austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

150 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
West German financial aid (Der Tagesspiege/, 1989c). January 1, 1990
was set as the date on which the new 3: 1 exchange rate (Der Tagesspiegel,
1989t) and open borders with no visa fee, no minimum official
money exchange, and no security check for visitors to East Gennany
(Hertle, 1996) were to go into effect. Prior to that, an unbiased mid­
December survey of East Germans had indicated that over 70% were in
favor of both socialism and the maintenance of a separate East Gennan
state (Bahrmann and Links, 1994).
There was one final enormous party on New Year's at the Brandenburg
Gate with about a half million people enjoying the festivities and
fireworks there (Bauer, 1990). After that celebration, the new economic
reforms proceeded to destroy the East German morale, economy, and
society. Already in early January 1990, the number of East Gennans
emigrating to West Germany had doubled from a somewhat manageable
one thousand per day (Murphy, 1990b) to over 2000 per day ( dpa,
l990a). By February 1990, most East Germans were in favor of unification
as a means to avoid a further deterioration of their economy,
although the majority still preferred a more left-wing government (Der
Tagesspiegel, 1990g). However, by promising a 1: 1 exchange rate if
their East German representatives won an election scheduled for March
18, 1990, the conservative West German coalition parties were able to
win the votes of a narrow majority of East German voters and impose
their system on the East Germans (Der Tagesspiegel, l990o ).
It should be emphasized that the political collapse of East Germany
was not inevitable. A more repressive government would have never
allowed the demonstrations nor undertaken reforms of the system. In
addition, a benevolent but more prudent government would have never
have succumbed to Western pressure to open up their economy to a
ridiculous and destructive exchange rate. Moreover, before adopting any
Western-style elections (that enable the rich to buy the polling result),
a wise East German leadership would have waited until reparationsinduced
wealth disparities had been eliminated (as could have been
achieved within 2 years using the economic plan described in Chapter
5).
THE EFFECT OF THE EAST GERMAN REVOLUTION
The demonstrations and reforms in East Germany that occurred in the
CHAPTER 3
fall of 1989 spread quickly to the other communist countries of Eastern
Europe. As the people in these countries saw that demonstrations could
be successfully undertaken even against the most hard-line communist
government (i.e., the one in East Germany), they followed suit (Weiss,
1990). Except in Romania, the governments of the remaining Eastern
European countries gave in to the demands of the demonstrators with­
out firing a shot (Ratesh, 1991). By the end of 1989, future Western­
style elections had been declared in all of the previous communist coun­
tries of Eastern Europe in alliance with the Soviet Union, including East
Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania
(Weiss, 1990). Shortly thereafter in early 1990, constitutional reforms
were also initiated in the Soviet Union (without the consent of the
people) that permitted Western-style elections (Service, 1998). Such
reforms opened up their countries to Western media manipulation (lAC,
1998a) and led to the break-up of the Soviet system the following year
(Service, 1998), despite the fact that the Soviet people had voted earlier
in 1991 to preserve the Soviet Union (Becker, 1999a).
East Gennany had been the hardest and most crucial piece of armor
in the Soviet Union's bloc of nations (Goertemaker, 1994). East Ger­
many had the second largest army, the highest standard of living, and
the strongest economy in the Soviet bloc (Krenz, 1990). And East Ger­
many was at the forefront in high technology goods like electronics
and computer chips (Mittag, 1991 ). The Soviet bloc desperately needed
such products in order to survive in the Cold War against the capitalist
nations which had restricted the export of high technology goods to the
Soviet bloc (Parrott, 1985). Without East Germany, Eastern European
l�ers surrendered to Western pressure and allowed the Soviet bloc to
stmply collapse (Frankfurter Rundschau, 1999).
The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in many former republics
being transfonned into outright capitalist dictatorships (Whalen, 2000).
Even Eastern European countries such as Russia that have attempted
to c� � te a fa�ade of political freedom have turned the words "democ­
racy mt o a farce
. by banning opposition parliament, political parties,
an� medta (Ignatius and Rosett, 1993), by allowing organized crime to
setze ec ·
outright h
1 996).12
b
·
151
onomtc and political power (Raith 1994), and y engagmg m
. ' .
pure ases of people's votes m elections (Hearst Newspapers,
·