which spanned between 1952/53. There was a major economic crisis during this time, which was only compounded by a broader social crisis. The workers were beginning to become alienated with industry, and the productivity was beginning to fall as a consequence. Added to the industrial problems was a problem in agriculture. The communist party was initially conciliatory to the farmers, but they were now beginning to enforce collectivisation on a larger scale. The response of the farmers was to resist the changes actively. Production went down to the levels were the farmers were producing enough for their own needs and little more. This obviously led to a food shortage, which only served to anger the industrial workers further.As well as the working crisis for both industry and agriculture, the GDR was also part of a political crisis. The leadership was trying to build a new social order, but it was clearly failing. However, they felt that to abandon policy was to undermine their own position. There began to be deep divisions in the party, many of the members seeing Ulbricht as a liability. The morale of both the party and society as a whole was at a low. This was not helped by Ulbricht’s reluctance to compromise. He instead decided to increase the insistence of his policies. All these problems however became more prevalent on March 9th, 1953 when Stalin died. The question that was heard all around Eastern Europe was, Can Stalinism survive without Stalin? Ulbricht himself was a staunch Stalinist, and so his hold on power was tenuous at best. On April the 5th-16th, Ulbricht ignored the new Soviet leadership’s advice to abandon his course of rapid industrialisation. He rightly believed that the Soviet Union would not forcibly interfere. On 28th of May, the Council of Ministers announced a new quota of an increase of work by about 10 percent. Needless to say, this doesn’t go down well with the workers. However, between June ...
