Ten Commandments of Socialist Morality and Ethics
The Ten Commandments of Socialist Morality and Ethics were announced by Walter Ulbricht, the East German party leader, at the SED Party Congress in 1958. They were framed like the biblical commandments but described what every citizen should do to support socialism. In 1963 they were added to the SED program and stayed there until 1976.
The rules connected to how the state handled church and culture after the 1953 East German uprising and were often read at the Jugendweihe youth ceremony started in 1954. The aim was to build a strong work ethic and promote atheism aligned with the state.
Marxist-Leninist theory held that religion would disappear under socialism, but this did not happen in the GDR. So the leadership tried to replace church traditions with state ideology, including ideas similar to “Socialist Marriage” and “Socialist Name.” The belief was that individual morality should match what the state needed socially.
In 1959 the FDGB created “brigades of socialist labor” to strengthen workers’ willingness to work, and the organizers highlighted commandments 5, 6, and 7 as especially important. When these rules were added to the party program, they became binding “socialist laws of morality and ethics” for all members.
In 1976 the ninth SED Congress replaced the ten rules with a general obligation to “observe the norms of socialist morality and ethics and to place social interests above personal ones.” Yet the commandments were not well known by most people and did not play a big role in everyday life; they were mainly spread inside the party. There were also separate sets of rules for children, the Young Pioneers and the Thälmann Pioneers.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 22:09 (CET).