International: Red Bankruptcy

Why was Joseph Stalin willing to horse-trade with the West (see above), when he apparently had his enemy pinned down to a costly airlift which at best could not sustain West Berlin at normal levels? Much of the answer lay in the almost total collapse of Communist prestige and support in Berlin and in all Germany—partly and ironically as a result of the airlift itself, partly as a result of stupid Communist mistakes. On the surface, last week’s Red-staged “riots” in Berlin seemed to have paralyzed the bravely anti-Communist city assembly; underneath, they bore evidence that the Communist position in Germany was slipping. TIME’S Berlin Bureau Chief Emmet Hughes watched the signs and symptoms. He cabled:

Not once but three times in a week, German Communism called its ranks to strut their stuff in the city’s scarred streets. But their stuff was cheap and shoddy, and the significant news when it was all over was that Communism here had once more betrayed its virtual bankruptcy.

Early in the week, portly, rosy-cheeked Veteran Communist Wilhelm Pieck called the signals for the Reds at a meeting of party functionaries in the Russian sector’s Friedrichsstadt Palace. He confessed that the airlift was hurting the Red cause. Said Pieck: “There is no doubt that it has had a certain effect on the needy masses.” Pieck cried for direct action against the uncompromisingly anti-Communist city government: “Fellow workers! You must frustrate a reactionary plot. Urgently we call on the people of Berlin to settle their score with . . .parties in the city government . . . We are sure the people of Berlin will understand.” They understood, but not in the way Pieck meant.

The week’s first Red mob—some 4,000 strong—marched on the city assembly, only to find that the assembly had called off its meeting after ample warning of Pieck’s play.

“Not Waterproof.” Probably no less revolutionary-looking crowd ever assembled under Red banners. Watching the listless demonstrators, one could be sure that their incapacity for revolution was exceeded only by their disinterest in it. Their mood was as grey as the overcast sky above. When a thin drizzle of rain fell, hundreds ran for shelter. Cracked a German onlooker: “Ah! These revolutionaries are not waterproof!” As a mass they resembled nothing bolder than a crowd at a railroad station waiting for a late train. They stood in idle little groups, talking over personal, non-political problems: “Emmie, have you no idea where I can get some new shoes?”

The drab drama was relieved by a few comic touches—such as the Soviet sector police’s fatuous pretense of defending the building. As some of the crowd began to push prematurely against the iron gates, one cop stubbornly stuck to the timetable given him in advance. With a meticulous obedience that was very German and very Communist at the same time, he said: “No, you finish singing the Internationale and then we let you in.”

When they finally got in, they held a mock assembly session. Teen-age boys in gaudy sweaters and shorts sprawled over the desks and the council’s red leather chairs; weary flower-women carried their wilted burdens with them, slumped into seats with a grateful sigh and watched idly, apathetically. Presiding Communist Ottomar Geschke pompously called for nominating, in “a disciplined way,” a committee to present Communist demands to the mayor. From the back of the hall one youth cried: “Maybe you like it that way, but not we.” When dozens started nominating their factory buddies, Geschke painfully pleaded: “Kinder, so geht das nicht” (Children, this won’t do).

For an hour the Red delegation sparred with Acting Mayor Ferdinand Friedensburg of the Christian Democrats (Berlin’s Social Democratic mayor, Frau Louise Schroeder, was ill in Hamburg). A pale man with a reedy, nervous voice and the precise manner of a bank clerk, Friedensburg patiently parried demands that the city government heed the “generous Soviet offer” to feed Berlin.

An able administrator, Friedensburg is not one of the strongest characters among Berlin’s democrats. Said he, behind his hand: “All this makes me feel like a piece of butter on a hot potato.”

Nevertheless the Red delegation scored no points. When it had finished, the crowd waiting to hear its report had dwindled to less than 300. Finally these meandered off, their expressions plainly saying they had no idea what it was all about but were glad it was over.

The next day’s activity involved only half the numbers summoned the day before. They were held off for some time at the main gates by half a dozen aged civilian employees of the city government, while the Russian sector police lounged idly on the sidelines. Friedensburg tried to hide the front door key, but finally both front and back doors were opened: the back, by a Communist assemblyman who insisted that he wanted to leave that way, and proceeded to admit the mob; the front by a Russian liaison officer who demanded to leave the building by that door and denounced the shut gates as “an offense against the Soviet occupation forces.” With no more sense of accomplishment, yesterday’s performance was faithfully repeated.

“Without a Thought.” Berlin’s democrats exploited the Reds’ embarrassment this week with speed and success. Three hours after the first Communist fiasco, more than 12,000 anti-Communists rallied before the Reichstag—mostly summoned by phone and courier, since the electricity shortage meant that few could be reached by radio. Labor Leader Ernst Scharnowski scoffed at the “Red Nazis, yesterday so fond of Hitler, today still able to march without a thought in their heads . . .”

For all their suggestion of folly and burlesque, the week’s events in Berlin highlight a deeply significant fact: German Communism today is doing very badly indeed. This is true in Berlin, in the Western zones and in the Russian zone. This week the Russian military administration announced a year’s postponement of municipal elections in the Soviet zone. This was the Russians’ official plea of “guilty” to the unspoken indictment against their rule that has been piling up for the last year.

That Communism in Germany is mangled, limping and demoralized should be of interest to the West’s negotiators with Russia on a German peace treaty.