The collective was considered a typical social form of life, a social organism (Laabs et al., 1987, p. 202f.) within socialism. During the changing trends (Tendenzwende) in 1948/49, the concept of the collective replaced the concept of community, which had been common in educational discourse up to that point. The semantic replacement apparently did not require a factual, conceptual discussion. The terms therefore differed only marginally: while community described a social quality of the social association of people (Klaus & Buhr, 1976, p. 449f.), the term collective was not defined, but the collective concept was, which described an ordered totality of objects or individuals (ibid., p. 639f.). Against the background of Marxist-Leninist interpretations of society, the human personality was seen neither as a fatalistic product of the community, nor as a means of higher-level social wholes, but as a subject of social relations, a bearer of social functions in a very specific socio-economic structure of society (Neuner, 1975, p. 37). This concept of socialist collectivism was seen as an essential feature of social relations (ibid.) and was thus semantically almost identical to the above-mentioned concept of community, only specified in socialist terms. The propagation and appropriation of soviet pedagogy contributed significantly to establishing the concept of the collective in pedagogical jargon and reducing the concept of community to the like of the term group (Laabs et al., 1987, pp. 145, 162).

Ideally, members of the socialist collective were seen as representatives of the collective and were to act accordingly. The development of individuals into personalities was considered an inseparable part of perfecting the collective. Dawning reception of Makarenko's writings in the Soviet Union a decade after his death and the publication of his works in German translation transformed them into classics of socialist collective pedagogy in the GDR, and the pedagogical experiences propagated in them became instructive and exemplary for the practice of socialist education, primarily in children’s homes and shelters. Nevertheless, educational and historical study of Makarenko remained marginal. The idea of interpreting Makarenko's understanding of education as a variant of reform pedagogy (Reformpädagogik) was only started being considered shortly before the fall of the Wall.