The People's Stage in Imperial Germany: Social Democracy and Culture 1890-1914 (International Library of Historical Studies)

The People's Stage in Imperial Germany: Social Democracy and Culture 1890–1914

Andrew G. Bonnell

Tauris Academic Studies

THE PEOPLE’S STAGE IN IMPERIAL GERMANY

For Debbie

THE PEOPLE’S STAGE IN IMPERIAL GERMANY Social Democracy and Culture 1890-1914 ANDREW G. BONNELL

Tauris Academic Studies LONDON • NEW YORK

Published in 2005 by Tauris Academic Studies, An imprint of I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and in Canada distributed by St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Andrew G. Bonnell, 2005 The right of Andrew G. Bonnell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 1 85043 795 5 EAN 978 1 85043 795 6 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction

1

1. The German Working Class and Working-Class Culture

6

2. Social Democracy and the Primacy of Political Struggle

28

3. Class and Culture — The Left Marxists

55

4. Revisionism and Culture

91

5. Founding of the Freie Volksbühne and Early Years under Bruno Wille, 1890-1892

120

6. The Freie Volksbühne under Franz Mehring, 1892-1895

151

7. The Freie Volksbühne under Conrad Schmidt, 1897-1914

177

Conclusion

203

Notes

208

Bibliography

285

Index

289

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Too many debts have been accumulated during the writing of this book to be listed here. I would, however, like to thank my colleagues at successive institutions for their encouragement, support, and intellectual exchange: my former colleagues in Late Modern European History at the University of Sydney, especially the late Tony Cahill; colleagues in the Faculty of Humanities at Griffith University, especially Wayne Hudson; and colleagues in History at the University of Queensland, especially Simon Devereaux and Andrea McKenzie. Along the way, the work also benefited from assistance, advice and encouragement from numerous other scholars, in particular, Carole E. Adams, Michael Birch, Dick Geary, Bernd Hüppauf, Konrad Kwiet, John Milfull, John Moses, and Reinhard Rürup. At a very early stage of the work, I benefited from the input of the members of the staff and postgraduate Forschungscolloquium in modern history at the Technische Universität, Berlin. Above all, I would like to thank the supervisor of the Sydney University dissertation from which this book evolved, Robert E. Dreher, for his constantly stimulating advice and questioning. I would also like to thank the helpful staff of the numerous libraries and archives consulted in the course of this research, both in Australia and in Europe, including the International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, the Brandenburg Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam (still the Zentralstaatsarchiv of the GDR when I originally visited), and the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. Australian inter-loan librarians have often been of great assistance, especially Sydney University Fisher Library’s Reingard Porges.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At different times, research for this work was supported by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdient and by a Commonwealth Postgraduate Research Award, which support is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of IB Tauris staff in bringing this work to the stage of publication: my editor Lester Crook, and his energetic assistant Michael Newton, and Kate Sherratt. Margaret Higgs prepared the manuscript for publication with her customary good humour and great efficiency. It is also pleasant to acknowledge the assistance and support provided by friends along the way: the Sydney postgraduates’ group, especially Kathryn Welch and Jon Barlow, and my Berlin friends, especially Mehmet Dökmeci. By no means last, I would like to thank my parents for enabling me to spend so many years studying, and my wife Debbie, for her goodness and support over many years.

INTRODUCTION

The German Social Democratic Party was the first true mass political party in modern history, with a million members by 1914, and the common ancestor of both the contemporary SPD and the German Communist Party in its various incarnations since 1918. As such, and by virtue of its importance as the most significant domestic opposition to the authoritarian and militaristic Imperial German state, it is not surprising that Social Democracy in the Kaiserreich has attracted a formidable amount of scholarly attention, and a large and still growing secondary literature.1 Since the 1960s and early 1970s, the expansion in the field of studies of the German labour movement grew to include work on the huge and varied network of cultural organisations and activities of the Social Democratic Party. This included studies by Georg Fülberth and scholars in the German Democratic Republic on socialist literary criticism and related topics such as the development of Marxist aesthetics and the relationship between “proletarian party and bourgeois literature”, from a Marxist (and Marxist-Leninist) perspective.2 From a non-Marxist perspective, Guenther Roth examined the social democratic “subculture” in the terms of his influential thesis that the Social Democrats in Imperial Germany were subject to a process of “negative integration”, in which they duplicated many of the structures of Imperial German society while persisting in an unproductive oppositional stance to that society.3 Numerous investigations into the culture of the German labour movement appeared in the 1970s, including works on socialist theatre.4 In addition to monographs on particular aspects of labour movement culture, notably Brigitte Emig’s analysis of the Social Democratic

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entertainment and literary newspaper Die Neue Welt and its assumptions on the need to “edify” the workers, more general studies and documentations appeared, such as those by Peter von Rüden, Kurt Koszyk and others.5 Many of these studies (e.g. those by Trempenau and von Rüden) were highly critical of Social Democratic cultural policies for their tendency to adopt bourgeois cultural norms and values at the expense of the development of an authentically proletarian alternative culture. However, such criticisms were often not grounded in a close, critical analysis of the concept of “proletarian culture”, or in a detailed analysis of the patterns of life of German workers and the material conditions of which socialist cultural policies had to take account. There was a shift of approach in the 1980s as new areas of social history such as Alltagsgeschichte (history of everyday life) were explored. Historians such as Richard Evans and Geoff Eley criticized the work of previous historians for its focus on organisations and the “official” culture of the labour movement.6 More recently, and perhaps more problematically, Eley has criticized the leadership of pre-1914 Social Democracy for failing to engage more constructively with commercial popular culture and the new mass media.7 Stephen Hickey’s work on Ruhr miners and Mary Nolan’s work on the working class of Düsseldorf showed links between working class culture in particular areas and political organisation and labour radicalism.8 There were also further general surveys of labour movement culture such as those by Horst Groschopp and Vernon Lidtke, and significant advances in research into German working-class history.9 With the benefit of distance from the Cold War polarization of labour movement historiography, and from the cultural policy debates of the 1960s and 1970s, and with the benefit of the recent advances in the historiography, the debates within pre-1914 German Social Democracy over the place of cultural and educational activities in the political struggle and the relationship between class and culture are due for reconsideration. This study is an attempt to reconsider Social Democrats’ theoretical understanding of the relationship between class and culture in Imperial Germany, and to show that the theoretical differences between the different wings of the party had practical consequences in the sphere of cultural activities by focussing on the Berlin Freie Volksbühne (Free People’s Stage) as a case study. In the first part of this study, we consider the formation of a German working-class culture and consider the relationship between

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the emergent culture of German workers and the burgeoning popular culture market on one side, and the culture of the socialist labour movement on the other. While it would be inaccurate to equate working-class culture as a whole with the culture of the Social Democratic labour movement, it would be equally wrong to posit the two as opposites. The Social Democratic labour movement drew on values and elements of working-class culture, even if its active members were mainly recruited from specific sections of the working class (mostly non-Catholic, mostly skilled, mostly male workers). While it is true, as writers like Emig have stressed, that socialists proclaimed that the labour movement was a “Kulturbewegung” whose mission it was to raise the cultural level of the workers, and of humanity in general, it would be wrong to overlook the priority which the party placed on political activism, and the resistance within the party to cultural organisations and activities becoming ends in themselves, especially in the earlier part of the period under consideration here. This is the focus of our second chapter. It would also be wrong to assume that a unified concept of “culture” existed within the Social Democratic Party. The political and ideological division within the party between a Marxist Left, Centrists, and revisionists has been well documented.10 Chapters Three and Four demonstrate that the same division existed in Social Democrats’ understanding of the relationship between class and culture, and that what some critics of German Social Democrats have seen as an unbroken attachment to “bourgeois” cultural norms and values can more accurately be seen as a strategy of “critical appropriation”, which was grounded in a historical materialist view of the world and which was a defensible and rational strategy given the resources at their disposal. The revisionists, on the other hand, increasingly pursued a strategy of “positive integration” of workers into the existing culture, subordinating an emphasis on political opposition to the existing state to a form of “Kultursozialismus”. Neither strategy can be adequately characterized by Roth’s term “negative integration”. The second part of this work deals with the Freie Volksbühne, Berlin, which was founded in 1890, and which existed, with about a year’s interruption, throughout the pre-1914 period and beyond. Not only is the history of the Freie Volksbühne of great intrinsic interest, as an organisation which grew from its foundation by 2,000 people meeting in a Berlin beerhall in the summer of 1890 to a mass organisation with its own imposing theatre on Berlin’s Bülowplatz by

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1914, and as a fascinating point of intersection between the labour movement and fin de siècle literary modernism, it is also an excellent case study for a comparison of different theoretical views of class and culture expressed in practice. The Freie Volksbühne’s existence can be divided into three periods, each under a leadership with a very different understanding of its mission. Initially, the Freie Volksbühne was led by a group of modernist writers with a strong commitment to Naturalism, who desired to educate workers to an appreciation of avant-garde literature, and who were sympathetic to socialism while resisting party discipline. This leadership was replaced by a group more closely aligned with the Social Democratic Party, led by the Marxist literary historian and journalist Franz Mehring, a change which precipitated a split in the organisation. After Mehring gave up the battle against the censorship and other forms of state harassment to concentrate on what he regarded as more direct forms of political activity, the Freie Volksbühne was re-founded under a group of Social Democrats linked with the party’s revisionist wing, who pursued policies which increasingly diverged from Mehring’s. While other accounts of the Freie Volksbühne exist, the older works by Selo and Nestriepke, while valuable, are dated; the account by Braulich is dogmatic and views the origins of the theatre in a teleological perspective culminating in the Volksbühne under the German Democratic Republic; Hyung-Back Chung’s Bochum dissertation contains useful work on aspects of the social history of the organisation, but omits some important sources and shows limited understanding of the literary history of the period; and the collection of essays published by Dietger Pforte to mark the Freie Volksbühne’s centenary is useful on the aspects it covers, but does not attempt to provide a new general history. Cecil Davies’ revised history of the Volksbühne from 1890 to the 1990s is a very useful overview. The present work, however, makes more use of archival sources for the pre-1914 period, and is more focussed on locating the Volksbühne in its political context.11 As my interest here is primarily in the way in which the different phases of development of the Freie Volksbühne exemplify different socialist cultural strategies, I have not included any detailed account of the breakaway Neue Freie Volksbühne after it split from the original organisation and left the orbit of the Social Democratic Party. The reader wishing to follow that history is referred to Nestriepke and the other literature. Within the framework of this study of socialist cultural

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theory and practice, I hope that I have also thrown some new light on a fascinating episode of German theatre history: an attempt to provide theatre performances for a working-class audience, an attempt which partly paved the way for the more audacious and better-known theatrical projects of Piscator and Brecht in the Weimar period. A study of the different cultural strategies pursued within the Freie Volksbühne, Berlin, can not only cast light on German socialists’ differing approaches to the relationship between class and culture, it also reveals a number of things about Imperial German culture and society: about the restrictions which an authoritarian state imposed on both artistic expression and working-class cultural activities, for example. It also shows the extent, and limits, of the interaction between modernist culture, the labour movement, and a working-class public. In showing how German radicals reinterpreted the classical dramatic repertoire to find an emancipatory potential in bourgeois “high” culture, a study of the Freie Volksbühne may also have some relevance to contemporary debates about “high” versus “popular” culture and to today’s so-called “culture wars” in a period in which, a century after the events described here, older forms of working-class culture have been eroded or displaced altogether by a commercialized and globalized mass-market culture.

1 THE GERMAN WORKING CLASS AND WORKING-CLASS CULTURE

However much contemporary political debate in Europe has tended to move away from an emphasis on class, class was an inescapable feature of Imperial Germany. By the end of the nineteenth century, a modern industrial working class had developed in Germany, with a clearly defined subordinate status in the social structure, with its own political voice in the Social Democratic Party,1 and with its own cultural identity. With the German industrial revolution entering a more advanced stage in the 1870s, processes of class formation had been intensified, with political struggles strengthening class divisions, and classes becoming more internally cohesive. While confessional and regional divisions were also important, class was arguably the most salient division in Imperial German society and political conflicts right down to 1914.2 The German working class was the product of a complex multiplicity of factors, tied up with population growth, the emergence of industrial capitalism, and urbanisation. Interwoven with these developments were the lives, experiences and consciousness of working people undergoing the dislocation from a traditional way of life to new kinds of work, to new relations to means of production and to employers, and to new forms of relationships with other workers.3 Despite differences in their theoretical approaches, the important analyses of German working-class formation by Jürgen Kocka and Hartmut Zwahr (the former taking a more Weberian approach to class and the labour market and putting more emphasis on contingency), both stress the fundamental importance of wagework as a defining factor in the constitution of class identity; the

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importance of both relationships between classes and between different occupational groups within a class in the formation of class identity; and the view that class consciousness was expressed in protest and political and economic organisation, and that without class consciousness the process of class formation remained an unrealized potential.4 The most fundamental precondition for the formation of the German working class was demographic: the dramatic increase in population from the 1770s onwards. In the territory covered by the German Reich of 1871, the population grew (despite significant emigration from Germany) from 26 million in 1820 to 35 million by 1850, 45 million by 1880, and nearly 65 million by 1910.5 No less important than this absolute growth were the internal shifts in population. In 1907, nearly half of the native-born inhabitants of the German Reich lived outside the Gemeinde (community/parish) in which they were born.6 People moved primarily from the countryside and rural communities to towns and cities, and from East to West — from impoverished rural areas in the North-Eastern provinces to the rapidly growing industrial centres in the West (especially the Ruhr valley).7 Berlin’s gains from internal migration contributed to making the city the fastest growing population centre in Germany, rising from 198,000 in 1816 to twice that number in mid-century, and increasing to 1.1 million by 1880, 1.67 million by 1895 and over 2 million by 1910 (not counting the populous working-class suburbs of Berlin which were incorporated into Greater Berlin in 1920).8 Those who participated in these internal migrations were, to a large extent, agricultural labourers, provincial craftsmen or journeymen, who left the countryside because of the breakdown of feudal bonds, the threat of pauperization through overpopulation on the land, and the prospects of improving their income in cities or in industry.9 The growth of Berlin is only the most prominent example of the process of urbanisation taking place throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. In 1871, 23.7% of the population lived in towns of 5,000 inhabitants or more, some 4.8% in the four German cities (Großstädte) of 100,000 or more inhabitants. In 1910, 48.8% of the population lived in towns of 5,000 or more, 21.3% in the now 48 cities (which included not only Berlin but four of the suburbs of Berlin).10 Industrialization was the motor for the urban expansion of this period. It was the growing demand of industry for labour power, combined with the decline of the rural economy, that transformed the

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rural poor into an urban proletariat (while many hitherto independent artisans and craftsmen also faced proletarianization). The employment opportunities and increased productivity created by industrialization enabled the towns to absorb the surplus of labourers on the land, as well as the increase in population which industrialization itself helped to foster. The increase in the urbanized population reflects the corresponding increase in the proportion of the workforce employed in industry. As late as 1882, 42.5% of the population (including dependants of workers in the respective sectors) were involved in agriculture, while 35.5% worked in industry and mining, and 22% in trade, commerce, and service industries including domestic service. In 1907, however — a mere 25 years later — only 28.6% worked in the primary sector (a decrease in absolute terms of 1.5 million); 42.8% belonged to the secondary sector (an increase of 10.3 million) and 28.6% (7.8 million more) to the tertiary sector.11 German industrialization underwent a dramatic upswing in the 1850s and 1860s, stimulated by the commercial benefits of the Zollverein, improvements in transport and communications, particularly the development of railways, changes in the banking system and the establishment of joint-stock companies and government policies promoting free trade and industry.12 Subsequently, the unification of the Reich also gave impetus to the growth of industry. These processes of population growth, urbanization, and industrialization created the factories, industrial towns and workingclass suburbs in which the process of class-formation took place. As E.P. Thompson emphasized, this process was mediated through historical time and various forms of experience and consciousness.13 Class formation was not simply a pre-determined outcome of economic processes; it also comprised a complex set of social relations and cultural experiences. This leads us to a consideration of the nature of working-class culture. The term “working class culture” became the subject of considerable debate among German historians in the 1970s and early 1980s. The discussions on “working-class culture” in Germany in the 1970s were in part a response to developments abroad — e.g. work in England following lines opened up by E.P. Thompson and Richard Hoggart, American “new social history” and French Annales-style investigation of mentalités — and in part they arose from a dissatisfaction with crude “base-superstructure” models in cultural analysis, or with the strongly economic-historical orientation of much social history, which had neglected mediating influences in social

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experience.14 Gerhard A. Ritter defined “Arbeiterkultur” as “the whole set of relations of a way of life specific to a social stratum [den Gesamtzusammenhang einer schichtenspezifischen Lebensweise], which finds its expression not only in artistic manifestations of the workers and in their educational activities, but in their social and political behaviour, in their value systems and in their own institutions”. Working-class culture included not only organisations with the function of representatives of collective interests or instruments of political participation, and which also promoted the socialization of workers in industrial society, but also the workers’ leisure and convivial activity, their ways of living, eating and drinking, gestures and customs at the workplace, forms of communication between workers and family structures.15 Ritter stressed that working-class culture was not solely a product of economic or political-legal conditions, but was also determined by religious, ethnic, professional and class-specific traditions and values.16 Ritter goes on to acknowledge the difficulty of separating “working-class culture”, thus broadly defined, from other aspects of the working-class experience, and of clearly distinguishing “working-class culture” from aspects of the dominant, or other coexisting ethnic, regional or religious, cultures, and stresses the need for comparative or inter- disciplinary studies.17 However, by 1982 Jürgen Kocka was warning against an “impractical inflation” of the concept of “culture”, a tendency which he detected in the “anti-analytical” attitude of some recent historians of everyday life.18 Kocka had previously drawn attention to the problems of finding a definition of “culture” less all-embracing (and hence useless for analytical purposes) than the designation of “the entirety of human utterances in a historical period” and less narrow than the traditional denotation of “high culture”.19 Kocka called for care and greater precision in the use of the term, and pointed to problems such as the difficulty of distinguishing between “working-class” culture and general “popular culture” (noting also that in German “Volkskultur” has more conservative associations than the English term); the necessity of distinguishing between “working-class culture” and the “culture of the workers’ [or labour] movement” [Arbeiterkultur und Arbeiterbewegungskultur] — a point echoed by Richard Evans and Geoff Eley; and the need to differentiate between content, form, and function when analysing the relationship between bourgeois (or other dominant) culture and working-class culture. Kocka added that the “trickle-down theory” of cultural transmission seemed far from

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disproved, although culture could be seen to perform different functions for different social groups.20 Given the apparent impossibility of arriving at an all-purpose definition of “culture” which will fit all possible cases but also be sufficiently precise for use as an analytical tool, and given Kocka’s strictures outlined above, the question might present itself as to whether or not the term “culture” should be abandoned altogether. Such a step would, however, leave a mass of phenomena for which some terminology would have to be found; to replace “culture” with other terms, perhaps equally broad (such as “experience” or “behaviour”) would not simplify the question. It should, however, be possible, for the period under examination in this work, to construct a working model of German working-class culture which takes into account both the different levels or dimensions involved in a discussion of Arbeiterkultur and its relationship to labour-movement culture and to bourgeois culture. For these purposes, one may distinguish between three different levels — or dimensions — of working-class culture in Germany (although a more general application is conceivable): firstly, a stratum of pre-industrial traditions, involving notions of handicraft-workers’ identity (ideas of the dignity and traditions of certain trades), guild traditions (often attached to a long history of pre-industrial labour organisation), and religious, regional, local and ethnic identities. The culture of industrial labour was not without antecedents and continuities with pre-industrial labour: generally, skilled workers in sectors with a history of strong guild organisation or corporate identity played a leading role in the early phases of the social-democratic labour movement, and earlier religious, ethnic or regional customs and loyalties continued to play a role in the consciousness and political and social behaviour of industrial workers in many areas. Secondly, one might speak of a second stratum of workers’ culture: that of — to borrow a term from the German social theorist Jürgen Habermas — the immediate “life-world” of the worker. In his Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas postulates the existence of the “lifeworld” [Lebenswelt — a term borrowed from Husserl] as providing a context for communicative action. It is the horizon, or background, in which communication — relating to the objective world, the social world, or the subjective world — between individuals can occur. Communicative interaction between individuals always occurs within a specific situation, which at that moment constitutes the centre of the

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participants’ life-world, and communication is possible because of the shared stock of culturally inherited and linguistically organized patterns of meaning upon which those who belong to a specific life-world can draw. For Habermas the life-world can be seen as consisting of three components: cultural, social and personal, “culture” being the “stock of knowledge, out of which participants in communication, in the act of reaching understanding over something in the world, supply themselves with interpretations”, “society” being “the legitimate orders by which participants in communication regulate their membership of social groups and thereby ensure solidarity”, and “personality” being “the competencies which make a subject capable of speech and action, which therefore make [the subject] able to participate in processes of reaching understanding and in doing so of maintaining [his or her] own identity”.21 Habermas endeavours to relate his communicative theory, the terms of which are derived from linguistics and philosophy of consciousness, to historical social realities, as demonstrated by his attention to the social component of the life-world, which he relates back to the conditions of material reproduction. Outside the life-world, and constantly confronting it, Habermas also postulates the existence of a “system” (or systems). For Habermas, the “life-world” is not synonymous with society; rather society is characterized by tension between “life-world” and “system”. A “system” lies outside the “life-world”, from which, in Habermas’ terms, it becomes increasingly “uncoupled” as societies become more complex. The communicative rationality which, ideally, governs the subsystem of the “life-world” becomes confronted by a “system” governed by the purposive rationality expressed through the steering media of power and money. As society becomes more complex, parts of the socio-cultural life-world are taken over by the prevailing rules of economic or political rationality — the life-world becomes technicized, colonized by the system.22 Habermas concedes that this complex (the above account being necessarily somewhat simplified) and abstract model of “life-world” and “system” is not susceptible to simple empirical applications.23 However, a flexible and pragmatic usage of these concepts, grounded in historical source material, offers the promise of theoretical insights beyond those possible with an amorphous concept of “everyday life”, or an overly schematic concept of class consciousness. We are concerned here chiefly with the cultural and social components of the life-world of German workers (although patterns of workers’ socialization might also be considered under the

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aspect of personality). These components can be found in workers’ relationships with each other and with their families, i.e. those with whom they habitually communicate or with whom they identify, which necessitates consideration of the living and working conditions of industrial labour as constituting the context of their interaction. In considering the life-world of working-class Germans in this period, it is useful to keep three questions in mind: to what extent can their culture and social interaction be defined positively in terms of classspecific norms of behaviour which reinforce solidarity? Secondly, in what ways can the culture of German workers be defined negatively, in terms of deprivation (for example, a restricted horizon of knowledge in certain areas as a result of deprivation of educational opportunity)? Thirdly, in what ways is the life-world of workers impinged upon or colonized by systemic pressures, either those pertaining to the nature of the Imperial German state or those pertaining to the capitalist economy? The third dimension of working-class culture can also be seen in terms of this last question: the problem of the tension between the life-world of workers and the instrumental rationality of the capitalist system, in the shape of the modern mass-culture industry. It is a dimension which deserves separate consideration as debates surrounding working-class culture reveal confusion as to the extent to which commercialized mass culture, which casts workers in the role of consumers of the popular press, colportage-literature, the early cinema, and other entertainments, is to be seen as an “authentic” component of the working-class life-world, or as an aspect of its colonization. For the sake of analytical clarity it therefore seems useful to separate out these three dimensions of “working-class culture”: the pre-industrial traditions (which obviously can constitute a significant part of the cultural stock upon which workers draw to provide meaning and interpretations for experience), the immediate life-world of industrial labour, which involves an examination of those social and familial patterns, and conditions of life and work, characteristic to workers in industrial society, and finally commercialized mass culture, in which workers participate as paying consumers. It is important to stress that all these levels, while they may first arise at different stages of economic and social development, may and do co-exist chronologically, and may be difficult to untangle from each other in practice. To speak of “authentic” working-class culture, identity, or consciousness without reference to a specific historical situation is

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therefore problematical, which is not to deny the value of models of class-structure analysis when historically grounded. For the purposes of the present investigation, it will be necessary to consider the relevance of working-class culture to an understanding of a workingclass organized anti-systemic movement, in the shape of Social Democracy, the role of the cultural theory and activity of Social Democracy in providing its members with alternative systems of norms and meanings, and the relation of this cultural theory and practice to the life-world of workers on the one hand, and to the cultural norms and values, and the material, legal and political pressures of the hegemonic system on the other. Peter N. Stearns has emphasized the importance of the traditional dimension in working-class culture, going so far as to assert its centrality in the nineteenth century. “The traditionalism of the working class in Western Europe”, Stearns argues, “...involves a shunning of middle-class and other ‘modern’ norms; an attachment to certain values associated with a stereotypic peasantry, including a substantial amount of fatalism and a preference for stability over change; but also a devotion to certain traditions — remnants of the guild mentality in the case of artisans, for example — and forms and rituals of behavior specific to a popular culture distinctive to Western Europe”.24 While all the elements which Stearns describes can indeed be found in nineteenth-century Germany as constituent parts of the first dimension of the model of workers’ culture outlined above, it can be argued that Stearns overstates his case that nineteenth-century workers were “predominantly traditionalist”.25 Firstly, his thesis is upheld only at the expense of excluding workers’ political activity, especially the socialist labour movement, from consideration. Secondly, not all the examples he cites fully support his thesis. For example, Lawrence Schofer’s study of worker protest in Upper Silesia is cited as demonstrating that workers’ unrest was directed at employers’ challenges to traditional methods of work.26 However, while Schofer is critical of conventional models in modernization theory, he finds that “in 1889 and in the strikes of the 1890s the striking miners presented demands that in the main are reminiscent of highly industrialized states”, with demands reflecting “a situation not of worker reluctance to adopt the discipline demanded by modern industrial enterprise, but of management unwillingness to abandon the paternalism and high-handed ways commonly found in the early years of industrialization”. The contrast often assumed by

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modernization theorists “between the modernizing entrepreneur and the backward peasant turned industrial worker” is in fact the real target of Schofer’s criticism. Early forms of worker protest such as rapid turnover of workers could be seen as a rational expression of dissatisfaction with working conditions on the part of non-organized labour rather than as a manifestation of a pre-industrial mentality.27 While it is an overstatement, then, to see the traditional dimension of workers’ culture as predominant throughout the nineteenth century, it clearly played a significant role in the shaping of a working-class culture and there were some cases in which identification with preindustrial artisanal, religious or ethnic values and norms overrode class identification. In other cases, however, such influences could reinforce class consciousness. As mentioned above, workers with experience of organisation in craftsmen’s guilds often played a prominent role in the early years of the socialist labour movement. There are strong lines of continuity between the trade unions in their early years and the guilds. For example, Gerhard Schildt’s study of Braunschweig workers has emphasized the extent to which early trade unions took over such key functions of craftsmen’s associations and guilds as providing support to members in case of illness or infirmity and giving assistance to members on journeys. In addition, the craft traditions of corporate honour and solidarity can be traced in the discourse of the early trade union movement.28 (In the early decades of the social democratic labour movement, the trades with the strongest traditions of craft organisation, such as the book-printers or cigar-makers, played a leading role.) Mühlberg offers the example of Berlin brewery workers, whose union still obliged its members in 1885 to attend fellow members’ funerals wearing a dark suit and a tall hat, and bearing a wreath with the association’s symbol.29 Even outside the realm of guild or union organisation, workers in different trades upheld traditions specific to their craft. Perhaps the best example, showing considerable continuity in customs and corporate identity despite technological changes in the industry, can be found in the festive culture of miners. The distinctive customs of miners’ fraternities [Knappschaften] determined not only forms of collective organisation in industrial disputes, but also the modes of celebration of festive occasions, life-cycle rituals such as miners’ weddings and funerals, and workers’ conviviality in general.30 Traditional ethnic, religious and regional loyalties also played a significant role in workers’ culture, most obviously in such mixed areas

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as Upper Silesia, or the Ruhr, with its large numbers of migrant workers from Polish-speaking areas and elsewhere. In the strike year of 1889, a Polish labour union was founded in Upper Silesia, the Society for Mutual Aid of Christian Workers in Upper Silesia, which merged with other groups in Germany in 1908 to form the Polish Professional Union.31 Catholic workers in the Ruhr/ Rhineland region provided the mainstay for the Christian trade unions, which had 360,000 members by 1914 (compared with 2.5 million in the socialist Free Unions).32 Despite marked tendencies towards secularization among workers, and anti-religious propaganda on the part of the SPD, the traditional social-cultural milieu of Catholic areas, and “religiouslytinged” organisations working with migrant workers, continued to constitute influential sources of cultural identity.33 Religious differences were also a fundamental source of regional cultural diversity in Germany. It could therefore be argued that if secular Social Democracy sometimes had difficulties coming to terms with the specificity of regional identities, its non-sectarian character and emphasis on class as a source of identity made it one of the few genuinely national (in terms of regional or territorial coverage) organisations in the German Empire. In a range of areas, then, it can be seen that workers drew on various types of pre-industrial tradition to provide a sense of continuity and meaning within their changing life-world. In other cases, as Kocka pointed out,34 traditional cultural forms of the elites could be taken up by the workers but given a new function in the process, as seen in the festivals of the labour movement, which mirrored but also challenged official festivals.35 The second dimension of workers’ culture referred to above involves the immediate life-world of industrial labour, and is itself made up of many different components, including new experience of time and work discipline, new experience of the labour process itself and working condtions in general, living conditions and housing, and family structure. E.P. Thompson examined the issue of the impact of industrial capitalism on workers’ consciousness of time, and the wider ramifications of new time-governed methods of work discipline, in a seminal essay in 1967.36 Thompson discussed the transition from “task-orientation” in the organisation of labour time to the growth of “time-measurement as a means of labour exploitation” under industrial capitalism. Hand in hand with this development went the demarcation between “work “ and “life”, as workers passed from a

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“task-oriented” regime in which social intercourse and labour were intermingled to the imposition by employers of a regular working day and week, with penalties for lateness, absenteeism, or insufficiently intensive labour during work hours.37 This new experience of labourtime organisation and work discipline was shared by German workers in the mid- to late nineteenth century. Workers were subject to strict factory regulations, which specified precise times for starting and finishing work and the duration of breaks for breakfast and the midday meal. Workers were obliged to work overtime or in shifts if this was deemed to be necessary, and were obliged to be punctual: the worker had to be standing by his machine when the bell gave the signal to start work, and was forbidden to leave his place (or get ready to leave) before the signal to cease work. Fines were specified for lateness, and absenteeism constituted grounds for dismissal. Workers were to clock in by collecting a numbered token upon arrival at the factory every morning.38 With the enforcement of fixed working-hours and of work-discipline during these hours, the distinction between work and leisure time became increasingly clearly defined. Monotonous, tiring — and sometimes dangerous — factory work made it necessary for workers to devote leisure time to recouping their energies, while it also created a need for amusement and distraction.39 Many workers resorted unofficially to the traditional practice of the “blauer Montag” (a free Monday), a practice which, employers claimed, cost tens of millions (Marks) per year in lost production well into the nineteenth century.40 Another reaction on the part of the workers, as demanded by labour organisations from their inception, was to demand a reduction in the permissible working day, which culminated in the campaign for an eight-hour day. The working day was in fact gradually reduced from the 1860s onwards: 1868-1878: 12 hours a day on average 1887-1894: 11 hours 1903-1909: 10 hours 1909-1914: 9.5 hours.41 This reduction in the length of the average working-day, while still over the eight hours demanded by organized labour, brought with it an increase in time for leisure and convivial and cultural pursuits, and was also accompanied by a gradual introduction of paid annual holidays for workers (although — with very few earlier examples —

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only after the turn of the century, and then still largely confined to a few industries such as printing and brewing, with annual holidays being viewed by employers as a charitable measure to guarantee the workers’ continuing health and productivity rather than as a right).42 The organisation of labour time, while of crucial importance in delimiting the life-world of the industrial worker and other wageearners, can also be seen as merely one dimension of a new experience of the labour process under industrial capitalism. It was at the workplace that the industrial worker was most directly subject to the systemic rationale dictated by the needs of the economic sub-system for its own material reproduction. In the classic formulation of Marx and Engels: “The labour of the proletarians has, through the extension of the use of machinery and the division of labour, lost all independent character and thereby all charm for the workers. [The worker] becomes a mere accessory of the machine, from whom only the most simple, monotonous, and easily learned movement is demanded.”43 Recent historiography has rightly emphasized the diversity of working-class experience under industrial capitalism: the persistence of onerous physical work alongside mechanization, the persistence of domestic and “putting-out” work alongside factory production, the difference between men’s and women’s experience of work, and wide variations between different branches of industry, some of which were more radically affected by technological change than others.44 Despite this diversity, workers shared a common dependence on the market for labour power and antagonistic interests to employers, which contributed to the class consciousness expressed in the organized labour movement and at times of industrial conflict. The systemic imperative of the maximization of labour productivity also led to work being organized in such a way as to minimize “superfluous” communication between workers at the workplace, in order to prevent wasting of labour time, disruption of work rhythms, or informal organization between workers. However, not only did workers have opportunities for communication and sociability in the meal and drinks breaks necessary for the maintenance and reproduction of their labour power, they were also resourceful in finding occasions for “unofficial breaks” and informal communication.45 Thus while the organisation of industrial labour was heavily subject to systemic compulsions, workers were still able to find spaces for an informal communicative life-world, while the shared

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aspects of the experience of labour furnished a stock of common experience on which communication could be based. Housing was another distinctive aspect of working-class culture. In particular, the working-class districts of Berlin became notorious for their “Mietskasernen”, or tenements (literally “rent barracks”). Berlin was densely populated, particularly in working-class suburbs such as Wedding, Reinickendorf, Gesundbrunnen, Moabit, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Spandau, Treptow, Rixdorf (Neukölln), Kreuzberg, and parts of Charlottenburg and Schöneberg. In 1900, a block of land in Berlin was inhabited by an average of 77 people, a statistical norm which gives only a slight indication of the overcrowding in the largely five-storey Mietskasernen, which were frequently occupied by up to 300 people.46 Some 26,000 dwellings in Berlin were in basements.47 In 1905, nearly 790,000 Berliners were living in dwellings consisting only of one heatable room without any adjunct, or in a “Wohnküche” [kitchen room].48 Overcrowding was worsened by the system of “Schlafstellen”, by which families rented space in their rooms to individuals (called Schlafburschen or Schlafgänger) as a place to sleep at night. In 1875, 21% of Berlin households took in Schlafgänger (nightlodgers), and in 1912 it was still 10%, affecting mainly the poorer households, which were forced to sublet beds to strangers to pay the rent.49 While contemporary writers attacked the pernicious effects on morals and family life of Schlafgängertum, some compensating factors have recently been pointed out: it gave newcomers to Berlin a chance to be rapidly integrated into the way of life of Berlin workers and to experience practical solidarity — Social Democratic Party members or unionized workers may have preferred other organized workers to strike-breakers and may have helped to initiate new arrivals to Berlin into the values of the labour movement. Niethammer and Brüggemeier have suggested that — in favourable cases — the integration of outsiders into the family structure of proletarian households could proceed harmoniously and with benefit to both parties.50 However, it remains true that Schlafgängertum was part of the problem of overcrowding, frequently had negative consequences for the families involved, and was abandoned by better-paid skilled workers as soon as they could afford better housing.51 Overcrowding brought with it severe health problems. There was a lack of space for adults and children to exercise or enjoy recreation — even in the inner courtyards of the Mietskasernen, which received direct sunlight only for a couple of hours a day, children were frequently

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forbidden to play. Poor heating and ventilation, and dampness, combined with overcrowded rooms, resulted in a significant rate of working-class people contracting infectious diseases or suffering chronic and constitutional health problems.52 It should be noted that the housing situation was improving before 1914. Some companies offered better housing than that available in the Mietskasernen (at the price of the worker becoming more dependent on the employer) and building societies and co-operatives began to assist better-paid workers to improve their living conditions, but improvements were enjoyed mainly by skilled workers. Niethammer makes a distinction between the highly mobile workers, often new to Berlin, living close to subsistence and frequently changing addresses and workplaces, and qualified workers whose jobs were of longer duration, who may have owned an allotment garden on the outskirts, whose family structure and living standards began to resemble those of white-collar workers, and who were more likely to be involved in clubs, unions or the Social Democratic Party.53 Similar developments are discernible in the movements in real wages and income. While inequality of income between classes remained a determining characteristic of society, workers’ real wages improved somewhat up to 1914, while considerable differentiation within the working class is apparent. Despite the problems of assessing the data and the many variables involved, and the question of the validity of average figures in this area, there is a consensus that real wages rose steadily during this period, at the same time as working hours were shortened.54 The growth of the trade union movement had some influence on this trend. Nonetheless, wages were still barely adequate to support large families and — except for the families of some skilled workers — it was usually necessary for wives to contribute a second income to the household.55 It was still necessary for the average working-class household to spend about 95% of its income on the basic necessities of food, clothing, rent, heating and lighting, leaving 5% for education, leisure, health care and other expenses, while an average middle-class household might spend 10% of its larger income on such expenses.56 Louise Tilly and Joan Scott, in their study of women, work and family in England and France, have developed a model which features three different types of “family economy”: the “family economy” as it existed in early modern England and France, the “family wage economy” as it developed during industrialization, and the “family

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consumer economy” emerging by the early twentieth century.57 This typology might conceivably correspond with our three-tiered model of working-class culture, with the proviso that deep-seated continuities in the sphere of gender relations as well as sectoral and regional variations make any neat separation of the different levels extremely difficult. For example, while the separation of residence from workplace has been seen as a fundamental constituent feature of working-class identity, this obviously does not apply to women “outworkers”.58 Nonetheless, as might be surmised from the above discussion of housing and wages, the working-class family under industrial capitalism differed from both the older pre-industrial “family economy” and from the family structure and behaviour of other classes. The need for both partners (and possibly also children) to engage in wage work, the household incorporating non-family members (such as Schlafgänger), the tendency towards larger families, and a prevalence of informal unions or cohabitation before (or instead of) marriage distinguished working-class existence.59 The question arises from this outline of working-class existence as to the extent to which working-class culture is to be defined in purely negative terms, by deprivation and exclusion, for example, lack of ownership or control of means of production, an alienating experience of labour, and material want, or whether more positive values can be seen as characterizing working-class culture. For example, the concept of solidarity is frequently described as a characteristic of working-class culture, finding practical expression in collective action during industrial conflict. While workers desired to improve their lot and that of their families, this does not necessarily mean that they internalized the middle-class value system of acquisitive individualism. David Crew has argued, in his study of Bochum, that “it is likely that most workers did not define ‘success’ as the ability to escape the working class but rather the capacity to gain and hold onto the more secure and better paid positions within it. And since the worker (or his children) did not necessarily have to leave the working class to count himself successful, individual ambition did not have to preclude or weaken a shared sense of identity with other workers.”60 On another level, to return to the distinction between system and life-world, it is clear on the one hand that the requirements of the economic system of industrial capitalism to maximise the reproduction and growth of capital shaped and constrained working-class existence in almost all its dimensions, from the organization of the workplace to the resources and time available

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for leisure. It is also apparent, however, that workers sought and exploited the interstices within the system, and fought for greater time and space that was not system-determined, in which they could communicate with each other, enjoy recreation, and establish a degree of self-determination within their own life-world. In addition to the formative and constraining influence of the economic system on working-class culture, the political-administrative system of the Imperial German Obrigkeitsstaat [authoritarian state] also exerted influence on working-class life and imposed limitations on the development of working-class culture. While Imperial Germany was a Rechtsstaat [a state subject to the rule of law], the laws were formulated and administered in ways which tended to protect the interests of political and economic elites.61 Likewise, the education system, while designed to cope with the demands of a rapidly changing industrial society and with the needs of a political system formally legitimized by universal manhood suffrage (albeit through very imperfect mechanisms), was also charged with the task of securing mass loyalty to the church and the Kaiser. While the Prussian elementary schools [Volksschulen] had succeeded by the 1870s in virtually eliminating illiteracy, the belief remained prevalent among the authorities that too much learning for the lower classes could be a dangerous thing, and considerable emphasis was placed in the elementary schools on inculcating loyalty to the monarch, the state, and the church. The strengthening of patriotism and loyalty to the Hohenzollern dynasty were decreed in 1854 to be the highest goals of education, and as Social Democracy began to challenge the state, the elementary schools were explicitly given the task of immunizing children against the red plague. Religious instruction played a significant role in this policy.62 An example of anti-socialist indoctrination was reported by Vorwärts in 1893, quoting from a much recommended “Patriotic History for Elementary Schools of One or More Classes”: The league of social democrats wish to know nothing of God, and want to divide up everything equally that other people inherit or earn through their own diligence, and want to seize other people’s property by the use of violence, trickery, murder and arson, lying and perjury... The social-democratic poison took effect more rapidly than expected. Soon there were more complaints than ever of increasing brutality, immorality, dishonesty and crimes of all kinds...63

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Perhaps more effective than such blatant propaganda was, however, the attempt at systematic inculcation of conservative ideology through teaching the dominant moral and social values, and through the authoritarian methods of education themselves. Not surprisingly, access to any education above the elementary level was severely restricted for children from working-class backgrounds. In the main, the Gymnasia [grammar schools] were reserved for the middle classes or aristocracy, as were the universities. In the period 1882-86, 9.1% of students completing matriculation level [Abitur] in Berlin belonged to the somewhat vague category Unterschicht [”lower classes”], while in the period 1907-1911 this declined to 6.1%.64 In 1902-03, only 1% of students at Prussian universities came from working-class families.65 Despite the achievements of the Volksschule, Field Marshall von Moltke held that the army was the best school of the nation.66 Compulsory military service continued the socialization of the subordinate classes, complementing the school system’s efforts to produce loyal and obedient subjects of the Kaiser.67 Not only was it the army’s task to instill discipline and respect for authority into the lower orders; should this fail, the army had to be ready to suppress any challenge to the State from the labour movement or other internal “enemies of the Reich” — a possibility which further underlined the need for absolute “Kadavergehorsam” [corpse-like obedience] within the ranks.68 The third dimension of working-class culture, as outlined above, is the modern mass-culture industry, in which workers (with their gradually increasing real income and leisure time) played the role of consumers rather than producers. The mass culture industry — including mass-circulation newspapers, cheap colportage literature, and various forms of popular entertainments — underwent significant expansion in Germany in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Family papers of the Gartenlaube variety offered “useful information” and “popular education” for “readers of all social stations”, while attempting to encourage patriotism and conservative social values. The mass-circulation daily newspapers, following British and American examples, used the latest technology to get the news quickly to readers in a simple and effective form, while also offering entertainment and various services to the reader, and conveying an increasing amount of advertising.69 August Scherl’s Lokal-Anzeiger typified the new masscirculation press, calculated to appeal to as broad a readership as

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possible, including workers, but crossing class lines. The integrative potential of Scherl’s papers was recognized by the Prussian authorities, and they were viewed as organs which “serve the fight against Social Democracy and influence the broadest circles of the population in a monarchical, religious, and idealistic manner”.70 An equally widely distributed form of reading matter was colportage literature, serialized popular fiction, sold door-to-door in instalments costing perhaps 10 Pfennigs a time, an industry which experienced enormous growth in the 1870s, although by the 1890s it was losing some of its market to the tabloid press and to the self-contained story pamphlets on the pattern of English “penny novelettes” or American “dime novels”.71 Ronald A. Fullerton writes that “like other commodities, the pamphlets were packaged for maximum market penetration”, and in addition to adult urban workers, they were read by “children of all social classes”, and a number of middle-class adults which can probably only be guessed at.72 Estimates of the sale of pamphlet fiction in the five years before 1914 range from five to sixty million Marks a year (or about 25,000,000 to 300,000,0000 pamphlets).73 Both socialists and middle-class reformers expressed concern (although not always on the same grounds) over the influence of “Schundliteratur” (salacious, sensational, or simply trashy, literature), which relied heavily on violence, murder and sex, with the American Wild West or Nick Carter-type detective stories constituting popular subject matter. Bourgeois social reformers and conservatives feared the social consequences of the effect of such literature on public morals, while socialist writers, sometimes employing similar language, also expressed concern that the escapist nature of such reading matter might numb the political consciousness of workers.74 Reading matter only constituted one dimension of the new mass culture, which also manifested itself in such popular entertainments as vaudeville, variétés, and the embryonic cinema. Vaudeville and variety shows emerged in the last two decades of the nineteenth century as serious competitors to commercial theatres, despite initial middle-class prejudices. At the turn of the century, cabarets, revues and variety shows in Berlin came to epitomise a commercialized brand of modernity, which paralleled the untrammelled celebration of consumerism of the new department stores and the burgeoning advertising industry in their presentation of vivid and diverse sensations: “the forms of art favored by the modern urbanite came to reflect the diversity and fragmentation of the world of commodities”.75

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The cross-class mass appeal of such entertainment was typified by the famous (Gelsenkirchen-born) Berlin cabarettist Claire Waldoff, who “performed in mass-cultural vaudevilles and revues as well as the most expensive cabarets”. Jelavich adds: “She probably can be accused of trivializing social issues before middle-class audiences; [...] she gave the impression that after hours, life was a ball for the lower classes as well”.76 Robert Eben Sackett has also demonstrated the extent to which Munich music-hall entertainers of the period tended to reflect the attitudes of the middle-class (or lower middle-class) sections of the paying public.77 In their pursuit of the widest possible audience, such entertainments tended to play down class divisions, offering instead the sense of belonging to an imaginary patriotic, regional or civic community. If commercial considerations were not sufficient to limit the subversive potential of the cabaret, the censorship laws did the rest. In Prussia, it was an offence for performers to deviate from the script approved by the censorship authorities — on one occasion, it was once claimed, a Tyrolean singer was even obliged to transcribe the precise text of her yodel for approval and rubber-stamping by the Prussian police.78 The embryonic medium of the cinema, while also attracting a substantial working-class audience, was likewise tailored for the widest possible mass appeal. The cinema evolved rapidly during the 1890s and early 1900s from a primitive fairground sideshow attraction or amusement arcade curiosity into a serious competitor of the popular theatre.79 As film moved out of fairground tents and booths and into early cinemas, an estimated 2,500 cinema houses had sprung up by 1914, with over 300 in Berlin alone.80 In content, the early films evolved from presenting simple optical sensations to narratives based on material analogous to that of colportage literature, with crime, detective, horror, Wild West or adventure stories, or risqué burlesques. (Titles included Hell of Death, Game of Death, Dead or Alive, The Man Without a Conscience, Ghostly Nights, Sinful Love, White Slave Women, Slave of Love, and Death in the Nude.)81 Siegfried Kracauer dated the first films which stood out from “the junk heap of archaic films” from 1913 (e.g. The Student of Prague).82 Initially, the film-maker was sometimes also the Kientopp owner, making technically unsophisticated, crude (and sometimes possibly pornographic) films with hired actors, to show in his own “Kientopp”.83 However, as cinema became a part of the mass entertainment industry, with large cinema houses and more ambitious film productions, film production and distribution rapidly underwent a

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process of capitalist concentration.84 Early cinema houses proliferated in industrial cities and ports, and appealed initially to a mainly lowerclass, particularly working-class, public. However, like other forms of commercialized mass culture, the cinema crossed class boundaries, appealing to all who either needed undemanding diversion after workhours or who had leisure time to kill.85 This is not to deny that, as the market expanded, some product differentiation occurred — e.g. romances of the type featuring Asta Nielsen being targeted mainly at the young female market, while “action films” were aimed at male consumers. In addition to workers and artisans, cinema appealed strongly to juveniles from diverse social groups, the unemployed, and white-collar workers — Kracauer, in the 1920s, was to regard female white-collar workers as the archetypical target audience of the escapist products of the commercial film industry (as well as other forms of mass entertainment).86 By 1914, there were suggestions that the Social Democratic Party should attempt to make political use of the new medium, instead of simply expressing hostility to it. However, these suggestions were not realized in practice before 1914.87 Two other major factors in mass leisure were sport and pubs. The years after the turn of the century saw the rise of mass spectator sport, such as football and cycle racing. The number of clubs affiliated with the German Football Association, and their membership numbers, rose considerably in this period, and large sports stadia started to be built.88 Berlin’s Six Day Cycle Races became a popular mass spectacle, the excitement of which was reflected in Georg Kaiser’s 1912 play From Morn to Midnight. However, while mass sporting spectacles cast the average worker in the role of anonymous paying consumer, participatory sporting activities had a different function, in particular the workers’ sporting associations linked to the Social Democratic Party. The wide range of leisure clubs included in the social democratic cultural organisations included the Workers’ Gymnastic Federation, with over 180,000 members by 1913, the Workers’ Cycling Federation “Solidarity”, with 150,000 members by 1914 (and which was sometimes dubbed the “Red Cavalry” for its role in communication and dissemination of propaganda material at times such as election campaigns), workers’ rowing and swimming groups, as well as the proletarian singing clubs, hiking and naturalists’ groups, theatre groups, and chess and Esperanto groups (among others).89 The workers’ sporting groups paralleled similar bourgeois associations, with the important difference that they were organized on a

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democratic basis, and provided an environment in which workers were not discriminated against or patronized by middle-class members.90 The inclusion of women in these organisations was hindered by the prejudices of male functionaries and members and by the laws of association, which prevented women and juveniles from joining any organisation of a political character. However, once the legal obstacle was abolished in 1908, the numbers of women members in these associations rose dramatically.91 At least potentially, these workers’ associations built on and extended the horizons of the workers’ lifeworld, fostering self-determination and encouraging a sense of class solidarity. Just as sport functioned both as a dimension of commercial massculture and as a part of the self-administered activity of workers’ organisations, a similar dual function can be seen in pubs. From the 1880s, large beer halls, where customers drank standing or while consuming snacks, and which catered for passing trade in the city centres, started to appear in cities such as Berlin (e.g. the chain of “Aschinger Bierquellen” in Berlin). Some such establishments became notorious for their economic and sexual exploitation of female labour (which was frequently pilloried in the social democratic press).92 At the same time, the numerous local neighbourhood pubs in working-class areas were major focal points for working-class sociability, and for social democratic party organisations in need of meeting places. The availability of meeting places was a crucial matter for workers’ organisations, and many pubs became recognized “party locales”, where the party newspapers were available to be read, meetings could be held, and workers could socialize with like-minded comrades. A significant number of party functionaries became publicans for these reasons, and because their relatively independent economic status as publicans protected them from the employers’ reprisals which were an occupational hazard of labour organizers.93 There was, then, a tension between the systemic rationale of the mass-culture industry, with its need to maximise consumption by appealing to the widest possible market, and the efforts of workers’ organisations to cultivate a sense of class solidarity or local or ethnic identity. Lynn Abrams, in her recent work based on research into workers’ leisure activity in Düsseldorf, suggests that a process of erosion of sectional cultural allegiances — including of working-class culture — was taking place in the early twentieth century, as a result of commercialization, but argues that this process was not the result of

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control from above. Rather, commercialization led to a “democratization of leisure”.94 However, the suggestion that “commercial culture” created “neutral ground”95 on which middleclass and working-class could meet to enjoy the same recreation is open to criticism. The implied assumptions about the ideological neutrality of the market can be queried from the point of view of Habermas’ distinction between the purposive rationality of the economic system and the unfolding of reason in the sphere of communicative action within the life-world. From this standpoint, the commercialization of mass culture carries with it a strong potential for colonization of different life-worlds, and, in the process, undermining the systems of symbolic reproduction which could provide the framework for solidarity and group action. “Democratization” of the market for culture is subject to the same limits as other forms of economic “democracy” under industrial capitalism. It follows from the above that, just as the working class cannot be considered apart from its relation to other classes, working-class culture cannot be considered as a reified entity existing in isolation. In addition to commercialized mass culture, we must also consider, in turning to examine the organized labour movement, the reception of bourgeois “high culture”, mediated by socialist intellectuals with bourgeois education from Gymnasia and universities, or by selfeducated working-class party functionaries. This reception of “high culture” followed, broadly speaking, two strategies: either critical appropriation of the elements of bourgeois “high culture” which seemed to be of value for social democracy, or the attempt to positively integrate the labour movement into the cultural values of the middle classes by raising the general “cultural level” of the workers. The implications of these different strategies will be examined in subsequent chapters.

2 SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE PRIMACY OF POLITICAL STRUGGLE

Any critical discussion of the cultural theory and practice of German Social Democracy in Imperial Germany needs to take into account not only the material restrictions operating on Social Democratic cultural activity (e.g. financial, competition with the commercial mass culture industry, and legal) — aspects of which were dealt with in the previous chapter — but also the influence of the SPD’s own history and development on the place of cultural activity in the party’s order of priorities. It will be argued here that an understanding of the primacy accorded to political action by the SPD — including by party intellectuals — is crucial for appreciating the role of cultural activity in the SPD’s debates on strategy. Criticism of the shortcomings of the SPD’s work in this area needs to be seen in the perspective of the possible fields of action and of the reasons why party thinkers emphasized “Macht” [power] before “Wissen” [knowledge].1 The best known programmatic statement by a Social Democratic leader on the place of cultural work in the party’s strategy was Wilhelm Liebknecht’s 1872 lecture “Wissen ist Macht- Macht ist Wissen”, which was subsequently much reprinted as a pamphlet and often quoted in the party press (although it was sometimes referred to by the first half of the title only, thereby distorting its sense). Liebknecht opened his address (first delivered in Dresden, February 5, 1872, and repeated in Leipzig later that month) with an implicit attack on the bourgeois liberal reformers who propagated the mottoes “Wissen ist Macht! Bildung ist frei!” as a solution to social problems. In contrast, Liebknecht insisted that “the main activity of the worker is to be directed towards

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the transformation of conditions in state and society, and that the exclusive pursuit of educational goals is for the worker nothing but a time-wasting frivolity, which is of benefit to neither the individual nor the whole [of society]”.2 Liebknecht, who had studied at the universities of Giessen, Berlin and Marburg, and who, as a political exile in Switzerland in 1847-48, had briefly taught at the Fröbel Institute, after which he sometimes said that teaching could have been an alternative career for him,3 was neither anti-intellectual nor scornful of the value of education. On the contrary, he stated: “The school is the most powerful instrument of liberation, and the school is the most powerful instrument of subjugation — according to the nature and purpose of the state. In the free state an instrument of liberation, in the unfree state the school is a means of subjugation... The state as it is, that is, the class state, makes the school into an instrument of class rule.”4 In the school as it was, “the children’s capacity for thought is not awakened or made keener, the knowledge of nature and its laws is not inculcated in them, the nature [Wesen] of humanity and the course of human development is not made clear to them, nor is their independence encouraged: all to the contrary”.5 In Liebknecht’s view, the “principal aim” of the Prussian Volksschule was “to provide usable raw material for the barracks”. The barracks was the continuation of the Volksschule, the non-commissioned officer the continuation of the schoolteacher. “Whoever has ever been on a parade ground and watched the drill, the production of human machines, taking place, will agree with me that only trained creatures can submit to this process.”6 Beside the school and the army, Liebknecht counted the press as “our third great educational institution”.7 Liebknecht lamented the fact that: our classical literature... does not exist as far as the people is concerned — only very recently, with very cheap editions being set up, have a few works of our great authors begun to penetrate into the middling levels of the population; our scholars’ books are sealed with seven seals as far as the masses are concerned; the mental nourishment of the people is the daily press: newspapers and cheap entertainment magazines. Unfortunately, this mental nourishment resembles the bodily nourishment on which the people has to depend; like the latter it is adulterated and unhealthy, and as harmful to the mind as the latter is to the body.8

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Liebknecht criticized the popular press as having no other goal but to make money, and as consequently being extremely crude in form and in content “opium for one’s reason and poison for one’s morality”. He added that the political daily press was even more harmful than the popular entertainment periodicals.9 The negative effects of the school system, the army, and the press on the people’s education were further reinforced and supported, in Liebknecht’s view, by the church, which served as an institution of the state, and was particularly influential through religious instruction in the schools.10 Furthermore, modern industrial techniques of production, while viewed by Liebknecht (in accord with Marx’s views on technological progress) as historically progressive in themselves, impose further burdens on the workers who pay the costs of progress through becoming subjugated by machinery.11 Thus, for Liebknecht, the existing social order had drawn up a “Chinese wall” around the “realm of education” [das Reich der Bildung], which had to be destroyed. (Liebknecht defined “Bildung” in terms of the classical Greek ideal of the harmonious development of the individual’s abilities, but argued that while the bourgeoisie espoused such classical ideas, they restricted the opportunity for their realization to a few).12 Liebknecht called on the example of 1789 to argue that such a social upheaval would release the talents and abilities of thousands whose potential would otherwise be suppressed. Thus the present society was hostile to culture [kulturfeindlich], and those striving for a new, socialist society were the true defenders of culture [Verteidiger der Kultur].13 However, the defence of culture had to be undertaken by political means, not through educational activity alone. For Liebknecht, any attempts at reforming the existing education system through existing state institutions would fail because of the class-bound nature of these institutions. “Even less practical are those who believe they can remedy the deficiencies of the people’s education by private means: through — unpolitical — workers’ educational associations [Arbeiterbildungsvereine], associations for further education, Sunday schools, and whatever else such institutions are called.”14 Such institutions, worthy though they might be, could only “scoop up a couple of buckets full from the flood of stultifying influences, which regularly pours over the country out of thousands upon thousands of Volksschulen”.15 In Liebknecht’s view, “whoever wishes that knowledge be equally available to all, must... work towards a reshaping of the state and the society... The means are political, social agitation.”16

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Liebknecht reiterated that the goal of the “free people’s state” [freier Volksstaat] was the indispensable precondition for an unfolding of the abilities and potential of all, and that this goal “can only be reached by means of political agitation”. This was the real task of a workers’ educational association. “‘Through education to freedom’, that is the wrong slogan, the slogan of false friends. We answer: through freedom to education! [...] Only when the people has conquered political power, will the gates of knowledge be open to it. Without power for the people no knowledge! Knowledge is power! Power is knowledge!”17 Liebknecht’s address, which acquired a certain amount of programmatic authority on the subject of education within social democratic circles, reflected the break of the fledgling socialist labour movement with liberal or confessional workers’ educational associations in the 1860s, as well as a belief that only radical political activity could improve the life of workers in the existing German state and the existing social order. Both factors — the historical background of the social democratic labour movement in the workers’ educational associations, and the structural constraints imposed by the state and society — are of fundamental significance to an understanding of German social democrats’ insistence on the primacy of political activity. The independent social democratic labour movement grew out of the Arbeiterbildungsvereine of the 1850s and 1860s. The earliest German socialist working-class organisations had been small groups of artisans — especially those gathering in emigration in France, Switzerland and England — who had formed groups such as the Bund der Geächteten and the Bund der Gerechten, which was the forerunner of the Bund der Kommunisten.18 The organisation of radical workers received a major stimulus with the outbreak of the 1848 revolutions, with workers’ associations becoming particularly active in the Rhineland and in Berlin (notably the Arbeiterverbrüderung under Stefan Born).19 The period of reaction and repression in the 1850s set back the development of an independent labour movement (although the rapid industrialization then taking place was creating the social base for a larger working-class movement than had hitherto existed in Germany). The laws of association introduced in the German Confederation in 1850 imposed severe restrictions on political organisations — especially those of the working class.20 Co-operation between local associations was limited, with central nation-wide organisations of workers effectively banned. Workers’ educational associations were

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under the control of either bourgeois liberals or confessional organisations. (Many of the liberals active in Arbeiterbildungsvereine were also linked to the dissenting, non-sectarian Freireligiöse Bewegung).21 Such associations gave workers the opportunity to cultivate their own individual skills or education, and catered to a need for sociability, but did not encourage autonomous political activity among workers. August Bebel, in his memoirs, recalled a Catholic-run Gesellenverein (in Salzburg, with a membership of about 200 artisans, in 1859/60) in terms which acknowledged its positive benefits, while also indicating the limitations of such organisations from the point of view of independently-minded artisans.22 Bebel subsequently came into contact with liberal Arbeiterbildungsvereine in Leipzig in the early 1860s, in which he began his political activity.23 In 1863, Bebel still opposed a politicization of the Leipzig workers’ educational association, arguing that it should concentrate on extending workers’ knowledge in historical, economic and scientific fields through lectures and the acquisition of libraries, rather than agitating for universal suffrage.24 Gerhard Beier has written of the period from 1850 to the early 1860s: “Now workers’ education no longer meant hope, but resignation, no longer preparation for freedom, but adjustment to lack of freedom, no longer a school of rebellion, but exposure to the influences of reaction”.25 Gerhard Huck has referred to the “limited — at any rate, not political — concept of Bildung, which had been carried into the liberal workers’ associations, and which had prevented the recognition of the workers as a political force in their own right”.26 The rationale of the liberal-run Arbeiterbildungsvereine was based on the idea that diligent and willing artisans could improve their individual life-chances and experience social mobility within the context of a liberal society based on merit, although artisans joining such societies may not necessarily have joined for such motives.27 The liberal emphasis on Bildung as an attainment of the individual, which conferred competitive advantages in the labour market, ran counter to notions of working-class solidarity. Franz Mehring wrote that some liberal Arbeiterbildungsvereine were described as “co-operatives for the acquisition and increase of the intellectual capital [des geistigen Kapitals] of their members”.28 Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, the liberaldemocratic social reformer, argued for a strict interpretation of the term Arbeiterbildungsverein, insisting on a division of labour between Bildungsvereine, which should promote further education in a trade, cooperatives for economic self-help (which was the social policy measure

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most actively promoted by Schulze-Delitzsch, who viewed such organisations as compatible with a free market economy), Wählervereine for organizing elections, and parliamentarians for the conduct of politics.29 F.A. Müller-Renz, an associate of the Frankfurt liberaldemocratic Sozialpolitiker Leopold Sonnemann, argued against a participation of the Arbeiterbildungsvereine in broader political organisations, stating (in March, 1863): “We do not want to organize. We want to educate [bilden] the workers, so that they can gain for themselves a better position in life. We do not want the workers to be used for political party machinations. Only education [Bildung] liberates, not organizing.”30 However, Na’aman notes that the simple term Arbeitervereine gained in popularity during the 1860s, in place of Arbeiterbildungsverein, as the latter term was increasingly found to be too restrictive.31 Associations’ statutes which referred to the task of the Arbeiterbildungsvereine as “moral improvement” (“sittliche Veredelung”) by means of lecture programmes and reading, and “friendly conviviality”, were increasingly extended to cover the “promotion of the spiritual and material interests” of members.32 Moreover, as Karl Birker has found, divergent concepts of Bildung co-existed within these organisations, with the middle-class liberals’ view emphasizing the acquisition of knowledge and moral improvement, with the goal being the development of the autonomous, rational individual, with Bildung also serving to distinguish the educated, industrious and — to a degree — socially mobile artisan or worker from the mass of the uneducated. This concept of Bildung went hand in hand with economic activity based on the belief of the harmonious, self-regulating nature of the market, with Schulze-Delitzsch placing emphasis on self-help through co-operatives.33 Workers and artisans, on the other hand, keenly aware of the inadequacy of their elementary schooling, sought not only to enhance the market value of their skills by craft training, but also wished to overcome the disadvantages associated with inferior education which were associated with the workers’ status as secondclass citizens. Some workers and artisans were influenced by the formulations of socialist writers such as Wilhelm Weitling, who were influenced by the links between Bildung and citizenship postulated by liberals in the tradition of the Aufklärung, with the difference that socialists aimed for the advancement of the working class as a whole, rather than that of individuals.34 The Arbeitervereine of this period played an important role in maintaining a framework for working-class organisation, a framework

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which underwent considerable expansion in the early 1860s, with Toni Offermann counting 225 new Arbeiterbildungsvereine (or artisans’ associations) in 218 places, founded (mostly) from 1860 to 1864, not counting other types of cultural, sporting or convivial associations which, in some instances, may have recruited among local artisans, and which were multiplying during the same period.35 Tenfelde writes: “After the middle of the century, the associations movement [Vereinsbewegung] becomes a mass movement”.36 (It was also still, of course, as Tenfelde points out,37 an urban movement, predominantly of the urban middle strata, and predominantly male.) The break between “bourgeois and proletarian democracy”, signalled by the founding of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (ADAV) in Leipzig in May 1863, involved a major transformation of workers’ associations, with the advancement of workers’ material interests receiving a greater emphasis, as well as the principle of workers representing their own interests without the governance of church groups or middle class reformers. The founding of the ADAV under Ferdinand Lassalle brought the split between working-class members of associations and a middle-class leadership which excluded workers from an equal status in political activity into the open.38 Liberal reformers, even those working to improve the living conditions of workers and seeking workers’ backing for the political programme of the Progressive Party or the national liberal movement, had rejected workers as full members of the Nationalverein and showed little inclination to acknowledge that workers might also have their own legitimate interests diverging from liberalism.39 Lassalle gave expression to the notion that the workers had a historical “mission”, which they could only realize by their own political activity. In his speech “On the particular connection of the present period in history with the idea of the Arbeiterstand” (which became better known as the Arbeiterprogramm), first given to a “Handwerkerverein”, probably consisting largely of machine-builders, in Berlin on April 12, 1862, Lassalle outlined a view of historical development which roughly followed the Communist Manifesto in its schema of periodization, linking each epoch to different patterns of “social labour” and different dominant forms of property ownership, and in viewing the transition from one such epoch to another as a revolutionary process.40 However, Lassalle differed from Marx and Engels in the use of the term Arbeiterstand (i.e., estate, juxtaposing the Fourth Estate to the Third which had made the French Revolution)

