Fifty years ago, the East Germans rose against their Communist tyrants. As Russell Berman notes:
Bertolt Brecht, whose relationship to democracy was far from clear, pinpointed the hypocrisy of dictatorship in a poem worth rereading with regard to Iran.
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?