POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS 61
Notwithstanding, the churches came to play an essential role in laying
the foundation for a democratic revolution in many respects. They were,
in fact, the only major social organization that was tolerated outside the
structures of democratic centralism. The SED made a concerted eff ort
to undermine the relative independence of the churches by exercising
subcutaneous infl uence through the secret police, but it was only par-
tially successful. Young people in particular were attracted to the spir-
itual freedom aff orded by churches in which the pastors and deacons
permitted and fostered these kinds of spaces. It was here that the seeds
were sown for the oppositional civil rights movement that unfurled in the
1980s. Likewise, the church synods and other assemblies proved to be a
training ground for democratic processes, which meant that their mem-
bers and offi cials were very much in demand in the fall of 1989. Further-
more, the churches functioned as a bridge to West Germany. The system
of partner congregations created a functioning network at a basic level.
The churches often had to intervene, for instance, when it came to tricky
political and humanitarian missions, such as negotiating the release of
political prisoners.
Ultimately, the government leaders and parliaments in both coun-
tries were also challenged by the structural transformation of the public
sphere that had been taking place since the late 1960s. In the West, this
changed the way in which the state responded to the demands of society.
First, internal and public opinion polls had to be dealt with on a regular
basis because these studies seemed to be representative of the will of
the people. Although public opinion polls had been carried out on behalf
of the party or the government since the late 1940s, they fi rst began to
circulate widely as political arguments in the public sphere a few decades
later.^62 Second, the media took on a diff erent role within society as its
content and its journalists became more political. Once television had
made its way into each household, each viewer was confronted with poli-
tics directly in a visual way, which eff ectively changed the world of politi-
cal communication. Third, politicians had to respond more often to large
protest organizations and events that shaped the contours of the political
agenda.^63 And, last, experts challenged politicians in a much more public
way, especially when the latter seemed to be inconsistent on complex
issues such as nuclear power. Although politics had never taken place
within the arcanum of power, the pressure to respond to political matters
in the public sphere had become much greater than before.
However, this type of transformation did not occur in the GDR, espe-
cially because it was not possible for protesters or experts to freely ex-
press their opinions in the media, nor were the results of popular opinion
polls made public. Rather, the occasional warning from experts or opin-
ion surveys only cropped up at certain moments within the internal con-