Durham E-Theses The language of incipient opposition: the discourse of the party of democratic socialism in German politics 1989-1995 Denison, Marc Reginald How to cite: Denison, Marc Reginald (1997) The language of incipient opposition: the discourse of the party of democratic socialism in German politics 1989-1995, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4710/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Marc Reginald Denison: THE LANGUAGE OF INCIPIENT OPPOSITION; THE DISCOURSE OF THE PARTY OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM IN GERMAN POLITICS 1989-1995 ABSTRACT This work explores how the PDS, as legal successor to the SED and thus to a party emanating from a Marxist tradition, has sought discursively to deal with the task of adapting to the demands of the all-German polity and of establishing a place for itself on the far left of the German political spectrum. Leaning heavily on the work of the critical linguists whose central interest was in exploring the relationship between language and ideology, this study starts from the premise that language and ideology inform one another dialectically: language is constitutive of ideology. As establishing and maintaining dominant ideologies and/or honing or adapting these in accordance with external exigencies is central to politics, the relationship between language and politics (and language and history) is likewise a dialectical one. A particular focus is upon the attempts of PDS party leaders and ideologues to establish a mediating, 'super-discourse' capable of smoothing over the high-level of intra-party factionalisation and of legitimising the PDS as broadly as possible in the political establishment. Opposition is a thematic leitmotiv: the PDS's historiographic portrayal of the SED's and its own relationship to opposition movements in the GDR and the Wendezeit is examined, as is the high-level of intra-party opposition and the linguistic staging of the inner-party polemic on whether the PDS's self-styled, extra- system, oppositional role will allow its inclusion in conventional governmental alliances. In addition, aspects of the language of the vociferous political opposition engendered and encountered by the PDS are also considered. THE LANGUAGE OF INCIPIENT OPPOSITION; THE DISCOURSE OF THE PARTY OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM IN GERMAN POLITICS 1989 - 1995 A thesis presented by Marc Reginald Denison in the University of Durham, School of Modern European Languages, Department of German in 1997 in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author and information derived from it should be acknowledged. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 6 THE PDS - AN INCIPIENT OPPOSITION 6 GENERAL THEORETICAL APPROACH: CRITICAL LINGUISTICS 9 PERIODICISATION 21 CHAPTER 1: THE DISCOURSE OF CAUSAL CIRCUMVENTION (I): DEALING WITH HISTORY? - THE PDS AND OPPOSITION IN THE WENDEZEIT 25 THE PDS'S RELATIONSHIP TO THE SED 26 CONFLATING FRAMES OF REFERENCE 67 EXCURSUS: HEINRICH BORTFELDT: VONDER SED ZUR PDS - AUFBRUCH ZU NEUEN UFERN? - A DETAILED COMMENTARY 86 THE PDS AND THE GDR 99 CHAPTER 2: THE DISCOURSE OF CAUSAL CIRCUMVENTION (II): AN "UNDEMOCRATIC" HISTORIOGRAPHY? 119 SUPPRESSING THE PAST 119 CONCLUSION 141 CHAPTER 3: A SOCIALIST OPPOSITION?: THE DISCOURSE OF LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATORS 149 RESCUING THE SIGNIFIANT SOCIALIST 150 A UNIFORM IDEOLOGY? SOCIALISM AND THE PDS'S MEMBERS AND VOTERS 157 OVERCOMING DIVISION - IN LANGUAGE AT LEAST 169 DEFINING SOCIALISM 178 DISCURSIVE BREADTH - CHAMPIONING GRAMSCI 191 DEALING WITH SPRACHLOSIGKEIT: ESTABLISHING " OTHERNESS" 208 SOCIALISM - A RELEVANT BASIS FOR A NEW SOCIETY? 218 CONCLUSION 233 CHAPTER 4: A NON-GOVERNING OPPOSITION? THE PDS IN THE WAKE OF SACHSEN-ANHALT 236 ALLES SCHON GEWESEN? DEALING WITH POWER: THE NEW REALO/FUNDI DEBATE? 236 TO GOVERN OR NOT TO GOVERN - <VERANTWORTUNG> AS THE SPRINGBOARD? 243 EXCURSUS - TRANSITIVITY IN LANGUAGE 256 PROMISE 1: A TRANSITIVITY ANALYSIS 258 PROMISE 2: (" WIR BLEIBEN OPPOSITION") 264 A "POPULIST" OPPOSITION? 