Steven Pfaff

Department of Sociology

New York University

269 Mercer Street 4^th floor

NY, NY 10003

Email: sjp203@is6.nyu.edu

March 1999

Contemporary social movement theory tends to privilege organizational resources, framing strategies and tactical responses to changing political opportunities in accounting for the emergence of protest movements. However, recent history, particularly the spontaneous revolution in East Germany in the fall of 1989 suggests that, despite their importance in certain settings, the organizational resources and political opportunities that are usually regarded as central features of movement mobilization may be less significant in others. Prevalent theories are limited in explaining the development of popular protest in authoritarian settings. Through an analysis of historical data on events in East Germany in the course of 1989, I develop an alternative approach that seeks out the causes of the protest and the emergence of social solidarity underlining the importance of social structure, collective identity and shared moral frames. This paper helps to reveal how protest movements differ across institutional and political contexts and how highly repressive authoritarian regimes may be far more brittle than they appear. Given the right conditions, these regimes may be vulnerable to spontaneous, loosely-organized protest.

The peaceful revolution of 1989 in East Germany took everyone by surprise. No one, not the Communist Party and state officials, not the small opposition movement, not outside observers, nor the bulk of ordinary East Germans, could have expected the sudden appearance of mass protest demonstrations in October of 1989 or the swift capitulation of the hardline Honecker regime that followed it. Too many factors spoke against such a turn of events: the extensive machinery of surveillance and repression under the firm control of the state, the prevailing ideological and political conformity within the Party and state elites, the regime's public praise of their Chinese comrades handling of the Tiananmen student movement, the relative weakness and disorganization of the democratic opposition movement, and finally the fatalistic withdrawal of most GDR citizens away from political questions and public affairs. Even in the face of a reform-minded Soviet Union and new holes in the Iron Curtain being opened up by Hungary and Poland, there was little to suggest that the regime was ripe for political rebellion in the autumn of 1989 or such protest that did emerge could be more than a brief rebellion put down by bloody repression.

In unraveling historical events like this sociologists have at their disposal an enviable range of theoretical tools and a rich tradition of historical sociology. Empirical historical research is not only an opportunity for sociologists to provide better accounts of social transformations, but also a chance to apply and correct prevailing sociological theories. Drawing on my dissertation research, in this paper I argue that the kind of protest we see in repressive settings is often not well understood as organized movements exploiting political opportunities, but rather loosely-structured, often spontaneous forms of collective action. Indeed, most sociological approaches to the study of social movements and collective action would not have been much help in foreseeing the revolutionary events of October 1989. Contemporary movement theory and research tends to focus on factors such as improved social movement organizations and other resources, a rational calculation of declining risks and rising incentives, or an expanding range of political opportunities in accounting for increasing contentious collective action and movement breakthroughs. While all of these approaches offer insights into the structure of movements and the dynamics of collective action, all face limitations in explaining the relatively spontaneous mobilization of high-risk collective action in the case of East Germany. Movement theory, developed primarily in the investigation of contention in liberal polities, needs to face the challenge of application in other social and political contexts in which many of the taken-for-granted features of these theories do not obtain. The historical evidence drawn from the East German case occasions a rethinking of social movement theory, and I will argue, a reorientation of research towards a more culturally rich approach that examines collective identities, moral and emotional dimensions of protest, and the informal structure of mobilization in everyday life. In this discussion I will explore these themes through an analysis of the East German events.

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

The mass protests in the streets of the GDR in October 1989 temporarily united the small dissident movement with hundreds of thousands of previously uninvolved citizens. In the preceding previous weeks, the "exiting crisis" caused by the flight of thousands of East Germans through new holes in the Iron Curtain had seemed the chief threat and protest had only been scattered. The secret police had been confident that the challenge posed by recently formed -- and quickly outlawed -- opposition movements could be contained and the flight of illegal emigrants stemmed (Mitter & Wolle 1990). It was clear that the opposition groups did not have the influence or resources to mount a serious challenge to the regime. Yet, on October 2nd, the first large-scale public demonstration since June 1953 took place in Leipzig involving several thousand protesters. It was unclear to the police how it happened. The Leipzig police chief reported to the Ministry of the Interior in East Berlin that after the traditional Monday night prayer meetings in the city center:

The Nikolas Church and its surrounding area remains the concentration point for the solidarity among these like-mined people...A clearly recognizable demonstration march began to form on the Georgiring in the direction of the main train station. Ring-leaders and organizers could not be directly made out. During this period a definite indecisiveness was discernable.⁽¹⁾

Although demonstrators refrained from violence, the march of October 2nd in Leipzig was dispersed by force, as had all previous public demonstrations in the GDR. Indeed, during the first week of October, protest had exploded -- but so had efforts to repress the growing unrest. The police reported 35 demonstrations between October 2 and October 10 in the GDR, resulting in more than 3,000 arrests and scores of injuries. In cities such as Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin and Magdeburg, protesters clashed with police, most notably at the official celebrations of the GDR's 40th anniversary. Rumors of a "Chinese solution" to the unrest were rife in Leipzig, fueled by the deployment of riot police, army units and threats of violence by the official media if protests continued. Many citizens expected a bloodbath, and the highly visible presence of riot police and army units in the city on the morning of the 9th seemed to confirm this suspicion. On participant recalled that Leipzig "looked like an army camp". Police and communist militiamen were told to be prepared for violent confrontations and expected to confront the "rowdies", "counter-revolutionaries", and other dangerous elements Party propaganda described as making up the opposition in the GDR. At work, managers warned their employees to avoid the city center and shops were closed early. In spite of, or perhaps in part because of, the previous week's violence and the official threats directed against the citizens of Leipzig, what followed was described in popular language as the "miracle of Leipzig". The official police report of what happened manages to convey the exceptional nature of the event, if not quite its excitement:

At the end of the church services the participants assembled in the area of the Karl Marx Square/Georgiring and formed into a procession. A protest march began through the city center. During the march additional citizens continually joined in the march. In all, approximately 70,000 persons took part. During the march, slogans such as "We are the people" (Wir sind das Volk), "Legalize Neues Forum", "Gorby, Gorby, Gorby", and "We are staying here, we are not rowdies", were shouted. Two banners with texts reading "We don't want violence" and "Legalize Neues Forum", along with lit candles, were carried along. On marching past the police and State Security [Stasi] headquarters, there were whistles and boos as well as the call "Join in with us". After the procession reached Karl Marx square again, at about 9 p.m., it dissolved itself independently.⁽²⁾

A week later, on October 16, an estimated 120,000 people took to the streets of Leipzig. Again, the demonstration remained peaceful and the state refrained from violence. Just two days later, Erich Honecker was forced to resign his state and Party offices and was replaced by another hardliner promising reform from above. Such promises did nothing to stem the mounting tide of protests, now expanding from a few cities to towns and villages throughout the GDR. Why had this "miracle" occurred?

Only a month after the breakthrough demonstration on October 9, the floundering Communists were desperate to halt a wave of protest that had expanded rapidly after the breakthrough demonstration on October 9th. Throughout the GDR, mass demonstrations were now occurring regularly and putting the regime under enormous pressure to make sweeping reforms and to guarantee democratic rights. The nascent opposition movements of October had become larger and more aggressive in their calls for change, but remained organizationally and ideologically divided. Desperate to make concessions that might win his government support and undercut the opposition, Egon Krenz's government botched an announcement on the evening of November 9th that, beginning at once, exit visas would be issued to GDR citizens with valid identification at all border crossings (Hertle 1996). News of the announcement unleashed a torrent of people to the border crossings at the Wall in East Berlin. Border police and troops, unaware of the details of the new regulations, were under orders to maintain security at the Wall and not to allow any uncontrolled crossings. There was a real threat that violent confrontations could develop. But by 11:30 p.m. the sheer number of those at the border crossings and the demoralization of the regime persuaded the authorities to relent. Some 300,000 East Berliners swept through the Wall and into West Berlin, most of them returning after only a few hours. A Defense Ministry report noted with alarm:

At encounters during violations of border regulations between citizens from West Berlin and the capital of the GDR [East Berlin] in the area near the Brandenburg Gate there developed scenes of fraternization and celebrations with champagne . There were consistent expressions of "joy" concerning the new regulations being imposed by the government.⁽³⁾

At this now famous event, the outlines of what might be referred to as "state crisis" are more

plainly evident, as is how such a crisis can give way to a revolutionary event. An unpopular

regime, under massive popular pressure and confronting a more outspoken opposition, turns to

major concessions in hopes of mollifying protest and stabilizing these situation. Instead, overdue

reforms only worsen its situation. Spontaneous reactions to what seems like an important new

opening, rips wide an even greater one. Uncoordinated collective actors make history, while the

opposition leaders and the government watch from the sidelines. Collective identities -- as

Berliners, as Germans were renewed and remade and actors were united by a deeply emotional

experience. Another "miracle", unforseen by all parties involved, had occurred. But note that the obvious vulnerability to collective challenges presented by the weakened regime on November 9 was absent a month earlier in Leipzig. Again, spontaneous collective action had led to a breakthrough, but this time under very different circumstances. In this discussion I will examine the issue of spontaneous mobilization with regard to the Leipzig protests, arguing these that events pose an important challenge to theories of social movements and collective action.

