The German Democratic Republic had its origins, politically, from the block of anti-fascist and democratic parties (the Antifa – Block, founded in 1945 by the will of the Soviet occupiers) in which alongside the predominant Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), Communist, the minor Christian Democratic (CDU), Liberal Democrat (LDPD) parties and the formations recently permitted by the military government, the National Democratic Party (NDPD) and the National Democratic Party (NDPD) farmer (DBD). The procedural norm of the decisions taken unanimously and the concomitant one – which excluded the free political game of parliamentary democracies – of the prohibition of internal coalitions between individual parties, had ensured the validation by the German People’s Council (Deutscher Volksrat), of the constitutional project presented by the SED and inspired by the Soviet principle of popular democracy. As such, the GDR rejected the separation of powers, made the rights of equality and freedom dependent on the fulfillment of social duties, and proclaimed the working class the sole custodian of state power, whose supreme body became the People’s Chamber (Volkskammer). This will then be first elected on the basis of a unitary list of candidates in which the numerically predominant party will permanently be the SED, which in this way has ensured the stable exercise of the function of political leadership of the country, assigned to it by its quality of “sole” representative of the workers, and together assured the USSR that its fundamental political directives will be fulfilled. Nor could limits and impediments to the “unity of action of the working class” arise from the regions, since the Länderkammer that the Constitution provides as a second legislative assembly does not have effective powers. In fact, unlike Germany in Bonn, the democratic republic did not arise as a federal state, but strictly unitary and centralized, which for the subsequent democratization law (25 July 1952) saw the Länder definitively abolished, replaced by 14 districts with functions only administrative.
The first Council of Ministers of the GDR confirmed in the executive the absolute dominance of the Communist party: this on 7 October 1949 appointed Otto Grotewohl, a member of the central secretariat and the management (Politbüro), president of the ministers, who in turn designated his collaborators in the government (11 representatives of the SED, 4 of the CDU and 3 liberals). The decisive influence of the party in every instance of the state apparatus will, moreover, be ensured through the technical-political training of all its leading cadres (Kaderpolitik), and in the permanent mobilization of the “base” through mass organizations and the “pedagogical” action carried out by state publications. Therefore, unlike other popular democracies, in the GDR the violent liquidation of the other parties was not necessary, just as there was no physical elimination of opposition leaders: this has in fact disappeared, while the minor political formations of structure bourgeois have remained constantly faithful to the unitary discipline of the “bloc” imposed on them by belonging to that National Front (NF) which since October 1949 has replaced the dissolved Antifa – Block in the political leadership of the state. This political practice made socialist programs viable with a bloodless “revolution from above”. The Front (where there are numerous places, even non-party members) will then pre-establish the result of the elections with the unitary lists of its candidates, and formulate with its program the fundamental guidelines of government policy; as the highest mass organism, it will also exercise a capillary action of control and stimulation through the work committees (Arbeitskommissionen) and active groups (the so-called Aktive: flanked from 1956 to the first, they will also widely use the technical and intellectual cadres), at the with the aim of solving individual problems deriving from the implementation of the state economy directly on the spot, the Wirtschaftsplanung.
