East Germany’s Dilemma

Communism is East Germany’s reason for being. Take away its Marxist economic base, replace its single-party regime with a free political system, and East Germany’s claim to be something separate and distinct from West Germany would evaporate. Hungary will be Hungary, in language, culture, historical memory and all the other things that make for nationhood, after its Communist rulers have been swept from power. But let East Germany lose its special political and economic character and its legitimacy is lost as well. No one understands that better than the country’s leaders who, looking at Hungary and Poland, know that East Germany’s survival and theirs along with it depends on preventing major change.

That is a fundamental consideration to keep in mind as the East German Politburo, fresh from celebrating the 40th anniversary of the state and from confronting the most serious anti-regime demonstrations in more than 35 years, shows the first tentative signs that it may be ready to think about making some reforms. The hints, for now, are faint and ambiguous.

What commands attention is that hitherto the regime has refused even to acknowledge that there might be a need to begin doing things differently. Now, says the Politburo, it will look into the underlying reasons that prompted the recent flight of 50,000 East Germans to the West. Moreover, it is prepared to discuss possible changes in the way travel outside the state’s boundaries is granted, in the way the economy and the media are managed and whether more democratic participation would be a good thing.

The discussions, though, are likely to be kept on a rather intimate level, perhaps going no further than the Politburo itself. Talks with opposition leaders have been specifically ruled out. So has any talk about changes in the system of central economic planning, or any questioning of the Communist Party’s paramount role or its fundamental ideology. That leaves little room for real movement, and most analysts don’t expect any until at least after East Germany’s ailing leader, Erich Honecker, leaves the scene. But even then, given the unique circumstances that define East Germany’s existence, there is a question about how much real reform might be granted.

While its standard of living remains well behind that of West Germany, East Germany enjoys the greatest economic prosperity of any state in the Communist Bloc. What has sent East Germans by the tens of thousands fleeing to the West and demonstrating in the streets of Leipzig and Berlin has not been intolerable economic conditions so much as the country’s stultifying political and intellectual atmosphere. To change that environment would require an easing of controls and a lifting of restraints on popular expression that the regime clearly is not just reluctant to allow but, from all the evidence, determined not to.

The Politburo’s talk about a readiness to discuss change may help cool current passions and buy some time. But for now there is no indication that East Germany’s rulers are willing to set a new course leading to basic political reforms. Poland and Hungary can prepare to put Marxism and all its ideological baggage behind them, confident that their existence as states wouldn’t be jeopardized. East Germany’s Marxist leaders can have no such confidence. That’s why they have dug in so firmly to resist the winds of change blowing elsewhere in Eastern Europe. They would argue that they are taking a stand for sound Marxist principles. What they are of course defending most of all is their own grip on power.