AMERICA AND THE EMERGING EUROPE
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indeed possible.
The perceptions of such well-meaning believers - among them intel–
lectuals such as Fredric Jameson, Ronald Inglehart, and Peter Marcuse -
coincide with nostalgic notions held by some East Germans who did not
anticipate the radical nature of the changes, or were against them in the
first place. Inevitably, the resulting cliches add little to our understanding
of the functioning of a totalitarian system.
There can be little doubt that the description of these enormous so–
cial transformations is an unprecedented undertaking. But the tendency
to neglect individual differentiation, and to focus on collectivist aspects,
which has a long tradition in Germany, should be resisted rather than
shared by Western intellectuals. Mter all, in Germany it was primarily this
search for the traits that the others have in common, and an unwilling–
ness to admit individual differences among members of a group, that led
to skeptical or hateful attitudes toward foreigners and the rejection of
the
Wessies
or
Ossies
respectively - a peculiar revival of atavistic, tribal
beliefS.
It
is usually assumed that the intelligentsia in Communist societies
could be divided into opportunists and dissidents, and that a majority of
intellectuals suffered from the absence of freedom of thought. Yet the
situation was much more complex. For example, few associated with
Karl Marx University participated in the Leipzig Monday demonstrations
that began spontaneously in October 1989. Moreover, while some three
hundred thousand people demonstrated in the streets of Leipzig against
the Communist order, so-called counter-demonstrations by university
professors and staff were organized at the inner court of the university, at
which the risks of abandoning socialism were entertained. In fact, only a
miniscule fraction of the teaching body joined the first free political or–
ganization in East Germany,
Neues Forum.
Those few who fought
against the discredited and largely dishonest university administration
were called
Nestbeschmutzer
-
foulers of their own nest. If they expressed
their criticism in public, they were often stigmatized as informers. In de–
partmental elections, many of the former heads were reelected, this time
"democratically." The changes of departmental names such as
Wissen–
schaftlicher Kommunismus
("Scientific Communism") to "Sociology" be–
came proverbial.
For a while, discoveries about the involvement of East German intel–
lectuals in state security matters made headlines in the West. Now that
this topic has become less incendiary, it seems possible to assess the facts in
a tranquil fashion. At Karl Marx University, despite the link of the so–
called scientific secretaries in each department with the state security,