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instead of working class [Klasse], in the overt idealism of many of his formulations, and in the emphasis he placed on the state. Lassalle spoke, for example, of “the actually moral nature of the state [...] its true and higher task”, which was to “bring the human being to its positive unfolding of progressive development of itself”, to elevate humanity to freedom. “The state [...] which has been placed under the rule of the idea of the Arbeiterstand”, would in Lassalle’s view, make it its goal to make this moral task a reality.41 However, Lassalle’s Arbeiterprogramm constituted a challenge to the liberal leaders of the Arbeitervereine in its appeal to the emancipatory mission of the workers themselves, which entailed a break with the Progressives, and in the rejection of the liberal view of the state, which Lassalle derided as the “Night Watchman Idea” of the state.42 While Lassalle’s étatism entailed serious limitations for a theory of socialism (not to mention the practical problems which arose in dealing with the Prussian state under Bismarck), he was, significantly, pointing to political action as the means by which the status of the workers could be improved. Lassalle argued that the rule of the Fourth Estate would bring about “a flourishing of morality, culture and science as it had never before been seen in history”,43 whereas the egotistical interests of the ruling estates at present were coming increasingly into conflict with the “cultural development of the nation” and “the spread of culture and science”.44 Implicit in this outline is a view which rejected the liberal concept of Bildung as an attainment of the individual: culture and Bildung could only truly advance when the aspirations of the workers as a class (here using the word Klasse) were fulfilled.45 Towards the end of his address, Lassalle also appealed to science [Wissenschaft], which he depicted as providing a vantage point from which the dawn of the new day could be seen sooner than from down in the tumult of daily life.46 It is worth noting the distinction in usage between Bildung and Wissenschaft. In general, the term Bildung drew on the cultural prestige of German early nineteenth-century classicism, while “Wissenschaft” came to reflect a more positivist outlook in the mid to late nineteenth century. While the former term had become closely associated in the political discourse of the 1860s with the hegemonic claims of liberal ideology, particularly over the Arbeitervereine, the word Wissenschaft (or wissenschaftlich) had been used in relation to socialist or communist thought since the mid 1840s (by Karl Grün, referring to the St. Simonians, and by followers of Fourier and Robert Owen).47 Marx used the term “revolutionary science” to distinguish his ideas from the

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established “Prussian” or “German science” of the day, although he and Engels did not espouse the term “scientific socialism” until Engels’ “Anti-Dühring” (1879).48 It is worth citing Lassalle’s Arbeiterprogramm in some detail as it provided the impulse which eventually led to Lassalle being invited by a group of Leipzig workers to take up the leadership of the ADAV, thus creating the first workers’ political party, breaking from liberal tutelage. The title of Lassalle’s address, later published as a pamphlet, was explicitly mentioned in Lassalle’s invitation to Leipzig issued by Otto Dammer, F.W. Fritzsche and Julius Vahlteich in the name of the “Central Committee for the Convening of a general German workers’ congress”.49 This led Lassalle to formulate his political programme more precisely, in his Offenes Antwortschreiben (Open Letter in Response to the Central Committee) in which he strongly criticized the Prussian Progressives for their political ineffectiveness, calling for an independent workers’ party, advocated the founding of producers’ cooperatives with state credit (rejecting Schulze-Delitzsch’s consumer co-operatives), and called for universal and direct suffrage, so that the workers could govern the state.50 Lassalle wrote: “Universal and direct suffrage is, therefore, [...] not only your fundamental political principle, it is also your fundamental social principle, the basic condition of all social assistance. It is the only means to improve the material situation of the Arbeiterstand.”51 This plea for the independent political organisation of the working class and its rejection of liberal leadership and solutions, was taken up as a direct challenge by many Arbeiterbildungsvereine, in which liberals sought to rally opposition to Lassalle. During 1863 numerous Arbeiterbildungsvereine held meetings in which Lassalle’s ideas were opposed, and the writer Georg Herwegh wrote to Lassalle expressing his outrage at the way in which Lassalle’s opponents conducted their campaign against him “in the year of Bildung and Bildungsvereine 1863”.52 The conflicts between the ADAV and the liberal Arbeiterbildungsvereine continued after Lassalle’s death in August 1864. In the late 1860s, Carl Wilhelm Tölcke and other ADAV functionaries repeated the charge that the Arbeiterbildungsvereine created by the bourgeoisie served primarily to divert the workers from pursuing their most immediate interests.53 Johann Baptist von Schweitzer, the ablest of Lassalle’s successors in the leadership of the ADAV, continued Lassalle’s policy of opposition to the liberals, and of giving priority to suffrage agitation (although the politics of the national question also

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occupied much of Schweitzer’s attention).54 However, while the ADAV relegated the Bildungsvereine and their work to secondary importance. Schweitzer, who had tried his hand at writing a “social novel”, Lucinde oder Kapital und Arbeit (1863/64), and who had written a number of other literary works, did not overlook the possibility of cultural activity in disseminating socialist ideas among the workers. In his efforts to popularize the ideas set out in Marx’s Das Kapital, the first volume of which appeared in 1867, Schweitzer not only gave the work a detailed and positive review in the ADAV paper Der Socialdemokrat in early 1868, but also composed a one-act didactic play entitled Der Schlingel, in order to familiarize working-class audiences with Marx’ theory of value. Schweitzer’s play, in which a classconscious worker called Roth [=Red] displays his intellectual superiority over a factory-owner and a local economist, was frequently performed at ADAV festivities.55 Ferdinand Lassalle had also written a play, Franz von Sickingen (1859). However, this had preceded his political agitation and was not a part of it. While Lassalle’s Sickingen was commented on by Marx in a critical discussion which would later be of interest for studies of Marxist literary theory, von Rüden is justified in stating that the “so-called Sickingen-debate remained without consequences for early workers’ theatre”.56 While the ADAV was generally critical of any attempt to substitute Bildung for political advancement, it has been suggested that its rival the “Eisenacher” Party, or Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP), given its longer involvement with bourgeois-led Arbeiterbildungsvereine, was more inclined to view Bildung positively.57 It is, however, possible to overstate the ideological distance between the “Lassalleans” and the “Eisenachers”, in a period in which the reception of Marx’s ideas by the labour movement was patchy, to say the least, and in which both groups had ideologically much in common, especially once the SDAP had broken with the South German liberals in 1869. Karl Kautsky would later go so far as to state: “In their theory both trends in German Social Democracy were Lassallean”,58 although the sources of German socialist political thought in the 1860s and early 1870s were perhaps more eclectic than this comment would suggest. However, even Bebel was to recall in his memoirs that he, “like almost everyone else who became socialists at that time, came to Marx via Lassalle”.59 At the same time, both groups sought to identify themselves (to the extent permitted by the laws of association) with the International Workingmen’s Association (First International).60 Both groups had a

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broadly similar social base, recruiting principally from skilled workers and artisans, generally with some experience of organisation in Arbeitervereine or craft associations.61 Differences between the two parties centred more on questions of organisation, and to some extent personalities (with the dictatorial leadership style of Lassalle and subsequently Schweitzer arousing opposition), and in particular over the “national question”, with the ADAV based largely in North Germany and endorsing a kleindeutsch solution to the national question (criticized as pro-Prussian by groups outside Prussia, who feared the extension of oppressive Prussian legislation over other, relatively more liberal states), while the Eisenacher group, based in Saxony and Southern Germany, became associated with the Southern German liberals who opposed the incorporation of their states into a Prussiandominated Reich. It is, however, difficult to discern any consistent difference in policy on the weight to be given to questions of culture and education between the ADAV and the SDAP. Writing in 1868, Liebknecht did concede that a strong desire for education existed among many workers, who felt they needed to “gain some useful knowledge before they begin to find fault with the governing institutions”, however, this was before the split within the Verband Deutscher Arbeitervereine and the break of the socialists around Bebel and Liebknecht with the liberal associations to form the SDAP.62 Likewise (also in the Demokratische Wochenblatt, and in the same year), the socialist writer Robert Schweichel wrote that “[t]he influence of education [Bildung] is twofold. It makes a person more moral and more free. The worker who takes pleasure in intellectual activity will prefer to spend his hours of leisure with a good book than to seek his pleasure in public houses or dance halls. The ultimate purpose of education [Bildung] can, for the worker, only be to make him free in spirit by means of knowledge.” However, Schweichel continued by asking: Has the bourgeoisie had this ultimate goal in view for the worker? Never [...] The bourgeoisie spoke of freedom, but in reality barred the way to it. It treated the workers the way our Lord God treated Adam and Eve in paradise. They were to eat of all trees of the garden, only they should not eat of the tree of knowledge. This tree of knowledge is politics. Now in our previous articles we have demonstrated the profound connection between the social and the political question, and

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that a thorough-going improvement of the working class is not possible without a transformation of political conditions; thus it is here that the effort must begin.63 Schweichel’s praise of the edifying qualities of Bildung thus led to the conclusion that the workers’ movement must first strive for political change. This is the same conclusion subsequently stated by Liebknecht in Wissen ist Macht! Macht ist Wissen!. One field of cultural, or educational, endeavour on which the SDAP — and other social democratic organisations at the same time and subsequently — placed considerable importance was the party press. The party press was considered to be of central importance for socialist agitation, and for spreading social democratic ideas among the people.64 The party press constituted a major point of debate at the 1870 SDAP congress at Stuttgart. A detailed proposal for a “literary joint-stock company” was put forward, a proposal which was welcomed by Der Volksstaat (under the editorship of Liebknecht), but with the proviso that the SDAP would need its own printers for the party press and other publications, something which the party was not at that time in a position to finance.65 At the Stuttgart conference, a number of matters concerning the party press (particularly Der Volksstaat) were raised, including a motion to stop the inclusion of novels (which had begun to be serialized occasionally in Der Volksstaat), and to include more items of importance on social policy and practical matters.66 This motion was rejected. The delegate Otto Walster (from Dresden), spoke emphatically against the motion “as it [was] necessary to apply an antidote to the poison of colportagenovels, which would at the same time heal the damage [caused by the latter] and help the Volksstaat to take root in the worker’s family”. Liebknecht also opposed the motion, while also rejecting suggestions that the paper was too difficult for workers: “At the same time he defends the paper against the insinuation that it ought to be paying tribute to the tastes of the broad masses. The sublime and holy task of a genuine workers’ paper is rather, to teach the worker to think...If one gives them what they already know, one does not advance their education.”67 A further speaker said that he knew from experience how important a literary section was for a workers’ paper. The congress decided that while the editors of Der Volksstaat should be empowered to edit excessively lengthy reports of meetings or festivities, the serialized novel should appear weekly.68 However,

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despite this discussion, it should be noted that literary supplements were to take up relatively little space (which was sometimes scarce, especially when subscriptions were low) in Der Volksstaat, which gave priority to party and trade union announcements, reviews of the political situation, and general political news, and reports from party branches and trade unions, with occasional articles or printed lectures by leading socialists (including Marx and Engels) on issues of theory. Despite Liebknecht’s defence, in this instance, of a pedagogical role for the workers’ press, the primary emphasis was always on the press as a means of political agitation. Der Volksstaat stressed that “[t]he most essential factor for the extension of agitation, the strengthening of the party organisation, is the party press.”69 Wilhelm Liebknecht stated in the Leipzig high treason trial of 1872 that: “Agitation is our means of waging war”, a statement he subsequently amplified: “Our party happens to be revolutionary in its goals, i.e. a party striving for a radical transformation of state and society, but it is precisely for that reason a party of agitation, and not just of coups d’état affecting merely the surface of the state — a propagandistic party, which seeks to gain the victory through disseminating its ideas, not through childish putschism [Revolutionsmacherei]”.70 This political agitation, on which the success of social democracy depended, was carried out partly by agitators addressing meetings directly, but also by the party press, which thus had an eminently political function. In addition to spreading socialist ideas among the working class and providing theoretical instruction for party members, the party press had a broader function in constituting a kind of social democratic public sphere. In addition to counting the number of dues-paying party members and the number of votes cast for socialist candidates at elections, the number of subscribers to the party press was an important yardstick for assessing the strength and influence of the party. As a source of news and information, the social democratic press functioned in conscious opposition to the bourgeois press, seeking to counter the “public opinion” generated by the latter by articulating an alternative, critical outlook, and by promoting a sense of cohesion and solidarity among readers scattered across Germany. The party press thus functioned as a communicative network for an embryonic oppositional public sphere, with a distinctive vocabulary and appealing to common values of the workers’ movement. On the level of party organisation, the press also had the function of providing paid employment for party agitators or functionaries (who not seldom had to be prepared to run

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the risk of official harassment, including imprisonment, which was an occupational hazard of socialist newspaper editors). Given the obstacles which the laws of association posed to centralized party leadership, the central organ of the party had an enhanced importance as the medium by which the party’s leaders could determine the party’s direction in theoretical and political questions. To the extent that the socialist press was also engaged in cultural activity, or in promoting the “Bildung” of its readers, it did so with the political ends of the party in mind. As Kurt Koszyk writes, in relation to the social democratic press, “[t]he social democratic conception of ‘culture’ was always eminently political”.71 At the same time, it is true that, as Brigitte Emig has emphasized, social democrats constantly claimed to be the party of true cultural progress, a “Kulturbewegung”, with an ideal claim to represent the higher values of humanity as well as representing the material interests of wage workers.72 Such claims, in fact, became a staple of socialist rhetoric. There is perhaps some reflection of this claim in the first article of the 1875 Gotha Programme of the united Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, which brought together the Eisenacher and Lassalleans under a common banner: “Labour is the source of all wealth and all culture...”.73 However, the idealistic rhetoric identifying socialism with the cultural advancement of humanity did not detract from the primacy of politics in the party’s activity. (The pronouncement that labour was the source of all culture, as well as wealth, also served to cover potentially divisive issues of religious and regional cultural differences.) The Gotha Programme posited the goal of the party as “the free state [a formulation justly criticized by Marx as vague, but connoting for many socialists a democratic republic], the destruction of the iron law of wages [a Lassallean formula also sharply rejected by Marx] through the abolition of the system of wage labour, the abolition of exploitation in every form, and the elimination of all social and political inequality”. To these ends, the party would employ “all legal means”. However, while the programme still demanded the establishment of producers’ co-operatives with state help as a means to approach the solution of the “social question”, this relic of Lassallean doctrine faded into the background in later years. The list of socialist objectives contained in the Gotha Programme began with those affecting the access of social democrats to political power: “universal, direct, equal suffrage... for all citizens [not confined to men] over twenty years of age”, “direct legislation by the people”, a

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people’s militia in place of the standing army, abolition of all exceptional laws, especially the laws on the press, association, and assembly. Universal and equal public education followed at the end of the list. Among the immediate demands, reform of the franchise and other political measures also came first.74 The urgency of the political struggle of the growing and newly united socialist party was heightened by the wave of police persecution to which the party was subject from 1874 onwards, associated with the name of the Berlin state prosecutor Hermann Tessendorf. Tessendorf banned both the ADAV and the SDAP, as well as numerous other socialist organisations, in Berlin, which sparked off a wave of bans, arrests and expulsions in other German cities as well.75 Tessendorf even clamped down on socialist cultural activity, prosecuting party functionaries for distributing the texts of socialist songs which were accused of “incitement to resistance against the power of the state”.76 This wave of repression, which paradoxically helped to promote an awareness of the need for unity between the two socialist groups, seems in retrospect a mere curtain-raiser for the larger scale repression from 1878 to 1890, although it demonstrates the repressive potential of Prussian laws even without the addition of an exceptional antisocialist law. The period of repression under Bismarck’s anti-socialist law of 1878 had significant implications for the party’s organisation and tactics.77 The Reichstag Fraktion [parliamentary caucus], protected by parliamentary immunity, was the only party body which could operate legally in Germany, and hence gained in importance. (This was to create a potential source of tension between the leadership based in Berlin and regional party organisations, especially in the South.) Also of crucial importance in maintaining a socialist party consciousness in Germany was the central party newspaper, published in exile (in Switzerland and later in Zurich) and smuggled into the Reich. The anti-socialist law, by forcing the party itself into illegality, made the clause of the Gotha Programme which referred to “all legal means” of socialist activity absurd, and it was therefore dropped in 1880.78 The party also underwent a process of ideological clarification, as some reformists and state socialists abandoned the party, and anarchists (Johann Most and Wilhelm Hasselmann) were expelled. Finally, and of particular relevance here, the network of socialist cultural organisations, which had started to emerge before 1878, played a major role in providing camouflage for socialist activity. Within two

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months of the anti-socialist law coming into effect, the Police President of Berlin, von Madai, reported that socialists were “thronging into the associations and assemblies of people of differing views, setting up reading circles, singing clubs, arranging dance groups, all for the purpose of being able to conduct serious discussions on party matters behind a harmless mask of sociable entertainment”.79 In 1879 and 1880 it was found that collections of money for the underground party, and in particular for the dependants of exiles expelled from their homes, were being conducted, disguised as ticket sales for festivities, theatrical performances or concerts.80 These forms of activity clearly persisted during the years of illegality. In 1881: “Often they have contented themselves with hiding the party organisation behind the mask of social clubs, and it must be continually emphasized that precisely such clubs provide an excellent opportunity for undisturbed agitation and the filling of the party treasury”.81 In 1882: “The party was also in the period of this report very active. There were not only meetings and sizeable assemblies held to discuss important party matters, e.g. of 250 persons in a wood near Berlin on 22 January and on 30 April, in the vicinity of Leipzig, of 350 comrades on the occasion of a visit from Bebel, but also a number of festive occasions, founding ceremonies, small social group meetings, theatrical performances and the like were put on, which in addition to the socializing also had the purpose of benefitting the party funds”.82 In 1883, festivities coinciding with 18 March (anniversary of both the 1848 Revolution and the Paris Commune, and a major socialist festival), Lassalle’s birthday, or Bebel’s election to the Reichstag in a Hamburg by-election, were reported, as well as meetings in preparation of Reichstag elections camouflaged as harmless entertainments. “In Bremen several associations were founded as a drama reading circle, an association for history, or an association for history and science, whose titles were merely intended as a cloak for socialist agitation”.83 Such “harmless” associations occasionally attracted police attention by putting on theatrical performances such as “Die Tochter eines Fabrikanten. Zeitbild aus der Gegenwart”, staged by Stuttgart book-binders in June 1882, the cast list including a pastor “Dr. Faulwasser” [=Foulwater] and a factory owner called “Hochmuth” [=Arrogance, or Pride]. The play was denounced to the police by informers, the incident demonstrating that it was virtually impossible to use the theatre for open agitation in this period.84 Even without such attempts at open agitation, workers’ clubs ostensibly

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devoted to singing or the theatre could be closed down if the police suspected them of clandestine socialist activity. For example, the “Theaterverein Germania” in Dortmund was dissolved under the antisocialist law, along with singing clubs and other “sociable”, ostensibly non-political groups.85 From 1878 to 1886, 246 associations, mostly ostensibly devoted to various cultural, sporting or sociable pursuits, were dissolved, the majority in Prussia or Saxony.86 Thus many reading and discussion clubs consisting of social democrats chose such innocuous names as “Pipifax”, “Rote Quaste” [=Red Brush], or “Alte Tante” [=Old Aunt].87 The reading and discussion club “Alte Tante” is noteworthy as it provided the initiative for the founding of the Freie Volksbühne in 1890. A member of this club, the bookbinder Willy Wach, described how “under the impact of the anti-socialist law, the inclination for intellectual labour which had been awakened among many workers was also directed towards other areas than that of social science and politics”.88 As Selo wrote, “[t]he preoccupation with artistic matters, at first only a secondary objective, became for many club members an end in itself”.89 As a result of the interest aroused among social democratic workers in such forms of cultural activity, these organisations did not become redundant when the anti-socialist law elapsed. On the contrary, the network of social democratic cultural organisations grew enormously in size and diversity. The broad spectrum of social democratic cultural organisations included the Freie Volksbühnen and workers’ lay theatre groups; the Berlin Arbeiterbildungsschule (founded in early 1891) and later the Parteischule, workers’ libraries, and a range of other educational organisations; singing clubs and choirs; sport, gymnastic, hiking and cycling clubs; proletarian temperance groups and free-thinkers; chess clubs, Esperanto groups, and many others.90 In his influential study of social democracy in Imperial Germany, Guenther Roth referred to this network of organisations as “a subculture within the larger culture”, adding that, “as long as the dominant system was not shaken, the building of a subculture, with many gratifying cultural and political activities, was the only way to realize at least some of the goals of the movement”. Ultimately, Roth argued, “[b]y helping the workers indirectly to adjust to the society at large, the subculture contributed to the stability of the dominant system”.91 However, Roth’s use of the term “subculture” has not gone unchallenged, for example by Helga Grebing, who questions the applicability of the terms “subculture” or “counterculture”

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[“Gegenkultur”] to the culture of the labour movement, as they denote respectively the forms of behaviour of a marginal minority, or alternative ways of life, opposed to the dominant form, also on the part of minorities. In Grebing’s view, neither term is really accurate for describing the culture of the labour movement, for which she recommends the simple usage “Arbeiterbewegungs-Kultur”, stressing that the other concepts fail to give sufficient weight to the independent values, ways of living, types of actions, collective self-expression or patterns of thought developed in the labour movement.92 Vernon L. Lidtke has also criticized Roth’s “integrationist” model of German labour movement culture, writing: “It distorts historical reality by reducing the numerous social and cultural divisions of Imperial Germany to a simple polarity between an essentially coherent ‘dominant culture’ on the one side and an excluded Social Democratic ‘subculture’ on the other.”93 Roth’s model posits a misleadingly homogeneous and coherent model of a “dominant culture” in the face of which the labour movement was confronted by two equally sterile alternatives: to be assimilated, or to take up a negative, oppositional stance, which provided a zone of limited internal autonomy, but which ended up merely reproducing the “dominant” culture. We have already suggested that one can distinguish three different dimensions of working-class culture, combined with a flexible use of the Habermasian distinction between “system” and “life-world”. Seen in this framework, labour movement culture [Arbeiterbewegungskultur] could have an important mediating function, providing an organisational milieu in which the alternative values and behaviour patterns derived from the proletarian life-world could be articulated and strengthened, and in which, with the assistance of working-class party functionaries and party intellectuals with a bourgeois “high culture” education, the aspects of bourgeois “high culture” which offered some emancipatory potential could be selectively appropriated by the labour movement. The Social Democratic cultural organisations could also constitute a kind of oppositional public sphere in which socialist cultural activity could unfold according to a rationale distinct from the market rationale of commercial “popular culture”, and in a manner which might potentially contribute to the political mobilization of organized workers. (At the same time, however, external political, legal and economic constraints never ceased to be limiting factors.) There was, arguably, a range of possible strategies available within the “Arbeiterbewegungskultur”, which did not involve a

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simple alternative between assimilation and “negative integration” (or, for that matter, a late-1920s style “Proletkult” approach). The proliferation of social democratic cultural organisations after 1890 was a development which did not go unquestioned in the party, which had reasserted the priority of the struggle for political power for the workers’ movement in the 1891 Erfurt Programme (“The struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation is necessarily a political struggle”).94 In 1893, the trade unionist, and later prominent party functionary, Johannes Timm complained to Vorwärts about the “Unfug” (mischievous nonsense) caused by the “pathological adddiction” of “certain circles” of naming new clubs “no matter of what inferior sort they might be” Social Democratic organisations. Timm protested against the formation of “Social Democratic” cycling clubs, saying that the “Klübchen” and “Vereinchen” had virtually become a disease in the workers’ movement. Timm was concerned that the members of such clubs might neglect their duties in the party and the trade unions: “Our cause requires that all forces should be concentrated on the arena of our struggle. With such frivolities [Spielereien] our comrades’ energies are dispersed, and the seriousness of our cause is degraded”.95 The burgeoning club life of organized workers was to repeatedly attract charges of “Vereinsmeierei” (excessive “clubbishness”) and questioning of priorities, with claims that gymnastics, cycling, etc. were coming to overshadow the political motivation for the organisations.96 The party functionary Hermann Duncker later recalled that “in the 1890s there was a certain antagonism between party and Bildungsvereine. The ‘Bildungsmacherei’ was often described as bourgeois ‘stuff and nonsense’”.97 Writing on workers’ education in Vorwärts in 1893, Manfred Wittich conceded that “in workers’ circles, in circles of party comrades, here and there reservations towards the efforts in the field of education [Bildung] are encountered”. The words “Bildungsduselei” (befuddlement by “education”) and “Vereinsmeierei” were mentioned as often being applied in this context. The legacy of the educational enterprises “from above”, Wittich suggested, may have planted some mistrust in the workers’ movement. However, Wittich emphasized the difference between such “feudal-capitalist” educational activity, and that of the workers’ movement itself, which had “achieved a degree of popular enlightenment [Volksaufklärung] which all the German Volksschulen together hardly managed in a hundred years”. This was claimed to have practical benefits: “Increased knowledge among the people

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means higher self-esteem, steeling of character, desire for freedom, and finally also greater capability and increased strength in all directions”.98 Wittich’s arguments tended towards a consistent theme in Social Democratic views on “Arbeiterbildung”: the contrast between the educational policies of the Junkers (“the consistent enemies of any Volksbildung”) and those of the bourgeoisie, for whom a certain degree of education of the workers was an economic necessity, but which failed to go beyond the limits of the economically necessary and politically expedient, despite much high-flown rhetoric, and the genuine Volksbildung, which was the work of the working class itself.99 Thus the cultural and educational organisations of the labour movement were viewed as fundamentally different from those sponsored by the upper or middle classes, and were seen as meeting real needs of the organized workers. Despite early reservations, these organisations grew enormously in numbers and became almost indispensable features of the labour movement. It is, therefore, possible to distinguish four stages in the development of attitudes towards cultural and educational activity in the German Social Democratic labour movement. Firstly, Arbeiterbildungsvereine under liberal or confessional leadership provided an umbrella under which workers could organize; secondly, the break between middle-class and proletarian democratic movements was accompanied by a redirection of energies in the workers’ movement to the assertion of the primacy of political activity; thirdly, the conditions of illegality under which Social Democrats worked from 1878 to 1890 saw many using cultural organisations as a cover for workers’ political organisation; and, finally, the end of the anti-socialist law saw the emergence of a multiplicity of socialist cultural, educational and recreational organisations, although the party continued to subscribe to the primacy of the political struggle, as defined by the Erfurt Programme. However, the party’s cultural work was to be subject to conflicts between divergent conceptions of the relationship between class and culture, and between culture and politics, as ideological differences became more pronounced within the party. It is true that (as already noted above), at every stage of the party’s development, the rhetoric of party leaders and intellectuals emphasized the extent to which Social Democracy was a “Kulturbewegung”.100 “The working class is the bearer of modern culture, since the bourgeoisie have ceased to be it”, Wilhelm Liebknecht wrote in 1888.101 Franz Mehring described the “revolutionary workers’ movement” as

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“the cornerstone of human cultural development”.102 A banner displayed at the SPD congress at Gotha in 1896 proclaimed that the proletariat was “the bearer of all culture”.103 Emig is justified in stating that in the Social Democratic press, “the concept of Kultur — like the concepts ‘Bildung’, ‘progress’, ‘freedom’, ‘science’ — was constantly overtaxed [strapaziert]”.104 Where Social Democracy was not directly identified with “Kultur”, “Bildung”, or progress, this occurred by tagging opponents with epithets such as the “kultur-” or “bildungsfeindliche [hostile to culture or education] Junkers” or references to the “false Bildung” of the bourgeoisie.105 Vernon L. Lidtke has pointed to the importance of the language of the labour movement, with words such as “Arbeiter” or “Genosse” forming part of a “symbolic vocabulary” which reinforced the sense of cohesiveness and solidarity among Social Democrats.106 The use of terms such as “Fortschritt”, “Kultur” and “Bildung” can be seen as functioning in a similar fashion. The claim to represent the progressive and emancipatory traditions of the Enlightenment, and the cause of human progress in general, while it could reflect evolutionary and deterministic assumptions which may have had a detrimental effect on party activism, was of considerable moral and psychological importance for the socialist labour movement, which was convinced that history was on its side.107 However, such rhetoric did not necessarily lead to an abandonment of the primacy of the political struggle, as defined by the Erfurt Programme. (The economic struggle was to be the arena of the trade unions, in a division of labour between party and trade unions which was the subject of considerable debate until it was more or less formalized with the recognition of the Free Trade Unions as equal partners with the political party).108 Prominent theorists such as Franz Mehring and Rosa Luxemburg warned against overestimating the importance of cultural activities at the expense of more urgent political tasks. Mehring stated that in a historical period of open class conflict, the old saying applied, that “when weapons rule, the muses fall silent”.109 During the 1900 debate on the “lex Heinze”, a bill which, among other things, was designed to increase censorship of theatre and art, Rosa Luxemburg wrote that while “Social Democracy as the protector and pioneer of the culture of the mind [der geistigen Kultur] has a greater calling than any others to also emphatically defend artistic freedom”, the lex Heinze in itself did not justify agitational efforts as much as issues such as the grain tariffs (increasing bread prices), militarism, or imperialist foreign policy. For the broad masses of the

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population, issues such as the repressive Zuchthausvorlage [”penitentiary bill”] or the attacks on the franchise in Saxony, were of more immediate importance, and it was on such issues that the party, in Luxemburg’s view, should concentrate its attention.110 From the time of the formulation of the Erfurt Programme to the debates in the party about parliamentarism, the franchise, the mass strike, and Kautsky’s Der Weg zur Macht, the question of political power took precedence over cultural issues. As Dick Geary has written, “[t]he politicization of Social Democratic subculture was [...] to a large extent a response to governmental harassment and persecution”.111 The liberal democrat Hellmuth von Gerlach described (in 1908) the position of Social Democrats in the state of Prussia as being de facto still governed by the conditions which prevailed during Bismarck’s anti-socialist law: Social Democrats are second-class citizens. No Social Democrat is tolerated in the most modest state or local government office, whether as night-watchman or lamp-lighter. No Social Democrat is permitted to sit on a school board. No Social Democrat can even become a gymnastics teacher. Social Democratic workers are chased out of state-sector jobs. The “freedom of science” at the universities draws the line at Social Democracy. A publican who opens his rooms to Social Democrats, a barber who advertises in a Social Democratic newspaper, is boycotted by the military authorities. A mayor who puts a city building at the disposal of all political parties is disciplined. A public official who rents out a dwelling to a Social Democrat is removed from office. A teacher who abstains from voting in a run-off election between Social Democrats and Anti-semites is fined.112 Not only were workers subject to the restrictive laws of the authoritarian state even in their private relationships, but the state also intervened, sometimes with armed force, in industrial conflicts, and the Social Democratic party and any bodies associated with it were particularly subjected to repressive measures by the state. This did not cease with the expiry of the anti-socialist law in 1890. Throughout the 1890s, and up until 1902, Vorwärts included a monthly rubric entitled “Unterm neuen Kurs” (later “Unterm neuesten Kurs” as the slogan for Caprivi’s post-Bismarckian regime lost its topicality), which listed all the convictions, prison sentences and fines handed down to Social

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Democrats during the previous month.113 For Social Democratic agitators, and newspaper editors in particular, a period of imprisonment was a not uncommon occupational hazard. Against the claims of the Imperial German state to being a “Rechtsstaat”, Social Democrats pointed to their experience of “Klassenjustiz”, as embodied in institutionalized disadvantages for defenders, especially in political cases, severe discrimination against socialists in the courts, and an array of repressive or potentially repressive laws, some of which, such as the law against lèse-majesté, were wide open to arbitrary, politically motivated, implementation.114 Alex Hall cites the example of Gustav Wabersky, editor of the Hamburger Echo, who between March 1897 and October 1906, received 27 convictions, mainly for “Beleidigung” or “Majestätsbeleidigung”.115 Such repressive measures also had a major influence on Social Democratic cultural organisations. The Vereinsgesetze, already mentioned above, remained in force, despite some changes such as the removal of the ban on political organisation for women in 1908,116 and offered the authorities ample scope for surveillance, restrictions and bans as far as socialist activity in cultural, educational and recreational activities was concerned. Even after 1908, the laws of association still prevented any “political” organisation of young people under 18, although a variety of confessional and bourgeois organisations were able to pursue “non-political” youth work, and this ban put Social Democratic youth organisations in a state of permanent conflict with the authorities.117 The designation of a workers’ association as political thus carried with it the exclusion of younger members, a measure which affected gymnastic, cycling and singing groups, as well as the Social Democrat youth groups themselves.118 The laws of association could also be applied in a discriminatory fashion against Social Democratic festivals, which could be banned if they were deemed to be political assemblies in the open air.119 In 1895, the Arbeiter-SängerBund was prosecuted for failing to comply with the provisions of the laws of association requiring an association which “seeks to exercise an influence on public affairs” to supply membership lists to the police.120 Socialist singing clubs could also find themselves running foul of the censorship laws, with some socialist songs, or songbooks, becoming subject to prosecution under laws forbidding “incitement”.121 The normal censorship laws regarding theatrical performances (which also included cabarets, efectively restricting topical political satire) also applied to Social Democratic drama

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associations, and any kind of dramatic performance at a Social Democratic festival was closely examined for potential threats to public order. In January 1893, for example, the Berlin Police President von Richthofen banned the “tableaux vivants” which were to form a part of the festivites of the Arbeiter-Bildungsschule. “The French Revolution, epic-dramatic poem in 12 tableaux vivants by C.M. Scävola” was deemed by the Police President to constitute a “glorification of criminal acts, in particular regicide”.122 Richthofen also banned a similar performance “Images of the great Revolution” by A. Witz, planned by Berlin metalworkers.123 Richthofen’s successor, von Windheim, kept up the vigilance of the police on the entertainments of the Arbeiter-Bildungsschule, when he banned Franz Stahl’s “Storming of the Castle of Schorndorf, an Episode from the Time of the Peasants’ Revolt”, which was the main attraction on the programme of the summer festival of the Arbeiter-Bildungsschule, for “reasons of security policy”. The “political-satirical puppet show” which was also on the programme was only passed for performance after major deletions by the official red pencil.124 In May 1914, Vorwärts even reported cases of readings from Schiller’s works (“Die Bürgschaft” and Wilhelm Tell) in front of workers’ youth organisations being stopped by police.125 Such difficulties with the authorities would also dog the Freie Volksbühne. The cultural activities of the Social Democratic Party, and of any organisations associated with it, were thus constantly subject to official constraints, which excluded some categories of participants, placed limitations on the forms of agitation which were possible, and exercised a veto on the content of any artistic material. Cultural and educational activity was confronted with the same kind of difficulties from the authorities that other types of socialist activity had to deal with. Despite universal male suffrage for the Reichstag, the labour movement was still handicapped in its pursuit of political power by discriminatory franchises on the state and local level (notably the Prussian three-class franchise), the power of the upper house and Kaiser over the Reichstag, and the absence of electoral redistribution to take account of urbanization and population movements. The contradiction between the forms of the parliamentary Rechtsstaat and the realities of the constitutional system of the German Empire evoked contradictory responses from Social Democracy, ranging from revolutionary radicalism, “revolutionary attentisme”, “Praktizismus”: pragmatic reformism while maintaining an oppositional stance,

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Marxian revisionism, and open reformism. (This is not to say that the peculiar nature of the Imperial German state was the sole or even prime reason for the differences between “radicals” and “reformists” in German Social Democracy, but it must be kept in mind as a significant factor when assessing debates on parliamentarism in Social Democracy, or in comparing the German labour movement with that of other countries.)126 This is not the place for a detailed review of the literature on the Kaiserreich. However, a few important points should be made here. Hans-Ulrich Wehler has endorsed Karl Dietrich Bracher’s formulation describing the constitutional system of the German Empire as “an anachronistic monarchical semi-absolutism” (“zeitwidrige[r] monarchische[r] Semi-Absolutismus”). Wehler’s own preferred description is similar: “an autocratic, semi-absolutist sham constitutionalism”.127 Wehler distinguishes between the “Bonapartist dictatorship” of Bismarck up to 1890 and the “polycratic authoritarianism” after 1890, but stresses the continuities in the dominance of the elite groups, embodied in Sammlungspolitik and in the not to be underestimated role of the conservative bureaucracy.128 Throughout his work, Wehler emphasizes the success of the elite groups in resisting efforts at changing the status quo from below, by their use of a combination of manipulative mobilisation from above (e.g. by naval and imperial agitation) and constitutionally entrenched privilege. While the industrial, aristocratic, and bureaucratic elite groups were able to partially adapt to the demands of economic modernisation in order to preserve the status quo, Wehler persuasively argues that this was at considerable cost to German society as a whole, and that the events of 1918/19 show that “[w]ithout a thorough reorganisation of the state apparatus... no democracy could have emerged in Germany after 1918 which could have functioned in the long term”, from which one might conclude that Imperial Germany’s state apparatus was inherently resistant to democratisation from within, and that only the disempowering of the old elites whose role the Imperial constitution was designed to protect, could allow the development of democracy in Germany.129 Wehler’s views on the German Empire have come under fire from a number of different quarters, partly in response to Wehler’s fondness for provocative formulations and partly because of the way he raises the still sensitive subject of continuities in modern German history. Thomas Nipperdey, for example, took issue with the form, as

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well as the pessimistic emphasis on negative continuities, of Wehler’s analysis, pointing to an increasing degree of importance of parliament in the years before 1914, the rising strength of parties opposed to the dominant cartel of Junkers and heavy industry, and the apparently successful positive integration of these opposition groups in the Empire’s social structure.130 From a different perspective, Wehler’s views have also been criticized by the British historians David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley.131 Some of their points are salutary in themselves — warning against seeing the Empire solely in terms of the elements which can be considered to have led to Nazism, criticizing the normative assumptions behind much “modernization theory”, arguing that capitalism can develop successfully outside a Western liberal political framework, and stressing elements of a new politics of mass participation and interest articulation “from below” before 1914. However, these objections, for all the polemical verve with which they have been brought forward, do not add up to a convincing countersynthesis. Eley’s emphasis on populist “self-mobilisation” from below in the new mass politics132 does not disprove the strong manipulative elements clearly present in the Naval League, and such movements do not really serve as evidence of democratisation within Germany, however much anti-establishment ressentiment their members displayed. Also, while Blackbourn’s work on Württemberg is useful, it was not the relatively liberal political culture of Württemberg but the constitution of Prussia, which safeguarded the entrenched position of the Junker aristocracy, which was dominant in the structure of the Imperial German state. While it would go beyond the scope of this work to give an exhaustive discussion of recent debates on the Kaiserreich, it is possible to put forward some relevant points. Firstly, while the parliamentary system of the Empire offered scope for oppositional parties to increase their electoral representation and thereby their opportunities for participation in the legislative process, the sphere of action of parliament was hedged about with monarchical, bureaucratic and militaristic elements, which conserved the power of pre-industrial elites in alliance with their partners from industry. As in the economic sphere, a reformist strategy could achieve quantifiable gains, but not change the basis of the system. From the confrontation with the Imperial German state, social democrats drew the conclusion that in the face of discriminatory laws and limits on freedom of speech and assembly, the gradual diffusion of socialist ideas through education

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and cultural activity offered only remote prospects of success. However, differing political strategies could also be deduced from the contradictory nature of the Imperial German state, resulting in a spectrum within Social Democracy ranging from radical revolutionaries to revisionism and reformism. These groups developed their own approach to questions of class and culture, which will be outlined in Chapters Three and Four.

3 CLASS AND CULTURE — THE LEFT MARXISTS

While the Marxist Left of the SPD was never a homogeneous bloc, with a division between a Marxist Centre and a radical Left becoming apparent by 1910, for most of the period under consideration here the figures treated here as representative of the Marxist Left took up broadly similar positions in defence of Marxism against its reformist and revisionist critics. The Erfurt Programme, the theoretical part of which had been drafted by Karl Kautsky in consultation with Friedrich Engels, and the part containing immediate or short term demands by Eduard Bernstein, defined the SPD as the party of the proletariat, dedicated to class struggle, and therefore to the gaining of political power.1 This programme, which was to be the official platform of German Social Democracy throughout the Wilhelmine period, was explicitly based on Marxian conceptions of class and class struggle. In addition to the Erfurt Programme itself, Kautsky’s commentary on the Programme, and his summary of Das Kapital (entitled Karl Marx’ Ökonomische Lehren) became standard references for party ideology (and also influential among other parties in the Second International).2 Kautsky was also important as the editor of Die Neue Zeit, the leading Social Democratic theoretical and literary journal. While it had a limited circulation, and never achieved the mass working-class readership for which Kautsky may have wished, it was widely read by socialist intellectuals throughout the Second International, and served as a forum for debate on issues which could become topics for debate at party congresses and within the party as a whole.3 A discussion of the ideas on class and culture of the “Marxist Left” of the party must therefore start with

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Kautsky, who was widely seen as the defender of “Marxist orthodoxy”, even though a rift later developed between Kautsky and the more revolutionary left Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring.4 Indeed, so influential were Kautsky’s formulations of Marxism in German Social Democracy, that Erich Matthias, in a wellknown 1957 article, suggested the term “Kautskyanismus” to characterize the ideology of the SPD.5 In Matthias’ view, Kautsky’s understanding of Marx never went beyond the limits of his early attachment to a view of society based on Darwinian views of evolution, furthermore: “The limits of his understanding of Marx... which in essential points never broke out of the bounds of his preMarxist experience of political education, are the limits of the understanding of Marx on the part of his historical generation”.6 Kautsky’s reading of Marxism is characterized as “vulgar Darwinism”, and even, misleadingly, as “Social Darwinism”.7 Matthias viewed “Kautskyanismus”, understood as evolutionary determinism combined with verbal radicalism, as serving as an “ideology of integration” in the pre-1914 SPD, serving mainly tactical ends in keeping the party together, masking both the ideological differences within the party and the discrepancies between the party’s theory and practice, and ultimately serving as a stabilizing factor in the existing state and society.8 Matthias’ analysis has its merits in pointing to the strong influence of scientific materialism and evolutionary thought on the intellectual development of Karl Kautsky, and on the mentality of the organized social democratic labour movement in general, and in indicating the importance of the belief in the scientific inevitability of the triumph of socialism on the morale and cohesion of SPD members. It is, however, open to criticism for its one-sidedness. It is beyond dispute that the young Kautsky was strongly influenced by scientific materialism and concepts of evolution, not only from Darwinism, but also from thinkers such as Ernst Haeckel and Ludwig Büchner.9 Kautsky recalled in his memoirs that, under the influence of these thinkers in the 1870s, he “became a consistent materialist, albeit at first still without a knowledge of the dialectic”.10 However, in his closely documented study of Kautsky, Gary P. Steenson has shown that “[b]y 1885, Kautsky had clearly broken with the school, as represented by Büchner, Haeckel and Spencer, which contended that human society was merely an extension of the animal world and similarly dominated by natural law”.11 This is clearly evident in, for example, an article by Kautsky from 1895 on “Darwinismus und

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Marxismus”, in which Kautsky took Enrico Ferri to task for overgeneralizing from natural scientific laws to social processes, and in which Kautsky drew a strong distinction between Marx and Spencer.12 Matthias understates the impact of specifically Marxian ideas on Kautsky. While it is true that the brand of Marxism prevalent during the period of the Second International, especially in the German party, was characterized by an emphasis on scientism, economism and determinism, this has been explained with reference to factors such as ignorance of Marx’s still unpublished early works, the influence of Engels’ late work from the Anti-Dühring on, and a neglect of philosophical questions by a party confronted with pressing political tasks.13 It is therefore possible to overstate Kautsky’s personal share of responsibility for the theoretical shortcomings of the party during this time. Finally, despite the development of a self-consciously “Centrist” position on Kautsky’s part from 1910 on, Matthias’ characterization of “Kautskyanismus” as an “ideology of integration” has also been challenged, given the absence of consensus on Kautsky’s views within the party, and Kautsky’s readiness to engage in rigorous polemics against dissenting voices.14 Kautsky’s commentary on the Erfurt Programme followed on from his Karl Marx’ Ökonomische Lehren, a popularization and condensation of the first volume of Das Kapital, closely following the structure of the latter, with many of the same chapter headings. In Karl Marx’ Ökonomische Lehren, Kautsky referred to the classical ideals of beauty and Bildung, arguing that the division of labour characteristic of early capitalist manufacture was in stark contrast to the concept of the harmonious development of the whole person: “the whole person thus became tied for a lifetime to a certain part of a process, in which he achieved very great skill, while at the same time he became onesidedly stunted and became deprived of that harmonious development, which still provided classical antiquity with its ideal beauty”.15 However, the revolutionary development of machinery, and the rapid change in labour processes brought about by it, make it impossible for a worker to continue to be confined to carrying out the same particular function for a lifetime. The need for a more flexibly disposable labour force brings with it the emergence of an “industrial reserve army”, but also necessitates a greater degree of elementary and technical education for workers.16 Thus, for Kautsky, while the development of capitalist industry “lays waste to the earth and lets the worker go to seed physically and intellectually [geistig]”, it also “at the

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same time develops the germs of a new and higher culture, and the driving forces which will help it to its breakthrough”.17 For Kautsky, a new level of human culture in the widest possible sense will be possible on the basis of the advances of material production — a human race: far from the one-sided narrowness of handcraft and manufacture, not the slave of nature, like the man of primitive communism, not purchasing spiritual [geistige] and physical strength and beauty with the oppression of armies of slaves without rights, like classical antiquity; a [human] race, harmoniously developed, taking joy in life and capable of enjoyment, master of the earth and of natural forces, embracing all members of the commonwealth in brotherly equality.18 Although Kautsky’s presentation of Marx’s economic theory is not primarily concerned with the relationship between class and culture, two themes are evident from the above brief discussion: a generalized concept of culture, meaning level of development of civilisation, which is tied to the development of specific modes of production, involving specific class structures and class conflicts; and the classical notion of Bildung, the attainment of which ideal is limited by class inequalities, which will only be overcome in a socialist society. The general concept of culture is not far removed from contemporary dictionary definitions, e.g.: Kultur [...] denotes partly the action applied to an object to refine it or to make it suitable for certain purposes, partly the success of this action. One speaks therefore both of the culture of a field [...] and of the culture (training) of the mind, the culture (fostering) of the sciences, arts, etc., and finally in a similar sense to civilisation, whereby one understands the labour and its result, which has been carried out by a people or in an epoch or in the course of history altogether for the improvement of man and the greater perfection of human society.19 However, for Kautsky, it was necessary to specify that the “labour” involved in the attainment of culture in society was always connected with a specific mode of production. Kautsky wrote in 1885 (two years before Karl Marx’ Ökonomische Lehren) that “Kultur” was “nothing but

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the expression of the level of intellectual [geistigen] development, as determined by the prevailing mode of production”.20 The same generalized usage of “Kultur” to denote a particular stage of development of civilisation (based on development of the mode of production) is also found in Kautsky’s Das Erfurter Programm. Kautsky’s commentary on the party programme is divided into five sections: “The Decline of the Small Firm” (including a brief discussion of the capitalist mode of production and the emergence of the proletariat); “The Proletariat”, with emphasis on the tendency of intermediate social groups to sink into the proletariat; “The Capitalist Class” (including a discussion of overproduction and economic crises); “The State of the Future” (and the need for social revolution);21 and “The Class Struggle”. Here, too, Kautsky uses phrases such as: “[t]he proletarians are already today the [numerically] strongest class in the culturally developed states [Kulturstaaten]”; only a “small group of capitalists and large landowners [...] enjoys the huge benefits, which are the products of the achievements of modern culture”; “all existing land [...] has been — at least in the culturally developed countries [Kulturländern] — taken possession of by a minority”; “For centuries, indeed millenia, people remained on one cultural level [Kulturstufe] once it had been attained” (referring to the slowness of technological change in traditional societies).22 Likewise, Kautsky further developed on the classical concept of Bildung which was raised in his earlier work. As in Karl Marx’ Ökonomische Lehren, Kautsky describes how the ideal of the harmonious development of the individual has historically been the monopoly of the possessing class, from Athenian slave-owners on, which has been freed from the necessity of having to perform paid work.23 Furthermore, in Kautsky’s view, under capitalism Bildung had become a commodity.24 As education expanded to meet the rapidly increasing requirements of modern capitalist society (a development which, inter alia, includes the extension of educational opportunities to women), it suffered the fate of other hitherto scarce commodities which had become much more plentiful: its price went down, and the position of the owners of the commodity worsened.25 The consequence of this was that the “labour market for the workers of education is today just as over-filled as that of manual workers. The intellectual workers too already have their reserve army [...] where one formerly spoke of the aristocracy of the spirit [Geist], one now speaks of the proletariat of the Intelligenz”.26 With the commodification of Bildung, its owners are subject to the same processes of

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proletarianization which affect other small property owners, while the owners of capital have purely an instrumental concept of education and culture.27 Kautsky does, however, refer to a minority from the educated, propertied classes, which still retains “a remnant of the old idealism from the time of the revolutionary struggles of the rising bourgeoisie, the period of the Enlightenment”, and which is sufficiently far-sighted to identify with the cause of socialism and break with their class background, but “[o]nly a few retain enough courage and independence to press forward to this crossroads”.28 (In a later article on “Die Intelligenz und die Sozialdemokratie”, Kautsky was to emphasize the lack of unity and class solidarity within the intelligentsia.)29 Aside from this small and idealistic fragment of the bourgeois intelligentsia, Kautsky argued, only the workers have a genuine and disinterested desire for knowledge and education: One of the most striking manifestations of contemporary society is the proletariat’s thirst for knowledge. While all other classes seek to kill their leisure time as mindlessly as possible, the proletariat strives for education [Bildung] with a real craving. Only someone who has had the opportunity to be active among proletarians, can fully appreciate the strength of this desire for knowledge and enlightenment. But even the outsider can gain an impression of it if he compares the newspapers, periodicals and brochures of the workers with the literature which is popular among other social circles.30 However, a new proletarian (or universal) culture had to await the success of the social revolution: Only the victory of socialism opens up to the proletariat all sources of education [Bildung]; only the victory of socialism makes it possible to shorten the labour time needed for providing for a living to the extent that the worker is given the leisure required for the acquisition of sufficient knowledge. The capitalist mode of production arouses the proletariat’s thirst for knowledge, the socialist mode of production alone can satisfy it. Not the freedom of labour, but the liberation from labour, which the use of machinery in a socialist society makes possible in a farreaching measure, will bring humanity the freedom of life, the freedom

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of artistic and scientific activity, the freedom of the highest form of enjoyment.31 Ultimately, Kautsky argued, a persistence of the capitalist stage of human civilisation was impossible: the choice facing humanity was “either forward to socialism or backwards into barbarism”.32 The following points can be drawn from this brief examination of the view of culture and education in Kautsky’s most influential books: a view of culture as an expression of a particular stage of development of the mode of production (this is perhaps where the evolutionary element in Kautsky’s thought is most apparent); and a view of Bildung as both an ideal of aesthetic and personal development, and — under capitalism — as a commodity, enjoyment of which is governed by class position. Kautsky does not construct a theoretical outline of the distinction between bourgeois and proletarian culture in the existing society, rather, the culture of socialist society is projected into the future, and described as embodying universal values of freedom. On the other hand, Kautsky emphasizes the desire for knowledge and education at least on the part of the better qualified and organized workers, and contrasts their understanding of culture with that of the supposedly more narrow-sighted bourgeoisie (excepting the minority of the bourgeois intelligentsia with sufficient insight and courage to identify with the cause of socialism). It is noteworthy that Kautsky’s discussion of culture and education reveals elements of voluntarism and even idealism which are somewhat at odds with his ostensibly materialist and deterministic premisses. (Later, in Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung (1906), Kautsky sought to provide a materialist explanation for such apparently idealistic behaviour, suggesting that altruism was innate in both humans and animals, for reasons connected with the survival of species as well as of individuals.33 On the level of human society, Kautsky postulated that “the most original and naive form of every social rebellion is that of moral indignation, the sentiment of the immorality of the existing condition of society”, suggesting the existence of an innate and deeply rooted sense of justice in human society.)34 Finally, these reflections on culture and education are found within a theoretical framework which places priority on questions of class struggle and the need for a political party of the working class. These themes can also be found in subsequent works by Kautsky. For example, in Die soziale Revolution (1902) Kautsky emphasized the

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advances made by the proletariat in the previous half-century “in moral and intellectual terms”.35 Kautsky cited Heinrich Heine’s melancholy prediction that a communist society would result in the destruction of cultural and artistic values.36 Kautsky’s response was to argue that the rising cultural level of the working class showed that “today it is precisely the communists who constitute the most secure refuge for art and science, to which they have repeatedly lent their support in the most decisive way”.37 Once again, Kautsky also noted in this brochure the rise in sympathy for socialism among a section of the intelligentsia, although he suggested that as it became safer for the educated bourgeois to profess a (non-committal) sympathy for socialist ideas, little reliance should be placed on the representatives of a “salonfähig” socialism. Thus, attempts to win over the middle classes by appealing to such sympathies (on the part of only a small section of the bourgeoisie) could not replace the struggle for self-emancipation on the part of the working class.38 Kautsky’s Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung (1906), a response to the call of Eduard Bernstein and other revisionists for a return to Kant in order to supplement historical materialism with an ethical grounding for socialism, offered further elements towards a Marxist understanding of culture.39 Kautsky’s treatise offered a materialist foundation of ethics, arguing on two levels: firstly, a historical materialist account of the development of different philosophical theories of ethics, and secondly, a scientific explanation for the development of an ethical sense within human beings, based on a materialist view of the evolution of the human species as a species with innate social instincts, and of the development of human society, characterized by the production of tools and a potential for the improvement of tools (means of production) and for division of labour. In his discussion of the development of cognitive powers of human beings, Kautsky wrote that: “The individual can use the muscles that have developed within him so that he can catch his prey and defend himself against his enemy, for play and dance as well. However, these strengths and abilities receive their particular character only through the struggle for existence which develops them”. The same applied, Kautsky argued, to mental powers and abilities: cognitive faculties were not developed for their own sake, but as aids to the survival of the organism. Thus “the perfection of the human cognitive faculty and of human cognition is intimately connected with the perfection of human practice [Praxis]”.40 Kautsky argued that the

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separation of theory and practice, of labour and cognition, in presently existing society was a result of the development of the division of labour and of class society. It was the goal of the contemporary movement of the proletariat “to put an end to this class division, and thereby also to the dualistic philosophy, the philosophy of pure cognition [Erkenntnis]”.41 While the development of the cognitive faculty was bound up with the need to steer the activity of an individual organism, Kautsky saw language as developing out of the earliest forms of social labour among human beings.42 The development of language, as social labour becomes more advanced, makes possible the formation of abstract concepts, of passing knowledge from one generation to the next, and of scientific thought, which gives human beings the possibility of mastery of nature, which gives rise to the idea of freedom.43 For Kautsky, every mode of production was connected with specific modes of thought, although he insisted that the latter could not be mechanically derived from the former. While using the “superstructure” metaphor, he insisted that the “ideological superstructure” was complex and elements of it could have an existence independent of their direct material causes.44 Conceptions of morality, for example, could gain a weight of their own through the force of custom, but in the long run could only remain effective for as long as they corresponded to real social needs.45 A morality which no longer corresponded to the needs of society could become a conservative and repressive element, just as organized religion was used to reinforce the position of the ruling classes.46 In class society, each class had its own moral precepts and sanctions, which were valid only for the members of that class. Only in a classless society would public opinion be a sufficient power in itself to uphold moral norms.47 Elsewhere in Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, Kautsky distanced himself from a simple evolutionary view of cultural progress: “There is nothing more erroneous than the view that the advance of culture and the rise of knowledge necessarily also carries with it more humanitarianism”.48 However, unlike the Social Darwinists, Kautsky did not see war as an extension of the natural struggle for existence, but as a product of specific kinds of social formations in specific environments. In particular, he linked wars to the development of relations of domination within human societies.49 While Kautsky does provide some arguments for a materialist view of culture in Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, the work tends

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towards the overly schematic (for example, the statement that “ascendant classes” tend to favour philosophical materialism, while declining classes lean towards philosophical idealism)50 and falls well short of formulating a fully articulated account of the relationship between mode of production and philosophical “superstructure”. There are perhaps two reasons for this: as well as the intrinsic limitations of Kautsky’s own theory in this respect, there is the fact that Kautsky’s work was written less as an academic treatise than as a politically motivated essay51 designed to counter the philosophical challenge to Marxist historical materialism posed by neo-Kantian “ethical socialism”. In rejecting a Kantian approach to ethics, Kautsky saw himself as defending the integrity of the proletarian class-based party in its revolutionary struggle. The primacy of the political struggle for the working-class party is emphasized in Kautsky’s well-known and controversial Der Weg zur Macht.52 Kautsky re-affirmed that Social Democracy was a revolutionary party, that state power was a “tool of class rule”, and that the social revolution which was required by the proletariat could only take place through conquest of political power.53 Kautsky explicitly rejected the revisionist thesis of a peaceful growth-process towards socialism. While the concentration of capital and the growth of the proletariat both constituted important preconditions for such a process, Kautsky argued, they were also antagonistic processes, which involved the necessity of social conflicts before socialism could be attained.54 Kautsky also rejected the revisionist assertion that there was a contradiction between Marx’s view of economic necessity and human will. Kautsky argued that economic processes and technical development were products of human will, in particular, the will to live, and that there was a reciprocal relationship between the development of technology and the will to live: “the further technology is developed, the more the will to live becomes the will to live better”. This will to live better, Kautsky wrote, “distinguishes the cultured human being [den Kulturmenschen]”.55 Capitalists and workers have the same will to live, but their different living conditions lead to this will assuming different forms.56 In the resulting class struggle, theory — and therefore Social Democracy — had the role of maximising the potential strength of the proletariat by offering insight into social processes.57 Although Kautsky does not use the word “dialectical” here, his definition of “cultured human beings” implies a dynamic reciprocal process between the human will on the one hand,

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and economic and technological processes on the other, which finds expression in society through the class struggle. “Culture” is a function of the reciprocal interaction between a human will to live better, and the material means which advance this objective. It is thus seen as something intrinsic to the development of class society and class struggle, and not as something above or beyond material concerns. In the conclusion of Der Weg zur Macht, Kautsky invokes the mission of the organized elite of the European proletariat: the proletariat “will raise its elite up to the peak of culture, and make it able to conduct that huge economic transformation, which will ultimately put an end to all misery resulting from servitude, exploitation and ignorance on the entire globe”.58 Kautsky tended, in his major writings from the period under consideration, to employ the term “culture” as a broad category, referring to the general level of human progress, something always to be considered in connection with material factors, for example, the development of technology. While Kautsky’s early writings show a strong Darwinian influence (which recurs in his later works in the 1920s), they are not confined within a conceptual framework of evolutionary determinism to the extent sometimes assumed by Kautsky’s critics. In his reflections on culture, however, Kautsky, influenced by the priority attached to political and, to some degree, economic issues, did not investigate issues relating to the question of class-specific cultural or aesthetic values in any detail.59 Within the Social Democratic Party, the principal theoretician concerned with questions of art, literature, aesthetics and culture was Franz Mehring (1846-1919), whose work with the Freie Volksbühne will be discussed in detail below (in Chapter 5).60 Franz Mehring was from a conservative Eastern Prussian family background (his father was a former army officer and a tax official, and his family tree included aristocrats and churchmen), against which he vigorously rebelled, even though his Prussian background may have influenced his attitude to issues such as the unification of the Reich, and aspects of Social Democratic party history (for example, in his rejection of South German particularism). Mehring had joined the Social Democratic Party in 1891, writing regular (mostly weekly) leading articles for Die Neue Zeit from mid-1891 onwards, after twenty years of sometimes turbulent activity as a radical democratic journalist, beginning his career under the influence of Johann Jacoby and Guido Weiss, and working for a series of liberal newspapers and periodicals,

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ending up as editor of the radical Berlin Volks-Zeitung, which represented the far left of bourgeois, non-socialist opinion, even running foul of the anti-socialist law when it was temporarily banned in March 1889.61 As a liberal democrat in the mid 1870s, Mehring had taken the view that raising the “standard of living” of the lower classes would mean “the cultural development of the whole nation”, a formulation which emphasized the need for social reform, but which did not embrace concepts of class struggle.62 Mehring’s criticism of the failure of the new Bismarckian Reich to integrate the lower classes into the unified nation was coupled with his judgement that the literature produced in the new Reich was in a state of decline. The cultural poverty of the unified nation showed how far removed the Bismarckian solution of the national question was from the ideals of Germany’s great writers and thinkers.63 Mehring came close to the Social Democrats in the mid-1870s, even composing a pamphlet attacking Heinrich von Treitschke for the latter’s anti-socialist views, and providing the anonymous pamphlet with the subtitle: “Eine sozialistische Replik”, and referring therein to the Social Democrats as “meine Partei”.64 (The subtitle and authorial persona of Mehring’s pamphlet may have given rise to the view later held against Mehring that he had been a party member at this time, and had subsequently turned against the party. Mehring was, however, conducting discussions with Wilhelm Liebknecht and other party leaders around this time regarding the possibility of him working for the party press.)65 In response to Treitschke, Mehring defended Lassalle against the charge that the latter had appealed to the “unbridled passions” of the workers, writing that: the great fundamental idea of his agitation was that only science could raise the workers up to that height of civilized behaviour [Gesittung] and prosperity, which was fitting for them; from the alliance of the idealistic elements of the bourgeoisie who had been brought up on the works of our great thinkers and poets, he hoped for an ‘incomparable transformation of the world’.66 Mehring went on to challenge Treitschke’s assertions that great inequality in wealth was necessary to produce great art, and that only a small elite was capable of producing or comprehending art or “the highest works of culture”.67 Towards the conclusion of his pamphlet, Mehring claimed that “die ganze gelehrte und Künstlerwelt” [”the whole

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world of scholars and artists”] was sparsely represented in the “natural aristocracy”, which in Treitschke’s view constituted the ruling elite of the nation. Instead, Mehring saw the ruling elite as consisting of a declining nobility and a mob of Bourse speculators lacking “Bildung und Wissen”.68 Mehring asserted that German society, which claimed to be so proud of “Bildung”, allowed its best minds to perish in poverty.69 After accusing Treitschke’s Liberal colleagues of failing to oppose corruption within their own ranks, and of failing to expose Bismarck’s manipulations of the “Reptilienfonds” (secret funds used for paying off journalists), Mehring declared: “You and your party comrades, Herr Professor, have the chance in your hands to put an end to the intellectual prostitution in the fatherland of Kant, Lessing and Schiller; for years we have waited in vain”.70 Mehring’s criticisms of Treitschke, and of National Liberalism, display a strongly idealist vein, criticizing the German bourgeoisie for failing to live up to their own concepts of “Bildung” and “Kultur”. However, although Mehring spoke from a socialist point of view in the Treitschke pamphlet, and actually referred to Marx’s Kapital, he was not yet either a member of the Social Democratic Party nor a Marxist. In an eclectic fashion, Mehring cites Kapital beside Lassalle’s “Bastiat-Schulze”, and refers more to the “Kathedersozialist” Gustav Schmoller (one of the “patrons” [Gönner] of socialism who had been the object of Treitschke’s wrath) than he does to either Marx or Lassalle, identifying himself fairly closely with Schmoller’s positions.71 Mehring’s movement towards Social Democracy was interrupted in the mid-1870s, when he became disillusioned with the refusal of Social Democratic leaders to support him in his conflict with the Liberaldemocrat and editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung Leopold Sonnemann (whom Mehring had attacked for unethical business practices).72 Mehring’s estrangement from the Social Democratic Party was followed by a period during which he wrote a number of publications sharply critical of the party, notably the short work Zur Geschichte der deutschen Socialdemokratie. Ein historischer Versuch (1877), and Die deutsche Socialdemokratie. Ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre, also published in 1877, the latter work going through two further, enlarged editions in 1878 and 1879.73 In the period that followed, Mehring attempted to pursue an academic career, receiving a doctorate from the University of Leipzig for his history of German social democracy. However, Mehring had greater success as a journalist than as an academic historian, and during his period on the Berliner Volks-Zeitung in the 1880s, he became

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increasingly drawn back into sympathy with the outlawed Social Democratic Party, and became increasingly interested in the thought of Karl Marx. Under Mehring’s direction, the Volks-Zeitung came to represent a position on the far left of the spectrum of bourgeois democratic politics, and was moving closer to social democracy, even before Mehring’s public feud in 1890 with the writer and theatre director Paul Lindau precipitated Mehring’s complete break with the bourgeois press and his joining of the newly legalised Social Democratic Party.74 From June 1891, Mehring became a regular contributor to Die Neue Zeit. As the (initially anonymous) author of the weekly “Letter from Berlin”, which usually headed each issue of the journal, and as a frequent contributor on matters such as theatre, literature and history, Mehring became one of the mainstays of Die Neue Zeit.75 From January 1892, a long series of articles by Mehring began to appear in Die Neue Zeit, in addition to his regular commentary on current events, entitled “Die Lessing-Legende”, which was subsequently published in book form.76 The ostensible purpose of Mehring’s study of Lessing was to save him from the distortions of bourgeois literary history and criticism, especially in so far as it adhered to a patriotic Prussian version of Lessing, which hailed his intellectual and literary achievements as evidence of the cultural vitality of Prussia under Frederick the Great. Writers such as Wilhelm Scherer (1841- 1886), the author of an authoritative history of German literature, and the literary historian and Lessing biographer Erich Schmidt (1853-1913), as well as contemporary Prussian historians, were the targets of Mehring’s criticism. However, just as Mehring had previously recognized that Lassalle’s polemic against the literary historian and journalist Julian Schmidt in 1862 “had struck at the literary historian, but had meant the editor-in-chief of the Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung, the most outstanding representative of the liberal press of the old school”,77 so Mehring, too, wrote his Lessing-Legende not merely for the purpose of engaging in a debate over eighteenthcentury German literature. This was recognized by Friedrich Engels, who wrote that Mehring’s book was “the best downright siege of the citadel of the Prussian legend that I know: one speaks of Lessing, and ‘der alte Fritz’ is meant”.78 Mehring’s Lesssing-Legende showed a significant change from his positions as a liberal in the mid-1870s on issues relating to socialism, class, and culture. Whereas Mehring had once held the view that the

