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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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East Germany
Index
At the Seventh Party Congress of the SED in April 1967,
Ulbricht called for a new constitution and declared that the
existing constitution no longer accorded "with the relations of
socialist society and the present level of historical
development." A new constitution was needed to conform with the
Marxist-Leninist belief in the progression of history and the
role of the working class led by the SED. The new constitution
was also to reflect the role of the state as the party's main
instrument in achieving the goal of a socialist and eventually
communist society. A commission in the People's Chamber was
tasked in December 1967 to draft a new constitution. Two months
later, the commission produced a document, which, after "public
debate," was submitted to a plebiscite on April 6, 1968. Approved
by a 94.5 percent margin, the new Constitution went into effect
three days later. The new Constitution integrated all the
constitutional changes that had taken place since 1949 into a new
"socialist" framework, but it reduced certain rights provided in
the earlier version. The new document unequivocally declared that
"the leadership of the state is to be exercised through the
working class and its Marxist-Leninist party," the SED. The 1949
constitution had declared Germany to be a "democratic republic,"
whereas the new one described East Germany as a "socialist state
of the German nation." Under the old constitution, power was
derived from "the people," while Article 2 of the new
Constitution stated that power emanated from the "working
people," who were implementing socialism under the leadership of
the Marxist-Leninist party.
Significant changes introduced into the 1968 document
included Article 6, which committed the state to adhere to the
"principles of socialist internationalism" and to devote special
attention to its "fraternal ties" with the Soviet Union; Article
9, which based the national economy on the "socialist ownership
of the means of production"; Article 20, which under pressure
from the churches granted freedom of conscience and belief;
Article 21, which maintained that the "basic rights" of
citizenship were inseparably linked with "corresponding
obligations"; and Article 47, which declared that the principle
of "democratic centralism" is the authoritative maxim for the
construction of the socialist state.
Data as of July 1987
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