
...Failure to make discriminations as to time, place and social conditions—now boomerangs against the originators of this theory...
...Some were sociably laughing, and chatting...
...It thus not only made possible the uprising but continues to make possible a crystallization of the opposition which, with the experience of June 17 behind it, proceeds on a much higher level than before, although within the limitations imposed by the terror of the regime against the illegal cadres...
...For these are class demands raised in the interests of a social class against a ruling state...
...This was and is indeed a matter of concern to the regime, which would prefer more workers in secondary and tertiary leadership...
...42 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 which dissident leaders could have based themselves, did not and could not exist in Germany...
...This ability was impressively demonstrated in the period of 1916-1921, when the working class frequently engaged in large scale actions without and sometimes against its official leadership.* It is impossible to overstate the blow suffered by German society under Nazism...
...cit., Oct...
...Thus, it holds out the promise of a reconstituted and revitalized German society, which alone could guarantee the integrity of a united Europe...
...Some were busily inserting the down of a thistle into their ears...
...Moreover, the regime had hoped for a measure of support from among a peasantry of which large parts owed their holdings to it...
...By abandoning its policies of "integration" and of German rearmament, by declaring itself unambiguously for German unity and free elections it might well have made possible anelectoral victory for the SPD in September, thus further strengthening the movement towards a democratic, unified Germany...
...President Eisenhower increased aid to West Berlin by fifty million dollars, a step which had been due in any case...
...24, 1953) rather suggest intensification ofindustrialization related, in large part, to the critical food situation within the USSR, i.e., to collectivization and the partial relief of Soviet industry from heavy industrial production...
...Since the Soviet occupying power has intervened by declaring martial law, the realization of your political demand for free elections has become a problem whose solution no longer lies within the powers of acivilian population under military occupation...
...On the other hand, however, there can be no doubt that Ulbricht has succeeded in tightening his party regime...
...but since its spokesmen were usually talked under the table by the workers, whose freedom from inhibitions never ceased to astound and appall the editors of Neues Deutschland, such meetings were discontinued...
...The SPD "appeal" reflects a timidity concealed behind paternal admonitions to a people whose twenty years of experience with totalitarian regimes had surely given it the ability to appreciate just how far it could go in its opposition— and indeed, it is remarkable that nowhere in East Germany was there any effort to push the uprising into something more, into an adventure which would have given the Russians a pretext for rushing in their divisions...
...IT IS UNDENIABLE THAT, GIVEN A MORE RIGOROUS POLICY On the part of the Russians and the SED, the uprising could not have occurred and * "Workers of East Berlin...
...Inasmuch, continued the Leipziger Volkszeitung, as these demands were being officially sanctioned by the functionaries, and since "realities" did not permit their being met, they "only give the enemy the possibility to accumulate new fuel in order to set off the powder keg at the given moment...
...And among those who resigned or were expelled during the "examination period," the great majority was again workers...
...This is the case simply because a great war-time resistance movement such as that in Yugoslavia or Poland, on * Grotewohl was until 1933 en SPD member of the Reichstag...
...and at the same time to give them a stake in the security and wel * The question which at this point inevitably arises as to why the German workers were unable to resist the rise of Hitler presents, too many complexities to be discussed here...
...For this, however, 48 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 a relatively favorable international situation must obtain...
...Obviously, traditions of ideology and of organizational self-government become atrophied if they lack highly schooled bearers and if they are not sustained through time...
...The divergence of approach thus ended with the defeat of Grotewohl...
...Der Aufstand im Juni," Der Monet, Sept...
...In News from Germany, published by theExecutive Committee of SPD, July 1953...
...Notwithstanding the basic changes both in personnel and structure which the SED underwent from 1949 on...
...Furthermore, the influence of Russian-trained and Russian-speaking functionaries increased...
...That the SED and FDGB were forged into effective, if not always reliable instruments of Soviet policy is a matter of common knowledge...
...24, 1953...
...The Soviet zone became the "German Democratic Republic" (DDR) in October 1949, with power delegated to its government not by its constituents (rigged elections took place only a year later, in October 1950) but by the Soviet Military Administration which converted itself into a control Commission...
