Rudolf Bahro, Wolfgang Harich and Robert Havemann were probably the best-known critics of the DDR’s ruling Socialist Unity Party. Yet they saw themselves as Marxists, and their demands extended far beyond a democratisation of real socialism. When environmental issues became more important in the West in the 1970s, the Party treated it as an ideological manoeuvre of the class enemy. The three dissidents saw things differently: they combined socialism and ecology, adopting a utopian perspective frowned upon by the state. In doing so, they created political concepts that were unique for the Eastern Bloc. Alexander Amberger introduces them, relates them to each other, and poses the question of their relevance then and now.
Alexander Amberger studied political science at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg from 1999–2006. Since 2011, he has been a staff member for political education at 'Helle Panke' e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, and since 2017, a member of the Historical Commission of the party executive of DIE LINKE.
ForewordAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1 Introduction1 Research Question and State of the Art2 The Concept of Political Utopia3 Political Utopia Since the 1960s4 Time, Place and Actors5 Political Utopia and the GDR6 Meadows and the GDR2 Communism without Growth?: Wolfgang Harich and the Eco-Dictatorship1 Harich and His Era2 The Primacy of Nature: Harich’s Return to Archistic Utopia3 How Communism without Growth? Was Received3 Rudolf Bahro’s The Alternative in Eastern Europe1 Bahro’s Life: Exploring the Realms of the Possible2 The Origins of The Alternative3 The Alternative4 Bahro and Utopianism5 Is The Alternative Really an Option?4 Tomorrow: Robert Havemann in Pursuit of the Third Way1 The Life of Robert Havemann2 The Origins of Tomorrow3 Havemann’s Classical Utopia4 Havemann’s Utopian Ideas and Their Place in Utopian History5 The Reception of Tomorrow in the East and the West5 ConclusionsBibliographyIndex of Names