Thirty Years Ago: German Workers' Verdict on Stalinism

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THIRTY years ago this week, the workers of East Germany gave their considered verdict on the self-styled 'Communist" regime that had been imposed upon them in the aftermath of the defeat of Hitler.

In an explosion of anger which staggered the Stalinist bureaucracies in the Kremlin and across Eastern Europe, they downed tools in their thousands and took to the streets in massive strikes and demonstrations beginning on June 16.

The initial factor which prompted a spontaneous outburst of anger was the decision of the regime to impose a 10% increase in work "norms" (effectively demanding 10% more work for no extra wages).

But this issue was swiftly linked in the thinking of worker militants to a range of political grievances against the regime.

At the forefront of the walkout were the building workers, particularly those on the Stalinallee buiding project. At 1pm on June 16 between 3-6,000 builders stopped work and marched unorganised columns to the Marx-Engelsplatz, and eventually crowded in front of Government offices in the Leipzigerstrasse.

Shouts demanding the abolition of the new work norms were supplemented by demands for "'free elections" and 'no people's army" as well as a reduction in food prices.

The strikers demanded to see Prime Minister Gottwald or Walter Ulbricht, General Secretary of the 'Socialist Unity' (Stalinist) Party. When neither appeared, a hapless bureaucrat called Selbmann was sent to Racify them.

¿He got up on a table and the scene, as described by a correspondent from the French 'Observateur' went as follows:

"I voted against the increases of production norms at the May 28 session of the Council of Ministers. The increase has not been introduced in my department. I will insist that the government revoke the measures... Go back to work calmly and put your trust in me."

But the workers interrupted him:

"'We no longer have _confid. ence in you. We want guarantees."

'But I have myself been a worker for a long time."

"You have forgotten that. You are no longer our comrade ... We are the real communists, not you."

"Selbman was left speechless. An unknown construction worker forced him off the table and got up in his place and delivered a calm and dignified speech in the opinion of witnesses I questioned and formulated the demands of the workers in four points:

*Immediate revocation of the 10% increase in working norms.

*Immediate reduction by 40% of prices of food and of primary consumer, goods in state stores.

*Leaders who™ committed serious errors should be dismissed; the party and the unions must be democratised.

*We must not wait for the Bonn [West German] government to take the initiative for the real reunification of Germany. The East German government increa GermE Alst one of the P ment shout Trai have gover protes 50 - t and th Twe arresti respor crowd broug betwe shirter Youth backg.

But gener wildfir Berlin Jun heater big na Berlin a redu By: much every Halle, Erfurt and C Henni held stadiu ing 1 goven to re worke Tho the l equip. Henni to ma and d throu (*EPRA-CRO* 00mg ses in Stalinallee, we are st the norm increases in all any." 1, in an exact preview of the most telling slogans of 'olish Solidarnose move28 years later, came the of "we are workmen, not umatic though it must been for Herr Selbmann the inhabitants of the nment building, this initial It lasted only two hours or the police were not called, ere was little incident.

demonstrators were ed, only to be released in ase to demands from the Even when evening ht a number of clashes en workers and blued thugs of the 'Commurist ' the police stayed in the round. the call had gone out for a al strike and it spread like re both in and beyond e 16 had in any event seen d meetings in a number of itionalised factories around I, with workers demanding iction of work norms. June 17 the movement was wider in scope, embracing major industrial city Merseberg, Magdeburg, :, Leipzig, Dresden, Jena hemnitz. huge mass. meeting of ingsdorf steelworkers was at the Walter Ulbricht um, with speakers demandthe resignation of the nment and some seeking place it with a "metal irs' government". rusands of workers from ocomotive and electrical ment plants in the ingsdorf suburb set out urch into central Berlin -ecided to take a short cut gh the French sector. police helmets were seen flying through the air. Then eight Russian armoured cars, each containing six steel helmered soldiers, arrived. The Russians trained their machine guns on the crowd, but did not fire. They were followed by truckloads of infantry with machine pistols. Jeers came from the crowd and "Russians get out _ we're not afraid of you either."

The workers, were not. afraid; but they were heavily outnumbered. In fact a Russian force of no less than 300,000 troops, including armoured divisions had been mobilised in readiness and moved in swiftly to intimidate the workers with a display of overwhelming force.

The soldiers for the most part did not need to fire: most of the violence was meted out by the 'People's Police"

A state of emergency was declared by early afternoon, prohibiting, among other things, any assembly of more than three people. Tanks moved into key positions, and there were bitter confrontations. In Berlin 11 workers were killed - one crushed by a truck - and an unknown number injured.

But even amid this crackdown the bureaucracy suffered its humiliations. One Deputy Prime Minister, Nuschke, who had attempted to argue with workers in defence of the Russian actions, found himself and his car pushed firmly into the Western Zone by the crowd.

Outside Berlin, too, there were confrontations, including a pitched battle in Magdeburg in which as many as 20 workers were killed, and building workers broke into the local jail and freed the prisoners. Strikes in other industrial centres meant a generalised extension of the state of emergency. long term clamp-down to prevent any recurrence of these amazing èvents.

Towards the evening of June 17 it was announced that the strikers' initial demand — the cancellation of the increased work norms - had been conceded. A few days later a further package of economic concessions, designed to molify the workers, was announced. They included:

*reintroduction of workers' tickets on railways;

*an increase in old pensions;

*improved supplies of food and clothing for workers;

*government funds to be set aside to ameliorate working conditions in factories"

Conspicuously, none of these concessions related at all to the democratic political demands raised by the workers. The bureaucrats recognised tht political concessions could undermine the basis of their own power and privilege - as in fact the explosive events in Poland of 1980-81 confirmed.

By making limited economic concessions, the Stalinist leaders were seeking the elbow room to enable them to regroup and crack down later on the working class.

The next day Ulbricht at a factory meeting argued that 'the discussions between the workers of the GDR and the government were a family quarrel.

Not many family quarrels leave such a trail of death and destruction as the East German events. On top of those killed by police and army in riots and demonstrations; the subsequent government reprisals brought 42 death sentences and 25,000 arrests.

The Justice Minister, Fechner, was unwise enough to Kremin tanks in Last beru development of the nationalised economy was through the mass insurrectionary overthrow of the parasitic Stalinist caste.

His conclusion had beer derived from years of struggle within the Soviet Communis Party and the Comintern, fight. ing against the politics of Stalin's leadership, and initially seeking the reform of the bureaucratised workers' state and its ruling party anc apparatus, Experience showed Trotsky that Stalin and his henchmer were no longer blundering anc incompetent centrists, but hac become increasingly hardened cynical bureaucrats, cold bloodedly sacrificing the inter ests of the working class at home and abroad to the preservatio of their own power and privil ege.

They had to be ousted - anc the degenerated state machine which the Stalinists had trans formed into an instrument o terror against the working class - had to be smashed anc replaced by revolutionary organ isations of workers' democracy.

The only social force capabl of achieving this, insister Trotsky, was the working clas: - which needed a firm politica understanding of the origins anc nature of the bureaucrati Soviet ruling clique: this mean the building of a revolutionar party within the Soviet Union ir opposition to the "official" anc counter-revolutionary Commun ist Party.

Trotsky's verdict on the nature of the Stalinist bureau cracy in the USSR proved to br equally relevant to the regime: installed by Stalin in the Easter European "'buffer zone" during the Cold War period. class in a she be countries waking course not the restoration of 1 past period of revolutionar

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y Har Sloan

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