The Evening Star (February 25, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
Russians pushing Communism in Germany
By Dorothy Thompson
The Nuernberg trials are so engaging most of our correspondents in Germany that matters of greater future importance have been barely touched on. I can only thus account for the neglect of reports from Berlin from those which have come to my desk, not from one, but from several absolutely reliable sources, all of which tell the same story.
Briefly, it is this. The Russians in their zone which, together with the Poles, covers a full half of the Reich, are successfully pushing toward the establishment of a one-party Communist system.
To this end, they are promising to guarantee an ultimately united Germany against the opposition of the French; they are welcoming into the Communist Party converted ex-Nazis; they have set out to break the Christian Democratic Party, by controlling its press, breaking its only effective leaders, and isolating it from any effective contact with the party in the other zones; they have set out to eliminate the Socialists (Social Democrats) who are overwhelmingly in the majority among the workers, by forcing on them fusion with the Communists, and also preventing them from interzonal party-contacts.
The activities lead to only one conclusion: That Soviet policy intends to create a Soviet German state in their zone, from which eventually to capture the rest of Germany by moving into the political vacuum created by the lack of any dynamic policy for Germany or Europe by the Western Allies.
Meanwhile, in the Polish zone, east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, the 5,000,000 Germans still unevacuated from there are looking to the “protection” of the Russians, against the unorganized brigandage of the Poles who streamed in originally under Russian protection.
The assault on the most conservative of the anti-Fascist parties, the Christian Democrats, began by Russian organization of part of the rank and file from the provinces to oust Herr Hermes, party chief with a long concentration camp record, who has been critical of the manner of carrying out the land reform. Direct pressure on Hermes was exercised by Marshal Zhukov himself, and is now being exercised on his successor, another ex-concentration camp victim, Jacob Kaiser. The Christian Democratic press has been compelled to publish reports and criticisms of Hermes and his relations with Kaiser so mendacious that his successor denounced them and the editor has threatened to resign.
Both Christian Democratic and Socialist leaders, applying for permission to attend interzonal party conferences to help create a common German policy, in harmony with Potsdam recommendations, were granted entrance by the British and Americans but refused exits from the Russian zone.
The pressure contradicts overwhelming tendencies among German workers. In January, shop steward elections in 108 plants in Berlin returned 524 Social Democrats, 216 Communists, nine Christian Democrats, and 57 non-party candidates, and of the 216 Communists, 100 were employees in administrative offices whose staff was appointed by the Russian authorities. In 26 plants in Saxony, 240 Social Democrats and only 25 Communists were elected. The whole zone shows the Communists to be a relatively small minority. But by various pressures and manipulations aided by the fact that the Communists are granted four times the newsprint of the socialists, the trade union board of 30 has 14 Communists, 13 Social Democrats and three Christian Democrats.
Now “factory unity groups” are being organized everywhere with the peppy sloganizing perfected by totalitarian parties.
The Socialist resistance against this enforced “Gleichschaltung” is in some cases heroic. In December, the Social Democratic delegates to a joint Socialist-Communist convention rejected Communist demands for immediate merger. Otto Grotewohl, Socialist leader, said:
“My friends of the Communist Party, it is easy for you to speak up. You do not have to be afraid. But there is no equality between us – no free choice.”
He was interrupted by a Communist and asked to speak more candidly, and went on: “There have been cases in Berlin and Saxony where members of the Social Democratic Party have been taken for a ride and shot.”
Grotewohl’s resistance broke down a fortnight later, as the “unity” campaigns became stronger and stronger and pressure came from the provinces where local Socialist leaders held conferences under supervision of Russian officers. bringing in “unanimous” fusion resolutions. And Grotewohl has reported his impression that the western occupying powers would not press for a nation-wide convention of the party.
German Communist emigres in the United States who have steadily predicted the “redemption” of Germany under the Red flag – which Russia tried and failed to accomplish from the base of the short-lived Bavarian republic in 1918-19 – are openly rejoicing and twitting their prodemocratic fellow refugees for betting on the wrong horses, the horses being the Western democracies. Publicly they attack what they choose to call “soft peace” people; privately they say Russia will give a Soviet Germany a chance to be strong.