East Germany

By Jill Smolowe

A nation's leadership often hears what it wants to hear, but few have seemed quite so deaf to the public's demands as East Germany's rulers. Thousands flee the country, protesters stage hunger strikes in churches, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev offers a gentle lecture in person -- none of it seemed to make a difference. But last week as the cries for democratic reform reached a crescendo in cities across East Germany, the leaders in East Berlin demonstrated that their hearing faculties were intact -- and that they were distressed by the rising noise level.

After a two-day session, the 21 members of the ruling Politburo issued a statement that for the first time expressed official concern about the recent exodus of 50,000 East Germans to the West. Then, in an unprecedented gesture of conciliation, the leadership acknowledged, "We are open to discussion." Hinting that press and travel restrictions might be eased, the statement continued, "Together, we want to discuss all basic questions of our society."

The Politburo's tentative first step toward a softening of its policies was already more than many had anticipated. Just two days earlier, President Erich Honecker, 77, had all but threatened a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown to halt the demonstrations that were spreading like a virus from city to city. But after the number of protesters multiplied into the tens of thousands, the Politburo announced a newfound willingness to discuss limited reforms. The sudden shift not only indicated a crack in one of the East bloc's most ossified regimes, but also spurred speculation that the ruling party was in disarray -- and that Honecker's days were numbered.

As East Germany's Communists struggled to dampen the volatile situation, their brethren in Hungary were busy taking steps that, even a few months ago, would have seemed impossible. A majority of the 1,274 delegates at a Communist Party congress voted to rechristen themselves the Hungarian Socialist Party. Hungarian Communism, for all practical purposes, was going out of business. Coming less than two months after the installation of Poland's first non- Communist government since the end of World War II, the Hungarian decision reinforced the historic shift taking place in Europe.

The popular uprising in East Germany's streets last week, the biggest such challenge since 1953, presents Honecker with a far graver crisis than the refugee tide. It threatens both to fracture civil order and to splinter the once monolithic regime. The confused leadership ricocheted between stern warnings and appeasing gestures. As Honecker greeted visiting Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Yao Yilin, the official news agency ADN warned that "there is a fundamental lesson to be learned from the counterrevolutionary unrest in Beijing." But the Politburo's subsequent statement suggests that many within the ruling elite were drawing different conclusions from the Tiananmen debacle. Reports circulated that the Politburo had demanded an account of the nation's "critical situation" from Honecker. Soon thereafter Honecker postponed a visit to Denmark, fueling rumors that he was struggling for his political -- and maybe his physical -- life.

The heart of the opposition movement is the New Forum, an amorphous collection of mild-mannered pastors, artists and writers who coalesced only six weeks ago around a vague demand for "democratic dialogue." Although New Forum is technically illegal, it has gathered the signatures of more than 20,000 adherents, ranging from teachers and train drivers to electricians and factory foremen. Unlike Poland, where union workers sparked a popular insurrection, no single sector of society fuels the unrest in East Germany. The dissenters lack both a leader with Lech Walesa's charisma and a specific agenda.

The movement's strength is its links to the Protestant Church, which is attended by more than 40% of East Germany's 16 million citizens. Since the 1970s, it has provided a forum for human-rights and peace advocates. Last week churches in East Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden became the gathering points for demonstrators and the refuges for protesters when they met up with truncheon- swinging riot police.

The demands of East Germany's reformers seem mild when compared with the changes unleashed by opposition forces in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Baltic states. The unfocused New Forum has called for its own legalization, dialogue with authorities and basic civil rights. Only now is it beginning to identify other possible issues: ecological and economic problems, industrial and scientific development. Though the New Forum's ranks are filled with a wide variety of socialists, ranging from doctrinaire Marxists to Western-style Social Democrats, they share the goal of a liberalized East Germany, not a capitalist one. "We are not enemies of the German Democratic Republic or a threat to anyone," says Jens Reich, a molecular biologist who helped found New Forum. "We just want the country to get out of its present crisis."

Some members will not go even that far. Beneath the New Forum umbrella are half a dozen smaller groups that bear such optimistic names as Democratic Awakening and Movement for Democracy Now. One of them, the United Left, seeks to eliminate the ruling party's Stalinist heritage and to form independent trade unions, but its members are avowed Marxists who fret that any "fundamental opening up of society" could threaten Communist rule. These differences could make consensus difficult if the New Forum attempts to draw up an agenda. For now, the various factions are not inclined even to merge. Says Barbel Bohley, one of the founders of New Forum: "We want to remain pluralist because we have suffered under this conformist-minded system which has governed our lives."

Some local party officials have shown sympathy for the dissidents' cause. In Leipzig, where New Forum brought up to 70,000 people into the streets last Monday, three party secretaries signed a declaration promoting a more open dialogue. In Dresden party functionaries met with 20 opposition representatives. Encouraging as these moves may be, there is always the possibility of a reversal. If the state decides to clamp down, it is hard to predict whether the opposition forces will turn out to be marathoners, like the Poles, or easily winded sprinters, like the Panamanians.

It is also possible, however, that East Germany's leaders -- with or without Honecker -- will decide that the status quo can no longer hold. They face mounting pressure not only from the citizenry but from local government and party officials as well. Pragmatists know that the question no longer is if East Germany can change but rather how to control the pace of reforms that look increasingly inevitable. The risk is that if the East German leaders do not listen closely and respond now, they may lose all later.

With reporting by James O. Jackson and Ken Olsen/Bonn