Conflict and Stability in the German Democratic Republic (review)

In this exemplary case study, Port skillfully exploits the rich trove of archival materials deposited by the extinct German Democratic Republic (GDR). His focus is on the Ulbricht era (1949–1971), which stretches from the establishment of the Communist regime in the Soviet Occupation Zone through the exhaustion of the Party's "scientific-technical revolution." This was a time of upheaval, including the introduction of Stalinism, the rebellion of June 1953, mass flight halted only with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, agricultural collectivization, and the introduction of new economic steering mechanisms in the 1960s. Yet this study is more concerned with the factors that helped to stabilize socialist dictatorship rather than with conflict. Port explains, "An understanding of stability in that world [the Soviet bloc] provides an indirect answer to perhaps the major question of the postwar period: Why did the Cold War last as long as it did? (12)"

Why did the GDR—in retrospect often regarded as an inevitable failure—endure for four decades? The principal, and inescapable, reason for the endurance of the GDR was the regime's dependence upon the Soviet Union, which came to its rescue during the popular rebellion of 1953. It is easy to understand why ordinary East Germans would resent and oppose the imposition of Soviet-style socialism but it is much more difficult to understand why and to what extent they eventually complied with it. In treating these issues, this book illustrates the virtues of analyzing a locality over the span of decades. Port's arguments are developed through analysis of a single administrative territory (Kreis), centered on the town of Saalfeld (population in 1950 circa 27,000) located near the West German border in southern Thuringia. The region contained an urban core, an industrial zone, and agricultural areas. It had several important industries, including steel and optics, and in the postwar period uranium mining was conducted by the Soviet-controlled Wismut enterprise.

Although a single administrative unit cannot be taken as representative of the whole, Saalfeld is diverse enough to provide observation of several facets of East German politics and society. Port made extensive use of archival holdings, supplemented by oral histories, in a study that ranges from the regional level to the grassroots, from officialdom to the shop-floor and farm field. He uncovers horizontal relations among East Germans as well as the relationship of East Europeans with the Soviet authority. The Saalfeld area was the site of the GDR's first large-scale labor unrest—as much local rebellion as strike—which the Wismut miners began in 1951. Port convincingly argues that these events prefigured the country-wide rebellion of 1953, which had many of the same features. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of East Germans flied the country year after year. The ultimate effects of these twin forces of popular discontent, Port shows, compelled officials to moderate the worst excesses of the regime and apply pressure to improve living standards. But measures meant to stabilize the GDR increasingly weakened the regime's control over the grassroots and crippled the implementation of Ulbricht's grand economic reforms. Port finds that although the rulers of the GDR were able to achieve a tenuous stability, they never really won the spontaneous, universal compliance that is indicative of a regime regarded as legitimate.

Case studies are essential for bringing to light empirical details that allow us to evaluate and revise general arguments and modify prevailing interpretations. One of the most compelling things about this book is that it casts grave doubt on many of the most influential assessments of the GDR. In a host of areas—its supposed uncontested authority and totalitarian control, its putative commitment to sexual equality and women's rights, its relative economic sophistication, and its vaunted achievements in providing welfare and leveling social distinctions—the historical evidence reveals an enormous gap between the regime's pretensions and its actual achievements.

How much can the case of Saalfeld, or, for...