The anti-government uprising threatened the Soviet-backed GDR and the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), who viewed it as a "counter-revolutionary" act.

During the six-week deployment of the KdA to the East Berlin-West Berlin sector boundary, only eight members defected to the West, indicating a high state of morale and faith in the SED.

On 9 November 1989, the GDR government announced the opening of the Berlin Wall and the free travel of East German citizens, rendering the purpose of the KdA no longer relevant or necessary.

The KdA served a similar role to infantry to supplement the military and police as security in rear areas during wartime or in political emergencies, such as protests against the government.

Units were closely tied to the workplaces they were recruited from such as factories, farms, the state and local administration offices, and other state-owned enterprises – their organizations and their employment generally did not extend beyond the district level.

The organization was similar reserve forces like the United States National Guard or British Territorial Army; however, the KdA was strictly controlled by the SED itself and not the government.

Heavy hundreds (Schwere Hundertschaft) were equipped with anti-tank, mortar and air-defense platoons, and were motorized using the trucks of their enterprises or nationalized haulage firms.

Men under 25-years-old, if they were not performing compulsory military service in the National People's Army, could join the paramilitary Society for Sport and Technology (GST) until reaching the age for KdA membership.

Non-SED members were compelled to join by the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB), and recruitment was accomplished by the SED branches in the workplaces.

After the SPW 152 APC, a variant of the Soviet BTR-152, had been phased out from the army arsenals in the mid sixties, it became the standard combat transport for KdA units.

In later years, KdA troopers were gradually re-equipped with Eastern Bloc weaponry like the iMG-D, and East German-made MPi-K and MPi-KM rifles.

The oath of the Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse stated: I am ready, as a fighter of the Working Class to fulfill the directives of the Party to defend the German Democratic Republic and its Socialist achievements at any time with my weapon in my hand and to lay down my life for them.

Author Gunter Holzessig reports in that context, that the Congolese People's Militia commander Michel Ngakala was present at a KdA-event in East Germany in 1982.