The New Course was a Soviet economic policy that aimed to improve the standard of living and to increase the availability of consumer goods in East Germany. There were three major thrusts of the new course. Improvement of consumer goods, the end of terror, and a relaxation of ideological standards. It was announced in March 1953, after the death of Stalin. Investment in heavy industry was to be cut and production of consumer goods stepped up. A series of taxes on farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and private firms was lifted. Private businesses that had been closed down by the authorities could start up again. Refugees who had gone to the West were invited to return and offered help. Farmers were promised back their land. They could borrow money, machines, and seeds. Intellectuals received permission to attend conferences in West Germany, and West Germans could get passed more easily to visit relatives in the GDR. Students expelled from university because of their religious beliefs could come back. All those arrested on religious grounds were to be released, and the campaign against the church was to end. The idea of "class justice" was to go. The middle class would get ration cards back, and some recent price increases were revoked. The SED Politburo admitted to "errors in the past."

Although the “New Course” led to certain material improvements, it did not address the productivity quotas that had been raised in May. (It was this increase that originally sparked the agitation that led to the uprisings of June 17, 1953

Uprising of 1953 in East Germany

The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on June 16. It turned into a widespread anti-Stalinist uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day....

). On July 2 President Wilhelm Pieck

Wilhelm Pieck

Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and a Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic, an office abolished upon his death. He was succeeded by Walter Ulbricht, who served as Chairman of the Council of States.-Biography:Pieck was born to...

 explained the new policy, inaugurated on June 9, as one designed to raise the standard of living

Standard of living

Standard of living is generally measured by standards such as real income per person and poverty rate. Other measures such as access and quality of health care, income growth inequality and educational standards are also used. Examples are access to certain goods , or measures of health such as...

 and bring about a rapprochement

Rapprochement

In international relations, a rapprochement, which comes from the French word rapprocher , is a re-establishment of cordial relations, as between two countries...

 of the two parts of Germany. He estimated its cost at two billion marks

East German mark

The East German mark commonly called the eastern mark , in East Germany only Mark, was the currency of the German Democratic Republic . Its ISO 4217 currency code was DDM...

, to be covered by cutting the heavy industries

Heavy industry

Heavy industry does not have a single fixed meaning as compared to light industry. It can mean production of products which are either heavy in weight or in the processes leading to their production. In general, it is a popular term used within the name of many Japanese and Korean firms, meaning...

 and defense

National security

National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...

 programs.

The New Course was also applied to other Eastern bloc countries after the death of Stalin in 1953.

See also

• New Economic System
  New Economic System
  The New Economic System was an economic policy that was implemented by the ruling Socialist Unity Party of the German Democratic Republic in 1963. Its purpose was to replace the system of Five Year Plans which had been used to run the GDR's economy from 1951 onwards...
  
  
• Economic System of Socialism
  Economic System of Socialism
  The Economic System of Socialism was an economic policy implemented in East Germany between 1968–1970, led by General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party Walter Ulbricht. It focused on high technology sectors in an attempt to make self-sufficient growth possible...
  
  
• Eastern Bloc economies
  Eastern Bloc economies
  After the Soviet Union's occupation of much of the Eastern Bloc during World War II, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin implemented socioeconomic transformations of each of the Eastern Bloc economies that comported with the Soviet Communist economic model...