ALetterfromLeipzig

ALetterfromLeipzig

byHorstPoldrack

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Source: PRAXISInternational(PRAXISInternational),issue:1/1991,pages:1317,onwww.ceeol.com.

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A Letter From Leipzig

January 8, 1991 Greetings! Heres wishing you a Happy New Year a bit late and otherwise wishing you as much as possible of what the world needs to survive. Here in the old GDR proceedings are carried out according to Murphys worst case law. If something can go wrong, then it does; of several possibilities the worst one is always realized; and everything is being damaged in direct proportion to its value. Smile, tomorrow everything will be even worse. I will limit myself to the realm of university affairs. The unification contract was passed head over heels. In particular, the sections about regulating the fusion of the two academic systems was barely deliberated in a public parliamentary fashion. To that extent we were in a state of uncertainty for a long time about what would become of us (despite the insider information of R.M. in his capacity as member of the academic committee of the Volkskammer!). Strictly speaking, we trusted in a democratic variant, in conjunction with an evaluation. After the union the pig was let out of the poke. And the pig looks like this: winding up [Abwicklung]. According to the unification contract, the affairs of institutions that are not taken over by the five new states [Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Sachsen, Thringen] are being wound up, i.e. their property dispersed, their staff sent into the wilderness. But winding up could take place only until December 31st. The time frame for the process was thus marked out: from December 3rd (after the elections) to December 31st. So there wasnt time for public consultation; the ministerial bureaucracy was acting here as a concerted front in the five new states (or LUBUS: Land Unserer Brder Und Schwestern land of our brothers and sisters). The question that goes to the heart of things is: Who or what is going to be wound up? Answer: everything thats believed to be inefficient and thats regarded as political detritus. These are the elite training school for the GDR miracle athletes, the J. R. Becher Institute for Literature (training school for young writers, a center for critical thought), and, naturally, the central areas of the social sciences in the former GDR: sociology, economics, cultural studies, philosophy, history (in Sachsen-Anhalt completely dismantled, in Sachsen only the incriminated areas like GDR history and history of the Soviet communist party), pedagogy, political science, and MEGA [the new critical edition of the works of Marx and Engels]. The staff plans for this have been in preparation since October 1990. The new or recently converted right wingers in the scientific community have laid the requisite groundwork ideologically: the social science divisions are
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supposed to be so contaminated by Marxism-Leninism (ML), that they are incapable of internal renewal. In these areas a new political broom must sweep clean, before one can allow scholarship to have freedom and selfdetermination. More than a little of the new political culture (in its treatment of scholarship and culture) reminds us all too much of our centralized past. But neither the Stalinist purges of the Soviet academic institutions nor the expulsion of about 3000 scientists by the Nazis from Germany are comparable with the almost total liquidation of the staff and the complete reversal of intellectual direction to which the social sciences and the humanities are subjected to in truly repressive fashion. Nor do I know of a single case in German and European intellectual history when virtually all the social sciences and the humanities were liquidated through external political interference and almost 100 000 scientists lost their scientific and academic credentials. At this point theologians (I know it for sure in Halle) are administering the social sciences, evaluating the faculty and determining definitively the future course. Whats bad is that they often lack not only the necessary disciplinary comprehension - they are also biased. The situation seems to be tragic for the social studies of science in Halle. In the old days M. neglected to establish an independent institute for science studies, so that there was only an interdisciplinary center for history and philosophy of science in the ML-Philosophy Department. But since the latter is being dissolved, science studies is being liquidated as well. I was appointed, for example, university lecturer for philosophy of science (and not for MLphilosophy of science). Thus there is no formal academic pretext to fire me because of an ML-appointment (appointment to a subject that doesnt exist in West Germany). But all that no longer plays any role I am to be wound up as a superfluous ML-encumbrance. A global condemnation. The language of the Fourth Reich: Panning for gold in the academic landscape of the GDR, encumbrance, winding up. To learn the social sciences from these professors would be the same as learning to swim from Bedouins (Rler, spokesman for the Christian Democrats in Sachsen). What does winding up mean in concrete terms? As of January 1, 1991, the above named divisions have been abolished, their staff has been transferred to a siding, which, as it were, translates into the prohibition to teach and only 70% salary until June minus all other deductions. In the meantime commissions of strict evaluation begin to work that will judge the academic competence and personal integrity of individuals. Those who are evaluated positively will have the opportunity to apply for the job among the newly advertised positions of re-founded divisions (re-foundings are not contemplated in every case). The rest will be automatically unemployed as of June 1991 without the opportunity to lodge a labor law complaint (against whom? if the original institution no longer exists?); it is even in question whether they will receive unemployment compensation afterwards. In this respect rule by law is invalidated and that is deliberate. They want to abolish effectively; they want to eliminate contagion centers of critical protest along with the ML-encumbrances; they want to paralyze the critical potential of the social sciences, and this will also have repercussions in the old FRG states!

