East Germany: Mass Demomstrations

Figure 1.--Young pioneers from the pioneering organization Ernst Thälmann walk past the official gallery on the occasion of the 11th GDR Workers' Festival in Chemnitz in what is now the state of Saxony. The photograph was taken June 14, 1989. Photo: Manfred Uhlenhut

Communist regimes do not believe in elections, at least real elections. Only show electioins were allowed. This was the case from the very beginning. In the Russian October Revolution when relatively small cadres of Bolsheviks seized control of Russia from a fledgling Parlimentaery demnocracy. And from that point on there was not a real election in Russia until the fall of the Soviet Union (1991). The Bolsheviks were a small mimority and thus elections had no real appeal. Stalin for some reason, at the end of World II allowed some elections in Eastern Europe, but when the Communists did poorly, he had the NKVD step in to ensure Communist electoral vicotories. The Soviets unlike the modern Chinese Communists at least paid lip service to democracy. East Germany would become the German Democratic Republic, despite the fact that it did not permit a single real election in its entire history. Communist regimes without the legitimization of real elections turnd to carefully orchestrated mass demonstrations to show wide-spread public support. This of course is the standard tactic of a tolitarian state. The NAZIs were probably the masters of it, but the Communists were very good at it as well. All of the Soviet clent states in their Eastern European empire used them, including the East Germans. They gave the impression of broad public support which in fact did not exist. A common feature of these demonsrations was the use of appealin children, this part organized by the Pioneer Movement imported from the Soviet Union. The DDR Pioneer organiaztion was the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation named in honor of the the former German Communist Party leader killed by the NAZIs at the Buchenwald concentration camp. In the 45 year history of the Soviet Eastern European empire, these Eastern European Communist demonstraions only went wrong once--a poorly organized demostration in Bucharest that led to the execution of the Ceaușescus (1989).

Created: 9:07 AM 4/18/2021
Last updated: 9:07 AM 4/18/2021