Social movement theory and the revolution of 1989

Political process theory and East Germany in 1989

A recent work by Sidney Tarrow, a prominent exponent of political process theory, offers the following general explanation of the revolutions of 1989:

Nine years divided the early strikes on the Baltic coast from the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, so we cannot really talk about an integrated cycle [of protest]. But Poland's 'self-limiting revolution' was not so much different from, as it was prefiguration of, the patterns that emerged elsewhere in the region. That workers in the heart of the Lenin shipyards could organize resistance with other workers and intellectuals, maintaining an underground life under martial law, told dissidents throughout Eastern Europe that their day would eventually come. When it did, it was triggered from the source of authority in Moscow with the promise of Gorbachev's reforms and his warning that his East European allies were on their own. (1994:167)

While this account rightly emphasizes the international political context in which events in the GDR were embedded, it makes misleading over-generalizations and tends to read history backwards. It underestimates the significant variations in both the regimes and the opposition movements in the various Eastern European countries. This explanation, like many others, takes Poland as the typical case in the emergence of opposition movements in the region. But Poland was anything but typical and its experience contrasts sharply with other countries in Eastern Europe. There was no sustained organizational challenge to the regime in East Germany involving broad sections of the population in the opposition. Even in the midst of the popular uprising that brought down East Germany's post-Stalinist regime, the nascent pro-democracy movement was disorganized and scatted. In the midst of an unfolding revolution, the opposition groups were completely unprepared organizationally and proclaimed its loyalty to socialism in the GDR. Prominent dissident enjoyed greater recognition in the West than they did among the mass of the demonstrators. As the Berlin activist and co-founder of New Forum, Sebastian Pflugbeil tried to explain to Western reporters in the middle of October,

We don't have any means of asking people to behave peacefully. We have no access to the media, we don't have any organization, we have no group that could manage a demonstration...You shouldn't compare us to Solidarity. This is only the beginning, on a very small scale. ⁽⁴⁾

In Poland, intellectuals and workers were involved in overlapping organizations prior to 1989, the Catholic Church provided a venue for popular, patriotic opposition to communism, and the repressive apparatus was not as extensive as it was in other states. It would not have been easy, perhaps even suicidal, for opposition groups in other countries to emulate the Polish experience. And the fact that Gorbachev signaled that the Brezhnev doctrine was at an end did not mean that repressive, hard-line regimes in Berlin or Prague or elsewhere would necessarily give up the ghost without a fight. With a weak and divided opposition, a feared secret police, and an army fully under party control, regime threats of a "Chinese solution"to the crisis, at least in the GDR, were quite credible.

While states and political structures must be considered key elements of the environment in which protest develops, the causal significance of "political opportunity structures" should not be overstated as the key causal variable (Tarrow 1994; McAdam 1996). Advocates of political process theory argue that in accounting for massive increases in protest, changes in political opportunity structure are the most important causal factor (Tarrow 1994; McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996). Such opportunities can be recognized, Tarrow argues, when "alignments within it shift, access opens, elites divide and allies appear for challengers outside the system". Furthermore, "These changes [are] not begun by the downtrodden masses but by institutional and social elites whose conflicts provided opportunities for others to organize and mobilize" (1994:162). For Tarrow (1994), who provides the clearest elaboration of the model, the structure of political opportunities includes a wide range of linked processes that suggest a cluster of independent variables including the degree of openness of political institutions, the stability of political alignments, elite divisions or growing tolerance for protest, the presence of support groups and allies, an the state's political capacity.

Although state crisis or divisions within ruling elites may be important openings that challengers exploit and thus may play a critical "triggering" function in mobilization - as I will argue in my analysis of the East German exiting crisis in the summer and fall of 1989 - political opportunity structure should not function as a master variable that explains all manifestations of protest. A wave of protest may be shaped by a number of factors that may lead to mobilization, even sustained protest, in the face of narrowing opportunities and resolute state resistance. Moreover, this polity-centered conception tends to privilege certain categories of actors, particularly state elites and their organized challengers, and see attempts by organized collective to exploit political opportunities as the chief cause of movement emergence. These strategic actors respond more or less directly to perceived opportunities to extend their influence and power. Social movement organizations (SMOs) are assumed to be present that can coordinate action, appeal to supporters and the public, and lower the costs of participation for protest participants. But how do we account for relatively spontaneous, expressive and loosely-organized forms of protest that emerge without significant movement activity and in the face of sustained repression, limited access to public institutions, and only dim hopes of gaining political influence?

Tarrow (1991) has argued in reference to the East European revolutions that "mass outbreaks of collective action are best understood as the collective responses of citizens, groups, and elites to an expanding structure of political opportunities" (13) and that it was a radically new international opportunity structure that explains mobilization. Tarrow argues that there are several elements that compose a change political opportunity structure: expanding access to political participation, political alignments are in disarray after a change of power, open conflicts within ruling elites have emerged, and challenger groups receiving new support from within or without the society (Tarrow 1991, 1994).

Grzeogrz Ekiert's The State Against Society (1996) provides an important historical analysis of political crisis and popular protest in East Central Europe that effectively employs the political process model. Ekiert shows how states within the politically integrated Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe suffered repeated "spillover" effects from policy changes elsewhere in the bloc that helped to motivate dissident challenges, collective protest and social unrest in individual countries. According to this account, political opportunities must be considered also in international terms. Thus, the effect of the crisis in the Soviet bloc and of the socialist economic model was indirect, mediated through local challenges to the states that eventually led to the collapse of state-socialist regimes. Policy shifts domestic and international were understood by the communist regimes as potential moments of popular explosion, but Ekiert argues that it was not Soviet troops alone that maintained communist power, but ultimately the party's political monopoly and systematic demobilization of opponents. Ekiert draws attention to (1) patterns of cleavages and conflicts within the party-state and between party factions that open up opportunity structures for protest, (2) patterns of popular mobilization during the crisis that influence the party-state's capacity to demobilize challengers, and (3) the role of international constraints and pressures and the influence of international actors to constrain the regime (1998:31). According to Ekiert, although domestic political opportunity structures were unfavorable in 1989, events in a neighboring country (Hungary and the GDR respectively) undermined the regime and encouraged a popular upsurge (327). I argue a position in this chapter that it close to Ekiert's, but I maintain that his model is better suited to those regimes in which there were significant divisions within the ruling party and institutional openings available to protests, as was the case in Hungary and Poland (see pages 331-15). The causes of the "popular upsurge" need to be more effectively unpacked from changes in political opportunities, no matter how important policy shifts and changing international relations may be as a triggers of spontaneous popular protest.