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reign of Frederick the Great had helped to bring about a golden age in German culture, he now emphasized the degree to which Prussian militarism had always been antagonistic to cultural progress. In 1874, Mehring had still taken the view that “der alte Fritz”, despite his Francophile literary tastes, had been “one of the most powerful sponsors” of German literature and that “the Seven Years’ War was a vital, perhaps indispensable precondition of our classical age”.79 In the Lessing-Legende, the opposite view is taken: the Seven Years’ War was an eighteenth-century cabinet war, which was of little concern to the bourgeois population; men such as Lessing, Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn were relatively unmoved by the events of the war; and the war failed to bring about an awakening of the middle class or any feeling of national pride.80 The outcome of the struggle was not “an advance in the cultural progress of humanity”, but “merely the strengthening of militarism which was opposed to culture” [”des kulturfeindlichen Militarismus”].81 Also, whereas Mehring had, in his antisocialist phase, disparaged socialism for its alleged hostility to culture,82 he now praised the class-conscious proletariat as the true heir of the best traditions of classical German culture. This conclusion was derived from Mehring’s application of “historical materialism” as he understood it, and was fundamental to his way of thinking about the relationship between culture and class from this period onwards. Mehring’s conception of “historical materialism” (the term he always used for Marxism, significantly in preference to “dialectical materialism”) was that it was esentially a method, rather than a philosophical system, to be used in the study of history. In an appendix to Die Lessing-Legende, Mehring spelled out his definition of the term “historical materialism”: “Historical materialism is not a closed system, crowned with ultimate truth; it is the scientific method for the exploration of the process of human development. It proceeds from the indisputable fact that human beings live not only within nature, but also within society.”83 This method of understanding history proceeded from the principle that: Man can only arrive at consciousness, and consciously think and act, within society; the social formation, of which he is a member, awakens and steers his intellectual powers. The foundation of every society, however, is the mode of production of material life, and thus it determines, in the last instance, the course of intellectual life in its manifold expressions. So little

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does historical materialism deny ideal forces, that it rather examines them down to their basis...84 Mehring was inclined to define “historical materialism” as an extension of scientific materialism, and as a step beyond the latter.85 Its methods had a claim to objective scientific validity. Furthermore, in his definition of “historical materialism”, Mehring drew on Engels’ statements in his Anti-Dühring and his essay on Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy to the effect that “historical materialism” signalled the “end of philosophy”.86 Mehring was even to state that: Marx and Engels always remained on the philosophical standpoint of Feuerbach, except in so far as they extended his thought and made it more profound by transposing it onto the field of history; to put the matter quite clearly, in the area of science they were just as much mechanistic materialists as they were historical materialists in the area of the social sciences.87 Mehring thus felt justified in dismissing epistemological questions — or abstract philosophy in general — as “Hirnwebereien” [brainweaving].88 Georg Lukács was later (1933) to point to the way in which Mehring attempted “to make out of historical materialism a method for the complete historicisation of philosophy” and to his “indifference towards epistemological and methodological problems” as sources of weakness in Mehring’s thought.89 Mehring’s limitations in abstract theoretical matters illustrate the point made above in relation to Kautsky: they are at least partly conditioned by the priority given to more urgent political questions, the ignorance of certain of Marx’s early works, and the influence of Engels’ later works. Engels endorsed Mehring’s application of historical materialism in Die Lessing-Legende, writing in a letter to Bebel: “It is really a pleasure, when one sees how the materialist view of history, after it has — as a rule — had to serve as a grandiloquent phrase in the writings of younger party members for 20 years, is finally starting to be used for what it actually was: as a guiding thread [Leitfaden] in the study of history”.90 Despite his praise for Mehring’s work, Engels did detect a weakness:

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Otherwise there is only one thing lacking, which, however, has also generally not been sufficiently emphasized in the writings of Marx and myself, and in regard to which we are all equally at fault. That is, that we have all initially placed the main emphasis on the derivation of political, legal and other ideological ideas and of actions mediated through these ideas, from fundamental economic realities. In the process we have neglected the formal aspect in favour of the content: the ways and means in which these ideas, etc., come to exist. That has given our opponents a welcome opportunity for misunderstandings or rather distortions...91 Mehring was also criticised in Die Neue Zeit by Paul Ernst for failing to specify the psychological or other mechanisms by which the economic and social conditions of the time found expression in cultural production. While Ernst himself claimed adherence to “historical materialism”, he found Mehring’s emphasis on economic causality schematic and one-sided.92 In his Lessing-Legende, Mehring had based his argument on “the scientific view, which sees nothing but the ideal reflection of class struggles in the intellectual life [Geistesleben] of peoples”.93 The significant example of this, for Mehring, is the connection between the weak economic development of the German middle classes and the limitations of the German Enlightenment, which in Mehring’s view suffered from its lack of roots in a strong, class-conscious bourgeoisie, and thus failed to pose a direct challenge to Germany’s ruling aristocracy.94 Elsewhere, Mehring somewhat qualified his statement that intellectual life was the mere reflection of class struggles, writing: “Like all ideology, aesthetic and literary criticism is ultimately [in letzter Instanz] determined by the prevailing economic structure of society”, although Mehring still did not elaborate on the ways and means by which ideas could be mediated in tracing their formal expression in culture back to the ultimate determinant.95 Several years later, in his “Literarhistorische Streifzüge” (1899), Mehring restated the problem in relation to the study of specific authors: It is unavoidable that a writer, for his own person, remains caught up in the ideological conceptions which develop out of the social consequences of his life, or at the most becomes aware of these consequences in an unclear and unsure manner, but it is

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the most essential task of literary history, to make this play of causes and effects transparent.96 Economic (or social) determinism is asserted in principle, but the task of untangling cause and effect still requires detailed empirical work. In response to Ernst’s charges of schematic application of “historical materialism”, Mehring insisted — in principle — on the reciprocal interaction of ideological and material factors, while insisting on the causal primacy of the latter: Doesn’t Paul Ernst understand that if the materialistic conception of history denies an independent existence to the various ideological spheres, it in no way denies them all influence in history? Paul Ernst thinks metaphysically, not dialectically, when he conceives of cause and effect as diametrically opposite poles and entirely forgets the reciprocal interaction. For when has historical materialism denied that a historical factor, as soon as it is placed into the world by other, in the end economic, causes will now also react with its environment and even have an effect back on its own causes?97 Mehring wrote in great detail, displaying considerable grasp of historical sources, about the circumstances in which Lessing lived and wrote, and this, combined with his new, materialistic approach, enabled him to write a work rich in historical insight. Nonetheless, his account of the connections between class struggle and culture falls short of providing a fully articulated general theory of cultural production. Likewise, Mehring spends surprisingly little space in his discussion of Lessing’s works on the actual aesthetic dimension of his literary achievements. Mehring stressed that all aesthetics was historically conditioned.98 For example, the history of drama in Germany shows that “bourgeois drama is transformed along with the historical transformations of the bourgeois classes themselves”,99 or, differently expressed: “Every bourgeois class has the bourgeois drama that it deserves at that time”.100 The “bourgeois tragedy”, for example, as in the case of Lessing’s Miss Sara Sampson, is characterised as “a step forward in the struggle for emancipation of the bourgeois classes”.101 Mehring illustrated such statements by discussing in detail the historical context of Lessing’s works, and by statements like his

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comparison between Shakespeare and Corneille: “in Shakespeare’s tragedy ocean waves resound, while in Corneille’s the fountains of Versailles murmur”.102 This arresting turn of phrase draws attention both to the difference between the seafaring and enterprising Elizabethan nobles of Shakespeare’s time and court society under Louis XIV and to differences in style between the two dramatists, but neither in these cases nor in the case of Lessing does Mehring undertake sustained formal analysis of the literary works themselves in support of his general argument. Lukács would later argue in his essay on Mehring that the latter never succeeded in reconciling his basically idealistic, Kantian conception of aesthetics with his materialist conception of history — including the history of literature and art — in which Mehring insisted that aesthetic categories were historically determined, and therefore relative.103 While Mehring, like Kautsky, was to reject the argument of some revisionists that Marxism could benefit from engagement with Kantian ethics or epistemology, he remained influenced by Kant’s thoughts on aesthetics. Mehring criticized Kant’s epistemology for falling short of a thorough-going materialism, and in particular — with reference to the famous statement in the Preface to the second edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft that Kant had abolished knowledge to make room for faith — by the way in which Kant’s philosophy had left a door open for idealism and religious belief.104 Mehring’s rejection of Kantian or neo-Kantian ethics was related to this objection, while he also considered it a step backwards to go from Marx, who in Mehring’s view had completed the emancipatory mission of classical philosophy and taken the project of emancipation onto a more advanced historical plane. (There is more than a hint of historical determinism in Mehring’s discussion of the relationship between Kant and Marxism, with the turn towards the earlier philosopher’s work being presented as per se regressive).105 However, Mehring praised Kant’s thoughts on aesthetics (as outlined in the Kritik der Urteilskraft) for putting the field of aesthetics on a more “scientific” basis, and for his demonstration that art was more that mere imitation of nature or a subject of moral philosophy but was a “natural capacity of mankind” [ursprüngliches Vermögen der Menschheit].106 Mehring reiterated his assessment of the aesthetics of the Kritik der Urteilskraft in his short book on Schiller, where he gives a positive evaluation of the influence of Kant’s aesthetics on Schiller (while citing Schiller’s reservations on Kant’s ethical doctrines).107 In keeping with Kant’s dictate that aesthetics

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required the disinterested enjoyment of the beautiful on the part of the observer, Mehring rejected “Tendenzkunst” (tendentious or propagandistic art).108 On the other hand, Mehring repeatedly stated that the works of art which were most deeply rooted in the historical processes and conflicts of their own time would be the most durable.109 However, even as Mehring conceded the validity of Kant’s aesthetics, he stressed that the primacy of politics required that the further theoretical exploration of the field had to be deferred to a more favourable time: “with the crudely prosaic state in which the proletarian struggle for emancipation still finds itself, we would rather save such aesthetic pleasures for a distant future”.110 For all its limitations, Mehring’s Lessing-Legende was significant for two reasons: firstly, as an innovative attempt to apply a historical materialist approach to a specific period of Prussian-German history, it represented a substantial attack — well-grounded in the relevant literature — on the dominant view of a central epoch in official, conservative Prussian historiography.111 Secondly, Mehring followed Friedrich Engels’ conclusion in the latter’s Feuerbach essay that “the German labour movement is the heir to German classical philosophy”,112 and extended the statement to include German classical literature — at least in so far as this literature reflected the revolutionary struggle of the Third Estate in Germany. Mehring reasoned that, as the Third Estate in the eighteenth century included both the bourgeoisie and proletarian elements, and that — in his view — since the bourgeoisie had ceased to adhere to the revolutionary principles espoused in its conflict with absolutism and aristocracy, the cultural heritage of the heroic era of bourgeois culture had become the rightful property of the proletariat. Thus: Lessing’s life’s work does not belong to the bourgeoisie but to the proletariat. In the bourgeois class, whose interests he championed, both were still part of the whole, and it would be foolish to ascribe to him a particular position in relation to historical conflicts which only developed long after his death. But the essence and goal of his struggle have been abandoned by the bourgeoisie, and taken up by the proletariat...113 Mehring cited Ferdinand Lassalle and Johann Jacoby as examples for the way in which the revolutionary traditions of bourgeois democracy in Germany were passed on to Social Democracy.114 Mehring’s

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interpretation of Lessing and Lessing’s historical significance also reflects Mehring’s own development from a bourgeois democrat to a radical Social Democrat. Mehring’s characterisation of Lessing — honesty, manliness, desire for knowledge, hatred of oppression and injustice — indicates the qualities which Mehring considered admirable and worthy of emulation, qualities which he contrasted with the dominant charateristics of the German bourgeoisie of the late nineteenth century.115 This portrait of Lessing as revolutionary, and the ardour with which Mehring presents it, help explain Lukács’ emphasis on Mehring’s strongly developed “revolutionary subjectivity”, which compensated to some extent for theoretical aporias in Mehring’s work.116 It should also be stressed, in any discussion of Mehring’s thought, that Mehring was less a dispassionate theoretician than a combative — and often forceful — political writer and polemicist. In branding reactionary institutions and classes as “kulturfeindlich”, while emphasizing that Social Democracy was on the side of progress, and therefore culture, Mehring was not just expounding the Marxian view of history but also using implicitly value-laden language as a political weapon.117 Mehring wrote that if Lessing’s work was insufficiently familiar to the working class, this had two causes: firstly, the defects of the education system (reiterating the Social Democratic criticisms of the Prussian Volksschule), and secondly, the fact that the political struggle now had the highest priority for the proletariat, rather than cultural questions (“In the rough and heavy days of struggle the muses fall silent...”).118 Mehring repeatedly emphasized that literature and theatre could only play a subordinate role in the class struggle of the German proletariat, which had to be conducted primarily through political means. For example, “the stage can never have nearly as much importance for the emancipation of the working class as it had — particularly in Germany — for the emancipation of the bourgeois class”. Although political organisation, the press, and the exercise of the suffrage were all subject to various restrictions in Imperial Germany, these factors still promised to be of more importance than artistic and cultural activities for the political progress of German workers.119 Mehring argued that “[t]he literary organisation of the proletariat is a pleasant supplement to the class struggle, but not an absolute necessity”.120 In keeping with the tradition of Social Democracy’s break with bourgeois Bildungsvereine, Mehring was sharply critical of the efforts of bourgeois ideologues, from Friedrich

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Naumann to the Goethebund, to deflect workers from the class struggle by the propagation of “apolitical” Bildung.121 Mehring nonetheless continued to emphasize the historical connection between classical German literature and the development of the German socialist movement,122 and elaborated on this theme in numerous essays on literature: a short introduction to Schiller, editions of Schiller and Heine for workers, with commentary, numerous reviews and commemorative articles in Die Neue Zeit, the Leipziger Volkszeitung and the popular satirical illustrated Der Wahre Jacob, as well as introductions to plays for the magazine of the Freie Volksbühne, and for the series of guides to plays produced by the party publishers, entitled Die Volksbühne.123 In discussing the literature of the age of Goethe, Mehring once wrote that at its time it had constituted “the only uncontestable claim of the German people to the title of a Kulturnation”.124 This reiterated the theme of Die Lessing-Legende: Germany — whether referring to Prussia or the Kleinstaaten — was lacking in the economic, social or political development which would have indicated an advanced culture, with a weak and politically immature bourgeoisie, so that classical literature had to serve as a proxy for the movement for emancipation from feudal oppression. The positive legacy of this culture was the rightful property of the working class, however Mehring constantly stressed the need for critical historical analysis of this legacy, rather than monumentalizing it in the style of official commemorations of the great “Dichter und Denker”: “A workers’ party especially has no greater necessity than the need for clear and precise thinking, and the need is the greater, the stronger the masses are which flock to its banner... it must... not take up the legacy of bourgeois culture, which it has to keep, without the reservations that are dictated by its class interests”.125 Thus Mehring maintained that the working class could not simply claim all of Schiller’s work as its inheritance without a careful historical analysis distinguishing between the outdated and idealistic elements of Schiller’s work on the one hand, and the timeless expressions of the desire for freedom on the other, especially in the rebellious nature of Die Räuber and Kabale und Liebe, and the declaration of war on tyranny in Wilhelm Tell.126 In the case of Goethe, too, Mehring drew a distinction between the expressions of restless genius, particularly in the early works, and the occasions on which Goethe, as Mehring saw it, succumbed to the external constraints of his conservative and provincial milieu.127 When it came to contemporary literature, Mehring

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acknowledged the literary quality of Ibsen and Hauptmann, but argued that Naturalism, as a product of bourgeois culture, could only depict the misery created by capitalism, without showing the means to practically transcend it.128 Contemporary bourgeois literature, therefore, had little of practical value to offer for the political efforts of the working class. In Mehring’s view, the working class was able to conduct its political struggle through more effective means, and, furthermore, a truly socialist culture could only develop in a new, socialist society.129 Mehring’s adherence to the aesthetic norms outlined by Kant and exemplified by the young Schiller, his emphasis on the relevance of the classics for the labour movement, and his deterministic belief that the flowering of a new proletarian culture could only occur after a proletarian revolution had ushered in a new socialist society have been criticized by writers who argue that Mehring inculcated bourgeois cultural norms into the labour movement while taking a defeatist atttude towards innovative socialist cultural forms. However, to assert, as von Rüden does, that “the leading literary theoretician of Social Democracy rejected the beginnings of artistic activity on the part of the proletariat on political and aesthetic grounds” overstates the case.130 Mehring praised the literary works of socialist writers such as Minna Kautsky (the mother of Karl Kautsky) and the veteran Social Democrat Robert Schweichel.131 While Mehring found that Andere Zeiten, the first play by the young writer Paul Bader, suffered from formal defects, he approved its performance for the Freie Volksbühne in 1893 because of its subject matter, “putting the working and struggling proletariat on the boards of the stage for the first time”.132 In Die Neue Zeit, Mehring also praised Lu Märten’s one act play Bergarbeiter, recommending it “to all workers’ associations which are in the position of having actors at their disposal”.133 While these writers were socialist intellectuals writing for workers, Mehring also took note of the achievements of proletarian writers. In the same issue of Die Neue Zeit as the review of Märten’s Bergarbeiter, Mehring also referred to a new collection of workers’ letters as evidence of the theoretical consciousness and the striving for knowledge of miners, auto-didacts who, even if the Volksschule had left them with an imperfect grasp of orthography and grammar, had a sound understanding of Marxism.134 Mehring also welcomed the appearance of anthologies of workers’ poetry, recommending the Dietz Verlag’s five-volume collection Deutsche Arbeiterdichtung (at an affordable 1 Mark per volume) to

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members of the Freie Volksbühne: even if not every poem in the collection “would stand up to strict standards of aesthetic criticism”, it was more important that all were “inspired by the heartbeat of the working class”.135 Likewise, Mehring’s reception of the major collection of socialist poetry entitled Von unten auf, edited by Franz Diederich and published by the Vorwärts publishing house in 1911, was generally positive.136 Mehring also praised the work of Otto Krille and Ernst Preczang, both of them socialist writers of working-class background.137 If Mehring derived his aesthetic standards of judgement from classical bourgeois literature, this did not prevent him from encouraging contemporary socialist and working-class writers, especially as the latter generally also followed the established aesthetic norms of bourgeois high culture.138 In an 1899 article on “Goethe and the Present”, Mehring summed up his views on the place of art and culture in the movement towards a socialist society. Goethe had been among that “vanguard of poets and thinkers which won for the German nation a place of equal rank among the great Kulturnationen”. While Goethe’s work had influenced the life of the German people through thousands of channels, many did not know his work, since “man does not live from bread alone, he also does not live from art alone. Before he can create a life of beauty, he must first secure his existence itself”. Thus, “art has hitherto been the privilege of a favoured minority”, a minority which had propagated the “insolent dogma, that the masses could never bear the full sunlight of art, but only at the most a few subdued rays of this light”. This dogma — that art had to be diluted for popular consumption — could only persist while oppressed masses had to struggle with material difficulties. At the same time, Mehring rejected the notion that art would end when the rule of privileged classes ceased: art would cease to exist as a privilege of the few “in order to finally become what it should be and is according to its essence: a natural capacity of humanity [ursprüngliches Vermögen der Menschheit]”.139 Mehring used the term “Kultur” in two ways, broadly speaking. Firstly, like Kautsky, he used it to denote the general level of progress of a given society, including not only culture in the narrower sense, but also economic development, political institutions, the legal system, and other distinguishing features of civilisation, all seen as contingent on the level of development of the mode of production in that society. Within this context, specific classes and institutions could be seen as promoting “Kultur”, in the sense of promoting the movement of the

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society towards a more advanced level, or of constituting a hindrance to development, i.e. being “kulturfeindlich” (a charge Mehring frequently levelled against the Prussian Junkers). Secondly, Mehring discussed “Kultur” in terms of artistic production (or “high” culture). Mehring stressed that art had to be understood not only as a creation of the individual artist, but also as a product of the artist’s position in relation to the class conflicts of the time. While Mehring never produced a fully articulated theory of cultural production on a Marxian basis, and was more at home in literary history than in aesthetic criticism, his considerable erudition and his attention to historical detail helped to avert the risk of mere reductionism in his writings on literature. From a later historical perspective, Mehring’s concept of culture may be seen as limited in so far as he did not extend it to embrace an analysis of the cultural expressions of the workers’ experience of their own life world, except for such manifestations as workers’ published poems or activity within Social Democratic organisations. To this extent, Mehring’s work shows the limitations as well as the advantages of his nineteenthcentury bourgeois Gymnasium and university education. (It is also worth noting that while Mehring was a prolific writer, he had only limited contact with practical agitation or organisational work,140 and thus only limited contact with the Party’s working class base). However, Mehring’s contribution to the cultural and educational work of Social Democracy can be seen to have played an important role in recognizing that a future proletarian and socialist culture would not appear out of nothing but would grow out of elements of existing bourgeois culture, while insisting on the primacy of class struggle, so that instead of simply enshrining respect for bourgeois high culture, Mehring urged that it be subjected to a historical materialist analysis and critically appropriated by and for the working class. Rosa Luxemburg paid tribute to Mehring’s work in this field on the occasion of his seventieth birthday: If, according to Marx and Engels, the German proletariat is the historical heir of classical German philosophy, then you have been the executor of this legacy. You have rescued out of the camp of the bourgeoisie whatever golden treasures still remained of the erstwhile intellectual culture of the bourgeoisie, and brought it to us, in the camp of the socially disinherited. Through your books, as in your articles, you have linked the German proletariat not only to classical German philosophy, but

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also to classical literature, not only to Kant and Hegel, but also to Lessing, Schiller and Goethe, with unbreakable bonds. By every line from your wonderful pen, you taught our workers that socialism is not only a knife-and-fork question, but a cultural movement [Kulturbewegung], a great and proud Weltanschauung...141 During the course of her friendship with Mehring, which was occasionally interrupted by spirited quarrels, Luxemburg was to some extent influenced by Mehring’s views on literature. Mehring introduced her to the works of Hebbel, and also worked at overcoming her early aversion to Schiller. (Luxemburg was the daughter of well-off German-speaking Polish Jewish parents, who were steeped in German bourgeois culture.)142 Luxemburg reviewed Mehring’s book on Schiller for Die Neue Zeit, praising it as an antidote to uncritical expressions of the Schiller cult, both in bourgeois and in (revisionist) Party circles, while giving a historically grounded appraisal of the value of Schiller’s achievements for the modern working class.143 Luxemburg’s review strongly supported the concept of a critical and selective appropriation of Schiller, especially in opposition to an unthinking veneration of the great writer, a tendency which she perceived as already present in social democratic circles. Luxemburg considered that a “peculiar process of assimilation [had] taken place, in which the working-class audience [had] not appropriated Schiller as an intellectual whole, as he was in reality, but [had] picked apart his intellectual achievement and unconsciously recast it into its own revolutionary world of ideas and feelings”. This unconscious process of assimilation of Schiller’s works, guided by a “half obscure striving for the bright peaks of the ‘ideal’” had to be superseded by a scientifically objective analysis of “all manifestations of political and aesthetic culture in its clear, strictly objective historical-social context”, and in relation to “that general social development... whose most powerful driving force is today [the workers’] own class struggle”.144 Luxemburg was harshly critical of other Social Democratic writings on the Schiller centenary, especially some revisionists’ articles which praised Schiller’s “revolutionary idealism” in contrast to “dogmatic materialism”, and which Luxemburg pilloried as displaying “in the most pretentious manner the outward appearance of Bildung” in a random mixture of “Homer, Kant, materialism, idealism, feudalism, philosophy of religion, Hans Sachs, humanists and God knows what else”.145

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Like other Left Marxists, Luxemburg stressed the primacy of class struggle and of political activism as part of the class struggle. Indeed, Luxemburg went further than most on the Left of the Party towards developing a strategy of mobilizing increased revolutionary consciousness by encouraging activism around key political issues.146 However, as noted above in Chapter 2, purely cultural matters, in the narrower sense, could only play a minor role in the revolutionary struggle. In response to the debate on the censorship provisions of the “lex Heinze”, Luxemburg declared that while Social Democracy was the “protector and pioneer of intellectual culture [der geistigen Kultur]”, the greatest danger for the development of the people — and its intellectual culture — was not a law regarding theatres and shop windows but the anti-Socialist law, the anti-subversion bill, the penitentiary bill, high bread prices, militarism and imperialist policies. The latter were more important issues as far as mobilization of broad sections of the people was concerned.147 Luxemburg was critical, not only of bourgeois ideologues, but also of revisionists who attempted to use appeals to “Kultur” and “Bildung” to distract workers from the class struggle. Luxemburg wrote that bourgeois politicians had, in the past, held out the promise of education and culture for the masses as long as workers were prepared to follow the path dictated by middleclass leaders, and that now “Bildung” and “general human culture” were being used as an excuse for the collusion of some revisionists with representatives of bourgeois interests. Luxemburg responded that the “cultural mission” [Kulturmission] of Social Democracy would be closer to realization after the reckoning with revisionism on the one hand and the Junker reactionaries on the other: “For the inner relation of Social Democracy to intellectual culture is not based on elements which have come over to us from the bourgeoisie, but on the upwardly striving proletarian masses”. The socialist final goal entailed “the passing on of the whole culture of humanity to all of humanity, as a whole”, however this cultural goal was only possible through the political struggle of the proletariat as a conscious class.148 At the 1898 Stuttgart Party Congress (her first German party assembly), Luxemburg stated that the practical struggle of Social Democracy fell into three headings: trade union struggle, the fight for social reform, and the fight to democratize the state.149 In her anti-revisionist brochure Sozialreform oder Revolution, Luxemburg reiterated that only revolution, “the conquest of political power by the proletariat” could bring about the transformation from capitalism to a socialist society.150

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If Luxemburg once told the Party Congress at Hannover in 1899 that “a revolution can also proceed in cultural forms”, this was directed against crude objections that equated revolutions with “pitchforks and bloodshed”, and she immediately went on to emphasize that the essence of revolution was the seizure of state power, and this could not be achieved by means of social reform within the bounds of the present society.151 Like other theorists, Luxemburg also used “Kultur” to denote the level of development of a society, which from a Marxian point of view was tied to specific stages in development of a mode of production. In her study Die Akkumulation des Kapitals, for example: “the concept of reproduction [of capital] has a cultural-historical element”, and reproduction of capital is referred to as largely dependent on chance “at the most primitive stages of cultural development”.152 Cultural development here refers to the sum of technical and social conditions affecting the process of production. Further, “cultural progress” [Kulturfortschritt] is conditioned by “not only the form, but also the amount of value of the means of production — more correctly: the social labour stored in them”.153 This development was understood by Luxemburg to be dialectical, not a steady, mechanical process of evolution: Human society as a whole continually involves itself in contradictions, however, it does not collapse as a result, but on the contrary is only set in motion when it is stuck in contradictions. Contradiction in the life of society is constantly dissolved into development, into new manifestations of cultural progress. The great philosopher Hegel says: ‘Contradiction is that which leads forward’.154 Luxemburg’s materialist analysis also demystified contemporary imperialism’s claim to represent a civilizing mission. For Luxemburg, the “civilizing” achievement of modern imperialism was no more than the breaking down of colonies’ social organisation while preserving and exploiting their productive capacity.155 Luxemburg also emphasized the material preconditions of culture in the narrower sense, for example, in discussing the limitations and possibilities of proletarian culture within the existing society. For example, in her 1903 Vorwärts article “Stillstand und Fortschritt im Marxismus”, Luxemburg stated that in every class society “geistige

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Kultur”, i.e., science and art, was a creation of the ruling class and had the function “partly of satisfying directly the needs of the social process, partly of satisfying the intellectual needs of members of the ruling class”.156 Luxemburg then drew a contrast between the history of previous class struggles, in which the emergent rising classes had preceded their political dominance with intellectual dominance — like the Third Estate in modern times — by replacing “the obsolete culture of the period of decline” with the new science and art of the oppressed class, and the position of the modern proletariat. The proletariat was by definition a class without property, and “as a class without property it can produce no intellectual culture of its own by free choice even in its striving upwards, as long as it remains inside the framework of the bourgeois society”. The proletariat necessarily stands “outside the present culture”, which is bourgeois, and “although it creates the material substance as well as the whole social foundation of this culture with its own hands, it is only admitted to participation in its benefits, in so far as this is necessary for the satisfactory performance of its functions in the economic and social processes of bourgeois society”. The working class will only be in a position to create a science and art of its own after the completed emancipation from its present class position. The only exception to this is in the domain of the social sciences — more specifically Marxism — as this “monument of proletarian intellectual culture” is necessary for the actual development of the “proletarian class struggle”.157 Some five years later, this time for the Polish socialist press, Luxemburg reiterated her belief that a distinct proletarian science (again, with the exception of social science) and art would have to wait until the proletariat was emancipated from its present state, stressing that the “intellectual activity of the working class, i.e., of its intellectual leaders,... is subject to narrow restrictions”.158 Elsewhere, Luxemburg offered the example of the length of the working day as an illustration of the relationship between material conditions and the level of development of working-class culture, blaming the length of the working day for the prevalence of working-class drunkenness and disease, while the eight hour day would lead to healthier workers with more time and energy for cultural pursuits.159 For Luxemburg, changes in the consciousness of the working class did not merely evolve from changes in economic circumstances, but could also be stimulated by the experience of political conflict. This is apparent in her Massenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaften (1906), written

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under the immediate impression of the revolutionary events in Tsarist Russia. In Russia, the “period of economic struggles in the spring and summer of the year 1905” had not only given the urban workers practical experience of revolutionary agitation, but had also led to “a general rise in the standard of living of the proletariat, economically, socially and intellectually”.160 The “intellectual residue” of the revolutionary movement, “the intellectual and cultural growth by leaps and bounds of the proletariat”, offered “an unbreakable guarantee for its further irresistible progress in both the economic and the political struggle”.161 Like Kautsky, Luxemburg did not pin her hopes on a hypothesis of increasing material misery of the proletariat in absolute terms to bring about revolution, rather the continued elevation of the workers’ intellectual and cultural position within capitalism, combined with their growing political consciousness, provided a basis for Social Democratic agitation.162 For Luxemburg, it was clear that the combination of the class-specific experience of the workers, based on their economic and social position, and the experience of active political confrontation with the ruling classes, created distinct workingclass values and ways of thinking (guided by Marxism), and this could be construed as forming the basis of a distinct proletarian culture.163 However, a proletarian culture in the sense of high art or aesthetics was not to be expected until the successful resolution of the process of class conflict. Luxemburg did not attempt to formulate a Marxian aesthetics or fully developed theory of culture, holding the view that Marxism constituted a “more or less worked-out doctrinal structure” only in the field of economics, and that its further extension would only be possible after the “liberation of the working class”.164 Luxemburg did not write extensively on literature or the arts, despite her personal sensitivity to literature, particularly evident in her prison letters. Early in her career with the SPD, Luxemburg published an article commemorating the centenary of the birth of Adam Mickiewicz, the author of the Polish patriotic epic Pan Tadeusz, partly at the urging of Leipziger Volkszeitung editor Bruno Schoenlank, partly because she wanted to use the much-publicized centenary to promote her view on the Polish national question: “I tried [...] to use it as grist for our mill, in that I presented him in the context of the history of nationalism”.165 Apart from her review of Mehring’s work on Schiller (discussed above), which was written at Kautsky’s invitation and which she used to attack idealist tendencies among revisionist Social Democrats,

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Luxemburg also published articles on the Russian writers Gleb Uspenski and Tolstoy. Uspenski was examined in social-historical context — as a repesentative of the post-1860s Russian intelligentsia, and as an observer of Russian peasant life whose own writings were a valuable source for the social historian. Towards the end of the article Luxemburg deals with the supersession of Russian populism by Marxism, stressing that there was no alternative, peasant way to socialism, but that the modern industrial worker would be the bearer of socialism in Russia as elsewhere.166 Writing on Tolstoy, Luxemburg recognized that his political and social ideas were anachronistic, but considered it pointless to try to measure Tolstoy by the standards of socialist orthodoxy. She also found much in Tolstoy which did coincide with modern socialism: his opposition to militarism and criticism of such institutions as patriotism and marriage. She also affirmed Tolstoy’s rejection of contemporary aestheticism, writing that in this point Tolstoy was closer to historical materialism than “those Party comrades who, taking part in the newly arisen artistic faddism, are thoughtlessly busying themselves in trying to ‘educate’ the social democratic workers to understand the decadent daubing of a Slevogt or a Hodler”.167 These articles on literature, while acknowledging that the creative genius of the individual writers has an appeal beyond their specific historical circumstances, are also used to make statements about the present, repeating and reinforcing Luxemburg’s conviction that there was no viable path to socialism — whether specifically national or peasant populist in orientation — other than the Marxist policy of a social democracy based on the modern industrial proletariat: a position which Luxemburg maintained in debates within both German and Polish socialism. Despite her personal love of literature, and the frequency with which she employed pertinent allusions and quotations in her writing,168 Luxemburg rarely wrote articles on literature or art, and never solely for aesthetic reasons, seeing aestheticism, or the elevation of cultural pursuits above political, as harmful for the labour movement.169 (It may also be the case that, just as she avoided being confined to writing solely on women’s issues or on Polish issues, preferring to focus on what she regarded as the central political and ideological debates in the party as a whole lest she become marginalized, Luxemburg chose not to spend too much time writing on literature for similar reasons.) Luxemburg had pronounced tastes in literature, rejecting both aestheticism and “Tendenzkunst”, and tending

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to prefer the classics to the most contemporary, although not exclusively,170 but she felt that it was not yet possible, nor necessary, to develop a proletarian aesthetic. It seems that the reason for Luxemburg’s relative neglect of new socialist or working-class literature was her conviction of the urgency of revolutionary activity in the crucial economic and political domain, in view of her firm belief that a revolutionary situation was imminent — a conviction which she expressed from the beginning of the revisionism controversy. For Luxemburg, “there exists no more practical question than that of the final goal”.171 For Rosa Luxemburg, socialism was a matter of great cultural moment: ultimately, for her, it was the only alternative to barbarism and the destruction of all culture.172 However, in Luxemburg’s view the cultural mission of Social Democracy required a focus on the political tasks of preparing the working class for revolution. Other members of the Party left (granted that membership of this grouping was never fixed before 1914, with the boundary between the Centre and the Left changing at different times) can be seen to have broadly subscribed to similar ideas on class and culture as those outlined above: the priority of political tasks, the emphasis on the material basis of cultural development, and the strategy of critical appropriation of older bourgeois culture, according to historical materialist rationale. One of the more important figures on the left of the party was Clara Zetkin, friend of Rosa Luxemburg and leader of the Social Democratic women’s movement.173 Zetkin has sometimes been singled out in discussions of Social Democrat debates on culture because of her relatively affirmative attitude towards proletarian culture and towards “Tendenzkunst”.174 The essay usually cited in this context is Zetkin’s “Kunst und Proletariat”, which was a contribution to the so-called “Tendenzkunst” debate which was started by articles in Vorwärts in 1910 by “Heinz Sperber” (pseudonym for the Dutch socialist writer Hermann Heijermans).175 Sperber declared that all art had its own “Tendenz” (Shakespeare was a propagandist for the Tudors, Oedipus stood for obsolete and incomprehensible religious views), and therefore no socialist art was possible without socialist “Tendenz”, and that “if we don’t manage to bring about socialist art, our Weltanschauung is something soulless”.176 Debate on Sperber’s provocatively formulated theses on the instrumentalization of the arts in the service of the class struggle followed, especially in Vorwärts and

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Die Neue Zeit, with the authority of Franz Mehring and other Party intellectuals weighing in against Sperber.177 Zetkin’s “Kunst und Proletariat” took up a position on the debate without becoming directly engaged in the polemics involving Sperber and his critics. While Zetkin appeared to be in agreement with those who urged that the class struggle should also be conducted in the cultural field, as well as the economic and political spheres, this view was somewhat qualified. On the one hand, Zetkin argued that: all those who only see in the proletarian class struggle the demand for a full stomach are in error. This world-historical struggle is a matter of the whole cultural heritage of humanity, a matter of the possibility for the development and confirmation of the fullness of human nature for all. The proletariat as a class cannot shake the gates of the capitalist fortress, it cannot strive for a way out of the darkness and deprivation of the factories, without concerning itself with its own longing for art and with the art of our time.178 The living conditions of the proletariat were hostile to the enjoyment or creation of art, however, Zetkin maintained that it was always when the oppressed classes became aware of their situation and began to struggle against their oppression, that “the masses striving for freedom out of servitude” made their own distinct contribution to cultural life, taking “the development of art onwards and upwards”.179 Zetkin believed that the proletariat was already demonstrating its longing for artistic expression, and that “there are more and more indications within the proletariat that it wishes not only to enjoy art but also to create it. This is proven above all by the worker singers and the worker poets”.180 (Zetkin does not refer here to any working-class writers by name, although elsewhere she supported and encouraged the poet Otto Krille.)181 In her support for a proletarian culture, Zetkin believed that opposition to “Tendenzkunst” should not be overstressed, and that working-class literature should not shrink from showing its political colours (although Zetkin also wrote that the political tendency should not be tacked onto a work and had to work with artistically adequate means).182 However, the striving of socialist artists had to contend with the fact that capitalism had reduced art to the status of a commodity, and offered the masses only “pseudo-art”: “vaudevilles, very many varietés, pornographic literary and graphic products”.183

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Zetkin cited Richard Wagner’s 1849 essay on “Kunst und Revolution” on the need for capitalism to be abolished before true art could flourish.184 Despite her warm support for proletarian artists in the present, Zetkin concluded: “The much longed-for renaissance in art — in my personal view — is only possible beyond [the capitalist order], on that island of the blessed, in the socialist society”.185 However, Zetkin did not promote proletarian and socialist art at the cost of exclusion of the classics. It was at Zetkin’s suggestion that the Party’s Bildungsausschuss undertook the task of preparing a collection of editions of literary classics.186 Zetkin’s views on the significance of classical literature more or less followed Mehring’s assessments, stressing the historical significance of literature for the emancipation of the third estate, and agreeing with Mehring that a new, rising culture should orient itself by the high points of the development of bourgeois literature, and not by contemporary literature, which was held to reflect the symptoms of the decline of the bourgeoisie. Like other Marxists, Zetkin stressed that the proletariat was the heir of German classical philosophy of the age of Schiller.187 Zetkin could personally testify to the fact that Schiller’s work could still have revolutionary significance. In spring, 1904, Zetkin gave a speech in Breslau attacking Tsarist autocracy, in which she quoted Fichte and the lines from Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell on the limits of tyrants’ powers, upon which the assembly was dissolved and Zetkin charged with “incitement to class hatred”.188 Arguably, the difference between Zetkin and other left Marxists on the question of class and culture was only one of emphasis. Zetkin placed more emphasis on the need to promote new proletarian and socialist writers, although she also agreed with other socialists on the importance of classics, and, as noted above, other theorists such as Mehring also encouraged new socialist writers, while continuing to insist on the primacy of the political struggle. Zetkin was more receptive to the concept of “Tendenzkunst” than were Mehring and Luxemburg, but did not come up with a fully articulated theory of the forms such art might take or the uses to which it could be put, nor is it clear to what extent her notion of truly artistic “Tendenzkunst” differed from what Mehring (who also rejected l’art pour l’art) would have called “art inspired by the class struggles of the time”. It might also be noted that Zetkin sometimes advanced contradictory positions on such issues, as pointed out by Brigitte Emig.189 Zetkin’s importance within the Social Democratic Party was derived not from her theoretical

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contributions in this area, but from her contribution to socialist feminism, and her organisational work as leader of the Social Democratic women’s movement, to which she gave a radical left direction, and as editor of Die Gleichheit. Finally, it remains to consider briefly another prominent Social Democrat associated with the Marxist Left who became prominent in socialist cultural debates and activity: Heinrich Schulz, who became head of the Zentralbildungsausschuss when it was created in 1906, and who was also a leading figure in both the Arbeiterbildungsschule and the Parteischule. In 1905, while in the radical stronghold of the Bremen party organisation, Schulz opposed the participation of Social Democrats insupposedly non-political bourgeois cultural organisations.190 However, Schulz insisted that Social Democratic cultural organisations should not interfere with the primacy of political struggle, and that the content of socialist cultural and educational efforts should be determined by awareness of class struggle. Against the background of his experiences in Bremen, with the establishment of a local Social Democratic Bildungsausschuss as a response to the debate over co-operation with bourgeois cultural organisations, Schulz played a leading role in the discussions which led to the setting up of the Party’s Zentralbildungsausschuss and the Parteischule.191 In an article in Die Neue Zeit in 1905, Schulz confirmed the existence of a great hunger for knowledge among workers, which was not satisfied by bourgeois culture or the Volksschule. However, Schulz continued to emphasize that the task of meeting workers’ cultural needs should not distract them from the class struggle: The liberation of the working class takes place on the field of economics and can only follow through the conscious and systematic political struggle. Everything which serves it and promotes it is good; whatever, on the other hand, carries the danger with it of disrupting the firm front in the class struggle, or of dissipating or softening it, must be rejected out of hand.192 However, for Schulz this did not mean that the class struggle excluded attempts at improving the education of the workers. Rather, it meant that such educational work needed to be such that would promote the class struggle, that it would remain within the parameters of the “proletarian Weltanschauung”.193 In Schulz’ view, this was all the more necessary in light of the pretence of objectivity on the part of the

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university establishment, which was nevertheless closed to Social Democrats.194 During his work on the Zentralbildungsausschuss, Schulz was to come into conflict with revisionist members of that body when he insisted that its goal should be “out-and-out education for the class struggle”, rejecting the revisionist Eduard David’s objection that knowledge itself was objective.195 While Schulz continued to be a leading figure within the Party’s educational and cultural institutions, after 1906 he gradually became less closely identified with the Party left, becoming one of the defectors from the radicals in 1914.196 Considerations of space prevent a detailed consideration of other left radicals in the SPD involved in debates on class and culture (such as Otto Rühle),197 however, the key elements of the Left Marxist view of the relationship between class and culture during the period under consideration have been established. These are: emphasis on the primacy of political struggle, so that cultural activity is only to be pursued to the extent that it does not divert effort from more pressing tasks; the view that cultural activity should in its content serve the advancement of class consciousness, and should not simply reproduce bourgeois norms uncritically, while at the same time rejecting a reduction of art to an instrument of propaganda; and an emphasis on the critical appropriation of the most suitable products of classical bourgeois culture, given the obstacles in the way of the development of a completely new socialist culture within the existing society (which does not mean that attempts to create new socialist art are rejected). These policies can be and have been criticized on a number of grounds: lack of imaginative engagement with the artistic avant garde, and the lack of more concerted efforts to build up the awareness of specifically working-class forms of cultural expression, but given the material and legal limitations on Social Democratic cultural activity, and the conviction of the Party left of the necessity and possibility of revolutionary change in society in the relatively near future, the priorities of activists and theoreticians in this period are quite understandable.

4 REVISIONISM AND CULTURE

Not only did Social Democratic “revisionists” differ with the radicals over political tactics, but a distinct cleavage in the thinking of the two groups over issues relating to class and culture also became evident. This is analysed here principally through the writings of Eduard Bernstein, the founder of revisionism; Paul Kampffmeyer, a prolific writer who played an important part in the dissemination of revisionist ideas; and Conrad Schmidt, who was not only an important revisionist theorist, but is also of particular interest in the context of the present work as the chairman of the Freie Volksbühne from 1897 to 1914. “Revisionism” can be dated from the appearance from late 1896 on of Eduard Bernstein’s series of articles entitled “Probleme des Sozialismus” in Die Neue Zeit, the debate at the 1898 party congress centred on the series, and the publication of a book based on it in 1899, entitled Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie.1 The term “revisionism” refers to the theoretical current within German Social Democracy which took Bernstein’s critique of “Marxist orthodoxy” as its starting point. Given the chequered history of “revisionism” as a political concept,2 it is necessary to make a number of points of clarification at the outset. It is necessary, firstly, to distinguish between “revisionism” and “reformism” or “Praktizismus”. “Reformism” had always been present in the Social Democratic Party as a countercurrent to the conception of class struggle and revolutionary goals set out in the Erfurt Programme. The first prominent exponent of reformism was Georg von Vollmar, counted among the party “radicals” during the antiSocialist law period, who presented “the fundamental manifesto of reformism in Social Democracy” in a speech given in Munich in June

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1891, which became known as the “El Dorado Speech” (after the venue in which it was given). Taking an optimistic view of the prospects for improvement of the situation of the working class under the so-called “New Course” following the end of the anti-socialist law and the departure from office of Bismarck, Vollmar argued that the Party should change its tactics to focus more on the possibility of immediate gains within the framework of the existing social and political system.3 Vollmar’s views were discussed at length at the 1891 Party congress, which approved the Erfurt Programme, during which his reformist approach to party tactics was rejected in speeches by Bebel, Liebknecht, Paul Singer, Bruno Schoenlank, and others, resulting in a clear defeat for reformism.4 However, it was in the nature of reformism that it drew its strength less from programmatic debates than from the practical exigencies of organisational work at the local and regional level. Social Democratic representatives in municipal and Land parliaments stood under pressure to demonstrate their competence and justify their mandates, and — especially in Southern Germany — had more opportunity to achieve practical improvements than was the case at the Reich level.5 Alongside reformism, the term “Praktizismus” has also been used by Hans-Josef Steinberg to characterize the attitudes of practicallyminded party functionaries, of whom Ignaz Auer was a prime example, who placed a higher priority on the unity and political effectiveness of the party than on ideological differences.6 While Auer had his own views on Party ideology, he believed that it was more important to translate them into practice than to engage in potentially divisive theoretical disputes, and advised others to do likewise, telling Bernstein that “one doesn’t say such a thing [referring to Bernstein’s statement of revisionism], one does it”.7 Steinberg goes so far as to characterize the history of German Social Democracy from 1890 to 1914 as “the history of the emancipation from theory altogether”.8 Steinberg’s view somewhat overstates the situation, although his work makes an important contribution in highlighting the role of the Party organisation in general and of Auer in particular, and serves as a corrective to a type of labour movement historiography which focusses on ideological questions while neglecting the exigencies of the given historical situation. However, if the low tolerance of Vorwärts (for example) for abstract theoretical debates was characteristic of broad sections of the Party, this does not mean that the party members were indifferent to the issues which reflected ideological

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differences, such as attitudes to parliament, the general strike, or national defence, issues which were debated not only by party congresses but also by the meetings of the rank-and-file to whom congress delegates reported. (Judging from Richard Evans’ study of the reports of Hamburg police on the opinions expressed in public houses by workers, ordinary party members shared a low tolerance for theoretical disputes, placing a premium on unity, and blaming middleclass intellectuals for causing such disruptions as the revisionism debate. On the other hand, Evans’ material also shows that debates in parliament and party congresses were attentively followed by readers of the party press.)9 Bernstein himself sought to respond to the criticism that he was mistaken in trying to influence the tactics of the Party by revising its theory. While rejecting dogma, and the concept of a Party science, Bernstein wrote that: I can think of no lasting collective will without a collective belief, which, however much [particular] interest has contributed to its formation, is yet at the same time dependent upon some prevailing opinion or knowledge of that which is generally desirable and feasible. Without such a collective conviction, therefore, there is also no persistent collective action.10 For Bernstein, it was necessary for reformist practice to be supported by a revision of theory, in order that the Party would not be handicapped by contradictions between theory and practice.11 If the revisionists themselves constituted a small and by no means homogeneous group of intellectuals, the revisionist journal Sozialistische Monatshefte arguably enjoyed an influence within Social Democratic circles that was wider than its circulation figures alone would indicate.12 Roger Fletcher has enumerated its avenues of influence: “the party and trade union press, trade union officialdom, Reichstag and other parliamentary deputies, and [...] party functionaries”. Prominent trade union leaders such as Carl Legien and Adolph von Elm were among the journal’s contributors, and it provided material and policy guidance to the regional Party press, which was increasingly coming under revisionist influence by about 1905.13 The Sozialistische Monatshefte, which was more open — or more eclectic — than Die Neue Zeit in keeping its columns available for a variety of socialist or progressive schools of thought, also had a role as a taboo breaker, notably in the field of colonial and foreign policy, airing heretical views

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which became the subject of debate at various levels of the Party, thereby contributing to shifts in the terms of Party discourse. Issues which, after controversies in the socialist press, gained the attention of Party congresses, were bound to be debated by the rank-and-file of the Party, to whom delegates had the duty to report, and who would express views on contentious topics at meetings at the local Wahlkreis level before and after congresses. Revisionist theorists, therefore, notwithstanding some differences amongst them (for example, Bernstein remained more of an internationalist than many writers from the Sozialistische Monatshefte stable, as he demonstrated during the First World War), constituted an identifiable and influential group within German Social Democracy. (While revisionism was not an organized movement, the Sozialistische Monatshefte served as a rallying point for people of a revisionist orientation). Three revisionist theorists merit closer treatment here: Eduard Bernstein, as the founder of revisionism, who was a prolific writer and whose concerns extended to a consideration of the implications of revisionism for a socialist understanding of culture and science; Paul Kampffmeyer, who as a one-time member of the dissident socialist group known as the “Berlin Jungen” had been associated with the Freie Volksbühne during its early period, and who later became one of the most regular contributors to the Sozialistische Monatshefte; and Conrad Schmidt, one of the most significant revisionist theorists, who became a noted Social Democratic economist, and who also paid attention to philosophical and cultural matters, becoming chairman of the refounded Freie Volksbühne from 1897 on. In Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie, Bernstein pointed out ways in which the development of the German economy was failing to conform to the pattern which the Erfurt Programme’s principles, notably the expectation of an intensification of class conflict, might have led one to expect. However, Bernstein did not confine himself to empirical observations. Rather, he was led by these observations to call aspects of Marxism, such as its “scientific” nature, into question.14 In Bernstein’s view, the attempt to found a “scientific” socialism on principles derived from the Hegelian dialectic was misconceived.15 (However, Bernstein does not seem to have made an independent study of Hegel any more than did any other German socialist theorist of the Second International period (leaving aside the Austro-Marxist and radical neo-Kantian Max

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Adler).16 Gerhard A. Ritter describes Bernstein’s critique of Hegelian dialectics as “based more on antipathy than on a real understanding”, and finds that “as a philosopher Bernstein was a pure eclectic and extremely unclear”.)17 Bernstein wrote that: “Whatever great things Marx and Engels achieved, they achieved them not thanks to the Hegelian dialectic, but despite it”.18 Bernstein also considered the materialist side of Marxism, or “historical materialism” as furnishing an inadequate foundation for socialism, and criticized the deterministic aspects of Marxism.19 (A telling point made by Bernstein was that material motivation alone could not explain the deeds of the very same Marxian intellectuals who insisted upon denying the significance of ideal factors.20) Bernstein proposed that instead of clinging to deterministic dogma, Social Democracy should consider “Kant against cant”; that is, Social Democracy would benefit from subjecting its beliefs to the spirit of critical enquiry of Immanuel Kant.21 Bernstein qualified the appeal to Kant with the words: “If I did not have to fear being misunderstood [...], I would translate the [phrase] ‘back to Kant’ with a ‘back to [F.A.] Lange’.” It was not a matter of following Kant — or Lange — by the letter but rather of “the fundamental principle of his critique”.22 Bernstein’s interest in neo-Kantianism may have been somewhat qualified and at any rate it was not his primary concern.23 However, his endorsement of Kant’s relevance for socialists signalled a higher profile for neo-Kantianism within the revisionist wing of Social Democracy, and helped to spark off a running debate about the relationship between ethics and historical materialism.24 One could argue, however, that the way in which Bernstein linked the call for critical rethinking of aspects of historical materialist thought with a more gradualist and accommodating approach to politics provoked more orthodox Marxists into a rejection of such philosophical debate on the grounds that it might open the door to “opportunism” in political tactics. In the opinion of Left Marxists, Bernstein — who had been in exile in Britain since 1888 — saw things too much “through English spectacles”, and failed to appreciate the German Empire’s more stubborn resistance to democratic reform.25 While Bernstein was primarily concerned in Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus with adapting Marxism to take into account changes in the economic situation, and with adapting the Party’s official position on political tactics to bring them into line with democratic reformist practice, the philosophical dimension of revisionism was also influential, especially in discussions of matters relating to education

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and culture. Revisionists saw culture as less class-determined than did Left Marxists, tending towards a depoliticized concept of education, science and culture. In his Voraussetzungen, and the “Probleme des Sozialismus” series, Bernstein stressed the autonomy of art, culture and science from economic factors, and argued for the autonomy of science from politics. Bernstein argued that ideological factors in social life were in fact becoming increasingly autonomous in the present: The sciences, the arts, a greater series of social relations are today much less dependent on economics than in any previous period. Or, in order to leave no room for misinterpretation, the level of economic development presently achieved allows ideological and especially ethical factors much greater space for independent action than was previously the case. In consequence, the causal relation between technical-economic development and the development of other social institutions [Einrichtungen] is becoming more and more indirect...26 In addition to diagnosing an increasingly loose and indirect relationship between class and culture, Bernstein argued that science and politics belonged to separate spheres. There could, in Bernstein’s view, be no such thing as thing as “party science”, and he defended himself against Plekhanov’s accusations of eclecticism by arguing that nine-tenths of the elements contained in “scientific socialism” were derived from the writings of “bourgeois economists”.27 Bernstein insisted that “science” be objectively separated from “Tendenz”, even where this involved correcting Marx and Engels.28 Marxism’s claim to “scientific” validity was called into question: the labour theory of value could not, in Bernstein’s view, constitute a scientific foundation for socialism.29 In principle, Bernstein’s rejection of dogma could hardly be disagreed with, and Mehring and other Left Marxists repeatedly affirmed that Marxism could not be regarded as a timeless dogma, but was subject to the very scientific methods of analysis which it espoused.30 However, along with his questioning of the primacy of the material basis of culture, his critique of “scientific socialism” for lacking an ethical foundation opened the way to a concept of “Kultursozialismus” which lacked clear definition,31 and which, by failing to distinguish between proletarian or socialist cultural forms and the

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norms prevalent in the existing society, tended to encourage the positive integration of the working class into the existing society and its existing cultural norms. Thus, in Voraussetzungen, Bernstein argued that “the whole practical activity of Social Democracy” derived from the enthusiasm which came from the awareness of being “the pioneers of a higher culture”. The class dictatorship, by contrast, “belongs to a lower [level of] culture”, a statement referring to the forms of domination rather than to the ruling class itself.32 Rejecting the notion that the working class had no ideals to realize as “cant”, Bernstein came close to giving the quality of the labour movement’s idealism priority over the determination of the movement’s ultimate objectives: Whether it [the rising class] sets itself a fully visualized final goal, is ultimately of secondary importance, so long as it pursues its more close range goals with energy. The important thing is, that its goals are imbued with a certain principle, that expresses a higher level of economic life and of social life as a whole, that it is permeated with a view of society which marks a step forward in the development of culture, a higher morality and concept of justice.33 Elsewhere, Bernstein uses the word “Kultur” in a different context, to refer to “Kulturnationen” and the “cultural work of nations”, to which the German nation had “contributed its fair share”.34 While critical of “colonial chauvinism”, Bernstein also insisted on the right of a “higher culture” to colonize “savages”, who could only be permitted “a conditional right to the soil they occupy”, depending on whether they put the soil to productive use.35 The scattered references to culture in the most important programmatic work of revisionism indicate an idealist concept of culture; culture is not class-specific, but can have national characteristics; and the term is also used to refer to levels of economic development, but in a context where the issue is the right of nations of “higher culture” to colonize less developed regions. Bernstein continued to challenge claims to a “scientific” foundation of socialism, as in his 1901 lecture, “Wie ist wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus möglich?”, in which socialism is presented as a body of thought addressing the question of what should be, while science was concerned with what is. Socialism is therefore defined as belonging to

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the field of politics and ethics, while science is strictly empirical — or deduced from empirical observation.36 Interestingly, Bernstein’s equation of science with empiricism was attacked by neo-Kantians such as Karl Vorländer, who objected to the view that science and ethics belonged to entirely separate spheres, as well as by proponents of historical materialism, indicating again that while Bernstein’s work stimulated the development of a neo-Kantian strand of revisionism, he cannot be wholly identified with this philosophical direction.37 While Bernstein had previously sought to distinguish between “socialism as science” and “social democracy as a party of struggle”,38 he now drew a dividing line between “socialism” and “science”. In defence of his position, following his lecture on the possibility of “scientific socialism”, Bernstein argued that while scientific considerations might be of relevance to the means by which the socialist movement proceeded, the telos, the goals of socialism, could not themselves be based on science. These were subject to human will, in a way that scientific phenomena were not.39 Bernstein drew a further conclusion from the distinction between the normative and subjective nature of socialism and the empirical nature of science, namely that there could be no such thing as “party science”: “Science cannot be the business of a party, parties can only draw their conclusions from the findings of science and in most cases will only accept that which corresponds to their needs”.40 Already at the time of his “Probleme des Sozialismus” series, Bernstein was advancing the concept of “tendenzfreie Wissenschaft”: the ideal of objective science, which belonged intrinsically to a sphere distinct from politics.41 Again, the concept of scientific objectivity was one with which Bernstein’s critics on the left could hardly find fault in principle (although the Left Marxist position was that with its epistemological realism and materialist basis, Marxism qua scientific method was inherently objective, so that a conflict between the views of a Marxist party and scientific Marxism did not arise). However, Bernstein did generate controversy when he stipulated that Party educational institutions such as the Parteischule ought to observe a greater degree of tolerance and objectivity than the state educational system, and should tolerate dissenting views on matters such as the labour theory of value, the scientific status of which was open to question.42 Bernstein insisted that there should be no “lex Arons” in the Social Democratic Party and its educational institutions.43 While this was consistent with Bernstein’s commitment to critical objectivity,

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it may be asked whether it was realistic to ask a political party in opposition to the existing state structure, a “Kampfpartei”, as Bernstein himself described it, whose members were excluded from positions in educational institutions (even in subjects such as physics), not to politicize its Party school for its own functionaries. While Social Democrats were still effectively excluded both from political power in the state and from positions in the university system, the Party’s Programme, as noted previously, gave priority to the gaining of political power, which would then bring about a restructuring of educational and other institutions in its wake, converting them from instruments of class domination. Bernstein’s emphasis on scientific objectivity is paralleled by a view of the intelligentsia which sees it as an intermediate class: “the members of the free professions: writers, teachers, artists, doctors, technicians and the like [...] stand between bourgeoisie and working class”. While most of this group, Bernstein went on, strove individually to join the bourgeoisie, they also represented important potential recruits for Social Democracy, which Bernstein saw as becoming increasingly heterogeneous in class composition.44 Here Bernstein, while playing down the class basis of contemporary socialist politics, lumps together in the same category artistic members of the bohème, whose economic position was in some cases indeed marginal or insecure, with university-qualified professionals, who in Germany at this time were still overwhelmingly recruited from the bourgeoisie, and who were socialized accordingly in the pre-democratic German university system.45 If, as Bernstein implies, Bildung itself was not class specific, his analysis still does not take into account the social inequalities and ideological orientation of the formal education system in Imperial Germany, nor the extent to which much of the technical and professional Bildungsbürgertum were just what the term implies: members of the bourgeoisie whose social standing was tied to possession of cultural capital. In an article for the journal Dokumente des Fortschritts in 1908, Bernstein attempted a formal definition of the word “Kultur”, as well as giving an outline of the relation between culture and the labour movement. In “Arbeiterbewegung und Kultur”, Bernstein took to task the old notion that an uprising of the dispossessed constituted a danger to the culture of a society, citing Lassalle in support of the argument that the modern labour movement had made this old fear groundless, since the improvement of the political and economic

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situation of the workers was necessarily accompanied by an improvement in their “mental constitution” (Geistesverfassung).46 Bernstein put the reference to Lassalle in historical perspective, giving a brief review of the period in which liberal Bildungsvereine had sought to gain influence over workers. While Bernstein does not deny that these organisations had some positive achievements, he sees the balance as negative — too many earnest young workers acquired a superficial veneer of Bildung, which served only to estrange them from their own class. This amounted to little more than “general playing at Bildung [allgemeine Bildungsspielerei]”, to which Lassalle had rightly put an end.47 After Lasssalle, the Social Democratic labour movement, without relinquishing its own educational institutions, which open up the sources of general knowledge for the worker, shifted [...] to a primary emphasis on the spreading of an understanding of social policy among the workers, on political training [Erziehung] and schooling [Schulung] of the working class, and on the immediate struggle for social improvement.48 The practical work and tangible gains in elections, participation in public administration at various levels, and the activity of the trade unions, bring about improvements which Bernstein suggests are necessarily accompanied by cultural progress. In support of this claim, Bernstein defines “Kultur” as: Evidently the raising of the human being above dependence on external forces, the development of the human mind and through it the mental edification [Durchgeistigung] of the whole of life, the refinement of aesthetic pleasure, which is not to be confused with mere stylishness, and the higher valuation of the human being as a personality. It is quite a different matter to develop a higher culture for privileged minorities, or to raise the cultural level of the underprivileged, more or less oppressed labouring masses. That the first step towards raising the cultural level of the masses must be to raise them out of pressing material need, which ties down the spirit in the struggle for the most basic physical necessities, was recognized by, among others, our Schiller, and was impressively stated in his letters Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen.49

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Thus the practical gains of the labour movement, such as increased wages, were indispensable preconditions for the raising of the cultural level of the people as a whole. The constant organisation of workers in the labour movement also had the effect of bringing about a cultural improvement, in Bernstein’s view, promoting qualities such as farsightedness, insight into social processes, discipline and self-control.50 In an earlier article, in 1902, Bernstein claimed to have observed this process at work in his own dealings with workers, whose experience of political organisation and workplace socialization had endowed them with “clarity of thinking and a wealth of knowledge and experience”, even if these workers were sometimes reticent in expressing themselves, due to their awareness of the limitations of their formal education.51 In a subsequent article, Bernstein addressed the question of whether the general cultural level was deteriorating, with what he found to be a generally perceived decline in manners and civility in modern society. Bernstein began by acknowledging a general “falling into neglect of manners” [Verwilderung der Sitten], which he considered an indication of the general level of culture, and conceded that the working class was not free from the widespread “Unkultur”, although the labour movement was having a positive effect, raising the selfesteem of the workers through its “general cultural work.”52 Bernstein accounted for the widespread negative trend by reference to the increasing influence of the popular press, with its habit of breaking up information into snippets and its appeal to the lowest common denominator of literacy, and the concomitant rise of mass advertising, which brought with it a general cheapening of aesthetic values. Bernstein thus attributed the low standard of polemical and sensationalist journalism in England to the commercial pressures operating on the popular press, while taking the (Left Social Democrat) Leipziger Volkszeitung to task for seeing the phenomenon as a reflection of (crudely understood) class conflict in Britain.53 On the one hand, then, Bernstein saw a connection between the capitalist market rationale of commercial mass culture, especially the popular press, and changes in its form and content; on the other hand, he seemed to be inclined to view this as a general characteristic of modernity, to which class conflict was, in a sense, extraneous. Bernstein returned to the theme of the relationship between class and culture the following year in another article in the Sozialistische Monatshefte. In “Der Klassenkampf und der Fortschritt der Kultur”,

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Bernstein rejected the accusation of opponents of socialism that socialism’s adherence to a doctrine of class struggle was a danger to “Kultur”. Bernstein responded to this accusation with the argument that class struggle was present in a more or less latent form within the present society as a “product of the existing social conflicts”, regardless of the activity of the Social Democratic Party.54 This is consistent with earlier statements by Bernstein, which did not disagree with the existence of class conflict as an underlying factor in capitalist society, but which argued that class conflict and class interests were only expressed indirectly and partially in conflicts between political parties, whose class composition was becoming increasingly heterogeneous, with the Social Democratic Party in particular evolving towards becoming a “Volkspartei”.55 Rather than creating class struggle, which might endanger culture, Bernstein argued that by promoting the organisation and conscious political activity of the workers, Social Democracy was carrying out “Kulturarbeit in the truest sense of the word”.56 Bernstein quotes Lassalle (from his Ronsdorf speech), in equating the labour movement with a “Kulturbewegung”. Bernstein further argues that Wilhelm Liebknecht’s writings were also influenced, despite Liebknecht’s ostensible adherence to Marxism, by a “cultural-ethical” understanding of socialism.57 Bernstein thus argued that the initial foundation of Social Democracy in Germany was idealistic, but as socialism spread from the urban labour elite who had been trained in the old Bildungsvereine to new groups of workers with a rural background, who “could only slowly digest the cultural-ethical content of the socialist literature offered to them”, it adopted more elementary forms of class struggle. In the early twentieth century, on the other hand, “the cultural level of our working population is visibly rising”, however, some socialist publications continued to propagate an anachronistic view of the class struggle which runs counter to cultural progress.58 Bernstein goes on to place the development of the labour movement in the context of a general trend towards progress in society, in particular in the peaceful regulation and settlement of conflict, in which radical class struggle rhetoric represented a denial of reality and of already existing gains. Bernstein concludes: “One forgets that the surest and most powerful promoter of progress is the belief in progress: applied to our subject, culture only grows upon culture”.59 In his playing down of the class struggle, his emphasis on the civilising virtues of institutional procedures and legal process, and his affirmation of the possibility of progress for society as a whole

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(although, in keeping with his rejection of determinism he states that progress does not follow a straight linear path of development),60 Bernstein’s conception of cultural progress has much in common with liberalism, an affinity that is underlined by statements giving the highest priority to the freedom of the individual. For Bernstein, the ultimate measure of cultural progress was the freedom of the individual: “For freedom constitutes one of the most essential measures of culture, which in turn finds its purest expression in the concept of self-determination.”61 Individual freedom was the end to which greater social equality, in the final analysis, was only the means.62 In his study of Bernstein’s thought, Thomas Meyer disagrees with Pierre Angel on Bernstein’s relationship to liberalism, and the extent to which Bernstein assimilated or identified with liberal ideology, stressing that Bernstein remained a life-long social democrat, whose revision of Marxism did not preclude him from acknowledging a relationship to Marxism, but Meyer himself endorses the term “liberal socialism” to characterize Bernstein’s emphasis on individual freedom.63 In an overall assessment of Bernstein’s thought on class and culture, there are clearly potentially productive elements. If Bernstein did not himself use the term “life-world”, his emphasis on the selfemancipation of the workers through incremental progress in their immediate environment, not only in the political sphere, but also in trade-union and co-operative organisations, indicates a practicallyoriented understanding of the importance of workers’ learning processes within the sphere of their own experience.64 While viewing workers’ experience of organisation as a positive factor for their cultural development, Bernstein was critical of commercialized mass culture, although his insights into the systemic market-driven rationale of the latter did not become a fully developed and integrated part of his critique of contemporary capitalism. On the other hand, in Bernstein’s conception of generalized cultural progress, of which the rising “cultural level” of the workers was one aspect among others, there was a constant possibility that the distinctiveness of workingclass culture, or life-world patterns, might fade from view. One possible example of this was noted by Bernstein himself, in an introduction to Engels’ work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, in which he states that Engels’ prognosis on the development of the proletarian family was not being borne out by contemporary trends: “As a matter of fact, the working-class marriage in advanced

