austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

106 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
than in the less polluted areas (Der Tagesspiege/, 1990m).
4. Political freedom fa�ade. The West German system created the
fa fYade of democracy by publicly allowing the formation of different
political parties, and that appeared to compare favorably with East Ger·
many, where one needed to obtain permission from the government
to start a new political party. However, the West German government
can and has outlawed some peaceful political parties and organizations
that are not perceived to be consistent with the capitalist order, such
as numerous pacifist groups and a fa irly popular West German com·
munist party in the 1950s (Angenfort, 1996). Thus, despite the fa�ade
of greater political freedom in West Germany, there is a trivial differ·
ence in practice between East Germany's req uirement to obtain permis·
sion to form a political party and West Germany's right to disallow
any political parties or organizations it chooses (except that the West
German system creates more risks to fo under activists with respect to
expending the time/money in starting up an organization that is only
later ruled to be "verboten").
For instance, in anticipation of unification, the former communist
party of East Germany (relabeled the Party of Democratic Socialism
from the Socialist Unity Party) revised its platform to meet the con·
stitutional requirements of the united Germany that were the same as
in West Germany, which merely annexed East Germany in 1990 (von
Schnitzler, 1992). Despite the changes made by the party to be in
favor of a market-oriented economic system, to respect private property,
and to endorse capitalist-style elections, many German anticommunists
believe the party should be outlawed (Economist, 1996). The primary
reason appears to be because a fraction of the members of the Party
of Democratic Socialism (PDS) are openly communists (Autorenkol·
lektiv, 1995), and because financial and other harassment has fa iled to
eliminate the party's popularity (Economist, 1995).
Similarly, West Germany also appears freer with respect to making
or writing statements about the government, but there are actually laws
in West Germany that prohibit slandering government rulers, just as
such laws existed in East Gennany but were rarely enforced. In addi·
tion, although demonstrations are widely thought of as being tolerated
in West Germany, there is substantial evidence of police and social
repression of demonstrations in West Germany (Hamburger Abendb-
CHAPTER 2
107
/att, 1992). On the other hand, the massive peaceful demonstrations in
East Germany in the fall of 1989 (as will be described in Chapter 3)
indicate substantially less repression there than is normally assumed,
and dissent on particular issues was freely allowed in East Germany
insofar as petitions could be (and often were) collected and sent to the
East German government for action (Philipsen, 1993}.10 It should also
be emphasized that, in capitalist West Germany, only the rich have suf­
ficient money to make their statements or writings sufficiently publi­
cized to have a widespread effect on others' opinions, and it has been
well-established that West German elections are controlled by market­
ing, money, and personalities (Schumacher, 1998).
Moreover, communists are not legally allowed to have jobs in the
West German government bureaucracy (von Schnitzler, 1992), and West
German businesses {being invariably owned by rich anticommunists)
often follow the government's example, thereby virtually prohibiting
working people from publicly stating communist opinions in capitalist
West Germany (unless there were a few tolerant rich business owners
with job openings).11 A more general form of extortion also exists inso­
far as rich capitalists often threaten to eliminate jobs (by taking capital
out of the country) if a socialist government is elected, and this threat
of unemployment is made very clear to the working masses in capitalist
societies (Copeland, 2000).
Despite these facts, and despite the fact that the established, ruling
West German political parties are widely perceived to be "clubs for
a political class that makes its own rules" (Rohwedder, 2000}, West
German elections are generally held to be more democratic than East
German ones. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that East Germany
� lso had multiple political parties, although they voluntarily formed
Into � united National Front shortly after World War II to create a
.
coahtton bloc designed to prevent a reelection of the capitalist Nazis
(Weber, 1988). East Germany also permitted voters to cast secret bal-
1?ts and always had more then one candidate fo r each government posi­
tion (Honecker, 1994). Although election results typically resulted in
over 9�% of all votes being for candidates or parties that did not favor
:vo�ut10nary changes in the East German system (just as West G . erman
lechon results generally resulted in over 99% of the people votmg for
non - revolutionary West German capitalist parties},12 it was always pos-