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They want quiet universities that are orderly, where technical, that is to say market-economically utilizable knowledge, will thrive undisturbed. Naturally, the winding up effort has not proceeded without negative comment. Basically the first massive protest with a political dimension against the conservative strategy for unification erupted in the former GDR. People are starting to remember the democratic power that swept away the SEE) leadership in the later fall of 1989. The chief actors in the resistance are students in the divisions affected by the winding up and parts of the subprofessorial faculty. In any case, action wasnt to be expected by the full professors, because any massive protest from their corner would only have had a counterproductive effect due to their political involvement with the SED and the old regime (the bulk of the social scientists were of course members of the SED). That the students offered this resistance may have surprised the authorities, because the students had been quiet up till now, too quiet. One had hoped for an easy win. In the meantime students in the resistance triangle of Berlin (Rector Fink [of Humboldt University]: anti-winding up policy! Winding up hinders renewal! Because of that, people immediately wrote Stasi-Fink [secret police-Fink] on the walls), Leipzig and Halle occupied the rectors buildings, held vigils, blocked the entire administrative operation for a time; in Leipzig twelve students went for three weeks on hunger strike (they already began before Christmas), from Berlin students went on foot to Leipzig, joining up with marching demonstrators from Halle, on January 7 there was a big meeting in Leipzig, yesterday we blocked traffic in the center of Halle for a while, and so on. The first demonstrations of solidarity are taking place: representatives from West German universities (Frankfurt, Dsseldorf ) are making common cause with the Ossis [Easties]. They are gradually getting the idea that what is being done with the social sciences in the East could be a test case for Germany as whole and could be projected back onto the West. The university syndrome of 1968 has caught up with us in the former GDR; we are now struggling for a cause that took place a long time ago in the FRG, but, as you can imagine, on inauspicious ground for left wing protest potential in the face of Marxisms collapse. And the new edition of these ancient discussions can certainly lead to a situation in which the upshot of the changes made in 68 can be tardily and retroactively corrected. By means of the anarchic university situation in the GDR, where presently our former discussions about university constitution and participation are being conducted, it could well be the case, that an anachronistic debate will be forced on us. (Simon, chairman of the German Wissenschaftsrat) The Society for Freedom in Science (Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft) is powerfully on the rise! A strong wind is blowing from the right. What are our arguments against winding up? Damage to the rule of law and the reversal of the burden of proof. Normally, the prosecutor (state, university governance, evaluating commission) has to prove the guilt of the accused (representatives of an ideologically encumbered and politically guilty social science institution of

