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.
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.