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the implementation of the following measures to the leadership of the GDR:18

On economic issues:

1. To take measures toward the unconditional fulfillment of the industrial production plan for 1953, which is decisive for the fulfillment of the five-year plan. To liquidate the lag which took place from the beginning of the year and especially to devote attention to assuring the fulfillment of the plan for machine-building [industry], the introduction of electric power, and the development of the metallurgy [industry].

2. Over the course of a month, to work out measures to increase the 1953 consumer goods production plan and the development of commodity circulation.

For this purpose, the government of the GDR must take additional measures to import necessary raw materials: cotton 15-20 thousand tons, wool - 3 thousand tons, heavy leather - 2.5 thousand tons. To increase imports of food stuffs (fats, fruits, and others) and some high-quality manufactured consumer goods. For this purpose, to assign additional output of high-quality production for export, in particular to capitalist countries, having found the necessary raw materials locally, using the free [industrial] capacities at hand, especially in precision mechanics and optics.

The GDR Ministry of Foreign Trade makes insufficient use of the possibilities of trade with capitalist countries. It is desirable to render necessary aid to the GDR Ministry of Foreign Trade through the trade representatives of the USSR and the people's democracies in capitalist countries.

3. To oblige local organs of power to improve the leadership of local industry significantly. To oblige the GDR Gosplan to re-examine within a month the 1953 production plans for local industry with a view to significantly expanding them.

4. In noting the underestimation of the role of manufacture in supplying the population with consumer goods, it is necessary to take governmental measures in support of craftsmen production. It is expedient, in keeping artisans' cooperatives, to organize supplies of raw materials for them on a contractual basis on the condition that they hand over their completed products to the state commercial network; to work out measures to offer artisans tax and credit advantages, and also to equip artisans' cooperatives and individual enterprises with industrial equipment.

5. Considering that one of the reasons for the departure of peasants from the GDR to West Germany is the high norms for quotas of agricultural deliveries to the state, to reduce by 5-10% the differentiated norms in effect in 1953 for compulsory supplies of grain crops and meat by peasant farms

6. To cancel ration cards for meat, fats and sugar from the autumn of 1953, thereby completing the elimination of the rationing system in the GDR, keeping in mind that the per-capita consumption norms that have been attained furnish the possibility of a transition to free commerce.

7. To work out a three-year plan on mechanizing agriculture, developing the MTS network, and equipping it with tractors and agricultural machinery in order to have the possibility of fulfilling the needs for mechanized cultivation of the land not only of agricultural cooperatives, but also of individual peasant farms.

8. To halt the practice of using tractors and agricultural machines from private cultivators through the MTS for work on other farms.

9. To work out a three-year plan to develop animal husbandry and to create a fodder base, assuming the need for the future improvement of supplies for the populace from their own resources.

10. To work out a production plan for fertilizer in quantities that will meet in full the needs of agriculture, including large private farms.

11. To concentrate the attention of state and party organs on the organizational-economic strengthening of the agricultural production cooperatives which have been created in order to ensure even this year a harvest in the cooperatives that is larger than that of the best individual agricultural farms, and the income of cooperative members exceeds the incomes of individual peasant farms.

12. In carrying out measures on limiting privatecapitalist elements, to differentiate between attitudes toward large and small retailers and other small entrepreneurs (proprietors of small restaurants, hairdressers, bakers, and so on), as to taxes, credits, issuing food ration cards, supplying goods to merchants, and to use private commerce in the capacity of a commodity distribution network to serve the populace.

13. Considering the great popular demand for construction materials, [as well as] agricultural and gardening equipment, to organize broad rural and urban trade in them, having ensured a portion of additional funds for cement, timber, tiles and machine-manufactured articles; to increase the production of agricultural and gardening equipment.

On administrative issues:

1. In the near future, to carry out a broad amnesty both with regard to persons convicted in the first period for Nazi crimes, and, in particular, persons convicted in the most recent period, with the exception of persons convicted for espionage, terrorist acts, diversions, premeditated murder and for large thefts of the people's property. Fifteen to 17 thousand persons could be freed from prisons by the amnesty.

2. To take measures quickly toward the introduction of strict order and the observance of lawfulness in the procedure for arresting and detaining citizens.

3. To organize expediently social courts [obshchestvennye sudy] in enterprises, in institutions, and at people's estates [narodnye imeniia], to examine minor economic and administrative violations.

4. To re-examine the current criminal code to remove those articles of criminal law which permit their applica

tion to even the most inconsequential violations.

5. To cancel all criminal-legal orders containing the directives and circulars of separate ministries. Henceforward, to establish a procedure by which criminal-legal sanctions can be stipulated only in laws of the People's Chamber, and in exceptional cases, in a decree by the government of the GDR.

