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Intellectuals, Nationalism, and the Exit from Communism: The Case of East Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Christian Joppke
Christian Joppke
Affiliation:
European University Institute
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In Eastern Europe, succeeding generations of intellectuals have been at the forefront of first creating and then demolishing the communist regime. Because communism was ultimately based on ideas (“logocracy,” says C. Milosz), the abandonment of these ideas by intellectuals turned dissidents was a critical factor in the regime's demise. As Daniel Chirot (1991:20) emphasizes, communism died more from ideological exhaustion and “utter moral rot” than from its economic malaise or the pressure of organized opposition movements. The dissident intellectuals, powerless as they seemed to be, delivered the decisive blow when they denounced the regime's underlying ideology as ritualized lies out of touch with reality.

Type
Intellectuals at Ebb Tide
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 1995 , pp. 213 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1995

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