The late GDR and its view on the Scientific-Technical Revolution and Automation and its role in the development of Communism and the intellectualization of Labor-from Hammer and compass visuals
The scientific-technical revolution (STR) was no mere technological shift; for the GDR, it was a world-historical rupture, a force that, when consciously directed, would build the material-technical base of communism itself. "The STR and socialism are fundamentally related; whatever new material-technical foundation the STR produces, in its historical consequence, this foundation can only be the material-technical basis for the communist social formation."
The capitalist mode of production views automation as a crisis—a harbinger of mass unemployment, deskilling, and proletarian insecurity. Socialism, in contrast, sees in it the means of liberating labor from drudgery, expanding human creative potential. “Otherwise, humanity might still believe in the claims of bourgeois ideologues that the STR must necessarily lead to mass unemployment, dequalification, and the destabilization of human existence due to its supposed contradictions of a social nature.”
The GDR understood that technological progress is not “neutral.” The productive forces develop in class struggle—capital channels them for profit; socialism must channel them for human development, turning science into a force of liberation. In capitalism, automation threatens wages & employment. Under socialism, "it multiplies the intellectual capacities of humans beyond those mental abilities inherent to them as natural beings—turning work into a conscious, creative activity." The intellectualization of labor is not an abstract process but a transformation of human relations to production. The GDR saw this as the beginning of a true humanist era, where labor becomes the direct application of scientific thought. "The transformation of intellectual work functions of humans into functions of technical systems leads to a profound revolutionary upheaval in the overall system of productive forces… advancing the economic and social benefits of automation."
The biological sciences of the STR were also viewed as revolutionary. The GDR viewed that the deciphering of DNA and advances in genetics did not merely describe nature but gave humanity tools to reshape the very foundations of life. "The qualitatively new dimension in humanity’s engagement with nature has emerged with the decoding of the genetic information code… enabling targeted, ‘constructive’ modification of living beings.” This was not Promethean arrogance, but a recognition that human self-conscious mastery over nature—in production and biology alike—was the very essence of the transition from prehistory to a truly scientific, rationally planned civilization. The GDR rejected "technological determinism"—progress was not automatic. Without socialism, automation serves capital, monopoly, imperialism. The imperative was: guide the STR politically, consciously, humanistically, for the many. "The STR is not passive, not ‘speechless.’ It requires social relations that place these productive forces unconditionally at the service of humanity… it requires a true democratization of all processes of scientific-technical progress.”
Socialism alone, the GDR argued, harnesses automation for human needs. In capitalist countries, workers fear automation; in the GDR, automation was realized with the working people, for their benefit, as a stimulating creative challenge. While capitalism pits workers against machines, socialism unites them, turning the machine into a tool of human self-actualization. Automation’s role is not to replace labor, but to elevate it—freeing time for culture, science, self-development.
The full development of the scientific-technical revolution demanded an economic system of planning, not profit. Thus, the GDR’s vision was simple: the STR, fully realized, was the road to higher communism itself. “How could this be the case, given that it undoubtedly causes the deepest rupture in the development of productive forces? Modern productive forces are not passive, not ‘speechless’—they demand their conscious direction.” The vision was not naïve. The GDR recognized that in an imperialist-dominated world system, capitalism would resist. Even socialist states were forced to spend on defense rather than human development." Now, socialist society, in light of the policies of aggressive imperialist forces that wish to escalate and expand armament, is forced to use means for defense that otherwise could have been used for the further enrichment of this society.”
¹ Report of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany at the XI Party Congress of the SED, Report and Speeches, Erich Honecker, Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1986, p. 49
² Erich Honecker, Einheit, Issue 10/11, 1987, p. 89
³ Harry Nick, Einheit, Issue 6/88