6. To consider it crucial to carry out a reorganization of the communities [obshchiny] in the direction of enlarging and strengthening the local authorities.

7. To carry out, in 1953, an exchange of passports for the entire population of the GDR and, first and foremost, for the population of the democratic sector of Berlin and its surrounding districts.

8. To re-examine the GDR government's decree of 5 March 1953 on mass criminal indictments for the nonfulfillment of supply quotas [postavki] [to the state] and

taxes.

9. In view of the fact that the migration of the population from the GDR to the West is taking place through Berlin, to consider it expedient to require GDR citizens to have passes [spravki] and business travel papers [komandirovochnye udostovereniia] from local institutions or organs of power upon entry into Berlin.

On political questions:

1. To end the political underestimation of the significance of the issue surrounding the departure of GDR citizens to West Germany that currently exists in party and state organs and among party workers. To oblige party organs and primary party organizations to analyze with care and to study all cases of departure and to take effective measures to ascertain the reasons influencing the population's migration to West Germany.

To view the departure of members of the SED as a betrayal of the party. To investigate according to party procedure each case of departure by members of the SED to the West and to discuss [it] at general meetings of the party organizations and regional committees of the SED. 2. To commit the party and the mass democratic organizations of the GDR to conduct systematic explanatory work among the GDR populace against leaving for West Germany, exposing with concrete examples the slanderous fabrications, [and] the essence and methods of the subversive work which is being carried out by West German agents.

3. To take concrete measures to strengthen counterpropaganda, organizing it in such ways that the press and radio of the GDR systematically carry out the exposure of mendacious Western propaganda on the issue of refugees from the GDR. To set aside the necessary resources for this.

4. In the interests of an effective struggle against the reactionary broadcasts of "RIAS,"19 to ensure the completion in 1953 of the construction of powerful radio stations in Magdeburg, Schwerin, and Dresden. To build 15 medium-wave low-power radio stations with up to 5

kilowatts of power and 10 short-wave stations each with up to 2-3 kilowatts of power. To manufacture and deploy 400-600 “Gebor" radio sets.20

5. In the interests of strengthening counter-propaganda, to organize through the KPD21 the systematic collection of information about the refugees' difficult conditions and the poor material and legal conditions of different strata of the West German populace.

6. In order to expose the reactionary propaganda of the church, to explain in a detailed and systematic way through the press and in oral propaganda, that the government of the GDR unswervingly observes the freedom of conscience, of religion, and of religious observance, as provided for in the GDR constitution. To explain that the actions of the authorities are directed only against those church officials and leaders of “Junge Gemeinde" who conduct hostile subversive work against the democratic tradition of the GDR.

7. To take measures to correct the excesses which have been committed with regard to students expelled from school and from institutions of higher learning for belonging to the "Junge Gemeinde."

8. For the SED CC to examine in particular the issue of improving work among the intelligentsia and to correct the mistakes that have been committed.

9. To take measures to improve scientific and cultural links between scholars in the GDR and in the Soviet Union and the people's democracies, as well as to supply the GDR intelligentsia with foreign scientific and technical literature.

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USSR Council of Ministers Order "On Measures to Improve the Health of the Political Situation in the GDR,"

2 June 1953

Com. Sneshnoi T. K. Top secret

Council of Ministers of the USSR

Order

2 June 1953. No. 7576-rs Moscow, Kremlin

To confirm the proposed draft resolution on measures to improve the health of the political situation in the GDR. Chairman of the

Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkov

No. 10

Top secret Attachment

to the order of the Council of Ministers of the USSR from 2 June 1953. No. 7576-rs

On Measures to Improve the Health of the Political
Situation in the GDR

As a result of the incorrect political line being carried out in the German Democratic Republic, a very unsatisfactory political and economic situation has developed.

There is serious dissatisfaction with the political and economic measures carried out by the GDR among the broad mass of the population, including the workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia. This finds its clearest expression in the mass flight of the residents of the GDR to West Germany. Thus, from January 1951 through April 1953, 447 thousand people fled to West Germany; over the course of four months in 1953 alone over 120 thousand. Many refugees are workers. Among the refugees are about 18 thousand workers, about 9 thousand middle peasants, land-poor [peasants], artisans and pensioners, about 17 thousand employees and representatives of the working intelligentsia, and over 24 thousand housewives. From the corps of barracked police, 8,000 people fled to West Germany. It is remarkable that among those who have fled to West Germany in the course of four months of 1953, there are 2,718 members and candidates of the SED and 2,610 members of the Free German Youth League.

