Lamanov
13th August 2007, 16:02
For this subject I suggest Spartacusbond (Holland) - Cajo Brendel, The Working Class Uprising In East-Germany June 1953 (http://www.kurasje.org/arkiv/9500.htm), written in 1953 and 1978.
Excerpts:
“ All over E. Germany, workers were forming their own strike committees to run their affairs in factories, in whole towns and entire industrial regions. So power was in fact continually shifting. Organisations which had been formed during and for the struggle were steadily gaining authority. The power of the Party and the Government was fading away as the country slipped out of the grip of all these institutions that had previously existed. To the extent that the workers were increasingly governing themselves, so were these institutions losing their governmental functions. The strike committees took on the character of workers’ councils, not only in practical but also in the formal sense. So an organization was born significantly, not formed with the express aim of overthrowing the social order, but on the contrary, evolving out of a revolutionary process. ”
“ At 1:30, there was a meeting in a factory in Halle of representatives from the strike committees of nearly every factory in the town. They elected a council which they called “initiative committee” but a closer look reveals it was and in every way functioned more like a workers’ council. It proclaimed a general strike, took the decision to occupy the offices of a local newspaper in order to produce a manifest; and the workers were actually engaged in this activity when they were stabbed in the back by police informers and forced to stop. ”
“ The scenes which occurred in Bitterfeld on the afternoon of June 17th were such as never had been witnessed before. Workers in overalls from every factory on the outskirts of town advanced on a wide front. Miners still black with coaldust amongst them. The whole town was in festive mood. The President of the strike committee got up to speak in the Square of the Youth. He was still speaking when word came that the police had arrested several workers. On hearing this, the strike committee immediately decided to occupy the town. At this point, the strike committee started functioning as a workers council wielding the executive power in Berlin. Public employees were to carry on working; firemen received orders to remove all S.E.D. notices in the town; whilst the strike committees, at the same time, prepared for a general strike, not only in their town and the surrounding area, but throughout the whole of E. Germany. In a telegram to the so-called government of the G.D.R. in E. Berlin, the Bitterfeld striking committee demanded the “formation of a provisional government composed of revolutionary workers”. ”
Etc.
[Underlines and bold added.]
Excerpts:
“ All over E. Germany, workers were forming their own strike committees to run their affairs in factories, in whole towns and entire industrial regions. So power was in fact continually shifting. Organisations which had been formed during and for the struggle were steadily gaining authority. The power of the Party and the Government was fading away as the country slipped out of the grip of all these institutions that had previously existed. To the extent that the workers were increasingly governing themselves, so were these institutions losing their governmental functions. The strike committees took on the character of workers’ councils, not only in practical but also in the formal sense. So an organization was born significantly, not formed with the express aim of overthrowing the social order, but on the contrary, evolving out of a revolutionary process. ”
“ At 1:30, there was a meeting in a factory in Halle of representatives from the strike committees of nearly every factory in the town. They elected a council which they called “initiative committee” but a closer look reveals it was and in every way functioned more like a workers’ council. It proclaimed a general strike, took the decision to occupy the offices of a local newspaper in order to produce a manifest; and the workers were actually engaged in this activity when they were stabbed in the back by police informers and forced to stop. ”
“ The scenes which occurred in Bitterfeld on the afternoon of June 17th were such as never had been witnessed before. Workers in overalls from every factory on the outskirts of town advanced on a wide front. Miners still black with coaldust amongst them. The whole town was in festive mood. The President of the strike committee got up to speak in the Square of the Youth. He was still speaking when word came that the police had arrested several workers. On hearing this, the strike committee immediately decided to occupy the town. At this point, the strike committee started functioning as a workers council wielding the executive power in Berlin. Public employees were to carry on working; firemen received orders to remove all S.E.D. notices in the town; whilst the strike committees, at the same time, prepared for a general strike, not only in their town and the surrounding area, but throughout the whole of E. Germany. In a telegram to the so-called government of the G.D.R. in E. Berlin, the Bitterfeld striking committee demanded the “formation of a provisional government composed of revolutionary workers”. ”
Etc.
[Underlines and bold added.]