Was the GDR a Dictatorhip?
One of the most prominent debates regarding the GDR revolves around whether or not the GDR can be considered a dictatorship. Ross first explains the definitions of a dictatorship which include totalitarianism and dictatorship. With totalitarianism comes the involvement of the secret police, the Stasi, which had around 100,000 paid employees and thousands of collaborators at its height in the 1980s. Its involvement furthered the theory that those living in the GDR were under totalitarian rule. Ross supports J. Linz’s argument that the GDR is a “frozen” post-totalitarianist regime because “most of the control mechanisms of the party-state stayed in place for a long period and did not evolve” (Ross, 25). When discussing totalitarianism, the idea of Stalinism also arises. Stalinism is often associated with totalitarianism, but it is specifically characterized by Stalin’s brutal nature of rule including his use of purges of rivals by murdering them, use of the secret police, forced labor ca
