by WILLIAM BLUM November 9 will mark the 25th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The extravagant hoopla began months ago in Berlin. In the United States we can expect all the Cold War clichés about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny to be trotted out and the simple tale of how the wallContinue reading “The Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth”
Category Archives: German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia on Wilhelm Pieck
Pieck, Wilhelm Born Jan. 3, 1876, in Guben; died Sept. 7, 1960, in Berlin. Prominent figure in the German and international workers’ movements and in the party and state organizations of the German Democratic Republic. The son of a worker, Pieck was a carpenter by trade. He joined the woodworkers’ union in 1894 and theContinue reading “The Great Soviet Encyclopedia on Wilhelm Pieck”
Left Anticommunism: the Unkindest Cut
BY MICHAEL PARENTI Despite a lifetime of “shaming” the system, NOAM CHOMSKY, America’s foremost “engagé” intellectual, remains an unrepentant left anticommunist. In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War,Continue reading “Left Anticommunism: the Unkindest Cut”
Democracy, East Germany and the Berlin Wall
The GDR was more democratic, in the original and substantive sense of the word, than eastern Germany was before 1949 and than the former East Germany has become since the Berlin Wall was opened in 1989. It was also more democratic in this original sense than its neighbor, West Germany. While it played a roleContinue reading “Democracy, East Germany and the Berlin Wall”
The Espresso Stalinist 