WORLD, Page 44EAST GERMANYLending an EarEast Berlin's leaders finally seem willing to listen to thecountry's dissenters, whose fledgling movement lacks an agendaand a WalesaBy Jill Smolowe
A nation's leadership often hears what it wants to hear, but
few have seemed quite so deaf to the public's demands as East
Germany's rulers. Thousands flee the country, protesters stage
hunger strikes in churches, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev offers
a gentle lecture in person -- none of it seemed to make a
difference. But last week as the cries for democratic reform
reached a crescendo in cities across East Germany, the leaders in
East Berlin demonstrated that their hearing faculties were intact
-- and that they were distressed by the rising noise level.
After a two-day session, the 21 members of the ruling Politburo
issued a statement that for the first time expressed official
concern about the recent exodus of 50,000 East Germans to the West.
Then, in an unprecedented gesture of conciliation, the leadership
acknowledged, "We are open to discussion." Hinting that press and
travel restrictions might be eased, the statement continued,
"Together, we want to discuss all basic questions of our society."
The Politburo's tentative first step toward a softening of its
policies was already more than many had anticipated. Just two days
earlier, President Erich Honecker, 77, had all but threatened a
Tiananmen Square-style crackdown to halt the demonstrations that
were spreading like a virus from city to city. But after the number
of protesters multiplied into the tens of thousands, the Politburo
announced a newfound willingness to discuss limited reforms. The
sudden shift not only indicated a crack in one of the East bloc's
most ossified regimes, but also spurred speculation that the ruling
party was in disarray -- and that Honecker's days were numbered.
As East Germany's Communists struggled to dampen the volatile
situation, their brethren in Hungary were busy taking steps that,
even a few months ago, would have seemed impossible. A majority of
the 1,274 delegates at a Communist Party congress voted to
rechristen themselves the Hungarian Socialist Party. Hungarian
Communism, for all practical purposes, was going out of business.
Coming less than two months after the installation of Poland's
first non-Communist government since the end of World War II, the
Hungarian decision reinforced the historic shift taking place in
Europe.
The popular uprising in East Germany's streets last week, the
biggest such challenge since 1953, presents Honecker with a far
graver crisis than the refugee tide. It threatens both to fracture
civil order and to splinter the once monolithic regime. The
confused leadership ricocheted between stern warnings and appeasing
gestures. As Honecker greeted visiting Chinese Deputy Prime
Minister Yao Yilin, the official news agency ADN warned that "there
is a fundamental lesson to be learned from the counterrevolutionary
unrest in Beijing." But the Politburo's subsequent statement
suggests that many within the ruling elite were drawing different
conclusions from the Tiananmen debacle. Reports circulated that the
Politburo had demanded an account of the nation's "critical
situation" from Honecker. Soon thereafter Honecker postponed a
visit to Denmark, fueling rumors that he was struggling for his
political -- and maybe his physical -- life.
The heart of the opposition movement is the New Forum, an
amorphous collection of mild-mannered pastors, artists and writers
who coalesced only six weeks ago around a vague demand for
"democratic dialogue." Although New Forum is technically illegal,
it has gathered the signatures of more than 20,000 adherents,
ranging from teachers and train drivers to electricians and factory
foremen. Unlike Poland, where union workers sparked a popular
insurrection, no single sector of society fuels the unrest in East
Germany. The dissenters lack both a leader with Lech Walesa's
charisma and a specific agenda.
The movement's strength is its links to the Protestant Church,
which is attended by more than 40% of East Germany's 16 million
citizens. Since the 1970s, it has provided a forum for human-rights
and peace advocates. Last week churches in East Berlin, Leipzig and
Dresden became the gathering points for demonstrators and the
refuges for protesters when they met up with truncheon-swinging
riot police.
The demands of East Germany's reformers seem mild when compared
with the changes unleashed by opposition forces in Poland, Hungary
and the Soviet Baltic states. The unfocused New Forum has called
for its own legalization, dialogue with authorities and basic civil
rights. Only now is it beginning to identify other possible issues:
ecological and economic problems, industrial and scientific
development. Though the New Forum's ranks are filled with a wide
variety of socialists, ranging from doctrinaire Marxists to
Western-style Social Democrats, they share the goal of a
liberalized East Germany, not a capitalist one. "We are not enemies
of the German Democratic Republic or a threat to anyone," says Jens
Reich, a molecular biologist who helped found New Forum. "We just
want the country to get out of its present crisis."
Some members will not go even that far. Beneath the New Forum
umbrella are half a dozen smaller groups that bear such optimistic
names as Democratic Awakening and Movement for Democracy Now. One
of them, the United Left, seeks to eliminate the ruling party's
Stalinist heritage and to form independent trade unions, but its
members are avowed Marxists who fret that any "fundamental opening
up of society" could threaten Communist rule. These differences
could make consensus difficult if the New Forum attempts to draw
up an agenda. For now, the various factions are not inclined even
to merge. Says Barbel Bohley, one of the founders of New Forum: "We
want to remain pluralist because we have suffered under this
conformist-minded system which has governed our lives."
Some local party officials have shown sympathy for the
dissidents' cause. In Leipzig, where New Forum brought up to 70,000
people into the streets last Monday, three party secretaries signed
a declaration promoting a more open dialogue. In Dresden party
functionaries met with 20 opposition representatives. Encouraging
as these moves may be, there is always the possibility of a
reversal. If the state decides to clamp down, it is hard to predict
whether the opposition forces will turn out to be marathoners, like
the Poles, or easily winded sprinters, like the Panamanians.
It is also possible, however, that East Germany's leaders --
with or without Honecker -- will decide that the status quo can no
longer hold. They face mounting pressure not only from the
citizenry but from local government and party officials as well.
Pragmatists know that the question no longer is if East Germany can
change but rather how to control the pace of reforms that look
increasingly inevitable. The risk is that if the East German
leaders do not listen closely and respond now, they may lose all
