It was the 8th Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of (East) Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland) or SED held in East Berlin, May 1981. All other socialist parties had sent their delegations. Mikhail Suslov, a high-ranking apparatchik, represented the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). During the congress he delivered an almost half-an-hour speech. The speech was the usual clap-trap of socialism winning everywhere in the world and capitalism losing it. Comrade Suslov, otherwise the main ideologue of the CPSU, also assured the East German comrades of Moscow’s support and friendship, of the Kremlin’s admiration for the achievements of East German communists, and the like. At that time such speeches were delivered by the hundreds by socialist or communist party leaders in all socialist countries, occasioned by party congresses or national holidays or anniversaries of the Great October Socialist Revolution or May Day (Labour Day) festivities.
The year was 1981. Comrade Suslov would be dead in a year’s time. Erich Honecker, leader of the SED, would be overthrown in eight years; in ten years there will be a Soviet Union no more. Listening to Mikhail Suslov’s words, Comrade Honecker, who applauded the Soviet dignitary now and again as did the delegates to the congress, looked self-satisfied and as snug as a bug in a rug. It would not have occurred to him that before the decade was out the German Democratic Republic would also have run its historical course and been incorporated by its western, capitalist neighbour, the Federal Republic of Germany. It would not have crossed his mind that in eight years’ time he would be expelled from his country, look for asylum in Russia, now a post-soviet federal republic, and be denied a longer stay there. He would not have thought that he would spend his last few years in Chile of all the places, where he would eventually go at the invitation of his son-in-law. It would not have occurred to him that he would be so much loathed by East Germans; similarly, it would not have crossed his mind that before leaving for Russia he would be given a few weeks’ hospitality and protected against the anger of the people who he had ruled over by a Christian priest. Erich Honecker may have visualized any kind of future but this. He may have feared a palace coup: it was normal political practice in socialist countries, and this was how he himself had come to power. He may have pictured to himself a world war, a conflict between the Western and the Eastern blocs, hostilities between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Surely he did not think his cherished German Democratic Republic would disappear overnight, and surely he must have been certain that the Soviet Union, the superpower armed with nukes and constantly having a crew on the Earth’s orbit would continue to exist in the foreseeable future. Erich Honecker must have been dead certain about the continuation of the Eastern political bloc so much so that the delegates gathered in the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik) where the congress was held were enthusiastic and hope-inspiring.
Present-day politicians and enthusiasts of today’s ideologies had better look into the past and ponder. They had better watch old documentaries and read old newspapers. They had better put themselves in the shoes of those people and then they had better draw inferences. Yes, today’s political establishment will also run its course despite the many assurances that we are on the path to a bright future. Yes, today’s top politicians will one of these days run for their life and maybe find protection in the Philippines or Argentina. Yes, today’s political cheerleaders will tomorrow loathe the men and the women they are serving hand and foot at present. Yes, today’s ideologues will see the miserable and inevitable death of their ideologies. Some of them will see it from the netherworld.
And you know what? New ideologies and new ideologues will emerge to seduce the people and the people will follow another incarnation of the Rat-Catcher of Hamelin (der Rattenfänger von Hameln). Some out of conviction, some out of convenience. Few will resist. Very few will bother to learn something from the past.