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countries is tending rather to become bourgeois, than to develop in a different direction from the bourgeois marriage”. This is partly a product of social legislation, such as laws against child labour (laws which were of course in keeping with the general cultural progress discerned by Bernstein), and partly a product of the fact that while “the individual household means a great waste of labour”, “the attraction of a home of one’s own” remains strong enough “for the large majority of people” to compensate for the greater expenditure.65 In the hands of some revisionist writers, Bernstein’s identification of socialist goals with general cultural progress assumed the form of a “Kultursozialismus”, in which the concept of socialism as a cultural movement largely displaced notions of class struggle, and “culture” itself was increasingly seen in depoliticized terms, which suggested a tendency to promote the positive integration of the working class into the existing society, along with the prevailing cultural values of that society. One of the most prominent exponents of revisionist “Kultursozialismus” was Paul Kampffmeyer (1864-1945), whose activity in the SPD stretched from involvement with the Berlin “Jungen” in 1890 to work as a Social Democratic Publizist in the Weimar Republic. A prolific writer, Kampffmeyer was closely associated with the Sozialistische Monatshefte, to which he was one of the most regular and frequent contributors.66 Paul Kampffmeyer and his brother Bernhard had both been linked to the Friedrichshagen circle of writers in 1890, which was connected to the Berlin “Jungen” through figures such as Bruno Wille.67 Paul Kampffmeyer had been in Geneva, where he had been a student, when his friend Hans Müller called on him to join him in editing the Magdeburger Volksstimme, which was to commence publication from 1 July 1890 and which was one of the Social Democratic newspapers which the new opposition group in the party controlled (along with the Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung, while the Berliner Volks-Tribüne was also linked with the “independent opposition”).68 After the Magdeburger Volksstimme lent its support to the Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung after the latter had published an article by Bruno Wille criticizing the party leadership, August Bebel in person confronted the two young editors in a meeting in Magdeburg on 13 August 1890, attended by some 2,000 workers, which resulted in a (fairly mildly expressed) censure for the Magdeburger Volksstimme, upon which Müller and Kampffmeyer resigned their editors’ positions.69 Kampffmeyer, however, retained

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links with the opposition in Magdeburg, and was a co-author, along with Albert Auerbach and Heinrich Lux, of an alternative draft of the Party programme submitted to the Erfurt party congress, which strongly emphasized the growing class conflict between the owners of property and the propertyless, and emphasized the need for the workers to gain political power.70 Immediately following the defeat of the Jungen in Erfurt, Paul Kampffmeyer was a member of the sevenmember committee which founded an oppositional “association of independent socialists”.71 The founding proclamation of the “Verein Unabhängiger Sozialisten” issued by this group emphasized individualism, reacting to what the Jungen regarded as excessive centralization and authoritarian party discipline within the Social Democratic Party: “We oppositional socialists place great value on the development of the workers’ individualism [...] The more developed the individuality of the worker is, the more powerfully he confronts external influences which are harmful to his existence...”.72 However, once the Verein Unabhängiger Sozialisten was actually founded, Wille and the other committee members withdrew, with the Freie Volksbühne becoming the focus for their activity, an organisation then still headed by Wille, in which most of the office holders were from the Jungen or linked with Wille through the Friedrichshagen writers’ circle.73 When the Freie Volksbühne split in 1892, Paul Kampffmeyer followed Wille and other Friedrichshagener and ex-Jungen, including his brother Bernhard, into the executive of the Neue Freie Volksbühne.74 Like a number of the “radicals” of 1890,75 Paul Kampffmeyer’s political evolution was to take him to the right of the party. In January 1896, Kampffmeyer (writing from Zurich) contributed an article to the Sozialistische Akademiker (the forerunner of the Sozialistische Monatshefte), in which he distanced himself from the “independent socialists” and from Hans Müller, who was at that time promoting the formation of consumers’ co-operatives in Switzerland. If, Kampffmeyer argued, the independent socialists had been justified in criticizing the SPD for focussing exclusively on political questions, the former had now gone too far the other way in dealing solely with economic and social issues to the detriment of the political struggle. Kampffmeyer concluded his article with a plea for tolerance of different opinions within the labour movement.76 However, having distanced himself from the erstwhile opposition, Kampffmeyer turned (in another piece for the Sozialistische Akademiker) to criticize the Lassallean tradition of under-rating trade union activity and one-sidedly concentrating on political

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considerations, and the activity of the state in particular, a tradition which, Kampffmeyer suggested, was still holding up the progress of the labour movement.77 Here, in addition to tangible economic power, as measured in the material gains brought about by trade unions and workers’ co-operative organisations, Kampffmeyer discusses “social power” as an index of the standing of a social class, which he sees as reflected in such things as the depiction of social classes on the stage (which showed the bourgeoisie to be corrupt and in decline, in Kampffmeyer’s view) and the opinions expressed by the ruling classes, which Kampffmeyer sees as more respectful of workers in England, where trade unions were more powerful than workers’ representatives in parliament, than in Germany.78 Thus, alongside the economic power of the trade unions, which Kampffmeyer considers at least as important as political activity, or more so, Kampfmeyer also refers to “social power” as a somewhat diffuse and subjective factor, in which cultural factors (such as Naturalist theatre) are significant. By 1897, Paul Kampffmeyer had returned from Switzerland to Germany (and Friedrichshagen), and quickly became one of the most regular contributors to the freshly re-named Sozialistische Monatshefte, which was in the process of becoming the standard-bearer of revisionism. Whereas the Jungen had once sought to persuade the SPD to condemn Vollmar’s reformist El Dorado speech, Kampffmeyer by 1897 had swung around to endorse Vollmar’s views, and, like Bernstein (although Kampffmeyer’s opinion is expressed in less precise terms than Bernstein’s), considered that “the Erfurt Programme has excessively generalized certain contradictory tendencies of our economic order”.79 In 1898 and 1899, the pages of the Sozialistische Monatshefte were naturally increasingly occupied with the revisionist controversy — or the Bernstein controversy, as it was initially more commonly called — and Kampffmeyer was increasingly prominent as a participant in support of Bernstein.80 In April 1899, Kampffmeyer defended Bernstein’s just-published Voraussetzungen from the attacks of the radicals, as well as from the attempts of bourgeois social reformers to claim Bernstein as one of their own.81 In an earlier article, Kampffmeyer even claimed to have anticipated Bernstein by six years, at least in expressing scepticism about exaggerated expectations of revolution.82 Kampffmeyer was at least consistent in that neither in 1890-92 nor 1898-99 could he be considered an “orthodox Marxist”, nor had he developed the same kind of detailed immanent critique of

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Marxism which Bernstein had inVoraussetzungen.83 With the revisionist critique under way, Kampffmeyer took up Bernstein’s rejection of the dialectic and followed Bernstein in regarding a peaceful and gradual evolution towards socialism as more likely than revolution or collapse of the existing order.84 In May 1902, Kampffmeyer marked the appearance of a new edition of Bernstein’s Voraussetzungen (which had reached its 10,000th copy in print) with an article entitled “Historisches und Theoretisches zur socialdemokratischen Revisionsbewegung”, in which, in response to a critical article by Kautsky on the state of the revisionism debate, he claimed substantial success for the “Bernsteinianer” in their conflict with orthodox Marxists, or, in Kampffmeyer’s article, simply “the Marxists” without any qualification.85 Whereas a “keen student of Marx”, Rosa Luxemburg, insisted on the need to base tactics on the dialectical processes within capitalist society which were to lead to its breakdown, the “essence” of Bernstein’s achievement was “the demonstration of the possibility of a gradual democratisation and socialisation of the capitalist economy”.86 Kampffmeyer also follows Bernstein in the rejection of determinism and philosophical materialism (although unlike Bernstein, Kampffmeyer does not in this article try to separate these elements from Marxism in general): “Marxism wanted to strip socialism of all utopian elements... The material, the objective conflict produces the socialist idea...”. However, Kampffmeyer believed that England, as the economically most advanced country, disproved this deterministic view of the rise of socialism.87 Furthermore, in Kampffmeyer’s view, “the way in which the Marxists rigidly hold on to the theory of increasing class conflicts has a fundamental significance for their tactics.” Kampffmeyer goes on to attribute to “the Marxists” a reliance on a crude version of the Verelendungstheorie, which hinders practical work on behalf of the workers.88 Kampffmeyer concluded by predicting that the Party programme would soon be revised to bring it into line with the already “Bernsteinian” practice of social democracy.89 In this article, Kampffmeyer reproduces Bernstein’s criticisms of Marxist orthodoxy (in both their strong and weak points), without the latter’s attempts to carefully differentiate between fruitful and obsolete elements of Marx’s thought. Two years later, not long after the 1903 Dresden Party Congress had ended in a reverse for the revisionists, Kampffmeyer published a short book in the Munich Party publishing house, entitled Wandlungen in der Theorie und Taktik der Sozialdemokratie. This was a brief digest of

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extracts from Social Democratic literature and Party debates, designed to show the way in which the Party’s position had evolved on a number of issues. The introduction, on the “Unfolding of Socialism in the Social-Democratic Theory” consisted largely of extracts from the best known works of Marx and Engels. The selection was somewhat tendentious in that the concluding extract was a lengthy selection from Engels’ 1895 “Introduction” to The Class Struggles in France90 in a version edited for publication in Germany by the SPD, in a manner which strengthened its endorsement for legal methods (which was slightly more contingent in the original), to a degree which Engels, who out of consideration for the SPD’s difficulties with the German authorities had already written in more moderate terms than he might otherwise have chosen, saw as falsifying his ideas.91 In subsequent chapters, Kampffmeyer gave considerable prominence to the arguments of Vollmar on issues such as parliamentary activity and state social reform.92 Kampffmeyer’s work received a strong endorsement from the “impresario of revisionism”, Josef Bloch, in the columns of the Sozialistische Monatshefte. Bloch supported Kampffmeyer’s arguments to the effect that the “tactic of German Social Democracy has always been directed towards increasing its power within the present society”, and went as far as to say that in so far as the party’s tactics had always been oriented towards what was useful or expedient, it was “in this sense of the word always opportunistic”. Echoing Kampffmeyer, Bloch stated that the history of German Social Democracy was the history of its changing costume (the word used, Mauserungen, literally meaning “moulting”). Bloch warmly recommended the brochure to all party members as a guide to the controversy between revisionists and radicals.93 Among the radicals, the work was received differently: Franz Mehring acknowledged that the Party had undergone changes in its tactics, and that Kampffmeyer had shown diligence in his compilation, however, Mehring was strongly critical of historical errors and distortions in the work. Ultimately, Mehring wrote, the changes in Social Democracy’s theory and tactics had to be understood in view of the “red thread” running “from the Communist Manifesto to the Dresden [1903 Party Congress] resolution”: “Is German Social Democracy a workers’ party, which in clear recognition of its historical mission desires to conquer political and economic power, in order to transform capitalist society according to the economic and political interests of the working class or is it not?” In Mehring’s view, this “red thread” was absent from

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Kampffmeyer’s survey.94 Kampffmeyer later published a significantly more extensive and more detailed survey of the development of the SPD and its literature, characteristically entitled Die Sozialdemokratie im Lichte der Kulturentwicklung.95 Kampffmeyer stated his definition of “class” in his Geschichte der Gesellschaftsklassen in Deutschland. In the preface to the second edition of the book, Kampffmeyer stated that he owed the “basic idea” of the work to Marx’s Kapital and that “Marxian ideas” had “frequently [...] shown me the way” in the preparation of the second edition.96 However, his definition of class conflates class and status in an unMarxian fashion: With social classes there is once and for all a certain social and political valuation connected. Ruling classes are regarded as the bearers of particular honours and shine in the light of particular political rights, the dominated classes on the other hand are considered socially inferior, are without political rights, or only endowed with minor political rights.97 Only after the discussion of status-related factors does Kampffmeyer refer to property ownership as a descriptive characteristic of different classes, without using Marxian terminology. In the course of the work, Kampffmeyer occasionally cites Kautsky and his discussion of the emergence of the industrial proletariat draws on Marx and Engels.98 Kampffmeyer notes the significance of the emergence of the “new Mittelstand” of white-collar workers, while emphasizing their objectively proletarian material situation.99 On the other hand, Kampffmeyer’s high-flown diction and tendency to argue in terms of ideal, abstract concepts indicate his own personal leanings to an idealist and emotional “Kultursozialismus”. At the time of the inception of the revisionist controversy, Kampffmeyer had joined Bernstein in questioning the view imputed to “Marxist orthodoxy”, that the position of the working class was deteriorating and that class divisions were becoming greater. Furthermore, Kampffmeyer rejected the notion that the state should be seen as the instrument of the ruling class.100 In opposing this “pessimistic” view of society and the state in favour of an advocacy of peaceful “organic” reforms, Kampffmeyer expressed the hope that “the spiritual propaganda of a socialist Weltanschauung generous at heart and bold in its thoughts” might constitute “an ideal great

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power”, which represented an alternative to intensified class conflict.101 In a subsequent article, Kampffmeyer returned to the class nature of the state, arguing that while the existing state was still a “class state” in the sense that the interests of the strongest class tended to prevail, the growing “social power” of the working class, reflected in changing attitudes on the part of the part of the bourgeoisie, was resulting in “a class state constantly subject to transformation, which is constantly democratizing itself in connection with the general, evening-out tendencies of social and economic life”.102 Such an optimistic view of the amelioration of conditions in Germany, and concomitant downgrading of the class struggle, brought Kampffmeyer into conflict with Kautsky. In May 1901, Kautsky published a critique of Kampffmeyer’s pamphlet Wohin steuert die ökonomische und staatliche Entwicklung?, not in Die Neue Zeit, but in the much more widely read Vorwärts.103 Kautsky considered Kampffmeyer’s pamphlet neither original nor significant in itself, but typical of the way in which a certain group within the party argued against a dogmatic Marxian straw figure of their own making: the “Zusammenbruchstheorie”, without basing this attack on an analysis of any specific texts. Kautsky went on to criticize the way in which Kampffmeyer envisaged that the successes of the trade union movement within the existing state could of themselves lead to socialism, with Kampffmeyer going so far as to assert that the existing state had developed “a proletarian backbone”, which would ultimately lead it to cast off its capitalistic trappings. Kampffmeyer’s expectation that the improvement of the lot of the working-class would go hand in hand with the expansion of the world market was rejected by Kautsky as utopian: “This exaggeration going towards utopianism is the only thing that distinguishes the new free socialism from liberalism”. For Kautsky, the class struggle remained fundamental: while the working class was increasing in number, intelligence, organisation and strength, large-scale capital was also continuing to accumulate and gather strength and organisational concentration and power, leading to heightened conflicts between labour and capital, rather than a disappearance of such conflict.104 In response to Kautsky’s arguments, Kampffmeyer stressed the importance of ideal factors, which he saw as on the increase as society advanced along the path of cultural progress:

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I believe that the conscious element is rapidly on the increase in the cultural history of humanity [...] ‘The capacity for abstract thought’, Kurd Lasswitz once stated, ‘is characteristic for the level of cultural progress.’ [...] The conscious element rises up ever more like a Colossus in the history of humanity. I put great hopes for the socialization of the capitalist mode of production in the growing insight of society into the logic of its economic manifestations.105 Kampffmeyer’s adherence to a “Kultursozialismus”, which strives for the positive integration of the working class into a society which is seen as capable of improvement as a whole through raising its cultural level, making class struggle, or, differently expressed, the goal of the attainment of political power by the workers’ party, superfluous, is increasingly clear in his various writings. For example, in Die Sozialdemokratie im Lichte der Kulturentwicklung: Humanity [as a unified whole, apparently] strives for a condition of society, in which the highest development of technology goes hand in hand with the general unification of consciously acting, social forces for the establishment of the well-being of all. And this cultural condition [Kulturzustand] is socialism...106 Kampffmeyer’s idealist, sometimes quasi-religious, approach to socialism was manifested in his language, as much as the content of his writings: “In its unflagging thirst for action, the labouring people searches for new, uncultivated territories, in which it can plough the deep furrows of its cultural work. It is fired with holy enthusiasm, to fill all institutions in state and society with the spirit of socialism”.107 Later in the same article, Kampffmeyer wrote: “The tired and heavyladen go forth, in order to preach to the broad masses the gospel of a higher culture...”108 The “cultural mission” of socialism was presented by Kampffmeyer as in opposition to class struggle. In Kampffmeyer’s view, all Social Democracy had to do was genuinely support “Wissenschaft”, in order to “unite all bourgeois elements within itself who are genuinely concerned about cultural progress. Social Democracy will then develop beyond the narrow frame of a class and class-struggle party, to a party of the systematic elevation of human culture.”109 Kampffmeyer was increasingly

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fond of citing Lassalle to support the notion of Social Democracy as a “Kulturbewegung”.110 Kampffmeyer’s “ethical-religious conception of socialism” was attacked in Die Neue Zeit in 1911 by the Austrian Marxist, and Neue Zeit co-editor, Gustav Eckstein. Eckstein wrote: It is therefore not a matter of educating the proletariat about the immanent, necessary class oppositions and their tendencies of development, but rather of calling forth moral outrage in the general public over the shamefulness of the contemporary economic system. Not enlightenment is our weapon, but the sermon, which is why Kampffmeyer then greets with particular joy the membership of various clergymen in Social Democracy. According to this view, the first requirement of our agitation is not economic knowledge, but a sufficient supply of ethical unction and moral outrage.111 Kampffmeyer’s version of “Kultursozialismus” persisted into the Weimar period. His brief biography of Friedrich Ebert looked back on the emergence of socialism in Imperial Germany, describing it overwhelmingly in the terms of a “Kulturbewegung”: Arbeiterbildung contained more genuine “Kultur” than the superficial learning of a bourgeois “one-year volunteer”; the workingman became a socialist through his decision to take part in the “Kulturerrungenschaften” of the time, to become a full “Kulturmensch”; Lassalle showed the workers their mission, to bring about a new “Kulturepoche”; Lassalle declared socialism to be a “Kulturbewegung” raising up the whole person morally and spiritually; Lassalle’s alliance of science and the workers promised to overcome all “Kulturhindernisse” [obstacles to culture]; the Jungen of 1890 saw socialism as a matter not just for proletarians but for modern “Kulturmenschen”; the literary education of the working class by the party press was a “cultural deed of the first rank”, and so on.112 Kampffmeyer’s treatment of the history of Social Democracy here, stressing the Jungen, the Friedrichshagen writers’ circle, the Naturalism discussion, the Freie Volksbühne, etc., reflects his own experience and understanding of the Party perhaps more than it tells us about Friedrich Ebert. Conrad Schmidt (1863-1932), was a more original and significant thinker than Kampffmeyer, who was perhaps the more prolific and more widely read Publizist. A gifted academically-trained economist,

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and brother of the artist Käthe Kollwitz, Schmidt came from a freethinking, radical liberal family background in Königsberg, where his father had had to leave the civil service as a result of his progressive ideas and become a master-builder.113 Schmidt was one of Engels’ correspondents in the latter’s last years, writing to Engels with questions on Marxian theory, and impressing Engels with his own grasp of economics.114 Engels had even (apparently with initial reluctance) played host to the young Dr. Schmidt in London, when Schmidt spent a few months there in 1887. Engels found him “a decent fellow”, but “about the greenest youth that I’ve ever seen”. Interestingly (in view of Schmidt’s later involvement with the Freie Volksbühne), Engels commented that Schmidt was an admirer of Zola, “in whom he has discovered the ‘materialist conception of history’”.115 A few months later, Schmidt wrote to Engels that he had just read Kapital, Volume 2, and was planning an essay connected with it (despite having encountered difficulties with the Königsberg police for importing socialist writings).116 By early 1889, Schmidt had sufficiently impressed Engels for the latter to recommend his work for publication in the Neue Zeit or the party publishing house of Heinrich Dietz, as well as offering Schmidt an introduction to the party leaders.117 To Kautsky, Engels wrote: “Schmidt has quietly developed into a Marxianer, and has consequently lost all prospect of a university career, after being rejected in Halle as a [religious] dissident — this noble university is denominational! — and in Leipzig as a socialist, and the Swiss have asked him for God’s sake to spare them the trouble. Now he is trying to get his Habilitationsschrift published, the Kathedersozialisten say it’s too Marxist, and won’t go through, [...] Schmidt has come to us completely of his own accord, without any encouragement, indeed despite many indirect warnings on my part, and simply because he could not resist the truth.”118 Engels greeted the appearance in late 1889 of Schmidt’s book Die Durchschnittsprofitrate auf Grundlage des Marx’schen Werthgesetzes with enthusiasm, praising the author in a very cordial letter, and welcoming him into the party as a theorist capable of standing beside Kautsky and Bernstein.119 Schmidt was on the margin of the Jungen conflict in Berlin in 1890, taking over editorship of the Berliner Volks-Tribüne from Max Schippel in August 1890.120 Through his acquaintance with the Jungen and the Friedrichshagen writers’ circle (whose views on the intimate connection between Naturalist literature and socialism he shared), Schmidt also became one of the founding members of the executive

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committee of the Freie Volksbühne.121 Schmidt consulted Engels over the revolt of the Jungen, who reported with satisfaction to Kautsky that “C. Schmidt has had the sense to keep his distance” from the “students’ row”.122 At the end of 1890, Schmidt took up a post with the Züricher Post, hoping also to be able to further his academic career in Switzerland, returning to Germany by 1895. During his period in Switzerland, Schmidt continued to work on Marxist economic theory, correspond with Engels, and contribute to Die Neue Zeit and other perodicals.123 After his return to Germany, Schmidt was for several years economics editor of Vorwärts, as well as regularly contributing articles on theatre (Schmidt being chairman of the refounded Freie Volksbühne from 1897).124 At the 1896 Gotha Party congress, Wilhelm Liebknecht announced a planned “scientific supplement” to Vorwärts, to be edited by Schmidt, saying that he knew no-one in the party who would be more capable for such a task.125 Schmidt was also an important contributor to both the Sozialistische Monatshefte and (more occasionally) Die Neue Zeit. Schmidt was thus a significant participant in the debates about revisionism, to which he made notable contributions in the fields of both philosophy and economics. At the Party congress at Stuttgart, in 1898, Schmidt was singled out for criticism along with Bernstein and Wolfgang Heine, by Rosa Luxemburg — at that time a newcomer to the Party (as Vollmar reminded her, in his response in support of Schmidt and the other revisionists) — for revisionist views.126 Schmidt did not participate in such debates personally, being (like Mehring) a writer and theorist rather than a speaker and politician. In the field of philosophy, Schmidt was one of the first Social Democrats to draw attention to the importance of Kant’s philosophy, and Pierre Angel credited Schmidt with having first alerted Bernstein to the potential of neo-Kantian thought.127 Reviewing M. Kronenberg’s Kant, sein Leben und seine Lehre in a full-page article in Vorwärts, Schmidt praised Kant, in opposition to Hegel, whose philosophy remained caught up in metaphysics, for having broken with metaphysical elements in philosophy, replacing them with a critical, rational and analytical type of philosophy, which was made possible by Kant’s advances in epistemology. For Schmidt, Kant’s foundation of scepticism on a clear, logical epistemological basis was revolutionary, and guaranteed the continuing actuality of Kant’s thought. On the other hand, Schmidt held that Kant’s moral philosophy, as an attempt “to make a purely logical relation into the

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principle of morality”, was of historical importance viewed in the context of the age of enlightenment, but was too abstract for the real situations experienced in life.128 Hence the complaint of the neoKantian Karl Vorländer that “[w]hile Schmidt happily concludes with a “Back to Kant!” in the field of epistemology... He has not yet recognised that ethics also... requires the most rigorous epistemological foundation...”.129 Schmidt went on to make other contributions to the discussion about neo-Kantianism and socialism. Partly in response to Vorländer, partly in response to other proponents of neo-Kantian ethical socialism, Schmidt further developed his critique of the neo-Kantian “metaphysical-rationalistic” attempt to construe a science of ethics. Schmidt acknowledged that Marxism — like all socialism — was derived from an ethical ideal of the emancipation of humanity, but stressed that it gained its particular strength from being based on the real needs and interests of the oppressed class, as a class.130 While Schmidt’s view of Kantian ethics was criticized by revisionists such as Ludwig Woltmann,131 his embrace of Kantian epistemology was subject to a vigorous attack by the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov in Die Neue Zeit, in what developed into a bitterly scathing polemic, in which Plekhanov, as well as alleging contradictions within Kant’s own epistemological writings, claimed that Schmidt had failed to understand either Kant or Marx, and muddled his (Schmidt’s) own materialist premises with idealist arguments.132 There is insufficient space here to follow these polemical exchanges in detail; the main point for our purposes is Schmidt’s insistence on a sceptical and critical approach to theoretical issues, which characterised his contributions to the revisionist controversy. Even while Engels was still alive, Schmidt had expressed doubts about Marx’s theory of value, raising the question of whether “value” in Marx’s sense was an abstract, fictive category, or could have any real quantitative application, in his letters to Engels, who blamed Schmidt’s Kantian philosophical training for Schmidt’s apparent inability to work with Hegelian theoretical categories.133 In an 1897 article, Schmidt argued the Marxian theory of value was not necessary to prove the exploitative nature of capitalism, and was not without inherent problems, but Schmidt still considered it superior in explanatory power to the theory of marginal utility.134 A year later, in a discussion of Bernstein’s writings for Vorwärts, Schmidt adopted a mediating position towards revisionism, stressing that it was an argument within

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socialism, which could be resolved on the common ground of the materialist view of history, arguing that the “final goal” and the “movement” towards it should not be seen as in conflict. At the same time, Schmidt lent support to the revisionist view that the predictions of catastrophic crises and pauperization of the workers derived from the Communist Manifesto had failed to come to pass, leaving open the possibility of a gradual and peaceful transformation of capitalism, which had displayed an “unforeseen capacity for adaptation”.135 At the time of the 1899 Hannover Party congress, Schmidt restated this position of support for Bernstein’s revisions of Marx on specific matters concerning economic developments, while insisting that such revisions remained on the basis of historical materialism: “Every clear concept of socialism must proceed from a dissection of the capitalist mode of production, as held by Marx”.136 At the same time, however, Schmidt sounded a note of (Kantian?) scepticism: “socialism, if it does not want to deny the theoretical moment of its origins, must be critical socialism, continually testing its handed-down doctrines”.137 Schmidt’s cautious and precise formulations, and his insistence on the need for an immanent critique of Marxism, mark him as closer to Bernstein’s understanding of revisionism than to Kampffmeyer’s often extravagantly expressed idealist ethical socialism. However, as with Bernstein, there are elements of Kultursozialismus in Schmidt’s writings which suggest a tendency towards seeking positive integration of the working class into the existing society and culture. As already noted, Schmidt was originally drawn to socialism through (Naturalist) literature, and was closely involved with the Freie Volksbühne, firstly as one of its founding members, and later as its leader when it was refounded in 1897. Schmidt disagreed with Mehring on the value of such activity given the urgency of political struggles.138 Schmidt’s attachment to the materialist view of history was not applied — at least not consistently — to his view of art and literature, which he saw in relatively unpolitical terms. For example, on the one hand, he saw Zola (as a result of Zola’s adoption of elements of Taine’s “milieu theory”) as espousing some ideas in common with historical materialism, and he explained Zola’s belief in a free market in the sphere of literary production as the result of Zola’s success as a “selfmade man” in that arena. On the other hand, Schmidt believed that “real literature” was not affected by the market laws that had produced such large quantities of “Schundliteratur”, and that while state sponsorship of art could lead to such horrors as the sculptures on

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Berlin’s Siegesallee, the sponsorship of a “single great genius” such as Ibsen, could be of immense benefit for a nation’s culture.139 While Schmidt recognizes the influence of the market on the one hand and the state on the other on the sphere of cultural production, he sees “real literature” and “great genius” as existing on a level which transcends such factors. To provide the workers with access to the products of bourgeois culture might thus be seen as aesthetic recreation without political implications.140 Pierre Angel summed up the political tendency of revisionism as follows: “The policy advocated by Bernstein had as its result the integration of the working class into the Germany of his time”.141 One important aspect of this positive integration into German society was the concept of socialism as a Kulturbewegung, as understood by revisionist theorists. Where such disparate figures as Lassalle and Wilhelm Liebknecht, along with later left Marxists, understood socialism as a Kulturbewegung in terms of its ultimate emancipatory goals, which had to be reached through the means of political struggle, on a class basis, the Kulturbewegung of revisionists was one which saw socialism as a contribution to the elevation of the cultural level of the existing society, which was to be achieved through gradual reforms, and the education of the workers in the prevailing culture of the time, rather than through an emphasis on class struggle. Cultural production itself was seen in increasingly depoliticized terms, an outlook which was supported theoretically by an emphasis on ideal rather than material factors in the development of society, as part of the revision of historical materialism. Many revisionists, or Social Democrats influenced by revisionism, espoused some form of Kultursozialismus. The latter found perhaps its most explicit formulation in David Koigen’s work Die Kulturanschauung des Sozialismus (1903).142 Stanley Pierson has referred to the turning of socialist intellectuals such as Kampffmeyer, Schmidt and Paul Ernst towards a concern with “the cultural implications of socialism”, and states that “[f]or the editors of the Sozialistische Akademiker [...] the answer to the problems posed by Ernst, [Georg] Zepler, and [Simon] Katzenstein lay in the realm of culture”.143 Roger Fletcher has pointed out that Josef Bloch, editor of the Sozialistische Monatshefte (successor to the Sozialistische Akademiker) was personally strongly attached to traditional German idealist conceptions of Bildung and Kultur.144 Another important writer and editor of revisionist publications, Heinrich Braun, advocated a type of Kultursozialismus, saying that

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socialism entailed a transformation of culture, and also arguing that socialism had to be based on the “whole culture of the century” (class or political orientation notwithstanding).145 In the pages of the Sozialistische Monatshefte, Simon Katzenstein (a frequent contributor to the journal, and a member of the executive committee of the Freie Volksbühne during Schmidt’s administration) argued that cultural and educational (in the classical, and classless, sense of Bildung) activities, which Katzenstein saw as an essential component of the labour movement since its birth (passing in silence over the break of the labour movement with the Bildungsvereine), were not only an end in themselves but a contribution to the advancement of the working class through constituting “a valuable means of mental [or spiritual] and ethical education of the people”.146 Along with these prominent revisionists, one might also mention the distinctive radical idealism of Kurt Eisner.147 The diffusion of such ideas among less theory-oriented Social Democrats is illustrated by the book by the veteran Lassallean and reformist Social Democratic Reichstag deputy, Karl Frohme, Arbeit und Kultur, published by the masons’ union (Zentral-Verband der Maurer Deutschlands), which is full of sentences like: “When we work towards [a situation in which] the workers get their social-ethical conception of labour accepted, then that has a profound and serious meaning in respect to its cultural significance, its moral worth, its natural dignity”.148 An analysis of the revisionists’ use of the concept of socialism as a Kulturbewegung suggests a number of important conclusions. Firstly, while there is some shared terminology with “orthodox” or left Marxists, concepts such as “Kultur” and “Kulturbewegung” were used in a different sense by revisionists and those influenced by revisionism, in a way which tended to depoliticize such concepts, and separate them from ideas of class and class conflict. The concept of “Kultursozialismus” facilitated the positive integration of the Social Democratic labour movement into Imperial German society even if only some revisionists (such as Max Schippel, Richard Calwer, and the Austrian Karl Leuthner), went to the extent of openly identifying with official chauvinist and imperialist policies.149 Therefore, the oftenpostulated notion of the “negative integration” of Social Democracy into society needs to be qualified by a recognition of the fact that there was an influential current within Social Democracy working for positive integration. It also needs to be noted that the propagation of an idealist concept of socialism as “Kulturbewegung” was not simply a reflex

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product of the presence of middle-class intellectuals within the party. Eduard Bernstein (no university graduate, but an auto-didact from a modest lower-middle-class background) rejected attempts to explain revisionism as a product of the Akademiker in the party, stating that “the mass of literati, of Akademiker, as of actual bourgeois in the party stand on the side of the radical wing of the party, for psychological reasons which are easy to explain”.150 Likewise, the Austrian revisionist Friedrich Hertz wrote: Neither Vollmar nor Bernstein, and also not Auer, Elm, Kolb, Timm and others who otherwise tend to be named as revisionists, are Akademiker in this sense [of being university graduates or members of an “academic” profession]. On the other hand, Kautsky only escaped through a lucky chance the disgrace of becoming a Doctor of Philosophy. Also, Stadthagen, Parvus, Luxemburg, Grunwald, Mehring and other leading voices in the dispute have once sat on university benches.151 It is necessary to examine the different concepts of class and culture within pre-1914 Social Democracy in the light of the theoretical and political cleavages within the party, in order to arrive at a more differentiated and more accurate view of the meaning and implications of labour movement culture.

5 FOUNDING OF THE FREIE VOLKSBÜHNE AND EARLY YEARS UNDER BRUNO WILLE (1890-1892)

The Freie Volksbühne, Berlin, was to grow to the point of reaching tens of thousands of Berliners before 1914, giving them the opportunity to enjoy theatrical performances at a price affordable to ordinary workers. It was emulated in several other cities, leading to a broad Volksbühne movement across Germany. After the period which concerns us here, it survived wars, dictatorship, and the division of Berlin, and its theatre on the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is still a Berlin landmark today. It also provides a significant subject for a case study in how the different theoretical approaches to cultural policy discussed in the previous chapters were put into practice. While not formally a Social Democratic Party organisation, it had close links with the SPD, and catered to the cultural interests of significant sections of the organized Social Democratic working class of Berlin. From 1890 to 1914, the Freie Volksbühne in Berlin was run by three distinct groups, each of which had a different conception of the role of the organisation: in the early years, a group of members of the avant-garde bourgeois intelligentsia, who sympathized with the cause of the proletariat without necessarily identifying with a socialist political party (1890-1892); a group of Social Democrats led by the Left Marxist literary theorist Franz Mehring (1892-1896); and, after the dissolution of the Freie Volksbühne in the face of official harassment and its subsequent reconstitution, a group of Social Democrats more aligned with the revisionist wing of the SPD, under Conrad Schmidt (1897-

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1918). The existence of these three different leadership groups in the history of the Freie Volksbühne before 1914 make it a particularly useful subject for a study comparing different theoretical and practical approaches to socialist cultural policy in the period. A combination of factors contributed to the foundation of the Freie Volksbühne in Berlin in 1890. During the second half of the nineteenth century, and especially since becoming the capital of the new Reich in 1871, Berlin had been growing in importance not only economically but also culturally. By the 1890s, Berlin was rivalling Munich as a cultural centre capable of attracting young artists and writers from all over Germany, and could boast of a large and rapidly growing reading and theatre-going public. As a centre of the Germanlanguage theatre, Berlin was also coming to surpass Vienna, with some thirty theatres, not counting vaudevilles or summer theatres.1 In the late 1880s, Berlin’s theatrical life was being revitalized by the advent of Naturalism, as German writers influenced by Ibsen and Zola attempted to break with the conventions of the day in theatrical performance, and to bring a concern with modern social questions to the stage. Berlin, with its concentration of modern industry, large working-class population and stridently modern character, became the principal venue of Naturalism in the theatre. Berlin was also a centre of the growing Social Democratic labour movement, which in 1890 had just emerged undefeated from twelve years of illegality, following the failure of Bismarck’s anti-socialist legislation. The end of the period of illegality offered new scope for the organisational and cultural activity of Berlin’s social democratic workers. The German Naturalist dramatists, such as Gerhart Hauptmann and Hermann Sudermann, were not alone in perceiving a connection between the theatre and important social questions. Indeed, one could argue that in modern German culture, the theatre has been accorded considerable significance in relation to the issues of the day. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Hamburgische Dramaturgie (1769) is concerned largely with formal aspects of drama, however, it also reflects Lessing’s attempts to create a German national theatre, which would break with the hegemony of Francophone aristocratic culture over the German bourgeois public.2 In the first version of Goethe’s Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meisters Theatralische Sendung), his protagonist was to find his life’s mission on the stage, which promised to broaden his horizons and release him from the restrictions imposed on him by his background. Friedrich Schiller saw the theatre as

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potentially an institution of great value for the aesthetic and moral education of the public (Die Schaubühne als moralische Anstalt). In the light of this tradition, and in light of the Naturalists’ emphasis on social conditions, it is not, then, surprising that there was much discussion in the late 1880s and early 1890s about the potential contribution of the theatre to solving social problems. In 1889, Hermann Freiherr von Maltzan published a lecture held in Berlin on “The Establishment of German People’s Theatres as a National Task”. For von Maltzan, Volksbühnen were to contribute to reinforcing the “feeling of tribal community” (“Gefühl der Stammesgemeinschaft”) among the German people as a whole, just as — in von Maltzan’s view — the heathen festivals of the old Germanic peoples had.3 While the commercial theatres of Berlin were being corrupted by French comedy, the broad masses were excluded from the enjoyment of good German theatre by the high ticket prices of the better theatres. What was needed were Volksbühnen, which would make the German classics and the healthier (patriotic and “volksthümlich”) examples of recent German drama available to broad circles of the population at low prices. Berlin was the ideal place for such a venture, given its position as Reich capital and leading theatrical centre.4 The theatre was “one of the most effective means of elevating the people’s cast of mind”, to promote love of the fatherland in place of hatred against society.5 “The feeling of unity inspires also the German army of our time [...] the people must be imbued with the same sentiment even when it is not adorned with arms which remind it of the days of glory and of the greatness and power of the fatherland.”6 Von Maltzan’s arch-conservative conception of the role of Volksbühnen was the target of a half-satirical riposte by the young Kurt Eisner in the literary journal Die Gesellschaft.7 Eisner was critical of von Maltzan’s idealization of the Prussian Court Theatre and its patriotic repertoire (such as Wildenbruch’s Die Quitzows) as a model for a people’s theatre, and responded by giving priority to the “social question” over the “national”.8 Eisner envisaged a people’s theatre with a much broader repertoire than von Maltzan (and not exclusively German), and replied to possible objections concerning the ability of a working-class public to understand “difficult” plays by arguing that the labour movement press showed a higher intellectual level than “the average family magazines designed for educated circles”, and pointing out that the same people who doubted the workers’ ability to understand art expected them to comprehend the mysteries of

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religion.9 In a reference to the prodigious number of new churches being built in Berlin at the time, Eisner remarked that, in view of the decline of organized religion, the effort would be better spent on raising subscriptions for the construction of a people’s theatre in every parish.10 Not long after the appearance of Eisner’s article, the Naturalist author and theatre critic Conrad Alberti wrote in the National-Zeitung: “The idea of the popularization [Vervolksthümlichung] of the stage is evidently in the air”. Alberti expressed sympathy in principle with the idea of making visits to the theatre affordable for the respectable families of public servants, teachers, commercial employees and artisans, and at the same time of drawing the workers away from pubs and vaudevilles, but he was sceptical about the notion of a Volksbühne in view of the enormous expense of setting up and running a modern theatre, and in view of his estimation of the taste of the public (“it is completely lacking in aesthetic judgement and is unable to tell the difference between a play by Schiller and one by Birch-Pfeiffer [...] The new naturalist tendency would find very little favour in the eyes of the people”).11 Despite such reservations, some of an eminently practical nature, others resulting from prejudice, the question of Volksbühnen continued to agitate the minds of social reformers. Georg Adler, Professor in Freiburg im Breisgau, and a well-known writer on social policy issues, published his thoughts on “Social Reform and the Theatre” in Die Gegenwart in early 1890. Adler wrote of the need to address not only the material misery but also the spiritual poverty of the proletariat. He appealed to Schiller’s conception of the theatre as an institution of moral education as an inspiration for the establishment of people’s theatres. Given the fact that the creation of special theatres would be too expensive, Adler recommended that subsidized theatres such as the Royal Theatre (Königliches Schauspielhaus) in Berlin, should put on a regular cheap performance of a play from their repertoire for workers. Performances should be at suitable times (e.g. Sunday afternoons) and ticket prices should start at 50 Pfennigs, with the state or municipal authorities compensating the theatre for the extra expense. Adler predicted: “The man of the people who is capable of higher intellectual and spiritual sensations, will — we can be sure of it — go home from the theatre enriched by the experience, and will remember with gratitude the state which led him for a while, like a kind fairy, into an ideal world”.12 Adler’s notion of the Prussian-German state acting as a kind fairy and his prescription

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for Volksbühnen of state-subsidized escapism met with a sceptical response in Social Democratic circles. Karl Kautsky wrote a critical review of Adler’s pamphlet on social reform and the theatre in which he rejected Adler’s claim to have conceived the idea behind the Berlin Freie Volksbühne, arguing that Adler merely wished to use the theatre to reconcile the workers with the existing state of affairs. The only original element in Adler’s proposals was the recommendation of 50 Pfennig tickets, however, for Kautsky: “The question, whether for 50 Pfennigs one finds a seat in the 4th gallery or occasionally one in the stalls, has at least not yet attained the significance of a ‘social question’ for the proletariat.”13 There were, then, a range of conceptions for Volksbühnen, ranging from conservative to liberal, with the view being expressed: “Give the proletarian the possibility of sharing in the enjoyment of our culture and art, and he will reshape them, but not destroy them”.14 The initial impulse for the founding of the Berlin Freie Volksbühne came, however, not from bourgeois social reformers but from a group of workers, who took as their model the newly founded association Freie Bühne in Berlin, rather than the concepts put forward by the above-mentioned writers. The Freie Bühne was founded in April 1889 by a group of writers and critics including Maximilian Harden, Theodor Wolff and Otto Brahm, who became the leading figure in the enterprise after the departure of Harden and Wolff at an early stage of the association’s existence. Partly influenced by the example of André Antoine’s Théâtre Libre in Paris, partly by the desire of the new generation of Naturalist authors, who had formed a series of writer’s groups and who sought a sympathetic public through such literary journals as Die Gesellschaft, for a common platform, the Freie Bühne declared its goal to be “the foundation of a stage, independent from the business of existing theatres and without entering into competition with them, which is free from considerations of theatrical censorship and commercialism”.15 The Freie Bühne was not to be a new theatre but an association of those committed to a renewal of the theatre, reflecting a dissatisfaction of the supporters of Naturalism with the existing conditions of theatrical life in Berlin, in particular the conservatism of the state-run theatres and the commercialism of private theatres. The Freie Bühne adopted the form of a private association, partly in order to show existing theatres that it was not going to be a commercial competitor, but also in order to evade the censorship that applied to public theatrical performances, particularly

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as it was feared that the new Naturalist dramas would incur the disapproval of the censor on both moral and political grounds for their unvarnished realistic depiction of social conditions. The first performance of the Freie Bühne was Ibsen’s Ghosts on September 29, 1889, followed on October 20 by the famous première of Gerhart Hauptmann’s Vor Sonnenaufgang in the Lessing-Theater, which was an immediate succès de scandale.16 The Freie Bühne soon came to play a leading role in the propagation of Naturalist drama and in the theatrical and literary life of Berlin in general. The Berlin Börsencourir wrote that it was the most interesting association ever seen in Berlin, since “all those who in our Berlin society represent the sincere interest in literature and art are present there”.17 The Freie Bühne attracted the attention of the members of a Berlin workers’ reading and discussion club, located in the East of Berlin, called the “Alte Tante” (Old Aunt). Like many such associations, it had functioned during the period of the anti-socialist law as a cover for illegal Social Democratic activity, but its cultural activities came to be valued for their own sake by the time the need for camouflage no longer applied. A leading member, of the group, Willi Wach, later described it as follows: From 1887 to 1890 there existed in Berlin a club, composed of young and old workers, mostly sculptors and book-binders, which, in order to mislead the police, gave itself the innocent name of “Alte Tante”. The meetings of fifteen to twenty members took place once a week, sometimes in the back room of a pub, but mostly at the home of one member or another. Each member paid a subscription of ten Pfennigs per week. This allowed the club to receive a few journals. Thanks to the gifts of a few comrades, and to the loan of a number of books, a library was assembled, which was admittedly modest, but varied. In each meeting a subject for reading or discussion was agreed upon.18 Topics for discussion included philosophy (with some club members belonging to the Freireligiöse Gemeinschaft), art, psychology (stimulated by reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment serialized in the Berliner Volksblatt) and feminism (taking Ibsen’s Doll’s House as a basis for discussion).19 Among the journals to which the “Alte Tante” subscribed was Brahm’s Freie Bühne für modernes Leben. The interest

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among the group in modern literature and theatre became so intense that Wach and a sculptor, Schleupner, were sent to ask Dr. Bruno Wille, a writer and minister of the Freireligiöse Gemeinschaft (a freethinking non-denominational religious community), for his advice on the club’s idea of sending a representative to attend each performance of the Freie Bühne, with members taking their turns and reporting to the others on the play. (A subscription to the Freie Bühne was beyond the means of individual workers). Wille stated that such an arrangement would be impossible (presumably as it would be in breach of the Freie Bühne’s legal constitution as a closed society for membership to be transferable), but launched an appeal in the Berliner Volksblatt which led to the founding of the Freie Volksbühne.20 Wille’s appeal, published in the Social Democratic Berliner Volksblatt on March 23, 1890, proclaimed: The theatre should be a source of high enjoyment of art, moral uplift and a powerful stimulus to thought on the great issues of the day. It has, however, been degraded to the level of insipid drawing-room chatter [Salongeisterei] and light fiction, of the colportage novel, the circus, the humorous papers. The stage is simply subject to capitalism, and the taste of the masses in all classes of society has been overwhelmingly corrupted by certain economic conditions. However, under the influence of honestly striving writers, journalists and public speakers, a section of our people has freed itself from this corruption. Writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Zola, Ibsen and Kielland, as well as several German “Realists” have found resonance among the working people of Berlin. This section of the population which has been converted to good taste has the need, not merely to read plays of their choice, but to see them performed. Public performances of plays, in which a revolutionary spirit lives, fail either because of capitalism, for which they do not promise commercial success, or because of the police censorship. These obstacles do not apply for a private association [e.g. the Freie Bühne, which workers could not afford to join]. Wille thus proposed the formation of a Freie Volksbühne, the leadership of which would select plays and actors for one performance per month (on a Sunday), and the members of which would subscribe to three performances a quarter for a sum of perhaps one and a half

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marks for the cheap seats. Wille invited all who might be interested in forming such an association to write to him, stating names, addresses, and the sum deemed reasonable for subscriptions.21 After (at least) several hundred responses,22 a founding meeting took place on 29 July 1890 in the Böhmisches Brauhaus.23 The founding meeting was attended by over 2,000 people, among whom, according to the Berliner Volksblatt, “the literary world was strongly represented”.24 After Bruno Wille’s address to the assembly, writers and Social Democratic party members and workers took part in the discussion, not without conflicts between Social Democrats and non-socialist writers becoming evident.25 Wille’s speech rejected the suggestion — made in “capitalist papers” — that the Freie Volksbühne was to be a Social Democratic theatre. The plays by Tolstoy, Ibsen, Büchner, Griepenkerl, Gerhart Hauptmann, Holz and Schlaf, Julius Hart and Conrad Alberti, which Wille proposed as fulfilling the criteria of being inspired by a “longing for truthfulness” and a concern for the problems of the age, may, Wille conceded, be marked by a socially critical spirit, but were not for that reason party political.26 The workers present, however, readily claimed the Freie Volksbühne as an achievement of Social Democracy. The political sentiments of those present at the meeting were also demonstrated by the collection of funds at the beginning of the meeting in support of “the comrades engaged in the struggle for the honour of all workers”.27 The following meeting that was called to arrange the founding of the Freie Volksbühne, also attended by some 2,000 people closed with “cheers for international Social Democracy”, a fact which did not escape the attention of the police surveillance.28 On 11 August, Julius Türk, the elected secretary of the association, submitted the formal announcement of the founding of the new organisation to the authorities.29 On 19 October 1890, in the Ostend-Theater, the Freie Volksbühne staged its first theatrical performance: Ibsen’s Pillars of Society. The leadership of the new association was in the hands of Bruno Wille, and the other members of the executive elected with him, and Wille was to have a major influence on the Freie Volksbühne in its first years of existence: on its artistic direction, its organisation, and its relationship to the Social Democratic Party. Bruno Wille, who was born in Magdeburg in 1860 as the son of an insurance inspector and an aristocratic officer’s daughter, had studied theology and philosophy. He was a preacher and teacher in the Berlin

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“Freireligiöse Gemeinde”, a member of the “Friedrichshagener Dichterkreis”, a group of young writers sympathetic to the modern, Naturalist school of literature, living on the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin, and a person who wrote for various Social Democratic publications, becoming closely identified with the Berlin oppositional group within the Social Democratic Party known as the “Jungen”.30 The “Free Religious Movement”, founded in 1859, traced its origins back to dissident movements in both the Protestant and Catholic churches dating from before 1848. Sections of the “Free Religious Movement” had been active in workers’ educational associations in the 1860s.31 In the 1870s, the Social Democratic Party had distanced itself from the organized free-thinkers’ movement, but had found it a convenient ally during the period of the anti-Socialist law. After 1890, however, relations between the Party and the free-thinkers cooled again, with the Erfurt Programme’s declaration that religion was purely a “private matter”.32 At the time when Wille was most closely involved with the Social Democratic Party, its relations with his “Freireligiöse Gemeinde” were thus coming under strain.33 Wille had come to the free-thought movement after studying theology at Bonn in the early 1880s, where he abandoned his religious faith and took up philosophy. Wille relates that he told his Professor of Theology that he “did not really belong to this church, because I did not stand in the faith, but above it, that is, that I was a critical philosopher of religion”.34 At the same time, Wille, who had become acquainted with the workerphilosopher Josef Dietzgen, became drawn towards socialism, although he insisted that he never adhered to the doctrine of class struggle.35 Wille’s involvement with the Freireligiöse Gemeinde was sufficient on its own to bring him into conflict with the Prussian state authorities.36 Wille’s membership of the Friedrichshagen group of writers was also of importance to his role in helping to establish the Freie Volksbühne.37 The Friedrichshagen group emerged from a series of literary groupings, journals and associations (such as the Freie Bühne) formed by young writers from all over Germany who gravitated to Berlin in the 1880s, of whom many were influenced by the emergent current of Naturalism linked with the German reception of Zola and Ibsen. The core members of the Friedrichshagen group, who settled on the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin, were the brothers Heinrich and Julius Hart, the author of popular scientific works Wilhelm Bölsche, and Bruno Wille, all four of whom had previously been

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members of the literary association “Durch”, founded by the writers Leo Berg and Eugen Wolff and the doctor Konrad Küster in 1886, which had professed a self-consciously radical modernist programme, dedicated in particular to the promotion of the latest Naturalist writing.38 In addition to the Hart brothers, Bölsche and Wille, the Friedrichshagen circle included, albeit sometimes only loosely or briefly, figures such as Wilhelm Hegeler (whose novel Mutter Bertha was to be the subject of the so-called “Naturalism Debate” in the Social Democratic Party in 1896), Ludwig Jacobowski (later linked with the Neue Freie Volksbühne), and the anarchist of Scottish origin, John Henry Mackay, as well as more transient visitors to Friedrichshagen.39 These writers had in common youth, often a provincial background from which they had been drawn to Berlin to make their literary reputations, and a feeling of belonging both to a kind of “intellectual proletariat” and to the artistic avant-garde. Their sense of exile from bourgeois society (self-imposed though it may have been) and their radical rebellion against the prevailing norms of the establishment (at least in aesthetics) led many of these writers to sympathise with Social Democracy during the period of the antisocialist law. Wilhelm Bölsche, for example, author of numerous works which popularised science and evolutionary theory and of an essay entitled Die naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Poesie, which attempted to put Naturalist literary theory on a scientific footing, was a frequent speaker at Social Democratic meetings, especially of an educational nature, and his works were much read by organised workers to whom a scientific world-view was congenial and seen as compatible with notions of secular progress that were strongly rooted in the German labour movement.40 Bruno Wille developed close relations with Social Democracy around 1890, becoming closely involved (as noted above) in the dispute between the radical Berlin opposition group known as Die Jungen and the leadership of the party.41 The prominence of Wille and the student Hans Müller in the early phase of the opposition of the Jungen contributed to Engels’ characterisation of the movement as the “Literaten- und Studenten-Revolte”.42 Wille wrote for the radical Social Democratic Berliner Volkstribüne, although he was not actually a member of the party.43 Wille sparked off the conflict between the Berlin opposition and the party leadership with an article published in the Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung on 23 July 1890, in which he criticized the party leadership and included the comment (citing conversations with

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“well-informed Party comrades”) that “[t]he worst thing that the antisocialist law has brought us is the corruption in our own ranks”.44 This brought a prompt response from Bebel personally, and triggered off the acrimonious dispute between the Berlin Jungen, who criticized Party discipline and the Party’s parliamentary tactics, and the Party executive, which ended with the defeat of the Jungen at the Erfurt party congress. Thus while many of the rank-and-file members of the Freie Volksbühne were members of the Social Democratic Party, at the very time of the association’s founding its leaders were in conflict with the Party leadership. In addition to Wille, the founding committee of the association also included the printer Wilhelm Werner (as an auditor), the independent master-upholsterer and trade unionist Carl Wildberger (treasurer and member of the executive), and the shoemaker Richard Baginski, all of whom were prominent members of the Jungen.45 (It was Werner who bore the brunt of the attacks on the opposition at the party congresses of Halle and Erfurt). The founding committee also included Julius Türk (secretary), the literary figures Otto Brahm, Julius Hart and Wilhelm Bölsche, and the Social Democratic editors Curt Baake and Conrad Schmidt. Wille’s role in the opposition influenced his work in the Freie Volksbühne in two respects: he had little time to manage the affairs of the association during his conflict with the party leadership,46 and his individualistic opposition to party discipline and formal democracy contributed to conflict between Wille and the Social Democraticinclined membership. Wille’s political position, while he was identified with a group seen as being on the “left” of the SPD, was a highly individualistic and elitist one, which has been referred to as “aristocratic anarchism”. As Wille came increasingly into conflict with the Social Democratic Party organisation, his public utterances increasingly exalted individualism over and above the masses or the demands of practical politics, in language which Richard Hinton Thomas describes as sounding “rather all too obviously like secondhand Nietzsche”.47 To some extent the organization of the Freie Volksbühne, as well as the programme announced at its foundation, indicated Wille’s conception that the intellectuals leading the organisation had the role of elevating the cultural level of the workers, in an exercise in “Volkspädagogik”, although the membership insisted on elements of formal democracy in the running of the association. The association’s business was conducted by an executive, consisting of three office-

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holders (chairman, treasurer and secretary). The executive was supported by a wider committee, which consisted of the executive and six other members. The committee was to choose the plays to be performed, and was to decide on “all questions which affect the literary conduct of the association”, while the narrower executive was to hire directors and actors and deal with theatres. All office-bearers were to be elected by the annual general meeting.48 These statutes provided for a greater degree of formal democracy in the association’s organisation than was welcome to Wille personally. After the split of the Freie Volksbühne in 1892, Wille complained that the “statutes of the Freie Volksbühne happened to be ‘democratic’, i.e. the members had the leadership, even if indirectly, in their hands. Already before the foundation, among friends, I warned against this constitution”, however, Wille had been advised that the Berlin workers would only support a democratic organisation. On Wille’s part, “I have never made any secret at all of my undemocratic cast of mind even in the political field”. As far as an “institution for the education of the people” was concerned, Wille stated that only “in the world turned upside down [do] the pupils elect the teacher”. The members of the Freie Volksbühne had to be considered, in Wille’s view as “pupils [Zöglinge]” of an educational institution, who were ipso facto not qualified to decide how the institution should be run.49 Wille was nothing if not candid about his “undemocratic cast of mind”. Wille repeatedly spoke against the dangers of the masses displaying the characteristics of “herd animals” (a term often quoted against him during the Jungen controversy), and emphasized the need for individuals possessing higher insight to oppose such tendencies of the masses.50 From the outset, Wille and his Friedrichshagen associates were committed to a specific aesthetic programme, which was reflected in the choice of plays to be performed by the association. In the founding appeal, with its list of Naturalist and “Realist” writers, and the statements made in the early meetings of the association, it was clear that the leadership of the Freie Volksbühne believed that Naturalism was of special relevance and importance to the audience. The leadership of the Freie Volksbühne had announced that it would only put on plays “which contain criticism of existing conditions and [which] conduct a struggle against obsolete prejudices”.51 The Freie Volksbühne began its first season, as noted above, with Ibsen’s Pillars of Society, followed by Hauptmann’s Vor Sonnenaufgang, and Ibsen’s

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Enemy of the People. In the first two years’ programme of the Freie Volksbühne, twenty plays were performed (in a total of 49 performances, as new sections were opened to accommodate the growth in membership), including five plays by Ibsen, one by Hauptmann, one by Sudermann, and a stage version of Zola’s Therèse Raquin. Other contemporary dramatists were included, such as Max Halbe and Ludwig Fulda, both at that time influenced by Naturalism, but Schiller was also represented, with Kabale und Liebe and Die Räuber, as were Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig (no longer contemporary, but still recent, dramatists) and the popular Austrian playwright, author of successful comedies of peasant life, Ludwig Anzengruber (who died only in 1889). In addition to the plays, the Freie Volksbühne also put on recitation and lecture evenings, its programme later expanding to include festive days on weekends, and concerts.52 For May 1st in 1891, for example, the Freie Volksbühne enjoyed a May Day festival in the Ostend Theater, with about 1200 members (including 300 women) present for a performance of a “historical melodrama” with allegorical tableaux vivants by Bruno Wille, entitled Durch Kampf zur Freiheit.53 The 1891 Waldfest was the first of many regular such summer festivals, which were followed by other quarterly seasonal festivals which became big celebrations for members and their families. The 1891 Waldfest by the Müggelsee attracted some 8,000 people (despite wet weather), with music, satirical puppet shows, tableaux vivants and other amusements, with the day ending with fireworks, the Marseillaise, and cheers for the Freie Volksbühne and international Social Democracy.54 Bruno Wille and his associates from the Friedrichshagen group of writers were not alone in seeing a certain affinity between Naturalism and socialism, an affinity which the Freie Volksbühne’s programme was intended to express.55 On the surface, at least, Naturalism and socialism had a great deal in common. Both were urban phenomena linked to Modernism, with Naturalist writers self-consciously constituting an avant-garde which was starting to write “die Moderne” on its banner and committed to a new, contemporary aesthetic; the Social Democratic labour movement seeing itself as embodying the progress of the working class towards a society of the future. Both were international in orientation, Social Democrats upholding the ideals of the First and Second Internationale, while Naturalists felt an affinity with writers in France, Scandinavia and Russia. Both movements espoused “scientific” views of the world: the Naturalists,

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following Zola, being preoccupied with the laws of heredity and the action of the environment on the individual formed by heredity; while Marxian socialists espoused “scientific socialism” and “historical materialism”. The modern working class, viewed as the agent of historical progress by Marxists, was an important subject for Naturalists wishing to depict contemporary society in a way that made the artistic representation of the industrial proletariat a radical declaration of modernity. Some Naturalist writers (like some of those drawn to the Friedrichshagen group) went so far as to entertain a certain subjective sense of identification with the proletariat, as uprooted young intellectuals with a university education found themselves confronted with a newly uncertain labour market for graduates.56 Finally, the two movements seemed to share common enemies in religious dogma, repressive bourgeois social mores, and a dominant establishment that was both politically and culturally reactionary (as illustrated by Kaiser Wilhelm II’s veto of the Schiller Prize for Gerhart Hauptmann, and by such official aesthetic monuments of the Kaiserreich as the Kaiser-WilhelmGedächtniskirche and the Siegesallee sculpture avenue).57 Both socialists and Naturalists found themselves in opposition to the censorship laws of Prussia and the Reich.58 There were limits to these apparent affinities, however. Naturalist writers, both personally and in their stage aesthetics, showed a strong commitment to individualism, or a preoccupation with the ethical concerns of individual heroes and anti-heroes. With the possible — and ambivalent — exception of Hauptmann’s Die Weber, workers did not appear in the role of collective agent, but more frequently as social types or as animated props designating a (frequently depressing) milieu. The Naturalist concern with the workings of psychology, biology and milieu, did not generate the same analysis of society as the Marxian focus on consciousness, class and the mode of production, and Naturalism, while often showing the plight of the workers, did not promise the means of practical transcendence of this plight that Marxism envisaged. These shortcomings of Naturalism, from a Marxian socialist point of view, were most cogently formulated by Franz Mehring, with Wilhelm Liebknecht and other Social Democrats also expressing reservations about the new literary school.59 (There is insufficient room here to deal with the so-called “Naturalism Debate” at the Social Democratic Party congress at Gotha in 1896, an episode which has been fully covered by other writers, and which actually

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contributed little to the development of socialist aesthetic thought.)60 There were also reservations expressed on the other side of the socialism-Naturalism discussion. For example, the prominent exponent of Munich modernism, M.G. Conrad, considered the relationship of Social Democracy to “the Modern”, finding the socialists too materialistic and too attached to the standpoint of a party to fully appreciate art for its own sake, and too international to fully appreciate “vaterländischer Realismus”.61 Wille’s belief in the affinity between Naturalism and socialism was shared by some Social Democrats, such as Conrad Schmidt, whose initial conviction that Zola represented the “materialist view of history” has already been noted,62 and Curt Baake, theatre critic and editor of the Berliner Volksblatt, and subsequently an editor of that paper when it became Vorwärts in 1891. In one of the first meetings of the Freie Volksbühne, Schmidt addressed a meeting of some 400 persons, in which he declared that hitherto contemporary literature had been written for the ruling classes and had depicted bourgeois society in an idealized manner, but the principles of Naturalism were truth and reality, and Naturalist form therefore corresponded to the nature of the labour movement. Therefore, the Freie Volksbühne was committed to the performance of plays of this school.63 Curt Baake, the Social Democrat editor and member of the founding committee of the Freie Volksbühne, was “an enthusiastic supporter of Naturalism”.64 Baake strongly supported the recruitment of the leading exponent of Naturalist theatre, Otto Brahm, onto the executive committee, against the reluctance of many members to vote for someone without connections to the labour movement.65 As editor of Die Neue Welt (a position which required Baake to leave Berlin for Hamburg and interrupt his work with the Freie Volksbühne in 1891), Baake printed many Naturalist works for the Social Democratic readership.66 In the first issue of the refounded Neue Welt under Baake’s editorship, a programmatic article by “C.S.” (almost certainly Conrad Schmidt) entitled “Literatur und Sozialdemokratie” extolled the importance of Naturalism for the labour movement. Despite its pessimism and its bourgeois origins, Naturalism dared to expose “the intolerable contradictions, to which the present social order subjects us”, portraying not illusions, but the reality of poverty, the ruthlessness of competition, and the noise and misery of the city. Forsaking the “misty heights” of traditional idealism, Naturalism descended to the

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level of day-to-day social conflicts, and thus made a partial contribution to the revolutionary criticism of the existing society.67 In order to assess how successful the Freie Volksbühne was in bringing together Social Democratic workers and Naturalism, it is necessary to consider firstly the plays chosen for performance, and secondly, as far as it is possible, the reception of these works by the audience. As noted above, of the twenty plays performed under Wille’s administration, several were clearly Naturalist, in addition to other “Moderns”. The most frequently played author was Ibsen, whose plays (of this period) were clearly works of social criticism, but which were not unproblematical from a socialist point of view.68 Ibsen’s Pillars of Society, with which the Freie Volksbühne’s programme was inaugurated, seemed doubly appropriate for the occasion, embodying both the aesthetic programme of the association’s leadership and the social criticism which was to appeal to the socialist members. The 1878 Berlin première of Pillars of Society had been Ibsen’s first big success on the Berlin stage, and it was therefore a key work in the history of the development of Naturalism in Berlin.69 Thus, although no longer exactly new, and although it could be performed publicly without difficulties from the censor,70 the choice of Pillars of Society exemplified the commitment to the modern, Naturalist drama. The drama about the shipping magnate Karsten Bernick, who sees himself forced by the need to protect his business interests to resort to deception and even to risk endangering the lives of all those aboard an American ship which his firm is supposed to be repairing, had a clear anti-capitalist edge, as well as exposing the hypocrisy of bourgeois family mores.71 The principal working-class character, Aune, a shipwright and head of the Workers’ Association, is given lines such as: “Even a workingman has something to stand up for in this world”, and resists Bernick’s demands to skimp on necessary repair work. (Aune is also shown as something of a Luddite, resisting technical innovation in the name of protecting jobs. He is an old-fashioned master-craftsman, rather than a modern factory-worker.) In a meeting of Freie Volksbühne members, in which Wilhelm Bölsche spoke on the play, it was described as a work which would “promote the ideas of the workers, [and] enlighten them about the society of today” and which was “suited to the present struggles of the workers”.72 The review in the Social Democrat Berliner Volksblatt concurred, referring to the “commonality of ideals” between the “revolutionary writer”

