Description
With an introduction by Christopher Hitchens
“There is an echo here of Marx and Luxemburg on ‘socialism or barbarism’, and
indeed Bahro has something of Luxemburg’s passion and universality. He has the
immense advantage of a background which comprises three diverse and complementary elements – that of engineer, that of cultural editor and that of party
worker in ‘political mobilisation’. This allows him to be fluent on a number of
levels; from production norms and technological innovation to the paucity of music
teaching in the GDR. He is unsparing in his critique of all the conditions which enslave and exploit. There is no comfort for the Cold War liberal or conservative in what he writes – one or two West German papers have already pointed out that
with his opinions Bahro would have difficulty getting a job in the Federal Republic either! But it is easy to see why the dour and uneasy regime in East Germany
has reacted with such singular brutality to his book. It persists in regarding the
citizen as the property of the state.”
