Katja Hoyer > Quotes > Quote > Adam shared it

“The idea was that a factory could send an elected representative, as could a university, or a women’s organization. These delegates would then meet in a central council – or ‘Soviet’ in Russian – to decide on policy matters, elect an executive and so on. So far so democratic. The reason why so many of the manifestations of this theory have turned out to be nothing more than puppet parliaments who rubber stamp legislation for those who wield real power is that it is open to manipulation. In the case of the GDR’s council, the Volkskammer, the list of candidates was completely fixed.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990