An explanation of the East German events based on expanding political opportunities is difficult to sustain before October 9, 1989. After all, internal conflicts within the elites did not appear until after the crucial breakthroughs in popular mobilization had been made. It was not divisions among elites or other changes in opportunity structures, but rather the "downtrodden masses" and marginal opposition groups that opened up the wave of protest that toppled the authoritarian regime. Before the fall of Honecker, challengers had, at best, only mixed signals concerning the openness of the political system to challengers and the potential efficacy of mobilization. And, while it is certainly true that Gorbachev's policies and events in Poland and Hungary upset the old international political structure, that by no means ensured liberalization much less capitulation in the GDR. Generalized changes in international political structure may, in fact, be at best uncertain predictors of the timing and location of protest mobilization -- after all, Gorbachev announced his program of liberalization in 1985-1986, not in 1989. The "exiting crisis" of September 1989, caused by Hungary's opening of its borders with the West, certainly had a destabilizing influence as thousands of East Germans fled West, but I would argue that this crisis did as much to create insecurity and moral indignation among ordinary East Germans than it did in signaling new openings at the domestic level. Furthermore, as Tarrow argued, "Cycles of protest also have recurrent paths of diffusion from center to periphery" (1990:46), that is at the political center, but of course this was not the case within East Germany - the crucible of protest was in the provinces, particularly in the Saxon cities like Leipzig and Dresden, rather than in Berlin which is indicative of the lack of political openings afforded by the hardline regime and the weakness of organized challengers at the political center.

As archival sources make clear there was growing dissatisfaction and dissent within the SED prior to the fall of 1989, but this was not publically discussed and not widely known outside of official circles. East German opposition groups benefitted from the shelter of the Lutheran Church, but leading church officials distanced themselves from all public manifestations of protest and were responsive to state efforts to constrain the church-based groups (see Chapter 4). On the international level, Gorbachev's chilly relationship with the East German leadership and advocacy of reform encouraged those who favored perestroika in the GDR and signaled his unwillingness to send in Soviet troops in the event of unrest. Liberalization in Poland and Hungary suggested that socialist regimes were not immutable and helped to open up the holes in the Iron Curtain that made the exiting crisis of 1989 possible. Nevertheless, in the early fall of 1989 party hardliners remained in control and there was no significant liberal faction within the SED advocating reform. With its large and loyal secret police, a security apparatus under the firm control of the party, and a party organization with more than two million members, the swift and peaceful fall of the regime was virtually unforseen. As plans for a Chinese solution took shape in early October 1989, if anything it might have appeared as the political opportunity structure was narrowing rather than widening.

Because political repression is high and access to institutions and resources low in state socialist regimes, a polity-centered model suggests that protest should originate from influential elites or from factional divisions within the regime itself. In Kim and Bearman's (1997) terms, East Germany corresponds to the "impoverished" regime of collective action, in which a stable, orthodox elite monopolizes all resources and systematically block organized insurgency (76), making conventional polity-centered explanations problematic. It was in view of such realities that Oberschall (1973) had argued, long before 1989, that "In a totalitarian society, opposition movements can occur only when mobilization is initiated by dissidents from within the party who gain temporary control of some organizations and associations normally under party control and use this base for further mobilization" (128). This proved to be flawed pronouncement, at least in the case of East Germany. While there were factions within the SED that were sympathetic to perestroika, there were no reform factions that encouraged protest, offered new resources, or opened political opportunities. Indeed, even the would-be party reformers of November and December had advocated a hard-line against demonstrations just a few weeks earlier. The argument offered here draws on the political process model, but, encountering its limitations in the analysis of the East German revolution, departs from it in several important regards. While states and political processes should be regarded as crucial to the mobilization of popular protest, they provide insufficient explanations. The revolution of 1989 was not only the result of shifting political landscapes, but also the result of the relatively uncoordinated collective action of large numbers of ordinary citizens whose social resources, values, and expectations of solidarity were central factors in mobilization.

The mobilization model

Social movement theory, especially that influenced by the resource mobilization perspective, tends to see organized challengers operating within civil society and with relatively open access to media and institutions as the key mobilizing agents of social movements (McCarthy & Zald 1977; Tilly 1978; Jenkins 1983). Many accounts of the East German revolution explain the emergence of protest demonstrations and the collapse of the regime by reference to the role played by the East German opposition and the emergent civic movement. Many argue that, although the opposition was initially small, it played an important role in organizing demonstrations and in setting the peaceful tone of the revolution. Dissident intellectuals were said to provide an otherwise diffuse movement with political vision and a moral voice. Despite its diminishing influence in later stages of the revolution, the activities of East Germany's democratic dissidents activated long-standing grievances and made the appearance of large-scale demonstrations possible (Neubert 1998; Döhnert & Rummel 1990; Philipsen 1993; Neues Forum Leipzig 1991; Niethammer 1990; Torpey 1995). Other accounts see the Church and liberal clergymen as playing a comparable mobilizing function (Neubert 1990).

Sociological accounts of rebellions and revolutions typically pay special attention to the role played by political movements, opposition parties, and radicals as leaders and initiators of events. One of the fascinating dimensions of the October revolution of 1989 is the relatively small contribution made by organized opposition groups, intellectuals and movements in mobilizing popular protest. At the time of the popular uprising, the opposition movement was composed principally of small circles of dissident intellectuals. Opposition groups were widely scattered throughout the country, informally linked by social networks and communication. There was very little coordination between them and no over-arching organization until September 1989. In attempting to organize the various opposition groups and political platforms that constituted the broader East German pro-democracy or civic movement, critical intellectuals, social movement activists including feminists, environmentalists, pacifists, and liberal clergymen played the leading role. Indeed, given the importance of church-based groups of activists and pastors in founding these groups, and their Christian-humanist ethics, they were often derisively known as "pastor's parties" (Pfaffenparteien) by their critics (Neubert 1998:828). These efforts were centered in Berlin, with only limited participation by activists and groups outside of the capital.

Until the fall of 1989, opposition groups rarely left the shelter of the Church and had few links to the broader population. Indeed, it was only in September 1989, in the context of the emigration crisis, that a GDR-wide opposition movement was even born. Groups such as New Forum, Democracy Now, Social Democratic Initiative and others issued widely heard appeals for democracy and reform, but until November 1989, these groups remained disorganized, poorly integrated and limited mostly to intellectuals in Berlin. The most widely known and influential of these new opposition groups, New Forum, had no significant organization outside of Berlin until November and held its first public assembly in Leipzig on November 18^th -- more than a month after the breakthrough demonstration of October 9^th. When protesters in Leipzig, Dresden, Halle and other cities chanted its name, they were doing so in the name of reform broadly understood, and were not endorsing a particular organization or program. The East German opposition's mobilization efforts were modest at best, and its influence through organizing efforts or political framing were largely unfelt. Rather than mobilization coming about as the result of steadily increasing resources and organization, as the mobilization model implies, in the East German case mobilization preceded movement organization. As Ekiert (1998) has noted, the time span in the process of movement formation and mobilization itself has important consequences for the political and organizational character of an opposition movement. Given greater time, an opposition movement might develop its organization, symbols, ideology and program and play an important role in shaping popular protest and negotiating a political transition (as was the case in Poland and Hungary). On the other hand, rapid and unexpected mobilization may make opposition groups weak and vulnerable: "If mobilization is rapid, the organizational structures of opposition movements and organizations are often underdeveloped or nonexistent. Moreover, rapidly, arising and expanding movements are less likely to loose organic relation to preexisting social networks" (29-30).

The peaceful revolution taking shape in the streets provided the democracy activists with a new audience and a measure of popular support, yet the trigger had been the uncoordinated mass movement to exit the GDR. Few protesters shared the reformist zeal and democratic socialist idealism of the opposition groups. The GDR's civic movement activists were not a political vanguard ready or willing to seize power in the moment of state collapse, but rather a "self-limiting" moral vanguard that expressed principled opposition to dictatorship. Activists saw themselves as "flames in the darkness" and hoped that their dream of a third path to socialist democracy would come true. This vision separated them from the mass of people who either simply fled the country or only crawled out of their niches in the fall of 1989. Both were motivated by a different set of interests and identities than were the activists. For the democratic socialists in the opposition, the exiting crisis represented both a breakthrough and a betrayal because it meant the weakening of the country they hoped to save. For both the dissidents and ordinary citizens, outrage overcame fear and inertia and helped propel protesters into the streets. As the Berlin pastor Friedrich Schorlemmer noted,

The paradox was that the change was induced exactly by those who did not themselves contribute to it, because they had left. All of a sudden nothing really mattered any more. When everyone could leave everything would break down....And then this open insult which turned into a rage when the government announced officially not to shed any tears over those who had left. When they even prohibit weeping tears, that is really the end of it (Quoted in Koch & Matthes 1993:141).