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the former GDR); as long as that does not occur, the accused stands innocent. In the case of the process of winding up, however, the accused suddenly has to prove his innocence before a strict court of estimation that is above suspicion! There are questionnaires to be filled out, that remind one disagreeably of the old SED snooping. In which party, mass organization? When? How long? What position? And so on. And all that in an atmosphere of pre-packaged prejudice. The problem, however, is also this. The social science community of the GDR (and not only this one) made its compromise with the political system of the GDR in the past: SED-membership, ideological legitimation of the system in whatever manner, an attitude toward the West marked by the Cold War, in brief, in forms of either actively or passively stabilizing socialism as it existed. Even as criticism increasingly spread since the 70s, it happened nonetheless in the conviction that existing socialism was stable and would long continue to exist, that it was capable of internal reform, that these internal reforms would not come from the man on the street but would find their point of departure in established academic and political structures, that nothing would move without the party, that even with the distortions of the ruling political groups, they were basically still capable of learning and could be enlightened (the Gorbachev-effect seemed to demonstrate just that!). Corresponding to all these assumptions, intelligent and critical social science potential sought to effect change by enlightening the political leadership and to get itself underway on the long march through academic and political institutions. This political program involved them on many levels and in many ways with the political system that today is being damned. How is someone to prove his purity and innocence, as long as he didnt leave the GDR, wasnt imprisoned or active in underground groups? Winding up as an administrative procedure cripples the democratic renewal that has set in in the social sciences in the GDR since the Wende (turn), because all these processes are being declared null and void and not being taken cognizance of. Political pressure and the fantasy of bureaucratic omnipotence are being ranged against self-determined renewal. Winding up contradicts the basic principle of the independence of scholarship. One simply cannot ally oneself with means that are directly contradictory to freedom of inquiry in order to introduce freedom of inquiry. Winding up is anti-social and nullifies existing labor law. One of the most interesting phenomena in Germany is the fact that new walls are arising, new polarizations are emerging, and old ones are being sharpened. A case in point is the conflict between the scientific-technical community on the one hand and the social sciences and humanities on the other hand. In the former GDR the scientific-technical community put itself pretty quickly on the victors side and laundered itself of its past. The word was, one had only been a victim, couldnt do anything about it, bore no responsibility. All the more vehemently and tyrannically is the guilt of the humanities now being sued for. They are said to have legitimized and justified the unjust system; they are accused of being ideologically Redigitized 2004 by Central and Eastern European Online Library C.E.E.O.L. ( www.ceeol.com )

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contaminated and incapable of internal renewal . . . and so on. Behind this stands the paradigm of the pure hard sciences which bear no responsibility. Naturally we counter with the following questions: 1. Where was the critical voice of GDR chemistry in the face of chemically determined environmental catastrophes in the regions of HalleBitterfeld-Leipzig? 2. Where was the critical social responsibility of the GDR medical establishment with regard to environmental diseases? 3. Why did top level natural scientists give declarations of allegiance to socialism as it existed that not infrequently outdid those of the humanities? 4. Where was the voice of GDR physicists after Chernobyl? Quite different [was the attitude of ] the Marxist-Leninist infected social sciences, whose scholarly status theyd like to gainsay and preferably reduce to twaddle and ideology. This conflict became public at a round-table discussion in Leipzig on January 7, 1991. The Leipzig Initiative for University Renewal made its appearance; it consisted of scientists, mathematicians, and a few Egyptologists. In the style of the Society for Freedom in Science it fired broadsides against the social sciences. There may be various motives for their behavior, centainly an economic one, namely, to maintain at least their own academic positions by a radical reduction of the social sciences, to divert attention from their own shortcomings by certifying the social sciences as a scapegoat. (For the possible refounding of an Institute for Philosophy in Halle a grand total of two full professorships have been offered. That corresponds to an 80% or greater diminution in personnel, making research impossible. But we are still battling; Reinhard Mocek is trying to gain support in the West, Clemens Burrichter [Director of the Institute for Society and Science at Erlangen University in western Germany] is composing a Memorandum . . .) It seems to me that we are here approaching a time when people will increasingly regard the social sciences and the humanities as a relatively worthless area of study, which a nation or a state should have, only because having them is part of modern civilization, yet in small and unassuming amounts, and above all they shouldnt cost too much, especially not in these days when money is so tight. In any case governments begin their redlining where they find the least resistance and where the least usable yield lies and these places are precisely the social sciences and the humanities. I hope I am wrong. Besides, it is a pity that the political controversies about winding up and the social and political responsibility of the social and natural sciences are not complemented by theoretical discussions. This also shows you how much everything is bogged down here. Warm Regards! Horst Poldrack Translated from the German by Ruth B. Bottigheimer
Praxis International 11:1 April 1991 0260-8448