One of the peculiarities of the fall of communism in the East of Europe, is that the system that had control of the peoples thoughts for over 45 years, wasn't able to retain any loyalty from its former citizens after democracy was restored.
For example in East Germany, having brainwashed three generations of children's minds with communism, as firstly a Young Pioneer, then via the Free German Youth,and then the Socialist Unity Party, one would expect that these kids would retain this mindset, no matter whether elections carried real choice or not. I mean how could children's books with titles like 'Six-Year-Old Bronek and the Six-Year Plan' not have had some sort of resonance and created Homo Sovieticus.
However not only did the East European populations not retain any loyalty to the systems that had brought them up, but in nearly all cases (*excepting Russia itself and Belarus), voted generally for centre right or even harder right regimes. In East Germany for example, after the fall of the communist regime on the 9th of November 1989, initially the new or reformed parties in the East resembled those in the West of the country, and during and after unification, they partnered with those equivalents, and then merged to become one and the same.
So at first all seemed well, with democratic voting largely for the same political parties as had been established in the West. The East German Christian Democrats had received strong financial and political support from their West German counterparts, and the Christian Democrats captured forty-one percent of the votes. Other pro-unification parties in the Alliance for Germany' received seven percent, and the Social Democrats received twenty-two percent of the votes. The only major party to oppose reunification was the successor party to the Communist ruling party of East Germany, the Party for Social Democracy, and it drew only sixteen percent of the votes (which was all the loyalty the communists retained, and that has gone now).
Indeed in the eastern German state of Saxony, which is about as far east as one can get, up until 2017 in Oppach, near Gorlitz, the regional secretary of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had held a seat as an MP for the previous 15 years.
But demographic forces were at work .... those who most embraced the new democratic united Germany, were leaving. There had already been two large movements of the ambitious and young, as the Berlin Wall had fallen, and between 1989 and 2001, a further 1.2 million people emigrated from East Germany to West Germany; the largest group were young women between 20 and 35. This has left some areas with 4 young men, to every one young female .... this fact has influenced politics in the whole area, as men are more likely to vote for more extreme parties ... especially desperate men it seems.
In 2017, the national vote saw the AfD, a right wing party surge in support, with 12.6% of the national vote, to become the third-strongest force in the German parliament, the Bundestag, but in the East, Saxony for example, the party gained 27% of the votes cast in the ballot. In Oppach, the CDU MP lost their seat, as did many other mainstream party MP's.
The reasons for this surge for right-wing parties and polices being strongest by far in the areas of the old East Germany were varied. Across Germany in general, the support for the AfD was stronger in areas with low household income, and often in areas with low foreign immigration levels, however as the voting map indicates, most of these constituencies are in the formerly communist Eastern states. When polled, various reasons were given, but tended to centre around being 'let down' by the traditional parties. Two issues: immigration and pensions, are the largest factors in regions where there are many older people, those who have stayed when the more ambitious and younger have left.
They complained that the German government has been throwing cash at refugees “while native pensioners can’t afford to buy a new pair of glasses.” Also some perceived broken promises about money and pensions are still held up: “They promised us it would take 20 years to adjust wages and pensions, and look where we are now."
These promises were made during the election campaign in the rump state of the GDR ("East Germany" in the first free elections in East Germany since 1933) prior to a vote on March 18, 1990. This vote was when the approximately ninety-three percent of the twelve million eligible voters still living there, after hundreds of thousands had left the state in the first and second exoduses, went to the polls to vote effectively for the reunification with West Germany.
During this campaigning, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl himself had promised that "no one will be worse off' if they reunified with the FRG ("West Germany"). Memories of that promise are still fresh in the minds in areas of the old East Germany. In fact adjusting state pensions between the former East and West Germany's has actually been a priority of the German government, who have made efforts to address the issue, and some say there is even a pension bias towards people in those eastern areas, but locals don't believe this to be true.
Strangely, many AfD voters, also look to the old regimes of the East for security, with many saying when asked, that Russian ruler, Vladimir Putin is Europe’s “only guarantor of peace”, they also often consider that Germany is still “under occupation” by America .... so in this one set of odd beliefs, the communists left one imprint upon the peoples they controlled ... the strange belief that Russia is the saviour, and Germany is still occupied by the Americans.
But their votes are cast in increasing numbers for a right-wing, rather than a left-wing party. Starting in the early 1990s, some neo-Nazi groups began staging rallies in Dresden, to remember what they called "the bombing Holocaust", when the city was fire-bombed by British and American forces in 1945, which fitted in with their belief that Germany is still under occupation by America.
These groups evolved into the right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and later the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and went on to become strong in surrounding areas and in southern Saxony. Its noticeable that Dresden is also where the anti-Islam Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) movement began in 2014 and are still active .....
So a strange legacy for nearly 45 years of communism, and perhaps the reason why the communists in Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and China are so reluctant to try democracy .... they are not likely to retain any more affection in their peoples minds, than the communists of Eastern Europe did.
*Both Belarus and Russia ended up with ex-communist officials leading nationalist regimes which act very much like the old communist regimes on internal and external matters.
