Re: East German Collapse (Was: Fighting the cybercensor
One point I had forgotten. The demonstration took place on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. This is one explanation as to why the border guards did not attempt to open fire with firearms or attempt to break up the demonstration with tear gas. Also consider that the Tiennamen square massacre had occurred only a few months before and it did not appear to have settled the issue of who controlled china. Many of the dissidents were still at large, China was a pariah nation. East Germany had recently been visited by Gorbachev who did not appear ready to help keep the regime if things got sticky. The mass defections were taking place at their peak at a rate of tens of thousands in a day. Something like a quarter of the youth between 18 and 25 had defected. Bill if anything understates this point. Certainly if the people decide that the structures of state are not worth supporting change can be astonishing. I think that the spending into bankrupcy thesis might be argued for the case of the USSR and more plausibly the US. The problem is that I don't think that the military spending in either case bore any relation to need, to the threat from the other side or to any rational determination. I think both budgets simply increased to the limit that the economies could support and beyond. There is a similar problem in the third world today. Many third world countries spend more on arms than they do on health or education. Much of the alledged "foreign aid" is in fact subsidies for this trade. The arms are primarily to suppress internal dissent. There are plenty of governments left in need of similar reform. Phill
Hallam-Baker wrote:
One point I had forgotten. The demonstration took place on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. This is one explanation as to why the border guards did not attempt to open fire with firearms or attempt to break up the demonstration with tear gas.
I think the timing was a coincidence. (And I'm told that Kristallnacht wasn't well advertised in East Germany; especially after the Soviets sided the United Arab Republic, the official story was that Hitler had been exterminating good Communists, not Jews.) While the final week was pretty spectacular, the demonstrations and defections had been building for months, as you say:
The mass defections were taking place at their peak at a rate of tens of thousands in a day. Something like a quarter of the youth between 18 and 25 had defected. Bill if anything understates this point.
I wasn't there, but an East German friend of mine was 20 when the wall came down. He was doing his compulsory military service at the time. Even in early 1987, as he was being interviewed by the Stasi concerning the direction the state would allow him to take his life, he says he felt no real fear telling them, up front, "Sure, I'll carry a gun, and I'll go where you tell me to go, but I will not hurt anyone." They gave him a gun and put him on the front, where he waved to his friends as they walked across the border. I think a lot of the border guards were like Thomas.
I think that the spending into bankrupcy thesis might be argued for the case of the USSR and more plausibly the US. The problem is that I don't think that the military spending in either case bore any relation to need, to the threat from the other side or to any rational determination. I think both budgets simply increased to the limit that the economies could support and beyond.
There is a similar problem in the third world today. Many third world countries spend more on arms than they do on health or education. Much of the alledged "foreign aid" is in fact subsidies for this trade. The arms are primarily to suppress internal dissent. There are plenty of governments left in need of similar reform.
Yeah, yeah. Economics has soomething to do with it. But I think it comes down to "Sure, I'll carry a gun, and I'll go where you tell me to go, but I will not hurt anyone." Ideas matter. -rich
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Hallam-Baker -
Rich Graves