Yes, the German Democratic Republic was socialist—and we have much to learn from it

By the Inter­na­tio­nale Forschungs­stelle DDR (IFDDR)
27.09.2025

Origi­nally published by The Left Berlin

Photo: Wiki­me­dia Commons, CC licensing

In early Septem­ber, Die Linke leader Heidi Reichin­nek made head­lines after clai­ming her party’s vision of “demo­cra­tic socia­lism” had nothing to do with the German Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic (GDR): “What we had in the GDR wasn’t socia­lism. At least not the kind my party envi­si­ons.” Germany’s conser­va­ti­ves soon jumped in to disagree: “The GDR was pure socia­lism. It was an unjust state.” Rather than coun­ter this narra­tive, Natha­niel Flakin recently wrote an article which—though criti­cal of her party’s programme of “demo­cra­tic socialism”—agrees with Reichinnek’s assess­ment of the GDR. Accor­ding to Flakin, “a society can only be descri­bed as socia­list if it meets Marx’s crite­ria of evol­ving towards the aboli­tion of clas­ses and the state” and the GDR “did anything but wither [away].”

Under­ly­ing both Reichinnek’s and Flakin’s argu­ments are the anti-GDR talking points that have long been propa­ga­ted in the Fede­ral Repu­blic of Germany (form­erly “West Germany”). The GDR is said to have been thoroughly unde­mo­cra­tic or, as Flakin puts it, a “Stali­nist state” ruled by a “privi­le­ged bureau­cracy, obses­sed with control.” The lack of demo­cracy and “suppres­sion of all criti­cism” was not only “an insult to human dignity”, it also “produ­ced constant inef­fi­ci­en­cies” and preven­ted “good plan­ning.” The GDR is presen­ted as a cari­ca­ture of bumbling, self-enri­ching bureau­crats who could only uphold their ailing system through mass surveil­lance. Rather than being a point of refe­rence that progres­si­ves can learn from, the GDR should be writ­ten off as nothing more than a “foot­note of history” (Stefan Heym). Reichin­nek and Flakin assure us that their versi­ons of socia­lism will be different.

Decontextualization and distortion

Such argu­ments against the GDR follow a simi­lar pattern. First, a real and concrete problem in the GDR is iden­ti­fied. It is then taken out of its histo­ri­cal context and greatly exag­ge­ra­ted, before being gene­ra­li­zed as a core, inde­fi­nite charac­te­ristic of the “Stali­nist state.” Histo­ri­cal deve­lo­p­ments are distor­ted and decon­tex­tua­li­zed to create the impres­sion that the GDR was broken and chro­ni­cally ailing society. Flakin does exactly this when describ­ing the East German economy. It is indeed true that the GDR faced signi­fi­cant chal­lenges such as raising labour produc­ti­vity or finding an adequate mecha­nism for price setting in the plan­ned economy. Howe­ver, blan­ket state­ments about “constant inef­fi­ci­en­cies” are simply inac­cu­rate and misleading.

The GDR economy proved itself to be robust and effi­ci­ent over its 40-year exis­tence. From 1949 until 1989, not a single year of stagna­tion or reces­sion was recor­ded. In fact, in a paper published by Profes­sor Gerhard Heske in 2009, East Germany’s annual growth rate (4.5%) is shown to have excee­ded West Germany’s (4.3%) during the era of socia­list plan­ning (1951 to 1989). Data on the produc­tion and consump­tion of consu­mer goods confirms that the GDR was able to achieve the offi­cial objec­tive of “meeting the growing mate­rial and cultu­ral needs of the popu­la­tion” and thus progres­si­vely impro­ving living standards.

Detrac­tors of the GDR inva­ria­bly ignore the context in which this socia­list state opera­ted. Since Germany’s heavy indus­tries had histo­ri­cally been concen­tra­ted in the western regi­ons of the coun­try and due to the heavy damage inflic­ted on eastern Germany during the end phase of the Second World War, the GDR was compel­led to cons­truct large-scale indus­tries from scratch in the late 1940s. The means of invest­ment for this endea­vour had to be accu­mu­la­ted intern­ally, for East Germany poss­es­sed neither over­seas colo­nies nor foreign bene­fac­tors (in contrast to West Germany, which recei­ved massive capi­tal inflows through the Marshall Plan). The GDR alone had to rectify the damage inflic­ted by Hitler’s war after the Western powers viola­ted the Pots­dam Agree­ment and suspen­ded repa­ra­tion payments to the Soviet Union in 1946. Western sanc­tions also meant that trade with the resource rich Ruhr Area in the West was no longer possi­ble. All in all, seventy percent of East Germany’s pre-war indus­trial capa­city was no longer available after 1945, which meant that living stan­dards and produc­ti­vity in the East were only nearly half of what they were in the West.

