Thirty Years Since the Fall of the Berlin
Wall
The Demand of the Peoples to Exercise Control Over Their Lives Is Greater than Ever
- Pauline Easton -
Berlin, the day after the fall of Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989.
November 9 marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the
Berlin Wall. It was one of a series of events in 1989 that
seized the imagination of the entire world. First came the
agreement in Poland that year between the government and the anti-communist
workers' organization called Solidarność. Then in November, the Berlin Wall
was torn down and in December, Nicolae Ceaușescu and
his wife were brutally executed in Romania. Within two years the
Soviet Union had collapsed, changing the map of the world.
In 1990, the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE), the U.S. and Canada adopted the Charter of Paris for
a New Europe (Paris Charter) which declared the shared values of the
only kind of democracy they would accept in changed circumstances.
Henceforth, any country which did not adopt a market
economy, a multiparty system and the U.S. imperialist definition of
human rights was to be targeted for "regime change." On this
basis, the counterrevolutionary forces established political systems in
which the triumphant capitalists placed both "radicals" and
"conservatives" in government while the anti-worker, anti-people policy
remained the same. So-called colour revolutions were organized
along with military aggression when this did not succeed in
bringing about the changes the forces promoting the counterrevolutions
demanded.
Euphoria, euphoria and more euphoria was the order of the day
30 years ago for the bourgeoisie. Everything would be set right. A massive
campaign against communism was launched on an unprecedented
scale.
But the euphoria that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall soon evaporated as the working class in the
countries of both eastern and western Europe, and the entire world,
could see that the changes which took place did not favour the
working people.
Within a matter of five years, the result was war in Bosnia,
the Russian invasion of Chechnya, Georgia's claims on Abkhazia,
Armenians and Azeris fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, and massive
unemployment and the accumulation of poverty on one pole and the
accumulation of riches on the other.
Demonstration in Ottawa against U.S.-led NATO war against Yugoslavia, April 17, 1999.
During these 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall
and
the so-called liberation of eastern Europe and the collapse of the
former Soviet Union, the retreat of revolution has permitted the
rampage of the neo-liberal anti-social offensive. The U.S.
striving for world domination has expanded the membership of the
U.S.-led NATO military alliance, as well as its reach, beyond the
borders of the North Atlantic. With the help of its NATO allies,
the U.S. has launched multiple wars of aggression and occupation,
causing hundreds and thousands of deaths and destruction. Under the
pretext of war on terrorism, regime change, destruction and rule by
exception are presented as the "new normal."
In all the
allegedly democratic countries where the rule of the
international financial oligarchy prevails, the working people
are subjected to the worst treatment by the monopolies and
oligopolies and the governments they have taken over. This
onslaught against the working class, against the communist and
workers' movement, against the broad masses of people of Asia,
Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, is facilitated by the
disinforming role of the state and its agencies and all those who
seek to hold on to positions of power and privilege within the
capitalist world order.
Today, the international financial oligarchy has usurped the
powers of national states to impose supranational narrow private
interests. It rules through cartels and coalitions disguised as
governments. The more they usurp power and try to establish their
hegemony over their rivals while keeping the people in check,
the more they rule by exception in the name of national security
and the national interest, while the more vain become their attempts to
manipulate elections to stave off the civil wars raging within
the own ranks, and the more obvious that their rule is
superfluous. Modern institutions are required which realize the
striving of the people to humanize the natural and social
environment and to make sure peace prevails.
 Thirty years ago, the bourgeoisie, imperialism and world
reaction manipulated the broad discontent with
pseudo-socialism of the peoples in the former Soviet Union and the people's
democracies of eastern Europe to install the capitalist system.
Today, the discontent of the masses of people everywhere with the
neo-liberal capitalist world order is such that the bourgeoisie,
imperialism and world reaction are once again doing their utmost
to manipulate this discontent to rescue their bankrupt liberal
democratic institutions and stave off the consequences of the
anarchy that exists, which they cannot control.
Once again media reporting on the significance of the fall of
the Berlin Wall is intent on drowning out any discussion of the real
problems which require real solutions. The need for democratic
renewal is forgotten in a false debate that juxtaposes the
dogmatic rendering of communism and socialism and the dogmatic
rendering of capitalism. All of it merely emphasizes the
absurdity and superficiality of the bourgeoisie's discourse. It
brings to the fore their arrogant disconnect with the real
problems that required solutions 30 years ago and still need to
be addressed today, more urgently than ever. It cannot be
otherwise because what is being celebrated is the usurpation of
the movement of the workers and peoples to exercise control over
their lives in the name of "freedom" and "democracy."
