PDS spokespersons have taken part in a series of debates in Germany.
Here is the English language translation from the PDS site.
http://www.pds-online.de/international/dokumente/englisch/0107/pv_13august.htm
Extract:
>Explaining the events of August 13, 1961 against their historic background
>must not mean justifying politically or morally the erection of the wall .
>
>The National Executive has with interest taken notice of the Theses the
>party's Historic Commission published on the occasion of the 40th
>anniversary of the 13 August, 1961. They portray in great detail the
>historic circumstances and consequences of the construction of the Wall.
>Closing the borders with the three sectors of West Berlin on August 13,
>1961 was at the time in accordance with the logic of international
>development. The Wall was the answer to the threatening exodus of the GDR.
>It matched the arrangement of the great powers during the Berlin crisis on
>durably dividing the world while avoiding a new war. The 13 August, 1961
>placed the keystone into the post-war order thus hardening the division of
>the world as a result of World War II unleashed by Germany. It secured the
>Soviet sphere of influence inside Germany and – in Soviet eyes – protected
>it against a renewal of the German attack of 1941.
>
>Adenauer preferred to have "half of Germany totally rather than the whole
>of Germany partly" (his explanation of German division – comment of the
>translator). The West no doubt waged a propaganda and economic offensive
>against the GDR at the time. But all that cannot justify the Wall for the
>simple reason that there is no logical motive why a capitalist state
>should not fight but help another state calling itself socialist.
>
>The construction of the Wall was the proof cast in concrete of the fact
>that the Stalin brand of socialism was inferior to the type of real
>capitalism existing then in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The PDS has had to concentrate on separating itself from cold war politics in which socialism is defended by a dictatorship of the proletariat. (Shortly before the anniversary there was new research claiming that as many as 75,000 east German's were imprisoned at some stage or another in the attempts to enforce restrictions against leaving the DDR. - can Johannes or others confirm I got that figure right??)
However it seems to me there is an irony in the statement. Just at the time the PDS is forced into a virtual apology for a party from which it has separated itself, there are walls everywhere!
The flight from the DDR was not only a flight from one form of state system. It was also very much an economic flight to work in the better labour conditions of West Germany with higher wages and access to better value consumer goods. It was therefore similar to the influx of millions of Turks.
Now as western capitalist states congratuate themselves on the defeat of state socialism on the anniversary of the Berlin wall, they are all enforcing their own walls to protect themselves from hundreds of millions of economic immigrants.
The only answer is some sort of world system of balanced economic development.But that of course would require challenging some of the most fundamental features of capitalism on a world scale.
Chris Burford
London