Millions demand an end to
FOR SEVERAL WEEKS, hundreds of thousands of citizens of the German
VERYWHERE, the dem-
EAST GERMANY openly working for democratic and
E ands have been the same.
The demonstrators are dem-
Democratic Republic (GDR) have come democratic freeanding
Into the streets. In East Berlin, Leipzig, unfettered doms and full and sovereignty in the framework of the social and economic order that exists
Madgeburg, Stralsund and Zwickau, the in the country.
In other words, they are declaring great majority of the population, and thus groupings.
the working class, have participated in themselves for a democratic, social and self-managed GDR. Without any this impressive mass upsurge. This reservations or reticence whatever, mobilization has been nonviolent. It is we support this orientation that the nonetheless beginning to look like the masses themselves have chosen.
They are demanding the end of the of power by the SED monopoly
[Communist Party]; the end of all the police repression that underpins the dictatorship. They are demanding the right to demonstrate, freedom association and of the press, as well as the right to strike.
Masses act without bureaucratic authorization
They are demanding cultural and political pluralism, a multi-party system, fair access for all associations and parties to the media. They have moreover begun themselves to create such associations and parties, without waiting for authorization from the bureaucracy.
The masses in struggle are demanding free elections with universal suffrage for the parliament, the regional councils and the municipalities; the elimination of all restrictions on the freedom of people to go abroad; and an end to the bureaucracy's material privileges. They are fighting for just objectives, with a dignity and political sense, with a unity that has commanded the respect of all, just as the demonstrators in Tiananmen square in Beijing did.
Facing this explosion of popular will, the bureaucracy is at bay, and rocked also by a wave of opposition within the SED. It has begun to retreat. Honecker has been sacrificed. The demonstrations are no longer being repressed. The media are a bit more open.
However, everyone realizwithout es that with or
Krenz, this is only a start of a transition. It cannot last long. Bureaucratic dictator-
Dresden, Plauen, Scherin, Halle, start of a real political revolution. INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT ship and a mass movement of such scope and dynamism are incompatible.
Today, a reform faction of the bureaucracy is emerging. It is trying to channel the growing mass movement. So far, it has had hardly any real impact. Could another faction halt the movement by violent repression, as happened in China? In view of the relationship of social forces in the GDR and its geographical position, this would, in any case, be far more difficult than in Beijing.
It is, therefore, the mass movement's own dynamic that for the moment is determining the course of events. It remains full of promise. Today, the main weakness of the East German movement lies in the lack of self-organization of the masses and of an organized vanguard self-managed socialism. In the immediate future, it is necessary to conovercoming this on centrate deficiency. The revolutionary Marxists must forge an organization of their own that will operate in a collaborative and loyal way within such
The peaceful uprising in the GDR is a response to the crisis, to the total political impasse, to the desperate lack of perspectives (especially for young people) inflicted by an inept, geriatric and ossified bureaucracy.
The lack of freedom exasperates everyone. A working class, an intelligentsia and a youth among the best educated in the world, with the oldest and firmest socialist tradition, finds itself subjected to unremitting tutelage in every area of their lives.
Attraction of higher living standards
For a section of the population, revolt first took the form of flight to West Germany. The attraction of a higher standard of living has obviously been a factor. But the main motivation of these refugees has rather been a quest for greater liberty. The great majority of the young people, the workers and the intellectuals have not, however, chosen this road. To the accompaniment of "The Internationale," hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, ten times more numerous than the refugees, have been shouting: "We are not leaving.
We are staying here. This is our country. We have built it with our labor. We are the country."
They want to win democracy and freedom in the
GDR itself and not somewhere else.
All revolutionaries, workers' organizations, all workers in Germany, Europe and the world, express must their full solidarity with the demonstrators in East Germany.
To counter any threat of repression and interference, by the Kremlin, West Germany or the European Community, it is necessary to the sovereignty of defend the imrises of decide their 3 their right to decide their
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
Stalinism
Political platform of
International Viewpoint #173 • November 13, 1989
EAST GERMANY fate freely.
With near unanimity, all working-class organizations, as well as the Greens, in
West Germany have taken such an attitude, and opposed any questioning of the East German frontiers. In the present conditions, such an attitude would involve in New Forum practice the absorption of the GDR by imperialist West Germany and the Europe
This is the first time since 1920 that the German working class has appeared on the European political scene in this way, with its united power, with class independence and an anticapitalist potential, even if it lacks clear views about where these positions lead. This stance by the workers' movement and all the West German far left, in accordance with that of the masses in the GDR themselves, is in full conformity with the class interests of the proletariat. The workers of the GDR today have a chance to change the situation radically in their favor, much more radically than those in West Germany. What is on the agenda in the immediate future is the overthrow of the East German bureaucra-