A Communist Lament
A friend just gave me a copy of a letter he came across in the Hoover Institution archives. The letter appears on the stationery of the U.S. Committee for Friendship with the German Democratic Republic [that is, East Germany] at 85 East 4th Street, New York, N.Y. Dated December 1990, the document is in places sort of funny. In other places, not so much. “Dear Friend,” it begins,
for a number of years you have supported the U.S. Committee for Friendship with the German Democratic Republic. This letter is to thank you for your interest and support and to inform you that the Committee is closing its doors. The unification of Germany has ended its tasks.
A committee for friendship with East Germany? Almost four decades after the brutal suppression of the East German workers' strike and almost three decades after the construction of the Berlin Wall? What did it take to persuade these people to stop behaving like stooges? The Communist state they admired had to become defunct.
The whirlwind of events of the past year have just culminated in the first all-German elections. The majority of the electorate voted for what they perceived as greater democracy and a better economic future. But the clouds of unemployment and other economic hardships are gathering as part of the transition to a market economy.
What the majority of Germans perceived as greater democracy? After decades—decades—in which East German failed to hold a single free election, how could anyone even frame such a lunatic thought, much less commit it to writing? What the majority of Germans perceived as a better economic future? For years all anyone had had to do to contrast the economy of the West with that of the East was to look at an aerial shot of Berlin.
On the eastern side of the wall, ugly, crumbling apartment blocks, few vehicles, and an overwhelming impression of a grey and shabby stagnation. On the western side? Color, activity, construction cranes, streets jammed with vehicles and well-dressed pedestrians. This contrast was obvious. To suggest otherwise was to betray either willful obtuseness or the inability to break that old Communist habit, lying.
No matter how we perceive the failure of socialism in the former German Democratic Republic, it played a vital role in maintaining international peace.
How, exactly, did East Germany promote international peace? By permitting the Soviets to place on its soil many scores of intermediate-range nuclear missiles aimed at targets in Western Europe, including West Germany? By proving perhaps the most repressive of all the Warsaw Pact regimes? Or perhaps by murdering dozens who attempted to escape to freedom over the Berlin Wall, pour encourager, as it were, les autres?
The evil empire really was evil. And it had its colonies of wretched stooges and craven admirers—even here.
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: A Communist Lament
America's "Friendship (with Communism) Organizations" were kind of like those women who marry serial-killers in prison. Their stupidity is only surpassed by their loyalty (to their "husband.") What does a useful idiot do when they're not useful anymore?
Re: A Communist Lament
Yeah, capitalism has absolutely ruined East Berlin, as photos from my recent visit attest. I mean, the entire DDR is contained in an air-conditioned museum. Is that fair?
Re: A Communist Lament
Well, there's always a university somewhere that could use another Marxist,...or perhaps the environmental movement.
Aug '10
Re: A Communist Lament
You are mistaking Freedom for Democracy. All right thinking people know that Democracy is when everyone drives a Trabant -- at least those who are on the list -- and when we all have equal property. Naturally, those who determine the command economy deserve Bentley's and black market wares to compensate them for their contribution to the people.
From each his ability to each his need. Stooge academics and powerful partymembers need comfort and luxury and don't have much ability (the collapse of Socialist economies attest to their abilities in economics). Whereas hard working members of society are capable of so much, but require very little.
Ah...I can feel the Ostalgie sweeping over me.
May '10
Re: A Communist Lament
Everyone must check out the movie, "The Lives of Others," 2007. Captures the feel of life behind the Iron Curtain like nothing I've ever seen. Very subtle. Very powerful.
Aug '10
Re: A Communist Lament
Do not underestimate the thrill of Communism. Yeah, that doesn't make sense, if you never lived under it...but for those who did and do, its excitements are inexhaustible. Cuba and China don't seem bothered at all by it. And even Slovenia, the first sort-of-country to secede from Yugoslavia, and the one to have done the best since that move, seems wistful, at least if its media are to be believed. Never forget: it is freedom, not slavery, that is the peculiar institution.
Jul '10
Re: A Communist Lament
Another movie about dealing with commuists: "Stripes!"
Aug '10
Re: A Communist Lament
A good film about Ostalgie is "Goodbye Lenin!" It's a rather touching story.
Re: A Communist Lament
The Vandals played in East Berlin in 1989. After a wonderful tour of Europe and amazing meals cooked for us by promoters (even if many of them were squats), when we got to East Berlin, they were proud to serve us Wheat, with some berries. (Kasha?) And we were lucky to have it. Thanks.
The toy section in the department store had one toy, an American inspired play tee-pee, and we slept in some building that looked like Rodge's project from Good Times.
We drove around in those stupid cars, the whole shebang. What a joke.
Oh, and I ripped my jacket on the barbed wire while exiting.
May '10
Re: A Communist Lament
I'm guessing this organization was run by the HVA, the DDR's foreign-intelligence service…
May '10
Re: A Communist Lament
Ceauşescu begs to differ. Although he still had a way to go to catch up with Stalin in brutality, he definitely best him in pure absurdity. It's sad to think that we helped legitimize him. Thank you detente!
Nathaniel Wright:
Ah...I can feel the Ostalgie sweeping over me. · Sep 2 at 4:43pm
You leave me awash in Gorbimanie!
Well, even with the high levels of Ostalgie in Central and Eastern Europe, it thankfully still remains in the minority. There were too many people who benefited from it, on different levels, for it to dissipate entirely. Unfortunately, the number of young people in the region (those who didn't live long, or at all, through communism) willing to readopt socialism is probably cause for long-term concern.