This book examines how communist East Germany functioned according to the views of its leading experts in law, economics, philosophy, and cybernetics. The state-socialist countries aimed for post-capitalist modernization, which they hoped to achieve through dictatorship. The lessons of this failed combination of dictatorship and social transformation remain relevant today. Going beyond the research of many works on the social theory of modernization, this book reveals how East German theorists prevailed under Stalinism.