History of Germany (1945–90) eventually hundreds of thousands of people in several cities—particularly in Leipzig—continued to grow. On 7 October, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Berlin to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of East Germany and urged the East German leadership to pursue reform, without success. The movement of civil resistance against the East German regime—both the emigration and the demonstrations—continued unabated. On 18 October, Erich Honecker was forced to resign as head of the SED and as head of state and was replaced by Egon Krenz. But the exodus continued unabated, and pressure for political reform mounted. On 4 November,
Economic System of Socialism those who opposed ESS for political reasons and those who opposed it for the disruptions it caused to the economy. His main opponents were Erich Honecker, Willi Stoph and Alfred Neumann. In May 1970 Ulbricht was removed from his power and left with a purely ceremonial role as the Chairman of the State Council of GDR until his death on 1973. In 1971 Honecker put forward a new program that called for the “unity of economic and social policy” by building a socialist working class state where the economy is put to the service of political goals. The goal of