Change at the Top, Not at the Core

East Germany is finally rid of Erich Honecker, who for 18 years led a regime that kept its face determinedly set against change. Will the country now be able to rid itself of the suffocating controls that Honecker maintained over the lives of its 17 million people? That seems unlikely. Egon Krenz, the Honecker protege who has been chosen to head the Communist Party and the government, is a quarter-century younger than his mentor, but he has shown few signs of being any less rigid when it comes to preserving the party’s monopoly on power and its grip on cultural life. Neo-Stalinism doesn’t appear to have ended with Honecker’s departure. Indeed, it may even have been given renewed vigor.

Certainly Krenz’s first speech to the country as party chief underscored that gloomy probability. There will be no sharing of power, he said, nor is there a need for any, since opportunities already exist “in which different interests” can make themselves heard. This sounds pretty much like the same old paternalism that was Honecker’s stock in trade, the same old shabby dogma that since the party represents the people, whatever it does must of necessity be welcomed by the people. It is conceits like this that have sent significant numbers of East Germans, in despair and frustration, marching in the streets or racing for the frontier.

The remarkable thing is that this inflexibility is maintained even though the regime faces no clamor for sweeping reforms, no challenge from an organized opposition. There is no political alternative to the party, like Solidarity in Poland, nor any national consensus that Marxism has failed and something else must be tried, as there is in Hungary. New Forum, which has perhaps 25,000 supporters and is the closest thing to an opposition that can be said to exist, continues to embrace socialism. It has no more radical idea than to free the country from the dead weight of Stalinism.

The popular hero in East Germany these days isn’t Lech Walesa, but Mikhail S. Gorbachev. It is the Soviet leader, especially his efforts to try to move away from political and cultural repression and economic stagnation, that helps inspire dissent. The implicit message to the regime seems clear enough. Tensions could be eased considerably if only those holding power would ease some restrictions on everyday life and act to open a dialogue with those who have grievances. Gorbachev is known to have urged such modest changes. Honecker ignored the advice. Everything in the background of his long-groomed successor suggests that he will be inclined to do so as well. It appears that the hard line in East Germany will go on, despite the change at the top.