opposition

• • workers started striking about their pay and Russian tanks started firing at them and people were ran over
  • people threw rocks at the tanks still rebelling
  • 20,000 people died and 50,000 people were arrested
• when was the workers uprising

  17th June 1953
• workers in East Berlin rose in protest against the governments demands to increase productivity
• within days nearly a million East Germans joined the protests and began rioting across hundreds of East German cities and towns
• the US established an aid program to feed East Germans to prolong the uprising and win support for the west
• the Soviet Union ordered an entire armoured division of its troops into east Berlin to stop the East German workers and antigovernment protestors
• • soviet forces struck quickly and without warning
  • troops supported by tanks and other armoured vehicles crashed through the crowd of protestors
  • some protesters tried to fight back but most fled before the onslaught
• by the evening of June 17th the protestors had been shattered and relative clam was restored
• the demands of the demonstrators were:

  • free elections
  • the lifting of border regulations
  • freedom for political prisoners