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Ibsen and the Berlin working class.73 A few years later, Franz Mehring looked back on the Ibsen of Pillars of Society as the Ibsen “whose pugnacious defiance towards the corruption of capitalist society had not yet been broken by visionary pessimism”.74 While Mehring’s opinion of the play was generally positive (in so far as it exposed “the rotten hollowness of the pillars on which bourgeois society rests”), he was, like other critics then and since, critical of the weakly motivated ending, in which the boat is unexpectedly saved from doom, and Bernick repents of all his sins.75 If the dramatic twist of fortune at the end of the play, followed by the moral renewal of the capitalist protagonist, was an unsatisfying resolution from a psychological point of view, it was hardly less so from a Marxian standpoint. Considerably more problematical than Pillars of Society, which presented a strong critique of capitalism and bourgeois morality, in which the various themes were closely and organically interwoven (leaving aside the ending), was the next Ibsen play on the programme (the third play performed by the Freie Volksbühne, coming after Hauptmann’s Vor Sonnenaufgang), An Enemy of the People. Richard Hinton Thomas is perhaps overstating the case when he writes that the staging of this play was “an important episode in the Jungen affair” (it was only weeks since the Party Congress at Halle, where the conflict with the Jungen had been a major issue) and “from Wille’s point of view a calculated act of provocation” directed against the SPD.76 It is arguable, however, that while An Enemy of the People has the same biting social criticism as Pillars of Society, there is an antidemocratic streak in the former, which has more in common with Wille’s elitist exaltation of the superior individual than with socialist collectivism. Indeed, when the Freie Volksbühne was defending itself before the Oberverwaltungsgericht in 1891 against the charge of being a political — specifically Social Democratic — association, Wolfgang Heine, acting as lawyer for the association, cited An Enemy of the People as proof that the artistic committee of the Freie Volksbühne had no intention of conducting socialist propaganda: “for the bitter truths which Stockmann [protagonist of the play] tells the popular assembly about democracy, party, leadership, and the press, could be applied to the Social Democratic Party”.77 Furthermore, Otto Brahm, who as a member of the artistic committee and associate of Wille had some inside knowledge, wrote: “Messrs. Wille and Wildberger, the oppositional elements among the ‘comrades’ [i.e. Social Democrats] had insisted on the performance of An Enemy of the People in particular,

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not just for aesthetic reasons...”, suggesting a political ulterior motive, related to the conflict over the Jungen.78 Bruno Wille had introduced the play to the membership in a lecture which (as noted by the police) suggested that the play showed “the present economic, social and political conditions as untenable”.79 The poet Otto Erich Hartleben, reviewing the performance for the Berliner Volksblatt (although Hartleben was not himself a member of the SPD) praised the choice of An Enemy of the People, albeit on the grounds that the play was directed against the type of “lie” which was created by “party”, and he expressed the hope that it would give the audience occasion for honest reflection.80 The most striking indication of how Wille intended the play to be understood was contained in his lecture on the play given at a meeting between the first and second performance (for the second section of the membership which had been formed), in which his characterisation of Dr. Stockmann suggests a strong degree of identification with the figure: The man whose intentions regarding the welfare of the people are as honest as hardly any other, is declared to be an enemy of the people [...] all, even the lowest kind of means are used against him [...] yet finally he comes to the decision to remain on the battleground and continue the fight against the ‘compact majority’ and against the lie. He thinks not of the success of the moment, but his hope is directed towards the future, when sometime after all the truth must break through [...] In his opinion, the majority is always wrong, and the minority alone is always right.81 Wille’s speech was greeted with “vigorous applause”. However, Julius Türk felt obliged during the subsequent discussion to qualify Wille’s speech by stating that while Stockmann in his specific situation may have been justified in his opinion, the conclusion that the “majority was always wrong” was an unacceptable generalization. For Türk, the real lesson of the play was the need to maintain freedom of speech. Türk’s statements also received “applause”.82 The differences evident here between Wille and Türk can perhaps be seen as an indication of the conflict which would lead to the split in the association less than two years later. There is insufficient space here for a fully detailed consideration of the other Ibsen plays performed in the first two years of the Freie

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Volksbühne. The League of Youth, a relatively infrequently performed (outside Norway) early satire of small-town politics, and Ibsen’s first drama in prose; Nora (A Doll’s House); and Ghosts. In an article reminiscent of his discussion of An Enemy of the People, Otto Erich Hartleben reviewed The League of Youth for Vorwärts as a satire on “the political”, in which distinctions of party were of little real importance.83 Nora (A Doll’s House), was, as noted above, already known to some of the Freie Volksbühne’s members, at least in book form, having stimulated discussion in the association “Alte Tante” on the “woman question”. The play had been praised in Die Neue Zeit in 1885 as an important treatment of the problems of modern marriage and women’s emancipation.84 Franz Mehring was later to write appreciatively of the honesty with which Ibsen had pilloried “the inner hypocrisy of the bourgeois marriage for money”, and the way in which he “flings his burning torch into the ‘cosy home’ of the philistine [...] if he does not yet understand the struggle for the oppressed class, he does however already understand the struggle for the oppressed sex”.85 Following difficulties with the police, with the explanatory lectures being cited before the court as evidence of the Freie Volksbühne’s political character, the executive dispensed with such introductions, however, in the opinion of Vorwärts’ reviewer of the performance of Nora (A Doll’s House), such a lecture would have been superfluous in this case, the play speaking clearly enough for itself, as a powerful depiction of “woman’s slavery”.86 There was, it seems, a strong consensus both within the Freie Volksbühne and in Social Democratic circles more generally, that this was a work which merited attention, given the importance attached to the “woman question”. With Ghosts, the Freie Volksbühne followed in the footsteps of Brahm’s Freie Bühne, which had chosen the play as the first to be performed by that association. Ghosts, with its realism and its subject matter, which included hereditary venereal disease, and its critical depiction of bourgeois family life, was banned from public performance in Berlin, and had only been shown once in the Reich capital in a closed private performance in 1887, before its Freie Bühne performance of 1889.87 Ghosts, the earlier success of Pillars of Society notwithstanding, was the play which had motivated Otto Brahm to undertake an “Ibsen campaign” in Berlin, and was thus an important catalyst in the development of Naturalism on the Berlin theatre.88 Ghosts thus admirably suited the aesthetic programme of Wille’s direction of the Freie Volksbühne, with the opportunity to show a

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play banned by the Berlin police giving the performance an additional justification. In Die Neue Zeit, in 1885, Ghosts had been described by Julie Zadek as a modern tragedy, in which the Fate of antiquity had been replaced by “the principle of causality, the causal connection between all human phenomena”, which, instead of ruling blindly like Fate in classical times, was susceptible to human cognition and hence changeable, if understood in time.89 This suggested a rational, scientific view of the world compatible both with Naturalism and with Marxian socialism. For the theatre critic of Vorwärts, commenting on the performance for the Freie Volksbühne: “Among all the dramas with a socially critical content, which give the stage literature of our time its characteristic stamp, none has such an epoch-making significance, as this play”. Vorwärts stressed the powerful urge for a better, happier life which the play evoked, and the spirit of revolt against the shadows of the past, a spirit which caused the play to be banned from the public stage by the Berlin Police Presidium.90 In addition to the strong concentration on Ibsen, the artistic direction of the Freie Volksbühne also showed its preference for Naturalism in the selection of German plays, choosing Hauptmann’s Vor Sonnenaufgang, Sudermann’s Die Ehre, Max Halbe’s Eisgang, and Ludwig Fulda’s Das verlorene Paradies. The importance of Vor Sonnenaufgang as the first clearly Naturalist play in Germany and the impact of its première in the Freie Bühne have already been mentioned above. In addition to its importance to the aesthetic programme of the Freie Volksbühne’s leadership, the play also recommended itself through its socially critical treatment of its subject matter, being set in a Silesian mining village and its protagonist being an idealistic social researcher and socialist, named Alfred Loth. When the play first appeared, the subject matter alone sufficed for some bourgeois critics — especially in the conservative press — to damn the play as not only an offence against good taste, but as a socialist Tendenzstück.91 In his introductory lecture, Bruno Wille commended the play to the members of the Freie Volksbühne, first taking issue with various criticisms of the play. In particular, Wille characterized the protagonist, Loth, as a “man of iron loyalty to his convictions and logical consistency”, whose weaknesses were merely a testimony to the playwright’s commitment to realism, which dictated that “heroes” of the stage were not without their human faults. The import of the play was in its realism, and the conviction that truth would prevail.92 The socialist protagonist of the play, Alfred Loth, is at best, however, an

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“ambiguous hero”.93 He is a strict temperance advocate, and is convinced that alcoholism is hereditary, citing such diverse authorities as the Swiss academic Gustav von Bunge and the Welsh-American prohibitionist Robert Everett. (While proletarian temperance and abstinence groups existed, they were a small, marginal group within Social Democracy, in which pubs and beer halls played a vital role as meeting places.94 The emphasis on the supposedly hereditary nature of alcoholism was, however, a staple of Naturalist literature, for example, in Zola’s “Rougon-Macquart” novels, especially L’Assommoir.) In Karl Kautsky’s opinion, Loth was much more a temperance campaigner than a socialist. Loth makes vague references to utopian socialist colonies, but it is his views on abstinence which provide his stronger motivation, especially in abandoning Helene, who has fallen in love with him, and who depends on him to rescue her from her degrading environment. Kautsky wrote: One has to be a temperance fanatic to find anything heroic in this decision of Herr Gerhart Hauptmann’s hero. We received the impression that Loth is a miserable coward. The catastrophe is not tragic, but barbaric: the cautious hero averts any possibilty of a tragic turn of events for himself by clearing off and leaving his girl in the lurch.95 In contrast to Kautsky, the Friedrichshagen writer Julius Hart praised the character of Loth and his conduct (on “rational”, as opposed to “sentimental” grounds), saying that Loth reminded him somewhat of Bruno Wille, and the Naturalist playwright Johannes Schlaf saw Loth as a “character, a whole person” as well as “a matured idea and Weltanschauung transformed into flesh and blood”.96 Other contemporary critics saw in Loth an unflattering portrayal of a dogmatic socialist.97 While there is a case for the argument that Hauptmann intended Loth to be seen as a positive figure, as seen by some of Hauptmann’s friends,98 as a portrait of a socialist agitator, the depiction of Loth reflects a contemporary bourgeois anti-socialist stereotype (the socialist reformer as doctrinaire, utopian, obsessed with fashionable causes such as temperance).99 As a temperance campaigner, and firm believer in heredity, Loth may be acting in accordance with his principles in leaving Helene; for a socialist who arrived in the district to help bring about social change, however, his

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abrupt departure, which adds to the human misery already present, seems more like desertion. Hauptmann’s contemporary Hermann Sudermann was at one time a more successful playwright than Hauptmann, and Sudermann’s social dramas, which combined features of Naturalism (for example, use of dialect and detailed milieu depiction) with more conventional, sometimes melodramatic elements, helped to popularize Naturalism on the Berlin stage.100 His play Die Ehre, dealing with the social gulf between the petit bourgeois Hinterhaus and the grand bourgeois Vorderhaus,101 was presented gratis for the Freie Volksbühne by Oscar Blumenthal’s Lessing-Theater. In the play, Robert Heinecke, the son of the humble Hinterhaus family, having become a success in business overseas in the service of the Mühlingk family business, returns home to be confronted with the hypocrisy and double standards of “honour” in the relationship between the Mühlingks and the Heineckes, the Mühlingks’ son having seduced his sister, who is to be quietly paid off to hush things up. Franz Mehring was critical of the way in which valid insights into the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality and a keen depiction of social divisions were mixed in with conventional theatrical topoi and a romantic, fairy-tale ending in which, instead of a dramatic solution to the social conflict being offered, Robert Heinecke is rescued by the love of the Mühlingks’ daughter and the boundless generosity of Count von Trast-Saarberg, the “Coffee King”.102 For Otto Erich Hartleben, who both lectured on the play for Freie Volksbühne members and reviewed the performance, Die Ehre was evidence of the power of social democratic ideas, which could be seen to be influencing Oscar Blumenthal and Hermann Sudermann, who, although they were far from being “Social Democratic agitators”, had to pay homage to the “dominant ideas of the time”.103 For Wilhelm Bölsche, on the other hand, the defects of the play were in its departures from Naturalist aesthetics, in its unrealistic passages, as far as both dialogue and plot were concerned. In Bölsche’s view, in order to be more “volkstümlich” the play had to be more consistently Naturalist.104 Although the Freie Volksbühne had no pretensions of competing with the Freie Bühne in innovation, there was one Naturalist première in the programme, Eisgang by the then little-known Max Halbe.105 This “social milieu drama”, depicting the social conflict between East Prussian landowners and peasants, showed the influence of socialist ideas in the handling of the inner conflict of the landowners’ son

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Hugo Tetzlaff, who had come to the recognition that his family belonged to the class of exploiters, whose education and comfort were at the expense of the degradation suffered by their labourers.106 Franz Mehring praised the accuracy and sureness with which Halbe depicted the rural proletariat (comparing Halbe’s work on this point with Hauptmann’s Die Weber), while remaining sceptical about the possibility of Junkers’ sons converting to socialism.107 Similar reservations could apply to Ludwig Fulda’s Das verlorene Paradies, “in which the motif of a strike has to serve as a background foil for a conventional love story, the happy ending of which also seems to solve the industrial conflict” (with the romantically motivated intervention of the factory owner’s daughter swaying her father).108 This did not deter Otto Erich Hartleben from writing in Vorwärts that Das verlorene Paradies was a play for a working-class audience, and that Fulda had “with great moral earnestness and with a powerful fist reached into the fullness of modern life” in order to put the social problem on the stage.109 While the Naturalist plays favoured by the leadership of the Freie Volksbühne dealt with contemporary social and political issues in a realistic style and in a critical spirit, this did not make the plays socialist, despite the fears of Naturalism’s critics, or the more extravagant claims of some of its partisans. It remains to consider the reception of these works by the audience of the Freie Volksbühne, in so far as evidence of the reception can be recovered.110 The audience of the Freie Volksbühne was frequently described as enthusiastic and receptive, and the mere experience of watching a play in theatres which were otherwise a preserve of the bourgeoisie (especially when performances took place in the more lavishly appointed theatres such as the Lessing-Theater) may well have added to the enjoyment of the plays. There was certainly a sense of excitement for the first performance: Ibsen’s Pillars of Society. Otto Brahm recorded great applause and a genuinely attentive audience, which displayed an attitude closer to the “reverence of church” than “Berlin ‘première mood’”, and noted in particular that the “spirit of social criticism” in the play was keenly appreciated.111 Maximilian Harden also noted “tempestuous applause”, despite the deficiencies of the actors’ performance, although he felt that it was difficult for the audience (which was “attentive to an exemplary degree”) to follow the action of the play.112 Here Harden identified a problem which would recur in the history of the Freie Volksbühne: the association was

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dependent on hiring theatres and ensembles for its performances, and the standard which could be expected was uneven, especially in the less expensive theatres such as the Ostend-Theater, which was used for the first performances.113 An Enemy of the People also enjoyed “a lively resonance”,114 although both Otto Brahm and Otto Erich Hartleben took issue with the performance, especially of the part of Stockmann. The main character was played without conveying the “true greatness” of Stockmann, so that Hartleben feared that the play may have been misunderstood.115 It is therefore possible that the antidemocratic messages of the play were obscured, as the audience were not made to identify strongly with Dr. Stockmann. Ibsen’s The League of Youth was well received, with the audience applause and laughter building in the last couple of acts.116 Nora (A Doll’s House) also met with warm approval, apparently as much for the “intentions” of the author (in favour of women’s emancipation) as for the play itself.117 The audience also showed itself attentive in Ghosts.118 The response of the audience to Hauptmann’s Vor Sonnenaufgang is significant, suggesting an inclination on the part of the audience to appropriate for themselves the parts of the play which spoke most directly to them, regardless of aesthetic rules or of the philosophy of the play as a whole. Otto Erich Hartleben complained that when the actor playing Alfred Loth broke with the naturalistic style to address Loth’s “socialistic tirades” directly to the audience, this had the strongest effect on the audience, who laughed at the “wrong places” and failed to understand the finer points of the play: “[...] with naive egoism this audience appropriated for itself out of the drama whatever could either edify or amuse it”.119 A similarly selective response could be seen in the performance of Sudermann’s Die Ehre. Here, “cheering lasting at least a minute” broke out when Count Trast casually put an arrogant young Reserve Lieutenant in his place. (A number of observers commented on the tendency of the audience to cheer in the middle of a scene if something particularly pleased them.) There was also an “elemental storm of applause” at Robert Heinecke’s protest against the upper classes: “We work for you... we pour out our sweat and our hearts’ blood for you... All the while you seduce our sisters and daughters and pay us for their shame with the money we earned for you...”120 Halbe’s Eisgang does not seem to have been a great success, the reviewer commenting on the formal imperfections of the play, and the difficulties experienced by the audience with the dialect in which some

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characters spoke.121 Fulda’s Das verlorene Paradies, with its sentimental version of reconciliation between classes at the end, was also less than a complete success. According to Franz Mehring, “the workers here quite rightly rebelled when Das verlorene Paradies strayed onto the Freie Volksbühne”.122 Hartleben recorded a positive reception for the play’s performance, writing that the “overwhelming majority” of the audience agreed that the play was suited for a working-class public (from which one might perhaps infer that some of the audience disagreed. Hartleben may also have been influenced by personal acquaintance with Fulda).123 At the meeting of the Freie Volksbühne attended by Fulda, his presence appears to have been warmly appreciated, but at least one worker took the opportunity of telling the author that he thought the characters in the play were unconvincing.124 At the time when the Freie Volksbühne was being set up, an article in the Freie Bühne expressed the belief that “modern realism”, i.e. Ibsen, Tolstoy, and Zola, had “become a power” among Berlin workers, and was rivalling the classics in standing among them.125 On the other hand, the first meetings of the Freie Volksbühne at which works of the moderns were recited, had at best mixed results.126 If the workers had a preference for realism, it was for a realistic depiction of social conditions and perhaps a plausible depiction of character, rather than for a specifically Naturalist stage aesthetic, departures from which could be effective, if the lines appealed to the audience. The audience responded spontaneously to lines and situations with which they could most strongly identify, or which had a particularly clear political or social point. That the audience did not have any exclusive attachment to Naturalism is illustrated by the popularity of other types of plays: Volksstücke (plays dealing with ordinary people, usually in a rural or village setting, often comic, and written for a broad public) and the classics. From the beginning of the association’s activity, there were demands from the members that the Freie Volksbühne should vary its austere programme of Norwegian and German realist drama with some comedies.127 Consequently, the leadership of the Freie Volksbühne decided, in response to the “numerous demands” of the members, to perform one comedy a season, with Ludwig Anzengruber’s Doppelselbstmord (which had already been performed successfully for the Freie Bühne) being selected.128 Despite some difficulties with the Austrian dialect, Anzengruber’s comedy set among Alpine peasants was well received.129 Following this success, a second

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Anzengruber Volksstück, Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld, was played the following year. This was a more serious work (albeit with humorous passages), dating from 1870, showing the plight of an honest priest in an Austrian village at the time of the declaration of Papal infallibility, who comes into conflict with the hierarchy and the aristocracy. The religious subject matter (for an audience mostly unfamiliar with the Catholic references), and again, the Austrian dialect, led to a somewhat mixed success, although it was received well enough to be repeated for the Freie Volksbühne in 1895.130 A third Volksstück was a big success with the audience, the stage adaptation of Fritz Reuter’s Kein Hüsung, a vivid depiction of the oppression of rural labourers in Mecklenburg in the 1850s. The use of the adaptation created some controversy when the authors of the latter, Hermann Jahnke and William Schirmer, protested against the Freie Volksbühne omitting their final act, a celebration of patriotism and class reconciliation (against the background of the war of 1870), which was not part of Reuter’s original story. Although the Freie Volksbühne had apparently obtained permission to perform the work in the form chosen (with the participation of Schirmer as an actor!), and objections in the Social Democratic press that the omitted final act travestied Reuter’s work, Wille was prepared to be conciliatory; however, the protest came too late to make any difference, other than to generate publicity and to draw attention to the political import of the play as shown.131 Stripped of the fourth act, the play, according to the review in Vorwärts, was, against the will of Jahnke and Schirmer, who followed Reuter closely for the first three acts, “a revolutionary Volksschauspiel complete in itself”.132 The police subsequently banned a public performance of Kein Hüsung at another Berlin theatre, in case it was being played in the same version as was played by the Freie Volksbühne.133 The performance itself made a “quite overwhelming impression” on the audience,134 and, in the eyes of one critic, was the greatest success in the Freie Volksbühne besides Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe.135 The audience identified with the hero of the play, Johann, and broke out in a “mighty storm of applause”, “when Johann throws the baron, who is molesting Johann’s bride, onto the ground and then strikes him dead in a moment of senseless rage. This unparalleled applause was like a shout breaking out, finally released after long being suppressed.”136 While there was a strong demand among members for comedies and Volksstücke, there also appears to have been a certain demand for the classics. In one of the first meetings of the Freie Volksbühne,

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several of those present urged that the programme should include the classics, as these were the “common property of the people”.137 One observer of Berlin workers’ meetings at the time of the founding of the Freie Volksbühne, who emphasized the increasing popularity of modern literature demonstrated in such meetings, also found: “An unshakeable place in the hearts of our workers and a corresponding signicance for the talks given in the organisations is possessed by Heinrich Heine, whose Jewishness becomes unimportant here beside the feeling of attachment to the fellow fighter for freedom of the spirit.”138 While Wille and his associates regarded modern Naturalism as the material best suited for a working-class audience, classical plays which could be perceived as embodying a “revolutionary spirit” were also well received. Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe, one of Schiller’s early works, which attacked the abuse of seigneurial prerogatives in a German Kleinstaat, was presented to the Freie Volksbühne as a revolutionary play and was enthusiastically received: “the captivating pathos in tyrannos caught flame, as if it were from the most modern pen. In the middle of the scene the irrepressible Bravo! thundered out at many a splendid, full-blooded manifestation of the desire for freedom”.139 In the view of one critic, Kabale und Liebe was the biggest success of the Freie Volksbühne’s first season, up to and including Kein Hüsung, which came close to it.140 In the case brought before the Oberverwaltungsgericht, Otto Brahm’s lecture on Kabale und Liebe served as evidence of the political complexion of the Freie Volksbühne. Brahm had drawn a comparison between the struggle of the Third Estate in the eighteenth century, as part of the background to Schiller’s play, and that of the “Fourth Estate” in the present.141 The other work by Schiller performed under Bruno Wille’s administration was Die Räuber (in one performance only, for the second section of members, who had missed out on Fulda’s Das verlorene Paradies). Wille had reservations about the standard of the performance, and about parts of the play which ran counter to the “stronger feeling for reality” to which the Freie Volksbühne members had supposedly been educated. However, he also recorded a “visible effect” on the audience, an “uncommonly lively interest” and “frequent storms of applause”.142 The members of the Freie Volksbühne, according to most accounts, were a receptive and attentive audience, who responded spontaneously to whatever pleased them. They appreciated frank

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representations of political and social conditions on the stage, as in Naturalist works, but were far from being one-sidedly attached to any one literary direction. Two of the most successful plays were Kein Hüsung and Kabale und Liebe. The audience responded less to a particular aesthetic style than to the dramatic presentation of conflict, especially when there was a positive character resisting injustice, with whom the audience could identify, and to humour. It would seem that the audience had diverse needs and expectations: they responded to socially critical works where they could relate to the themes; comedies and Volksstücke catered to a desire for entertainment and diversion after a long working week, and the classics were in demand from at least that part of the audience which wished to further their literary education, and who wished to acquire the cultural capital of the upper classes whilst at the same time giving the works of Schiller, for example, an interpretation which placed them in the service of the political struggle of the working class. The audience was predominantly working class, although in the first few months it was mixed with other elements: members of the Berlin literary and theatrical world who were curious to see how the new enterprise was developing, and a petit bourgeois element interested primarily in obtaining cheaper theatre tickets. The social composition of the membership was the subject of some dispute, bourgeois newspapers initially declaring that the Freie Volksbühne had failed to attract a working-class public at all.143 That the Freie Volksbühne’s audience was at first relatively heterogeneous is confirmed by police reports, which also document a gradual increase in the proportion of workers in the membership.144 It may also be true, as Ernst Seiffarth complained in the Freie Bühne, that the remarks in the press about the non-proletarian “physiognomy” of the audience reflected the clichéd image of the working class entertained by the bourgeois writers, who did not recognize workers when they were dressed up in their Sunday best suit.145 In response to the accusations of the Freie Volksbühne’s critics, Wille announced a statistical survey of the members, which was never carried out.146 By spring 1891, it might be fair to conclude that the majority of members were workingclass, with the proportion of members who were also members of the Social Democratic Party also increasing.147 It is also noteworthy that at the performances up to half of the audience was female, with the plays apparently providing an opportunity for workers to have an outing with their partners.148 This also shows how important it was for the

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association to avoid being formally classified as a “political association”, as this would have led to the exclusion of women under the laws of association. As the extent of the documentation in the police records indicates, the Freie Volksbühne had to contend not only with a lack of resources and often inadequate hired stages and ensembles, but also with constant police surveillance and some interference. There was some petty harassment at meetings, for example when the policemen conducting surveillance stopped proceedings because they could not see the part of the audience that was seated in the gallery.149 In addition to enforcing the laws of association, making sure that the Freie Volksbühne did not act in breach of its statutes (for example, by selling tickets to non-members), the police were watchful for any evidence of Social Democratic political activity.150 Police routinely reported on the presence of “known Social Democrats” in meetings, or performances, of the Freie Volksbühne. The wearing of Social Democratic badges, red neckties and ribbons was noted.151 After one meeting, the police report stressed that Social Democratic pictures and writings had been displayed, including More’s Utopia (!).152 Also noted was the sale of SPD contribution tokens at a general meeting, with specimens included for the files. The wearing of red carnations was also considered suspicious.153 The most serious threat to the Freie Volksbühne on the part of the authorities during Wille’s administration came in April 1891, when the Berlin Police Presidium classified the Freie Volksbühne as an “association which seeks to exercise an influence on public affairs”, an intermediate status between being a “harmless” entertainment society and a “political association” (from which women were banned), and demanded that it supply membership lists and submit to tighter supervision of its activities. The Freie Volksbühne took the police instruction, ordering compliance with the relevant stipulations of Paragraph 2 of the 1850 law of association, to court, at first successfully.154 However, the Police Presidium appealed to the Oberverwaltungsgericht, which decided that the association did aim to influence public affairs, but was not a “political association”.155 This judgement had the effect at least of clarifying the status of the Freie Volksbühne, which was spared the more rigorous classification of being classified “political”; however, as a precaution against further police action, Wille dropped the introductory lectures from the Freie Volksbühne’s programme, and the lawyer Wolfgang Heine, as a

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member of the Freie Volksbühne (although not yet a member of the SPD), put forward a proposal to tighten up the procedure for admitting members.156 While Wille reacted with caution to the new situation, lest the police be given any new excuse to intervene, Julius Türk, then a member of the artistic committee, took a more defiant attitude, allegedly stating in the extraordinary general meeting of January 1892: “We want to influence public affairs, and we are proud of the fact”.157 The conflict between Wille and Türk, an active Social Democrat who was elected treasurer against Wille’s opposition in July 1892, precipitated the split in the Freie Volksbühne.158 The details of the disputes involved need not concern us at great length: with the fading away of the Jungen as an oppositional current in Social Democracy, and the growth of the Freie Volksbühne membership (over 2,500 in July 1892), a large proportion of whom were Social Democrats, a conflict between Wille and the majority of members over Wille’s organisational, political and “popular paedagogical” views was probably inevitable.159 The conflict began over complaints that Türk was being excluded from the conduct of the executive’s business, and also involved disagreements over the choice of theatres to be hired for the 1892/93 season (Türk favouring the Lessing-Theater, which Wille feared would accustom the members to performances beyond the means of the association), and whether all the association’s printing should be done by (the “independent” socialist) Wilhelm Werner’s business, but Wille’s autocratic style and his conviction that Türk was bent on a ruinous campaign of “politicizing” the Freie Volksbühne were the real points at issue.160 The extraordinary general meeting was held on 4 October 1892. Marked by heated argument, the meeting lasted until 2 a.m., when it was adjourned. The reconvened meeting, attended by about 1,800 people on 12 October, was equally heated, and witnessed the final confrontation between Wille and Türk. When Kampffmeyer was refused permission to speak after Wille, the two of them walked out, with a small number of members following them, including Wildberger, who took with him the proceeds from the last Waldfest. (Most of the ca. 2,000 Marks taken by Wildberger was later returned after Mehring threatened legal action.) The election of a new executive followed, which included Franz Mehring as first chairman, Paul Dupont as his deputy, and Julius Türk as treasurer.161

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Wille and his allies promptly set out to found a Neue Freie Volksbühne, which would preserve Wille’s original aesthetic and “popular-paedagogical” goals, and which would avoid what Wille saw as the mistake of having a democratic constitution.162 Although Wille took with him most of the leadership of the Freie Volksbühne, and enjoyed the support of the non-party writers who had been connected with the organisation, only a small proportion of the membership (perhaps 300) followed him into the new association, which spent its first few years struggling for lack of members.163

6 THE FREIE VOLKSBÜHNE UNDER FRANZ MEHRING, 1892-1895

The split in the Freie Volksbühne, with Bruno Wille and his supporters breaking away to found the Neue Freie Volksbühne, saw the leadership of the organisation being assumed by Franz Mehring. The split and new leadership had a number of consequences for the Freie Volksbühne: a closer association with Social Democracy, a change in the association’s statutes in the interest of greater democracy, and a change in programme from an emphasis on making the latest products of the Naturalist avant-garde available to workingclass audiences to a selective appropriation of the classics, as understood by Mehring. However, the change in programme and theatrical practice was still subject to the material constraints under which the organisation had always laboured, so that the shift was less dramatic in practice than it may have seemed in theory. As a prominent journalist and writer, Berlin correspondent of and regular contributor to Die Neue Zeit, socialist literary historian and author of the Lessing-Legende, Franz Mehring seems to have been a natural choice as new chairman of the Freie Volksbühne. He seems, however, to have accepted the position with some reluctance. At the time the Freie Volksbühne was founded, Mehring, then editor of the Berliner Volks-Zeitung, was publicly sceptical about the organisation’s chances of success, particularly in view of its founders’ links with the Berliner Jungen.1 Mehring’s attacks on Wille and the Jungen may have been partly motivated by his desire for a rapprochement with the Social Democratic Party, whose leaders he defended from the attacks of the Jungen, and may have also been influenced by his feud with the critic and theatre director Paul Lindau. Mehring had taken up the

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cause of the actress Else von Schabelsky, who complained of sexual harassment by Lindau; however, Mehring had been isolated in the ensuing controversy, with members of the literary and theatrical establishment effectively siding with Lindau.2 This recent conflict with Berlin’s theatrical establishment may have contributed to Mehring’s initial reluctance to take over the running of a theatre organisation, of which, as Wille complained, Mehring had not even been a member before he was asked to take up its leadership.3 Mehring initially declined the post, giving the reason that he felt that the workers in the association should be given the opportunity to demonstrate their capacity to run the organisation, but accepted when the members who approached him stated that they wished to disprove accusations that the workers were prejudiced against “brain-workers”.4 Mehring also professed some reservations on the grounds that he himself “was lacking in the talents needed for associations”.5 (That this was not false modesty is indicated by the fact that while Mehring was a very prolific writer, he very seldom participated in Party meetings or congresses, and he allowed Julius Türk to conduct much of the day-to-day business of the Freie Volksbühne.) More importantly, Mehring stressed that the potential value of the Freie Volksbühne’s work should not be overestimated in view of the great political tasks facing Social Democracy. Mehring stated the goal of the association as “the promotion of the proletarian struggle for emancipation in the field of art and literature”,6 however, “the theatre will never play a decisive nor even particularly influential role in the proletariat’s struggle for emancipation; only the incurably muddle-headed can deceive themselves about that”.7 “Within [...] limits”, then, in Mehring’s opinion, Freie Volksbühnen will always be justified and beneficial tools of the proletarian struggle for emancipation. And once they exist as such, the healthy class instinct of their members will constantly see to it that they do not step beyond the bounds which they are set, that they do not degenerate into pointless theatrical games, that they do not set themselves tasks which they cannot possibly achieve in the present society, that they do not uselessly consume energies which could usefully be applied to other areas.8

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For the present, Mehring acknowledged that the Freie Volksbühne was catering to a need felt by the workers of Berlin. Under Mehring’s direction, the Freie Volksbühne became more closely identified with Social Democracy, even though it remained formally independent from the party. Even if (as one police report has it) Mehring publicly denied any intention to place the organisation at the service of any party, Bruno Wille and other commentators did not hesitate to describe the new administration as one whose allegiance was to the Social Democratic Party.9 At the end of 1892, the Political Police noted the presence of “a large number of known Social Democrats” among the members of the Freie Volksbühne, and expressed concern that the association might be serving as a cover for socialist activities.10 Apart from Mehring as First Chairman, the new administration included Paul Dupont (a trade union leader, of the Central Association of Sculptors, and editor of the Bildhauer-Zeitung, who had been a prominent supporter of Türk in the conflict with Wille) as Deputy Chairman,11 and Julius Türk as treasurer, so that the executive was dominated by active Social Democrats.12 Of the old artistic committee, only two members, Gustav Lichtenstein (an editor and translator) and Otto Schmiedel (a sculptor) remained. The new members were Robert Schweichel, Dr. Alfred Blaschko, Julie Zadek, G. Nothnagel, Dr. Robert Wolf, and Franz Held.13 Robert Schweichel was a veteran socialist author, an 1848 democrat and an old comrade of Wilhelm Liebknecht from the founding years of Social Democracy.14 Julie Zadek (or Zadek-Romm) was not only the sister of the prominent Berlin Social Democratic local politician Ignaz Zadek, but had also contributed articles to Die Neue Zeit in her own right, dealing principally with modern literature, and translating works from Russian.15 Franz Held was the pseudonym of Franz Herzfeld, under which he wrote various works for the stage, including Das Fest auf der Bastille.16 In addition to altering the statutes to expand the executive,17 Mehring stated a commitment to a more democratic spirit in the organisation than had been the case under Wille (whose Neue Freie Volksbühne placed the artistic and organisational control firmly in the hands of a self-selecting leadership group). Shortly after his election, Mehring declared: “the present executive claims neither an artistic nor a political tutelage over the association; it considers itself merely as the organ which carries out the will of the whole.”18 The democratic

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organisation was not without its difficulties, as Mehring later conceded: As much as I still stand by the view today, as I did eight years ago, that a workers’ association without a democratic organisation has neither the justification for, nor the possibility of, existing, I must all the same recognize that at that time I considerably underestimated the actual difficulties which stand in the way of the democratic organisation of the Freie Volksbühne.19 These difficulties started with the fact that it was almost never possible to assemble all members of the committee (the executive plus artistic committee) at any one time, and Mehring also found that it was hardly possible for “people who are already heavily occupied with the trade union or the political struggle” to “keep up with contemporary literature in their few leisure hours”.20 As the organisation expanded, Mehring was anxious to preserve the “proletarian character” of the membership. Despite the loss of some members as a result of the split, the organisation, which had numbered some 2,500 members before the split in October 1892, had grown to include 3,359 members by the end of January 1893, leading to the formation of a fourth section, the first three being full (the section corresponding to the approximate capacity of the theatres used, with performances being repeated for each section).21 With the fourth section full by October 1893, Julius Türk moved that a fifth section be created. Mehring, however, expressed reservations about the proposal, on the grounds that the creation of a fifth section might dilute the working-class membership, opening the door to the entry of bourgeois elements, who would lack any commitment to the work of the association except for their wish to obtain theatre tickets cheaply.22 For Mehring, the preservation of the proletarian character of the Freie Volksbühne was more important than its expansion. In January 1894, the association counted some 6,000 members, and it was noted in Mehring’s report to the January general meeting that the concern that the expansion might lead to a loss of the proletarian character of the association had not been borne out, since the “members of the most recently founded sections [were] almost exclusively workers”.23 When the Freie Volksbühne suspended its activity in July 1895, it was able to report average membership figures for the year 1894/95 of 7,600.24

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If Mehring and Dupont were able to express their satisfaction over the fact that the Freie Volksbühne was a “workers’ association with a definitely proletarian character”,25 they were able to base this conclusion on a statistical survey of the membership carried out in early 1894, and published in the association’s magazine, Die Volksbühne.26 This survey found that out of 6,312 members, 3,272 were men and 3,040 were women. The profession of 4,921 members can be determined (while 259 men and 1132 women gave no indication of profession, or an insufficiently clear indication). This figure can be broken down into 1,235 married couples, with many women giving the profession of their husband rather than their own, plus 1,778 men and 673 women. Close to 90% of members whose professions are known were in manual trades. The most strongly represented manual trades among the men were (in descending order): carpenters (448 members), then those who simply described themselves as “Arbeiter” (269), metalworkers (Schlosser, 217), sculptors (193), painters (154), bookbinders (144), typesetters (124), tailors (121), beltmakers (113), mechanics (102), plumbers (95), bookprinters (94), turners and lathe operators (Dreher, 88), paper-hangers and decorators (76), wood-turners (Drechsler, 71), shoemakers (67), lithoprinters (Steindrucker, 64), engravers (63), moulders (63), lithographers (Lithographen, 55), and cigarmakers (42).27 It is noteworthy that a large proportion of these trades are skilled craft-related trades, partly reflecting the traditionally strong labour organisation in certain trades (e.g. the printing trades) but also showing a strong representation of trades related to decorative arts and crafts. Of the female manual workers, over 90% described themselves as either Schneiderinnen (tailors or dressmakers, 290 women) or simply Arbeiterinnen (246 women). Of the non-manual professions, the majority were white-collar wageearners, including 204 male Handlungsgehilfen (commercial employees, including shop assistants) and 124 male Kaufleute (a similar category, possibly with higher status), while 67 women were Handlungsgehilfinnen (female shop assistants) in addition to 41 female clerical workers. A mere handful of members belonged to the professional classes (6 male and 4 female teachers, for example) or ran their own business. Given that the figures cover over three-quarters of the membership, and even allowing for the possibility that some of those who listed themselves as manual workers may have been independent mastercraftsmen, or perhaps in some cases have also held some office in the Social Democratic Party or trade unions, the membership can be

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considered to have been overwhelmingly working-class in its social composition, and (given their tendency to vote for Social Democrat office-bearers) strongly Social Democratic in political orientation. Given their social composition, it is likely, as Selo pointed out, that the members’ experience of the theatre prior to joining the Freie Volksbühne was limited, consisting perhaps chiefly of variétés or cheap suburban theatres.28 Franz Mehring came to be associated with a change of programme in the Freie Volksbühne: the “return to the classics”.29 As discussed above (in Chapter 3), Mehring believed that the working class were the rightful heirs of German classical literature, however, he also stressed that this heritage needed to be critically examined from a historical materialist point of view, in order to distinguish between works which contained positive, emancipatory impulses, and others. Mehring was also sceptical in regard to the ability of contemporary Naturalism to either bring about a renewal of literature or to contribute positively to the political struggle of the working class. At the same time, Mehring was prepared to acknowledge that: “It is to the credit of contemporary Naturalism, that it has the courage and the love of the truth, to depict that which is passing away, as it is”.30 Given Mehring’s prominence as a Marxist literary historian and theorist, and his position as First Chairman of the Freie Volksbühne, it is generally overlooked that Mehring did not act entirely on his own in formulating the programme of the Freie Volksbühne, nor was he free from practical constraints. Robert Schweichel and Julie Zadek were both particularly active as committee members.31 Robert Schweichel had criticized the German Naturalist school of writers in Die Neue Zeit, for reasons similar to Mehring’s: their pessimism, and the fact that while their realism allowed them to portray the decadence of the bourgeoisie at one end of the scale and the Lumpenproletariat at the other, they seemed incapable of creating a convincing portrait of a socialist, revealing in attempts to do so the class-bound limits of their outlook.32 Julie Zadek, on the other hand, had written appreciatively about Henrik Ibsen (as noted above), and defended Zola from hostile critics, referring to Naturalism in 1885 as “the intellectual movement of the century [...] the artistic form of our scientific century”.33 However, she was also careful to distinguish between the “social dramas” of Ibsen and “socialist” literature, while also noting the turn in the works of Ibsen and other Norwegian contemporary writers towards more psychological treatments of individual characters.

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Despite her respect for the literary merits of Ibsen’s later plays and works such as the young Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, she considered the pessimistic strain in this literature at the beginning of the early 1890s to be one-sided, omitting those aspects of contemporary life which could be sources of optimism, and motives for positive action, for socialists.34 As a member of the artistic committee of the Freie Volksbühne, Zadek not only participated in the selection of the programme, but also gave lectures to the members at meetings, in which contemporary literature and the association’s repertoire were discussed.35 In addition to the input of other committee members, the programme was also the subject of considerable discussion at general meetings, with members’ opinions also being taken into account in the formulation of the programme.36 The policy of the “return to the classics” was not one-sidedly implemented. Of the thirty-two plays presented in the three seasons from 1892 to 1895, two were by Mehring’s favourite classical author, Lessing (Nathan der Weise and Emilia Galotti), with one play by Goethe (Egmont) and one by Schiller (a repetition of Kabale und Liebe). Other plays from the classical repertoire were Kleist’s comedy Der zerbrochene Krug, Molière’s L’Avare, and Calderón’s (seventeenth-century Spanish) drama The Judge of Zalamea. Karl Gutzkow’s Uriel Acosta and Franz Grillparzer’s Der Traum ein Leben dated from after the “Goethe-Zeit”, but might be considered to have been in the process of becoming part of the classical repertoire. The “moderns” were, however, hardly less well represented, with three plays by Sudermann (a repetition of Die Ehre, Heimat, and Sodoms Ende), two by Gerhart Hauptmann (notably Die Weber, as well as Der Biberpelz), and one each by the Norwegians Ibsen (Pillars of Society, again) and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (A Bankrupt). In addition, the young minor Naturalist Hermann Faber’s Der freie Wille was performed. As far as the genre of the Volksstück was concerned, Anzengruber’s popularity was recognized with no fewer than four of his plays being performed (Das vierte Gebot, Der Meineidbauer, Die Kreuzlschreiber, and a repetition of Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld), and Kein Hüsung was also repeated. Finally, for the first time, two plays by socialist authors were performed, Paul Bader’s Andere Zeiten and Franz Held’s Das Fest auf der Bastille.37 In addition to the programme being subject to the decisions of the Freie Volksbühne’s artistic committee, it was also subject to constraints arising from the association’s dependence on established theatres (performances alternating throughout this period between the

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National-Theater, as the Ostend-Theater was renamed, and the Lessing-Theater, which was generally considered the better of the two). Mehring also complained of the shortage of good new plays suitable for the Freie Volksbühne, hence “the Freie Volksbühne had to fall back upon classical literature more than was originally intended, although that should not be seen simply as an unfavourable development”.38 If, as Mehring conceded, works such as Goethe’s Egmont or Calderón’s Judge of Zalamea were remote from the contemporary working class, “the critical analysis with the aid of historical materialism which they found in the magazine of the Freie Volksbühne, was quickly understood by the members”.39 In order to assist members’ understanding of the plays, and to influence their reception in a manner compatible with a historical materialist outlook, Mehring published the monthly magazine Die Volksbühne for members of the Freie Volksbühne, the main part of which was usually devoted to Mehring’s commentary on the play for that month, which discussed each work in terms of its historical, social and political context, as well as in terms of its aesthetic qualities. That Mehring’s administration of the Freie Volksbühne opened with Lessing’s Nathan der Weise, Lessing’s famous enlightenment plea for religious tolerance, was in fact fortuitous: the performance had already been planned before the split in October 1892. However, Mehring was not dissatisfied with the choice (even if he considered it weaker as drama than Lessing’s Emilia Galotti).40 Mehring wrote that while “we feel and think differently from Lessing and his characters in many respects [...]”, in particular: “We know that there are stronger forces in the way of the victory of universal love of humanity than the discord between religions”, it was still of some value to remember that Nathan was a high point in German intellectual history, and that in this play “a great struggle rang out, without which we would not be what we are today”.41 If Mehring acknowledged that Nathan der Weise had limitations as a work for the stage, he considered Emilia Galotti a “dramatic materpiece”, which towered over the “flat lands of our dramatic literature”. Mehring introduced the play to the members of the Freie Volksbühne as a protest against despotism, which represented the pinnacle of bourgeois class consciousness in the eighteenth century, although “the bourgeois classes for whom it was composed never understood it [...] The play will, however, seem as ‘new’ to every revolutionary, upwardly striving class, as if it were fresh from the workshop of the poet’s mind”.42 This reflected the argument

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of Mehring’s Lessing-Legende, that the radical emancipatory tradition of the German enlightenment had been betrayed and abandoned by the German bourgeoisie, so that it fell to the working class to continue the revolutionary tradition.43 Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe, which had enjoyed sufficient success on its previous performance in the Freie Volksbühne to justify its repetition in February 1894 (especially as the growth in membership meant that most members had not seen the 1891 performance), could be considered in similar terms. In Mehring’s view, the play, like Emilia Galotti, was born from a “revolutionary spirit, which today still lives only in the proletariat [...] No modern Naturalist has yet written a work of literature so full of revolutionary energy as Schiller’s bourgeois tragedy was under the conditions prevailing in Germany a hundred years ago”.44 In Mehring’s view, the fact that German professors in the present still sought to gloss over the despotic abuses in the German states of the eighteenth century was further proof that Schiller’s play still had a potentially radical import.45 The reviewer of the performance for Vorwärts agreed that Kabale und Liebe was a “revolutionary play through and through”, which offered “a repulsive but unfortunately not exaggerated picture of the despotic arbitrary rule” of the small German princedoms of the period.46 Goethe’s Egmont dealt with material more historically remote from late nineteenth-century workers, and Mehring expressed some reservations regarding the historical figure of Egmont, who as a representative of the revolt of the Dutch nobility against Spanish rule was too closely linked to a feudal exploiting class to be considered a true popular hero.47 However, Mehring noted, Goethe’s Egmont was not the same as the historical Egmont, although he considered some passages to be more historically illuminating than the treatment of Egmont himself, especially when Egmont, in discussion with the Duke of Alba over the nature of the revolt, refers to religion as a carpet concealing the real interests involved in the conflict. For Mehring, this showed that Goethe had a finer sense of historical reality than either Protestant or Catholic historians who had discussed the conflict primarily in religious terms.48 Aside from the attempt to construct a “historical materialist” reading of Goethe, Mehring explained the choice on the grounds that it was undeniable that Goethe should be performed by the Freie Volksbühne, and Egmont was better suited to the stage than Faust (which, Mehring felt, was better read than staged) or Götz von Berlichingen, which, as an early work of the author, suffered

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from formal imperfections (Mehring was also inclined to regard the historical Götz as a predatory Junker, who had betrayed the peasants in the Peasants’ War).49 As for the other classical works selected, Kleist’s Der zerbrochene Krug was chosen as — in Mehring’s opinion — one of the few good comedies produced in Germany, and one which had not dated as much as Lessing’s Minna von Barnhelm and Freytag’s Die Journalisten (Mehring was not inclined to recommend Freytag’s play to a workingclass audience, given that its heroes were provincial bourgeois liberal journalists).50 Molière’s L’Avare, another comedy, was linked by Mehring to the early stages of capitalist accumulation, which in Molière’s day required capitalists to be thrifty, if not downright miserly. In addition to Molière’s comic genius, Mehring praised the way in which he had dared to offend the powerful and influential with his satire.51 Mehring’s introduction of Calderón also stressed the importance of an understanding of the economic conditions of the period in which Calderón, often simply labelled as a Catholic author, lived and worked. Notwithstanding the Catholic ideological costume of the play, Mehring wrote that Calderón, “despite all the mysticism, which especially in his last days took hold of him, wrote a [...] courageous, not to say revolutionary drama, in his Judge of Zalamea”, with its criticism of the decaying, parasitic Spanish nobility.52 Despite some weaknesses in the depiction of the main character, Mehring considered the performance of Uriel Acosta by Karl Gutzkow, a representative of Das junge Deutschland in the 1830s and 1840s, justified as “it reflects what is still after all a significant epoch in German intellectual history, and is an outstanding drama from the artistictechnical standpoint”.53 Grillparzer was chosen despite the fact that he lacked any hint of the social or political radicalism, or any Sturm und Drang rebelliousness, being, as Mehring explained, a product of a time in which all public activity was repressed. His Der Traum ein Leben can be said to have been selected for aesthetic reasons alone, with both Mehring and Schweichel praising Grillparzer’s talents as a poet.54 Judging from some comments in reviews, and from motions to debate the place of classical plays on the programme of the Freie Volksbühne, there was some resistance to the classics on the part of members who had apparently been converted into partisans of Naturalism by the previous administration of the Freie Volksbühne.55 (At the same time, as already noted, even under Wille’s leadership some members had advocated that the programme should include

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classical works). The opposition to the classics appears to have been a minority position, however. When Julie Zadek spoke to a general meeting in June 1894 on the programme of the Freie Volksbühne and the reasons for choosing it (including external constraints: “in the National-Theater, suitable actors were not always not available, in the Lessing-Theater there were not always the appropriate plays”), she stated that: “modern literature is providing little of a revolutionaryemancipatory tendency, and that little is not always good”, and went on to discuss individual plays. Her address was greeted with much applause, with suggestions from the members not only that Die Weber should be repeated but also that “something by Shakespeare” should be performed.56 The actual performances of the classical works chosen appear to have been generally successful. According to Mehring’s account of the performance of Nathan der Weise, it was an all-round success. Mehring recounted his impression of the audience, which was “free from any blasé attitude”: “With this rapt excitement, with this quick understanding of the speeches and ripostes which are often heavy with thought, with this willingness to closely follow the changing moods, with this sheer joy at the parable of the three rings, Lessing’s Nathan has probably seldom been received”.57 This might be considered to have been a touch of special pleading on Mehring’s part, as the new chairman of the Freie Volksbühne and advocate of a critical appropriation of the bourgeois classics, however the tone of Mehring’s review is supported by others. The Berliner Zeitung, for example, records a great storm of applause breaking out after the story of the three rings (in Act 3, Scene 7, in which Nathan, in response to Saladin’s insistence that there must be one true religion, tells Saladin the story of a father giving his three sons three identical rings).58 Nathan der Weise was also among the plays which members in later years requested to have repeated.59 According to the reviewer in Vorwärts, Emilia Galotti was also “a happy success”. The reviewer observed that: “The performance of a ‘classical’ play is a much less doubtful undertaking in the Freie Volksbühne today than it was three or four years ago. Opinions on this point have changed more and more and have to some extent become settled”. Like Kabale und Liebe, Emilia Galotti had affected the audience like a “modern” play, and it contained “more revolutionary spirit” than many modern works. The reception had been “very pleasing indeed”.60

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The other classical works were also generally well received. While Kabale und Liebe had been one of the most successful plays in the Freie Volksbühne’s first year of existence, the Vorwärts reviewer considered the repeat performance in February 1894 to be an even greater success (partly thanks to better acting), and declared that even those who would like to see classical dramas banned from the Freie Volksbühne would have to surrender before Kabale und Liebe.61 Kleist’s Der zerbrochene Krug was presented on the same programme as Großstadtluft, a “harmless farce” by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg, seasoned authors of fairly routine light comedy for the Berlin stage. According to the Vorwärts reviewer the laughter for Der zerbrochene Krug was not as loud as for Großstadtluft but was “more from the heart”.62 Molière’s L’Avare was greeted with “very vigorous applause”, while, by contrast, Verga’s Cavalleria Rusticana (a more contemporary work, though also foreign) was “not a complete success”.63 Surprisingly, perhaps, given the remoteness of its subject matter and setting in seventeenth-century Spain, Calderón’s Judge of Zalamea appears to have been a strong success. Despite the June heat, the theatre was completely full, and the play was received with much applause. For Vorwärts’ reviewer, the resemblance between the anachronistic aristocratic and military code of honour depicted in seventeenthcentury Spain and the privileged status of the military caste in contemporary Imperial Germany added to the impact of the play. On one occasion, it was noted, the audience broke into applause in the middle of a scene, when the King confirmed the justice of the sentence passed by the protagonist, the plebeian farmer Pedro Crespo as judge of Zalamea, on the aristocratic officer who had abducted and raped the farmer’s daughter. With this applause, “the decision of the King was thus turned into a sort of plebiscite, — and this plebiscite was evidently not only directed against the soldateska of Philip II”.64 As on other occasions, the audience, whether out of class consciousness or from an elementary sense of justice, responded spontaneously and enthusiastically when there was a clear conflict in which the oppressed struck back at the oppressor.65 On such occasions, the audience were not merely acting as passive recipients of the stage action, but were actively expressing their readiness to take sides, as the reviewer puts it, in “a sort of plebiscite”. Gutzkow’s Uriel Acosta seems to have been at least moderately successful,66 while Grillparzer’s Der Traum ein Leben, “a risky experiment”, apparently owed its applause less to the content of the

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play (which Vorwärts considered banal) than to the accomplished performance of the Lessing-Theater’s best actors, and the splendid décor and costumes.67 The additional activities undertaken by the Freie Volksbühne, apart from the theatre performances, also showed that the classics could arouse the interest of the members, for example, a Heine Evening, at which Heinrich Schulz lectured on Heine and Heine’s works were recited.68 Undoubtedly the greatest success of the Freie Volksbühne during this period, however, was Gerhart Hauptmann’s Die Weber. This play was an obvious choice, partly because of its revolutionary subject matter: the uprising of the Silesian weavers in 1844; partly because of its importance as the most significant work by Germany’s leading contemporary playwright; and partly because of the intense interest generated by the play’s difficulties with the Prussian theatre censorship, a controversy which added to the political significance attached to the work.69 The intention of the Deutsches Theater to perform the première of Die Weber had been frustrated by the police in March 1892, shortly after the appearance of the play in book form, with the police citing the “tendentious orientation” of the play and objections concerning the implications for public order of such features of the play as: the depiction of the capitalist Dreissiger’s character in comparison to the weavers’, which was seen as “inciting class hatred”, in the First and Fourth Acts; the declaiming of the “Weberlied” in the Second and Third Acts; the plundering of Dreissiger’s house in the Fourth Act; and the depiction of the uprising in the Fourth and Fifth Acts. The police explicitly stated their concern that the play might become an attraction for the “Social Democratic section of the Berlin population inclined towards demonstrations”, for whose “doctrines and complaints concerning the oppression and exploitation of the worker by the factory-owner” Hauptmann’s play, “through its one-sided tendentious character” would be “excellent propaganda”.70 When the Bezirksausschuss upheld the ban, Hauptmann appealed to the Oberverwaltungsgericht, authorizing his lawyer Richard Grelling to state that “it was far from his intention to write a Social Democratic Party work in Die Weber; he would regard such an intention as degrading to art; only the Christian and universal sentiment that one calls pity had helped him to create his drama”.71 (This illustrates what Brecht would later call the “monumental weakness” of Naturalism: its reliance on an appeal to the sympathy of the bourgeoisie).72 The

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Oberverwaltungsgericht decided to permit the public performance of Die Weber, but solely for the Deutsches Theater, out of consideration for the particular circumstances of that theatre, namely the price of tickets and the bourgeois public of that theatre, as was expressly stated: “this theatre is only attended by members of those social circles who do not have a tendency towards acts of violence or other disturbance of public order”.73 As private associations, the Freie Bühne, the Freie Volksbühne, and the Neue Freie Volksbühne were exempt from the ban on public performance, and the Freie Bühne staged the première of Die Weber on 26 February 1893, which was an outstanding success, although Otto Brahm had toned down some parts of the play, presumably out of consideration for the effect that the performance would have on Hauptmann’s then current court case.74 The critic Fritz Mauthner’s description of the performance as “no longer a struggle”, but a “peaceful, happy harvest” is characteristic of the attempt to frame the performance as a purely aesthetic experience, playing down the conflict with the authorities.75 Subsequently, Die Weber was also performed by the Neue Freie Volksbühne (on 15 October 1893). The Freie Volksbühne, however, was unable to obtain Hauptmann’s consent to a performance until the case regarding the public performance at the Deutsches Theater was decided. It would appear that Hauptmann was unwilling to risk jeopardizing the public performances by a demonstration of the play’s appeal to a workingclass, Social Democratic audience.76 On this point, Mehring lamented: If there is one product of modern drama, which makes the founding of a Freie Volksbühne worthwhile, it is Hauptmann’s Die Weber. Now, the performance of this drama has been repeatedly forbidden for the Freie Volksbühne by the author, with the same energy with which the police has forbidden Die Weber on the bourgeois stage. We do not say this to spite Herr Hauptmann: he does not want to be the poet of the revolutionary proletariat, and if he does not wish to expose his play to the applause of an audience of workers before the final outcome of his dispute with the police, then he is acting on grounds which are quite understandable from the bourgeois point of view.77

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Mehring had great respect for Die Weber as a literary achievement, writing for the Freie Volksbühne: Gerhart Hauptmann’s Die Weber is the only work of literature for the stage of the present time which is fully in tune with modern life and which can claim a comparable significance for German literature at the end of the nineteenth century as Schiller’s Die Räuber for the end of the eighteenth century.78 Mehring was to brand the decision not to award Die Weber the Schiller Prize an “aesthetic disgrace”, blaming the commission’s fear of offending the Kaiser by their choice for a lack of aesthetic principles.79 For the members of the Freie Volksbühne, Mehring characterized Die Weber as a “play of the masses, that belongs to the masses, and is of itself understandable for the masses”.80 Die Weber was a “play of the masses” in more ways than one: not only was the subject matter a popular revolt, but it had a cast of over forty, plus extras, and no individual protagonist, with the focus being on the situation of the weavers as a whole and the development of the uprising, which are followed through various characters.81 For Mehring, the intention of the author was secondary: the commitment of Naturalism to realism and the detailed representation of social milieu meant that a treatment of such a subject in keeping with historical veracity could not fail to put the class struggle on the stage.82 Mehring also noted with satisfaction that one of the documentary sources for the 1844 weavers’ uprising was written by Wilhelm Wolff, a comrade of Karl Marx to whose memory Das Kapital, Volume I, had been dedicated.83 Nonetheless, whatever strengths Die Weber possessed, Mehring tended to suspect that it would be an isolated achievement, believing that the circumstances surrounding its public reception demonstrated that a renewal of the dramatic art could not be expected “in the capitalistic police-run society”.84 The public controversy over Die Weber had been reported in the Social Democratic press,85 and the demand to see the play performed by the Freie Volksbühne was considerable, as indicated by the almost unanimous decision of a general meeting to approve a special levy from members to cover the extra costs incurred by performances of the play, the need to stage an extra repeat performance, and the continuing demand of members for further performances in subsequent seasons.86

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If the performance in the Deutsches Theater had been permitted on the grounds that the lower classes could not afford seats in that theatre, the Freie Volksbühne brought the play directly to an audience of Social Democratic workers. The disorderly scenes feared by the authorities and parts of the bourgeois press did not, however, eventuate. This did not prevent Das Kleine Journal from giving a highly coloured account of the event. The report stated that, having been received by “the more moderate elements of the Volksbühne public [i.e. the Neue Freie Volksbühne]” with great enthusiasm, the play was being shown to “the fiercest representatives of the fourth estate”: Mocking laughter accompanied the naive humility of the starving weavers, as soon as they — in the first acts — humbled themselves before the employer or the police. During the arrogant speeches of the factory owner and the gendarme there was [such] a tension in the faces of the spectators, that one could expect an outburst of rage at any moment. When however the recitation of the revolutionary Weberlied brought the first dramatic movement, there was no holding back any more in the ranks of the Volksbühne members. The fury of the weavers marching to the uprising on the stage found a fully resounding echo in the wrath of the stirredup audience. The nervous hissing, that initially tried to suppress any disturbance by applause, so that no word of the gospel of the attackers of capital acting on the stage would be lost, soon disappeared in the roaring applause, which the pro-worker outcome of the uprising — on the stage — received.87 The (more than usually alert) police surveillance of the performance found, however, that this account was “strongly exaggerated”, although Schutzmann Schmelzer did find that the play was “received with loud applause” in the completely full theatre, with the applause intensifying after Acts Four and Five.88 The reference in Das Kleine Journal to the “pro-worker” end of the play also cannot be taken at face value: the ending of Hauptmann’s play is left open, with the announcement that the uprising is (temporarily, as the audience must realize) successful coinciding with the apparently meaningless death of Old Hilse from a stray bullet.89 Vorwärts also reported that Die Weber made a strong impression on the audience. Commenting on the presumed expectation of the bourgeois press that there would be a “tumult” or “scandal” in the

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Freie Volksbühne’s performance, Vorwärts noted that there was nothing of the kind. Die Weber had, on the other hand, enjoyed “a success, such as previously no other play [had enjoyed] in the Freie Volksbühne”.90 Vorwärts noted the emphasis on the contrast between the class of factory owners and the weavers running through the play, although the reviewer distinguished between the planless uprising and a revolution. The reviewer, far from seeing a “pro-worker outcome” of the events on the stage, took it for granted that the uprising was suppressed by the troops called to the scene. However, the reviewer did express the hope that “the play will at the same time illuminate the situation of our present time for the members of the Freie Volksbühne, even if, as has been maintained, that was not the author’s intention”. The reviewer praised the performance, in the National-Theater, with that theatre’s ensemble being supplemented with guest actors.91 The Freisinnige Zeitung confirmed the success of the performance in the Freie Volksbühne, noting that strong applause interrupted the action during the fifth act when the pious Old Hilse was verbally attacked for his passivity by his daughter-in-law Luise.92 Despite the fears of the authorities (and the author’s own apparent concern regarding the reception of his work by the Freie Volksbühne), Die Weber did not provoke riotous behaviour among Berlin workers. The play did, however, have a significant and lasting resonance, judging from the repeated requests for further performances, and might be considered the most significant event of Mehring’s period of office. However, Mehring’s suspicion that Die Weber would not be followed by any equally powerful Naturalist treatment of social conflicts was borne out by later developments. None of the other Naturalist works performed by the Freie Volksbühne had a comparable impact. Ten months after Die Weber, the Freie Volksbühne performed Hauptmann’s comedy Der Biberpelz, which Mehring compared favourably to the run-of-the-mill comedies on the German stage, praising especially its satire on German officialdom under Bismarck.93 The performance received “tempestuous applause”, with several curtain calls after each act, although Vorwärts’ reviewer found that the audience missed some of the satirical barbs.94 Hauptmann’s contemporary, Sudermann, was represented with no fewer than three plays (Die Ehre, Heimat, and Sodoms Ende) on the programme of the Freie Volksbühne, although Mehring’s own opinion of their quality was at best ambivalent. His opinion of Sudermann’s

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work was summed up in his review of that author’s Die Schmetterlingschlacht: In Die Ehre, in Sodoms Ende, in Heimat, he had treated modern social conflicts with a certain measure of ruthlessness and honesty, but has then tangled them up with so much bourgeois romanticism, that the smug well-fed bourgeois felt more tickled than annoyed. In Die Ehre, a fairy-tale ‘coffee king’ plays the deus ex machina, in Sodoms Ende a haemorrhage, in Heimat a stroke.95 The mixture of Naturalist technique, subject matter and milieu depiction with plot devices from melodrama was not only a formal weakness of Sudermann’s work (which perhaps explains why he is relatively little known today, despite his popularity in the 1890s), but it also enabled him to avoid a serious confrontation with the social realities which his plays took as their starting point. Die Ehre, which had already been seen in the Lessing-Theater in the first season of the Freie Volksbühne, was chosen by the committee ahead of Sudermann’s other works, on the grounds that, while the play “is not as far reaching in some respects in its treatment of society as Sodoms Ende, it is, however, more effective as drama, and, above all, it depicts in its first and third act a certain stratum of modern society with a burning truth to nature such as Sudermann has not yet achieved hitherto”.96 (The first and third act are set in the Heineckes’ dwelling in the Hinterhaus, Mehring characterizing the family as typifying the section of the Lumpenproletariat which lives parasitically off the bourgeoisie, and which is therefore incapable of developing its own class consciousness. Mehring cited the play as evidence for the fact that under capitalism, “the villas of the Tiergartenstrasse are unthinkable without the vice dens of the Veteranenstrasse”, and vice versa.)97 The “moral depravity” of the top strata of Berlin society was examined in Sodoms Ende, which dealt with the story of a young painter, Willy Janikow, who is ruined both morally and artistically by his entry into high society. For Mehring, the play was an object lesson in the corrosive effect of capitalism (after it had ceased to be a revolutionary force in the evolution of modern society) on artistic creativity.98 However, while Mehring considered Sodoms Ende “the most far-reaching of his dramas in its treatment of society”, it was also “from a dramatic point of view the weakest”.99 (Sodoms Ende had also generated considerable controversy when it was banned in Berlin in

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1890, and subsequently in other cities, although the ban had soon been lifted in Berlin, so the play also had the merit of having antagonised the authorities.)100 The third Sudermann play performed, Heimat, which depicted the prejudices and double morality of a provincial town, also received a mixed judgement from Mehring, who found that “it is not the bourgeois standpoint which Sudermann represents, but the manner in which he represents it, to which the Freie Volksbühne must not deny its sympathy and respect, all objectively justified criticism notwithstanding”.101 The appearance of three works of Sudermann on the programme in as many years is probably due to two factors apart from the socially critical content of his works: the fact that, as Mehring put it, “Hermann Sudermann is the most successful playwright in Germany at the present time”,102 and, secondly, the fact that Sudermann was a staple of the Lessing-Theater, in which the Freie Volksbühne held half of its performances, all of Sudermann’s works having been premièred in that theatre.103 The choice of Sudermann may well have been dictated in part by the use of the Lessing-Theater. The reception of Sudermann’s plays was, in general, positive. Vorwärts saw Die Ehre as a safe choice, in the light of its previous performance, and found it received with as much applause as two years previously.104 Heimat had a “strong and profound” effect on the audience,105 and the Freisinnige Zeitung noted particular applause at lines in which the social criticism directed at bourgeois and official careerism was most strongly expressed.106 Sodoms Ende seems to have been generally successful, although some members of the audience apparently failed to appreciate the earnest intention of the naturalistic acting, and found it amusing.107 As for other Naturalist works performed during this period, Mehring noted that Ibsen “was somewhat preferred in the two first years’ seasons of the Freie Volksbühne”, and the committee had therefore decided to give Ibsen’s works a rest, especially as it considered his more recent works, with their concentration on “tricky psychological problems” not well-suited for a working-class public.108 Thus the only Ibsen work performed in this period was a repetition of Pillars of Society, a repetition which could be justified on the ground that given the considerable expansion of the association, only a small minority of members had seen it the first time.109 Ibsen’s Norwegian contemporary Bjørnson was represented with A Bankrupt, that writer’s biggest success on the German stage.110

