Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 13A; EAST GERMANY; COUNTRY PROFILE CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110020-1.pdf/14

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110020-1

The "People's Chamber" is the Communist party's rubber stamp parliament.

scenario. Unreal in the Western context, this scheme nevertheless represents "socialist reality."

A reading of the East German Constitution gives the impression that the government constitutes a functioning parliamentary system, replete with shared powers and responsibilities. Twin multimember executive bodies exist: the Council of State, with powers approximating those of a ceremonial president; and, the Council of Ministers, largely an administrative force. Both purportedly operate on the collegial principle. In fact, both carry out orders presented by the SED Politburo, the tightly knit body of select party authorities who decide policy "in the name of the working class." Parliament is endowed with multitudinous duties, most of which have been delegated to the executive, and in practice has been relegated to the role of a rubber-stamp. In any case, the task of the elected legislator is not to represent the people to the state but the state to the people, pushing the regime's message and soothing those troubled by it.

East Germany's economic planners have faced, and to a considerable degree met, a greater challenge than that posed to the state's political leaders. Weighted down by the ravages of war and the dictates of socialism, they have nonetheless built a new "nationalized" economy, fed Soviet appetites, and provided a flow of goods to the local consumer. These accomplishments—by and large superior to those of the other East European states—have evoked a measure of admiration in the West and as much as anything else have provided to those leaning toward the East German cause a rationale for acceptance.

In the immediate postwar years, East Germany was beset by severe handicaps, truncated transportation

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