The promise of "freedom" has turned into the wars of
occupation and aggression carried out by the U.S. imperialists
and their NATO allies along with other big powers. It takes the
form of murderous sanctions, the caging of children, violence
against women and families, the brutal murders of Indigenous peoples
as we see in Bolivia, trafficking in human beings as cheap labour,
and a new world order where prerogative powers are used to impose
arrangements that do not have the consent of the peoples.
National interest and national security are cited to justify
plunder, stepped up exploitation and criminalization. Rational
political discourse which unifies the polity and opens a path to
progress is absent because political parties have become a cartel
party system without members, legislatures are no longer vehicles
which are seen to express national sovereignty, and bodies politic
are destroyed in the name of high ideals. The upshot is anarchy
and violence and the further marginalization of the people from
the decision-making process.
 The only success stories people are told are those of a tiny
handful of billionaires, which in fact serves to underscore the
trend of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. People
from the former East Germany openly say that the freedom they
achieved is the "freedom to buy consumer goods" while their
profound desire to exercise control over their lives is as remote
as ever. The united Germany, in rivalry with France and Great
Britain, has become a main contender with the U.S. for control
over Europe, Africa and Asia.
Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, all the
euphoria about the fall of communism and the victory of
capitalism has nothing to show for it. To divert attention
from the state of the capitalist-imperialist world, the ruling
elite, in addition to equating pseudo-socialism with communism,
are targeting communist ideology as hate ideology that motivates
violence. To stop people speaking their minds for fear of
reprisals, the propaganda is still carried within the perspective
of the Cold War that a "free market economy" and ideological and
political pluralism are superior to communism. What is the
reality on the world scale? What is such a reality telling us?
What needs to be done to solve the serious problems which face
societies and humankind?
The fact is that all over the world people are demanding
change; a broad disaffection exists everywhere. What is the
content of the democratic renewal, which is the fundamental demand
of the peoples, and what form should it take?
The aim of the propaganda that communism has failed is to encourage
those who say either that communism is all wrong or those who
claim that the liberal democratic institutions can be made to
function without corruption, and to get the people to side with one
or the other. As is the case in all other spheres, a diversion is
created between two false opposites.
Having gone through such a tumultuous period, the world has
learned that the problems it faces are not a matter of a
fight between dogmas. It is a matter of what is happening in this
world itself. What is the stage of its development and what
should be done about it?
Democratic renewal is the main content of this period. It
surpasses all other considerations and is the banner which is
bringing new forces onto the centre-stage of history. Millions
upon millions of people have direct experience with their
conditions of life and work and they perceive their reality not
through the eyes of dogmas but by paying with their hides.
 The diversionary discourse about the "victory of democracy"
over "communism" was used to create euphoria 30 years ago, while
today it is aimed at keeping the old forces and old content in
power even though under today's conditions there is no place for
these old forms and old content. Since 1989, governments called "radical," "conservative," "right-wing," "left-wing" and
"centrist" have worked to sabotage democratic renewal and lead their people right into the arms of the
world's greatest enemies.
The new period that was irresistibly ushered in by the changes
which took place so rapidly 30 years ago showed that no force
could continue to act in the old way. The conditions surpassed
the necessity for old forms, which have passed away, while new
forms have yet to be brought into being. The new conditions bring
forth an agenda of their own, independent of anyone's will, in
the form of the demand of the peoples to exercise control over
their lives as peoples and as individuals and over their destiny
as nations. It is the struggle for the right to be of
individuals, collectives and entire societies and nations,
including oppressed nation-states, which we see today. Since 1989
the consciousness of the peoples worldwide rejects the
abandonment of individuals to fend for themselves, the
marginalization of the peoples in decision-making and the
suppression of the right of nations to self-determination.
It is the agenda for democratic renewal which has been put on
the table of the world for solution. This is the demand of
millions upon millions of people all over the world, in
developing countries but also and notably in the so-called
advanced economies which are mired in crisis and where the weight
of the old arrangements is exhausting the people as never
before.
To Humanize the Natural and Social Environment -- All Out for Democratic Renewal!
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 27 - November 16,
2019
Article Link:
Thirty Years Since the Fall of the Berlin
Wall: The Demand of the Peoples to Exercise Control Over Their Lives Is Greater than Ever - Pauline Easton
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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