Ordinary Germans weren't stupid - the lack of resistance to winding up a failed system is surely to do with lack of popular confidence that it was going anywhere rather than due to some Cola-bribed elite selling everyone down the river. Certainly the social welfare programmes you talk about seem to have been insufficient inducement to put up a fight against reunification.
The GDR's re-entry to a unified Germany coincided with rather rough times for Euro economies so it's hardly surprising that many people are now somewhat disillusioned with the outcome. But who exactly is overjoyed with the state of things anywhere in the EU?
And surely the Sino-Soviet split happened so long ago as to be totally irrelevant to the events of the late 80s/early 90s?
I suppose the real question is: Do these 'left' parties having anything genuinely new to offer?
Dmytri Kleiner wrote:
> Russell Grinker wrote:
> And if, as you seem to think, the GDR was something progressive with a
mass
> support base, I find it hard to understand why it (along with the rest of
> the Soviet Bloc) imploded so suddenly with barely a whimper from ordinary
> people.
On the off chance that this is not a rhetorical question, imo, part of the answer is the comprador capitalist class resulting from the special trade status of East Germany as a result of the Treaty of Rome, later enabling the so-called Vodka-Cola pact.