...But repeatedly breaking loose, he burst anew into his delirium...
...In May 1953 there was a shortage of one million tons of potatoes, one-half million tons of grains, .45 million tons of vegetables...
...At the same time the Ulbricht regime began to create "a party of the new type" (a party, that is, fashioned strictly on the example of the CPSU...
...But it has been the claim of the new analysts of totalitarianism that it is a society sui generis, that no matter when and where it is victorious it will lead to similar results...
...while with an absence of sympathy, distressing to behold, the rest of the assembly seemed wholly engrossed with themselves...
...The forms of this struggle, in turn, were determined by 1) the tradition of self-activity of the German workers...
...SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II and the expansion of Russian imperialism, most political attitudes implicitly assumed that, given the tightness of control and ubiquity of terror in the satellites as well as within the USSR itself, the struggle against Stalinism could originate only with the 4WWest...
...Rather, save your strength forthe coming struggles...
...Neues Deutschland, Apr...
...Not so Grotewohl...
...Were there "underground cells" in all the 150 localities where strikes and demonstrations took place, cells which had instructions from some central body to bring the workers into motion at a pre-determined hour and to see to it that the uprising would not, by provocative actions, become a bloodbath and that, at the same time, maximum participation would be assured...
...Self-criticism does not mean suicide (Selbstkritik ist nicht Selbstmord...
...2) the party ranks were to be opened to "activists" in industry and agriculture, and to young people...
...See especially the article by J. P. O'Donnell on theevents in Halle, in the Saturday Evening Post, Aug...
...40 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 rapid collectivization...
...three benevolent individuals essaying to hold him...
...The proportion of the administrative employees was, then, representative of the power of the apparatus they incarnated...
...the17th of June has taught the world that the worker cannot easily be transformed into the stupid, tragic "proles" described by George Orwell in "1984".' " (Monat, op...
...there has been an unspectacular (because gradual) but persistent repression of the opposition in East Germany since the end of July, including the elimination of leaders...
...This, however, is a risk, since such workers soon become spokesmen for their shops, thus undermining the authority of the party and the state...
...Given both the ruthlessness and subtlety of Stalinist control, how could such a thing happen...
...The advent of the Marshall Plan and the consequent reconstruction of West Germany prompted the USSR to convert its reparations policy into a long-range policy of integrating the satellites and East Germany into its economic structure...
...But even the very leaders of individual uprisings were struck by the suddenness with which they occurred...
...their javelins tragically crossed upon their chests...
...Perhaps the Russians would have intervened much earlier otherwise...
...And this despite the fact that from November 1950 to July 1951 a thorough investigation of the membership had been taking place and new members had not been admitted...
...in order to insure its totalitarian control it must have cadres in all social strata, primarily in the state administration.* But its claim that the working class holds the leading position in East Germany is refuted even by the fact that it is far from being in the leading position within the SED itself...
...At the Schoenebeck (Elbe) Rubber Works SED members were expelled from the party because they allowed themselves to "vacillate under the pressure of the masses...
...Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught looting was mercilessly beaten and his loot returned...
...However, production quotas, norms and wage rates were determined by the minister of the industry concerned, that is, the government...
...and his hands full of headless arrows...
...They tended to become autonomous from the FDGB and to assume functions traditionally reserved to the trade unions...
...On asking them one hears all sorts of excuses...
...A construction worker participating in the march of his colleagues from the building sites in the Stalin Allee in Berlin is quoted (in Der Monet, Sept...
...The Krupp-Gruson Works at Halle held huge protest meetings...
...The behavior of the participants was clearly formed by a political consciousness to which they gave continuous expression...
...II The internal instability of the SED is probably not a matter of great concern to its Soviet overlords...
...Muhlen sees this "betrayal" on the part of the West as an avoidable mistake within the framework of a policy to which he gives staunch support...
...Whatever the relevance of this theory for Russia itself, it has not been borne out by the June 17 events...
...In Germany, on the other hand, the working class has grown slowly over a number of decades, acquiring its experience as an autonomous labor movement in the environment of an industrially and culturally advanced population which itself frequently had strong socialist sympathies...