Rational actor theory and spontaneous mobilization

The collective behavior tradition also offers interesting explanations of events in East Germany. Threshold models (Granovetter 1978, 1973; for an application to the GDR see Braun 1994) argue that individuals estimate the number of participants and reckon decreasing personal costs with greater numbers of protesters. Early mobilizers provide the seed around which later participation crystallizes and pay most of the costs associated with organizing and coordinating protest. While these models .provide valuable insights into the structure of collective action and the dynamics of participation, they ignore the motivating issues of solidarity, grievance interpretation, ideologies and values among participants. Hirschman's (1970) distinction between exit, voice and loyalty as strategic responses to decline in states and other organizations has been widely employed by Hirschman (1993) and others (Joppke 1995; Torpey 1995) in accounting for spontaneous mobilization in East Germany. Hirschman argues that mass exit was a social and political crisis that encouraged those who were forced or choose to remain behind to voice their opposition to the regime as rewards for loyalty evaporated. While the exit-voice relationship draws attention to the triggering mechanisms that helped to unleash protest, the perspective suggests an individual rationality that can not account for the morally-charged protest or the emergence of solidarity and cooperation among demonstrators. This model is certainly too partial to allow us to make generalizations from one of these factors, such as those that would paint the upheaval in the GDR as an "exiting revolution" (Offe 199-; Naimark 1991), or would correct it by substituting an equally one-sided focus on the opposition movement as the key "voice" driving the East German revolution (Neubert 1990; 1998; Joppke 1995; Torpey 1995; Philipsen 1993 ).

Researchers working in the rational actor model of collective action have shifted the analysis of the East German revolutions to the interests and expectations of actors independent of organizations and to the micro-dynamics of mobilization. These explanations see protest as a rational response to grievances, even given little organized mobilization, if costs are seen as declining and expectations of success rising. This runs into an obvious problem in accounting for widespread protest in early October 1989 since repression was high and widely expected. Also the crucial factor of value expectancy in such models seems problematic in this case: Did people have fixed preferences, identities and interests prior to the decision to join the demonstrations, or were these more fluid constructs, reinforced, created or extended by the experience of participation itself? Why would ordinary people, without the selective incentives that might have motivated dissidents, risk violence and arrest, if their expectation of success could only have been modest? How do we provide a strong account of social solidarity and shared values among actors given these assumptions?

Karl-Dieter Opp and his colleagues (Opp 1991, 1992; Opp & Gern 1993; Opp, Voss & Gern 1993, 1995) provide the most important sociological analysis of the East German revolution. Based on a survey of 1,300 Leipzigers and over 200 self-declared oppositionists, conducted a year after the events of 1989, Opp and his colleagues offer an empirically rich account of what they term a "spontaneous revolution" in the GDR. Drawing on the rational actor model of collective action, they argue that social movement organizations, political opportunities and elite factions played virtually no role in mobilizing the popular uprising against the regime. For Opp, the key question in the East German revolution are why did people engage in protest when the likelihood of repression was high and the likelihood of any individual contributing to the success of the movement especially low? How could the "free rider" problem be overcome in this setting? Why did people get involved in high-risk, potentially costly collective action with little likelihood of reward?

The problem for a rational actor account in this setting has been noted by Opp and his colleagues in their important study of the East German revolution,

One of the most fascinating and puzzling features of the revolution in the GDR is the fact that the citizens took action in spite of the danger involved. How can it be that a singled citizen, who certainly cannot influence the process of history, takes part in the demonstrations in Leipzig on October 9, 1989, although he had to face the risk of a bloodbath? Why was repression ineffective in stopping the revolution? (Opp, Voss & Gern 1995:vii).

Opp found that although 69% of his respondents who took part in the demonstrations expected to suffer sanctions, but they nevertheless demonstrated. This is explained by reference to a number of factors including strong norms of social solidarity and the sense that one's individual contribution to protest demonstrations could make a difference, particularly in the wake of the exiting crisis. The moral incentives to join the protests combined with the belief that demonstrations could be effective if one participated, combined to overcome both the fear of repression and the "free-rider" problem (37).

Opp and his associates refute the mobilization model in the East German case and make an argument in favor of spontaneous mobilization. Opp's study provides a fascinating account of spontaneous mobilization, arguing that it was "spontaneous cooperation", the uncoordinated result of many discrete individuals reacting to the same set of interests, incentives, norms and expectations at the same time (43-4). The result is an unpredictable manifestation of protest that unexpectedly reveals the "falsified preferences" of the mass of people (Kuran 1995). One of the vehicles of this mobilization, providing both added incentives and overcoming communication deficits, were the "overlapping social networks" that Opp found helped to make communication and cooperation possible. Indeed, Opp found that people typically went along to demonstrations in the company of friends and co-workers with whom they had discussed grievances and political events.

In Opp's accounts, interests and identities are taken as fixed prior to mobilization, rather than as dynamic constructs that are shaped by the process of mobilization itself. The fact that "overlapping social networks" played an important role in spontaneous mobilization suggests that the spontaneous cooperation model may overstate the extent to which decisions are reached by discrete individuals, rather than within informal groups of friends and acquaintances. Norms and moral frames provide selective incentives in Opp's model, rather than being accorded independent explanatory value. My own view is different. I see spontaneous mobilization as the result of interactions between individuals and groups embedded in a social context in which common emotional and moral reactions to a perceived crisis can motivate protest. In the process of mobilization, solidarity and cooperation emerge from interaction and communication among them. Existing sources of collective identification are fused with particular circumstances to produce a protest identity that reinforces the sense of common grievances,

moral objection, and social solidarity that preceded mobilization.

Towards a new model of spontaneous mobilization

Informal groups, indigenous resources and mobilizing structures

Building on work that stresses the importance of personal ties, networks and shared

identities in movement mobilization, for example in the work of McAdam and Tilly among others, and the insights of new social movement theory (Melucci 1996,1989 ; Cohen 1984), we can investigate the ways in which affective ties undergird communities, identities shape shared grievances and action repertoires, helps to constitute social solidarity (Melucci 1996;Calhoun 1995; Gould 1995; Calhoun 1994; Somers & Gibson 1994; Taylor & Whittier 1992). Rather than being merely facilitating factors in collective action, shared identity and affective ties are seen as integral to social movements, both at the level of their operation and their goals. Social identities, it is argued, are situated within communities of shared beliefs, values, and ideologies that are essential to mobilization and often precede formal organization (Melucci 1996; Martin 1995). Because social actors are embedded within communities and share collective identities, expectations of solidarity and participation are possible even under conditions of extreme repression (Gould 1995; Johnston 1996). It is on this basis, rather than on an individualized calculation of interests and values, that decisions to take part in high-risk activism are generally reached.

A sense of community can be powerful in smaller-scale groups which ordinarily have little political impact, but which provide compelling local identities and the expectation of trust. Particularly in cases of risky collective action, integration into personal networks with a history of activism or opposing ideologies encourages participation (McAdam1986). When a large number of such groups simultaneously mobilize and link shared interests and identities, the scale of such collective identities can expand enormously. Indeed, group concerns can even motivate dangerous individual action on behalf of the community, even in the face of certain defeat (Calhoun 1991). Mobilization can expand rapidly and unexpectedly when clusters of friends and colleagues join in protest together (Calhoun 1994a; Yang forthcoming), but may have a surprisingly short duration as the primary ties between actors remain rooted in smaller-scale and informal networks. This reminds us that identity is not organization and that the coalitions between mobilized groups may be linked by weaker ties and momentary convenience. Roger Gould's research on popular mobilization in the Paris Commune, for example, reveals the potency of community ties in risky collective action, but also suggests that even in organized, large-scale events the primary solidarity of most participants remains local (Gould 1995, 1991).

