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Honecker Reviews His Successes (April 17-21, 1986)

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VI. The SED is the Party of the Working Class and of the Entire Volk

[ . . . ]

Dear Comrades!

Forty years ago, on April 21, 1946, the historic handshake of Wilhelm Pieck and Otto Grotewohl at the Joint Party Congress of the KPD [Communist Party of Germany] and the SPD [Social Democratic Party of Germany] to form the SED [Socialist Unity Party of Germany] sealed the end of the unfortunate division of the working class and the creation of their unity. This event had great historical significance. Out of it emerged the strength that was able to lead our people on the road to a new life, with the antifascist, democratic upheaval and the socialist revolution to build socialism.

Four decades that brought immense change to the social reality of our country testify to the fact that the SED has fulfilled its responsibility. The greatness and beauty of the work shared by the party and the people is inspiring to those who stood at the barricades of the revolutionary struggle in the first quarter of this century; to those who risked their lives to resist the Nazi brown barbarism; to those who joined the ranks of the builders of a new future; and to those who were born into socialism and are growing up in it.

Corresponding to what our 11th Party Congress will decide, we will continue to shape the socialist society we have developed, thereby creating fundamental prerequisites for the gradual transition to communism, as it is laid down in our party’s program. We are doing everything so that our people, and the world, can live in peace. Firmly allied with the community of the socialist fraternal countries and the revolutionary world movement, we are fulfilling our internationalist responsibility.

Everything for the good of the people, everything for the happiness of the working people!

Long live our socialist German Democratic Republic!
Long live the proletarian internationalism!
Long live our Socialist Unity Party of Germany!



Source: Bericht des Zentralkomitees der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands an den XI. Parteitag der SED (17.-21. April 1986). Berichterstatter: Genosse Erich Honecker [Report of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany at the 11th Party Congress of the SED (April 17-21, 1986). Given by Comrade Erich Honecker]; reprinted in Günter Benser, ed., Dokumente zur Geschichte der SED [Documents on the History of the SED], vol. 3: 1971-1986. Berlin, 1986, pp. 416-17, 420-21, 495-96.

Translation: Allison Brown

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