Through the reso­lute effort of milli­ons of workers and through the effi­ci­ent socia­list plan­ning system, the GDR was able to increase the volume of invest­ment more than three-fold during the decade of socia­list cons­truc­tion in the 1950s. By 1989, indus­trial produc­tion had increased by a factor of 12.3 and the gross dome­stic product had quin­tu­pled. These achie­ve­ments were made possi­ble by socia­list property rela­ti­ons and the scien­ti­fi­cally groun­ded plan­ning process: far from being sypho­ned off and consu­med by an explo­ita­tive “privi­le­ged bureau­cracy,” the GDR’s surplus product was accu­mu­la­ted in the public hand and consciously reinves­ted to acce­le­rate indus­tria­liza­tion and econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment. The intri­cate plan­ning system was struc­tu­red around the Leni­nist prin­ci­ple of demo­cra­tic centra­lism: econo­mists and plan­ning specia­lists coll­ec­ted data and analy­sed inter­na­tio­nal and tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments to draft perspec­tive plans for the GDR’s economy. Workers and mass orga­niza­ti­ons then coll­ec­tively discus­sed and amen­ded these plans at the factory and neigh­bour­hood levels. These plans thus combi­ned complex exper­tise with demo­cra­tic legitimacy.

Flakin with­holds the title of socia­lism from the GDR because it failed to fulfil Leon Trotsky’s prono­unce­ment that “socia­lism must increase human produc­ti­vity, or it has no histo­ri­cal justi­fi­ca­tion.” Here again, Flakin not only igno­res the disad­van­ta­ge­ous start­ing condi­ti­ons in East Germany, but he also distorts reality. The GDR was in fact able to achieve a perma­nent increase in labour produc­ti­vity throug­hout its exis­tence. Even during the 1970s, when foreign trade was greatly affec­ted by global energy crises and the GDR strug­g­led to balance dome­stic accu­mu­la­tion and consump­tion rates, labour produc­ti­vity contin­ued to rise, albeit at slower rates than in previous deca­des. Many factors contri­bu­ted to this trend, inclu­ding the serious shortage of workers (meaning that exis­ting produc­tion capa­ci­ties could not be maxi­mally utili­sed) and the poli­ti­cal decis­ion to prio­ri­tize consu­mer goods over indus­trial invest­ments after 1971. These factors did not, howe­ver, alter the socia­list nature of the GDR. It would be prudent to learn from the chal­lenges that previous socia­list states faced rather than brush them aside with the claim that “next time will be different.”

It is important to empha­size that the afore­men­tio­ned econo­mic problems did not lead to the “collapse” of GDR. Despite unsett­led ques­ti­ons around pricing poli­cies, labour produc­ti­vity, and accu­mu­la­tion rates, the GDR was able to meet its dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal obli­ga­ti­ons and pay all wages until its final days of exis­tence. The infa­mous accu­sa­ti­ons of bank­ruptcy are part of the narra­tive that seeks to discredit socia­list plan­ned econo­mies: in 1989, East Germany’s debt-to-GDP ratio (roughly 19 percent) was less than half of West Germany’s (42 percent). In truth, the GDR was able to funda­men­tally change the face of the form­erly under­de­ve­lo­ped agri­cul­tu­ral region of East Germany and—in the span of just 40 years—propel the coun­try into the ranks of the top fifteen indus­tria­li­sed states in the world.

Undemocratic socialism?