Numerous movement researchers have demonstrated the importance of existing communities and institutions in popular mobilization (e.g. Oberschall1973;Calhoun 1982; McAdam 1984; Eckstein 1989). Mobilizing groups typically take advantage of existing structures and community resources in making challenges, and usually employ a protest rhetoric based on commonly held values and moral frames. Thus, even largely spontaneous, mass forms of collective action typically make use of at least elementary organizations and structures and most likely employ protest frames with a familiar ring. These "mobilizing structures" may play a crucial role in making rapid, large-scale collective protest possible. As Oberschall (1973) has argued, an egalitarian consciousness and strong collective values can be "the foundation for leaderless, spontaneous collective protest, despite the absence of strong community organization or associations for pursuing common interests" (133). In general, however, researchers have found that societies with few organizations and associations have the fewest instances of collective protest.

Movement links between dissident activists and the broader society were fairly limited in the GDR, especially when compared with Poland. This has much to do with the highly repressive environment in the GDR and the ubiquity of the State Security service, but it also has much to do with the institutional foundation of movement activity - the Lutheran Church. Unlike the deep and cross-cutting character of the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church has historically has fewer ties to the urban working class. The Lutheran Church remained important, largely as a bastion of the traditional middle class and of the rural population, and beginning later in the 1980s, of the alternative political scene. The semi-autonomous Church offered spaces and resources within which an opposition milieu could develop, but as late as October 1989 the East German opposition remained organizationally weak, politically divided and estranged from the mass of protesters. The nascent civic movement could neither mobilize popular protest nor do much to steer it behind a concrete program.

Despite these serious limitations, activists in Leipzig had succeeded where most other local groups in the GDR had failed: they had established a widely known meeting place in a central location. The Leipzig Peace Prayers, held every Monday evening in the central St. Nicholas Church, had become a center for the dissident scene since their creation in 1982 (Dietrich & Schwabe 1994). In late 1988, in the context of expanding grievances, small demonstrations of human rights advocates and those demanding the right to emigrate to West Germany had begun to form after the services. The great success of the Leipzig opposition groups that set the stage for the mass demonstrations of autumn 1989 was to defend the institution of the Peace Prayers in the face of pressure from the state and conservative Church officials. It was this success that made the St. Nicholas Church a recognized symbol of defiance and a point around which an alternative public sphere - Leipzig's "Speaker's Corner" -- could form. In 1988 and 1989, a series of small demonstrations directed against state repression, environmental conditions, the rigged elections and other issues helped to raise the public profile of the Leipzig groups and discredit the regime. Although these demonstrations remained small in size, and were usually dispersed by force, they had achieved for the Leipzig opposition a measure of public recognition. It is for this reason, rather than the organizational strength of local movements, their mobilizing resources, or the impact of issue framing, that made the Peace Prayers a point around which Leipzig's Monday demonstrations spontaneously crystallized out of previously uninvolved citizens in October 1989.

Although the power of the Church was severely limited and the organized opposition was weak, East German society was not completely disorganized or politically atomized. In societies in which the state virtually eliminates the public sphere and organizations independent of regime control, informal ties are of critical importance. Tightly-knit networks nurture collective identities and solidarity, provide informal organization and contacts, and offer information otherwise unavailable to individuals. These networks also help people to cope with the constriction of public life and the prevailing economic scarcity and became the "key to the provision of many goods and services" (Goldstone 1994:158). Consequently, in such settings "dissent is likely to take the form of small, personalistic groups based on informal ties and loyalties" (Denouex 1993:24) rather than political organizations. These groups often provide the only avenues for "genuine participation in public life" and an opportunity to define "actual interests and needs "that are otherwise prohibited or ignored by the regime" (Denouex 1993:16).

Friendship networks, neighborhood groups and religious congregations can thus provide spaces for political defiance in authoritarian settings. (Eckstein 1989). In situations in which there is a deep disparity between those in power and the subordinated, it has been argued that there is a considerable gaps between private beliefs and public statements, which James Scott (1990) refers to as the public and hidden "transcripts". For Scott, the private, "offstage" discourse of the subordinated reveals a culture of opposition which is not directly observable by those in positions of power. These "hidden transcripts" are expressions of dissent and informal organization because they "are socially embedded within a community and are therefore often as opaque to the authorities as they are indispensable to sustained collective action" (Scott 1990:151).

My research shows that these theoretical insights resonate with the social relations in post-Stalinist society. East Germany was famously described by Gunter Gauss (1983) as a "niche society" (Nischengesellschaft) in which citizens retreated from the public into pockets of private life that could provide relief from conformity and compliance. In this niche society, East Germans turned to circles of like-minded friends, or to West German television, or to alternative milieus for sociability and communication (see Fulbrook 1995; Niethammer, Plato & Wierling 1991). Networks of friends and close colleagues provided a venue for political discussions, jokes and complaints. Many East Germans considered their lives in their occupational and social niches the only relief from conformism and dissimulation and the only thing that made life in the GDR worthwhile at all (Flam 1998). Thus a "parallel culture" (Yurchak 1997) developed in state socialism in which people went along with official life, while ignoring its meanings, escaping into their own free time where they did as they pleased, and even using official functions as occasions for petty subversion. Collective life in the GDR, designed for purposes of control, could also facilitate communication and nurture political solidarities and political dissent (Deese 1997).

Under ordinary circumstances, these informal social structures help people to cope with and endure prevailing social conditions and political exclusion, but they also lead to explosive forms of mobilization. Alternative subcultures and informal groups may often actually help to defuse tension by

mitigating everyday grievances and keeping dissent confined to private circles and sheltered

niches, they can have enormous mobilizing potential in times of political instability or regime crisis. In the absence of organized opposition movements, loosely-structured and "structurally-diverse" protest groups are likely to emerge as vehicles of mobilization (Mayer 1966). Such protest groups will generally lack strong overarching ties and must be seen as coalitions of diverse subgroups formed under specific conditions in order to achieve limited purposes (Boissevain 1971), but they are possible because of the mobilizing structures that are available in authoritarian societies. Because of the importance of "quasi-groups" (Mayer1966) in managing everyday life in communist society, and the relative weakness of independent associations and movements, protest mobilization may look much different in cases like East Germany than what we are normally accustomed to in research on social movements and revolutions.

Protest is likely to have a highly spontaneous and explosive character in such settings, because prior to the mobilization of these informal groups relatively little of what is recognized as "contention" is visible. Mass protests in settings like the GDR emerge not as the result of sustained mobilizing campaigns by SMOs, but in response to popular moral outrage, threats to existing relations and events that open doors to collective expression. People protest together, not necessarily because they share movement experiences or ideological convictions, but because they work together, live in the same neighborhoods or belong to the same social circles. The strong personal ties between them, nurtured in private "niches" and by the fact that they were collectively organized in socialism, give shape to very different patterns of protest than are generally considered by most social movement theories. Although the Stasi very effectively monitored and undercut organized opposition, it was relatively helpless against these everyday, informal structures of opposition.

Data on mobilization in October 1989 tend to confirm these theoretical arguments. The Leipzig protests had their spontaneous character in large part because the informal structures of the niche society were suddenly activated in the context of the exiting crisis and growing unrest. Documentary evidence from police and party sources confirms that "ring-leaders and organizers" could not be identified as having orchestrated the demonstrations, and interviews, oral histories and first person accounts (Neues Forum 1991, 1992; Lindner & Grüneberger 1992; Tetzinger 1990; Schneider 1990; Zwahr 1993) resonate with Karl-Dieter Opp's (1995) survey findings that reveal that most protest participants in Leipzig went to the demonstrations together in small groups of family, friends and workplace colleagues. They did so in the face of fear. Analysis of interviews and oral histories of protest participants show just how widespread fear was in the early fall of 1989. Indeed, as Zwahr (1993:81) summarizes, "On the 8^th and 9^th of October in Leipzig the fear that the Monday demonstration would be bloodily suppressed was general".