Economic planning represented, in Germany Orientale, the ideological antithesis of the liberal Soziale Marktwirtschaft of Bonn, one and the other proposing the resolution of tasks that the starting situation – the miseducation of consciences operated by Nazism, the destructions materials resulting from the war – it had made fundamentally the same for both: the reconstitution of social life, in its economic and ethical-political components. For the constitutional purposes of “ensuring the fundamental bases of existence and developing the well-being of citizens” and also their cultural and social formation,). As the governing body of the plan, and the highest legislative body of it, the State Commission for the plan was established, whose president will hold the rank of planning representative in the “Präsidium” of the Council of Ministers, the highest organ of the executive (since 1952 the office is held continuously by Bruno Leuschner). But both the 1950 five-year plan and the one currently underway – changed into a seven-year plan in 1959 – will equally be subjected to the preliminary approval of the GOS-Plan, the supreme Soviet planning council, for their coordination with the five-year plans. of the other popular democracies, within the more general economy of the eastern bloc: it is here, and precisely in the ” that both the socialist ideological content of Pankow’s economy and his fidelity to the interest of the USSR-people’s republics system will be firmly compared with the norm of Soviet politics. Under the first aspect, German economic planning was marked by the constant development of the socialist sector, both in the form of direct state management (100% for heavy industry, over 89% in 1958 for the remaining industrial production), and in that of cooperative management, where despite the strong resistance of the peasantry ever greater extension since their establishment (1952) have taken over the agricultural production cooperatives (rapidly increasing since 1960), which for the most part are modeled on the Soviet that both the socialist ideological content of Pankow’s economy and his fidelity to the interest of the USSR-people’s republics system will be firmly compared with the norm of Soviet politics. Under the first aspect, German economic planning was marked by the constant development of the socialist sector, both in the form of direct state management (100% for heavy industry, over 89% in 1958 for the remaining industrial production), and in that of cooperative management, where despite the strong resistance of the peasantry ever greater extension since their establishment (1952) have taken over the agricultural production cooperatives (rapidly increasing since 1960), which for the most part are modeled on the Soviet with the norm of Soviet politics, both the socialist ideological content of Pankow’s economy, and his fidelity to the interest of the USSR-people’s republics system. Under the first aspect, German economic planning was marked by the constant development of the socialist sector, both in the form of direct state management (100% for heavy industry, over 89% in 1958 for the remaining industrial production), and in that of cooperative management, where despite the strong resistance of the peasantry ever greater extension since their establishment (1952) have taken over the agricultural production cooperatives (rapidly increasing since 1960), which for the most part are modeled on the Soviet with the norm of Soviet politics, both the socialist ideological content of Pankow’s economy, and his fidelity to the interest of the USSR-people’s republics system. Under the first aspect, German economic planning was marked by the constant development of the socialist sector, both in the form of direct state management (100% for heavy industry, over 89% in 1958 for the remaining industrial production), and in that of cooperative management, where despite the strong resistance of the peasantry ever greater extension since their establishment (1952) have taken over the agricultural production cooperatives (rapidly increasing since 1960), which for the most part are modeled on the Soviet interest of the USSR-people’s republics system. Under the first aspect, German economic planning was marked by the constant development of the socialist sector, both in the form of direct state management (100% for heavy industry, over 89% in 1958 for the remaining industrial production), and in that of cooperative management, where despite the strong resistance of the peasantry ever greater extension since their establishment (1952) have taken over the agricultural production cooperatives (rapidly increasing since 1960), which for the most part are modeled on the Soviet interest of the USSR-people’s republics system. Under the first aspect, German economic planning was marked by the constant development of the socialist sector, both in the form of direct state management (100% for heavy industry, over 89% in 1958 for the remaining industrial production), and in that of cooperative management, where despite the strong resistance of the peasantry ever greater extension since their establishment (1952) have taken over the agricultural production cooperatives (rapidly increasing since 1960), which for the most part are modeled on the Soviet Kolchoz ; while the political objective of strengthening the power of the socialist state in the eastern community was pursued through the progressive strengthening of heavy industry. Since 1957, the introduction of the principle of the division of labor tasks between the economies of popular democracies has created a structural interdependence within the Soviet bloc, and with the acknowledged production prevalence of the German engineering and chemical industry, it has laid the foundations for a development of the productive and economic potential of the GDR, such as to attribute (as already confirmed by the exceptionally high export figures) to the East Germans a position of dominance, in the Russian sphere of influence,of Bonn in the Western world.
Inside, the massive use of the state’s financial capital in the production of capital goods has obviously meant, however, a restricted activity of the industries producing consumer goods; and also the most recent financial effort required by the subsidy to export industries, to ensure them the possibility of establishing themselves internationally in the field of “competitive competition” between East and West, has contributed to making it difficult to solve a problem, which in principle Part of the success of the Wirtschaftsplanung is linked to the standard of living of the populationin the country. Consequently, the growing impulse given by the government to consumer cooperatives, in order to exert a calming action on the market still mainly entrusted to small private businesses, state intervention in the determination of wages and political prices, have not so far been managed to ensure – despite the recent appreciable increase in average per capita income – living conditions comparable to those of the federal republic. Thus the anti-government revolt in Berlin (v.) And in various cities of the GDR of June 1953 found nourishment above all by popular discontent for the sacrifices imposed by the five-year plan. Hence also the importance of an intense publicistic action, aimed at affirming, against individual and group interests, the moral superiority of the system based on the collective principle; but above all effective in the acceptance of economic sacrifices, after the death of Stalin (1955) and the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, the introduction also in the GDR of political methods which, if they are not liberal, nevertheless appear inspired by the democratic desire to decentralize, making them more sensitive to the need for self-government, the functions of the state. The slogan of “mobilization of popular representatives” was followed at the end of 1956 by the implementation of a series of measures, which transferred the administration, control and distribution of agricultural production to the districts and municipalities level. consumer goods and housing; since 1957 an electoral system has been introduced which guarantees the direct representation of local interests (in total, over 200,000 popular delegates). the control and distribution of agricultural production, consumer goods and housing; since 1957 an electoral system has been introduced which guarantees the direct representation of local interests (in total, over 200,000 popular delegates). the control and distribution of agricultural production, consumer goods and housing; since 1957 an electoral system has been introduced which guarantees the direct representation of local interests (in total, over 200,000 popular delegates).
