15 Years Since the fall

[Random Communist]

Good article on the fifteenth anniversary of the ("collapse of communism") berlin wall.

How the East Was Won
by Heiko Khoo

Fifteen years ago on November 9th 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Within a year East and West Germany were reunited. But unification was carried out on a capitalist basis. Thus it was a counterrevolution. But the movement in the East did not start with that aim in mind, far from it! The early movement had many elements of the political revolution, i.e. a movement against the bureaucracy and for genuine socialism. Unfortunately due to lack of leadership, in the end counterrevolution prevailed. Here we provide an analysis and also material produced by the Marxists in East Germany at the time.

continued at...

www.marxist.com/Europe/germany_15years_wall.htm

[kasama]

This is kind a wrong from jump street:

Heiko Khoo writes: "Fifteen years ago on November 9th 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Within a year East and West Germany were reunited. But unification was carried out on a capitalist basis. Thus it was a counterrevolution."

Well, there was no socialism in East Germany -- it was another capitalist/imperialist society. So there was no counterrevolution in the unification -- it was a change of *forms* of capitalist rule. But no change in the nature of class rule.

It was the annexation of a state capitalist east germany by a more powerful capitalist west germany.

There is a lot more to say (and criticize) by the trotskyist view of these things (which is hostile to genuine socialism, but sympathetic to revisionist state capitalism that emerges from genuine socialism.)

Perhaps the best place to dig deep into this is Chairman Avakian's work on this: "Phony Communism is DEad! Long Live REal Communism!" (which was just reprinted in a new edition.)


The core error in this essay (which we can dig into if anyone wants) is the following analysis:

"In the German Democratic Republic (GDR) all the factories were called “People’s Own Factory,” they were the property of the collective, of the people, made during the 40 years of the GDR. What happened to the people’s factories? They were handed to a newly created government agency, the “Treuhand”, whose sole objective was privatisation."

In other words, when the state capitalism of East Germany was PORTRAYED (falsely) as "people's factorires" -- this analysis accepts that illusion as fact.

And so the transition from state capitalism to western-style privatized capitalism is seen as a counterrevolution (not a change of capitalist forms).

"Though it is called the reunification of Germany in fact the precise definition is the annexation and expropriation of the people of the GDR by West German Capital."

In most of eastern europe, the fall of the wall led to the "enfranchisement of the nomenklatura" -- meaning that the state capitalists (of poland, russia, etc.) showed up as the new private owners of capital. Almost all the current rulers, and many of the main "private" owners of industries emerged from the old communist parties.

In east germany it was a little different, because the country was not just "privatized" but also annexed.

So there was an expropriation of eastern state capitalists by western monopoly capitalists. Often by simply allowing the industries of the east to collapse. and be replaced or bought (from the ground up) by western capital moving in. But to see this as the expropriation of the people -- is to deeply confuse the oppressors of east germany with the working people there.

[RandomCommunist]

There is a lot more to say (and criticize) by the trotskyist view of these things (which is hostile to genuine socialism, but sympathetic to revisionist state capitalism that emerges from genuine socialism.)

Hostile to genuine socialism. How do you come by that?

Sympathetic to revisionist state capitalism? Thats one theory put out by Tony Cliff who some Trotskyists follow. There are many more theories put out there. The writers for the site of In Defence of Marxism where the for mentioned article is from no not adhere to the theory of state capitalism.

www.tedgrant.org/works/4/9/reply_to_tony_cliff.html

In other words, when the state capitalism of East Germany was PORTRAYED (falsely) as "people's factorires" -- this analysis accepts that illusion as fact.

The analysis has not such illusion that the factories belonged to the people themselves but in the hands of the bureaucracy.

So there was an expropriation of eastern state capitalists by western monopoly capitalists. Often by simply allowing the industries of the east to collapse. and be replaced or bought (from the ground up) by western capital moving in. But to see this as the expropriation of the people -- is to deeply confuse the oppressors of east germany with the working people there.


The "state capitalists" were not the only people that where expropriated.

By 1992, two million claims for pre-war property rights were asserted, and by some calculations West Germans and foreigners now own as much as 97% of all assets in the East. (Source BBC news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/890496.stm ). The housing stock was almost entirely handed over to private hands, with no consultation with the people.

Horst from East Berlin recalls:

“Almost all real property that anyone could have acquired by honest means in the GDR – land and houses... was declared null and void – forty years of the GDR were simply annulled and ‘return before compensation’ became law. Perhaps Americans understand this. It’s as if you were suddenly to restore all rights to American Indians, so that Chief Black Panther comes along and says: well this place is my tribal territory; my ancestors hunted here for 500 hundred years, and now it is mine again, so pay up. What would happen to all the cities and houses there?”

“After the Wende (change) I nearly lost (my) house, because a former owner, a woman from Argentina, showed up and immediately filed an application to get the house back. She came from the same city where Mengele used to live and is the daughter of the former owner, the man who built the house, a man who worked at Auschwitz. He never came back here after 1945. He knew what would have been in store for him...” (Ten Years of German Unification, p.36


Twas the working people, the common people that got expropriated too.

[nightbreed]

Kasama.
First of all you call the East German state Capitalist/imperialist and then you go on to describe it as state capitalist!!
Im not really sure you have read Heiko's article properly, as it contains a good marxist analysis of the former degenerated workers state.