Illiberal deliberation - communist regime travel controls as state capacity in everyday world politics
Both social science theorizing and historical research have traditionally assumed that people-to-people relations are a sanctuary from the control claims of authoritarian regimes. In this vein, cross-border dialogue was long regarded as the Achilles heel’ of Communist regimes.
However, with the opening of archives, research has confirmed that in fact, countries such as the former East Germany (GDR) had an extensive and well-established administrative system to control foreign contacts. This so-called travel cadre system screened travellers for regime loyalty. But the system also had other tasks. The travel cadre attended practice sessions on how to reason and argue on various social and political issues, to try to influence the people they met in the West. Furthermore, the travel cadre was instructed to report on their international colleagues, focusing on who was a "friend" or "enemy" of the GDR and other communist regimes. This information was then the basis for continued efforts at influence towards individuals and institutions.
The book I want to write describes and analyzes the administrative structure and routines of the GDR s travel cadre system, based on examples from university contacts with Sweden. These historical findings raise questions concerning how Western countries were affected, during the many decades of the Cold War, and about today s communist regimes such as China, and which tools it uses to try to influence the open societies of democratic countries.
Final report
Traditionally, both social science theory and historical research have assumed that direct contacts between professionals in different countries are a haven from the control claims of authoritarian states. In this vein, cross-border dialogue was long regarded as the Achilles heel of communist regimes. Contacts with professionals were regarded as a means to expose the communist countries to the global open society.
However, after the communist state archives have been opened for research, this picture has been revised. Communist countries such as the former East Germany (GDR) had an extensive and institutionalized administrative system to control foreign contacts. This so-called travel cadre system screened travelers for regime loyalty. The selected travelers were briefed on how to reason and argue on various social and political issues to try to influence people they met in the West. Furthermore, travelers were instructed to report on their international colleagues, with a focus on who was a "friend" or "enemy" of the GDR and other communist regimes. The reports informed further efforts to influence individuals and institutions.
Within German language historical research, the existence of the travel cadre system is well documented and undisputed. However, this knowledge has not yet had an impact on broader fields of inquiry, neither within political science theorizing on international relations nor within studies of public administration –– where the administration of non-democratic countries in general has remained relatively unexplored.
The travel cadre system had several functions. The aspect that has received some attention in English-language studies is its role in industrial and technological espionage. Another important function was to prevent so-called "brain drain". The regime wanted to avoid that professionals should defect while traveling in the West.
However, the project focuses on a third function; how the system shaped the descriptions of reality and the exchanges of meaning that took place between the travelers from communist countries and their counterparts in Western democracies. Here, the impact took place in three stages. First, the system involved a screening for political loyalty. Only the most politically loyal were allowed to travel. In a second step, the future travelers were schooled in how to behave and speak. According to the travel cadre regulations, each traveler was a representative of the country's foreign policy. In a third step, the travelers were required to submit written and oral reports on their foreign counterparts, on their own activities during the trip, and on their fellow travelers. These reports were then the basis for renewed permissions to travel.
A popular belief, which is not supported by research, is that the travel cadre system was superficial – something that professionals could easily slip through and ignore. The project’s findings support an opposite perspective: that Western citizens met with a select loyalist elite. The project argues that over the long term –– over the long decades of the Cold War –– the travel cadre system entailed an extensive and profound distortion of the foreign image of communism. The people allowed to travel were not representative of the citizens under the regime, nor were they free to develop or express more than superficial criticism of the political system.
A first insight from the project is that the basic administrative structure of the East German travel cadre system was in place early on – which indicates that it was imported from the Soviet Union. Already in 1951, leaving the GDR without permission was made a criminal offence. Drawing on archival material, the project describes the development of the East German travel cadre system, from the 1950s until the opening of the Berlin wall in autumn 1989. The project’s focus lies on administrative regulations and routines. Since these were classified, they could not be mapped until the archives were opened. Nor were travelers themselves permitted to know how the process was designed.
