Word: ands
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Q. In your long career, you have been responsible for youth affairs and, as a member of the Politburo, for state security. Why did you not insist on reforms much earlier?
A. There are many steps along a career path, and every honest politician goes up a learning curve. In the beginning, I felt that Erich Honecker was a person worth emulating because of the way he combined economic achievement with social progress and the great attention he paid to youth...
Later I felt very strongly about decisions that had very little to do with reality. I expressed this view on repeated occasions in the mid-'80s, when great changes were taking place in socialist societies, primarily in the Soviet Union. In the leadership there was a majority, influenced by Honecker...
A. Yes, you could say that. But furthermore, to change policies you need a political majority. My political friends will confirm that I felt very much inspired by the ideas of Gorbachev, without thinking that the same changes had to be introduced here. We were and still are different countries...
Q. Is it true that on Oct. 9 you personally intervened to prevent another Tiananmen Square happening in Leipzig by countermanding a written order by Honecker to use military units in and around the city -- which had received live ammunition -- to put down the demonstrations by force, on the grounds...