267 " COMING IN" - ON THE LEVEL OF LANGUAGE AT LEAST 286 THE 'SACHZWANG' 288 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION; PDS OPPOSTION BY 1995 - IDEOLOGICAL DEBATES SURROUNDING THE FOURTH PARTEITAG 299 OPPOSITION - A COMPOSITE MODEL 299 THE 'STALINISMUS-DEBATTE' 307 OVERALL CONCLUSION 319 BIBLIOGRAPHY 326 DECLARATION The author of this work declares that none of the material contained herein has been previously submitted for a degree in the University of Durham or in any other University. STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Warm thanks to the following, without whose help this project could not have been realised: to Barbel and Geoffrey Denison, my parents, and my sister, Stephanie, for their continued support, encouragement and patience; to my Supervisor, Professor Colin Good, for his (literally!) breathtaking insights and for being a pillar of support at all times; to his wife, Judith, for her cups of tea and encouraging words; to the LEVERHULME TRUST for generously awarding me a study abroad studentship which enabled me to spend a research year in Berlin; to Mrs Jean Cater for her friendly efficiency; to Prof. Dr. Edgar Hartwig and family, Weimar, for exciting my interest in the PDS, and for their continued hospitality; to Prof. Dr. Ruth Reiher for her helpful advice and guidance, and for allowing me to study at the Humboldt-Universitat in Berlin; to Prof. Dr. Hermann Weber for fitting me into his busy schedule and allowing me to interview him at the Mannheimer Zentrum fur Europaische Sozialforschung; to Dr. Sabine Hartwig for the illuminating discussions and for her friendship; to Bedene Gail Greenspan, Gleiss and Partners, Berlin, for supplying me with a wealth of material and stimulating ideas, and for her friendship; to my employers, Piinder, Volhard, Weber & Axster, Berlin, for their extreme flexibility, generosity and indulgence in allowing me a five-month period of leave and for putting up with my erratic attendance during the latter stages of this project; especial thanks to Dr. Jorg Kraffel and Frau Marianne Ostermaier; to Herr Erhard and Frau Gabriele Meyer for the many issues of Neues Deulschland; to Me"e Magali Gravier for some very enlightening sociological perspectives, and for her friendship; to Michail Nelken and Carsten Schatz; to Frau Maier at the PDS's documentation centre in the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus; to Robert Hartwig for his computer expertise and all his support and friendship; to Enno Klorenz for being the voice of reason, and for all his support and encouragement; to the following for their friendship and encouragement: Feargal Caley, Larry Gurney, Joanne Stead, Kate Wood, Vineeta Manglani, Klaus Fischer, Fiona Piatt, Edward Tully, Kathryn Nunn, Inger Krarup, Mary Kilitziraki, David Caffan, Stephen Dickson, Hugo P. Gibson, Sally Lean, Helga and Rolf Friedrichs, Andrei Tsuverklalov, Tanya and Sasha Zavarina, Valeria Raskina, Sergei Raskin, Christine Wilson, Lisa Morris, Frauke Nolker, Michael Oliver, Edwin Fleischer, Cathy Hales, Stephan Geesing, Michael Oesterreich, Thomas Richter, Alison McGregor, Joachim Schabacker, David Stone, Andrew Hewish, Angelique Berndt to all others too numerous to mention here. 6 INTRODUCTION THE PDS - AN INCIPIENT OPPOSITION Broadly, the present work aims to take an inter-disciplinary look - of the type described by Grunert1 - at the theme of opposition as it relates to the discourse of the Partei des demokratischen Sozialismus in German politics. In early February 1990 the party executive of the SED-PDS - the name which the erstwhile SED had borne since its aujierordentlicher Parteitag in December 1990 - issued a resolution renaming it Partei des demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS).2 The PDS thus emerged not as a newly founded party, but as the SED's legal successor. (We will have more to say on this issue below.) As a party emanating directly from a Marxist tradition, the PDS has, in the attempt to establish itself on the far left of the pan-German political spectrum, faced the inordinately complex task of adapting the discursive legacy of the monist, official East German state teachings enshrined in the 'dialectical materialism' of Marxismus-Leninismus to the fundamentally different demands of a 'pluralist' Federal Republic. As we will attempt to show below, the necessity of forging something of a discursive 'hybrid'3 has necessarily yielded a particularly fascinating and graphic exemplary catalogue of how language is used in - and is an integral part of - the attempt to deal with the awkward problem of smoothing over what Trew has called, and described in some detail as, "glaring (ideological - MD) anomalies"4. (We will return to Trew in chapter 4 below.) Our understanding here of the term discourse is a broad one; we use it to refer to spoken or written utterances enframed in text, this being a "piece of naturally occurring spoken, written or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis or '"[D]as Adjektiv 'Interdisziplinar' ist zur Summe linguistischer - also pragmatischer, logischer und semantischer Kategorien - zur Summe auBerdem politologischer, soziologischer, psychologischer, okonomischer und asthetischer Kategorien zu erklaren - bzw.