Flakin and Reichin­nek may disagree on Die Linke’s vision of “demo­cra­tic socia­lism”, but they do agree on one thing: the GDR was certainly not demo­cra­tic. This conclu­sion is easy to reach if one measu­res the GDR by the stan­dards of bour­geois consti­tu­tio­na­lity: the sepa­ra­tion of powers, the protec­tion of private property, and equa­lity before the law. Marxists have long argued that these prin­ci­ples were crea­ted by and for the capi­ta­list class. Private property neces­s­a­rily curtails demo­cracy and limits popu­lar rule over signi­fi­cant sectors of society. In a society divi­ded into poor and rich, de jure equa­lity can only lead to de facto inequa­lity. Reco­gni­zing this reality, commu­nists and social demo­crats in East Germany never sought to estab­lish the GDR as a bour­geois consti­tu­tio­nal state. They aimed to cons­truct a funda­men­tally diffe­rent type of demo­cracy in which public owner­ship over the means of produc­tion would be enshri­ned in law and deve­lo­ped further by the people. The plan­ning system was a core element of this idea: plan­ning was unders­tood as a social rela­tion in which the people were to become incre­asingly active and conscious of their role as co-crea­tors of society. Demo­cracy was thus concei­ved of as a process, a conti­nuous task to be deepe­ned throug­hout the course of socialism.

 The foun­da­tion for the GDR’s socia­list demo­cracy was laid during the so-called “anti-fascist uphe­aval” of the late 1940s. The East German economy was radi­cally demo­cra­ti­zed through a land reform that redis­tri­bu­ted the aris­to­crats’ lands to the peasants and the expro­pria­tion of indus­trial mono­po­lists, which led to the crea­tion of Volks­ei­gene Betriebe (“compa­nies owned by the people”). Econo­mic power was ther­eby devol­ved to the working masses. Far from being bureau­cra­tic poli­cies from above, these measu­res were carried out by the people them­sel­ves. The Soviet mili­tary admi­nis­tra­tion made a point to entrust the German people with the task of iden­ti­fy­ing and inves­ti­ga­ting which compa­nies and estates should be marked for expro­pria­tion. Tens of thou­sands of workers and peasants joined so-called Seques­ter Commis­si­ons and Land Reform Commis­si­ons to coll­ec­tively scru­ti­nize their employ­ers’ parti­ci­pa­tion in Hitler’s Third Reich. Suddenly, workers and land­less farmers found them­sel­ves entit­led to inves­ti­gate secret busi­ness records and unco­ver the connec­tion between capi­ta­lism and fascism. In West Germany, on the other hand, popu­lar efforts to socia­lize indus­tries and banks were quas­hed by the autho­ri­ties, despite demo­cra­tic refe­renda on the issue. The “anti-fascist uphe­aval” of the late 1940s and “socia­list cons­truc­tion” of the 1950s were profoundly demo­cra­tic in both content and form. The claim that such major social feats were achie­ved through oppres­sion and coer­cion is nonsen­si­cal.

Flakin claims that the GDR “suppres­sed all criti­cism.” In count­less inter­views with former GDR citi­zens, we heard other­wise. The factory and neigh­bour­hood commit­tees were in fact places of heated and contro­ver­sial debate. Whereas in capi­ta­lism demo­cracy stops as soon as you enter the work­place, demo­cracy in the GDR began behind the door of the factory or office. As a “workers’ and peasants’ state”, the GDR guaran­teed employees the right to parti­ci­pate in factory manage­ment as well as a long list of social rights such as health and child­care, company holi­day resorts, and further educa­tion. Many of these rights were laid out in the Labour Law, which was passed in 1961 after some 7 million citi­zens discus­sed and suggested over 23,000 amend­ments to the origi­nal draft. These laws autho­ri­zed the workers them­sel­ves to moni­tor company direc­tors and ensure adhe­rence to health protec­tions and work­place demo­cracy. Company direc­tors did not own the facto­ries and could not enrich them­sel­ves off the backs of the workers; they were de facto employees of the state and merely char­ged with the super­vi­sion of public property. Workers who felt mistrea­ted could complain through their union or the popu­lar Einga­ben­sys­tem (“system of appeal”), which guaran­teed citi­zens the right to a response within four weeks. The exten­sion of demo­cracy into the economy also impac­ted the coun­try­side, where the crea­tion of coope­ra­tive struc­tures helped to not only demo­cra­tize decis­ion-making proces­ses, but also offe­red farmers and peasants the previously unknown bene­fits of paid holi­days, child­care, and cultu­ral activities.

