The Official East German View

Abstract

Conflict, antagonism, resistance: in bourgeois political life, resistance by certain political movements and organisations to a government, or ruling class, or party. In bourgeois states the most consistent opposition policy is pursued by communist and workers’ parties, in alliance with other democratic forces, to defend peace and the vital interests of the working people. The ruling classes use the coercive powers of the state, including legal prohibition, in their efforts to suppress all genuine opposition. Their class rule is disguised by a show of opposition, which prevents the majority of the people seeing the realities of power: in such circumstances, opposition parties do not aim at a fundamental change in prevailing political and economic conditions, nor to establish social conditions in keeping with the wishes and interests of working people. They are often a manifestation of differences within the ruling classes. In socialist countries there is no objective political or social basis for opposition, since the working class, allied with all other working people, is at once the class which holds power and the main productive force in society, whose fundamental interests basically coincide with those of the other classes and strata.