The Lost World Of Communism

Watched The Lost World of Communism on BBC 2 last night.

The first episode, of three, was entitled 'A Socialist Paradise' and told a compressed story of the rise and fall of East Germany through personal recollection - from its formation at the end of the 2nd World War, as part of the Soviet zone of control, to its disappearance in 1989 with the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Whilst the voice over made much of the demise of socialism with references to 'a way of life that no longer exists' and such like, there was no explanation of the East German implementation of socialism which appears to have been Stalinist. That is to say, it was a dictatorship built around the Communist Party head and, by extension, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time.

This would go some way to explain the colossal nature of the State and how everything in East German life, both good and bad, appeared to originate therefrom: the systematic control of the people through personality cults in combination with fear and repression as well as the elevated status of artists and women and the underlying supportive welfare state.

Following a 1953 strike and protests by ordinary East Germans, the hold of the secret police - the Stasi - become absolute. The government, such as it was, decided that civil unrest would not happen again and a massive programme of spying on its own people resulted. It is estimated that 1 in 6 East Germans was a Stasi informer so fear of saying, or doing, the wrong thing became endemic.

The tales of political thought-policing that took place and resulted in thousands of East Germans being sent to Siberian work camps, and much worse, were horrific. What would appear to be minor offences, one woman recalled how, as a teenager, she drew lipstick on a poster of Stalin because "he looked unhappy", resulted in life-destroying punishments.

Similarly the emergence of the youth movements devoted to Stalin, while ordinary Germans were obviously uncomfortable with the Hitler Youth echoes, were 'creepy'. One man recalled how his father, as a teacher, was expected to encourage enrollment in the Pioneer movement and that not doing so would appear anti-socialist irrespective of his fathers own political commitment.

However, there were plus sides. Another woman recalled the support given to expectant and working mothers with good child-care facilities and maternity leave. In her own words, "a single mother would not have been abandoned". Another recalled the value placed on artists and dancers whom she likened to "commodities" now that the Wall had come down.

Even towards the end of the regime, when mass protests ensued, another couple noted that they were not really protesting to get rid of "their socialism" but to improve it - largely by removing the influence of the Stasi and allowing the people to enjoy luxuries only previously obtainable by Communist Party dignitaries. Or Westerners.

The stories were interspersed with film footage of mass rallies and such like as well as film taken by the participants themselves and overall it provided an intriguing backward glance. Next Saturdays episode is entitled "The Kingdom of Forgetting" and looks at Czechoslovakia.