In the GDR, all areas of society were to be demo­cra­ti­zed by drawing the masses into ever­y­day gover­ning. Citi­zens had the right—and the means—to parti­ci­pate in decis­i­ons not only regar­ding the work­place, but also the educa­tion of child­ren, the distri­bu­tion of housing, the deve­lo­p­ment of the neigh­bour­hood, and legal media­tion. A pionee­ring aspect of socia­list demo­cracy were the mass orga­ni­sa­ti­ons, inclu­ding the Free German Trade Union Fede­ra­tion, the Peasants Mutual Aid Asso­cia­tion, the Demo­cra­tic Women’s League of Germany, the Cultu­ral Asso­cia­tion of the GDR, and the Free German Youth. These orga­ni­sa­ti­ons were connec­ted and inter­wo­ven with all areas of society to ensure repre­sen­ta­tion for diffe­rent groups. The Women’s League, for exam­ple, was guaran­teed repre­sen­ta­tion in resi­den­tial commit­tees, schools, cultu­ral centers, and parlia­ment, where it helped advance women’s econo­mic eman­ci­pa­tion from men. In contrast to the unions and orga­niza­ti­ons in capi­ta­list socie­ties, the GDR’s mass orga­niza­ti­ons were not frag­men­ted and trea­ted as private lobby groups; they were poli­ti­cal orga­niza­ti­ons empowered by the state to encou­rage the coll­ec­tive deli­be­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of socia­list policies.

The judi­ciary, which in capi­ta­list socie­ties is typi­cally far-remo­ved from popu­lar will, was also demo­cra­ti­zed in the GDR. So-called socie­tal courts were set up in work­places and resi­den­tial areas to address conflicts and problems in direct and relata­ble ways. Members of the courts consis­ted of one’s peers, for they were elec­ted by the people directly. Workers, teachers, scien­tists, craft­smen, and artists were all prac­ti­cing law to help to settle issues. Through the courts, the mass orga­niza­ti­ons, and the Einga­ben­sys­tem, GDR citi­zens had many ways to bring about concrete chan­ges in their ever­y­day lives.

Reco­gni­zing these insti­tu­ti­ons as inno­va­tions of socia­list demo­cracy in no way precludes criti­cal apprai­sal. It is clear when asses­sing GDR history that while certain peri­ods were marked by rapid advan­ces, others were charac­te­ri­zed by stagna­tion. The latter phases should be analy­zed in their histo­ri­cal context if we are to learn anything from them. It cannot be forgot­ten that the GDR was loca­ted on the front­line of the “Cold War,” with West German leaders openly decla­ring the inten­tion “to do ever­y­thing and to take every measure to retake [East Germany].” Nevert­hel­ess, socia­list demo­cracy is an evol­ving process in which citi­zens must incre­asingly reco­gnize and use the means of produc­tion and the instru­ments of demo­cracy as their own. This requi­res the consis­tent use and further deve­lo­p­ment of estab­lished insti­tu­ti­ons. In the GDR, there are clear signs that this process slowed down towards the 1980s. But, again, such deve­lo­p­ments did not change the socia­list charac­ter of the GDR. Rather, they point us to a problem that all post-capi­ta­list states have faced in the past: how can revo­lu­tio­nary momen­tum be main­tai­ned in the long run to ensure that social rela­ti­ons conti­nue to evolve? It is espe­ci­ally diffi­cult when this neces­sity to open up insti­tu­ti­ons and broa­den demo­cracy comes into tension with the need to defend against coun­ter­re­vo­lu­tion and exter­nal thre­ats. The GDR was by no means the only socia­list state to face this chall­enge of balan­cing demo­cracy with secu­rity, and it would be naïve to believe that future attempts to cons­truct socia­lism will be free of it. As Lenin wrote in 1920: “The proletariat’s conquest of poli­ti­cal power does not put a stop to its class struggle against the bour­geoi­sie; on the contrary, it renders that struggle most wide­spread, intense, and ruthless.”

Praxis—not abstract speculation—is the criter­ion of truth. The idea that the state will imme­dia­tely begin withe­ring away under “true socia­lism” is a regres­sion to the utopia­nism Marx and Engels criti­ci­zed so shar­ply in their time. Instead of kow-towing to the ruling narra­tive and disow­ning the GDR, we must uphold it as Germany’s first socia­list state. The coll­ec­tive efforts of milli­ons of GDR citi­zens have given us four deca­des of praxis to learn from. By reclai­ming this history as our own and inves­ti­ga­ting it on our own terms, we can gain a deeper perspec­tive on the funda­men­tal possi­bi­li­ties and diffi­cul­ties that arise when cons­truc­ting social, econo­mic, and poli­ti­cal models beyond capitalism.