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The one Naturalist play performed by the Freie Volksbühne during this period which could be considered something of an experiment, was Der freie Wille, by the young writer Hermann Faber. This play seems to have been the subject of considerable debate, lasting several hours, among the committee, which eventually decided by a large majority to perform the work.111 Der freie Wille had had a couple of favourable reviews but few stage performances, and none in Berlin. Despite its imperfections as the work of a relative novice, and a conventional ending (showing, in Mehring’s view, the inability of the author to break away from a bourgeois point of view), a majority of committee members took the view that a promising newcomer tackling serious issues (in this case, corruption in the press) should be encouraged.112 Judging from the Vorwärts review, the performance was enthusiastically received, although Faber never went on to make much mark on the literary history of the period.113 Also experimental were the performances of the two plays by contemporary socialist authors: Paul Bader’s Andere Zeiten and Franz Held’s Das Fest auf der Bastille. While Mehring’s deterministic version of historical materialism denied the theoretical possibility of a new socialist culture until a new socialist society had been created, and while his aesthetic norms were taken from the classics, he was not unsympathetic to new works by working-class or socialist authors. However, he often expressed his regrets that only few socialist plays existed which could be successfully staged. Mehring found that while Bader’s Andere Zeiten, like Faber’s work, suffered from some formal defects, which necessitated some cuts for the performance,114 it had the advantage that it “brings the proletariat onto the stage for the first time” — not the Lumpenproletariat so often depicted by bourgeois Naturalists, but “the real proletariat,... which despite everything works and struggles in hopeful optimism, and acts for the sake of ‘the great causes of humanity’”. In contrast to bourgeois Naturalism, by which the style of Bader’s work had been influenced, Bader “sees not only the sinking old world, but also the rising new world”.115 Dietmar Trempenau, analysing the play from an ultra-left standpoint (in the 1970s) classifies the play as “‘radikal’kämpferisch” with its subject matter including a strike, showing the will of the workers to act collectively to improve their situation, however, at the same time he sees in it “an apologia for the legalistic and parliamentary party tactics of 1891 (Erfurt)”, which were inherently potentially “revisionist”, as the resolution of the conflict in Andere

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Zeiten is connected with an electoral contest between Social Democrats and liberals.116 Nonetheless, the play was deemed sufficiently radical by the police for any public performance in the National-Theater following the première for the Freie Volksbühne to be banned.117 While the play was clearly socialist in its choice of subject matter (a strike and a Social Democratic election campaign constituting major parts of the play) and its handling of the material, Mehring took pains to emphasize that the play was not a “Tendenzstück”, and therefore merited serious consideration.118 The socialist tendency of the play seems, however, to have aided its reception among the audience of the Freie Volksbühne. According to the Freisinnige Zeitung: The hero of the play lets loose furious speeches against the property-owners like a Social Democratic agitator in a public meeting, reason enough for the audience of the Freie Volksbühne to call for the author and the actors again and again at the end of every act [...] Herr Molenar as the agitator Oppelmann sought with his powerful voice to even outdo the intentions of Herr Bader. He thus achieved the greatest effect, however: the more the words boomed out, the louder the applause.119 The Magazin für Litteratur noted “roaring storms of applause after every socialist party slogan”.120 However, Mehring found that despite the fact that the audience warmly approved of the author’s intentions, they “made no attempt to conceal how much it fell short of succeeding”.121 The other play by a socialist author was Held’s Das Fest auf der Bastille. Like Andere Zeiten, this work’s appeal lay more in its subject matter and socialist tendency than in its formal qualities, and like Bader’s play it required major cuts for it to be viable on the stage. Julie Zadek conceded at a general meeting after the performance that the play was unfortunately conceived on too large a scale for the stage.122 The play was banned from public performance by the police, although the ban was subsequently lifted on the condition that its performance did not provoke “demonstrations of a political tendency”.123 The performance for the Freie Volksbühne, despite the political tendency, was not a complete success, the public applauding gratefully but “not with the usual unanimity”, according to the Vorwärts reviewer, who

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found the play “valuable as a picture of the time [of the French Revolution]” but marred by its literary weaknesses.124 The festival processions and tableaux vivants which formed part of the festive occasions of the Freie Volksbühne should also be mentioned as manifestations of the socialist tendencies of the association, to which the leadership sought to give an artistically polished expression. For the celebration of the third anniversary in 1893, the Freie Volksbühne held a contest with prizes for the best Festspiel, the winning entry to be shown at the celebrations.125 The result of the contest was that E. Gersdorf’s allegorical Festspiel Empor zum Licht was part of the programme for the summer festival celebrating three years of the Freie Volksbühne, along with a procession in which portraits of Liebknecht, Lassalle and Marx were carried, and various amusements. Eight to nine thousand people participated in the summer, 1893, festivities which were part demonstration, part family day out.126 If such Festspiele and tableaux did not enjoy the same literary esteem as full-scale stage plays, they were nonetheless an integral part of the socialist festive culture during this period,127 a culture to which the Freie Volksbühne sought to make its contribution. While the Freie Volksbühne had to contend with many material difficulties (availability and quality of ensembles which the association could afford, the dependence on the established repertoire and the apparent shortage of viable and suitable alternatives), it was legal considerations which put an end to the organisation’s activities under Mehring’s administration. On 18 April 1895, the Freie Volksbühne (along with the Neue Freie Volksbühne, the Versuchsbühne attached to the “Neue”, and the Freie Bühne, which was in fact dormant at that time) received a police order which informed it that its performances were considered to be effectively public (given the “loose” nature of the theatre associations and the size of their membership), and that they would therefore be required to submit plays for approval to the police censorship.128 With this regulation, a significant part of the raison d’être of the Freie Volksbühne was under threat. While both the Freie Volksbühne and the Neue Freie Volksbühne appealed against this police instruction, the two associations followed differing strategies. The Neue Freie Volksbühne contested the claim that its performances were public, and was ultimately able to be exempted from the regulation after re-organizing its statutes sufficiently to convince the authorities that this was the case.129 In Mehring’s view,

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the only principled course of action was to challenge the censorship as against the Prussian constitution, and to appeal against the instruction on this basis, thus extracting the maximum political capital from the case.130 At a general meeting on 23 April 1895, Mehring denied that the performances of the Freie Volksbühne were public, but focussed on the unconstitutionality of the censorship. Mehring moved that the activity of the Freie Volksbühne (then approaching the end of the season), should be suspended with the current series of performances to be completed before the suspension took full effect) until the case was decided by the courts, a resolution carried unanimously by the 1,300 to 1,500 members present.131 A subsequent meeting on 4 July 1895 heard that the outcome of the appeal to the Oberverwaltungsgericht was still being awaited.132 Finally, the case was decided in late January 1896, with the complaint of the Freie Volksbühne against censorship being dismissed.133 As a consequence, the general meeting of the Freie Volksbühne on 9 March 1896, unanimously voted to dissolve the association, liquidating its treasury, the surplus after paying court costs to be donated to the Arbeiterbildungsschule (the SPD’s workers’ educational institute), the SPD and the striking Cottbus textile workers.134 Mehring acknowledged that the Oberverwaltungsgericht had left a way open for the Freie Volksbühne to regain its status as an association exempt from censorship: the way followed by the Neue Freie Volksbühne. However, Mehring declined to enter into long negotiations with the authorities over the definition of a “loose” association as opposed to a “pure” association. For Mehring, it was more important to demonstrate the fact that the Prussian constitution failed to provide adequate protection against the arbitrary use of police power.135 In the final analysis, Mehring held that: “Performing theatre may very well be a fine thing, but it has never been a thing for the sake of which the Freie Volksbühne will give up any part of the great aims of the class-conscious proletariat, and never will be”.136 A few years later, he admitted that he was already coming to the conclusion that “the game was not worth the candle”.137 The time and energy expended on practical organisational tasks, the dearth of suitable new plays for performance (with new socialist plays failing to score a great succcess on the stage, and bourgeois Naturalism showing no sign of producing another work of the calibre of Die Weber), the limitations imposed by the dependence on established theatres, and the often poor quality of performances they delivered, were all reasons why

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Mehring had doubts about the effectiveness of the Freie Volksbühne if it had any ambition to be something other than a source of cheap theatre tickets for members.138 Under these circumstances, he welcomed the opportunity for the Freie Volksbühne to go down fighting, if the likely alternative was a compromise which would carry the risk that the priority of the class struggle would be forgotten. Mehring’s work in the Freie Volksbühne demonstrates two principles of the approach to cultural questions characteristic of the Left Marxist wing of Social Democracy (as outlined in Chapter Three above): the priority attached to the political struggle (reasserted most forcefully in the decision to dissolve the Freie Volksbühne, but also evident in other instances, for example, the determination not to dilute the working-class composition of the membership), and the emphasis on a critical appropriation of classical bourgeois culture, mediated through a historical materialist analysis. It would be wrong to view Mehring’s policy of a “return to the classics” (a policy which, as detailed above, was not one-sidedly implemented) as simply regressive. There were a number of good arguments for showing classical works to a working-class public: many had not previously seen the works, so that the classics were still fresh to them; there was a considerable demand among at least part of the membership to see classics, on the grounds that the works should not be viewed as the exclusive property of the bourgeoisie, but were rather the “common property of the people”;139 there were new ways of performing the classics, new productions of classical works having played an important part in the reform of the German theatre;140 and, in practice (as seen in examples detailed above), audiences responded strongly to elements in classical plays which contained a “revolutionary spirit”, or a compelling depiction of resistance to injustice. The reception of the plays in a manner which encouraged a critical analysis of their content in the light of their social and historical context was encouraged by Mehring’s essays in Die Volksbühne, which also served as programme notes. It is reasonable to concur with Manfred Brauneck’s judgement that the Freie Volksbühne did not just serve as a mediating instance between the working-class membership and the institution of bourgeois literature (transmitting, it is often implied, bourgeois ideology in the process) but rather that it also constituted, at least potentially, a kind of proletarian (more precisely, perhaps, Social Democratic) oppositional public sphere (“Gegenöffentlichkeit”).141 The

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democratic organisation of the association, and features such as the drawing of lots for seats (as opposed to the class distinctions of different seat prices in the commercial theatres), the experience of evading the restrictions of police censorship, and the explanation and discussion of plays’ content from a socialist perspective all contributed, as Brauneck sees it, to — at least partially — “building up that dialectical perspective which the plays themselves lacked, which was however a prerequisite for the possibility of the theatre becoming an element of the learning process within the proletarian mass movement”.142 Elements of Brauneck’s formulation may require qualification. The Freie Volksbühne, while strongly working-class in its membership, embraced only a small part of the Berlin working class, primarily skilled craft workers with a Social Democratic political orientation. The “oppositional public sphere” had closer ties to Social Democratic labour movement culture than to the culture of the urban working class as a whole, as could only be expected. The use of Vorwärts as the instrument of day-to-day communication with the membership and the extent to which the Freie Volksbühne’s organisation and festive activities both mirrored Social Democratic Party practice indicate the extent to which the association was embedded in the life-world of the Social Democratic labour movement. This obviously applies less to the period during which the organisation was under Wille’s paternalistic direction, which did have the express intention of raising the workers to a level of being able to appreciate bourgeois literature as an end in itself, a direction which foundered on the cultural norms and political consciousness which the members brought to the Freie Volksbühne. The integration into Social Democratic labour movement culture was more consciously pursued under Mehring, at the same time as the attempt at critical appropriation of bourgeois literary culture, and there seems to have been a high degree of consensus between the leadership and the members regarding this process. While it is true that the Freie Volksbühne did not promote any radically new or uniquely proletarian aesthetic, an objective assessment needs to consider the elements which distinguished it from a bourgeois “dramatic soup-kitchen” in the eyes of both leaders and members. A balanced assessment also needs to look closely at the actual reception of plays by the audience, and the conditions under which plays were the subject of analysis and discussion, and to appreciate that the audience seemed adept at finding aspects of the

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plays which supported or confirmed a socialist or working-class view of the world (even if, in the eyes of some critics, this involved a “misunderstanding” of authorial intention). Arguably, the very fact of attending a play as part of a mainly working-class audience, among the same kind of public as would be present at a Social Democratic meeting, enhancing the sense that workers were in control of the occasion, meant something different to members of the Freie Volksbühne than having a seat in the gallery of an ordinary theatre among an audience divided by seat prices. The reconstituted Freie Volksbühne from 1897 onwards was subject to counter-tendencies which raised the possibility that the creation of a proletarian-Social Democratic oppositional public sphere would be submerged in a movement towards positive integration into bourgeois norms. The programme and development of the Freie Volksbühne in this period will be examined in the following chapter.

7 THE FREIE VOLKSBÜHNE UNDER CONRAD SCHMIDT, 1897-1914

In early 1897, a year after the formal dissolution of the association, the Freie Volksbühne was reconstituted, this time following the example of the Neue Freie Volksbühne which had regained some freedom of action by re-writing its statutes sufficiently to placate the authorities. A sufficiently large proportion of the membership still felt an attachment to the idea of the Freie Volksbühne, and many members of the former executive and committee (including Dupont, Mehring, and Zadek) participated in a meeting held on 12 March 1897 to re-found the Freie Volksbühne, attended by about 800 people. At the meeting, Dupont spoke against Bruno Wille’s offer of an amalgamation with the Neue Freie Volksbühne, which the meeting clearly rejected, indicating the fact that the gulf between the “old” and the “Neue” Freie Volksbühne was still considered significant.1 Franz Mehring had declined to resume the direction of the association, recommending Conrad Schmidt, who had been a founding member of the Freie Volksbühne, as his successor.2 Heinrich Schulz was elected Deputy Chairman, the Kaufmann Julius Cohn first secretary,3 the painter Max Buschold second secretary, and the sculptor Gustav Winkler treasurer (replacing Julius Türk, who was then dedicating himself to his career as theatrical entrepreneur). The committee consisted of Mehring, Schweichel, Dupont, Wurm, Dr. Bruno Borchardt, and Julie Zadek.4 That Mehring declined to continue as First Chairman of the association is not surprising, considering the bleak assessment he had made of the future of the Freie Volksbühne when he decided on its

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dissolution. Mehring did not long continue in his position on the committee. In May 1898, a controversy broke out over the reviews in Vorwärts of plays performed by the Freie Volksbühne, which had not been written in as supportive a spirit as had formerly been the case. In a significant shift, the performances of the Freie Volksbühne were henceforth reviewed in Vorwärts almost on the same basis as performances in bourgeois theatres. There was particular dissatisfaction within the Freie Volksbühne over the sometimes harshly critical reviews of Leopold Schönhoff, who wrote most of the reviews (under the cipher -ff) of the Freie Volksbühne’s performances in its first season. Mehring’s complaint against Schönhoff was also influenced by the fact that Schönhoff had been one of the group of writers who had supported Bruno Wille in the founding of the Neue Freie Volksbühne, which made Schönhoff, in Mehring’s view, personally unacceptable as the reviewer of Freie Volksbühne plays for the SPD press. Mehring resigned from the Freie Volksbühne when he felt that Schmidt was not pursuing the matter sufficiently energetically.5 It is, however, quite likely that given the relatively lacklustre offerings of the Freie Volksbühne in its first new season, Mehring had returned to his opinion that there were more pressing political tasks than the work with the association. Although he withdrew from the Freie Volksbühne, Mehring was to come into conflict with Conrad Schmidt on two further occasions relating to the Freie Volksbühne. The first occasion involved another Vorwärts reviewer, Erich Schlaikjer, who had criticized the selection of plays and the standard of performance in the Freie Volksbühne, recommending the engagement by the association of an artistic director or dramaturg. In this controversy, Mehring came to the support of Schlaikjer.6 In Mehring’s view, the Freie Volksbühne was now simply performing “the plays most often put on by the bourgeois stage”.7 He also expressed his consternation at the election to the committee of the Freie Volksbühne of one Dr. Alfred Berthold, who, despite his membership of the SPD, had temporarily been an editor of Maximilian Harden’s Die Zukunft, a journal which in Mehring’s view was nothing but an enemy of Social Democracy.8 In Mehring’s opinion, both the artistic programme of the Freie Volksbühne and the political conduct of its leadership were taking the association in the direction of simply becoming a harmless theatre consumers’ association, a diversion of the type once proposed by Georg Adler.9

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The second occasion on which Mehring came into conflict with Schmidt followed the appeal of the Freie Volksbühne in mid-1906 for the setting up of a building fund to provide the association with its own theatre.10 In Mehring’s view, this plan indicated that the Freie Volksbühne had lost its sense of priorities, and was placing too much importance on theatre for its own sake. The current state of dramatic output did not justify such an investment, nor would the expansion of the association which the enterprise would require improve matters, by leading to greater caution in the selection of plays. The plan involved entering into “competition with the capitalist theatrical enterprises, in which all advantages are on the side of the latter” (especially, Mehring added, as a workers’ association could not in all conscience pay technical personnel the same low wages or offer actresses the same notoriously exploitative conditions as bourgeois theatres).11 Worst of all, in Mehring’s opinion, was the risk that “for this negative success, proletarian energies which could be much better employed in the service of the labour movement are to be dissipated”, at a time when the “working class had every reason to concentrate its forces on the trade union and political struggle, and not to stray into detours which are often enough recommended to it by its worst enemies as the only paths to salvation”.12 Underlying Mehring’s split with the Freie Volksbühne and his disputes with Schmidt, even if it remained unstated, was the revisionist controversy which had been emerging since 1897.13 Under Schmidt’s administration, the Freie Volksbühne increasingly showed the tendency to follow the revisionist tendency of considering the “raising of the cultural level” of the working class an aim in itself, which could be pursued independently of the political struggle. The dominance of the revisionist tendency in the leadership of the Freie Volksbühne was reinforced by a number of personnel changes. Heinrich Schulz had to leave Berlin within months of the re-founding of the association to edit a socialist paper in Erfurt, and was replaced by Johannes Gaulke (a sculptor and writer for the party press), while Mehring was replaced by Benno Maass (a white-collar worker). When Gaulke, in his turn, left in 1900, Maass took his place in the executive, with Berthold replacing Maass on the committee. For different reasons, Emanuel Wurm and Robert Schweichel also resigned in 1900 and 1901 respectively.14 As a replacement for Schweichel, the committee co-opted Josef Bloch, the editor of the Sozialistische Monatshefte.15

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Conflict arose over the election to a vacancy in the committee in January 1901, when Baake, Borchardt and Conrad Schmidt put forward Wally Zepler, a regular contributor to the Sozialistische Monatshefte on women’s issues, as a candidate against Emil Rosenow, an SPD Reichstag deputy and writer, who had received convictions and prison sentences for his work as a Social Democratic newspaper editor in the 1890s. Against the recommendation of Schmidt, Baake and Borchardt, the majority of the general meeting voted (204 votes to 34) for Rosenow against Zepler, who, it was noted, was not actually a member of the Freie Volksbühne.16 A further conflict broke out in 1902, with an acrimonious dispute between Schmidt on the one side, and Benno Maass and Julius Cohn on the other, who charged Schmidt with incapacity in the administration of the association, as well as suggesting that his new activity as writer of literary and theatre reviews for Vorwärts represented a potential conflict of interest. Baake, Bloch, Buschold and Julie Zadek declared their solidarity with Schmidt, who resigned but was re-elected in a special general meeting, at which the SPD Reichstag deputies Adolf Hoffmann and Fritz Zubeil officiated, together with Schmidt, as a provisional executive. Although Schmidt and his supporters were re-elected, he had to agree to the representatives of the Ordner taking part in committee meetings, albeit only with an advisory voice. This move seems to indicate a desire on the part of the working-class members (who were represented particularly by the Ordner) to maintain a check on the disputes of the intellectuals in the leadership group.17 The new executive consisted of Schmidt, Baake as his deputy, Dr. Hans Davidsohn as first secretary, Buschold as second secretary, and Winkler, continuing as treasurer. The committee consisted of Kurt Eisner, Friedrich Stampfer, Josef Bloch, Julie Zadek, Willi Wach (one of the original founders of the Freie Volksbühne in 1890), and the socialist writer and editor Ernst Preczang. Preczang soon resigned, however, and was replaced by Robert Schmidt, an editor of Vorwärts, member of the general commission of trade unions, and a prominent revisionist.18 In 1903, Davidsohn was replaced by Simon Katzenstein, another regular contributor to the Sozialistische Monatshefte.19 That some tension remained between Schmidt’s leadership and a section of the rank and file is illustrated by the vote over a replacement for Katzenstein, when he resigned in 1905. Willy Friedländer (a white-collar worker), the candidate proposed by the leadership, was defeated by a relatively

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unknown man called Salomon. Schmidt, considering Salomon unsuited for the position, and considering his mandate to have weak legitimacy, as the product of a slim majority at a poorly attended meeting, simply held committee meetings without Salomon, having him replaced by Friedländer by a new vote at the next quarterly general meeting.20 While the internal conflicts within the Freie Volksbühne were ostensibly over the internal management of the association (with Schmidt more or less conceding that he brought more literary than business skills to his task as chairman),21 they suggest latent tensions between the leadership group and the rank and file (or a part thereof) of a type which had not been apparent during Mehring’s administration.22 With figures such as Conrad Schmidt, Josef Bloch, Kurt Eisner, Simon Katzenstein (for a time), Robert Schmidt and Friedrich Stampfer in the executive and committee, the Freie Volksbühne was dominated, particularly from 1902 onwards, by a group of active Social Democrats, who represented the revisionist and reformist wing of the party.23 In addition to Conrad Schmidt, other members of the executive and committee, such as Friedrich Stampfer, also contributed to the association’s journal, which continued to include introductions to the plays performed, although without the consistent emphasis on a historical materialist understanding of the works. Stampfer disclaimed any didactic intent in his introductory articles, writing: “The actual enjoyment of art lies in one’s own reflective or emotional contemplation”.24 The focus in the Freie Volksbühne was shifting from a class-based interpretation of artistic production to an emphasis on the aesthetic response of the individual, with aesthetic categories tending to be viewed as timeless and transcending social conditions. Instead of analysing the historical class conflicts reflected in a play such as Götz von Berlichingen, Stampfer referred to the “eternal, apparently insoluble conflict between man and humanity, the part and the whole, the individual and the organism” which “fills all the pages of history”.25 The association’s journal also carried advertisements for the Sozialistische Monatshefte and the publications of revisionist writers. In addition to the members of the executive and committee, other revisionists were invited to speak at meetings and functions, including Wally Zepler (on Ibsen, in a talk which stressed the subjective and individualistic aspects of Ibsen’s work),26 Max Maurenbrecher (on art and politics),27 Lily Braun (on Goethe and the education of youth),28

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Eduard Bernstein (on George Bernard Shaw, and on other occasions on Hans Sachs and on Ferdinand Freiligrath),29 Eduard David (on the modern ideal of school and education),30 and Albert Südekum (on the entertainment tax).31 A significant number of non-socialists also gave lectures to the members of the Freie Volksbühne, including Rudolf Steiner (on Goethe, and again, on Richard Wagner),32 the Munich writer Michael Georg Conrad, on Zola,33 and the liberal Theodor Heuss (on Ludwig Pfau).34 The only left-leaning socialists to lecture in the Freie Volksbühne after about 1902 were Heinrich Schulz,35 Heinrich Ströbel,36 and the Dutch writer Hermann Heijermans (who at that time was writing articles on literature for Vorwärts under the name Heinz Sperber).37 it was, therefore, more likely that a “bourgeois” speaker would give lectures to the Freie Volksbühne than someone linked with the left of the Social Democratic Party. Whereas the artistic programme of the Freie Volksbühne under Wille had been characterized by its partisanship of Naturalism, and while the association under Mehring had also been at pains to distinguish itself from the commercial bourgeois theaters, in part by its efforts to promote the classics, it is difficult to make out any consistent principle in the selection of plays after the re-founding of the Freie Volksbühne in 1897. As it expanded, with the number of sections of the membership and hence also of performances increasing, its dependence on the repertoire of the bourgeois theatres which staged its performances became if anything more pronounced. As previously noted, Conrad Schmidt had been an enthusiastic supporter of literary Naturalism in the early 1890s. At the time of the re-founding of the Freie Volksbühne, he was forced to concede that Naturalism had passed its peak. In the five years since the publication of Die Weber, no Naturalist drama of comparable power had appeared, Sudermann’s plays since Heimat had both moved away from Naturalism and lost their socially critical edge. The later, more symbolist, Ibsen was more influential on the German stage in the late 1890s than his earlier “social dramas”, and the influence of Strindberg, Maeterlinck, Wedekind, and Schnitzler saw social themes being displaced by psychological drama and Symbolism. In the first issue of the re-founded association’s magazine, Schmidt wrote: “At that time, in the first days of the old Volksbühne, it could well seem as though German literature stood before a fundamental radical transformation. In the name of ‘Naturalism’ the old untruthful trade in convention and stereotypes was under assault with youthful enthusiasm”.38

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Naturalism, with truth to nature as its programme, promised to give artistic reflection to the great social struggles of modern times. However, now, in 1897: If the Freie Volksbühne is re-opened today, it is in the knowledge that great social drama, which it would be the finest and most rewarding task of such an association to pass on to the working people, does not yet, at present, exist. The starts which were made in this direction were already performed by the old association, and in the meantime hardly a new work of this kind has come into being. However, the fact that the highest demands which we are compelled, from our historical standpoint, to make upon art, have hitherto not been fulfilled at all, or only scarcely, can not be any reason for the upwardly striving working class to turn away in indifference from whatever else the art of the past has created that is great or significant. The profoundly invigorating stimulation which every real work of art bestows on us, who enjoy it, even if it has grown out of alien social foundations, and whatever might strike us as strange in particular moments, is one of the most precious goods, and one of the most indispensable to every genuinely human education.39 In the absence of a literature that spoke directly to the concerns of a working-class public, the Freie Volksbühne was prepared to turn towards the cultivation of the pure aesthetic experience of all “real works of art” for the sake of the development of the aesthetic sensibilities of members, as an end in itself. Julie Zadek explained that the committee, in putting together the programme, sought to present to the members “whatever is of literary value from the most diverse sources, in rich variety, in the first place, of course, everything which is close to proletarian-revolutionary sentiment”.40 This last proviso, however, was sometimes disregarded, and a varied programme was seen as sufficient: Where modern art does not offer anything great, the association has to confine itself to bringing to the members whatever seems stimulating and interesting in relation to the different forms of the drama, or whatever seems characteristic for the dramatic output of the present, in a varied sequence.41

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By 1908, this rationale served to justify the performance of a play such as Victorien Sardou’s Rabagas: “One has long had to do without a repertoire which would, in the greater part, correspond to the original tendencies of our association, and to the hope for an art not only true to life but in its truth to life at the same time socially critical and revolutionary”. In this case, the selection from the existing repertoire involved a French farce from 1872, which, as the Freie Volksbühne magazine admitted, included reactionary satirical commentary on the Paris Commune.42 While the programme of the Freie Volksbühne under both Wille and Mehring had been more varied than the principles enunciated by each leadership might have suggested, the elevation of eclecticism and variety to principles in their own right carried the risk that the Freie Volksbühne’s programme would simply uncritically reflect the programme of the existing bourgeois commercial theatres. This was conceded in as many words: As long as the great forces, which move the inmost depths of our age, as long as the struggle of classes and the universal struggle for emancipation of the workers still has yet to find true dramatic form, for so long our association can have no special repertoire beside that of the bourgeois stages, for so long it will have to see its task in being a mediator between bourgeois stage art and the proletariat.43 The selection of plays during the first year of the new Freie Volksbühne seems to have occurred in a fairly ad hoc fashion, a situation partly necessitated by the difficulties in finding suitable theatres and ensembles (partly because the Freie Volksbühne had previously popularized the innovation of Sunday afternoon performances, so that some commercial theatres were now staging their own performances then).44 Schmidt also repeatedly complained about the “barrenness of dramatic production” as another factor hampering the development of the repertoire.45 The first year’s programme began with Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, a choice perhaps reflecting the demand for “something by Shakespeare” earlier expressed by members.46 It is perhaps worth noting that both the introductory article on the play and, apparently, the production itself, took pains to portray Shylock as not simply a grotesque villain, but rather played down any possibility of an antisemitic interpretation of the play.47 This was followed by Georg Hirschfeld’s Die Mütter, a drama influenced by Hauptmann’s Einsame

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Menschen, about a weak-willed young poet, which (in Hoefert’s words) “goes close to the borderline of the bearably sentimental”,48 and by a work of the old popular favourite Anzengruber, Der G’wissenswurm. After the summer recess, the first full season contained Illusionen by Karl Mönckeberg (a drama about a young man rebelling against his Hamburg patrician upbringing which Vorwärts found well-meaning but weak, and which was criticized by Benno Maass);49 Arthur Fitger’s Die Hexe (a history play from the 1870s, set in 1648, chosen “after some hesitation” and also criticized at a general meeting);50 Sein Jubiläum, a short work by the socialist writer Ernst Preczang, on the same programme as Joseph Rüederer’s Bavarian peasant comedy Die Fahnenweihe; Max Halbe’s Die Jugend (a “love drama”, which had made Halbe a well-known author in 1893); and Philipp Langmann’s Bartel Turaser, a new “social drama” set among the textile workers of Moravia, and influenced by Die Weber.51 Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor seems to have been successful mainly in the (overdone) broad comic scenes involving Falstaff,52 and was followed by a double bill of Victorien Sardou’s and E. de Najac’s comedy Cyprienne (or Divorçons) and an equally light one-act comedy Abu Seid, by Oscar Blumenthal. Die Weber was repeated by the strong popular demand of the members,53 and was followed by Ibsen’s The Wild Duck (which was poorly received, according to Leopold Schönhoff, by a public averse to the play’s pessimism),54 and, finally, Ernst von Wolzogen’s “humorous tragi-comedy” of the literary bohème, Lumpengesindel. The following season was equally mixed, with a couple of classics, a couple of recycled Naturalists, and little to distinguish the repertoire of the Freie Volksbühne from that of a commercial theatre, although 1900 saw the performance of two plays which had encountered difficulties with the Berlin censorship, Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness and Bjørnson’s Beyond Mortal Power.55 While it is not possible to discuss every play performed over a seventeen-year period, it is possible to note some general features and trends in the development of the artistic programme of the Freie Volksbühne.56 One trend evident in the programme is a relative and absolute decline in the number of classics performed. Counting works by Goethe, Lessing, Schiller and Shakespeare, there were 8 performed from 1897 to the season of 1901/02 inclusive (effectively five and a quarter seasons). In the six full seasons from 1902/03 to 1907/08 inclusive, there were 11 plays by these authors. However, in the six

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seasons from 1908/09 to 1913/14 inclusive there were only 6. To put these figures in perspective, it should be noted that as the Freie Volksbühne expanded, the number of plays it performed increased, so that while 14 plays were offered in 1897/98 (and the same number in 1898/99), there were 26 in 1912/13 and 24 in 1913/14. In relative terms, the swing away from the classics was thus even greater than it was in absolute terms. Whereas under Mehring there had been a clear rationale behind the selection of classical plays, with the selection of works of the Sturm und Drang period reflecting a clear preference for a revolutionary or rebellious temper, it is difficult to discern a similar rationale in the later years of the Freie Volksbühne. For example, the first play by Schiller in these years was Wallensteins Tod, a play which did not make a favourable impression on the Freie Volksbühne audience.57 While Wilhelm Tell was performed in 1902, followed by Kabale und Liebe and Die Räuber in the “Schiller Year” 1905,58 there was some disappointment at the choice of Maria Stuart to mark the 150th anniversary of Schiller’s birth in 1909, instead of those other plays which “gave such mighty expression to the ideals of freedom”.59 Works that were classicist in style, and with content borrowed from classical mythology, do not seem to have had as strong an appeal for the working-class audience as other classical (in the wider sense) works. After Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris was performed in 1908, there were complaints that many members did not understand the work.60 It was then repeated, however, in 1911. Grillparzer’s classicist Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen “left the audience cold”,61 but was also repeated in 1911, with the same author’s Medea, Sappho, and Weh’ dem, der lügt also being selected. Among post-Goethezeit dramatists who were starting to enter the classical repertoire, Hebbel was also prominent, with six of his plays being performed, although Ernst Kreowski questioned in Vorwärts whether Hebbel’s Agnes Bernauer, with its “philosophy of the medieval state and the absolute duty of the ‘subjects’ to respect the law forced upon them, is still comprehensible to a socialist audience”.62 One “classical” performance, although not yet universally regarded as such, was Dantons Tod by Georg Büchner in 1902, which was a significant contribution to the rediscovery of Büchner for the German stage.63 Unfortunately, according to Vorwärts, although the Freie Volksbühne was still exempt from censorship at this time, the play was performed in a slightly bowdlerized form.64

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The Freie Volksbühne’s repertoire of contemporary drama retained a preference for Ibsen and Hauptmann. 11 Ibsen plays were performed from 1897 to 1914, 3 of them twice, including, oddly, the difficult (and relatively unpopular as far as its stage history was concerned) work, The Lady from the Sea, which cannot have had the same appeal as the earlier social dramas.65 10 plays by Hauptmann were also performed in this period, with Die Weber being repeated no fewer than three times (in 1898, 1912 and 1913). The strong appeal which this play exercised for the Freie Volksbühne audience was not, however, matched by other works such as Die versunkene Glocke or Hanneles Himmelfahrt.66 Other Naturalists or former Naturalists were also performed: Bjørnson (as already mentioned), Fulda, Hartleben, Arno Holz and Johannes Schlaf, and Hermann Sudermann (although Fulda, Hartleben and Sudermann all moved away from Naturalism in their later production). Contemporary Russian realist drama was represented by Gorkii, of whom three plays were performed, notably The Lower Depths (which appeared on the programme twice). Gorkii made a particularly strong impression on the audience, and a “Gorkii Evening” was held by the Freie Volksbühne in February 1905, when the revolutionary events in Russia heightened the interest in Gorkii’s work.67 A programme which aimed at presenting a representative crosssection of contemporary dramatic production could not, however, be confined to Naturalist or realist works. Maeterlinck, for example, was represented with three plays performed, although there was some opposition to what was perceived as mysticism in Das Wunder des heiligen Antonius.68 Strindberg was strongly represented, with nine plays being performed, nearly all Strindberg performances occurring in 1912 and 1913 (over twenty years after the Freie Bühne first performed The Father in Berlin). Five plays by George Bernard Shaw were performed, with an emphasis on his satires on militarism (Arms and the Man), capitalism (Widowers’ Houses), and the hypocritical morality of the upper classes (Mrs. Warren’s Profession).69 Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (under the title Bunbury) and An Ideal Husband were also shown.70 Among contemporary German-language playwrights, Arthur Schnitzler was particularly strongly represented with 11 plays performed, all of which reflected a sensibility that was particularly characteristic of the Viennese bourgeoisie. Only one of the Schnitzler plays performed, the last one shown by the Freie Volksbühne, Professor Bernhardi (in 1913), attempts a serious treatment of a contemporary

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social-political issue (anti-semitism), although even here the play’s conclusion is decidedly apolitical (if not anti-political). The strong representation of Schnitzler was symptomatic of the extent to which the Freie Volksbühne was absorbing the bourgeois repertoire. Of Wedekind’s works, only the one-act Der Kammersänger was performed. (The Neue Freie Volksbühne, by contrast, included Erdgeist and Frühlings Erwachen on its programme).71 Neither Sternheim’s satires nor the first works of Expressionist drama (which only really established itself on the stage after the First World War) were included in the Freie Volksbühne’s repertoire. As far as lighter works were concerned, Anzengruber’s Volksstücke continued to appear fairly regularly on the programme, with 7 of his plays being included. A Volksstück by another Austrian, Die Thurnbacherin by Rudolf Greinz, set among the Tyrolean peasantry, also enjoyed a roaring success.72 However, in addition to such works which appealed to an audience from the “lower classes”, the Freie Volksbühne also presented numerous French bourgeois drawingroom comedies and farces, and works in the same genre by German playwrights. Some of the more egregious works in this category were: Victorien Sardou (with E. de Najac), Cyprienne (Divorçons), and the same authors’ Rabagas and Ihr letzter Brief; Eugène Brieux’s sentimental satire, Die drei Töchter des Herrn Dupont; A. Bisson and Antony Mars, Madame Bonivard; Eugène Scribe, Ein Glas Wasser; Octave Mirbeau, Der Dieb and Geschäft ist Geschäft; H. Salingré, Pechschulze; and Paul Gavault and Robert Charvey, Die 300 Tage. Among the most practised producers of commercially successful light comedy for the German stage were Oscar Blumenthal, Gustav Kadelburg and the Schönthans, who worked in varying combinations. The programme of the Freie Volksbühne came to include Oscar Blumenthal, Abu Seid; Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg, Hans Huckebein; F. Schönthan and G. Kadelburg, Der Herr Senator; and F. and P. Schönthan, Der Raub der Sabinerinnen. Other light comedies included F.A. Beyerlein, Zapfenstreich, Wilhelm Jordan, Durchs Ohr, F. Dörnmann, Ledige Leute, and the vaudeville, Mahé by M. Schönau and F. Walden. While numerous other contemporary comedies were shown (for example by Max Dreyer and Otto Erich Hartleben), those listed above were perhaps the most blatantly commercial. Thus a listing published in 1898 showed that in the 1897/98 theatre season, Hans Huckebein was the most commonly played work in Germany, with 724 performances.73 It was selected for the Freie Volksbühne in 1909. In 1908, Vorwärts quoted the Berliner

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Tageblatt lamenting the standard of the plays shown on the commercial stage. Vorwärts commented that this was a logical consequence of the capitalist nature of the theatre business.74 One of the plays cited in this connection was the Schönthans’ Der Raub der Sabinerinnen, which was performed in the Freie Volksbühne in 1912. In 1910, Vorwärts itself was complaining about the “miserable state of the German stage repertoire”, noting the predominance of comedies and particularly the persistence in the repertoire of Blumenthal and Kadelburg, “especially in the provinces”.75 A comparison of the programme of the Freie Volksbühne and lists of the most frequently performed authors and plays in Germany indicates a strong degree of convergence between the Freie Volksbühne and the mainstream stage.76 The Freie Volksbühne’s programme for 1911/12 included (among others) Bjørnson (performances of whose plays totalled 319 in Germany in that season, Lessing (with a total of 405 performances), Grillparzer’s Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (the most frequently performed play by that author, who totalled 443 performances), Hermann Bahr (393 performances), Holz and Jerschke’s Büxl (their most frequently performed play; they totalled 233 performances), Hauptmann (581 performances), the Schönthans’ Der Raub der Sabinerinnen (901 performances, Der Raub der Sabinerinnen being the most common), Beethoven’s Fidelio (204 performances), Ibsen (832 performances), Meyer-Förster’s Alt-Heidelberg (431 performances, Alt-Heidelberg being the most common), and Strindberg (129 performances).77 While the commercial light comedies of the Blumenthal-Kadelburg variety were received cheerfully by the Freie Volksbühne audience (provided the performance was adequate), there was some dissent within the association over the inclusion of such works in the programme. Some members, including Adolf Hoffmann, complained about the selection of Sardou and de Najac’s Rabagas, on the grounds that it was a “Tendenzstück directed against the labour movement”. The play was defended by the committee on the grounds of the “freedom of satire”, with Curt Baake attempting to argue that the play, being written in 1872, could not be seen as applying to “modern socialism”.78 The committee itself was divided over the selection of Brieux’ Die drei Töchter des Herrn Dupont, apparently more because of the play’s formal weaknesses than its political tendency.79 There was also an objection to Beyerlein’s Zapfenstreich and Sudermann’s comedy Die Schmetterlingsschlacht, on the grounds of literary merit or alleged lack thereof.80 There were complaints about the selection of the vaudeville

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show Mahé, although the committee responded that Mahé had been forced on the association by the theatre (the Neues Schauspielhaus), which had claimed that it did not have the opportunity to rehearse an alternative.81 Such “external” factors frequently influenced or determined the selection of plays. The Freie Volksbühne did, however, perform some works by socialist authors: Ernst Preczang’s Sein Jubiläum and Im Hinterhause, Emil Rosenow’s Kater Lampe, and four works by the Dutch socialist writer Hermann Heijermans (who for a time lived in Berlin, and wrote on literature for Vorwärts under the pseudonym Heinz Sperber). Ernst Preczang’s Sein Jubiläum was a short play, “with a thoroughly sentimental underlying tone”,82 dealing with the decline of the old forms of craft production, through the fate of a master-shoemaker who has spent fifty years in the trade only to find himself deprived of his means of existence. A contrast to the humble, quietistic shoemaker is provided by his young nephew Karl, who represents the rising, class-conscious proletariat. Conrad Schmidt found this figure somewhat too schematic, and too obviously the mouthpiece for the author’s views.83 The play was, however, greeted by the audience with “understanding and empathy, which were expressed in vigorous applause”.84 Preczang’s Im Hinterhause, the author’s first play longer than one act, received its première in the Freie Volksbühne in 1903. Like Sudermann’s Die Ehre, the play showed the misery of an impoverished working-class family, the Gensickes, in the Berlin Hinterhaus milieu, although Preczang, unlike Sudermann, introduced a positive socialist protagonist, the young mechanic Petzold, who represents the element of hope for the future in the play. While Petzold proves unable to help the Gensickes in their plight, his departure at the end, with his commitment to study and to work for the cause, can be seen as a positive note.85 Vorwärts praised the depiction of the working-class figures in the play, such as mother Gensicke, and stressed old Gensicke’s refusal, despite his plight, to act as a strike-breaker, although it found that Petzold’s socialist ideas could have been more clearly brought out. Although the Vorwärts review criticized the resort to certain hackneyed theatrical devices in the third act, it noted that the play as a whole was followed with attention and “encouraging applause”.86 Emil Rosenow’s comedy Kater Lampe was performed, although only after the death of the author, whose first work, the one-act play Daheim, had been rejected for performance by the Freie Volksbühne

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by Conrad Schmidt in or around 1898.87 Kater Lampe was a four-act comedy, sometimes compared with Hauptmann’s Der Biberpelz, set in a community in the toy-making industry region of the Saxon Erzgebirge. Kater Lampe had received its première in Breslau in 1902, and was subsequently performed in 1903 in the Berliner Theater. Shortly after its Freie Volksbühne performance in 1906, it was playing in public performances in the Lessing-Theater.88 Unlike Rosenow’s drama about miners, Die im Schatten leben, Kater Lampe, with its satire on incompetent village authorities, was not troubled by the censorship, and was already becoming known in the mainstream repertoire when it was performed by the Freie Volksbühne, where it received an enthusiastic audience reception.89 Die im Schatten leben, however, was banned by the police censorship when the Freie Volksbühne planned to perform it in 1912.90 The four works by the Dutch socialist writer Hermann Heijermans performed by the Freie Volksbühne were Die Hoffnung auf Segen (Op Hoop van Zegen), Nummer Achtzig, Der Panzer, and Ora et labora!. Die Hoffnung (as it was also called), a Naturalistic drama set in a Dutch fishing village, was performed in 1902, following public performances in the Neues Theater and the Deutsches Theater. The title of the play comes from the name of an unseaworthy ship, whose crew is sacrificed to the greed of the capitalist in the play. While the play naturalistically portrays the victims of exploitation, it also resembles many bourgeois Naturalist dramas in the absence of a socialist protagonist to represent an alternative.91 Nonetheless, the play made a strong impact on the Freie Volksbühne audience — as was usually the case with dramas of a strong socially critical tendency.92 The one-act play Nummer Achtzig and Der Panzer were presented as a double bill in 1905. Unlike Heijermans’ earlier play, these works were new to the German stage, and were considered unlikely to pass the censor for public performance.93 Together, the two works constituted on attack on “those supporting pillars and symbols of the existing order”, the prison and the army barracks. Nummer Achtzig was a short drama, set in a prison, in which a political offender was subjected to arbitrary treatment at the hands of the authorities. Der Panzer showed the mental and moral awakening of a young officer, who abandons his career when he refuses to fire on striking workers — Erich Schlaikjer remarked that such subject matter (i.e., an enlightened young army officer) would be “utopian” in German conditions.94 The fourth Heijermans play performed, Ora et labora!, set in a poor part of rural

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Frisia, and depicting the poverty of bargees’ families, and their nascent doubts concerning religion, had been performed previously in the Deutsches Theater, and had therefore passed the censorship for public performance. Unfortunately, the performance of this “shocking tragedy” was followed on the same evening’s programme by Gustav Wied’s comedy Abrechnung, set in an old men’s home, which may have dissipated the impact of Heijermans’ drama.95 Thus, while Mehring’s administration of the Freie Volksbühne, despite his reservations concerning the possibility of the emergence of a new socialist literature under capitalist conditions, managed to perform two new plays by socialist authors in three seasons, the re-founded association from 1897 onward, put on only half a dozen socialist plays in seventeen years. Some years after the performance of Ora et labora!, it was Heijermans, under his Vorwärts pseudonym Heinz Sperber, who took issue with the artistic programme of the Freie Volksbühne and the apparent tendency of the Freie Volksbühne to embrace an ideology of “art for art’s sake”. Heijermans/ Sperber, on the other hand, was at the time arguing for the active promotion of a socialist Tendenzkunst, a campaign which brought him into conflict with a number of Social Democratic intellectuals, including Franz Mehring, who, although advocating that organisations such as the Freie Volksbühne should be subject to the priorities of the political struggle, regarded aesthetics and politics as separate categories.96 Heijermans specifically took issue with an article by Friedrich Stampfer in the Freie Volksbühne magazine, on “Kunst und Klassenkampf”, in which Stampfer (explicitly disagreeing with “Sperber’s” Vorwärts columns) argued that the enjoyment of art required leisure and calm, and that workers who had used what leisure they had to learn to appreciate art would respect it for its own sake. It also followed from Stampfer’s argument that the heat of the class struggle was incompatible with artistic creation. Stampfer rejected the application of political or class labels to works of art, stating that the preservation of the artistic heritage of the past, bourgeois or otherwise, was one of the duties of the socialist movement. Although Stampfer initially stated that life stands higher than art and not vice versa, he ended up with a view of aesthetics as transcendent and timeless.97 In response, “Sperber” quoted Henriette Roland-Holst on Gorkii in support of his view that it was meaningful to make a distinction between bourgeois writers, for whom art and politics belonged to separate spheres (with the ideology of the

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transcendent nature of art serving to distract from the morally unacceptable material realities of bourgeois life), and proletarian writers, for whom art and politics were inseparable (as their principles and their activity were in harmony). “Sperber” called for opposition against the mystification of “bourgeois” art by party members such as Stampfer.98 Stampfer replied in Vorwärts, expressing the view that the proletariat’s “passionate longing for the discerning enjoyment of the highest cultural goods” was to be regarded as “the most valuable component of class consciousness”, and insisting on an absolute distinction between “class instinct” on the one hand and “the understanding of art” on the other.99 “Sperber’s” response declined to follow Stampfer onto the transcendental level of aesthetic philosophy, and instead made the significant point that the conditions for the production and reception of art in the present society were to no small extent determined by the class relations operating within that society: “Poor art! Poor proletariat!” sighs this comrade, who radically rejects class instinct. Yes, indeed, poor art and poor proletariat, which one constantly seeks to reconcile with the art which is [...] born out of the class instinct of the ruling class, with an art “controlled” by the censor and castrated by a hundred powerful influences! The class instinct of the bourgeoisie rules the world, tyrannizes the book market, the theatres, has made legal rulings against free expression of opinions, prevented whatever runs contrary to its interests, and eagerly promoted whatever strengthens them — this class instinct has degraded art and artists to instruments, has called into costly existence the factorylike manufacture of “artistic products” as a commodity [...]100 “Sperber” went on to ask whether, under these conditions, the Freie Volksbühne, which in the 1909/10 season boasted 17,500 members and a budget with over 171,000 marks income, was not capable of offering something other than “performances of works from the bourgeois repertoire, which the ordinary theatres carry to market every day? is it to be countenanced without further ado, that our associations remain a kind of consumer association for the transmission of bourgeois art?”101 While it might be questioned whether, on a broader theoretical level, Heijermans/ Sperber was successful in contributing to the development of a new “proletarian aesthetic”, and while he may

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sometimes have overstated his case in his combative polemical style, his critique of the Freie Volksbühne drew attention to a crucial problem: whether the Freie Volksbühne, with its increased size and resources, was still sufficiently conscious of the need to draw on its distinct identity as a workers’ association to counteract the prevailing commercial and legal influences on artistic production. Instead of insisting that the Freie Volksbühne play its part in the class struggle, the leadership advocated a type of Kultursozialismus, which saw the task of raising the “cultural level” of the workers by introducing them to works of art, regardless of ideological content, as equivalent to the advancement of the interests of the working class. “Arbeiterbewegung ist Kulturbewegung” (“the workers’ movement is a cultural movement”), the Freie Volksbühne officially proclaimed in 1912.102 As the Freie Volksbühne expanded, and increased the scope and variety of its cultural activities, there was a growing tendency for it to lose focus on the aim of providing an alternative selection of existing cultural production, or alternative conditions for its reception, with the emphasis shifting to the aim of providing as broad a selection of possible from all the arts. The programme was expanded to take in operas, “artistic evenings” devoted to the various branches of the arts, including musical performances, and the regular festivities of the Freie Volksbühne sometimes turned into lengthy concerts, taking on more artistic seriousness and shedding some of the character of political demonstrations that some of the earlier festive occasions had displayed.103 In 1904, a Berlin Volkschor (People’s Choir) was formed. While formally independent, it remained closely associated with the Freie Volksbühne.104 The Freie Volksbühne (despite having earlier rejected Erich Schlaikjer’s recommendation to this effect) hired its own director from 1902 onwards, in order to obtain more influence at least over the stage direction in some of the performances.105 That there was some tension between the rising artistic ambitions of the Freie Volksbühne and its traditional character as a workers’ association is indicated by reports of the Freie Volksbühne’s festive occasions. Traditionally a mixture of artistic and musical offerings, entertainment and socializing, they sometimes took on more of the nature of formal concerts, with lengthy musical programmes. One Vorwärts report (on an Offenbach evening), stated that the Freie Volksbühne did not seem to be clear about its goals in offering musical evenings, as to whether they were to be “club performances” or “pure art”.106 At one Autumn Festival, the formal concert

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programme lasted so long that the dancing did not start until nearly midnight.107 This was also a problem at the 1904 March Festival, at which the programme had been so crammed with orchestral works by Gluck, Wagner, Berlioz, Gounod, Smetana and Rubinstein, as well as songs and poetry recitation, that an otherwise enthusiastic Vorwärts report conceded that the programme was too long, although it noted with satisfaction that “the rattle of beer mugs during the recital has indeed been more or less done away with at the performances of the Freie Volksbühne as well as at most workers’ concerts”.108 Also symptomatic was the attitude of some members towards the boycott of the Philharmonie, imposed by the Social Democratic Lokalkommission. There were members who felt that observance of the boycott for political reasons was hindering the artistic activity of the Freie Volksbühne, and that the association should follow the lead of the Neue Freie Volksbühne in disregarding the boycott.109 The announcement in July 1906 of a plan to build a “Freies Kunstheim” displayed the self-image of the association as the “central organisation of all artistic endeavours of the Berlin workers”, and a “significant cultural factor in public life overall which one can no longer imagine without it”.110 As well as counting on an expected growth in membership, the Freie Volksbühne also called on Berlin workers to indicate their willingness to support the venture of building a new theatre by purchasing 20 mark interest-bearing shares, payable in instalments (20 marks being about a week’s wages for the average worker). On the one hand, possession of a theatre would give the association full sovereignty over its artistic programme, and eliminate the dependence on the existing commercial theatres. On the other hand, the project also carried the risk of entering into competition with the mainstream theatres. Furthermore, the danger existed that such a project would demand so much capital investment that it would require a major expansion of the membership, and thus a dilution of the social composition and political complexion of the association which constituted its distinctive identity. As noted above, in the opinion of Franz Mehring this project raised the question of whether the Freie Volksbühne had lost the sense of priorities which could be expected of a Social Democratic organisation and suggested that the idea of art for art’s sake was gaining ground, with the expansion of the Freie Volksbühne being seen as an end in itself.111 As it happened, it was soon apparent that the “Freies Kunstheim” project was impracticable in the form proposed, and the project was dropped.112 Subsequently,

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the Neue Freie Volksbühne initiated its own scheme to build a new theatre on the Bülowplatz, on a prominent site on the Eastern edge of the city centre. The Freie Volksbühne joined in supporting this project after a new cartel agreement was concluded between the two organisations in 1913.113 The “Freies Kunstheim” project and the expansion of the Freie Volksbühne’s artistic programme were not merely consequences of the growth in membership, they also provided additional reasons for the leadership of the association to seek further expansion, to cover the expected costs. By 1901, the membership figures had reached the level that existed prior to the dissolution of the association in 1896 (ca. 7,500 members).114 By 1903/04, the figure had increased to some 10,000, with further expansion inhibited by the lack of more space in theatres for additional sections of the membership.115 In the course of the 1907/08 season, the membership increased from 11,200 to about 14,400.116 By 1910/11 the membership was close to the 18,000 mark, the level at which it was to remain until the merger with the Neue Freie Volksbühne.117 While the membership figures increased, the attendance at general meetings did not, so that the proportion of members who were actively participating in decision-making in the association was declining.118 Over time, the accounts of the general meetings indicate that active debate and controversy were becoming less frequent. As the scale and complexity of the association’s activities increased, business decisions increasingly had to be taken without the participation or prior consultation of the membership at general meetings.119 Most members of the association became ticket holders and consumers, rather than active participants in its formally democratic decision-making processes. The Neue Freie Volksbühne, by comparison, initially had difficulty in maintaining its membership numbers after the split from the Freie Volksbühne, with the majority of Social Democratic, working-class members remaining loyal to the original organisation. Significantly, these members did not move to the Neue Freie Volksbühne (at least not in significant numbers) during the period in which the Freie Volksbühne was dissolved, suggesting that Wille’s organisation was viewed as hostile to Social Democracy. The Neue Freie Volksbühne’s membership did not exceed 1,000 until 1901, however it overtook the older association in the 1906/07 season, when it reached 15,600. From that point on, the Neue Freie Volksbühne’s membership figures

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increased dramatically, reaching 50,000 in 1911/12, remaining at that level until the merger of the Volksbühnen.120 The leadership of the Neue Freie Volksbühne addressed itself to a broader, more socially diverse public, and succeeded in promoting itself through the staging of new works in Berlin’s better theatres with well-known actors. Under the management of Josef Ettlinger as chairman (from 1902, while Wille remained involved in the association, intially as deputy chairman) and Heinrich Neft as treasurer, the association was placed on a firm financial footing, run in a businesslike manner. A decisive advantage for the Neue Freie Volksbühne was its connection with Max Reinhardt, at a time when Reinhardt was becoming the dominant figure in the Berlin theatrical world. The Neue Freie Volksbühne obtained the rights to Reinhardt’s afternoon performances, offering members the opportunity to see some of the most celebrated productions of the day at a discount.121 The social composition of the Freie Volksbühne remained predominantly working class. The association repeated the exercise of conducting a statistical survey of the membership for the 1900/01 season, counting 3,040 women and 3,272 men, with the profession of 4,921 members being ascertained (only half the female members indicated a profession, as opposed to only 283 men who did not state a profession). Among male members, carpenters, “Arbeiter”, and metalworkers remained the largest categories among manual workers, followed by book-printers, tailors, sculptors, mechanics and turners (Dreher). Among female manual workers, most were “Arbeiterinnen”, seamstresses, or garment-makers. The number of white-collar workers remained similar to the earlier survey, for both genders, but there was a noticeable increase in members in bourgeois and professional occupations. Nonetheless, the proportion of members in manual occupations (in which, as before, skilled craft-based occupations remained strongly represented), was still over 80%.122 At this time, the Freie Volksbühne was yet to exceed its previous (pre-1896) membership figure, so a degree of continuity in membership may be assumed. Unfortunately, there was no subsequent survey after the Freie Volksbühne trebled in size in approximately ten years. It is reasonable to assume that the membership became more, rather than less heterogeneous in class composition. Whereas Mehring had once resisted expansion of the membership lest the proletarian class character of the association became diluted, the later leadership constantly campaigned to recruit additional members, showing little

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concern for such considerations. In 1912, for example, a recruitment brochure was prepared for distribution in 25,000 copies, with contributions from non-SPD writers and public figures, which was designed to recruit from “circles which still have no connection with us”.123 By comparison, the Neue Freie Volksbühne also conducted a membership survey in 1902/03, but the results are too fragmentary to be of much value. The largest categories among male members were carpenters, book-printers, “Kaufleute” and metalworkers, while among female members most were garment makers, seamstresses, “Arbeiterinnen” and sales assistants. These data (admittedly inconclusive) indicate that the Neue Freie Volksbühne appealed to the same kinds of skilled workers who supported the Freie Volksbühne, but with perhaps a stronger white-collar element.124 A more complete survey was taken in 1906/07, with approximately 7,500 members, including 1,815 women, indicating their occupation. Manual workers were still strongly represented among male members, with 336 metalworkers, 314 printers, 280 carpenters, 263 building workers, 221 mechanics, and 201 turners (Dreher). There was also a significant white-collar element, with 1,004 “Kaufleute”, and a number of men in bourgeois and professional occupations (e.g. 62 teachers, 46 engineers, 19 architects). Among the women, 616 were either garment-makers or seamstresses, 596 were sales assistants or “kaufmännisches Personal”, and 126 were “Arbeiterinnen”. In total, just under 60% of the members listed could be classified as manual workers, a significant difference from the Freie Volksbühne, and showing more of a cross-section of the population.125 These statistics, however, like those of the Freie Volksbühne, pre-date the period of the association’s greatest expansion. In 1913, the police characterized the Neue Freie Volksbühne as composed of people “from all strata of the population”, and noted that “politically, no party can claim the organisation for itself”, even if some Zahlstellen were situated in pubs also used as Social Democratic Zahlstellen.126 The police also noted the presence of a left-wing bourgeois democrat (Georg Springer), the anarchist Gustav Landauer, and a former anarchist (Heinrich Neft) on the executive of the Neue Freie Volksbühne, and claimed that while the membership of the organisation was socially heterogeneous, the members tended to support Social Democracy (even if many, the police acknowledged, only wanted cheap theatre seats). The members

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of the Freie Volksbühne, on the other hand, were said to be “Social Democrats without exception”.127 While the two associations had regained freedom of action by undertaking a revision of their statutes, this was not the end of difficulties with the police. As a consequence of the need to demonstrate that the Freie Volksbühne was truly a closed association, it was obliged to exclude non-members from some of its special functions.128 Police surveillance, and in some instances petty harassment, continued. At the 1897 Winterfest, for example, the recitation of poems by Henckell, Lenau and Preczang was banned by the police.129 The police also banned theatre performances which coincided with religious holidays.130 The Freie Volksbühne also had difficulties with the civic authorities in trying to find space for its artistic evenings and other functions, with the use of school rooms, the town hall, and the Sing-Akademie being denied to it.131 The Freie Volksbühne also campaigned against being subject to the entertainments tax.132 The most severe blow from the police came in July 1910, when Police President von Jagow placed the Volksbühnen under censorship.133 The Freie Volksbühne appealed against von Jagow’s order, but without success, with the Oberpräsident of the Province of Brandenburg taking the view that the Freie Volksbühne had become too large and the connections between members too loose for it to be considered a closed association, and that its performances were effectively public.134 Despite the changes in the statutes, the Freie Volksbühne found itself in the same position legally as it had been in 1895. On this occasion, however, there was no thought of dissolving the association. Protest meetings were held, with the support of nonparty writers and the participation of liberal bourgeois politicians (Hellmuth von Gerlach and Albert Träger), and a representative of the Goethe-Bund, as well as Social Democrats (Heinrich Ströbel, Eduard Bernstein, Hermann Molkenbuhr and Wolfgang Heine).135 In attempting to obtain a broad base of public support for its opposition to censorship (and for legal reasons), the Freie Volksbühne insisted that its protests against censorship were not political.136 (This contrasts with the attitude of Mehring, for whom the issue of censorship was one which was to be exploited for the greatest possible political effect.) The subsequent appeal of the Freie Volksbühne to the higher instance resulted in the Oberverwaltungsgericht confirming the

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judgement of the Oberpräsident. Ironically, the fact that the Freie Volksbühne had hardly performed any plays that were banned by the censor, at least, not for several years, was turned against the association. The court found that the Freie Volksbühne had no right to be treated any differently from other theatres, which were subject to censorship, as it offered “only the same artistic fare which every theatre-goer of good taste enjoys”; that the Freie Volksbühne only served to “enable interested persons to attend theatrical performances as easily and comfortably as possible”, and that “these performances do not differ from other public performances put on by the theatres”.137 At the same time as this legal conflict over censorship continued, the police banned the planned performance of Edgar Tinel’s oratorio “St. Francis” by the Berliner Volkschor for Good Friday.138 The Volkschor had to contend with bans against “public performances” on religious holidays (even if performing church music), and with bans against the performance of sacred music in inappropriately profane venues.139 Eventually, von Jagow, persuaded by references from the Royal Academy of the Arts and the Royal Institute for Church Music, lifted the ban on the Volkschor performing religious music on Good Friday.140 The authorities proved unrelenting, however, when it came to Emil Rosenow’s Die im Schatten leben, which the Freie Volksbühne intended to perform in 1912, but which fell victim to the censorship. On May 1st (!), 1912, Police President von Jagow issued a ban on the performance of Rosenow’s play in the Thalia-Theater (for the Freie Volksbühne), for the standard “reasons of public order”.141 While collecting protests from writers (including George Bernard Shaw),142 the Freie Volksbühne appealed against the ban, an appeal turned down by the Oberpräsident of Brandenburg. The Oberpräsident based the decision on the grounds that the play’s “depiction of the miners’ lot claims a certain general applicability, and [...] the characters appearing in the play are accordingly to be considered less as individual persons than as representatives of certain social groups”. It was therefore of concern that the capitalists were depicted as unscrupulously exploiting the miners, and the scene in which the deacon Körting attempted to seduce the daughter of the household was considered particularly objectionable from this point of view. It was to be feared that if such scenes were played before an audience of working-class families, “a fierce hatred against certain social groups and estates must necessarily

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be aroused in the audience, the venting of which can be expected when a suitable occasion arises”. Furthermore, it was found that the play misrepresented the social legislation that protected miners’ families in case of accidents, and it was in the interests of public order that the laws should not be made subject to unjustified criticism.143 Once again, the Freie Volksbühne appealed to the Oberverwaltungsgericht, which again, after taking until January 1914, rejected the appeal, finding — despite the plea of the Freie Volksbühne’s lawyer that the audience, consisting of the disciplined elite of Berlin’s workers, would realize that the conditions depicted in Rosenow’s play were no longer possible, thanks to the workers’ organisations — that public order would be endangered by a performance, owing to “the one-sided depiction of different social classes”, which would tend to intensify class conflicts.144 Arguably, the Freie Volksbühne’s leaders had little intention by this time of intensifying class conflicts. Rather, as the organisation expanded, they sought to broaden its base of support, and to cooperate more and more with public figures outside the alternative culture of Social Democracy. The close identification with labour movement culture, the emphasis on the democratic participatory conduct of its activities, attempts at putting forward an alternative repertoire or subjecting the traditional repertoire to a radical critique, and the freedom from censorship, had all been factors which had differentiated the Freie Volksbühne from a bourgeois theatre subscription agency. By 1914, these factors had either been removed (such as freedom from censorship) or had been significantly diminished. The tendency towards positive integration into bourgeois society and bourgeois culture found a logical culmination in the cartel agreement with the Neue Freie Volksbühne, which was the product of an attempt to put the education of “the people” before the political priorities of Social Democracy in the early 1890s. In March 1913, representatives of the Freie Volksbühne (Curt Baake, Robert Schmidt and Gustav Winkler) and the Neue Freie Volksbühne (August Krause, Heinrich Neft and Georg Springer), held a meeting to constitute a cartel of the Volksbühnen, under Bruno Wille’s chairmanship, despite the lingering mistrust towards the Neue Freie Volksbühne among members of the Freie Volksbühne (especially, according to Nestriepke, among the Ordner, the association’s working-class functionaries).145 Initially a loose arrangement, under which each association would continue to

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function independently, by early 1914 the cartel had become a federation: the Verband der Freien Volksbühnen, paving the way for a full merger later that year, with a common home in the new theatre on the Bülowplatz.146 By this time, Conrad Schmidt wrote: The differences between the two Volksbühnen had in any case lost their importance, if they ever had any. The goal: art for the people, the kind of artistic work itself, and the organisation, in its essence, were the same. The reservations based on tradition could not be maintained in the face of the practical considerations in favour of unification.147 The first season of the united Volksbühne in 1914/15 was overshadowed by the outbreak of the First World War, with the Social Democratic Party, dominated by its right wing, approving war credits on 4 August 1914. The first issue of the magazine of the united Volksbühne opened with an article entitled “Die Volksbühnen und der Krieg”, which proclaimed: Precisely the spirit of this hour, which is an hour of fate for the German people, demands that we persist in our cause. Everyone must defend that part of German life which is entrusted to him, and protect the values of German culture which are closest to him — and we may call the cause of the Volksbühnen such a value!148 In November 1914, Robert Schmidt published an article entitled “Deutsche Kulturarbeit” in the Sozialistische Monatshefte, in which he referred to the Freie Volksbühnen as one of the proofs of German cultural superiority over English plutocratic imperialism.149 Shortly afterwards, the right-wing Deutsche Zeitung celebrated 25 years of the Volksbühne as “a cultural deed in the midst of war, which our enemies can only envy in their astonishment”. The Volksbühne was such a manifestation of the strength of the German people and their level of education that “all those who maliciously accuse us of being barbarians must blush for shame”.150 From being part of a socialist “alternative culture”, the Freie Volksbühne had become assimilated into a reactionary definition of German national culture.

