PDS on the Berlin Wall - and present walls!

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. rosserjb at jmu.edu
Thu Aug 16 13:22:16 PDT 2001


Chris,

Calling the former GDR a "developing country" is a bit of a stretch. Actually, in 1939 it was probably slightly ahead of the West in per capita income and in its level of industrialization.

A major reason for the income gap that existed in 1961 was that during the late 1940s, the USSR extracted reparations payments from the GDR, including the literal carting off of capital stock in the form of factories and machinery and equipment. In contrast, after a brief period of contemplating doing the same thing, the US poured in money under the Marshall Plan. The extraction of reparations from the GDR by the USSR ended in 1953 after riots erupted in the GDR in the wake of Stalin's death. Barkley Rosser ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Burford" <cburford at gn.apc.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 2:39 AM Subject: Re: PDS on the Berlin Wall - and present walls!


> At 14/08/01 12:34 +0200, you wrote:
> >James Heartfield wrote:
> >
> > > Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> writes:
> > > >Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the erection of the Berlin
wall.
> > > >
> > > >PDS spokespersons have taken part in a series of debates in Germany.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Carolyn Eisenberg's book Dividing Germany explains that it was the
> > > British and Americans who started the drive to divide Germany.
> > >
> >
> >Is this an addition or a contradiction to what Chris wrote?
> >
> >Johannes
>
>
> I do not know the book, but despite my robust and creative differences
with
> Jim Heartfield at times, I take his comment as supportive of some of my
own.
>
> My sense is that the PDS has tried to pre-empt the attacks that were going
> to come on the anniversary of the wall by emphasising it is not the same
> party as the SED, and pointing out the polarisation of the cold war.
>
> Clearly they are arguing for a socialism of radical reforms within a
> parliamentary system of legal accountability, and are not challenging
> directly the bourgeois role of the state.
>
> But the discussion so far that I have been able to pick up, does not seem
> to me to address the economic question and there are a number of reasons
> for not doing so frankly.
>
> The introduction of the DMark in the three western occupied zones of
> Germany was of course a form of economic warfare, as well as political
> warfare, which prepared a division into east and west.
>
> Once established this economic division was used further by the west.
>
> The economic problem of East Germany in 1961 was similar to that of a less
> developed country near a more prosperous capitalist economy. A haemorrhage
> of labour power. I talked to a former senior professional in health in
East
> Berlin in 1991 who said at that time you did not know who was coming into
> work the next week. Once this reaches a certain level, the economic system
> has been defeated. The repressive measures that no doubt he and the SED
> supported may have bought temporary respite but at a severe loss of
> credibility. But what should a developing country do now? Should it
require
> all professionals it trains to deposit their salary in national accounts
> and confiscate them, if they emigrate to the west without permission?
>
> The West German state was successful in its economic warfare. The
> Ostpolitic of buying out migrants was more enlightened than continuing
cold
> war hostilities, but it probably also paid off. Television advertising
> attracted workers who wanted to earn DMarks. Cheap, skilled, and willing
> workers are a great resource for a capitalist state. The more migrated
> west, the stronger the economic magnet of West Germany would be.
>
> Western capitalist states both want to control the influx to their
> boarders, and take advantage of it. Economically there are Berlin walls
> everywhere, but the capitalists control them, but more sophisticated
> methods than shooting people. They take advantage of cheap labour power,
> they separate families, they take advantage of racist divisions in the
work
> force, while denouncing them.
>
> Chris Burford
>
> London
>
>
>
>
>
>



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