ELITE UNDER CONTROL: THE HISTORY OF DAILY LIFE AT THE INSTITUTE (ACADEMY) OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST UNITED PARTY OF GERMANY (1951-1990)

Abstract

The article deals with the development of the Institute (since 1976 — Academy) of Social Sciences (AON) under the Central Committee of the Socialist United Party of Germany (SED) from 1951 to 1990. It studies a daily work to form a team of teachers and staff and to train graduate students and students for the ruling party of the GDR. The AON at the SED Central Committee is seen as an institution to raise the elite of socialist society. Based on the works of German and Soviet historians, the article makes a conclusion on the positional (official) type of these elite, which was inherent in other socialist countries, primarily the USSR. On the example of the Institute (Academy), the article shows how the university management developed the system of comprehensive control over the activities of teachers and graduate students. This system included detailed curricula, lecture notes, development of practical classes, and control of postgraduate students' notes. Important forms of control were preliminary discussions of conference presentations and publications of lecturers. The departments conducted daily supervision of the teaching stuff, and the library played a great role in this, with its record of books on loan. The leaders of the university, Lene Berg and Otto Rheingold created and maintained this system. They both were virtually unchanged throughout the history of the country. Besides, Otto Rheingold was the Director, and later the Rector, of the Institute (Academy) for almost 38 years. The article concludes that the elite of the socialist GDR (unlike other historical types of elite) was not an idle class in the full sense, as presented in Thorstein Veblen's theory. On the contrary, this elite had to prove its necessity day in and day out in order to keep its position, to demonstrate its adherence to Marxist-Leninist ideology and to the leadership of the university and the Party, and to work to prove its own worthiness. This played its role in 1989—1990, when members of the SED and, in particular, teachers of the Academy of Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED lost their privileges and were not in demand in the academic and educational community of united Germany. The study used the materials of the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History and the Federal Archive of Germany, most of these materials are introduced into the research turnover for the first time