CONCLUSION

An analysis of the theory and practice of German Social Democracy in the cultural sphere must begin with an appreciation of the extent to which class divisions characterized Imperial Germany, and the effects that these divisions had in the cultural sphere. The culture of the industrial working class was the product of, or was influenced by, a number of factors: systemic pressures on the one hand, such as the education from a state school system intended to produce conformity with conservative political and religious norms and the burgeoning commercial mass-culture industry, exerting their impact on older popular and artisanal traditions; and, on the other hand, the new lifeworld of the industrial worker, constituted by the experience of the work-place and the working-class neighbourhood. For a significant minority of industrial workers, the culture of the Social Democratic labour movement and its organisations also contributed to the shaping of a distinctive, working-class life world. The shortcomings of Social Democratic cultural theory and practice have often been discussed. These included: the somewhat schematic version of historical materialism current in the socialist movement of the Second International, which hindered the development of an original socialist theory of aesthetics, among other theoretical deficits, and the inability of socialist intellectuals of middle-class background to fully appreciate the potential of the working-class life-world as a source of alternative cultural values. However, any assessment of the possibilities of Social Democratic cultural strategy in Imperial Germany needs to be well-grounded in an understanding of the nature of the Imperial German state. The legal discrimination and repression directed against Social Democrats (especially in the state of Prussia),

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which included police control of all assemblies and censorship of all public cultural activities, severely circumscribed the scope for developing alternative cultural forms, while a shortage of resources made it difficult for workers’ organisations to compete with the mass culture industry. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that the Social Democrats’ programme insisted on the transformation of the existing state through political means. The primacy of the political struggle was also a product of the split with liberalism in the 1860s, when workers’ educational organisations under bourgeois liberal tutelage were seen as using an ideology of “Bildung” to induce workers to refrain from advancing their own political demands. If the emphasis on the primacy of the political struggle led to the neglect of philosophical and theoretical questions within the Social Democratic party, this needs to be seen in the context of its confrontation with the Prussian-German state. The contradictory nature of the Prussian-German state, which combined the forms of universal manhood suffrage with an entrenched resistance to democratic reform on the part of the ruling classes, and the forms of the Rechtsstaat with frequent manifestations of Klassenjustiz and arbitrary police acts, contributed (although it was far from the only factor involved) to the divergence of political currents within Social Democracy: the Left Marxists and a heterogeneous grouping of reformists and revisionists. The schism within Social Democracy has often been described. However, its consequences have not always been fully appreciated in discussions of Social Democracy as a cultural movement. While it is true that Social Democratic discourse constantly laid claim to the word “Kultur”, in keeping with a socialist self-image of representing progress against Junker, militarist, capitalist and clerical forces portrayed as reactionary and therefore “kulturfeindlich”, there were differences in the theoretical understanding of the relationship between “class” and “culture” within Social Democracy. These theoretical differences can be seen to have had consequences in practice. The Marxian Left’s understanding of the relationship between class and culture involved three key elements: an emphasis on the primacy of the class struggle as a political struggle (in which cultural activity could only play a subordinate role); the materialist argument that culture was class-based; and the advocacy of a strategy of critical appropriation of the bourgeois culture of the past, particularly in so far

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as it included the critical and emancipatory potential of secular humanism, the Enlightenment, and bourgeois revolutionary traditions. Revisionism, as the theoretically articulate branch of the reformist tendency within Social Democracy, was initially an attempt to formulate an immanent critique of Marxist “orthodoxy”, although it subsequently became the label for a wider tendency within the party, which actively pursued a more accommodationist policy towards the state. The revisionist understanding of class and culture differed from the Left Marxist conception in all respects. The revisionists tended to play down the centrality of the concept of the class struggle, pursuing more accommodationist policies and cross-class cooperation, and regarding the campaign for political power as only one aspect of a labour movement which also included trade unions, consumers’ cooperatives, and educational and cultural organisations. Secondly, revisionists tended to view culture in idealist terms, as something which transcended class conflict. Rather than differentiating between “proletarian” and “bourgeois” culture, culture was seen as embodying universally valid aesthetic and ethical norms. Thirdly, rather than seeking, in a more or less instrumental manner, to critically appropriate those elements of “bourgeois” culture which could be put to use in the service of socialist ideology, revisionists believed that, even under existing social and political conditions, the proletariat could be “elevated” culturally by being educated to appreciate timeless cultural products. The Freie Volksbühne illustrates these different tendencies at work in practice. After the failure of Bruno Wille’s paternalistic, “popular paedagogical” regime, which clashed with the democratic leanings and party loyalty of the members, Franz Mehring sought to maintain the character of the association as a working-class organisation consistent with Social Democratic principles (although given the restrictions of the laws of association, it could not be formally attached to the party). Mehring pursued a policy of encouraging the association to constitute itself — as far as was possible — as an alternative, self-administered “public” sphere. Within this organisational framework Mehring sought to encourage a critical reception of the works shown, informed by a Marxian view of history. The end of this experiment in 1896 was partly due to Mehring’s reservations about giving too much importance to such activity at the expense of the political struggle, but also demonstrates the stifling effects of state repression and the

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material difficulties which imposed severe limitations on Social Democratic cultural activities. Under Conrad Schmidt and an administration mainly recruited from the revisionist wing of Social Democracy, the Freie Volksbühne expanded and enjoyed a highly successful development by most external indicators. However, any claim to be making a contribution to an alternative culture was gradually abandoned, and a tendency towards positive integration of the association into bourgeois society began to prevail. The espousal of a revisionist Kultursozialismus by Friedrich Stampfer and others was accompanied by the convergence in programme and practice with the Neue Freie Volksbühne, and to a great extent with the commercial mainstream theatres. A similar conflict, between critical appropriation of bourgeois culture, and positive integration into bourgeois society through the propagation of Kultursozialismus, was evident in other Social Democratic cultural enterprises: the Berlin Arbeiterbildungsschule, the Parteischule, and the work of the Zentralbildungsausschuss.1 There have frequently been blanket criticisms of SPD cultural policy either from a neo-Weberian standpoint (e.g. Guenther Roth), Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy (former GDR historiography), or from West German writers in the 1970s influenced by more recent culturalpolitical debates. To characterize the Social Democratic cultural organisations as displaying a tendency towards “negative integration” not only involves a functionalist sociological perspective which implicitly (or even explicitly) ascribes an inappropriately normative valuation to the Prussian-German state, but also glosses over the real political differences within the SPD, and a strong tendency towards positive integration. Criticisms from a Marxist-Leninist or 1970s ultraleftist positions tend to project later debates back onto earlier conditions. Also, analyses based solely on a (narrowly conceived) social history perspective, which pay insufficient attention to ideas or political conflicts may discern conflicts between middle-class socialist intellectuals and working-class rank and file; however, the divisions in the Freie Volksbühne movement, for example, ran more on political than on social lines, with intellectuals such as Mehring being accepted by working-class Social Democrats, provided the intellectuals observed party discipline. In order to appreciate the positive achievements and the limitations of Social Democratic cultural theory and practice it is necessary to view Social Democracy in the context of Imperial German society and

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in its relation to the state. It is necessary to acknowledge the complex cultural influences at work on the labour movement. There were never simply two cultures in Imperial Germany, proletarian and bourgeois, but rather there were complex processes of cultural interaction, with working-class life-worlds subject to regulation by the state and colonization by the market rationale of commercial mass culture, at the same time as sections of the working class sought to maintain resistance to these processes by building a socialist alternative public sphere informed by values considered distinctly proletarian. Intellectuals and cultural functionaries played a significant mediating role in this process, some seeking to reinforce the assertion of class identity, others working towards positive integration in a manner which blurred the boundaries between classes. Historians of different persuasions have frequently sought to prescribe retrospectively a “correct” Social Democratic policy in cultural or other spheres, which might have saved the German labour movement from subsequent tragedies. It is difficult to see how radically different policies in the cultural sphere alone would have saved German Social Democracy. In the case of Imperial Germany, one cannot avoid concluding that socialist intellectuals and party leaders make cultural policy, but they do not do so under circumstances of their own choosing.

NOTES

Introduction See Vernon Lidtke, “The Socialist Labor Movement”, in Roger Chickering, ed., Imperial Germany. A Historiographical Companion, Westport, Conn./ London, 1996, pp.272-302, for a recent brief survey. 2 Georg Fülberth, Proletarische Partei und bürgerliche Literatur, Neuwied/ Berlin, 1972; Hans Koch, Franz Mehrings Beitrag zur marxistischen Literaturtheorie, Berlin, 1959; and the work of Ursula Münchow on socialist literature, including numerous editions of primary material. 3 Guenther Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany, Totowa, N.J., 1963. 4 E.g. Friedrich Knilli and Ursula Münchow, Frühes Deutsches Arbeitertheater 1847-1918, Munich, 1970; Peter von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater (1848-1914), Frankfurt/M., 1973; Dietmar Trempenau, Frühe sozialdemokratische und sozialistische Arbeiterdramatik (1890-1914), Stuttgart, 1979. 5 Brigitte Emig, Die Veredelung des Arbeiters, Frankfurt/ New York, 1980; Peter von Rüden et al., eds., Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 1848-1918, Frankfurt/M./ Vienna/ Zurich, 1979, and the companion volume of documents and materials. 6 Richard J. Evans, “The Sociological Interpretation of German Labour History”, in idem, ed., The German Working Class, 1888-1933, London/ Totowa, N.J., 1982, pp.15-53; Geoff Eley, “Joining Two Histories: the SPD and the German Working Class, 1860-1914”, in idem, From Unification to Nazism, Boston/ London, 1986, pp.171-199. 7 Geoff Eley, “Cultural Socialism, the Public Sphere, and the Mass Form: Popular Culture and the Democratic Project, 1900 to 1934”, in David E. Barclay and Eric D. Weitz, eds., Between Reform and Revolution, New York and Oxford, 1998, pp.315-340. 8 Stephen Hickey, Workers in Imperial Germany. The Miners of the Ruhr, Oxford, 1985; Mary Nolan, Social Democracy and Society. Working-class radicalism in Düsseldorf, 1890-1920, Cambridge, 1981. 9 Horst Groschopp, Zwischen Bierabend und Bildungsverein, Berlin, 1985; Vernon L. Lidtke, The Alternative Culture. Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany, 1

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New York/ Oxford, 1985. Exemplary for the state of research into German working class history: Gerhard A. Ritter and Klaus Tenfelde, Arbeiter im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1871 bis 1914, Bonn, 1992. 10 See the classic account of Carl E. Schorske, German Social Democracy, 1905-1917. The Development of the Great Schism, Cambridge, MA, 1983 (first published 1955). 11 Heinz Selo, Die “Freie Volksbühne” in Berlin. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und ihre Entwicklung bis zur Auflösung im Jahre 1896, Berlin, 1930 contains useful material from sources now lost or difficult to locate, although his work only covers the period up to 1896; Siegfried Nestriepke, Geschichte der Volksbühne Berlin. I. Teil: 1890 bis 1914, Berlin, 1930. The usefulness of this work is diminished by a lack of footnotes, but the author was able to benefit from his personal acquaintance with a number of the people involved with the Freie Volksbühne, especially in the latter part of the period; Cecil W. Davies, Theatre for the People. The story of the Volksbühne, Manchester, 1977, includes a section on the early years of the Freie Volksbühne, but is heavily dependent on Selo and Nestriepke, likewise the expanded second edition (which contains additional material on the Volksbühne movement outside Berlin, and in the Weimar period), idem, The Volksbühne Movement. A History, Amsterdam, 2000; cf. also idem, “The German theatre as an artistic and social institution: from the March Revolution to the Weimar Republic”, in G. Bartram and A. Waine, eds., Brecht in Perspective, London/ New York, 1982, pp.108-127, and now his The Volksbühne Movement. A History, Amsterdam, 2000; Heinrich Braulich, Die Volksbühne. Theater und Politik in der deutschen Volksbühnenbewegung, Berlin, 1976; Hyun-Back Chung, Die Kunst dem Volke oder dem Proletariat?, Frankfurt/M., 1989 (also as dissertation, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, 1984); Dietger Pforte, Freie Volksbühne Berlin, 1890-1990, Berlin, 1990. Aspects of the history of the Freie Volksbühne have also been addressed in von Rüden, op. cit.; Trempenau, op. cit.; Herbert Scherer, Bürgerlich-oppositionelle Literaten und sozialdemokratische Arbeiterbewegung nach 1890, Stuttgart, 1974; and Manfred Brauneck, Literatur und Öffentlichkeit im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 1974. Chapter One It would go beyond the necessary limits of the discussion here to explore the non-socialist (e.g. liberal or confessional) labour organisations. 2 See Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Bd.3, Munich, 1995, pp.702-712, 843-847. 3 Accounts of the formation of a German working class which, in different ways, stress not only socio-economic conditions but also the emergence of class consciousness, have been developed by Hartmut Zwahr and Jürgen Kocka. H. Zwahr, Zur Konstituierung des Proletariats als Klasse: Strukturuntersuchung über das Leipziger Proletariat während der industriellen Revolution, Berlin, 1978. See also the essays in idem, ed., Die Konstituierung der deutschen Arbeiterklasse von den dreissiger bis zu den siebziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1981; for a more recent summary of his views, idem, “Class Formation and the Labor Movement as the Subject of Dialectic Social History”, International Review of Social History, 38, 1993, Supplement, pp.85-103; cf. also V.L. Lidtke, “The 1

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Formation of the Working Class in Germany” [Review Article], Central European History (=CEH), 1980, 4, pp.393-400; Jürgen Kocka, Lohnarbeit und Klassenbildung, Berlin/ Bonn, 1983; idem, “Problems of Working- Class Formation in Germany: The Early Years, 1800-1875”, in Ira Katznelson and A.R.Zolberg, eds., Working-Class Formation. Nineteenth-Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States, Princeton, N.J., 1986, pp.279-351. Jürgen Kocka’s Arbeitsverhältnisse und Arbeiterexistenzen. Grundlagen der Klassenbildung im 19. Jahrhundert, Bonn, 1990, also contains a wealth of material which underlines the diversity and complexity of the working-classes’ experience in the nineteenth century. 4 See references in note 3 above. 5 See W. Köllmann, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte 1800-1970”, in H. Aubin and W. Zorn, eds., Handbuch der deutschen Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, Vol.2, Stuttgart, 1976, especially pp.10-12, 27-33; Walther G. Hoffmann, Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1965, pp.172-174. 6 Köllmann, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte”, p.20. See also the breakdown of figures in Hoffmann , op. cit., pp.178-180. 7 Köllmann, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte”, pp.20-22; idem. “Industrialisierung, Binnenwanderung und soziale Frage”, Vierteljahrshefte für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 46, 1959, 1, pp.45-70. 8 Hsi-Huey Liang, “Lower-Class Immigrants in Wilhelmine Berlin”, CEH, 3, 1970, pp.94-95; Köllmann, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte”, p.20. See G. Hohorst, J. Kocka, G.A. Ritter, Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch II, p.40 for a breakdown of Berlin’s population by area of origin. Population figures in Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsches Reich, 1882ff; Köllmann, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte”, pp.17-23; Gerhard Masur, Imperial Berlin, New York/ London, 1970, pp.33, 42, 49, 62; Annemarie Lange, Das Wilhelminische Berlin, Berlin, 1967, pp.66-67. 9 See Kocka, Lohnarbeit, pp.59-60; Köllmann, “Industrialisierung, Binnenwanderung”, pp.58-61; idem, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte”, p.20; Liang, op. cit., pp.94-95. 10 Köllmann, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte”, p.22; cf. Hohorst, Kocka, Ritter, Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch II, p.52. 11 Köllmann, “Bevölkerungsgeschichte”, p.17; cf. Hohorst, Kocka, Ritter, Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch II, p.66. 12 W.O. Henderson, The Industrial Revolution on the Continent, 1800-1914, London, 1967, pp.29-31; cf. Henning, op. cit., pp.111- 114. See also Knut Borchardt, “Germany 1700-1914”, in C.M. Cipolla, ed., The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol.IV, 1; W.O. Henderson, The Rise of German Industrial Power, 1834-1914, London, 1975; A. Milward and S.B. Saul, The Economic Development of Continental Europe, 1780-1870, London, 1973; W. Fischer, “Bergbau, Industrie and Handwerk, 1850-1914”, in Aubin and Zorn, op. cit. 13 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1984 (first published 1963). Cf. the useful critical reflections of William H. Sewell, “How Classes are Made: Critical Reflections on E.P. Thompson’s Theory of Class Formation”, in H.J. Kaye and K.

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McClelland, eds., E.P. Thompson. Critical Perspectives, Cambridge, 1990, pp.5077. 14 See J. Kocka, “Arbeiterkultur als Forschungsthema”, GG, 5, 1, 1979, pp.5-11; Wolf Lepenies, “Arbeiterkultur. Wissenschaftssoziologische Anmerkungen zur Konjunktur eines Begriffs”, ibid., pp.125-136. 15 Gerhard A. Ritter, “Einleitung”, in idem, ed., Arbeiterkultur, Königstein/Ts., 1979, p.1. 16 Ibid.. 17 Ibid., pp.1-3. 18 Jürgen Kocka, “Klassen oder Kultur”, Merkur, 36, 1982, pp.955-965. Here p.957. 19 Kocka, “Arbeiterkultur als Forschungsthema”, p.8. On the problems of defining “culture”, see Raymond Williams, Keywords, London, 1980, pp.76-82. Williams quotes Herder on the word “Cultur” (p.79): “nothing is more indeterminate than this word, and nothing more deceptive than its application to all nations and periods”. 20 Kocka, “Arbeiterkultur als Forschungsthema”, pp.8-10; Richard J. Evans, “Introduction: the Sociological Interpretation of German Labour History”, in idem, ed., The German Working Class, 1888-1933, London/ Totowa, N.J., 1982, pp.15-53 (here especially pp.30ff); Geoff Eley, “Joining two Histories: the SPD and the German Working Class, 1860-1914”, in idem, ed., From Unification to Nazism, Boston, 1986, pp.171-199. 21 Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, 2 vols., Frankfurt/M., 1988. The explication of the concepts “life-world” and “system” can be found in Vol.2, pp. 173ff; quotation here from p.209. 22 Ibid., Vol.2, pp.229-293. 23 Ibid., Vol.2, p.183. 24 Peter N. Stearns, “The Effort at Continuity in Working-Class Culture”, Journal of Modern History, 52, 1980, pp.626-655, here, p.628. In contrast, cf. the East German historian Dietrich Mühlberg’s assertion that the proletariat’s experience of “rapid flux of circumstances”, and an unprecedented rate of change in social relations, led to preparedness among workers for the introduction of radical change. D. Mühlberg, ed., Proletariat. Culture and Lifestyle in the 19th Century, (tr. K. Vanovitch), Leipzig, 1988, p.43. 25 Stearns, op. cit.. 26 Lawrence Schofer, “Patterns of Worker Protest: Upper Silesia, 18651914”, Journal of Social History (=JSH), 5, 1971-72, pp.447- 463, here pp.454f. 27 Ibid., p. 636. 28 Gerhard Schildt, Tagelöhner, Gesellen, Arbeiter. Sozialgeschichte der vorindustriellen und industriellen Arbeiter in Braunschweig 1830-1880, Stuttgart, 1986, pp.426-430. See also Jürgen Kocka, “Craft traditions and the labour movement in nineteenth-century Germany”, in Pat Thane, Geoffrey Crossick and Roderick Floud, eds., The Power of the Past. Essays for Eric Hobsbawm, Cambridge, 1984, pp.95-117; Andrew G. Bonnell, “‘Cheap and Nasty’: German Goods, Socialism, and the 1876 Philadelphia World Fair”, International Review of Social History, Vol.46, 2, 2001, pp.207-226. 29 Mühlberg, op. cit., p.176.

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30 Klaus Tenfelde, “Mining Festivals in the Nineteenth Century”, JCH, 13, 1978, pp.377-412. 31 Schofer, op. cit., p.454. 32 See Eric Dorn Brose, Christian Labor and the Politics of Frustration in Imperial Germany, Washington, D.C., 1985. Figures on p.374. See also Christoph Klessmann, Polnische Bergarbeiter im Ruhrgebiet 1870-1945, Göttingen, 1978. 33 Vernon Lidtke, “Social Class and Secularisation in Imperial Germany. The Working Classes”, Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute, 25, 1980, pp.21-40; Stephen Hickey, Workers in Imperial Germany, Oxford, 1985, pp.70-108. 34 See above, note 19. 35 See G.L. Mosse, The Nationalisation of the Masses, New York, 1975, esp. Ch.7; Werner K. Blessing, “The Cult of Monarchy, Political Loyalty and the Workers’ Movement in Imperial Germany”, JCH, 13, 1978, pp.357-375; Andrew G. Bonnell, “The Lassalle Cult in German Social Democracy”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 35, 1, 1989, pp.50-60. 36 E.P. Thompson, “Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism”, Past and Present, 38, 1967, pp.56-97. 37 Ibid., esp. pp.60, 78, 80, 82. 38 Factory regulations of the Knorr-Bremse firm, (1904-1911) in facsimile in Author collective under direction of Dietrich Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben um 1900, Berlin, 1985, pp.36-45. 39 Ibid., pp.59f; Alf Lüdtke, “Arbeitsbeginn, Arbeitspausen, Arbeitsende”, in Gerhard Huck, ed., Sozialgeschichte der Freizeit, Wuppertal, 1980, pp.95-122. 40 Jürgen Reulecke, “Vom blauen Montag zum Arbeiterurlaub”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 16, 1976, p.214. Cf. E.P. Thompson, Making, pp.338, 444, on “Saint Monday”, or “Cobbler’s Monday”; Michelle Perrot, “On the Formation of the French Working Class”, in Katznelson and Zolberg, op. cit., pp.73, 75, on “Holy Monday”, “lundistes”, and similar employer outrage in France. 41 Peter von Rüden and Kurt Koszyk, eds., Dokumente und Materialien zur Kulturgeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, Frankfurt/M., 1979, p.64; Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, p.50. 42 See Reulecke, op. cit., pp.224-238. 43 K. Marx/F. Engels, Werke (=MEW), Vol.4, Berlin, 1971, pp.468f. 44 Despite the importance of labour processes for working-class experience, not as much has been written about them as one might expect. For an introduction to the historiography and case studies, including Heinz Reif on labour processes and experiences in the Krupp works and Detlev Peukert on Ruhr miners’ work, see Klaus Tenfelde, ed., Arbeit und Arbeitserfahrung in der Geschichte, Göttingen, 1986. For a stimulating discussion of the impacts of the introduction of machinery on the labour process in the case of Britain, and its uneven application, see Raphael Samuel, “The Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in midVictorian Britain”, History Workshop, 3, Spring 1977, pp.6-72. On women’s work (taking the example of the garment industry), see Karin Hausen, “Technischer Fortschritt und Frauenarbeit im 19. Jahrhundert. Zur Sozialgeschichte der Nähmaschine”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft (=GG), 4, 1978;

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Robyn Dasey, “Women’s Work and the Family: Women Garment Workers in Berlin and Hamburg before the First World War:, in R.J. Evans and W.R. Lee, eds., The German Family, Totowa, N.J., 1981. For a selection of recent work showing the varied experience of work of German workers, see the contributions in Werner Conze and Ulrich Engelhardt, eds., Arbeiter im Industrialisierungsprozess, Stuttgart, 1979, by Jürgen Kocka, Karl Ditt (on Bielefeld factory workers), Hermann Schäfer (on machine-builders in Mühlhausen, Alsace), and Klaus Tenfelde (on miners). See also Michael Grüttner, Arbeitswelt an der Wasserkante, Göttingen, 1984, pp.30-79 (on Hamburg waterside workers); Kocka, Arbeitsverhältnisse (passim, especially Chapter 7). 45 Lüdtke, op. cit.. 46 Liang, op. cit., pp.98ff; Lange, op. cit., p.89f; Lutz Niethammer with F. Brüggemeier, “Wie wohnten Arbeiter im Kaiserreich?”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, XVI, 1976, p.91. See also the photographic and documentary material and essays in Gesine Asmus, ed., Hinterhof, Keller und Mansarde. Einblicke in Berliner Wohnungselend 1901-1920, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1982. 47 Lange, op. cit., p.89. 48 Ibid., p.89f; Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, p.83. 49 Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, pp.70f; Liang, op. cit., p.106. Despite the poor standard of workers’ housing, rent as a proportion of income was relatively high. Liang, op. cit., p.107; Lange, op. cit., pp.91f; Niethammer, op. cit., pp.78-81. 50 Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, pp.71f; Niethammer, op. cit., pp.122-128; cf. also Adelheid von Saldern, Häuserleben. Zur Geschichte städtischen Arbeiterwohnens vom Kaiserreich bis heute, Bonn, 1997, pp.75-77, 107-108 on the degree to which residential quarters contributed to the development of working-class socialization, although she also stresses the internal differentiation within the working class. 51 Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, p.72; idem, Proletariat, p.100. 52 Niethammer, op. cit., pp.92-94. The Social Democrat ArbeiterSanitätskommission regularly published detailed reports in the party paper Vorwärts on inadequate, overcrowded and unhealthy housing. 53 Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, p.84; Niethammer, op. cit., p.134. 54 See A.V. Desai, Real Wages in Germany 1871-1913, Oxford, 1968, p.125; G. Bry, Wages in Germany, Princeton, N.J., 1960, pp.70ff; Knut Borchardt, “Wirtschaftliches Wachstum und Wechsellagen 1800-1914”, in Aubin and Zorn, op. cit., pp.226f; Werner Conze, “Sozialgeschichte 1850-1918”, ibid., p.620. 55 Borchardt, op. cit., p.621. From 1882 to 1907, the number of women employed in industry increased from half a million to 1.5 million. Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, pp.92ff; cf. Dasey, op. cit.. 56 Borchardt, op. cit., p.621. 57 Louise A. Tilly and Joan Scott, Women, Work, and Family, New York, 1978. 58 See Perrot, op. cit., pp.83f. This separation also does not apply to some categories of male workers such as railway construction workers. See Kocka, Arbeitsverhältnisse, pp.362-371.

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59 Mühlberg, Proletariat, pp.69-89; Klaus Saul, et al., eds., Arbeiterfamilien im Kaiserreich, Düsseldorf, 1982. See also the discussion of gender and class formation in Kathleen Canning, “Gender and the Politics of Class Formation: Rethinking German Labor History”, American Historical Review, 97, 3, June 1992, pp.736-768. Canning argues for an approach which critically examines such models of class formation as those proposed by Zwahr and Kocka through “the lens of gender”, and tests this approach in relation to female textile workers in Germany. 60 David F. Crew, Town in the Ruhr. A Social History of Bochum, 1860-1914, New York, 1979, p.101. Crew adds, however, that the prospects of upward mobility within the working-class varied according to industry. 61 We will return to this point in the following chapter. 62 Conze, op. cit., pp.670, 672; H.-U. Wehler, Das deutsche Kaiserreich, 18711918, Göttingen, 1980, pp.124-126; Folkert Meyer, Schule der Untertanen. Lehrer und Politik in Preussen, 1848-1900, Hamburg, 1976, passim, esp. pp.63ff, 68, 153ff, 168ff. Meyer concentrates more on official policy and the debates about policy than on the content of instruction and its effects on children, although he does stress the use of corporal punishment as a class-specific means of discipline (pp.85ff), and the tight control over teachers’ political ideas and activities. On the importance of the confessional element in elementary education, see also Geoffrey G. Field, “Religion in the German Volksschule, 1890-1928”, Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute, 25, 1980, pp.4171. 63 Vorwärts, No.189, 13 August 1893. See also ibid., No.65, 17 March 1907 for a similar example. 64 Conze, op. cit., p.674. 65 Ibid., p.676. This is probably an over-generous assessment, as the statistical category “Arbeiter und Hilfspersonen” may well have included some members of the petite bourgeoisie. Wehler estimates that in 1890 scarcely one university student in 1000 was the son of a worker. Wehler, op. cit., p.125. 66 Quoted by Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wissen ist Macht — Macht ist Wissen und andere bildungspolitisch-pädagogische Äußerungen, (ed. H.Brumme), Berlin, 1968, pp.70f; cf. Count H. von Moltke, Gesammelte Schriften und Denkwürdigkeiten, Vol.VII (Reden), Berlin, 1892, pp.69-72. 67 On the complementary disciplining processes of school and army, see Wehler, op. cit., pp.125ff, 159f. This complementary relationship was pointed to by a statement by the historian Otto Hintze in 1911: “Military discipline with its training in orderliness and punctuality, in prompt obedience and smart comportment, is an excellent school for junior officials, in whom intelligence is less important than reliability.” Elementary school teachers had the status of junior officials in nearly every respect. Meyer, op. cit., p.15. 68 See Wehler, op. cit., pp.159f. Cf. also the notorious exhortation of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the effect that army recruits may, if necessary, be called on to fire upon their own brothers or parents. Ernst Johann, ed., Reden des Kaisers, Munich, 1977, p.56.

NOTES

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69 Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, pp.143f; Lange, op. cit., pp.281ff; Peter de Mendelssohn, Zeitungsstadt Berlin, Frankfurt/M./ Berlin/ Vienna, 1982, pp.114-206. 70 Lange, op. cit., p.288. 71 Ronald A. Fullerton, “Creating a Mass Book Market in Germany: The Story of the ‘Colporteur Novel’, 1870-1890”, JSH, 10, 1976- 77, pp.265-283; idem, “Toward a Commercial Popular Culture in Germany: The Development of Pamphlet Fiction, 1871-1914”, JSH, 12, 1978-79, pp.489-511. 72 Fullerton, “Toward a Commercial Popular Culture”, pp.497, 500. 73 Ibid., p.500. 74 See Gary D. Stark, “Pornography, Society and the Law in Imperial Germany” in CEH, XIV, 3, 1981, pp.200-229; R.J.V. Lenman, “Art, Society, and the Law in Wilhelmine Germany: the Lex Heinze”, Oxford German Studies, 8, 1973, pp.86-113. For a Social Democrat attack on “Schundliteratur”, D. Thomas, Du sollst deinen Geist nicht töten! Ein Beitrag zur Bekämpfung der Schundliteratur, Frankfurt/M., n.d. [1911]. Thomas, a trade union official, combines socialist objections with moral arguments, couched in the language of a religious tract. He records in one place (pp.17f) that in the 2,612 pages of Karl May’s Waldröschen, 2,293 people are killed by various means. (cf. Vorwärts, No.62, 14 March 1911, 1. Beilage, reporting a survey of the Dürer-Bund, apparently the source of this statistic). For socialist views on the colportage trade and attempts to use colporteurs to distribute Social Democratic literature see also Horst Groschopp, Zwischen Bierabend und Bildungsverein, Berlin, 1985, pp.107-113. 75 Peter Jelavich, “Modernity, Civic Identity, and Metropolitan Entertainment: Vaudeville, Cabaret, and Revue in Berlin, 1900- 1933”, in Charles W. Haxthausen and Heidrun Suhr, eds., Berlin: Culture and Metropolis, Minneapolis and Oxford, 1990, pp.95-110, quotation p.100. Even at its most commercial, popular theatre differed from other forms of mass culture (e.g. cinema) by the fact that it still depended on pre-industrial, craft-type means of production. Consequently, socialist theorists had some difficulty in trying to subsume actors and the theatre into their analysis of industrial class society. See Manfred Brauneck, Literatur und Öffentlichkeit im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 1974, pp.7-15. 76 Jelavich, “Modernity, Civic Identity, and Metropolitan Entertainment”, p.104. 77 Robert Eben Sackett, Popular Entertainment, Class, and Politics in Munich, 1900-1923, Cambridge, Mass., 1982. Sackett does not deny, however, that a Karl Valentin was capable of smuggling some keen social satire into some of his routines. 78 According to a Reichstag deputy, Dr. Müller, Meiningen, in a Reichstag debate on theatre censorship. Verhandlungen des Reichstags. 10. LegislaturPeriode, II. Session 1900/01, 137. Sitzung, p.1026. 79 Emilie Altenloh, Zur Soziologie des Kino, Jena, 1914, p.100, gave 1908 as the turning point at which the cinema started to outstrip the popular theatre (e.g. provincial performances of Volksstücke such as Anzengruber’s plays). On the early years of cinema in Germany, see also Victor Noack, Der Kino. Etwas

216

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über sein Wesen und seine Bedeutung, Gautzsch bei Leipzig, 1913; Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, Princeton, N.J., 1974 (first published 1947), pp.15-27; Gary D. Stark, “Cinema, Society, and the State: Policing the Film Industry in Imperial Germany”, in idem and B.K. Lackner, eds., Essays on Culture and Society in Modern Germany, Arlington, Texas, 1982, pp.122- 166. David A. Welch, “Cinema and Society in Imperial Germany, 1905-1918”, German History, 8, 1, 1990, pp.28-45 (with an emphasis on developments during the First World War). 80 Stark, op. cit., p.124; cf. Lynn Abrams, “From Control to Commercialization: the Triumph of Mass Entertainment in Germany, 190025”, German History, 8, 3, 1990, p.282. 81 Stark, op. cit., p.130. 82 Kracauer, op. cit.,pp.28ff. Like “art films”, newsreels were also nonexistent in Germany before 1913. Welch, op. cit., p.37. 83 For example, Vorwärts, No.182, 6 August 1910, 3. Beilage, reports the police taking action against allegedly indecent films produced in Dresden, with titles such as Joys of the Harem. Vorwärts, No.242, 16 October 1909, 2. Beilage, reported the (unsuccessful) prosecution in Berlin of a bookseller for producing and selling films entitled Catching the Flea and The Confession. 84 See, for example, the report “Der Kino-Großbetrieb”, Vorwärts, No.70, 23 March 1911, 2. Beilage; also ibid., No.90, 16 April, 1911, 4. Beilage. 85 See Altenloh, op. cit., pp.92-97; also Jürgen Kinter, “‘Durch Nacht zum Licht’ — Vom Guckkasten zum Filmpalast. Die Anfãnge des Kinos und das Verhältnis der Arbeiterbewegung zum Film”, in Dagmar Kift, ed., Kirmes — Kneipe — Kino, Paderborn, 1992, pp.141-143. 86 Siegfried Kracauer, Die Angestellten, Frankfurt/M., 1971 (articles first published in the Frankfurter Zeitung, 1929), esp. pp.91-101. 87 See E.R.P., “Kinokritik”, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsbeilage, No.42, 1 March 1911, and ibid., Unterhaltungsbeilage, No.55, 18 March 1911; and the unsigned article “Staatsbürgerliche Erziehung und Kinematograph”, Vorwärts, No.304, 30 December 1911. See also Mühlberg, Arbeiterleben, pp.152-154; Bruce Murray, Film and the German Left in the Weimar Republic, Austin, Texas, 1990, pp.16- 20; Kinter, op. cit., pp.144f. 88 Abrams, op. cit., pp.282f. 89 V.L. Lidtke, The Alternative Culture, New York/ Oxford, 1985, pp.34f; Horst Groschopp, Zwischen Bierabend und Bildungsverein, Berlin, 1985, on workers’ sporting groups, see pp.45-54; Hans-Joachim Teichler and Gerhard Hauk, eds., Illustrierte Geschichte des Arbeitersports, Berlin/ Bonn, 1987. 90 Lidtke, Alternative Culture, pp.36f. 91 Ibid., p.37. By 1912, the female membership of the Arbeiter-Turnerbund (Workers’ Gymnastic Federation) was approaching 10%. The first womens’ sections were set up in 1895/96. Gertrud Pfister, “‘Macht euch frei’. Frauen in der Arbeiter-Turn- und Sportbewegung”, in Teichler and Hauk, op. cit., here p.49. 92 Annemarie Lange, Berlin zur Zeit Bebels und Bismarcks, Berlin, 1972, pp.508-511.

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93 Groschopp, op. cit., pp.27-31; James S. Roberts, “Wirtshaus und Politik in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung”, in Huck, op. cit., pp.123-139. 94 Abrams, op. cit.. Cf. the arguments of Jochen Schulte-Sasse, “Toward a ‘Culture’ for the Masses: The Socio-Psychological Function of Popular Literature in Germany and the U.S., 1880- 1920”, New German Critique, 29, Spring/ Summer 1983, pp.85-105; Frank Trommler, “Working-Class Culture and Modern Mass Culture Before World War I”, in ibid., pp.57-70. 95 Abrams, op.cit., p.292.

Chapter Two Writers such as von Rüden and Trempenau have criticized SPD cultural activity for failing to do more to promote “proletarian culture”. Peter von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater (1848-1918), Frankfurt/ M., 1973; Dietmar Trempenau, Frühe sozialdemokratische und sozialistische Arbeiterdramatik (1890-1914), Stuttgart, 1979. Von Rüden suggests a number of possible reasons for this failure, including changes in the composition of the SPD membership, bureaucratization and fixation on organisational activity, but adds: “A more precise assessment requires further research on the general and specific theory related to education [Bildung] and art of the various party groupings and individuals”. Von Rüden, op. cit., p.216. (Note: the abbreviation SPD for Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands was not current before 1914, but is used here for the sake of convenience.) 2 Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wissen ist Macht — Macht ist Wissen und andere bildungspolitisch-pädagogische Äußerungen, (ed. Hans Brumme), Berlin, 1968, p.58. Emphasis in original. 3 Raymond H. Dominick, Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Founding of the German Social Democratic Party, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982, p.25. 4 Liebknecht, Wissen, p.70, emphasis in original. 5 Ibid., p.71. For an earlier statement (from 1865) of Liebknecht’s belief in the efficacy of the school as a means of supporting repression, see W. Liebknecht, Kleine Politische Schriften (ed. Wolfgang Schröder), Frankfurt/M., 1976, p.6. 6 Liebknecht, Wissen, p.70. See also August Bebel’s description of both the military and educational systems as expressions of ruling class domination in his pamphlet Unsere Ziele (written 1869, and subsequently much reprinted), Bebel, Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, Vol.I, Berlin, 1983, p.69. 7 Ibid., p.73. 8 Ibid., p.72. Emphasis in original. 9 Ibid., pp.73, 75-78. Cf. Wilhelm Hasenclever, “Über die Beeinflussung des Arbeiterstandes durch die gegenwärtige Presse” [1865], in idem, Reden und Schriften (ed. Ludger Heid, Klaus-Dieter Vinschen and Elisabeth Heid), Bonn, 1989, pp.141-148, for a similar socialist criticism of the influence of the press by a prominent figure in the ADAV; also the article series by A.H. [Adolf Hepner], “Die Bourgeoispresse”, in Der Volksstaat, no.22, 16 March, Beilage; no.43, 28 May; no.46, 8 June 1870. 10 Liebknecht, Wissen, pp.73-75. 11 Ibid., pp.82-86. 1

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Ibid., p.88. Ibid., p.87. 14 Ibid., p.91. Emphasis in original. 15 Ibid., p.92. 16 Ibid., p.93. 17 Ibid., p.94. Emphases in original. 18 On these early socialist groups, see Franz Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, Bd.1 (Gesammelte Schriften= GS 1), Berlin, 1980, especially pp.90-108, 206-220, 305-330; Ernst Schraepler, Handwerkerbünde und Arbeitervereine 1830-1853, Berlin/New York, 1972; Otto Büsch and Hans Herzfeld, eds., Die frühsozialistischen Bünde in der Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung. Ein Tagungsbericht, Berlin, 1975. 19 Mehring, op. cit., Bd.1, pp.429-440; Frolinde Balser, Sozial- Demokratie 1848/49-1863, Stuttgart, 1965 (1st ed. 1962), (2 vols.); Schraepler, op. cit., Ch.4. 20 These legal restrictions and their effects are discussed in some detail in Bernhard Becker, Geschichte der Arbeiter-Agitation Ferdinand Lassalles, Braunschweig, 1874, pp.6-11, 46f; Balser, op. cit., Vol.I, pp.450ff; see also, on the legal-historical context of the laws of association, Alfons Hueber, “Das Vereinsrecht im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in Otto Dann, ed., Vereinswesen und bürgerliche Gesellschaft (Beiheft der Historischen Zeitschrift, Neue Folge, 9), München, 1984, pp.115-132. 21 Toni Offermann, Arbeiterbewegung und liberales Bürgertum in Deutschland, 1850-1863, Bonn, 1979, pp.292f. 22 August Bebel, Aus meinem Leben, Berlin, 1980, pp.42-44. 23 Ibid., pp.52ff. 24 William H. Maehl, August Bebel, Shadow Emperor of the German Workers, Philadelphia, 1980, p.23. See also Bebel’s statement at the Vereinstag Deutscher Arbeitervereine in Frankfurt am Main, June 7, 1863, in August Bebel, Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, Bd.1, Berlin, 1983, p.7. At this time, Bebel regarded the demand for universal suffrage, as expressed by Ferdinand Lassalle, as a ploy on the part of Bismarck to split the liberal opposition to a domination of the German states by Prussian conservatism. See August Bebel, “Aus dem Anfang der Arbeiterbewegung”, in Die Gründung der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie. Eine Festschrift der Leipziger Arbeiter zum 23. Mai 1903, Leipzig, n.d. [1903], pp.6-14. 25 Gerhard Beier, Schwarze Kunst und Klassenkampf. Bd.1, Vom Geheimbund zum königlich-preußischen Gewerkverein (1830-1890), Frankfurt/M., 1966, p.331. 26 Gerhard Huck, “Zum Verhältnis von Theorie und Praxis bei Hess, Lassalle, Lange und Dietzgen”, in Jürgen Reulecke, ed., Arbeiterbewegung an Rhein und Ruhr, Wuppertal, 1974, p.32. 27 Karl Birker, “Die badischen Arbeiterbildungsvereine vor dem ersten Weltkrieg”, IWK, No.18, April 1973, p.3. 28 Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, Bd.2, Berlin, 1980 (GS 2), p.14. Mehring linked the educational associations with the demand of the burgeoning capitalist economy for a more qualified labour elite. Ibid., pp.15f. For another view of the liberal concept of Bildung see also James J. Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century, London, 1982, pp.14- 18. See also 12 13

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Karl Birker, Die deutschen Arbeiterbildungsvereine 1840-1870, Berlin, 1973, pp.149155. 29 Shlomo Na’aman, Von der Arbeiterbewegung zur Arbeiterpartei (IWK-Beiheft 4), Berlin, 1976, pp.15f. See also the documentation in idem (with H.-P. Harstick), Die Konstituierung der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 1862/63, Assen, 1975, esp. pp.210ff. 30 Offermann, Arbeiterbewegung und liberales Bürgertum, p.440. 31 Na’aman, Von der Arbeiterbewegung, p.17. 32 Tenfelde, “Entfaltung des Vereinswesens während der industriellen Revolution in Deutschland (1850-1873)”, in Dann, op. cit.”, p.91. 33 Birker, Die deutschen Arbeiterbildungsvereine, pp.149-155. 34 Ibid., pp.155-158. 35 Toni Offermann, “Die regionale Ausbreitung der frühen deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 1848/49-1860/64”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft (=GG), 13, 1987, p.428; Tenfelde, “Entfaltung”, pp.62f; see also Offermann, Arbeiterbewegung und liberales Bürgertum in Deutschland 1850-1863, Bonn, 1979; Birker, Die deutschen Arbeiterbildungsvereine. 36 Tenfelde, “Entfaltung”, p.69. However, cf. Na’aman, Arbeiterbewegung, p.9, who questions the applicability of the term Bewegung for these disparate organisations, which were divided between confessional organisations of various kinds, and between liberal and liberal-democratic, and which were prevented by law from joining together in any supra-regional body. 37 Tenfelde, “Entfaltung”, pp.72ff. See also Hartmut Zwahr, “Die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung im Länder- und Territorienvergleich 1875”, GG, 13, 1987, pp.449-456. 38 On Lassalle, see the standard biography by Shlomo Na’aman, Lassalle, Hannover, 1970; for the founding of the ADAV, see idem, Konstituierung, and Demokratische und soziale Impulse in der Frühgeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung der Jahre 1862/63, Wiesbaden, 1969; Wolfgang Schieder, “Das Scheitern des bürgerlichen Radikalismus und die sozialistische Parteibildung in Deutschland”, in Hans Mommsen, ed., Sozialdemokratie zwischen Klassenbewegung und Volkspartei, Frankfurt/M., 1974, pp. 17-34. Still of interest is Gustav Mayer’s classic study “Die Trennung der proletarischen von der bürgerlichen Demokratie in Deutschland. (1863-1870)”, in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, (ed. C. Grünberg), Vol.2, 1912, pp.1-67. 39 Theodore S.Hamerow, The Social Foundations of German Unification 18581871, Vol.1: Ideas and Institutions, Princeton, N.J., 1969, pp.320-322; James J. Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century, London, 1982, p.94 (quoting Schulze-Delitzsch); see also Thomas Welskopp, Das Banner der Brüderlichkeit. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie vom Vormärz bis zum Sozialistengesetz, Bonn, 2000, pp.235-238. 40 Ferdinand Lassalle, Reden und Schriften (ed. Eduard Bernstein), Vol.2, Berlin, 1893, pp.8-50. Comments on the occasion on which the speech was first delivered based on Bernstein’s preface, ibid., p.5. Bernstein notes that the machine-builders in the anachronistically-named Handwerkerverein in Oranienburg were still under the influence of the Progressive liberals. 41 Ibid., pp.46f.

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Ibid., p.45. Ibid., p.44. 44 Ibid., p.42. 45 Ibid., p.43. 46 Ibid., p.45. Note also Lassalle’s emphasis on the “scientific” nature of his argumentation in his defence of the Arbeiterprogramm before court (on charges of “inciting the property-less classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied”) in “Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter”, Reden und Schriften, Bd.2, pp.59-111. 47 Hans Pelger, “Was verstehen Marx/Engels und einige ihrer Zeitgenossen bis 1848 unter ‘wissenschaftlichem Sozialismus’, ‘wissenschaftlichem Sozialismus’ und ‘revolutionärer Wissenschaft’?”, in idem et al., Wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus und Arbeiterbewegung. Begriffsgeschichte und Dühring-Rezeption, (Schriften aus dem Karl-Marx-Haus, 24), Trier, 1980, pp.717. 48 Ibid., pp.14-17, and Wolfgang Schieder, “Zur Geschichte des Begriffs ‘Wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus’ vor 1914”, in Pelger et al., Wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus, pp.18-24. 49 Na’aman, Lassalle, pp.528f. 50 F. Lassalle, “Offenes Antwort-Schreiben an das Central-Komité”, in idem, Reden und Schriften, Bd.2, pp.409-445. 51 Ibid., p.443. Emphasis in original. 52 Becker, Arbeiter-Agitation, pp.40f, 58. 53 Arno Herzig, Der Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiter-Verein in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, Berlin, 1979, pp.130f. However, Herzig also points out (pp.133f) that organized workers were proud of their educational attainments. 54 See, for example, J.B. von Schweitzer, Politische Aufsätze und Reden, (ed. Franz Mehring), Berlin, 1912, pp.147ff; see also Gustav Mayer, Johann Baptist von Schweitzer und die Sozialdemokratie, Jena, 1909 (Reprint, Glashütten im Taunus, 1970). 55 Mayer, Schweitzer, pp.215ff; von Rüden, op.cit., pp.35-40; for the text of Der Schlingel, see Ursula Münchow, ed., Aus den Anfängen der sozialistischen Dramatik I, Berlin, 1964, pp.1-32, with Münchow’s commentary pp.xvi-xix. Münchow notes: “As a whole Der Schlingel is, on account of the discussion of fundamental questions of theory, heavy going and lacking in variety.” Ibid., p.xix. 56 Von Rüden, op. cit., p.19; S.S. Prawer, Karl Marx and World Literature, Oxford, 1978, pp.211-231. 57 Herzig, op. cit., p.133. Surprisingly, Herzig offers as evidence Liebknecht’s Wissen ist Macht! Macht ist Wissen!, which, as noted above, while not hostile to the concept of “Bildung”, clearly stated the priority of political activity. 58 Karl Kautsky, Erinnerungen und Erörterungen (ed. Benedikt Kautsky), ‘sGravenhage, 1960, p.306. 59 Bebel, Aus meinem Leben, p.108. 60 See Roger Morgan, The German Social Democrats and the First International 1864-1872, Cambridge, 1965. 42 43

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61 See, for example, Günter Trautmann’s details on ADAV membership in Hamburg in his “Das Scheitern liberaler Vereinspolitik und die Entstehung der sozialistischen Arbeiterbewegung in Hamburg zwischen 1862 und 1871”, in Arno Herzig et al., eds., Arbeiter in Hamburg, Hamburg, 1983, p.169; see also W.L. Guttsman, The German Social Democratic Party, 1875- 1933, London, 1981, pp.29f, 35-39; Hartmut Zwahr, Zur Konstituierung des Proletariats als Klasse. Strukturuntersuchungen über das Leipziger Proletariat während der industriellen Revolution, Berlin, 1978, pp.295-318 (on the formation of the SDAP in Leipzig). 62 Demokratisches Wochenblatt, no.34, 1868, quoted in Guttsman, op. cit., p.31. On the regional differences between the ADAV and SDAP, and their importance, see Andrew Bonnell, “Between Internationalism, Nationalism and Particularism: German Social Democrats and the War of 1870-71”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 38, 1992, pp.375-385, and the works cited there. 63 Robert Schweichel, “Die Bildung der Arbeiterklasse”, Demokratisches Wochenblatt, no.45 and no.46 (Beilage), 1868, reprinted in Helmut Barth, ed., Zum Kulturprogramm des deutschen Proletariats im 19. Jahrhundert, Dresden, 1978, pp.172f. In a similar vein: W., “Durch Bildung zur Freiheit oder durch Freiheit zur Bildung?”, Der Volksstaat, no.26, 29 March 1871. 64 See Frank Heidenreich, “‘...das wichtigste Agitationsmittel der Partei’. Zur Geschichte der sozialdemokratischen Presse in Sachsen vor 1933”, IWK, 27, 2, 1991, pp.139-171, esp. pp.169f. 65 Protokoll über den ersten Congreß der social-demokratischen Arbeiterpartei zu Stuttgart, 1870, Leipzig, 1870, pp.26, 53-56; Der Volksstaat, no.56, 13 July 1870, Beilage. 66 SDAP Protokoll 1870, p.25. 67 Ibid., pp.27f. Emphasis in original. 68 Ibid., pp.32, 33. 69 “Die Organisation und Agitation unserer Partei”, Der Volksstaat, no.9, 29 January 1873. See also the article “Oeffentliche Meinung”, ibid., no.104, 29 October 1873. 70 Karl-Heinz Leidigkeit, ed., Der Leipziger Hochverratsprozess vom Jahre 1872, Berlin, 1960, pp. 68, 323. Emphases in original. 71 Kurt Koszyk, “Kultur und Presse der Arbeiterbewegung”, in Peter von Rüden, ed., Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 1848-1918, Frankfurt/M., Vienna, Zurich, 1979, p.67. 72 Brigitte Emig, Die Veredelung des Arbeiters. Sozialdemokratie als Kulturbewegung, Frankfurt/ New York, 1980, passim. 73 Gotha Programme. Translation in Gary P. Steenson, “Not One Man! Not One Penny!” German Social Democracy, 1863-1914, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1981, pp.245247. As is well-known, Karl Marx attacked this vulgarisation of the labour theory of value and other weaknesses of the programme in his Critique, first published in Die Neue Zeit in 1891. See MEW 19, pp.15-32. 74 See the Gotha Programme and Marx’s response in the sources cited in note 74.

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75 On the Tessendorf repressions, see Bebel, Aus meinem Leben, p.413ff; Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 2, GS 2, pp.443ff; Dominick, op. cit., p.226. 76 Der Volksstaat, no.6, 16 January; no.67, 12 June 1874; Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 2, p.443. 77 On Social Democracy under the anti-socialist law, see Vernon Lidtke, The Outlawed Party. Social Democracy in Germany 1878- 1890, Princeton, N.J., 1966; Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 2, pp.513-675; Ernst Engelberg, Revolutionäre Politik und rote Feldpost 1878-1890, Berlin, 1959. 78 Protokoll des Kongresses der deutschen Sozialdemokratie. Abgehalten auf Schloß Wyden in der Schweiz, Zurich, 1880, pp.27-29. Cf. Hans-Josef Steinberg, Sozialismus und deutsche Sozialdemokratie, Berlin/ Bonn, 1979, pp.27f. 79 Report of Police President von Madai, 11 December 1878, in Reinhard Höhn, Die vaterlandslosen Gesellen: Die Sozialdemokratie im Lichte der Geheimberichte der preußischen Polizei (1878-1914), Vol.I, Cologne/ Opladen, 1964, Part B: Dokumente, p.3. 80 Report of Police President von Madai, 10 June 1879, in ibid., p.14; report of idem, 31 December 1880, in ibid., p.58. 81 Idem, 15 June 1881, in ibid., p.79. 82 Idem, 14 June 1882, in ibid., p.122. 83 Report dated 30 July 1883, in ibid., p.174. For other examples, see pp.148, 197, 269. 84 Beier, Schwarze Kunst, p.534; von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater, pp.60-62. 85 Herzig, Der Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiter-Verein, p.357n. On workers’ theatre during the period of the anti-socialist law, see von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater, pp.55-75; Friedrich Knilli and Ursula Münchow, Frühes deutsches Arbeitertheater 1847-1918. Eine Dokumentation, Munich, 1970, pp.171-210. 86 Guttsman, op. cit., p.61. 87 Heinz Selo, Die “Freie Volksbühne” in Berlin. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und ihre Entwicklung bis zur Auflösung im Jahre 1896, Berlin, 1930, p.30. 88 Willy Wach [here written as Wack], “Les Préoccupations de Culture Intellectuelle du Prolétariat Berlinois”, La Revue Socialiste, 14, no.168, December 1898, p. 642. Emphasis in original. 89 Selo, op. cit., p.33. 90 This list could be extended and elaborated on at great length. For general surveys of social democratic cultural organisations, see Guenther Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany, Totowa, N.J., 1963, Chapter IX; Guttsman, op. cit., Chapter 5; Horst Groschopp, Zwischen Bierabend und Bildungsverein, Berlin, 1985; Vernon L. Lidtke, The Alternative Culture. Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany, New York/ Oxford, 1985. 91 Roth, op. cit., pp.222, 231f. 92 Helga Grebing, Arbeiterbewegung. Sozialer Protest und kollektive Interessenvertretung bis 1914, Munich, 1985, pp.105f. 93 Lidtke, The Alternative Culture, p.10. Lidtke’s use of the term “alternative culture” does not entirely escape from the problems raised by the term

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“subculture”, although Lidtke’s flexible use of terms such as “segmentation, conflict and coercion” (ibid., p.11), is less constricting than Roth’s “integrationist” model. 94 Erfurt Programme, text in Karl Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm, Berlin/ Bonn, 1980 (Reprint of 1922 ed.), here p.254. See also Kautsky’s commentary in ibid., pp.208ff, in which Kautsky quotes the statement of the Communist Manifesto that “every class struggle is a political struggle”. 95 J. Timm, writing under the rubric “Sprechsaal”, Vorwärts, no.236, 7 October 1893, 1st Beilage. Timm was prominent in the Free trade unions, first in Berlin and subsequently for many years in Bavaria, and later joined the Parteivorstand [party executive] in 1908/09. 96 See Lidtke, The Alternative Culture, pp.54, 69-71, 73. 97 Hans-Joachim Schäfers, Zur sozialistischen Arbeiterbildung in Leipzig 1890 bis 1914, Leipzig, 1961, p. 26. 98 Manfred Wittich, “Von Arbeiter-Schulen und ArbeiterBildungsvereinen”, Vorwärts, no.219, 17 September 1893, 2nd Beilage. Wittich was a socialist writer, and edited the Leipzig newspaper Der Wähler (18901894). Lidtke, The Alternative Culture, pp.141, 142; Schäfers, op. cit., p.20. 99 See, for example, the article “Bildungsschwindel” (on the “Gesellschaft für Verbreitung von Volksbildung”), Vorwärts, no.45, 22 February 1908. 100 Emig, op. cit.. 101 Liebknecht, in the 1888 Foreword to Wissen, p.53, emphases in original. 102 Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 2, p.703. 103 Quoted in Emig, op. cit., p.9. 104 Ibid., p.34. 105 References could be cited almost ad infinitum, as such terms constituted part of the staple vocabulary of the Social Democratic press. 106 Lidtke, Alternative Culture, pp.199f. 107 I have discussed this elsewhere in a paper entitled “Enlightenment, the Other(s) of Reason and German Social Democracy (1890-1914)”, in Dieter Freundlieb and Wayne Hudson, eds., Reason and its Other in Modern German Culture, Providence R.I./Oxford, 1993, pp.241-254. 108 On the relationship between party and trade unions, see Carl E. Schorske, German Social Democracy, 1905-1917, Cambridge, Mass., 1983 (first published 1955), pp.8-16, 29-53, 88-110, (on the Mannheim resolution, pp.4953); Heinz Josef Varain, Freie Gewerkschaften, Sozialdemokratie und Staat. Die Politik der Generalkommission unter der Führung Carl Legiens (1890-1920), Düsseldorf, 1956, pp.26-40, 43-45; John A. Moses, “The Trade Union Issue in German Social Democracy 1890-1900”, IWK, no.19/20, December 1973, pp.1-19, and idem, Trade Unionism in Germany from Bismarck to Hitler 1869-1933, Vol.I, 1869-1918, London, 1982, pp.112-162 (on Mannheim, pp.159-162). 109 Franz Mehring, “Sozialistische Lyrik”, GS, 10, p.415. 110 Rosa Luxemburg, “Bilanz der Obstruktion”, NZ, 18, 2, 1899/1900, pp.280-284, also in Gesammelte Werke (=GW), Vol.1/1, Berlin, 1987, pp.752758, here especially p.753. The views of Mehring and Luxemburg will be discussed more fully in the following chapter.

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111 Dick Geary, “Working-Class Culture in Imperial Germany”, in Roger Fletcher, ed., From Bernstein to Brandt, London, 1989, pp.11-16, here p.14. 112 Hellmuth von Gerlach, “Besiegte Besieger”, März, 2.Jg., Bd.4, 1908, p.85. 113 See also the data in Dieter Fricke, Zur Organisation und Tätigkeit der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 1890-1914, Leipzig, 1962, pp.272-275. 114 See Alex Hall, “By Other Means: The Legal Struggle Against the SPD in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1900”, Historical Journal, June 1974, pp.365-386; idem, Scandal, Sensation and Social Democracy, Cambridge, 1977, especially pp.4188; idem, “The Kaiser, the Wilhelmine State and Lèse-Majesté”, German Life and Letters, 27, 1973-74, pp.101-115. 115 Hall, “Kaiser, State, Lèse-Majesté”, p.102. The post of “verantwortlicher Redakteur” (legally liable editor) of Social Democratic papers was sometimes rotated among those able and willing to run the risk of a few months in gaol. 116 See the discussion of the effects of this reform in Richard J. Evans, “Liberalism and Society: The Feminist Movement and Social Change”, in idem, ed., Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany, London, 1980, pp. 186-214. 117 See Karl Liebknecht’s speech to the Prussian House of Deputies, 13 March 1911, citing several examples, “Der Kampf um die Seele der proletarischen Jugend”, in idem, Gesammelte Reden und Schriften, Vol.IV (ed. Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED), Berlin, 1961, pp.195235; Groschopp, op. cit., pp.71, 73; see also Schäfers, op. cit., pp.168ff. 118 Lidtke, Alternative Culture, p.42. 119 See, for example, “Das Vereinsgesetz gegen Arbeiterfeste”, Vorwärts, no.163, 15 July 1896, 2. Beilage. For details on the sometimes arbitrary application of the law of association to Social Democratic activities, see the responses to a questionnaire sent to local party groups by the SPD executive in 1907, in Wolfgang Heine Nachlass, IISH Amsterdam, no.26-123. Vereinsund Versammlungswesen. 120 “Der Arbeiter-Sänger-Bund vor dem Ober-Verwaltungsgericht”, Ibid., no.3, 4 January 1896, 1. Beilage. See also ibid., 19 October 1895, 2nd Beilage, for a similar case involving the Breslau Arbeiter-Sänger-Bund. 121 See (among many possible examples) Vorwärts, no.19, 23 January 1892, 1. Beilage; ibid., no.64, 16 March 1893; ibid., no.122, 27 May 1893; ibid., no.53, 4 March 1894; on the place of songs in the Social Democratic labour movement see Vernon L. Lidtke, “Lieder der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 5, 1979, pp.54-82; idem, Alternative Culture, pp.102-135 (essentially an English-language version of the above); Inge Lammel, Arbeitermusikkultur in Deutschland 1844- 1945, Leipzig, 1984, pp.21-81. 122 Vorwärts, no.19, 22 January 1893, 1. Beilage. “C.M. Scävola” was a Berlin Social Democrat, active as a writer in the 1890s. For the text of “The French Revolution...”, see Knilli and Münchow, pp.290-302. 123 Vorwärts, no.35, 10 February 1893, 1. Beilage. The ban was repeated when Witz’s revolutionary “tableaux vivants” appeared on the programme of a festival of the association of shop assistants, packers and related trades in Berlin in November, although the printed version of the “Images” had been passed for publication. Ibid., no.257, 1 November 1893, Beilage.