A second insight from the project is that the travel cadre system would not have been possible to implement without the larger administrative context, i.e. the peculiar structure of the communist state. Hence, the travel cadre system must be understood in its context. A surprise for the project was how few publications exist about the basic structure of the communist state, and how relatively unknown to a wider audience that the central findings have remained. Hence, an important part of the project became to summarize previous research on different countries, including both the historical Soviet Union and modern China, to distil the typical basic features of the administrative structure of communist states as a historically unique administrative model or type.
A third insight concerns information management, i.e. the state's information capacity. How could the communist state keep track of all the information about which citizens were loyal enough to be trusted with foreign travel? This focus became a third theme for the analysis, where decentralization is an important part of the answer.
A fourth insight concerns policy implementation. Given that the edict of the communist state was that every traveling professional should serve the state's foreign policy, how was this goal implemented? Again, the structure of the communist state is key. There are no organizational charts in the archives, but the project has compiled one based on findings from both previous (mainly German-language) research and primary material from the archives.
New research contacts were an additional outcome of the project. The planned stay at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University had to be postponed due to the pandemic but took place in spring semester of 2024. Seminar presentations at the Davis Center provided important confirmation that the project's organizational chart of the East German state is new and provides unique knowledge and insights.
The most important research question for future research that arises from the project is of course to which extent travel controls in other communist countries resemble the East German system. Research exists for example on the former Czechoslovakia and Poland (in Polish and Czech language) which indicates that the systems had a similar basic structure. If this is true, it strengthens the project's argument that the travel cadre system was likely part of a basic administrative model that was exported from the Soviet Union around the world. There is still a lot of research to be done here. For this line of inquiry, the hope stands to native language researchers, who can navigate their countries’ respective archives.
For future research, the findings also raise questions about how Western countries were affected during the many decades of the Cold War. Finally, the findings are relevant for formulating research questions about today's communist regimes such as China, and its structural ability to use traveling citizens as tools for foreign policy purposes.
The project’s results were presented in the following fora (in order of time beginning with the latest):
• The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University;
• The Public Administration research group at the Department of Political Science, Lund University;
• The Midwest Political Science Association yearly conference;
• Pod-cast “Clubhouse: Law & Governance series” co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania https://www.clubhouse.com/room/PQROwRAv;
• The doctoral Kruzhok workshop at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University ;
• The Russia and the Caucasus Regional Research Seminar at Malmö University;
• Master program in public administration (Verwaltungswissenschaft) at the University of Potsdam Germany;
• The Swedish National China Center at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI);
• 29th Annual conference of NISPAcee (Network of Institutes of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe);
• PAT-Net (Public Administration Theory Network conference);
• Kolleg Kalter Krieg, Berlin;
• The seminar series on Authoritarian Politics and International Relations (APIR) at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).
However, after the communist state archives have been opened for research, this picture has been revised. Communist countries such as the former East Germany (GDR) had an extensive and institutionalized administrative system to control foreign contacts. This so-called travel cadre system screened travelers for regime loyalty. The selected travelers were briefed on how to reason and argue on various social and political issues to try to influence people they met in the West. Furthermore, travelers were instructed to report on their international colleagues, with a focus on who was a "friend" or "enemy" of the GDR and other communist regimes. The reports informed further efforts to influence individuals and institutions.
Within German language historical research, the existence of the travel cadre system is well documented and undisputed. However, this knowledge has not yet had an impact on broader fields of inquiry, neither within political science theorizing on international relations nor within studies of public administration –– where the administration of non-democratic countries in general has remained relatively unexplored.
The travel cadre system had several functions. The aspect that has received some attention in English-language studies is its role in industrial and technological espionage. Another important function was to prevent so-called "brain drain". The regime wanted to avoid that professionals should defect while traveling in the West.
However, the project focuses on a third function; how the system shaped the descriptions of reality and the exchanges of meaning that took place between the travelers from communist countries and their counterparts in Western democracies. Here, the impact took place in three stages. First, the system involved a screening for political loyalty. Only the most politically loyal were allowed to travel. In a second step, the future travelers were schooled in how to behave and speak. According to the travel cadre regulations, each traveler was a representative of the country's foreign policy. In a third step, the travelers were required to submit written and oral reports on their foreign counterparts, on their own activities during the trip, and on their fellow travelers. These reports were then the basis for renewed permissions to travel.