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| East German Propaganda Posters Showing United Workers Ready To Fight Capitalism .... Standard Fare For 45 years. |
For example in East Germany, having brainwashed three generations of children's minds with communism, as firstly a Young Pioneer, then via the Free German Youth,and then the Socialist Unity Party, one would expect that these kids would retain this mindset, no matter whether elections carried real choice or not. I mean how could children's books with titles like 'Six-Year-Old Bronek and the Six-Year Plan' not have had some sort of resonance and created Homo Sovieticus.
However not only did the East European populations not retain any loyalty to the systems that had brought them up, but in nearly all cases (*excepting Russia itself and Belarus), voted generally for centre right or even harder right regimes. In East Germany for example, after the fall of the communist regime on the 9th of November 1989, initially the new or reformed parties in the East resembled those in the West of the country, and during and after unification, they partnered with those equivalents, and then merged to become one and the same.
So at first all seemed well, with democratic voting largely for the same political parties as had been established in the West. The East German Christian Democrats had received strong financial and political support from their West German counterparts, and the Christian Democrats captured forty-one percent of the votes. Other pro-unification parties in the Alliance for Germany' received seven percent, and the Social Democrats received twenty-two percent of the votes. The only major party to oppose reunification was the successor party to the Communist ruling party of East Germany, the Party for Social Democracy, and it drew only sixteen percent of the votes (which was all the loyalty the communists retained, and that has gone now).
Indeed in the eastern German state of Saxony, which is about as far east as one can get, up until 2017 in Oppach, near Gorlitz, the regional secretary of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had held a seat as an MP for the previous 15 years.
But demographic forces were at work .... those who most embraced the new democratic united Germany, were leaving. There had already been two large movements of the ambitious and young, as the Berlin Wall had fallen, and between 1989 and 2001, a further 1.2 million people emigrated from East Germany to West Germany; the largest group were young women between 20 and 35. This has left some areas with 4 young men, to every one young female .... this fact has influenced politics in the whole area, as men are more likely to vote for more extreme parties ... especially desperate men it seems.
 |
| AfD Votes In Germany 2017 ..... Strongest In The Eastern Regions. |
In 2017, the national vote saw the AfD, a right wing party surge in support, with 12.6% of the national vote, to become the third-strongest force in the German parliament, the Bundestag, but in the East, Saxony for example, the party gained 27% of the votes cast in the ballot. In Oppach, the CDU MP lost their seat, as did many other mainstream party MP's.
The reasons for this surge for right-wing parties and polices being strongest by far in the areas of the old East Germany were varied. Across Germany in general, the support for the AfD was stronger in areas with low household income, and often in areas with low foreign immigration levels, however as the voting map indicates, most of these constituencies are in the formerly communist Eastern states. When polled, various reasons were given, but tended to centre around being 'let down' by the traditional parties. Two issues: immigration and pensions, are the largest factors in regions where there are many older people, those who have stayed when the more ambitious and younger have left.
They complained that the German government has been throwing cash at refugees “while native pensioners can’t afford to buy a new pair of glasses.” Also some perceived broken promises about money and pensions are still held up: “They promised us it would take 20 years to adjust wages and pensions, and look where we are now."
These promises were made during the election campaign in the rump state of the GDR ("East Germany" in the first free elections in East Germany since 1933) prior to a vote on March 18, 1990. This vote was when the approximately ninety-three percent of the twelve million eligible voters still living there, after hundreds of thousands had left the state in the first and second exoduses, went to the polls to vote effectively for the reunification with West Germany.
During this campaigning, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl himself had promised that "no one will be worse off' if they reunified with the FRG ("West Germany"). Memories of that promise are still fresh in the minds in areas of the old East Germany. In fact adjusting state pensions between the former East and West Germany's has actually been a priority of the German government, who have made efforts to address the issue, and some say there is even a pension bias towards people in those eastern areas, but locals don't believe this to be true.
Strangely, many AfD voters, also look to the old regimes of the East for security, with many saying when asked, that Russian ruler, Vladimir Putin is Europe’s “only guarantor of peace”, they also often consider that Germany is still “under occupation” by America .... so in this one set of odd beliefs, the communists left one imprint upon the peoples they controlled ... the strange belief that Russia is the saviour, and Germany is still occupied by the Americans.
But their votes are cast in increasing numbers for a right-wing, rather than a left-wing party. Starting in the early 1990s, some neo-Nazi groups began staging rallies in Dresden, to remember what they called "the bombing Holocaust", when the city was fire-bombed by British and American forces in 1945, which fitted in with their belief that Germany is still under occupation by America.
These groups evolved into the right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and later the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and went on to become strong in surrounding areas and in southern Saxony. Its noticeable that Dresden is also where the anti-Islam Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) movement began in 2014 and are still active .....
So a strange legacy for nearly 45 years of communism, and perhaps the reason why the communists in Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and China are so reluctant to try democracy .... they are not likely to retain any more affection in their peoples minds, than the communists of Eastern Europe did.
*Both Belarus and Russia ended up with ex-communist officials leading nationalist regimes which act very much like the old communist regimes on internal and external matters.
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