A Dialogue of Deaf: the CPGB and SED during the Gorbachev Era, 1985-90

The reception of Gorbachev’s reform agenda was very different in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). In the CPGB, there had already been a far reaching reform of the party’s political programme by the time Gorbachev came to power in 1985, if at the expense of a party split. While criticism of ‘really-existing socialism’ was part of what the party feuded over, the main focus of debate was how to respond to Thatcherism and changes in the structure of the British class system. The SED, by contrast, opposed Gorbachev’s reforms and reaffirmed East Berlin’s commitment to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. Yet, ‘proletarian internationalism’ remained rooted in the identities of both parties and remained the glue holding together otherwise ill-suited partners across Europe’s cold-war divide. Their mutual unwillingness to go their separate ways had much to do with a common enemy, namely capitalism, and a rose-tinted view of the achievements of ‘really existing socialism’ even among reform Communists in Britain.