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 JuneThe Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the StalinalleeStating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the governmentAnd could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easierIn that case for the government To dissolve the peopleAnd elect another?