Word: ulbricht
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...Struggle. The forthcoming negotiations, which may get under way later this month, are not likely to be easy. By week's end, Moscow had still made no official reply to Peking's statement, possibly because Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev was off in East Berlin helping Walter Ulbricht celebrate the 20th birthday of his regime. Despite the lack of a reply, Russian sources indicated that their delegation to the talks would be headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Kuznetsov, a skilled negotiator who was Soviet Ambassador to China from 1953 to 1955, when relations were far warmer...
From a reviewing stand on East Berlin's Marx-Engels Platz, Communist Boss Walter Ulbricht waved a bouquet of red roses as goose-stepping troops paraded past. Alongside "Spitzbart," as Ulbricht's unloving citizens call him because of his well-tended goatee, stood Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev and a high-powered array of other Communist visitors. The occasion was the 20th anniversary of the founding of East Germany's Communist state. What was perhaps most striking about the celebrations was not the relatively modest military show but the new skyline of East Berlin: ultramodern apartment buildings...
...Ulbricht's economic success rests in part on one of the monstrosities of modern times: the Wall. From 1945 until 1961, when the Communists erected the 28-mile barrier that seals off East Berlin from western parts of the city, 3,600,000 East Germans, including some of the most promising scientists and young workers, fled to the West. The Wall forced those penned behind it to acknowledge that they would be spending the rest of their lives in the East-so why not try to make the best of a bad situation? To encourage the changing mood, Ulbricht...
Despite impressive economic progress, East Germany still lags far behind the Federal Republic; its living standard is estimated to be as much as one-third lower. Politically, it remains under tight Communist control. One of the last of Eastern Europe's doctrinaire Stalinists, Ulbricht is backed by 167,000 soldiers and security forces. Not since the riots of 1953 has he been forced to cope with a major disturbance. To be sure, there are some signs of disquiet. Some 1,135 East Germans last year managed to flee over the wall to the West. At one point during last...
Squeeze Play. In the midst of last week's celebrations, East Germany's leaders were preoccupied with the problem that has been uppermost since the regime was born-how to deal with West Germany. Ulbricht has always feared that closer ties with Bonn would weaken his grip on East Germany. Now Socialist Willy Brandt, who is scheduled to be installed as the West's new Chancellor next week, is calling for reduced tensions in Central Europe and for closer links between the two Germanys, just short of formal diplomatic recognition. Speaking in his high-pitched Saxon twang...