they will probably report that it was a tale of two elections one now concluded in the GDR and the other still to come in December, 1990, in the FRG in which neither of the German governments got exactly what it wanted" (p. 364). This has already proved to be the case for the old SED (renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism), which "had gambled in the fall of 1989 that it could salvage East Germany's precarious experiment with socialism by embracing the concept of democratic elections" (McAdams, 1990, p. 364). Actually, as McAdams (1990) notes, the specter of the upcoming vote, in combination with the GDR's open borders, turned out to be the communists' undoing.
William D. Pederson (1987) gives an organizational description of East German government in the World Encyclopedia of Political Systems & Parties. Such information, now historical in view of the present merging of the two Germanys, follows. East German political life was dominated by the Socialist Unity Party, which incorporated two large political bodies as executive organs. These executive organs, the Council of Ministers and the State Council, also had smaller auxiliary units the Presidium and the National Defense Council. As executive organs of the SED, the Socialist Unity Party had majority memberships on each of them. Legislative power in the GDR was vested in the People's Chamber ("Volkskammer"), a unicameral Parliament which met at least twice yearly. As Pederson underscores, "its description as the 'supreme state authority' is misleading, given the power of the SED" (p. 381). Quotas of assigned seats in the 500 member body reflected the SED's concern with East German public opinion: the Socialist Unity Party was assigned 127 seats; fifty two were designated for each of the four minor political parties; the remainder were allotted to the "mass organizations" such as the Free German Youth.
Four important mass organizations were state sponsored interest...