POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS 73
opposition, but spread quickly throughout the republic in thousands of
copies, acquiring tens of thousands of signatures on the way.
This call to action proved to be successful because it expressed a spe-
cifi c understanding of politics: avoiding a deeper analysis of the system,
it explicitly attacked the rule of the party without formulating a political
agenda per se. The New Forum was clearly presented as a “platform”
that was supposed to feed into the formation of a republican public. It
was supposed to be a place where a “democratic dialog” could be started
in order to “listen to and evaluate opinions and arguments, and to dis-
tinguish between general and special interests.” This combination of hu-
mility and radicalism corresponded with the group’s express intention to
become a legally registered political association (that is, as one among
many) according to “Article 29 of the Constitution of the GDR,” as well
as to encourage “all citizens of the GDR who want to take part in the re-
shaping of our society” to join its ranks.^107 The rapid dissemination of this
appeal from hand to hand throughout the republic alone illustrates that
a new level of politics had been reached that tapped into the newly built
intermediate sphere between party-state and society.
As in East Germany, the upheavals in the rest of Central Europe were
also generally nonviolent and resolved through negotiations, despite
some confrontations along the way.^108 This movement as a whole opted
for “dialog” as opposed to a general strike or the defection of the military.
Even the occupation of the Stasi offi ces took place in “security partner-
ship” with the Volkspolizei. This strategy was not only adopted in light
of a sober estimation of the strength of each side given the distribution
of weapons, but also the strong commitment to civility within the pro-
democracy movement.
On the other side of the fence, the SED leadership also opted for words
instead of weapons. Despite expressing public solidarity with the Chinese
Communist Party in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre in
June 1989, Egon Krenz and fellow SED offi cials returned from Beijing
having realized that the use of such violent tactics in the GDR would
not only result in a pointless confrontation, but also catapult the country
into isolation.^109 Apparently, this realization also motivated them to push
Honecker out of the way since he still felt that violence could be used to
stabilize the situation in the end if necessary.^110 The party leadership’s
decision to refrain from using violence was thus based on a political cal-
culation rather than any kind of fundamental political-ethical aversion
to the use of violence.^111 Sure enough, it was also the Communist party
leaders who tried to turn around the economic crisis by strengthening
ties with the West. Their tactical decisions were surely infl uenced by the