Word: ulbricht
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...pietistic work-"My First Self-Criticism." He duly denounced himself, but he could never quite feel the same again about little Emmi. who had turned him in. From these case-history-hardened boys and girls, the Russians drew the personnel that took over in East Germany. Walter Ulbricht, a grim, humorless and inhuman man. even by Communist standards, was their leader, and Leonhard became one of his lieutenants. But in 1949 he fled to Yugoslavia, sided with Tito against Moscow, but remained a Marxist. The book is fascinating as a sort of Communist Candide-but it is far less amusing...
...Frankness. Ulbricht promptly denounced Oelssner as an "ideological mole." But Oelssner kept slashing away. He demanded that East Germany frankly explain its predicament to Moscow. He also prescribed frankness with the East German people. "We can get by," he said, "with promising the masses the lifting of rationing a fifth, possibly a sixth, time. But the seventh or eighth time, no one will believe...
Karl Schirdewan, long considered Ulbricht's heir apparent, rose to back up Oelssner. What had Ulbricht's policies actually accomplished, he asked, but the alienation of "the bourgeoisie, the youth, the intelligentsia, the housewives, and 2,000,000 refugees?" Ulbricht replied by kicking Oelssner and Schirdewan out of the Politburo...
Flops & Fiascos. In the first half of 1957 alone, East Germany lost 7,400,000 man-hours because of a lack of raw materials, broken-down machinery, and all-round bad planning. The Ulbricht obsession with increasing exports has had some preposterous results. Items: ¶EastGermany offered to build oil tanks for Sweden, even though its industries were totally unprepared to produce them. The tanks cracked, some collapsed, and the whole venture became such a fiasco that its director committed suicide. ¶East German experts offered to build water works in the Sudan. Pipes and drills were shipped...
...spite of such fiascos, stubborn Walter Ulbricht seems determined not to change his ways. Last week the Trade Union Federation, obediently toeing the Ulbricht line, announced a frenetic campaign to spur worker production and "to call to account trade union and economic functionaries in the event of nonfulfillment of obligations...