East German uprising of 1953
The East German uprising of 1953 (German: Volksaufstand vom 17. Juni 1953 ) was an uprising that occurred in East Germany from 16 to 17 June 1953. It began with strike action by construction workers in East Berlin on 16 June against work quotas during the Sovietization process in East Germany. Demonstrations in East Berlin turned into a widespread uprising against the Government of East Germany and the Socialist Unity Party the next day, involving over one million people in about 700 localities across the country.[4] Protests against declining living standards and unpopular Sovietization policies led to a wave of strikes and protests that were not easily brought under control and threatened to overthrow the East German government. The uprising in East Berlin was violently suppressed by tanks of the Soviet forces in Germany and the Kasernierte Volkspolizei. Demonstrations continued in over 500 towns and villages for several more days before eventually dying out.
The 1953 uprising was celebrated in West Germany as a public holiday on 17 June until German reunification in 1990, after which it was replaced by German Unity Day, celebrated annually on 3 October.[5]
Background[edit]
In May 1952, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany or FRG) rejected the "Stalin Note", a proposal sent by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin offering reunification with the Soviet-backed German Democratic Republic (East Germany or GDR) as an independent and politically neutral Germany. With the heightened anxiety of the Cold War, Stalin's proposal was met with intense suspicion in the FRG, which instead signed the European Defence Community Treaty that month. After these developments, it became clear to both the Soviet Union and the GDR that Germany would remain divided indefinitely. In East Berlin, General Secretary Walter Ulbricht of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the ruling party of the GDR, interpreted Stalin's failed attempt at German reunification as a "green light'" to proceed with the "accelerated construction of socialism in the GDR", which the party announced at its Second Party Conference in July 1952. This move to Sovietize the GDR consisted of a drastic increase in investment allocated to heavy industry, discriminatory taxation against the last private industrial enterprises, forced collectivization of agriculture and a concerted campaign against religious activity in East Germany.[6]
In addition, United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would introduce a new top-secret project, TP EMBER. This project was directed toward psychological warfare objectives and a secure paramilitary network in East Germany.[7]
The result of these changes in the GDR's economic direction was the rapid deterioration of workers' living standards, which continued until the first half of 1953, and represented the first clear downward trend in the living standard of East Germans since the 1947 hunger crisis. Travel costs rose as generous state subsidies were cut, while many consumer goods began to disappear from store shelves. Factories were forced to clamp down on overtime: with restricted budgets, the wage bill was deemed excessively high.[8] Meanwhile, food prices rose as a result of both the state's collectivization policy – 40% of the wealthier farmers in the GDR fled to the West, leaving over 750,000 ha (1,900,000 acres; 2,900 sq mi) of otherwise productive land lying fallow – and a poor harvest in 1952.[8][9] Workers' cost of living therefore rose, while the take-home pay of large numbers of workers – many of whom depended on overtime pay to make ends meet – diminished. In the winter of 1952–53, there were also serious interruptions to the supply of heat and electricity to East Germany's cities. By November 1952, sporadic food riots and industrial unrest occurred in several major GDR industrial centres: Leipzig, Dresden, Halle and Suhl. Industrial unrest continued throughout the following spring, ranging from inflammatory speeches and anti-SED graffiti to alleged sabotage.[8] To ease economic strain on the state caused by the "construction of socialism", the Politburo decided to increase work quotas on a compulsory basis by 10% across all state-owned factories: that is, workers now had to produce 10% more for the same wage.[10][11] Additionally, there were increases in prices for food, health care, and public transportation. Taken together, the work quota and price increases amounted to a 33 per cent monthly wage cut.[12] The work quota increase would take effect on 30 June, Ulbricht's 60th birthday.
While Ulbricht's response to the consequences of crash Sovietization was to tighten East Germans' belts, many East Germans' response was to simply leave the GDR, a phenomenon known as Republikflucht. In 1951, 160,000 people left; in 1952, 182,000; in the first four months of 1953, a further 122,000 East Germans left for the West, despite the now-mostly sealed border.[13]
The new collective leadership in the Soviet Union, established following Stalin's death in March 1953, was shocked by these disconcerting statistics when it received in early April a report from the Soviet Control Commission in Germany which provided a detailed, devastating account of the East German economic situation.[14] By 2 June, the Soviet Union leadership issued an order "On Measures to Improve the Health of the Political Situation in the GDR", in which the SED's policy of accelerated construction of socialism was roundly criticised. The huge flight of all professions and backgrounds from East Germany to the West had created "a serious threat to the political stability of the German Democratic Republic." To salvage the situation, it was now necessary to end forced collectivisation and the war on private enterprise. The Five-Year Plan now needed to be changed at the expense of heavy industry and in favour of consumer goods. Political-judicial controls and regimentation had to be relaxed, and coercive measures against the Protestant Church had to cease. In addition, Ulbricht's "cold exercise of power" was denounced. However, there was no explicit demand to reverse the highly unpopular increased work quotas. The Soviet decree was given to SED leaders Walter Ulbricht and Otto Grotewohl on 2 June, the day they landed in Moscow. Soviet Premier Georgy Malenkov warned them that changes were essential to avoid a catastrophe in East Germany.[15]
On 9 June, the SED's Politburo met and determined how to respond to the Soviet leadership's instructions. Although most Politburo members felt the announcement of the "New Course" required careful preparation within the party and the population at large, Soviet High Commissioner for Germany Vladimir Semyonov insisted it be implemented right away.[16] Thus, the SED fatefully published the New Course programme in Neues Deutschland, the official party newspaper of the SED, on 11 June. The communiqué dutifully criticised the mistakes made by the SED and announced that most of Ulbricht's Sovietization campaign would now be reversed, as instructed by Moscow. There was now going to be a shift towards investment in consumer goods; the pressures on small private enterprise would end; forced collectivisation would cease; and policies against religious activity would be discontinued. But, crucially, the work quota increase was not revoked, representing a threat to the legitimacy of a Marxist-Leninist state that claimed to represent its workers: the bourgeoisie and farmers stood to benefit far more from the New Course than the proletariat. The communiqué and its forthright admission of past mistakes shocked and confused many East Germans, both SED members and the wider populace. Disappointment, disbelief and confusion pervaded local party organisations, whose members felt panicked and betrayed. The wider populace viewed the New Course as a sign of weakness on the part of the East German regime.[16]
On 12 June, the next day, 5,000 people participated in a demonstration in front of Brandenburg-Görden Prison in Brandenburg an der Havel.[17]
On 14 June, more confusion followed as an editorial in Neues Deutschland condemned the new work quotas, yet news articles in the same issue praised workers who had exceeded them.
On 15 June, workers at the Stalinallee "Block 40" site in East Berlin, now with higher hopes about the cancellation of increased work quotas, dispatched a delegation to East German Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl to deliver a petition calling for their revocation. Grotewohl ignored the workers' demands.[17]
