After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1995 by Jarausch Konrad H

Author:Jarausch, Konrad H. [Jarausch, Konrad H.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

Reactivating Society

The actual surprise was not that the majority of the population conformed to the SED regime but that, nonetheless, critical minorities gradually developed in the GDR. From a governance perspective, this phenomenon is generally discussed as a transition to post-Stalinism or late totalitarianism in which forms of repression evolved from direct coercion to indirect sanctions.42 The literature of the opposition similarly shows a slow progression from passive reluctance to open resistance, but its fixation on typologies of protest keeps it from offering a convincing explanation of the causes of this change.43 In contrast, by focusing on the limits of dictatorship, one can begin to discern some clues to the unintended consequences of repression. For instance, the concept of “self will” of the populace, developed by historians of everyday life, emphasizes the independent potential of popular desires, which the SED was never able to break completely.44 The crucial precondition that enabled the renewed articulation of deviating opinions, however, was the reconstitution of social spaces—a process labeled “redifferentiation” by sociologists—which allowed groups to develop autonomous political alternatives in partial public spheres, thereby reviving civil society.45

Even the SED’s own governing methods offered people some leverage for pursuing their own interests, as long as they claimed to support instead of challenge the system. The ideological illusion of voluntary cooperation in the building of socialism permitted the largely suppressed population a range of strategies of microresistance because the party, no matter how dominant, required its assent in symbolic acts of acclamation. Since “publicly none of the social organizations could be used as a basis for the development of political opposition,” the widespread “inner reserve” could only “express itself as passive, but still collective defiance.” This kind of refusal to go along cropped up, for example, when “a worker defies the increase of quotas or a farmer, squeezed into the collective farm, grudgingly performs only the most necessary work. It is resistance when an electrician installs a hidden TV antenna for ‘Western reception’ for his customers . . . ; when a teacher encourages his students to think critically rather than indoctrinating them ideologically.”46 Numerous examples of recalcitrance in the workplace, youthful rebelliousness, and intellectual criticism of the party demonstrate a considerable amount of self-will that implied a refusal to comply with SED demands.

The most frequent compromise between maintaining personal integrity and showing public conformity was the so-called retreat into private life. For “at home, in the living room, among friends,” one could express criticism of SED policies, as long as no state informant (IM) reported these sentiments to the Stasi: “More and more people, once they reach[ed] a certain point, renounce[d] further careers in their profession so as to avoid the social obligations that accompany them.”47 If someone chose not to enter the party and was willing to sacrifice the modest rewards of real existing socialism, such as a small car or an official trip abroad, he could attempt instead to live an independent life of sorts. One expression of this “retreat into the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.