“Visit a socialist country this year”

“Visit a socialist country this year,” said the advertisement. The result of reading this was that one dreary Sunday morning several months later I found myself in the centre of Karl Marx Stadt, in the middle of a vast crowd, listening to a speech by Walter Ulbricht—First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party, and Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic.

The “Socialist Unity Party” was formed by the union of the “Communist” Party and the Social Democratic Party in the Eastern sector of Germany on 21st April, 1946. Here, then, was the “socialism” of East Germany plain for all to see. The country’s leading party proclaimed itself a “socialist” party, the town of Chemnitz had been renamed after the socialist pioneer Marx, and—-to clear up any remaining doubts—the official travel guide (VEB edition, Leipzig 1962) announced, in terms that brooked no argument: “The German Democratic Republic is a socialist state.”

Ulbricht was addressing an international rally of pioneers—the youth organisations of the East European countries. Following his speech the children were marshalled and then followed a massive parade of the marching pioneers in their thousands, complete with uniforms, banners and martial music. It was certainly an impressive spectacle and, for sheer military precision, it must surely have equalled anything the Hitler Youth could have achieved. The party of Young Communist League members, with whom I was travelling, was wild with enthusiasm and evidently could see no contradiction between the sight of these herded and dragooned youngsters yelling their slogans in carefully rehearsed unison and the professed socialist nature of the organisations to which they belonged.

The Socialist Unity Party officials were continually bringing to our attention aspects of their country which, they contended, illustrated its “socialist” nature. A favourite example was the national health service. Yet Otto Lehmann—director of the East German social insurance service—has some interesting revelations to make on this subject:

“But there are also hidden reserves of labour power which can be tapped by improving workers’ health and living conditions . . . Herr Lehmann described how effective measures of this kind can be. In the Nunchritz chemical factory, for example, labour productivity and output were doubled and profits increased by 400 per cent between 1958 and 1963, while the sickness rate fell from 5.56 per cent to 4.81 per cent . . . These good results en be traced quite clearly to better working conditions and preventive health measures . . .” (Democratic German Report, February 19th, 1965).

This is reminiscent of nothing so much as Sir John Anderson speaking in the House of Commons and saying:

“On a long view the improved standard of health and education resulting frpm the development of the social services ought to increase enormously our productive efficiency as a community.” (Our italics. Hansard, llth April, 1949).

How can it be that in “socialist” East Germany and capitalist Great Britain the national health services can find such identical justification? Yet this muddled thinking on the part of the membership of the “Socialist Unity Party” is less surprising when some of the profundities of its leader are examined. Walter Ulbricht can hardly be recommended as a beacon of socialist understanding. For example, he advises how socialism may be achieved “in some countries”:

“… the question can be examined as to whether the workers in some countries may not be able, under capitalist conditions, to use their political and economic struggle in order to reduce the power of the great monopolies, and later to “buy them out”.
Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx had considered this not only possible, but under certain conditions possibly the “cheapest way” of establishing socialism(!.), Walter Ulbricht recalled.” (Our emphasis. Democratic German Report. October 16th, 1964).

So there we have it, comrades; First Secretary Ulbricht (in the name of Marx and Engels) points the way to cut-price socialism.

However, the visit to East Germany was certainly not without value. For example, I learnt that by 1980 the wages system will definitely be abolished in the U.S.S.R.; or, at least, so one earnest young “communist” assured me. But, without a shadow of doubt, the burning question of the day in the “communist” world at present is nothing so mundane as the abolition of wage labour but, instead, the Sino-Soviet dispute. Ulbrecht has clearly demonstrated his own discomfort on this issue. At a meeting in the Schwarze Pumpe coal combine on November 3rd, 1964 he stated in reply to questions about relations with China :

“I have no intention of avoiding this question . . . but I must say quite frankly that our knowledge is not great enough to say anything in detail about such questions.”

Within the rank and file of his party, however, opinions are expressed which—though they cannot be recommended being any nearer to the socialist position than Ulbricht’s—are, nevertheless, less bigoted. My most cherished memory of East Germany is of an argument with a member of the “Socialist Unity Party”. Because of the strange ideas I had been expressing, which he had evidently not bothered to listen to, he thought I must be a supporter of Mao tse-Tung and therefore launched into a violent attack on the Chinese leader. He ended by storming: “Mao tse-Tung is not a good communist!” I pointed out that surely Mao tse-Tung had been described as a great communist by Stalin and other leading communists in their day. Seeing his dilemma, he compromised: “Mao tse-Tung is a great com¬munist but not a good communist”.

J. C.