8 - Saving Socialism from the GDR

Summary

This chapter tells the story of the hope generation’s contribution to Perestroika through the example of Dieter Klein (1931), a progressive political economist of capitalism and science manager at Humboldt University. Welcoming the changes in light of the vision of overcoming Stalinism and inviting the young generation into the reformist movement against the Old Communists that stubbornly occupied the Politburo, the reform of socialism turned into a battle for its very survival. Contributing to the reformist research during Perestroika at first with a political economy of capitalism based on peace rather than class conflict, he was increasingly disconnected from the civil rights movement due to his confidence in inner-party reform. He was in the position of realizing his reformist ideas at the Party Congress in December 1989 when the party transformed from a force with constitutional power into parliamentary opposition in the system of the class enemy.