Re: [Marxism] Good Bye, Lenin

[Einde O'Callaghan <einde@xxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:
> It is 1989 and Communism is crumbling everywhere except in the heart and
> mind of Christiane Kerner (Katrin Sass), a middle-aged Berlin resident
> who has a picture of Che Guevara on her bedroom wall and is fiercely
> loyal to party leader Erich Honecker.
Living as I do in former East Germany, I'd just like to make a couple of
comments on the film.

Firstly, it's an incredibly popular film here. Even in second-run
cinemas every performance seems to be sold put.

The film is so full of cultural references to popular products and
common products in the GDR that even West Germans have difficulty
getting even a fraction of the references. So I'm not at all sure how
these will be understood in the US.

Having lived here for 12 years I managed to get most of the references
but since I didn't live here in GDR times there are certain things that
I only know from hearsay. For example, early in the film there is a
scene viewed through a very young Daniel's eyes of a visit from some
Party members after Christiane's husband (a doctor) fails to return
after attending an international conference in West Berlin.

There is a subtle subtext running through the film of living a lie. so
after her husband's defection Christiane, a teacher, becomes a fervent
Party soldier organising the Pioneer's, the party organisation for
children (a bit like the Boy Scouts or Girl Guides). I don't want to
reveal the plot, but she reveals towards the film that she was living a
lie - a fact that parallels in a way the "lie" that Daniel and his
sister organise to prevent her finding out the truth.

In general I found it a very touching film about love and disappointment
and making the best of things. And it also obviously touches East German
viewers very profoundly. But deep down there is both a rejection of the
harsh competitive capitalist present and a recognition that the GDR
wasn't a paradise (workers' or otherwise) - the latter is particularly
reflected in the tragedy of Christiane's life that only really emerges
towards the end of the film.

Although the phenomenon it reflects is usually called "Ostalgie" I don't
really think that it is fundamentally a question of nostalgia. It is
more a question of people demanding recognition that they too have a
history, that biographies didn't start in 1989. On one level this is
very political, but not in any party political sense. It's more a
rejection of the present that parallels the form of inner exile that
many ordinary people experienced in the GDR - a profound alienation from
the existing political set-up combined with a feeling that there is very
little that they can do to change things.

But change things they did in 1989 - in a matter of months they
destroyed what had seemed to be one of the most stable societies in
Eastern Europe.

Many of my comrades who were in the opposition in the GDR feel that the
situation now is very similar to that during the 1980s - the profound
alienation is there. But there are differences - every now and then this
alienation finds expression in, for example, demonstrations - but also
in cultural forms such as this "Ostalgie" described in the article Louis
quoted.

One interesting phenomenon that seems to be happening - not living in
the West I can't judge how deep this process has gone there - is an
Easternisation of West Germany that parallels the Westernisation of
Easwt Germany over the last decade and a half. The alienation with the
existing political set-up seems to be growing as a result of the
"reforms" of the welfare system, the health service and the tax system
that are being hammered through by the Red/Green government and which
will inevitably lead to a massive shift of resources from workers, the
unemployed, the poor - in other words, ordinary people - into the hands
of the employers, the wealthy etc.

I'm not certain how long this sort of process can go on without
provoking a backlash - after all as some people here in the East (a
growing number too) say: "We swept away one bankrupt political system in
1989, we can do that again!"

On one level my report above is based very much on impressions and i
can't predict how things will go. But if there is no adequate response
from the left (however we might understand that) the right-wing
populists and the Nazis are waiting in the wings to profit from this
alienation. So far the move seems to be towards the left, towards
self-activity as witnessed by the massive demonstration against the
destruction of the welfare state in Berlin at the beginning of
November,but as yet there is no real organisational expression of this
movement.

Perhaps Johannes or some of the other readers of this list from West
Germany would care to comment both on the film and how they see things
developing politically (in the West as well as in Germany as a whole).

Einde O'Callaghan, Chemnitz (formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt)


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