...The United States, hostile to political "experiments" and committed to sustaining reactionary governments throughout the world, could hardly view the East German events with enthusiasm...
...Yet the Social Democrats, with whatever hesitation and criticism, had previously made clear their essential dependence on the Western powers...
...Rudolf Kirchner, second chairman of the FDGB and Moscow-trained, inveighed against functionaries who refused to countersign the agreements...
...The major mistakes, according to Grotewohl, were : 1) The accelerated pace of the development of heavy industry which caused a retrogressive movement in the consumer goods sector and therefore higher prices for necessities...
...More immediately, the weakness of the German SED derived from its inability to digest the Social Democrats who were compelled, through Russian pressure, to merge with the Communist Party in April 1946...
...He clearly lacked the personal strength as well as the following to wage a head-on fight against Ulbricht...
...but this, of course, arose from notoriously sloppy conditions under which this sector was run as well as from the export of such goods in exchange for food stuffs...
...The concern of the Stalinists was to involve and implicate as many actually or potentially capable elements in the execution of their policy as they could...
...t This statement foreboded an unprecedented intensive exploitation which the five-year plan * The regime holds the youth to be highly susceptible to its advances...
...REPORT FROM THE U.N...
...The nature of the German state prior to World War I, based as it was upon an authoritarian stratum of civil servants and military officers, made for a labor movement not merely strong in the obvious quantitative sense but whose cohesive force resided in its socialist ideology...
...the radio reports of the uprising broadcast by RIAS (the State Department "Radio in the American Sector") were bitterly criticized as likely to provoke the Russians and endanger the security of Berlin...
...But heedless of all, in the midst of the amphitheater, stood a tall, gaunt warrior, ferociously tattooed, with a beak like a buzzard...
...In the summer of 1950 the Party Congress of the SED decided on the "construction of the bases of socialism" and, hence, the projection of a fiveyear plan, to commence January 1, 1951...
...It is only in Hungary, and that in July, after the events in East Germany and Pilsen, that one can speak of a let-up...
...No matter how well-organized, however, the opposition cannot fight the Russian army, though it can disintegrate the SED and demoralize its police formations...
...The BGL were immediately engulfed by the workers—until, in 1950, they became openly associated with management...
...The Western press frequently alluded to an "underground" in Eastern Germany but this hypothesis proved totally inadequate for explaining the events: if the illegal groups in Eastern Germany may be called an "underground," how were they related to the uprising...
...Foreseeing these shortages, the regime in April withdrew food ration cards, on which food could be obtained at regulated prices, from about two million persons least able to oppose such a measure effectively: artisans, social security recipients, small traders, etc...
...but only 827 had been deposited with the authorities, of which a large part had never been duly ratified...
...7, 1953...
...Here was an uprising of earth-shaking impact of thousands of men and women who lacked all weapons save a belief in the feasibility of freedom and democracy despite the wars, concentration camps and dictatorship of the last twenty, thirty years...
...Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 45 could not be repeated in the future...
...At Zeiss Optical Works in Jena FDGB pressure and police intervention were unable to break the resistance to the "voluntary acceptance" of the "contract" and, as in other instances, it was imposed by fiat...
...Yet the forms taken by the events of June 17 cannot be explained if it is assumed that these traditions had died out and that the "material conditions" in which the workers lived were themselves enough to force them into conflict with the oppressive SED regime.* In the USSR these "material conditions" are far more stringent, not only relatively but also absolutely...
...The indoctrination of party members represented an untiring and costly effort for the regime: between 1947 and 1950 full-time party schools had graduated some 240,000 functionaries...
...Neues Deutschland, Jan...
...The statement cited is merely the most authoritative among reams of articles justifying and demanding the increases...
...Others, with swelling fronts, seemed chiefly indebted to their dinners for their dignity...
...Do not therefore let yourselves be carried away into action which can only lead to senseless sacrifice...
...Decision of Central Committee of SED of Feb...
...One-year party courses were made compulsory and examination commissions travelled about the zone, weeding out "ideologically weak" elements...