Instead, the ideological campaigns organized by the SED under the leadership of W. Ulbricht (from July 1953 first secretary of the Central Committee of the party; to the death of Grotewohl, head of the government in 1958) and aimed at mobilizing, from the end of 1957, all the demands of school and culture in the defense of government policy have met with opposition from part of the intellectuals (especially in universities, where there has been the defection of numerous teachers, who have taken refuge in West Germany). In 1958 the school – in which, unlike the Federal Republic, a sufficient availability of classrooms and scientific equipment, as well as teachers – was assigned to the school – in which, through the direct intervention of the state, the task of training “active builders of socialism “: Junge Pioneer, Freie Deutsche Jugend -, the increasingly followed practice of emulation prizes, have actually allowed the government to achieve important successes among the new generation. Considerable budget allocations are also committed for “mass cultural work”, which is mandatorily assigned to educational and academic institutions and carried out through a dense network of “Kulturclubs”, “Kulturhäusern” and “Kulturräume”.
Closely linked to the pursuit of the political objectives of the state, scientific, literary and artistic production is also in the GDR – the latter subjected, from the beginning of the new “dialectical” course of cultural politics (1957), to the often sterilizing norm of “socialist realism “-; in the publishing field, the indices relating to per capita production have been considerably increased through state enterprises (despite the almost total annihilation of the traditional book industry in Leipzig), and are considerably higher than those of the federal republic, in which translations of recent foreign literary works increasingly find a large place. The press, entirely controlled by the state and the National Front, consequently increased the circulation of periodicals but also decreased the number of publications (409 during 1956, compared to 5630 printed in the same period in West Germany.
Formally independent since the constitution, in October 1949, of the republic (the Germany of Bonn will be authorized to establish its first foreign ministry only in March 1951), the foreign policy of the GDR has distinguished itself, in the context of popular democracies, for an accentuated fidelity to the directives and international commitments of the USSR. Among the most important acts of Pankow’s diplomacy, we must mention in chronological order: the agreement for the borders with Poland, involving the definitive recognition of the OderNeisse line (6 June-6 July 1950) and the one concluded with Czechoslovakia, the who accepted the mass expulsion of the Germans from the Sudetenland region (June 23, 1950); after the recognition by the Moscow government of the GDR as a sovereign state on 25 March 1954, the signing of the Warsaw Pact (April 14, 1955), which led to the official inclusion of East Germany, as 8th member with equal right, in the Soviet political-military bloc; the conclusion, on July 17, 1956, of the agreement with the USSR which reduced the expenses resulting from the occupation to 50% and also ensured the GDR considerable financial credits for the acceleration of the productive programs of the seven-year plan; participation, with the subordinate rank of only consultative representation but with equal rights with the republic of Bonn, in the Geneva conferences on the German problem of 1955 and 1959. On the problem of reunification, the GDR remains adherent to Soviet approaches, up to the recent direct proposals to the federal republic, to appoint joint commissions of the two German states for this purpose (1 October 1959). The international position of the democratic republic has recently been strengthened with the establishment of commercial representations also in states outside the Eastern bloc (Egypt, India, Burma, Syria, and others) and especially with the establishment of diplomatic relations (1957) with the Yugoslavia (with consequent rupture between Bonn and Belgrade): where the latter are part of a series of diplomatic initiatives, assigned to the GDR by its membership in the Warsaw Pact, for the implementation of a demilitarized zone in central Europe.
