Nonviolence and People Power in East Germany

The vast economic, social, and political problems which have dominated
Eastern Europe in the post-Cold War period have largely overshadowed our
collective memory of the events that led to the collapse of authoritarian
Communism.  The few who go back to study the revolutions of 1989 present them
generally as the result of an inevitable evolution.  Communism is seen as an
inherently flawed social system that was bound to disintegrate soon or later.
The role of people in forging the course of history is too often ignored or
downplayed.

The case of East Germany illustrates well that people indeed played a crucial
role in precipitating the fall of the existing authoritarian regime.  This
form of people power manifested itself in various forms of nonviolent
protests. Large scale street demonstrations and massive emigration waves
increased in frequency and intensity until, in the winter of 1989, the
Communist system crumbled under the pressure from below.  Remembering the
impact of these nonviolent forms of protest is important because it
illustrates that 1) an authoritarian regime cannot generate and maintain its
own power base through coercive means alone and that (2) the population can,
through active and nonviolent withdrawal of cooperation, undermine the
sustenance of an existing repressive system.  

This is, however, not to deny that the emergence of widespread opposition was
facilitated by radical changes in the external environment, particularly the
crumbling of the Soviet led alliance system.  In May of 1989 the reform
oriented government in Budapest decided to dismantle barbed-wire and other
installations along the Austro-Hungarian border. The resulting 'hole' in the
'iron curtain' did not remain undetected for long.  At the occasion of the
'Pan-European Picnic' in August, 661 East Germans spectacularly fled across
the border.  Other East Germans who wanted to leave sought refuge in the West
German representations of East Berlin, Budapest, Warsaw, and Prague.  On
September 11, Hungary unilaterally terminated an agreement with the East
German government and opened its borders to Austria.  Within three days,
15,000 East Germans arrived in the West.  

At the same time opposition activities within East Germany became more
organized.  Between July and September 1989 various (illegal) grassroots
opposition movements emerged.  Nonviolent popular demonstrations became a
common feature.  Each Monday, after the traditional Protestant service at
Leipzig's Church of Saint Nicolas, people gathered outside to demand reforms.
Their number continuously increased week after week.  On 2 October, 25,000 of
them were violently dispersed by the police. 

The celebrations at the 40th anniversary of East Germany (7 October)
constituted the last attempt by Erich Honecker (the country's infamous
long-time autocrat) to redress the balance.  But his categorical refusal to
acknowledge the need for change only increased the pressure from below. 
Thousands of East Germans kept leaving the country every day and nonviolent
street protests became a 'normal' feature of every city in the country.  The
Monday demonstration in Leipzig was by now an institutionalized event of
nonviolent mass protest; 70,000 people attended on October 9 and 120,000 a
week later, on October 16.

The continuously increasing pressure had triggered a power struggle between
revisionist and hardline fractions in the politburo.  On October 18, Erich
Honecker and two of his closest and oldest allies, Gunter Mittag and Joachim
Hermann, were forced to resign from all of their positions.  Yet, the new
government, headed by another long-time Honecker confidant, Egon Krenz, could
not calm the situation with the announced reforms.  Too little, too late was
the general consensus in the population.  

Demonstrations became again more frequent and dramatically increased in size.
Calls for more democracy, free elections, 'new thinking', and mobility rights
could be heard all over East Germany.  "We are the people" echoed day after
day, hundreds of thousands of times, through the streets of Leipzig, Dresden,
East Berlin, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Potsdam, and many other cities.  Leipzig alone
witnessed several nonviolent demonstrations that were attended by more than
200,000 people.  On November 4, over half a million people took to the
streets in East Berlin.

Meanwhile, the lack of man(and woman)-power that resulted from the exodus,
which continued at a rate of about 10,000 East Germans a day, seriously
interrupted the functioning of the country.  Many spheres, such as industry,
the service sector, public transportation, and hospitals either totally
collapsed or functioned with great difficulty.  Subsequently published
personal accounts of high-ranking officials leave no doubt about the power
that this nonviolent form of protest exerted.  For example, Egon Krenz and
Gunter Schabowski admit that mass migration had a tremendous impact on them
and other leading figures involved in the decision-making process.

Soon, the mounting popular pressures claimed their next 'victims'.  More old
guards and key figures of the politburo were forced to 'retire', including
Margot Honecker, Harry Tisch, Kurt Hager, and Erich Mielke.  On November 7,
the entire government under Willi Stoph resigned. The day after, the
politburo followed suite.  Then, on November 9, 1989, came the beginning of
the end, the final blow to the Communist regime: Gunter Schabowski,
spokesperson of the government, declared that with immediate effect, all East
German citizens were free to travel abroad without prior permission of the
state authorities.  The same night, sensational pictures were seen all over
the world: thousands of people climbing over and dismantling the
anachronistic Berlin wall in front of puzzled and helpless East German
guards.  In the days to come, hundreds of thousands of East Germans took a
glimpse at the West, a possibility that had been inconceivable to them for
decades.

From then on, it took only little time for what remained of the old regime to
vanish into the annals of European history.  Emigration increased even more
and demonstrations did not cease until all remnants of the old system were
gone. Placing Hans Modrow, a reform communist, at the head of the government
did not postpone the fall.  In December, Egon Krenz resigned from all his
functions.  Under his successor, Gregor Gysi, the Communist Party virtually
disintegrated.  On March 16, 1990, the first free parliamentary elections
took place in East Germany.  The Christian Democratic Union, a sister
organization of the West German conservative ruling party, achieved 40.9% of
the votes a spectacular success.  

Every single demand that the people had taken to the streets in the fall of
1989 was thus met by the spring of 1990.  Within half a year, utopia turned
into reality.  One of the most repressive regimes of Central and Eastern
Europe had crumbled like a house of cards under the pressure from below. 

Much of the people power that manifested itself in 1989 has disappeared
since.  Power returned to the long and intertwined hallways of bureaucratic
politics.  The unification process that resulted from the events of 1989 is
indeed much better characterised by the word Anschluss (annexation) because
it was entirely dominated by short-term monetary concerns, party politics,
and elite engineering from within West Germany.  Various intellectuals
sharply criticised the legal and political framework as well as the hasty
implementation of unification.  They argue that what could have been a chance
to build a more just and democratic Germany (and Europe) ended in a complete
subordination to capricious market-oriented incentives.  By now, a
socioeconomic division has replaced the former political-ideological one. 
The tremendous tensions created by the differences in income, wealth, and
standard of living between east and west Germany had, of course, a spill-over
effect on social stability. Among the many signs that testify to a rising
level of instability in 'post-wall' east Germany are dramatic increases in
the number and intensity of strikes, fraud, real estate and currency
speculation, bank robberies, neo-fascist youth gangs, prostitution, drug
consumption, suicides, and road accidents.

Yet, the fact that the revolution of 1989 turned sour is not an argument
against the power of nonviolence.  If anything, it is an argument for its
continuous application. Forms of domination manifest themselves in various
subtle ways and hardly any societal system can escape them.  Nonviolent
protest is one way of defending the autonomy of the people. Greater awareness
of the potentials of nonviolence is thus of utmost importance for any
grass-roots fight that attempts to resist impositions from above.
Roland Bleiker
The Australian National University
IR / RSPAS
Canberra, ACT 0200