...However, what constantly undermines the regime's efforts within the party organization is not only workers' resistance but the nationalism of the members of the re-organized apparatus...
...He was laboring under violent paroxysms...
...Moreover, the habitual conservatism of the SPD and the trade union leadership, always distrustful of mass actions and extra-legal activities, was too deeply ingrained to be shaken off in a few hours...
...The Stalinists have spoken of "fascist provocateurs," of the "Ostbureau" of the West German Social Democratic Party (SPD) but only as at most "provoking" the strikes, not as organizing them...
...the workers must find a new relationship to their work...
...The quotation from the Manchester Guardian is re-translated from the German...
...This was necessitated by the crisis in agriculture, which was not only affecting agricultural produce as such but also the supply of consumer goods...
...It was as if all of us had known how we could drive our affair forward...
...Said Otto Grotewohl, Minister-President, in a speech to the Central Committee of SED, at its 15th conference, July 24-26, 1953 (Neves Deutschland, July 29, repro duced in Ost-Probleme, No...
...The regime had expected that by summer 1951, 7,300 contracts would be concluded...
...In the face of the incredibly heroic action of the East German people, Adenauer is content to "reaffirm" his policy...
...At the base of the trouble was the regime's policy of collectivization of agriculture, decided upon by the SED conference in summer 1952...
...This affirmation of hostility toward totalitarianism, this impassioned political act found no response in the West other than words—at best a few excited editorials, at worst paternal admonitions to be "cautious...
...Initially he was opposed to the SPD-CP merger which resulted in the formation of the SED, but capitulated later to the pressure of the Russians...
...This is shown by its pattern of development after 1945...
...If, then, we speak of the self-activity of the German workers, we have in mind their ability to act in an organized form but without formal organization...
...They can be attained only together with the forces of the free world...
...For the Stalinists, the workers' organizations constitute "transmission belts" between the workers and "their" state...
...The June 17 uprising was nationalist in nature: it articulated the legitimate demand for German freedom and unity, giving it the urgency that "realistic" politicians have denied it...
...The ever-present threat of the spontaneous formation of autonomous groups of workers confronting the apparatus had to be tirelessly repressed...
...Winter 1954 • DISSENT • 39 The opposition to the five-year plan was thus a preview of the events of June 17...
...ONE OF THE CHIEF REASONS FOR THE 10 PER CENT increase in norms decreed by the East German Council of Ministers in May,* after a long period of fruitless agitation demanding that the workers voluntarily raise them, was to curtail the purchasing power of the major consumer segment, the workers...
...In a city in which numerous observers of the political situation— journalists, officials, representatives of the Western occupation powers—constantly follow the events in smallest detail, almost all those acquainted with the situation were taken with complete surprise...
...cit., p. 66...
...The attitude of the American representatives in Berlin was cautious, if not jittery...
...What mob is this...
...While the apparatus was, consciously as well as by the logic of its position, alienated from the working masses, it could not afford to be isolated from them...
...Thus, what is an adjustment of tactics to Ulbricht is a programmatic error for Grotewohl...
...If no structured groupings exist, then no resistance of a collective character seems possible and hence all hope for mankind rests on the might of the non-totalitarian powers...
...Prior to the 1952 decision, there had been very little collectivization...
...The uprising clearly showed that deep and powerful wellsprings of democracy exist in Germany upon which the West, if it meant its words, 46 • DISSENT • Winter 1954 could base its policies...
...3) that the courts of East Germany had been instructed accordingly...
...The prevention of German rearmament and the continuation of the military weakness of Western Europe—this remains the immediate major goal of the Russians...
...and by the end of June, fifteen million dollars worth of food began to be distributed to the East Germans—a salutary step, perhaps, not entirely motivated by humanitarianism, but politically of small consequence...
...The constitutionally guaranteed right to co-determination was thereby abrogated...
...Too strong a German Stalinist party is not and never was in their interest, if only because of the near-impossibility of controlling it...
...Tax arrears were not to be punished by property confiscation, failures to fulfill delivery quotas were to be treated mildly, farms were to be restored to owners who had deserted them...
Vol. 1 • January 1954 • No. 1
