It began in East Berlin and spread out across the German Democratic Republic. Over half a million workers went on strike, and around a million East Germans — close to 10 percent of the population — joined the protests.
These figures would have climbed even higher if the Red Army and domestic security forces had not, with lethal force, quickly intervened. The scale of the response prompted Bertolt Brecht’s famous barb: the Politburo would have to “dissolve the people and elect another.” [...]
But what was most surprising was how quickly workers radicalized. A routine strike in East Berlin grew into a nationwide rebellion. In some towns, inter-factory strike committees and embryonic soviets formed.
This all happened in one day, between when workers clocked in for their morning shifts and when martial law was imposed that afternoon. [...]
In Leipzig, for instance, protesters occupied the broadcasting system, the newspaper publisher, and the regime-run union and youth organizations’ headquarters. They celebrated success at lunchtime; demonstrators danced to tunes from the piano they set up in the market square.
The strike, its spread, and its culmination in a rally seemed winged by a sense of purpose. Wide layers of the population felt that “something should be done” and formed a consensus, often with surprising strength, about the course of action.
But after this point, the sense of common purpose lessened. Strategic and tactical questions grew complex: Which building to occupy? Where does power lie? [...]
With the partial exception of small strike waves in 1956, 1960–61 and 1970–72, barely any significant struggles spilled beyond individual workplaces between 1953 and 1989.
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