A popular belief, which is not supported by research, is that the travel cadre system was superficial – something that professionals could easily slip through and ignore. The project’s findings support an opposite perspective: that Western citizens met with a select loyalist elite. The project argues that over the long term –– over the long decades of the Cold War –– the travel cadre system entailed an extensive and profound distortion of the foreign image of communism. The people allowed to travel were not representative of the citizens under the regime, nor were they free to develop or express more than superficial criticism of the political system.
A first insight from the project is that the basic administrative structure of the East German travel cadre system was in place early on – which indicates that it was imported from the Soviet Union. Already in 1951, leaving the GDR without permission was made a criminal offence. Drawing on archival material, the project describes the development of the East German travel cadre system, from the 1950s until the opening of the Berlin wall in autumn 1989. The project’s focus lies on administrative regulations and routines. Since these were classified, they could not be mapped until the archives were opened. Nor were travelers themselves permitted to know how the process was designed.
A second insight from the project is that the travel cadre system would not have been possible to implement without the larger administrative context, i.e. the peculiar structure of the communist state. Hence, the travel cadre system must be understood in its context. A surprise for the project was how few publications exist about the basic structure of the communist state, and how relatively unknown to a wider audience that the central findings have remained. Hence, an important part of the project became to summarize previous research on different countries, including both the historical Soviet Union and modern China, to distil the typical basic features of the administrative structure of communist states as a historically unique administrative model or type.
A third insight concerns information management, i.e. the state's information capacity. How could the communist state keep track of all the information about which citizens were loyal enough to be trusted with foreign travel? This focus became a third theme for the analysis, where decentralization is an important part of the answer.
A fourth insight concerns policy implementation. Given that the edict of the communist state was that every traveling professional should serve the state's foreign policy, how was this goal implemented? Again, the structure of the communist state is key. There are no organizational charts in the archives, but the project has compiled one based on findings from both previous (mainly German-language) research and primary material from the archives.
New research contacts were an additional outcome of the project. The planned stay at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University had to be postponed due to the pandemic but took place in spring semester of 2024. Seminar presentations at the Davis Center provided important confirmation that the project's organizational chart of the East German state is new and provides unique knowledge and insights.
The most important research question for future research that arises from the project is of course to which extent travel controls in other communist countries resemble the East German system. Research exists for example on the former Czechoslovakia and Poland (in Polish and Czech language) which indicates that the systems had a similar basic structure. If this is true, it strengthens the project's argument that the travel cadre system was likely part of a basic administrative model that was exported from the Soviet Union around the world. There is still a lot of research to be done here. For this line of inquiry, the hope stands to native language researchers, who can navigate their countries’ respective archives.
For future research, the findings also raise questions about how Western countries were affected during the many decades of the Cold War. Finally, the findings are relevant for formulating research questions about today's communist regimes such as China, and its structural ability to use traveling citizens as tools for foreign policy purposes.
The project’s results were presented in the following fora (in order of time beginning with the latest):
• The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University;
• The Public Administration research group at the Department of Political Science, Lund University;
• The Midwest Political Science Association yearly conference;
• Pod-cast “Clubhouse: Law & Governance series” co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania https://www.clubhouse.com/room/PQROwRAv;
• The doctoral Kruzhok workshop at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University ;
• The Russia and the Caucasus Regional Research Seminar at Malmö University;
• Master program in public administration (Verwaltungswissenschaft) at the University of Potsdam Germany;
• The Swedish National China Center at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI);
• 29th Annual conference of NISPAcee (Network of Institutes of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe);
• PAT-Net (Public Administration Theory Network conference);
• Kolleg Kalter Krieg, Berlin;
• The seminar series on Authoritarian Politics and International Relations (APIR) at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).