You shifted the definition of ‘authoritarian’. I mean Germany today is a democracy, which is not a single-party state as the GDR de facto was, as the other bloc parties were subordinate to the SED via the National Front. They spied on their own people and suppressed dissenting thought. People that tried to flee were shot under standing order. It clearly was an authoritarian regime. Under your definition, any system with a ruling class, would be authoritarian, and that would also include the GDR.
The GDR was run by SED, which later formed into the PDS, with many of the same people, even before the unification. That party got votes and was and still is in form of ‘Die Linke’ an important political party. They weren’t ‘eradicated’… What happened in the unification to GDR that was bad was the de-industrialization. People were left behind, and the far-right stepped in. Now, I would say that the unification was still good for the people of the former GDR, because they gained more freedom, but that is subjective, of course.
In the early years the workers in the GDR were coerced by USSR to mine uranium for them. They were subservient to the USSR, not just run by the workers.
KPD and DKP are electorally negligible, so they aren’t representative of Germany’s left.
Germany today is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship of capital. The working classes have no power in Germany. Being single-party is not the same as not being democratic. Democracy is rule by the majority, which you conflate with pluralism, which is simply an aspect of western democratic forms, not an actual requirement for rule by the majority.
As for the GDR being authoritarian, sure, only the ruling class was the working class. Many people did lose out with the implementation of socialism, especially because the GDR actually did de-Nazify. People in the former GDR gained the freedom to be impoverished, to see the safety net broken down, to return to being exploited by capitalists and to return to exploiting the global south through imperialism. Sure, they could buy western trinkets again, and business owners benefitted, but I can’t really see that as a valuable “freedom.”
As for the USSR coercing the GDR, the Soviets were devastated by Nazi Germany’s genocidal invasion. They forced reparations on Germany, which they did have a right to.
As for the KPD and DKP being negligent, that doesn’t mean they aren’t representative of Germany’s left. The problem is that Germany, like the rest of the west, is overwhelmingly right-wing, with variances between flavors of right-wing.
You shifted the definition of ‘authoritarian’. I mean Germany today is a democracy, which is not a single-party state as the GDR de facto was, as the other bloc parties were subordinate to the SED via the National Front. They spied on their own people and suppressed dissenting thought. People that tried to flee were shot under standing order. It clearly was an authoritarian regime. Under your definition, any system with a ruling class, would be authoritarian, and that would also include the GDR.
The GDR was run by SED, which later formed into the PDS, with many of the same people, even before the unification. That party got votes and was and still is in form of ‘Die Linke’ an important political party. They weren’t ‘eradicated’… What happened in the unification to GDR that was bad was the de-industrialization. People were left behind, and the far-right stepped in. Now, I would say that the unification was still good for the people of the former GDR, because they gained more freedom, but that is subjective, of course.
In the early years the workers in the GDR were coerced by USSR to mine uranium for them. They were subservient to the USSR, not just run by the workers.
KPD and DKP are electorally negligible, so they aren’t representative of Germany’s left.
Germany today is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship of capital. The working classes have no power in Germany. Being single-party is not the same as not being democratic. Democracy is rule by the majority, which you conflate with pluralism, which is simply an aspect of western democratic forms, not an actual requirement for rule by the majority.
As for the GDR being authoritarian, sure, only the ruling class was the working class. Many people did lose out with the implementation of socialism, especially because the GDR actually did de-Nazify. People in the former GDR gained the freedom to be impoverished, to see the safety net broken down, to return to being exploited by capitalists and to return to exploiting the global south through imperialism. Sure, they could buy western trinkets again, and business owners benefitted, but I can’t really see that as a valuable “freedom.”
As for the USSR coercing the GDR, the Soviets were devastated by Nazi Germany’s genocidal invasion. They forced reparations on Germany, which they did have a right to.
As for the KPD and DKP being negligent, that doesn’t mean they aren’t representative of Germany’s left. The problem is that Germany, like the rest of the west, is overwhelmingly right-wing, with variances between flavors of right-wing.