It must be recognized that the chief reason for the situation that has been created is that, in keeping with the decision of the Second Conference of the SED and as approved by the Politburo of the CC All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), a mistaken course was taken in accelerating the construction of socialism in East Germany without the presence of its real prerequisites, both internally and internationally. The social-economic measures which have been carried out in connection with this include: the forcible development of heavy industry which also lacked raw materials, the sharp restriction of private initiative which harmed the interests of a broad circle of

small proprietors both in the city and in the country, and the revocation of food ration cards from all private entrepreneurs and persons in the free professions; in particular, the hasty creation of agricultural cooperatives in the absence of foundations for it in the countryside led to serious difficulties in the area of supplying the population with manufactured goods and food stuffs, to a sharp fall in the mark's exchange rate, to the ruin of a large number of small entrepreneurs-artisans, workers in domestic industries, and others, and set a significant stratum of the populace against the existing authorities. The matter has gone so far that at present more than 500 thousand hectares of land have been abandoned and neglected, and the thrifty German peasants, usually strongly tied to their plots, have begun to abandon their land and move to West Germany en masse.

The political and ideological work being carried out by the leadership of the SED is not adequate for the task of strengthening the German Democratic Republic. In particular, serious errors have been committed with regard to the clergy, evident in their underestimation of the influence of the church amongst the broad masses of the population and in their crude administrative methods and repression.

The underestimation of political work amongst the intelligentsia should also be admitted as a serious mistake. To a certain extent this [underestimation] explains the vacillations, instability, and even hostile relation to the existing order that is evident among a significant part of the intelligentsia.

All of this creates a serious threat to the political stability of the German Democratic Republic.

In order to correct the situation that has been created, it is necessary:

1. To recognize the course of forced construction of socialism in the GDR, which was decided upon by the SED and approved by the Politburo of the CC of the AllCommunist Party (Bolsheviks) in the decision of 8 July 1952, as mistaken under current conditions.

2. In the interests of improving the political situation of the GDR and strengthening our position both in Germany itself and on the German issue in the international arena, as well as securing and broadening the bases of mass movement for the construction of a single democratic, peace-loving, independent Germany, recommend to the leadership of the SED the implementation of the following measures:

a) to halt the artificial establishment of agricultural production cooperatives, which have proven not to be justified on a practical basis and which have caused discontent among the peasantry; to check carefully all existing agricultural production cooperatives and to dissolve both those which were created on an involuntary basis as well as those which show themselves to be nonviable. To keep in mind that under the present conditions in the GDR, only the most simple form of productive cooperation by the peasants, such as cooperation in the

joint preparation of the soil without collectivizing the means of production, can be more or less viable. Such cooperatives, given the provision of the necessary help to them, can become an attractive example to the peasantry;

b) to strengthen the existing machine-leasing stations as the main lever of influence on the countryside and as the fundamental means of helping the working peasant in the business of raising agricultural productivity.

Besides helping cooperatives for jointly working the soil, machine-hiring stations must also serve individual peasant cultivation on a leasing basis;

c) to renounce the policy of limiting and squeezing middle and small private capital as a premature measure. In the interests of stimulating the economic life of the Republic, to recognize the expediency of the broad attraction of private capital in different branches of small and domestic industry, in agriculture, and also in the area of trade, not including in this its large-scale concentration. In distributing material resources, to see to the apportionment of raw materials, fuel, and electrical energy, as well as to the provision of credits to private enterprises. To re-examine the existing system of taxing private enterprises, which has practically eliminated in them the stimulus to participate in economic life, with a view to alleviating the pressure of taxation. To restore food ration cards to private entrepreneurs and also to persons of the free professions.

d) to re-examine the five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the GDR with a view to curtailing the extraordinarily intense pace of development of heavy industry and sharply increasing the production of mass consumption goods, as well as fully guaranteeing food for the population in order to liquidate the ration card system of providing foodstuffs in the near future;

e) to implement the necessary measures on restoring the health of the financial system and curtailing administrative and special expenses, as well as strengthening and raising the exchange rate of the GDR mark.

f) to take measures to strengthen legality and guarantee the rights of democratic citizens; to abstain from the use of severe punitive measures which are not strictly necessary; to re-examine the files of repressed citizens with the intent of freeing persons who were put on trial on insufficient grounds; to introduce, from this point of view, the appropriate changes in the existing criminal code;

g) to consider the wide development of political work among all the strata of the population to be one of the most important tasks of the SED; to eradicate decisively the elements of naked administrative methods; to attain a position whereby the measures taken by the government are understood by the people and meet with support from the population itself.

