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Synopsis
In six months bridging 1989 and 1990, the German Democratic Republic underwent a transformation that took the world almost completely by surprise. Yet unlike the revolution in Poland a decade earlier, only a small percentage of workers played a politically active role in the fall of socialism in Germany.
In this unprecedented study, Linda Fuller sets out to explain why the working class was largely missing from the 1989-90 revolution. Drawing on pre- and postrevolutionary visits to East German worksites and dozens of interviews, Fuller documents workers' day-to-day experience of the labor process, workplace union politics, and class. She shows how all three factors led most workers to withdraw from politics, even while prompting a handful to become actively involved in the struggle.