Buchman had accepted the invitation of Dr. Heinrich Kost, head of the German Coal Board, to send a team to the Ruhr. For two years, Buchman sustained over 100 MRA workers in the area. Before their arrival, 72% of the workers' council seats were held by communists. By 1950, the percentage had shrunk to 25%. According to Hubert Stein, an executive member of the German Miners Union, this decline was "to a great extent due to Moral Re-Armament." In 1950, Radio Berlin and other stations broadcast a speech by Buchman: "Marxists are finding a new thinking in a day of crisis. The class struggle is being superseded. Management and labour are beginning to live the positive alternative to the class war... Can Marxists pave the way for a greater ideology? Why not? They have always been open to new things... Why should they not be the ones to live for this superior thinking?"