People went to the city centers of Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin fully expecting violent repression and widespread arrests. A content analysis of participant's narratives of the October demonstrations makes this clear. They were emboldened by their disgust with the regime and by the knowledge that others would be there. Sometimes they went only to observe, and joined in when they felt moved by what they saw. They were encouraged by their fellow citizens, who chanted "We want no violence!" and "Join in with us, we need everyone!" The result was the rapid expansion of the protest movement from a few hundred in the summer of 1989 to tens of thousands in the fall. The informal, loosely-structured nature of the Monday demonstrations facilitated spontaneous mobilization. As historian Konrad Jarausch has noted, there were "no clear leaders or followers; onlookers melted into the ranks and dropped out when they had enough" (1994:46). The rallying point was by this time well-know: the St. Nicholas Church in the city center. Demonstrations in the church square spontaneously became marches in the fall of 1989, in part because marches are a familiar part of the modern protest repertoire, and because of the compactness of the city center and its deeply symbolic geography. In close proximity to the cramped church square was the center of the city, the expansive Karl Marx Square. A short march from this was the main train station located on the Square of the Republic, and not far away from this were the police and State Security headquarters. The route the marchers took was a familiar one: after all, everyone had attended May Day rallies. In short, informal groups, local solidarities, the centrality of events, and a combination of familiar and emergent forms of collective action helped to make spontaneous mobilization possible.

Identity, solidarity and moral protest

There is a second dimension of events in Leipzig that help to account for the spontaneous character of the demonstrations that owes to the questions of identity, solidarity and moral protest. Barrington Moore (1978) has noted that in repressive societies most people accommodate themselves and tolerate oppression most of the time, but there are times when "moral anger" inspires them to challenge injustice. This most often occurs when those in power fail to deliver the customary or expected services and goods that are popularly understood as their moral obligation. E.P. Thompson (1971) has shown how popular moral rhetorics can inspire resistance and rebellion against elites, particularly where a population faces sudden shortages or other threats to its livelihood. Communist regimes, because of their complete social and economic administration may be particularly vulnerable to this kind of popular moral revolt, especially because the socialist system legitimates itself in reference to the people's welfare. Workers come to see welfare and security as their social right and a moral obligation of the regime to provide (Müller 1995; Vobruba 1996). In such cases, the character of grievances matter, especially their moral content, a point too often taken for granted by movement research. Repressive regimes are imperiled when the "fear, force and fraud" (Moore 1978) on which they normally rely have become ineffective in the face of indignation or outrage.

The leadership of the GDR faced exactly such a reaction in the fall of 1989. The economic situation had long been in decline, living standards were falling, and the flight of tens of thousands of people to the West spelled the loss of friends and relatives and even more economic insecurity in the future for those left behind. The Honecker government's dismissive response to the crisis (including the statement that "we do not shed a tear for those who have left" in the pages of Neues Deutschland) was an important factor in mobilizing popular protest because it provoked what James Jasper has called a "moral shock" in previously un-mobilized sections of the population (Jasper & Poulsen 1995; Jasper 1998). Indeed, it was when the demonstrators began shouting the defiant slogan "We're staying here!" (Wir bleiben hier!) in response to the emigration crisis , that the nascent opposition movement began to draw on broader sections of the population by proclaiming common cause with ordinary people. Moved by anger and disgust, Leipzig residents joined a movement they now saw as expressing their collective indignation and vague demands for reform, rather than just looking for a way out. The framing device of "We are the people" was even more directly an expression of civic collective identity and moral condemnation of the party and state. Such claims emboldened protest and undercut the state.

Detlef Pollack (1994) argues that the exiting crisis and the attempt to clamp down on opposition had destabilizing consequences for the regime far beyond what it anticipated because it brought together, if only temporarily, the various elements of society that the party had so far managed to keep fragmented. As Pollack notes of East Germans in the fall of 1989,

What had so far isolated people from each other - the civic movements in the Church, writers in the artistic and cultural scene, reformers in the SED, critical intellectuals in the academies and universities, the discontented workers in the factories - suddenly fell away in the common rejection of the overaged party leadership, whose rigid and unrealistic policies could no longer be defended by anyone. Through their ignorant policies the party leadership itself mobilized the people; for now the many people who had been divided through privileges or through threats of punishment constituted themselves as the people in common protest against a totalitarian rule. Out of this general rejection of the leadership grew the unity of the people. (Pollack 1994:448).

But it was only the relative homogeneity of East German society made this kind of mass protest possible: grievances were widely shared across lines of social divisions, economic and social structures were generalized and nearly everyone shared common experiences of anger, frustration and insecurity produced by the government's handling of the worsening political situation.

Popular protest of this kind requires no extensive campaign of grievance framing by movements. People were schooled in socialist conceptions of equality and social justice. The experience of everyday life provided ample evidence of injustice and unfairness and contact with the West (often through television) showed that there was an alternative to socialist decline. As Przeworksi has noted, by the 1980s socialist ideals no longer provided regime legitimation, but implicit critique: "Communist ideology became a threat to the social order in which it was embodied" (1991:3). Although nearly everyone privately knew that regime's propaganda was false or misleading and that public expressions of affection and loyalty were usually insincere, it was critical to the system that everyone went on acting "as if" it were all genuine (Havel 1985; Wedeen 1998). The key to the regime's authority lay not with its legitimacy, nor even with its capacity for repression, but with its ability to bribe and threaten society into conforming to this political culture. Regimes demand even obviously false statement and reports because they "demonstrate that the regime can indeed make most people obey most of the time" (Wedeen 1998:520), thereby confirming the subordination of society. October of 1989 offers a dramatic example of what can happen when this culture of dissimulation collapses in the face of public outrage.

Public events such as national holidays, official assemblies and rallies, political funerals, and the visits or addresses of prominent statesmen all have a tendency to become occasions for popular protest in authoritarian settings. Such events might be collapsed into the general category of "political opportunities", but this may be misleading and fail to capture what is important about such events to challengers. In an authoritarian settings these events are rarely evidence of elite divisions, new sources of support for challengers, or falling repression. More often, they are elements of an authoritarian or totalitarian political culture in which secure elites announce new policies, glorify achievements and seek ritualized public affirmation. In communist regimes, these heavily scripted public events are designed to display the power and unity of the party and its popular support; what Scott (1990) calls "self-portraits" of elites as they would like to be seen. As important as these events may be in a system of political domination, they can also be moments of danger for such regimes. Even if "political opportunities" as such as absent, there are a series of factors that can make these moments of vulnerability for such regimes: (1) their highly symbolic importance for both dissidents and elites, (2) the fact that they rely on public assemblies which are banned or discouraged under ordinary circumstances, and (3) they may generate heightened expectations and discontents among citizens. This is especially likely in cases where discontents are generalized but regime surveillance and repression prevent the formation of a formal opposition (Zhou 1993). Among the discontented, these ritualized affirmations may deepen discontents, as they see and hear the representatives of the regime praise and affirm its policies, and knowing that a crowd will be present, dissidents have a ready-made opportunity to stage a protest guaranteed to draw notice. Moreover, several uncoordinated groups may respond to the same event at the same time, protesting simultaneously and undermining the authorities attempts to suppress or disperse the demonstrators. Political anniversaries played this role in East Germany, with major demonstrations in 1989 at official celebrations of the socialist martyrs Luxemburg and Liebknecht in January and the state's 40^th anniversary celebrations in October. The demonstrations in October were especially large and attracted significant popular support in part because of the coincidence of other proximate events including the sealing of the GDR's borders and the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev.⁽⁵⁾ Politically significant or culturally resonant anniversaries may also provide an occasion for protest without an official commemoration that may be exploited by dissidents and may awaken sympathy and support in the wider population. As Opp has observed,

Anniversaries of events, where blatant regime repression was exercised or citizen protests occurred in the past, were opportunities for many citizens to gather at central places. An example is the anniversary of Jan Palach's protest by setting himself on fire, when many people gathered at Wenzel Square in Prague. Such events generate expectations that many other people will gather at central places of a city (Opp, Voss & Gern 1995:45).