To assign special attention to political work among the intelligentsia in order to secure a turnabout by the core mass of the intelligentsia in the direction of active participation in the implementation of measures to strengthen the existing order.

At the present and in the near future it is necessary to put the tasks of the political struggle to reestablish the national unity of Germany and to conclude a peace treaty at the center of attention of the broad mass of the German people both in the GDR and in West Germany. At the same time it is crucial to correct and strengthen the political and economic situation in the GDR and to strengthen significantly the influence of the SED in the broad masses of workers and in other democratic strata of the city and the country.

To consider the propaganda carried out lately about the necessity of the GDR's transition to socialism, which is pushing the party organizations of the SED to unacceptably simplified and hasty steps both in the political and in the economic arenas, to be incorrect.

At the same time to consider it necessary to elevate significantly the role of the bloc of democratic parties and organizations, as well as of the National Front for a Democratic Germany, in the political and social life of the GDR, 22

h) To put a decisive end to [the use of] naked administrative methods in relation to the clergy, to end the harmful practice of crude interference in the affairs of the church. To cancel all measures doing harm to the immediate interests of the church and the clergy, that is: the confiscation of the church's charitable establishments (almshouses and shelters), the confiscation by local authorities of neglected church lands, the removal of state subsidies from the church, and so on. To end the oppression of rank-andfile participants in the religious youth organization "Junge Gemeinde," moving the center of gravity to political work among them. Keeping in mind that repressive measures toward the Church and the clergy can only serve to strengthen the religious fanaticism of the regressive strata of the population and their dissatisfaction, the main means of combatting the reactionary influence of the Church and the clergy must be carefully sought through explanatory and cultural-enlightenment work. The broad diffusion of scientific and political knowledge among the populace should be recognized as the basic form of anti-religious propaganda.

3. To recognize that the provision of economic aid to the GDR by the Soviet Union is necessary, especially in the area of supplying food.

4. To oblige the High Commissioner of the USSR in Germany, com. Semenov,23 and the Supreme Commander of the Soviet occupation troops, com. Grechko,24 to eliminate the present shortcomings in the way the occupation regime is being carried out by Soviet troops. To take measures in order [to ensure] that the presence of the Soviet occupation troops infringes upon the immediate interests of the civilian population as little as possible, [and] in particular, to free up all of the educational premises, hospitals, and cultural establishments, which have been occupied by Soviet troops.

5. Based on the fact that the political and economic condition of the GDR is one of the most crucial factors not

only in the resolution of the general issue of Germany but also in the peaceful settlement of fundamental international problems, it is necessary to take strict account of the real conditions inside the GDR, both the situation in Germany and the international circumstances as a whole, when specifying a general political line on this or that period and when realizing each concrete measure to strengthen the German Democratic Republic in the future. 6. Taking into account the fact that at present the main task is the struggle for the unification of Germany on a democratic and peace-loving basis, the SED and KPD, as the standard-bearers of the struggle for the aspirations and interests of the entire German nation, should ensure the use of flexible tactics directed at the maximum division of their opponents' forces and the use of any oppositional tendencies against Adenauer's venal clique. For this reason, inasmuch as the Social Democratic Party [SPD] of West Germany, which a significant mass of workers continues to follow, speaks out, albeit with insufficient consistency, against the Bonn agreements, a wholly adversarial position in relation to this party should be rejected in the present period. Instead, it should be attempted, where possible, to organize joint statements against Adenauer's policy of the division and imperialist enslavement of Germany.

[Stamped by the General Office of the Administration for the Affairs of the Council of Ministers of the USSR].

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Transcript33 of the Conversations between the Soviet Leadership and a Hungarian United Worker's Party Delegation in Moscow on 13 June 1953

Kremlin, 13 June 1953.

Com. Malenkov: They had a discussion recently with Comrade Rakosi34 about the Hungarian situation. After that conversation, it seemed necessary to discuss certain questions in a wider range. He recommends as the procedure for discussion that the Hungarian comrades unfold their views primarily regarding three questions that relate to fields where not everything is in order in Hungary:

1. certain questions of economic development 2. the selection of cadres

3. certain questions of the state administration (abuses of power).

After discussing these questions, the ways to correct the mistakes must be discussed.

Com. Malenkov: We view Hungary's situation with a critical attitude. We would like the comrades to be critical as well, and to tell us their opinions about the problems. Our impression is that the Hungarian comrades underestimate the problems. Without a thorough debate of the questions, it is impossible to find proper solutions. The facts that we are familiar with indicate that the situation in the field of agriculture is not good. The quality of animal husbandry is not improving; on the contrary, it is declining. Regarding the [agricultural] collectives, the situation.

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