Even in non-authoritarian settings, protest groups may well exploit such events and anniversaries, but they acquire special importance in authoritarian regimes because civil society is controlled or limited, challengers are denied media access, protest groups are unable to form SMOs, and organizers suffer blocked access to communities and networks. For opposition groups in these contexts, such events may be the only opportunity to address public gatherings and or be confident of a turn-out of like-minded people. For example, China's dissident students in 1989 made use of a variety of such politically resonant dates and events, staging demonstrations in reference to May Day, the death of Hu Yaobang, and the 70^th anniversary of the May Fourth movement (Calhoun 1994). In a variety of authoritarian settings, events such as official commemorations and celebrations and the anniversary of politically significant dates (independence day, the anniversary of a popular revolt) or nationalist heroes and martyrs (Jan Palach, Imre Nagy, etc.) may thus be used or redirected by challengers as an occasion for protest.

It has been noted in movements research that the relationship between government repression and protest mobilization resembles an inverted U curve, with moderate degrees of repression typically provoking greater protest by creating a whole new set of political grievances while simultaneously de-legitimating the regime. This is an important insight that the East German case tends to confirm, however, one must note at the same time that it is not simply that new discontents (i.e. interests) are created by the repressive actions, but that new passions are aroused as the regime provokes a sense of moral outrage that fuels both intensified protest and draws previously uninvolved people into the conflict. The result of regime repression, especially in the midst of deep-seated insecurities, unrest and disappointment may be to provoke "moral shocks"among previously uninvolved citizens that leads them to make a break with the regime (Jasper 1998; Jasper & Poulsen 1997). In 1989 ordinary East Germans reacted with despair and indignation at the regime's handling of the exiting crisis, with its intractability in the face of the question of reform, and finally the savage beatings and arrests of peaceful demonstrations during the weekend of October 6-8th. Participants reported a sense of "moral shock" at these events that brought even many first-time protesters to the streets.

The case of the GDR suggests that the repression of protests in cities like Leipzig and Dresden in September and October failed to deter significantly popular mobilization; in fact, it may have even accelerated it. This is especially clear in the events of the first week of October 1989. Although police used violence to disperse crowds and arrested more than 3,000 people, they failed to imprison enough people or to cause enough physical damage to deter protest. Some directly experienced these "outrageous" attacks against the people by the "People's Police" and the "National People's Army" as bystanders and participants, while many more witnessed them on Western television. The police's attack on peaceful candlelight marchers on the evening of October 6-7^th in East Berlin was a shocking display of aggression and political intolerance for many East Germans. Surely, the fact that the potential costs did not appear life-threatening was a factor in this, but given the fact that the chance of success arising out of the demonstrations appeared slight, attributing the failure of repression to an individualized cost-benefit analysis seems less convincing. Indeed, where police violence in making arrests and in crowd control was most active, popular moral outrage helped to motivate participation in spite of the risks the limited prospects for success, as evidence from Leipzig and Dresden helps to reveal. Discussions of regime legitimacy and its erosion often rely on an account of moral decay.

The moral weakness of the regime is contrasted with the moral power of mobilized citizens. In

Anthony Oberschall's (1996) discussion of the East European protests in the fall of 1989, for

example, he contrasts the brutality and corruption of the Communist regimes with the moral

force of non-violent protests. He argues that regimes collapse not because of purely structural

causes, but because those who must uphold the regime lose the moral confidence it takes to

engage in repression. Mass protests force the authorities to confront their unpopularity and the

fact that only bayonets can keep them on their thrones. This is reminiscent of Tocqueville's claim that a regime falls at the moment no one is willing to fight for it any longer. In his Recollections of 1848, Tocqueville noted of the February revolution that elite political and moral failure prevented a more decisive response to the emerging crisis: "The contempt into which the governing class, and especially the men who led it, had fallen, a contempt so general and so profound that it paralyzed the resistance even of those who were most interested in maintaining the power that was being overthrown" (Quoted in Aron 1965:314).

The demonstration in Leipzig remained peaceful for several reasons, some of the specific to the situation in Leipzig. Two factors on the side of the demonstrators themselves were essential: first, the sheer number of protesters that turned out; and second, largely because of the influence of the Church-based groups, that the demonstrators engaged in only in non-violent forms of protest and embraced peaceful ideals. On the side of the state, archival documents make it clear that several factors combined to encourage restraint. It had become apparent to the local police, Party militia, and military commanders that ordinary crowd control measures could not prevent protests. Deadly force would have to be used, increasing the potential consequences of repression considerably, especially given the Soviet Union's newly stated reluctance to intervene in the domestic affairs of its client states. The security forces also anticipated a much smaller demonstration than that which began to form in evening of October 9 and were unsure if they had sufficient resources to disperse such a large crowd. Complicating matters still further, the local party and security officials had an unclear mandate from Berlin. They were under orders to disperse the demonstration, but also to avoid an intensification of the conflict. Given the circumstances in Leipzig, these directives encouraged restraint. In this situation of grave uncertainty, appeals for peace made by Church officials, by opposition groups, and most importantly by local Communist officials and prominent public figures at the last minute, considerably defused the tension on both sides. Protesters were surprised and overjoyed that the state did not make good its threat of a "Chinese solution", and, as the documentary evidence reveals, so were the bulk of the policemen, militiamen and soldiers upon who repression rested. They had feared that they might be forced to use their weapons and were reluctant to do so in the face of what had clearly revealed itself as a popular demonstration and not a gathering of "agitators and rowdies".

The popular protest of fall 1989 was not a worker's uprising, or a revolt of the intellectuals, or any other sort of protest that relied on a particular category of actors. The protests drew from all sectors of society. The language of protest reflected not a publically recognized collective identity, such as that of class-conscious workers, in large measure because such identities were too compromised by their use in legitimation narratives and because the traditional social milieus on which they relied had been destroyed. Instead, the protesters appealed to a broader identity. What brought together the moral indignation of the protesters and the moral vulnerability of the regime was the development, in the midst of the demonstrations, of a protest identity that linked ordinary citizens against the "them" of Party and state officials. The famous chant of defiance that came to typify the democratic revolution in the GDR, "We are the People!", brought together unspecified demands for change with a broad, but meaningful category of identity that united the diverse groups of people that took to the streets on October 9. It vocalized the right of the people to assert themselves against a regime that ruled in its name, claimed to protect it and do "Everything for the good of the people" as one regime slogan put it. It is clear from the evidence that in confronting peaceful demonstrators chanting this powerful message, police and army units felt embarrassed and demoralized. On the other side of the police barriers, once large numbers of people began to march together in public and shout out their grievances, the protests expanded rapidly. Protesters experienced something larger than their individual grievances, enjoyed a moment of emotional transcendence, and experienced a powerful sense of social solidarity. Edward Tiryakian has described this extraordinary expression of unity, relief, and euphoria in the demonstrations of fall 1989 as close to the experience of "collective effervescence" imagined by Durkheim.

In light of the local economic and political situation in Leipzig as well as the whole country, the unwillingness to resort to the "Chinese solution" in the fall of 1989 in East Germany is hardly surprising. Regimes that clearly lack popular support, whose own agents have grown skeptical and disillusioned, and that face mass demonstrations may well capitulate without a fight. There are essentially two reasons for this: (1) the mobilization of 'the people' undermines their claim to rule in their name and (2) because it suggests that they may not have necessary support within their own police and armed forces to impose sustained repression. In his Reflections on the revolution of 1848 in Paris, Tocqueville noted that unexpected mass demonstrations have a demoralizing effect on divided and unpopular regimes. The tentative efforts at repression that proceed mass mobilization only expose the final moral and political failure of the regime and elites may sense their predicament and capitulate. This may be even more true for officials at the local level, charged with carrying out orders from the center that do not reflect a clear appreciation of local conditions. Traugott (1995) notes of the Parisian insurrections of the 19^th century that if local armed forces (police, militias etc) were sympathetic to insurgents, than there success is far morel likely - if they oppose it, the insurgency is almost doomed:

In those instances where this predominantly bourgeois corps [the Parisian National Guard]

struck an alliance with the largely working-class crowd, as in July 1830 and February 1848, the governments against which they joined forces proved helpless to resist. In reality, the advantage that allowed them to triumph was as much moral as military and consisted in the ability to sap the commitment of the regime's defenders (153).

Conclusion: Understanding spontaneous mobilization

Jack Goldstone (1991:1) has remarked that "Revolutions startle us with their unexpectedness and their impact". And it is clear to me that in the wake of the 1989 movements that social scientists have had to confront theoretical issues raised by the largely unannounced and unanticipated power of ordinary people to challenge authoritarian regimes. The question of whether or not a wave of popular protest begins spontaneously can be an ideologically loaded one; as Brinton (1965) noted this when he observed that the claim that a revolution began with a "spontaneous rising" of an enraged people has been one of the chief ways that revolutionaries have justified their actions. I have sought to avoid that political debate, and instead emphasize that the issue of spontaneity versus organization remains an important question in movement research. Patterns of mobilization in East Germany occasion a rethinking of many of the assumptions regarding organization, communication and mobilization in protest movements that are commonplace in sociology.

In this chapter I hope to have revealed that in understanding events like East Germany's spontaneous revolution that careful analysis of the actions of the government and party authorities are as important as an analysis of the challengers. Although the opposition in the GDR was weak, divided and only loosely-organized, widely shared grievances and political values made an emergent sense of collective identity and solidarity possible that served as the foundation for popular mobilization. Confronting these protesters was a regime that appeared resolute in its hardline ideology and willingness to use force in defending its claim to undivided power, but which was riven by significant internal divisions that shaped its reactions to the popular uprising. While there was no visible reform faction as such, important elements of the provincial and central party leadership were convinced that a hardline position had become untenable. These actors, though uncoordinated, did not announce a change of course so much as they failed to carry out the crackdown that Honecker and his supporters favored. But the extent to which this reflected a change in the political opportunity structure should not be overstated; open dissension within the ranks of the party came only after the breakthrough on October 9^th, not before it. The weaknesses of the regime were even more apparent at the rank-and-file level. Political disaffection and grievances were widespread among the lower-level party functionaries, communist militiamen, police and regular army troops upon whom the repressive strategy relied. The fact that a significant element within the party basis was no longer reliable was a factor that shaped local responses to the political crisis in the GDR, as the examples of Leipzig and Dresden help to reveal. This is especially clear in the case of the GDR's party militia ( the Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse), which although organized precisely for such purposes, proved especially unreliable in confronting popular protest. Militiamen failed to appear as ordered, expressed open reservations concerning the party's policies and even directly refused orders to mobilize against the demonstrations. In Leipzig, they broke into applause and cheers when the "Appeal of the Leipzig Six" was broadcast.

The demonstrations of autumn 1989 in East Germany suggests that mass protest

might best be seen as large-scale, simultaneous mobilizations of diverse groups linked by

common interests and identities than as coordinated protests responding to political opportunities. While common grievances and widely-shared identities (Wir sind das Volk or "the people against the state") may lead to mass protest without much formal organization, they are unlikely to sustain it. Even where SMOs play an important role in the process of mobilization, collective identities may be the crucial factors in movement participation, as Gould's (1995) and Calhoun's (1994a) findings suggest.

Oberschall's (1973) claim that authoritarian socialist regimes were most likely to be toppled by loosely-organized popular insurrections against party rule is supported by the East German case. Oberschall noted that these regimes had such high capacity for surveillance and repression that an organized challenge to the regime -- such as an armed insurgency or an opposition party - was highly unlikely. Oberschall argued that these regimes were most vulnerable in the face of spontaneously mobilized populist movements that attacked party rule. This was because socialist regimes created highly generalized, widely dispersed grievances, on the one hand, and, on the other, had a relatively low level of social differentiation. These popular revolts would emerge when the regime faced a political crisis or when the ruling party was divided into factions, both providing a favorable opportunity structure for challengers. Indeed, reformist factions either intentionally or unintentionally encouraged this mobilization, leading to destabilization and popular unrest. This theory, developed with Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 in mind, provides important insights into events in East Germany in 1989. In East Germany, spontaneous mobilization was made possible by the presence of widely shared grievances, political values, and by the relatively small class and cultural differences between actors. But political opportunities played a smaller role; a recognizable reform faction within the SED critical of party orthodoxy did not form until after the breakthrough demonstration on October 9^th, rather than helping to inspire it.

There is historical precedent for a spontaneous uprising of a repressed population in East German history. As in 1989, changes in the Soviet Union had an indirect effect on East German society in 1953 with the death of Stalin. Rather than the long-awaited relaxation, in the spring of 1953 the SED announced unpopular steps to increase labor productivity and reduce living standards. Workers in Berlin staged strikes and spontaneous demonstrations that spread rapidly throughout the country thanks to word-of-mouth and Western radio broadcasts (Baring 1972; Fricke 1984; Neubert 1998) In his research on worker's resistance in the GDR, Jeffrey Kopstein shows how the June 1953 uprising expanded rapidly and spontaneously, eventually involving hundreds of thousands of people from all social classes in hundreds of East German towns and cities. Kopstein notes that there were no clear "political opportunities" in June 1953 and in terms of the rational actor model, "Protesting in June 1953 remained a high-risk activity, an 'irrational' act" (1996:413). Furthermore, he notes, "The archives demonstrate quite clearly that the strikes were leaderless, unplanned and unexpected...the simple fact is that the protests started too quickly for any leadership to have taken control and provided direction" (1996:414). In June 1953, police had either retreated or gone over to the striking workers and demonstrators, leaving the regime dangerously vulnerable. Hundreds of police stations, Stasi offices, and party facilities were overrun and ransacked. It was only the intervention of Soviet troops employing tanks and live ammunition that broke the back of the uprising . The trauma of 1953 haunted the East German leadership, indeed party and Stasi reports in 1989 are replete with references to it. Ironically, the style of repression that the Stasi perfected in East Germany was designed to keep the opposition small, divided, socially marginal, in short, to prevent the formation of a group capable of leading an insurgency against the regime. In this, the secret police were entirely successful. However, the rebellion that the party confronted in October 1989 was a spontaneous popular uprising and against it only the formula of the "Chinese solution" could hope to be effective.

In unraveling historical events like East Germany's October revolution, sociologists have at their disposal an enviable range of theoretical tools and a rich tradition of historical sociology. Empirical historical research is not only an opportunity for sociologists to provide better accounts of social transformations, but also a chance to apply and correct prevailing sociological theories. I argue that the kind of protest we see in repressive settings is often not well understood as organized movements exploiting political opportunities, but rather loosely-structured, often spontaneous forms of collective action. Indeed, most sociological approaches to the study of social movements and collective action would not have been much help in foreseeing the revolutionary events of October 1989. Contemporary movement theory and research tends to focus on factors such as improved social movement organizations and other resources, a rational calculation of declining risks and rising incentives, or an expanding range of political opportunities in accounting for increasing contentious collective action and movement breakthroughs. While all of these approaches offer insights into the structure of movements and the dynamics of collective action, all face limitations in explaining the relatively spontaneous mobilization of high-risk collective action in the case of East Germany. Movement theory, developed primarily in the investigation of contention in liberal polities, needs to face the challenge of application in other social and political contexts in which many of the taken-for-granted features of these theories do not obtain. The historical evidence drawn from the East German case occasions a rethinking of social movement theory, and I will argue, a reorientation of research towards a more culturally rich approach that examines collective identities, moral and emotional dimensions of protest, and the informal structure of mobilization in everyday life.

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5. A number of further examples of this phenomenon might be noted in Eastern Europe during 1989, such as the spontaneous protests that arose at a mass demonstration in Bucharest originally organized as a show of support for Nicolae Ceauescu on December 21, or the spontaneous demonstrations against the reform communists that developed out of the official reinterment of Imre Nagy in Budapest on June 16, or the anti-communist protests that developed at official commemorations of an anti-Nazi martyr in Prague on November 17. In all three cases, party elites sought public affirmation but instead found helped to awaken spontaneous protest. As Przeworksi noted above, at such moments regime ideology can even become a threat to the system it is meant to legitimate.