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124 Ibid., no.183, 8 August 1895, 2. Beilage. See also ibid., no.213, 12 September 1895, Beilage. On the censorship of puppet theatres, see ibid., no.107, 10 May 1902, 1. Beilage. 125 Both works dealt with the theme of tyranny. The accompanying cartoon in Vorwärts, no.120, 4 May 1914, Beilage, also referred to the forcible closing by police of a lecture for young workers on the silkworm. 126 For a comparative discussion that offers a critical survey of various explanations of “radicalism” and “reformism”, see Dick Geary, European Labour Protest, 1848-1939, London, 1984. On the development of the divisions within Social Democracy, see Schorske, op. cit., and the documentation in Peter Friedemann, ed., Materialien zum politischen Richtungsstreit in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie 1890-1917, with an introduction by Hans Mommsen, 2 vols., Frankfurt/ M., Berlin, Vienna, 1978. For the term “revolutionary attentisme”,see Dieter Groh, Negative Integration und revolutionärer Attentismus. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges, Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Vienna, 1974. On Praktizismus, see Steinberg, op. cit., pp.111-125. “Revisionism” is to be distinguished from plain “reformism” by the explicit concern of the former with theory, and with harmonizing theory with practice. 127 Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire 1871-1918 (tr. Kim Traynor), Leamington Spa, 1985. For the original context of Bracher’s description, see Karl Dietrich Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik, Düsseldorf, 1978 (reprint of 5th ed., first published 1955), p.10. 128 Wehler, German Empire, pp.55-71. For the role of the Prussian-German bureaucracy, and its ingrained conservatism, the essays of Eckart Kehr, “Zur Genese der preußischen Bürokratie und des Rechtsstaats” and “Das soziale System der Reaktion in Preußen unter dem Ministerium Puttkamer” are still valuable, in idem, Der Primat der Innenpolitik. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur preußischdeutschen Sozialgeschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, (ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler), Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Vienna, 1970, pp.32-52, 64- 86. 129 Wehler, German Empire, quotation p.228. Aspects of Wehler’s argumentation are developed in greater detail in the studies collected in idem, Krisenherde des Kaiserreichs 1871-1918, Göttingen, 1979, and has been refined more recently in his Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte Bd.3 (Munich 1995), pp.355361. See also ibid., pp.1284-1294, for Wehler’s list of distinctive features which differentiated Germany from other European constitutional monarchies. See also Andrew G. Bonnell, “Reforming the Reich? Social Democracy and the German State, 1890-1914”, in John A. Moses and Christopher Pugsley, eds., The German Empire and Britain’s Pacific Dominions, 1871-1919, Claremont, CA, 2000, pp.395-414. 130 Thomas Nipperdey, “Wehlers ‘Kaiserreich’. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 1, 1975, pp.539-560. cf. HansUlrich Wehler, “Kritik und Kritische Antikritik”, in idem, Krisenherde, pp.404426. 131 David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History. Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany, Oxford/ New York, 1984; Geoff Eley, From Unification to Nazism. Reinterpreting the German Past,

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Boston/ London/ Sydney, 1986. Cf. Wehler’s response to the earlier German-language version of Blackbourn and Eley’s joint work (entitled Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung), “‘Deutscher Sonderweg’ oder allgemeine Probleme des westlichen Kapitalismus?”, in idem, Preußen ist wieder chic... Politik und Polemik, Frankfurt/M., 1983, pp.19-32. The positions of various historians of the “Second Reich” are reviewed in Richard J. Evans, Rethinking German History. Nineteenth Century Germany and the Origins of the Third Reich, London, 1991. Also of interest are the essays by Wolfgang J. Mommsen collected in Der autoritäre Nationalstaat. Verfassung, Gesellschaft und Kultur im deutschen Kaiserreich, Frankfurt/ M., 1990. 132 Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German Right. Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck, Ann Arbor, 1991 (2nd ed.). Chapter Three On the formulation and adoption of the Erfurt Programme, see Vernon L. Lidtke, The Outlawed Party, Princeton, N.J., 1966, pp.323ff; Gary P. Steenson, Karl Kautsky, 1854-1938. Marxism in the Classical Years, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1991, pp.93-98. See also Wilhelm Liebknecht’s speech recommending the Programme, which was then accepted in toto by the Erfurt Party Congress, in Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands. Abgehalten zu Erfurt... 1891, Berlin, 1891, pp.323-358. Text of programme, ibid., pp.3-6, proposed drafts and variants, ibid., pp.13-34. 2 Karl Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm. In seinem grundsätzlichen Teil erläutert (ed. Susanne Miller), Berlin/ Bonn, 1980 (Reprint of 1922 ed., first published 1892); idem, Karl Marx’ ökonomische Lehren, Stuttgart, 1908 (12th ed., first published 1887). 3 See Dieter Fricke, Zur Organisation und Tätigkeit der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (1890-1914), Leipzig, 1962, p.146 for subscription figures for Die Neue Zeit (10,500 by 1911); also Steenson, Karl Kautsky, p.85. 4 On the emergence of a three-way split in the party (Revisionists/ Reformists, Centrists, Left Radicals) in place of the earlier division between radicals and moderates see Carl E. Schorske, German Social Democracy 19051917. The Development of the Great Schism, Cambridge, Mass., 1983 (first published 1955). See also Steenson, Karl Kautsky, pp.140f, 275n18, 168-174. While Kautsky’s gradual estrangement from the Left Radicals associated with Rosa Luxemburg from about 1905 on (more pronounced from 1910 on), and his later conflicts with Lenin, have strongly influenced his image as a moderate and “centrist”, it is necessary to remember that as late as 1909 his brochure Der Weg zur Macht was considered too radical by the party leadership. 5 Erich Matthias, “Kautsky und der Kautskyanismus”, Marxismusstudien II, Tübingen, 1957, pp.151-197; see also idem, “Idéologie et pratique: le faux débat Bernstein-Kautsky”, Annales, 19, 1964, pp.19-30 (which mainly restates the thesis of the earlier article). For critical responses to Matthias, see HansJosef Steinberg, Sozialismus und deutsche Sozialdemokratie, Berlin/ Bonn, 1979, pp.51-53, 75-86; Massimo Salvadori, Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Revolution 1

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1880-1938, (tr. Jon Rothschild), London, 1979, pp.17-19; Steenson, Karl Kautsky, p.275n18. 6 Matthias, “Kautskyanismus”, p.154. 7 Ibid., e.g. p.153 (reference to Social Darwinism p.153n4). 8 Ibid., pp.165, 194-197 et passim. 9 See Karl Kautsky, Erinnerungen und Erörterungen (ed. Benedikt Kautsky), ‘sGravenhage, 1960, pp.212-216. 10 Ibid., p.213. 11 Steenson, Karl Kautsky, p.70; see also idem, “Karl Kautsky: Early Assumptions, Preconceptions, and Prejudices”, in John H. Kautsky, ed., Karl Kautsky and the Social Science of Classical Marxism, Leiden, 1989, pp.33-43. One must also take issue with Matthias’ use of the term “Social Darwinism” to characterize “Kautskyanismus”, as emphasized by Steinberg, op. cit., p.51n58. 12 Karl Kautsky, “Darwinismus und Marxismus”, NZ, 13, 1, pp.709-716. 13 See George Lichtheim, Marxism. An Historical and Critical Study, London, 1980, pp.234-243. Lichtheim also dissents from Matthias’ assessment of Kautsky, ibid., p.267. On the crucial influence of Engels’ Anti-Dühring on German Social Democracy, see the essays in Hans Pelger, et al., Wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus und Arbeiterbewegung. Begriffsgeschichte und DühringRezeption (Schriften aus dem Karl-Marx-Haus 24), Trier, 1979; Steinberg, op. cit., pp.43f. 14 Steenson, Karl Kautsky, p.275n18. See also Dick Geary, Karl Kautsky, Manchester, 1987, p.121. 15 Kautsky, Ökonomische Lehren, p.190. 16 Ibid., pp.191f; cf. MEW. 23, p.512, where Marx contrasts the “fully developed individual, for whom various social functions constitute alternating kinds of activity” and the “part-individual, the mere carrier of a social detailfunction”. These passages by Marx and Kautsky suggest that they saw not simply the degradation and “immiseration” of the proletariat, but rather the need of developed capitalism for a skilled and educated workforce, as making it a revolutionary force. See also Kautsky, Erfurter Programm, p.203: “The better-situated, qualified workers are the ones to whom the leading role in the struggle for the raising of the position of the working class falls”; cf. also ibid., p.250. 17 Kautsky, Ökonomische Lehren, pp.188f. 18 Ibid., p.193. 19 Brockhaus’ Konversations-Lexikon, 14th ed., Vol.10, Leipzig, 1898, p.792. See also Brigitte Emig, Die Veredelung des Arbeiters. Sozialdemokratie als Kulturbewegung, Frankfurt/ New York, 1980, pp.19-25. The Marxian emphasis on the material preconditions of levels of cultural development precludes the dichotomy between (German, spiritual) “Kultur” and (Western, materialistic) “Zivilisation” popular among German conservatives. 20 Emig, op. cit., p.32. 21 Here, contrary to the view stressing Kautsky’s deterministic evolutionism, Kautsky states that a social revolution requires the “active intervention” of the oppressed, who cannot wait for revolution to simply drop into their hands, even if he regards revolution as a necessary and

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potentially peaceful result of the development of capitalism. Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm, pp.102f. 22 Ibid., pp.31, 55, 66, 128. 23 Ibid., pp.164-167. 24 Ibid., pp.49ff, 166. 25 Ibid., pp.50f. 26 Ibid., pp.51, 52; cf. Karl Kautsky, “Die Intelligenz und die Sozialdemokratie”, NZ, 13, 2, 1894/95, p.46, where he speaks of an “Überproduktion der Gebildeten”. 27 Ibid., pp.162-166. 28 Ibid., p.169. Kautsky himself was from a non-proletarian (albeit hardly wealthy) background, his father Johann being a scene-painter for theatres, including ultimately the Vienna Burgtheater, and his mother Minna being a writer. Kautsky, Erinnerungen, pp.34-109; Steenson, Karl Kautsky, pp.12-21. For Kautsky’s views on the positive contributions socialist intellectuals could make to the workers’ movement, see Salvadori, op. cit., pp.76f. On Kautsky’s role as an intellectual within the party, see the study by Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, Das Mandat des Intellektuellen. Karl Kautsky und die Sozialdemokratie, Berlin, 1986. 29 Kautsky, “Intelligenz und Sozialdemokratie”, p.45. 30 Kautsky, Erfurter Programm, p.168; see also p.190. Kautsky’s observations here would refer principally to organised workers in the social democratic labour movement. 31 Ibid., p.169. Emphases in original. 32 Ibid., p.132. Emphasis in original. 33 Karl Kautsky, Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, Stuttgart/Berlin, 1922 (first ed. 1906), p.45. 34 Ibid., p.11; see also p.138. 35 Karl Kautsky, Die soziale Revolution, Berlin, n.d. (3rd ed., 1912?), p.31. 36 Ibid., quoting from Heine’s Foreword to the French edition (1855) of his Lutezia, in which Heine wrote that “the future belongs to the communists”, who would have no time for such frivolities as his artistic creations, but who would nonetheless create a more just society. 37 Kautsky, soziale Revolution, p.31. 38 Ibid., pp.32f. 39 Kautsky, Ethik; for a selection of texts on the “Socialism and ethics” debate, see Hans Jörg Sandkühler and Rafael de la Vega, eds., Marxismus und Ethik, Frankfurt/ M., 1974. 40 Kautsky, Ethik, pp.52f. 41 Ibid., p.53. 42 Ibid., pp.91ff, 120. 43 Ibid., pp.94, 96. 44 Ibid., p.128. 45 Ibid., pp.120-130. 46 Ibid., pp.129-132. 47 Ibid., p.131. 48 Ibid., p.99. 49 Ibid., pp.98-106.

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Ibid., p.135. Kautsky’s short book on ethics bore the subtitle “Ein Versuch”, an essay, indicating that he was aware of the work’s somewhat tentative nature. 52 Karl Kautsky, Der Weg zur Macht, Berlin, (2. Auflage), 1909. On the controversy surrounding the publication of this brochure, see the documents in Georg Fülberth’s edition of Der Weg zur Macht, Frankfurt/ M., 1972, pp.113-138, and Ursula Ratz, “Briefe zum Erscheinen von Karl Kautsky’s ‘Weg zur Macht’”, International Review of Social History, 12, 1967, pp.432-477; also Salvadori, op. cit., pp.123-132; Steenson, Karl Kautsky, pp.165-168. 53 Kautsky, Weg zur Macht, p.7. 54 Ibid., pp.24-26. 55 Ibid., pp.30-32, quotation p.32. 56 Ibid., p.33. 57 Ibid., p.37. 58 Ibid., p.104. Kautsky’s emphasis on technological development, and the role of the European proletariat, might be read as suggesting a Eurocentric perspective, and endorsement of Western world leadership. See Emig, Veredelung, pp.215f. However, in Weg zur Macht, p.93, Kautsky rejects the view that colonized peoples require European tutelage, insisting on the equality of all people, as affirmed by the Erfurt Programme. 59 Susanne Miller has drawn attention to the fact that — despite his family background and his early literary interests — Kautsky refrained from using Die Neue Zeit to express himself as a literary critic or commentator on artistic matters, suggesting that Kautsky preferred to confine himself to questions where he could speak with scientific authority, and that aesthetics did not come into this category. Susanne Miller, “Critique littéraire de la SocialDémocratie Allemande à la fin du siècle dernier”, Le Mouvement Social, 59, 1967, p.52. 60 See Hans Koch, Franz Mehrings Beitrag zur marxistischen Literaturtheorie, Berlin, 1959, which contains some useful material while straining to support the claim of the Socialist Unity Party to embody “the best humanistic traditions of the German people” (e.g., p.7); idem, “Die deutschen Linken und die Literatur”, Weimarer Beiträge, 5, 1, 1959, pp.23-64. It is interesting to compare Koch’s Mehring with Georg Lukács, “Franz Mehring”, in idem, Probleme der Ästhetik (Werke, Vol.10), Neuwied/ Berlin, 1969, pp.341-432, written under the influence of Stalin’s 1931 anathema against “Luxemburgism”. See also Susanne Miller, op. cit., (pp.50-69); Georg Fülberth, Proletarische Partei und bürgerliche Literatur, Neuwied/ Berlin, 1972, especially pp.40-54; Theo Buck, ed., Franz Mehring. Anfänge der materialistischen Literaturbetrachtung in Deutschland, Stuttgart, 1973; Jost Hermand, “‘Die Kunst dem Volke!” Mehrings Umgang mit dem kulturellen Erbe”, in Wolfgang Beutin and Wilfried Hoppe, ed., Franz Mehring (1846-1919), Frankfurt/ M., 1997, pp.17-31. 61 Walter Kumpmann, Franz Mehring als Vertreter des historischen Materialismus, Wiesbaden, 1966, pp.36-38; Thomas Höhle, Franz Mehring. Sein Weg zum Marxismus 1869-1891, Berlin, 1956, pp.245- 250. Höhle’s work is an indispensable reference on Mehring’s early career, although it tends to 50 51

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overstate its argument that Mehring’s path to Marxism was completely straight and logical. Cf. Glen R. MacDougall, Franz Mehring: Politics and History in the Making of Radical German Social Democracy, 1869-1903, (Ph.D. diss. Columbia University), 1977; idem, “Franz Mehring and the Problems of Liberal Social Reform in Bismarckian Germany 1884-90: The Origins of Radical Marxism”, Central European History, 16, 1983, pp.225-255. 62 MacDougall, “Franz Mehring and Problems of Liberal Social Reform”, p.230. 63 Franz Mehring, “Die Literatur im Deutschen Reiche”, in Hans Mayer, ed., Deutsche Literaturkritik im 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt/ M., 1976, pp.833-846 (originally in Die Wage, 1874). 64 Anon. [Franz Mehring], Herr von Treitschke der Sozialistentödter und die Endziele des Liberalismus. Eine sozialistische Replik, Leipzig, 1875. Mehring’s pamphlet was a rejoinder to Treitschke’s article “Der Sozialismus und seine Gönner”, which first appeared in the Preußische Jahrbücher in 1874, reprinted in Treitschke, Zehn Jahre Deutscher Kämpfe, Berlin, 1913, pp.93-170. 65 See Mehring to Liebknecht, 20 February 1875 and 21 May 1875, in Wilhelm Liebknecht, Briefwechsel mit deutschen Sozialdemokraten, Bd.I, 1862-1878, ed. Georg Eckert, Assen, 1973, pp.612-614, 635f. 66 [Mehring], Herr von Treitschke, p.10. 67 Ibid., pp.12-15, 36-38. 68 Ibid., p.45. 69 Ibid., p.46. 70 Ibid., p.49. 71 See ibid., pp.27, 29f. 72 This is not the place to discuss in detail the period of Mehring’s break with Social Democracy, which MacDougall describes as “the most unclear in his political development”. MacDougall, Franz Mehring. Politics and History, p.47. Cf. ibid., pp.45-53; Höhle, op. cit., pp.109-124. 73 Franz Mehring, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Socialdemokratie. Ein historischer Versuch, Magdeburg, 1877; idem, Die deutsche Socialdemokratie. Ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre, Bremen, 1877. 74 On Mehring’s development in the 1880s, cf. the works by Höhle and MacDougall, already cited. A series of articles by Mehring in the Berliner VolksZeitung on “Die Hohenzollern und die Reformation”, which appeared in late 1889, shows him already identifying with the “materialist conception of history” as practised by Marx, Engels and Kautsky. Reprinted in Mehring, GS 5, Berlin, 1982, pp. 259-293. On the clash with Paul Lindau, in which Mehring supported the actress Else von Schabelsky in her claim that she had been a victim of exploitation by Lindau, see Mehring, Der Fall Lindau, Berlin, 1890, and idem, Kapital und Presse. Ein Nachspiel zum Fall Lindau, Berlin, 1891. 75 Mehring’s first regular leading article in Die Neue Zeit was dated 1 June 1891, and entitled “Der neue Kurs”, NZ, 9, 2, 1890/91, pp.321-324, also in GS 14, 1978, pp.1-5. 76 Franz Mehring, “Die Lessing-Legende. Eine Rettung” I, NZ, 10, 2, 1891/92, pp.540-544, continued in the Feuilleton section of subsequent issues. See also GS 9, 1983.

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Mehring, Deutsche Socialdemokratie (Bremen, 1877), p.16. Engels to Bebel, 16 March 1892, MEW, 38, p.308. 79 Mehring, “Die Literatur im deutschen Reiche” (1874), p.835. 80 Mehring, Lessing-Legende, GS 9, pp.182-184. 81 Ibid., p.174. 82 See, for example, Mehring, Die deutsche Socialdemokratie..., Bremen, 1877, pp.214f, 219. 83 Mehring, “Über den historischen Materialismus” (originally an appendix to the 1893 book edition of the Lessing-Legende), GS 13 (1983), p.305. Cf. Engels, “Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der klassischen Philosophie”, MEW 21, p.280. 84 Mehring, “Über den historischen Materialismus”, GS 13, p.306. 85 Mehring, “Kant, Dietzgen, Mach und der historische Materialismus” (originally NZ, 28, 1, 1909/10, pp.173-183), GS 13, p.200. 86 See MEW 20, p.24; 21, p.270. 87 Mehring, “Historischer Materialismus” (originally NZ, 28, 2, 1909/10, pp.545-552), GS 13, p.412. In his exposition of historical materialism, Mehring cited the Communist Manifesto, Marx’s Preface to his Critique of Political Economy, and Capital, Vol.I, but otherwise leant heavily on the conceptual framework set out in Engels’ later works, from his funeral speech for Marx onwards. 88 Ibid., p.414. Cf. Mehring, “John Locke” (originally NZ, 23, 1, 1904/05. pp.129-133), GS 13, pp.33, 34. 89 Georg Lukács, “Franz Mehring”, in idem, Probleme der Ästhetik (Werke, Vol.10), Neuwied/ Berlin, 1969, p.351. 90 Engels to Bebel, 16 March 1892, MEW 38, p.308; see also Engels to Kautsky, 29 September 1892, MEW 38, p.484; Engels to Kautsky, 1 June 1893, MEW 39, pp.77f; Engels to Mehring, 14 July 1893, MEW, pp.96-100. 91 Engels to Mehring, 14 July 1893, MEW 39, p.96 (emphasis in original), see also p.98. 92 Paul Ernst, “Mehrings ‘Lessing-Legende’”, NZ, 12, 2, 1893/94, pp.7-13, 45-51. Ernst (1866-1933) was a young writer and journalist who was active in the oppositional grouping “Die Jungen” within Social Democracy, but later drifted towards the völkisch Right after leaving the party. 93 Mehring, Lessing-Legende, GS 9, p.205. 94 Ibid., p.206. 95 Ibid., p.300. See also the critical comments and relevant quotations on the “base-superstructure” problem in Mehring’s writings in Kumpmann, op. cit., pp.105-112. 96 Mehring, “Literarhistorische Streifzüge” (originally NZ, 18, 1, 1899/1900, pp.634-640, continued in three succeeding issues), GS 11, p.31. 97 Mehring, “Zur historisch-materialistischen Methode” (originally NZ, 12, 2, 1893/94, pp.142-148, 170-175), GS 9, p.384. Here Mehring is actually quoting, almost word for word, from Engels’ letter to him of 14 July 1893 (criticizing Paul Barth), MEW 39, p.98! 98 Mehring, Lessing-Legende, GS 9, 302. 99 Mehring, “Zur historisch-materialistischen Methode”, GS 9, p.378. 77 78

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Mehring, Lessing-Legende, GS 9, p.258. Ibid., p.257. 102 Ibid., p.303. 103 Lukács, op. cit., pp.389-398. Lukács’s essay on Mehring deals acutely with key problems in Mehring’s work, while its evaluation of Mehring’s significance swings — sometimes drastically — between fulsome praise and harsh condemnation. The twists and turns in Lukács’ essay are at least partly a reaction to Stalin’s condemnation in the early 1930s of the non-Stalinist communist tradition in Germany. 104 Mehring, “Immanuel Kant” (originally NZ 22, 1, 1903/04, pp.553-559, 627-633), GS 13, pp.41-56, esp. pp.50f; cf. idem, Deutsche Geschichte vom Ausgange des Mittelalters (1910), GS 5, pp.72f; idem, Schiller. Ein Lebensbild für deutsche Arbeiter (2nd ed., 1909), GS 10, pp.199f. 105 See Mehring, “Kant und Marx” (originally NZ 22, 1, 1903/04, pp.658665), GS 13, pp.57-66; also, idem, “Immanuel Kant”, GS 13, pp.42, 52, 53, 55; idem, “Kant und der Sozialismus” (originally NZ 18, 2, 1899/1900, pp.1-4), GS 13, pp.183-188; idem, “Die Neukantianer” (originally NZ 18, 2, 1899/1900, pp.33-37), GS 13, pp.189-194. 106 Mehring, “Immanuel Kant”, GS 13, pp.55f; cf. idem, Deutsche Geschichte, GS 5, p.74. 107 Mehring, Schiller, GS 10, pp.185ff; cf. also Mehring on Goethe, ibid., p.194. Mehring’s discussion of the creative genius of Goethe and Schiller is in accordance with Kant’s treatment of genius, as something which is both the product of a unique individual subject and at the same time universally communicable. 108 E.g. Mehring, “Proletarische Ästhetik” (originally in Die Volksbühne, 2, 2, 1893/94, pp.8-14), GS 12, pp.274f. 109 Mehring, “Kabale und Liebe” (No.1 in the series of pamphlets Die Volksbühne, 1909), GS 10, p.250; see also idem, Deutsche Geschichte, GS 5, p.104. 110 Mehring, “Kant und Marx”, GS 13, p.66. 111 For a historiographical overview, see Jürgen Mirow, Das alte Preußen im deutschen Geschichtsbild seit der Reichsgründung, Berlin, 1981, especially pp.95-101 on Social Democratic views of Prussian history, with particular reference to Mehring. 112 MEW 21, p.307. 113 Mehring, Lessing-Legende, GS 9, p.364. 114 Ibid., pp.62-65. 115 Ibid., pp.30f. 116 Lukács, op. cit., pp.351-355. 117 On this point, see Emig, op. cit., pp.155f, 158-160, 163f, 172f, and the examples cited, which could be multiplied; also Monika Kramme, Franz Mehring — Theorie und Alltagsarbeit, Frankfurt/M./New York, 1980, on the importance of practical political considerations for Mehring’s work. 118 Mehring, Lessing-Legende, GS 9, p.365. See also idem, “Sozialistische Lyrik” (from Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, Vol.4, 1914), GS 10, p.415. 100 101

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119 Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen” (originally NZ 11, 2, 1892/93, pp.481485), GS 12 (1984), pp.297ff. 120 Mehring, “Die Freie Volksbühne” (originally NZ 18, 2, 1899/1900, pp.530-536), GS 12, p.323. 121 See Mehring, “Recht so!” (originally NZ, 23, 2, 1904/05, pp.33-37), GS 15 (1977), pp.28-33. 122 For example, Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, GS 12, p.300. 123 Mostly collected in Mehring, GS, 9-12. 124 Mehring, “Johann Wolfgang Goethe” (originally Der Wahre Jacob, 1899, no.342), GS 10, p.61; also idem, “Goethe und die Gegenwart” (originally NZ 17, 2, 1898/99, pp.673-676), GS 10, p.90. 125 Mehring, “Philosophie und Proletariat”, (originally in Sozialdemokratische Korrespondenz, no.12, 29 January 1914), GS 13, p.83. 126 See especially Mehring, “Schiller und die Arbeiter” (originally Leipziger Volkszeitung, no.104, 8 May 1905), GS 10, pp.275-278; also idem, Schiller, GS 10, pp.92-238, passim; idem, “Kabale und Liebe”, GS 10, pp.249-255; idem, “Die Räuber” (originally in the series Die Volksbühne, no.23, 1909), GS 10, pp.239244; idem, “Wilhelm Tell” (also from Die Volksbühne, no.14, 1909), GS 10, pp.256-262. There is some indication that Mehring’s work on Schiller found the desired reception. The reviewer (initials A.P.) for Der Bibliothekar greeted the appearance of the second edition of Mehring’s book on Schiller, “a welcome sign that it has found resonance among German workers”, stressed the virtues of the historical materialistic method as applied in Mehring’s work, and wrote: “The work is doubtless a necessary part of the collection of every workers’ library”, Der Bibliothekar, 1, 8, November 1909, p.74. 127 Mehring, “Johann Wolfgang Goethe”, GS 10, p.61. 128 See Mehring, “Der heutige Naturalismus”, (originally in Die Volksbühne, 1, 3, 1892/93), GS 11, pp.127-129; idem, “Kunst und Proletariat” (originally NZ 15, 1, 1896/97, pp.129-133), GS 11, pp.130-135, especially p.135, where Mehring contrasts the pessimism of modern art (particularly Naturalism) and the optimism of the revolutionary proletariat. See also idem, “Ibsens ‘Stützen der Gesellschaft’” (originally in Die Volksbühne, 3, 3, 1894/95), GS 12, 79; idem, “Hauptmanns ‘Weber’” (also from Die Volksbühne, 2, 4, 1893/94), GS 11, 555-557; idem, “Ein Märchendrama”, (originally NZ 15, 1, 1896/97, pp.347-349), GS 11, pp.303-306. 129 Mehring, GS 11, pp.437-441 (excerpt from 1898 edition of his history of the SPD). 130 Peter von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater (1848- 1914), Frankfurt/ M., 1973, p.117; in the same vein, Dietmar Trempenau, Frühe sozialdemokratische und sozialistische Arbeiterdramatik (1890-1914), Stuttgart, 1979, p.75. 131 See the essays and reviews collected in Mehring, GS 11, pp.442-462. 132 Mehring, “‘Andere Zeiten’. Schauspiel von Paul Bader”, (originally in Die Volksbühne, 1,3, 1892/93), GS 11, pp.463-467 (quotation on p.467); idem, “Freie Volksbühnen”, GS 12, p.300. On Bader (a socialist intellectual, rather than a proletarian writer) and Andere Zeiten, see Trempenau, op. cit., pp.62, 119ff.

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133 Mehring, review of Lu Märten’s Bergarbeiter (originally NZ, 27, 1, 1908/09, pp.933f), GS 11, 468. The term used for “actors” is “schauspielerische Kräfte” — i.e. not necessarily professional actors [Berufsschauspieler]. Mehring’s added comment that the play required no outlays for properties indicates that the review was intended to encourage workers’ theatre groups to stage their own amateur productions of this eminently political work. This is perhaps a counter-example to von Rüden’s emphasis (von Rüden, op. cit.) on the alleged hostility of Party intellectuals to amateur workers’ theatre groups. On this play, see Trempenau, op. cit., pp.148-150. 134 Mehring, “Philosophieren und Philosophie” (originally NZ, 27, 1, 1908/09, pp.921-925), GS 13, pp.405f. 135 Mehring, review of Deutsche Arbeiterdichtung (originally Die Volksbühne, 1, 3, 1892/93), GS 11, pp.469f. 136 Mehring, review of Von unten auf (NZ, 29, 2, 1910/11, pp.385-387), GS 11, pp.471-474. 137 Mehring, review of Krille’s Aus engen Gassen (NZ 23, 1, 1904/05, pp.355f) ,GS 11, pp.475f; idem, review of Preczang’s Im Strom der Zeit (NZ, 27, 1, 1908/09, p.312), GS 11, pp.481f. 138 On the tendency of socialist literature (particularly drama) to subscribe to the aesthetic norms of classical models, see Trempenau, op. cit., pp.62ff. (Even such socialist plays as Emil Rosenow’s Die im Schatten leben, Berlin, n.d. [1912] and Leopold Kampf’s Am Vorabend, (3rd-6th thousand) Berlin/ Leipzig, 1906, both of which encountered censorship difficulties, are quite conventional in form.) Only in the Weimar period, under the influence of new media such as cinema and radio, freer conditions of artistic production, and the example of the promotion of avant-garde modernism by Lunacharsky in post-1917 Russia, did politically radical art become more strongly associated with formal innovation, as in the theatre of Brecht and Piscator. 139 Mehring, “Goethe und die Gegenwart”, GS 10, p.90. 140 Cf. the testimony of the agrarian reformer Adolf Damaschke, who knew Mehring from working with him on the Berliner Volkszeitung: “Franz Mehring generally kept apart from the life of associations and meetings. While a great master of written expression, he lacked any gift of oratory.” Adolf Damaschke, Aus meinem Leben, Berlin, 1928, pp.197f. See also Anton Pannekoek’s recollections of Mehring in his Herinneringen (ed. B.A. Sijes et al.), Amsterdam, 1982, p.118. 141 Rosa Luxemburg to Franz Mehring, 27 February 1916, in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Briefe, Vol.5, Berlin, 1984, p.104. 142 See Luxemburg to Minna Kautsky, 30 December 1900, Luxemburg, Gesammelte Briefe, Vol.1, Berlin, 1984, p.511 (on growth of her friendship with Franz and Eva Mehring, and introduction to Hebbel), and Luxemburg to Hans Diefenbach, 5 March 1917, ibid., Vol.5, p.184 (on her relationship with Mehring, and on Hebbel, whom in this letter she rates below Grillparzer and Kleist, despite “respect” for Hebbel). Paul Frölich wrote that during Luxemburg’s childhood “[t]here was a real cult of Schiller in the house, but Rosa obviously deserted him very early and learned to appreciate him only very much later in life, under the influence of Franz Mehring”. Paul Frölich,

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Rosa Luxemburg, (tr. Joanna Hoornweg), London, 1972, p.4. Cf. Luxemburg’s reference to her mother, “who considered the Bible to be the source of the most supreme wisdom besides Schiller...”. Letter to Sophie Liebknecht, 23 May 1917, Luxemburg, Gesammelte Briefe, Vol.5, p.243. J.P. Nettl’s statement that “Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring campaigned against the attempt to make political capital out of Schiller as a potential revolutionary poet” requires some qualification. J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Oxford, 1966, Vol.1, p.29, cf. also p.53. 143 R. Luxemburg, “Rezension” [Franz Mehring: Schiller. Ein Lebensbild für deutsche Arbeiter...], (NZ, 23, 2, 1904/05, pp.163-165), in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke (GW), Vol.1/2, Berlin, 1988, pp.533-536. Luxemburg was personally requested to write the review by Kautsky, who said he was unwilling to entrust it to anyone else: see Luxemburg to Leo Jogiches, 30 April and 2 May 1905, and Luxemburg to Franz Mehring, 2 May 1905, in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Briefe, Vol.2, pp.80, 81, 83. 144 Rosa Luxemburg, “Rezension”, GW, 1/2, p.534. Cf. Kautsky’s own contribution to the Schiller centenary, which appeared in the same issue of Die Neue Zeit as Luxemburg’s review and two of Mehring’s essays on Schiller, “Die Rebellionen in Schillers Dramen”, NZ, 23, 2, 1904/05, pp.133-153. Kautsky distinguished between the “rebellious” content — which had a special appeal for youth and thus also for a young, rising class — of Schiller’s works from “revolution”, and explicitly excluded any explanation of Schiller’s aesthetics from his discussion. 145 Rosa Luxemburg, “Gegen sozialdemokratische Juliane” (originally Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung, no.111, 16 May 1905), and “Sozialdemokratische Juliane” (originally ibid., no.116, 22 May 1905), in Luxemburg, GW, 1/2, pp.573-577, 578f, quotation p.576. The target of Luxemburg’s polemic in this case was Friedrich Stampfer, an editor with the Party press. 146 See Peter Nettl, “The German Social Democratic party 1890-1914 as a political Model”, Past and Present, 30, 1965, pp.87ff; Gilbert Badia, Rosa Luxemburg. Journaliste, Polémiste, Révolutionnaire, Paris, 1975, pp.421-427. 147 Rosa Luxemburg, “Bilanz der Obstruktion” (originally NZ, 18, 2, 1899/1900, pp.280-284), in Luxemburg, GW, 1/1, p.753. 148 Luxemburg, “Geknickte Hoffnungen” (originally NZ, 22, 1, 1903/04, pp.33-39), GW, 1/2, pp.394-402, final quotations pp.401f. 149 Luxemburg, GW 1/1, pp.236-241. Luxemburg’s entry into German Social Democratic politics coincided with the outbreak of the revisionist controversy, in which she immediately assumed a prominent role on the side of Marxist “orthodoxy”. The speed with which the young Luxemburg, an outsider in several respects, gained access to leading party circles and the confidence of Kautsky and others is testimony not only to her abilities but also to a relatively informal organizational culture among the Party leadership at this time. On Luxemburg’s background and involvement with the SPD, see Badia, op. cit., especially pp.29-80; also Frölich, op. cit.; Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg; Elzbieta Ettinger, Rosa Luxemburg. A Life, London, 1987; Annelies Laschitza, Im Lebensrausch, trotz alledem. Rosa Luxemburg, Berlin, 1996. 150 Luxemburg, Sozialreform oder Revolution, GW 1/1, p.400.

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151 Luxemburg, GW 1/1, pp.571f. However cf. Luxemburg’s statements on the necessity of the use of force in her article “Und zum dritten Male das belgische Experiment” (originally NZ, 20, 2, 1901/02, pp.203-210, 274-280), GW 1/2, p.247. 152 Luxemburg, Die Akkumulation des Kapitals (1913), GW 5, p.10. 153 Ibid., GW 5, p.66. 154 Luxemburg, Einführung in die Nationalökonomie , GW 5, p.719. 155 Luxemburg, Akkumulation, GW 5, pp.320ff, 327ff (contrasting the colonizers’ claim to represent “Zivilisation” with the reality of British India and French North Africa); also, “Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie” (1916), GW 4, pp.161ff (on the bourgeois “Kulturwelt” and the crimes of imperialism and war). 156 In Luxemburg, GW, 1/2, pp.363-368, quotation pp.366f. 157 Ibid., p.367. Note that this distinction between the relative importance of culture for the emancipation struggle of the bourgeois-led Third Estate and the contemporary proletariat parallels Mehring’s views, although Luxemburg provides a more fully articulated Marxian explanation than Mehring. 158 From Przeglad Socjaldemokratyczny (Cracow), 1, 1908, cited (in German translation) in Michael Wegner, “Rosa Luxemburg und Maksim Gor’kij”, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin, Ges.-Sprachw. R., 19, 1970, pp.303-305, quotation p.304. 159 Luxemburg, “Was wollen wir?” (1906), GW 2, 81 160 Luxemburg, Massenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaften (1906), GW 2, p.114. Emphasis in original. 161 Ibid., p.117. 162 Ibid., p.136; also Luxemburg, “Erörterungen über die Taktik” (originally Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung, 19 and 26 October 1898), GW 1/1, pp.257-263, especially p.258; “Wirtschaftliche und sozialpolitische Rundschau” (originally Sächsische Arbeiter- Zeitung, 24 January 1899), GW 1/1, pp.327-330 (“Zur Verelendungsfrage”). 163 See Eleonora Pfeifer, “Rosa Luxemburgs Kulturkonzeption”, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, Vol.32, 8, 1984, pp.700- 705, especially the quotations from Luxemburg’s article series in Polish from 1908/09 on “The national problem and autonomy”, pp.701, 703-705. Aside from this material, however, Pfeifer’s attempts to present Luxemburg as a consistent Leninist avant la lettre are somewhat strained. 164 Luxemburg, “Stillstand und Fortschritt im Marxismus”, GW 1/2, pp.366, 368. 165 Luxemburg to Leo Jogiches, 27 December 1898, Gesammelte Briefe 1, p.236; while praising Mickiewicz as a great poet of genius, Luxemburg also stressed the backward-looking character of Polish romantic nationalism, the aristocratic bearers of which had been replaced by a trans-national bourgeoisie in a Poland increasingly integrated economically into the Russian Empire. This was in keeping with Luxemburg’s and Jogiches’ rejection of a nationalist variant of Polish socialism in the conflict between their Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (and Lithuania, from the end of 1899) and the Polish

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Socialist Party. “Adam Mickiewicz” (originally Leipziger Volkszeitung no.198, 24 December 1898), GW 1/1, pp.302-307. 166 Luxemburg, “Gleb Uspenski” (originally Leipziger Volkszeitung, no.80, 9 April 1902), GW, 1/2, pp.186-191. This article appeared to mark the occasion of Uspenski’s death after a long period of illness. 167 Luxemburg, “Tolstoi als sozialer Denker” (originally Leipziger Volkszeitung, no.209, 9 September 1908), GW 2, pp.246- 253, quotation p.253; see also “Tolstois Nachlaß” (originally NZ, 31, 2, 1912/13, pp.97-100), GW 3, pp.185-190. Both essays stress that while Tolstoy’s social thought is anachronistic and utopian, there is much in his creative genius and in his criticism of existing social conditions that makes him valuable for socialist readers. Luxemburg also wrote a third article on Tolstoy, not included in GW, for Die Gleichheit, on the occasion of Tolstoy’s death. Badia, op. cit., p.724n88. Badia also notes (ibid., p.724n89) that Luxemburg once lectured on Tolstoy for the Parteischule, cf. Ilse Schiel and Erna Milz, eds., Karl und Rosa. Erinnerungen, Berlin, 1971, p.112. 168 See Badia’s detailed analysis of the effective use of quotations in Luxemburg’s writing, op. cit., pp.623-628. 169 Her translation and introduction to Vladimir Korolenko’s History of My Contemporary, GW 4, pp.302-331, may be the exception that proves the rule, as it was written during her enforced absence from political activity, in prison in 1918. 170 Luxemburg to Sophie Liebknecht, 18 February 1917, Gesammelte Briefe, 5, pp.179f; Luxemburg to Sophie Liebknecht, 24 November 1917, Gesammelte Briefe, 5, pp.333f; Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, 1, pp.29-31, 53f; Badia, op. cit., pp.721-733. 171 Luxemburg, speech to Stuttgart Party Congress, 1898, GW 1/1, p.236; cf. Sozialreform oder Revolution: “...we are irresistibly approaching the beginning of the end, the period of the final crises of capitalism...”. GW 1/1, p.386. 172 Luxemburg, “Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie”, GW 4, p.62. In addition to the secondary literature already quoted, see also the assessments of Luxemburg’s thought and its significance in Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness (tr. Rodney Livingstone), London, 1971, pp.27-45; Norman Geras, The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg, London, 1985. 173 On Zetkin, see Luise Dornemann, Clara Zetkin. Leben und Wirken, Berlin, 1973 (first published 1957); Gilbert Badia, Clara Zetkin (tr. F. Hervé and I. Nödinger), Berlin, 1994: also Jean H. Quataert, Reluctant Feminists in German Social Democracy, 1885-1917, Princeton, N.J., 1979, pp.65- 73, 106-132, and the literature cited there. 174 E.g., Fülberth, Proletarische Partei, p.145. 175 See the account of the debate in ibid., pp.127-150; also the documentation edited and introduced by Tanja Bürgel, Tendenzkunst-Debatte 1910-1912, Berlin, 1987, which brings together the relevant texts generated by the controversy. 176 Heinz Sperber, “Tendeziöse Kunst”, Vorwärts, no.207, 4 September 1910, 2nd Beilage. For reactions, see Rudolf Franz, “Tendenzkunst und Kunsttendenz”, Vorwärts, no.213, 11 September 1910, 1st Beilage, and the

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articles by Heinrich Ströbel, Lu Märten, W. Zimmer and Robert Grötzsch all in the same issue of Die Neue Zeit, 30, 2, 1911/12, pp.785-800 (Feuilleton der NZ, no.54). These and other texts also in Bürgel, op. cit.. 177 Mehring’s contributions to the debate were included in his essay “Freiligrath und Marx in ihrem Briefwechsel” (NZ, Ergänzungsheft, no.12, 12 April 1912), GS 10, pp.596f (where Mehring insisted on recognition of the boundary between aesthetics and politics, rejecting “propaganda for an aesthetics of the callused fist”); Mehring [under rubric “Lose Blätter”], “Eine ästhetisch-literarische Enquete”, NZ, 30, 2, 1911/12, p.304, and Mehring’s answer to Karsten Döscher, ibid., p.648. 178 Clara Zetkin, “Kunst und Proletariat” (originally Die Gleichheit, 21, 1910/11, no.8, Beilage), in Zetkin, Über Literatur und Kunst (ed. Emilia ZetkinMilowidowa), Berlin, 1955, pp.100-114, quotation, pp.103f. 179 Ibid., pp.100, 103. 180 Ibid., pp.109, 111. 181 See Zetkin’s letter to Mehring, 14 September 1904, in Mehring, GS 11, p.585n81, and the quotation from Zetkin’s preface to Krille’s Aus engen Gassen, ibid., p.586n82. 182 Zetkin, “Kunst und Proletariat”, pp.110f. On Zetkin’s view of “Tendenzkunst”, see also “Ein Dichter der Revolution” (on Freiligrath) in Zetkin, Über Literatur und Kunst, pp.80f. She also, somewhat confusingly, referred to Ibsen’s dramas as “Tendenzkunst in the widest and highest sense of the word”. “Henrik Ibsen” in ibid., p.34. 183 Zetkin, “Kunst und Proletariat”, pp.104, 106. 184 Ibid., p.107. 185 Ibid., p.114. 186 See the rubric “Vom Bildungsausschuß”, “Eine Klassikerbibliothek für Arbeiter”, NZ, 26, 2, 1907-08, p.40. 187 Zetkin, “Kunst und Proletariat”, pp.102, 109, 112; “Friedrich Schiller” in Zetkin, Über Literatur und Kunst, pp.12- 32, especially p.31. 188 See Rosa Luxemburg to Franz Mehring, 7 July 1904, in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Briefe 2, p.58 and n27; Luxemburg to Luise Kautsky, end of July 1904, in ibid., 2, p.61; Luxemburg to Clara Zetkin, 7 March 1910, in ibid., 3, p.122. 189 Emig, op. cit., pp.123f (on Zetkin’s changing views on the extent to which party literature should adapt itself to the level of education of the broad mass of potential readers). 190 See Franz Mehring, “Recht so!” (NZ 23, 2, 1904/05, pp.33- 37), GS 15, pp.31-33. 191 See the contribution of Schulz to the debate on education at the 1906 Mannheim Party Congress, Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokraitschen Partei Deutschlands. Abgehalten zu Mannheim vom 23. bis 29. September 1906, Berlin, 1906, pp.323-347. Schulz’ co-referent was Clara Zetkin, who spoke on the role of the family in education, ibid., pp.347-358. On the organisations mentioned here, see below, Chapter 6. 192 Heinrich Schulz, “Arbeiterbildung”, NZ, 24, 2, 1905/06, pp.180-186, 262-269, quotation p.182.

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Ibid., p.262. Ibid., p.184. 195 Vernon L. Lidtke, The Alternative Culture. Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany, New York/ Oxford, 1985, pp.168, 262n16. 196 On Schulz’ development, see Frank Neumann, Heinrich Schulz und die Sozialdemokratische Bildungspolitik im Wilhelminischen Deutschland, 1893-1906 (Diss., Marburg), 1979. Neumann characterizes Schulz’ development after 1906 as tending toward “Kulturopportunismus”, defined as “subordination of political theory and practice under the primacy of practical cultural activity” (ibid., p.513), the opposite of Schulz’ theoretical position while still aligned with the radical left. 197 See, for example, Otto Rühle’s anonymously published pamphlet, Volksbildung, Wissenschaft, Kunst und Sozialdemokratie (Sozialdemokratische Flugschriften II), Berlin, 1907, which gives a brief historical materialist overview of the topic, concluding with the assertion that “socialism is culture”. 193 194

Chapter Four Eduard Bernstein, “Probleme des Sozialismus”, NZ, 15, 1, 1896/97, pp.164-171, 204-213, 303-311, 772-783; NZ, 15, 2, 1896/ 97, pp.100-107, 138-143; NZ, 16, 2, 1897/98, pp.225-232, 388-395; idem, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie, (ed. Günther Hillmann), Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1969 (first published 1899). On Bernstein and revisionism, see Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism, New York, 1970 (first published 1952); Pierre Angel, Eduard Bernstein et l’Evolution du Socialisme Allemand, Paris, 1961; Thomas Meyer, Bernsteins konstruktiver Sozialismus. Eduard Bernsteins Beitrag zur Theorie des Sozialismus, Berlin/Bonn-Bad Godesberg, 1977; Roger Fletcher, “The Life and Work of Eduard Bernstein”, in idem, ed., Bernstein to Brandt. A Short History of German Social Democracy, London, 1987, pp.45-53. 2 See for example the spectrum of usage in Leopold Labedz, ed., Revisionism. Essays on the history of Marxist ideas, London, 1962; also Helga Grebing, Der Revisionismus. Von Bernstein bis zum ‘Prager Frühling’, Munich, 1977. 3 Quotation from Gerhard A. Ritter, Die Arbeiterbewegung im wilhelminischen Reich, Berlin, 1963, p.87; see also ibid., pp.86-93; Reinhard Jansen, Georg von Vollmar. Eine politische Biographie, Düsseldorf, 1958, pp.39-41; and the text of a speech by Vollmar from 6 July 1891, defending his position, in Peter Friedemann, ed., Materialien zum politischen Richtungsstreit in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie 1890-1917, Frankfurt/ M./Berlin/Vienna, 1978, pp.81-94. 4 Debates in Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands. Abgehalten zu Erfurt vom 14. bis 20. Oktober 1891, Berlin, 1891, pp.170-177, 179-224, 235-244, 254-287. 5 On the local and regional roots of reformism in practice, see Ritter, op. cit., p.41; Adelheid von Saldern, Auf dem Wege zum Arbeiter-Reformismus. Parteialltag in sozialdemokratischer Provinz (Göttingen 1870-1920), Frankfurt/ M., 1984, and the same author’s “Parteizentren und Parteiprovinzen. Zentralisierungsund Hierarchisierungstendenzen innerhalb der Wilhelminischen SPD”, IWK, 28, 1992, pp.1-21; and Karl Heinrich Pohl, “Die 1

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Sozialdemokratie in München. Zur Vorstellungswelt und sozialen Struktur der sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterbewegung in der bayerischen Landeshauptstadt (1890-1914)”, IWK, 28, 1992, pp.293-319. 6 Hans-Josef Steinberg, Sozialismus und deutsche Sozialdemokratie, Berlin/ Bonn, 1979, pp.111-125. 7 Ibid., p.120. 8 Ibid., p.124. 9 Richard Evans, Proletarians and Politics, New York, 1990, pp.136-151; idem, ed., Kneipengespräche im Kaiserreich, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989, esp. pp.266282. A recent comparative study of Social Democracy in Braunschweig and Anhalt suggests that toleration of conflicts within the party may have differed from region to region, with Braunschweig apparently displaying a more robust “Streitkultur” than Anhalt. Torsten Kupfer and Bernd Rother, “Der Weg zur Spaltung. Die Ursachen der Richtungskämpfe in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie 1890-1920 am Beispiel der Länder Anhalt und Braunschweig”, IWK, 29, 1993, pp.161f. 10 Bernstein, Voraussetzungen, p.204n. 11 Ibid., pp.170ff, 196. 12 Circulation figures and financial details for the Sozialistische Monatshefte are harder to find than for other socialist publications because the journal was published privately by Josef Bloch, and was thus not subject to the control of the Party organisation. Even Roger Fletcher’s Revisionism and Empire. Socialist Imperialism in Germany 1897-1914, London, 1984, which strongly emphasizes the role of Bloch’s journal, does not provide circulation figures. William L. Guttsman gives circulation figures for the Sozialistische Monatshefte of 2,100 in 1913 in his The German Social Democratic Party, 1875-1933, London, 1981, p.172. This figure seems somewhat conservative. Dieter Fricke cites police estimates of 2,900 subscribers for 1901 and 2,100 for 1902 while noting that a police report of 1903 gave a circulation figure of 3,500, while the publishers claimed 4,000 as the circulation figure for 1901. Dieter Fricke, Die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung 1869 bis 1914. Ein Handbuch über ihre Organisation und Tätigkeit im Klassenkampf, Berlin, 1976, pp.463, 830n238. 13 Fletcher, Revisionism, pp.73ff, 79. 14 For a detailed exposition of the theoretical dimension of Bernstein’s revisionism, see especially Meyer, op. cit., and cf. Lucio Colletti, “Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second International”, in idem, From Rousseau to Lenin, New York/ London, 1974, pp.45-108. 15 Bernstein, Voraussetzungen, pp.47-54. Bernstein quotes Friedrich Albert Lange’s sceptical assessment of Hegel in support of his argument, ibid., p.49. For the influence of this advocate of social reform (who had died in 1875), who argued for the independent force of ideal factors in history and for the importance of an ethical basis for social reform (conceived of as a gradual process), on Bernstein, see Angel, op. cit., pp.53, 75, 193, 197, 203; Meyer, op. cit., pp.114-122, 135f. Bernstein had written a three-part appreciation of Lange in Die Neue Zeit (10, 2, 1891/92, pp.68-78, 101-109, 132-141) in 1892.

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16 See for example Max Adler, Marxistische Probleme, Stuttgart, 1919 (first published 1913); Gerald Mozetič, Die Gesellschaftstheorie des Austromarxismus, Darmstadt, 1987, esp. pp.75-85. 17 Ritter, op. cit., p.198. Bernstein himself wrote to Kautsky: “I have used Hegel as a lightning conductor, so to speak [...], but I could also have achieved what I desired entirely without Hegel”. Bernstein to Kautsky, 16 February 1899, quoted in Meyer, op. cit., p.158n159. “Hegel” here is therefore little more than a cipher for the aspects of Marxism rejected by Bernstein. 18 Bernstein, Voraussetzungen, p.63. 19 See for example, ibid., pp.32, 73; also Bernstein, “Das realistische und das ideologische Moment im Sozialismus” [in the second “Probleme des Sozialismus” series of articles], NZ, 16, 2, 1897-98, pp.225-232. 20 Bernstein, Voraussetzungen, p.217. 21 Ibid., pp.199, 217. 22 Ibid., p.218. Emphasis in original. 23 Tim Keck correctly states that Bernstein’s relationship to neo-Kantian socialist ethics was not clear cut, and that: “Even in his ‘Kant against cant’ chapter..., the Königsberg philosopher was used as a general admonition to clear thinking and the affirmation of the need for the party to engage in relentless self-criticism”. Tim Keck, “Practical Reason in Wilhelmian Germany: Marburg Neo-Kantian Thought in Popular Culture”, in Seymour Drescher, et al., eds., Political Symbolism in Modern Europe, New Brunswick/ London, 1982, pp.63-80, here pp.68f. Manfred B. Steger overstates the extent of Bernstein’s reception of Kant in his The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism. Eduard Bernstein and social democracy, Cambridge, 1997, pp.151-152, where he mistakes a brief notice by Bernstein of a new edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft for a full-length “learned book review”. 24 On the rise of neo-Kantianism in nineteenth-century Germany, in which F.A. Lange was a significant early figure, see Herbert Schnädelbach, Philosophy in Germany 1831-1933 (tr. Eric Matthews), Cambridge, 1984, especially pp.105ff, and Klaus Christian Köhnke, Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus, Frankfurt/ M., 1986. For the debate on neo-Kantian and ethical socialism within the SPD, see also Hans Jörg Sandkühler and Rafael de la Vega, eds., Marxismus und Ethik, Frankfurt/ M., 1974, Karl Vorländer, Kant und der Sozialismus, Berlin, 1900, and Tim Keck, op. cit.. 25 For example, Rosa Luxemburg, “Die englische Brille” (originally in Leipziger Volkszeitung, no.105, 9 May 1899, no.106, 10 May 1899), in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol.1/1, Berlin, 1987, pp.471-482, and also Bebel, cited in Ritter, op. cit., p.202. 26 Bernstein, Voraussetzungen, pp.38f. 27 Ibid., p.204. On Bernstein’s concept of “science”, see Meyer, op. cit., pp.241ff. 28 Bernstein, Voraussetzungen, p.203. 29 Ibid., p.73. 30 For example, Franz Mehring, “Ein Vierteljahrhundert” (originally NZ, 26, 1, 1907/08. pp.4-7), in Mehring, GS 4, pp.409-412, esp. 411f.

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31 Bernstein himself was later to complain that the word “Kultur” was often used in the labour movement, but that he had yet to encounter “the attempt at an exact definition of the concept”. Bernstein’s preface to David Koigen’s Die Kulturanschauung des Sozialismus. Ein Beitrag zum Wirklichkeits- Idealismus, Berlin, 1903, cited in Brigitte Emig, Die Veredelung des Arbeiters. Sozialdemokratie als Kulturbewegung, Frankfurt/ M./ New York, 1980, p.33. 32 Bernstein, Voraussetzungen, p.157. 33 Ibid., p.217. 34 Ibid., p.175. 35 Ibid., p.180; likewise, Bernstein, “Der Socialismus und die Colonialfrage”, Sozialistische Monatshefte (=SM), Vol.4 (New Series), 1900, p.557. For other statements along these lines by Bernstein, see Emig, op. cit., pp.214, 217-222. 36 Eduard Bernstein, Wie ist wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus möglich?, Berlin, 1901. See the discussion in Meyer, op. cit., pp.259ff. Note however Meyer’s caution (p.242) that Bernstein’s concept of science was “not to be regarded as in every respect consistent or adequate”. 37 Keck, op. cit., p.69; cf. also Vorländer, Kant und der Sozialismus, pp.51-53. 38 Bernstein, “Das realistische und das ideologische Moment...”, p.231n1. 39 Eduard Bernstein, “Idealismus, Kampftheorie und Wissenschaft”, SM, 5 (N.S.), 1901, pp.597-608, esp.602f. 40 Eduard Bernstein, “Zwei politische Programm-Symphonien” I, NZ, 15, 2, 1896-97, p.338. See also Bernstein’s article “Der Kernpunct des Streites”, SM, 5 (N.S.), 1901, pp.777-785, which contains a further response to Bernstein’s critics regarding the possibility of “scientific socialism”, and where Bernstein reiterates that science stands “above parties” (p.785). 41 Meyer, op. cit., p.34. Meyer in fact credits Bernstein with having anticipated Max Weber’s 1904 essay on objectivity in the social sciences by several years. Ibid., pp.242n3, 256n59, 257. 42 Eduard Bernstein, “Parteischule und Wissenschaft”, SM, 12 (N.S.), pp.1263-1270. 43 Ibid., p.1270. On the lex Arons, the 1898 law used to prevent a Jewish SPD member, Leo Arons, from teaching physics at Berlin University, see Alex Hall, Scandal, Sensation and Social Democracy, Cambridge, 1977, pp.43f. Robert Michels was also barred from a Professorship for political reasons, despite the support of Max Weber. Wolfgang J. Mommsen, “Robert Michels and Max Weber: Moral Conviction versus the Politics of Responsibility”, in idem and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds., Max Weber and his Contemporaries, London, 1989, pp.121-123. 44 Eduard Bernstein, Von der Sekte zur Partei, Jena, 1911, excerpt in appendix to Meyer, op. cit., p.397. On the weakening of class ties in politics, see also Bernstein, “Parteien und Classen”, SM, 6 (N.S.), 1902, pp.850-858. 45 This is not to deny or discount the role of doctors (such as Ignaz Zadek or Hermann Weyl) or lawyers (including both the revisionist Wolfgang Heine and the radical Karl Liebknecht) in the SPD. However, it would be fair to say that these politically prominent individuals were relative outsiders in their professions.

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46 Eduard Bernstein, “Arbeiterbewegung und Kultur”, Dokumente des Fortschritts, Vol.1, 6, May 1908, pp.523-530, here p.526. Cf. idem, “Vom deutschen Arbeiter einst und jetzt”, SM, 6 (N.S.), 1902, pp.178f, making the same use of Lassalle’s words. 47 Bernstein, “Arbeiterbewegung und Kultur”, p.524. 48 Ibid., pp.526f. Emphases in original. Note the contrast between Bildung, used to refer to apolitical general knowledge, and Erziehung and Schulung, denoting the acquisition of narrower political knowledge and experience. 49 Ibid., p.528. 50 Ibid., p.529. 51 Bernstein, “Vom deutschen Arbeiter einst und jetzt”, pp.174-185, quotation p.180. The article was written in response to an attack by the exsocialist intellectual Paul Ernst on the SPD and the working class in general published in Die Zukunft. After returning from exile, Bernstein was a frequent participant in party meetings, not only taking part in debates as a party theorist but also reporting to constituents as a member of the Reichstag from March 1902, and he therefore had much contact with rank-and-file party members. Bernstein also, in Voraussetzungen and elsewhere, was critical of intellectuals’ tendency to idealize workers, which lends his comments here more credibility. 52 Eduard Bernstein, “Kulturverelendungstheorie”, SM, 14 (N.S.), 1910, pp.105-111, here pp.105, 106. 53 Ibid., pp.109-111. 54 Eduard Bernstein, “Der Klassenkampf und der Fortschritt der Kultur”, SM, 15 (N.S.), 1911, pp.1164-1169, here p.1164. 55 Eduard Bernstein, “Wird die Sozialdemokratie Volkspartei?”, SM, 9 (N.S.), 1905, pp.663-671, in which Bernstein discusses the implications of research showing a significant non-proletarian proportion of SPD members; idem, “Klasse und Klassenkampf”, SM, 9 (N.S.), 1905, pp.857-864, in which Bernstein argued that in view of the increasing complexity of modern society the classic view of increasingly polarized class conflict expressed in the Communist Manifesto needed to be revised, and similarly idem, “Vom Klassenkampf”, SM, 10 (N.S.), 1906, pp.548-557. 56 Bernstein, “Klassenkampf und Fortschritt der Kultur”, p.1164. 57 Ibid., p.1165. 58 Ibid., p.1166. 59 Ibid., p.1169. 60 Ibid., p.1168. 61 Bernstein, Die Arbeiterbewegung, Frankfurt, 1910, p.135, cited in Meyer, op. cit., p.293. 62 Meyer, op. cit., pp.293f. 63 Ibid., pp.290, 325, and on Bernstein’s Marxism (albeit a Marxism without dialectics or philosophical materialism), pp.373-384; cf. Angel, op. cit.. For Bernstein’s own distinction between his revisionist socialism and “social liberalism”, see Bernstein, “Zum Thema Socialliberalismus und Collectivismus”, SM, 4 (N.S.), 1900, pp.173-185. Manfred B. Steger, op. cit., puts more emphasis on the “liberal-socialist synthesis” in Bernstein’s thought,

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seeing Bernstein as having broken with Marxism but as reluctant to draw all the consequences from this. 64 See Meyer, op. cit., pp.327f. 65 Bernstein, “Bemerkungen über Engels’ Ursprung der Familie. Vorrede zur italienischen Ausgabe des Buches”, SM, 4 (N.S.), 1900, pp.447-457, here p.454. 66 Brigitte Emig has drawn attention to Kampffmeyer’s significance as a proponent of “Kultursozialismus”, while noting the absence of studies on him, Emig, op. cit., pp.59-61, 309n51. Stanley Pierson, Marxist Intellectuals and the Working-Class Mentality in Germany, 1887-1912, Cambridge, Mass., 1993, includes discussion of Kampffmeyer, esp. pp.41-46, 124-127. 67 Herbert Scherer, Bürgerlich-oppositionell Literaten und sozialdemokratische Arbeiterbewegung nach 1890, Stuttgart, 1974, p.27; Dirk H. Müller, Idealismus und revolution. Zur Opposition der Jungen gegen den Sozialdemokratischen Parteivorstand 1890 bis 1894, Berlin, 1975, p.47n18. The Kampffmeyers were of a bourgeois family background, living off interest from an inheritance. Ibid., p.132. 68 Hans Müller, Der Klassenkampf in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, Zurich, 1892 (reprinted with intro. by Artur Staffelberg, Heidelberg/ Frankfurt/ M./ Hannover/ Berlin, 1969), p.77; Dirk H. Müller, op. cit., p.47. 69 Hans Müller, op. cit., pp.86f; Dirk H. Müller, op. cit., pp.58f. 70 Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands. Abgehalten zu Erfurt vom 14. bis 20. Oktober 1891, Berlin, 1891, pp.19-23. Kampffmeyer did not actually take part in the congress, unlike Lux and Auerbach, who were both delegates from Magdeburg. During the congress, Lux distanced himself from the opposition, while pleading that the controversy be considered objectively (ibid., pp.140ff), whereas Auerbach openly declared his solidarity with the Berlin Jungen and resigned from the party (ibid., pp.252ff, 318). See also Dirk H. Müller, op. cit., pp.95-109. 71 The other members were Auerbach, Richard Baginski, Paul Ernst (who soon left the committee), Ernst Schwabe, Wilhelm Werner and Bruno Wille. Dirk H. Müller, op. cit., pp.128, 130. 72 Ibid., p.130; cf. Hans Müller, op. cit., pp.117f. 73 Dirk H. Müller, op. cit., pp.81, 136. The Verein Unabhängiger Sozialisten, chronically plagued by splits between “independents” and anarchists, and successfully marginalized by the SPD, was short-lived, being formally dissolved in April 1894. Ibid., pp.167f. 74 Die Neue Freie Volksbühne. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und Entwicklung, herausgegeben vom Vorstande, Berlin, 1905, pp.24f. 75 See Scherer, op. cit., p.60. The “radicalism” of the “literati and students” among the Jungen is convincingly called into question by Scherer and Dirk H.Müller, op. cit., pp.169-177. 76 Paul Kampffmeyer, “Wandlungen in der sozialistischen Theorie”, Der Sozialistische Akademiker, 2, 1, January 1896, pp.11-18. Cf. the excerpt from Kampffmeyer’s Die Bedeutung der Gewerkschaften für die Taktik des Proletariats. Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Gewerkschaften (Berlin, 1892), in Friedemann, op. cit., Vol.1, pp.165-168, in which Kampffmeyer seems close to the more or less syndicalist position from which he distances himself in the later article;

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Dirk H. Müller, op. cit., pp.156f, 161; Pierson, op. cit., pp.44f. During the 1905 debates on the mass strike, Bebel drew attention to the changes in Kampffmeyer’s views on the subject, from his early radical syndicalist position to a later, more cautious, view. Protokoll... Jena 1905, p.339, cf. Kampffmeyer’s response, ibid., p.367. 77 Kampffmeyer, “Die Irrtümer Ferdinand Lassalle’s”, Der Sozialistische Akademiker, 2, 4, April 1896, pp.201-206 and 2, 5, May 1896, pp.282-291. 78 Ibid., pp.289-291. 79 P. Kampffmeyer, “Ein Wort über den Zusammenhang von Theorie und Praxis in der sozialen Frage”, SM, 1 (N.S.), 1897, pp.3-9, quotation p.6. This article appeared a couple of months after the first of Bernstein’s “Probleme des Sozialismus” series. It was criticized within the SM by Emil Lang, “Über den Zusammenhang von Theorie und Praxis in der sozialen Frage”, in ibid., pp.153-156. 80 In July 1899, Rosa Luxemburg mentioned Kampffmeyer in her list of Bernstein’s supporters, along with Vollmar and Conrad Schmidt. Rosa Luxemburg, “Hohle Nüsse” (originally Leipziger Volkszeitung, no.167, 22 July 1899), in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol.1/1, Berlin, 1987, pp.487-492, here p.488. Also in the Leipziger Volkszeitung (no.225 and 226, 28 and 29 September 1898), Franz Mehring had attacked Kampffmeyer’s pamphlet Mehr Macht! in a two-part article entitled “Kleinbürgerliche Reformlerei” (in Mehring, Gesammelte Schriften (=GS), Vol.14, Berlin, 1978, pp.244-250). Mehring specifically criticized, inter alia, Kampffmeyer’s vague concept of the “social power of the working class”: “He places great value on the social esteem which the modern worker supposedly enjoys on the stage, which frankly is something quite unknown to us”. p.248. Kampffmeyer’s reference to the Freie Volksbühne in support of his argument was considered by Mehring to have the opposite effect. Ibid., p.249. 81 P. Kampffmeyer, “Bernstein, der ‘Kleinbürger’”, SM, 3 (N.S.), 1899, pp.147-152. 82 P. Kampffmeyer, “Polemisches zur Theorie u. Praxis der sozialen Frage”, SM, 2, 1898, pp.147-153, here p.151. In the later article, however, Kampffmeyer cites the Jungen as an example of extremism and theoretical one-sidedness. Kampffmeyer, “Bernstein, der ‘Kleinbürger’”, p.151. 83 Pierson (op. cit., pp.41-46), sees Kampffmeyer as a more consistent Marxist than is suggested here. While Kampffmeyer had, as noted by Pierson (p.42), studied some of Marx’s early works under the guidance of Kautsky, the idealist and individualistic emphases of his writings in the early 1890s outweigh any specifically Marxian ideas. 84 See P. Kampffmeyer, “Polemisches zur Theorie u. Praxis der sozialen Frage”; idem, “Zur Kritik der Marxschen Entwickelungslehre”, SM, 2 (N.S.), 1898 , pp.344-352; idem, “Bernstein, der ‘Kleinbürger’”, esp. pp.151-152; idem, “Ueber das ökonomische Widerspruchsgesetz”, SM,3 (N.S.), 1899, pp.309318, in which Kampffmeyer discusses Marx’s concept of contradictions within capitalism as a subjective and arbitrary product of Marx’ and Engels’ personal impressions of English industry and the peculiarities of their Hegelian philosophical leanings; idem, “Schrittweise Sozialisirung oder

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gewaltsame Sprengung der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsordnung?”, in ibid., pp.463-478; idem, comments on 1899 Hannover Party Congress, in ibid., pp.610- 611. 85 P. Kampffmeyer, “Historisches und Theoretisches zur socialdemokratischen Revisionsbewegung”, SM, 6 (N.S.), 1902, pp.345-354. In this article Kampffmeyer claims Vollmar and — “from the left” — the Jungen equally as precursors of revisionism, ibid., pp.345-347. Cf. Karl Kautsky, “Der Rückzug der Zehntausend”, NZ 20, 1, 1901/02, pp.772ff. 86 Ibid., pp.345f, 348. 87 Ibid., pp.348, 349. 88 Ibid., p.350. 89 Ibid., p.354. Cf. Franz Mehring’s response to this article, in which Mehring suggests that Kampffmeyer was attacking “orthodox Marxism” (a label which Mehring rejected) rather than undertaking close critical reading of Marx’s own works, with the result that Kampffmeyer constructs an opposition between “the Marxists” and “revisionists”, in a manner which lends encouragement to bourgeois opponents of social democracy. Mehring also rejected Kampffmeyer’s conclusions. Mehring, “Der Tanz auf Rhodus” (originally NZ, 20, 2, 1901/02, pp.161-166), in idem, GS, Vol.14, pp.469-475, esp. 470. 90 P. Kampffmeyer, Changes in the Theory and Tactics of the (German) SocialDemocracy (tr. W.R. Gaylord), Chicago, 1908, pp.19-23. 91 MEW 7, p.623n332, cf. full text of Engels’ “Introduction” to The Class Struggles in France, ibid., pp.511-527; see Angel, op. cit., pp.249-251 on Bernstein’s use of Engels’ introduction. Peter Gay notes that “Bernstein was fond of citing Engels’ Preface to The Class Struggles in France”, Gay, op. cit., p.224, but fails to add that the text thus used was corrupt. 92 Kampffmeyer, Changes, pp.68ff, 82ff, 87, 115f. 93 Joseph Bloch, review of Kampffmeyer’s Wandlungen in der Theorie und Taktik der Socialdemokratie, SM, 8 (N.S.), 1904, pp.585-586. 94 Franz Mehring, “Sozialdemokratische Wandlungen”, NZ, 22, 2, 1903/04, pp.289-292, quotation p.292. Mehring’s account of Kampffmeyer’s errors of fact or interpretation does not include Engels’ “Introduction” to The Class Struggles in France, which was only published in full years later, in the Soviet Union. 95 P. Kampffmeyer, Die Sozialdemokratie im Lichte der Kulturentwicklung (5th ed.), Berlin, 1920. 96 P. Kampffmeyer, Geschichte der Gesellschaftsklassen in Deutschland, Berlin, 1910, p.5. Interestingly, Rosa Luxemburg, a severe public critic of Kampffmeyer, privately praised the work for its learning and historical content: “quite an interesting book; the fellow has read a lot and knows something”. Luxemburg to Kostja Zetkin, 24 November 1910, in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Briefe, Vol.3, Berlin, 1982, p.263. 97 Kampffmeyer, Gesellschaftsklassen, p.7. 98 Ibid., pp.216-218. 99 Ibid., p.210.

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100 Kampffmeyer, “Ein Wort über den Zusammenhang von Theorie und Praxis...”, pp.6-8. 101 Ibid., p.9. 102 P. Kampffmeyer, “Ueber den Einfluss der sozialen Macht des Proletariats auf die staatlichen Institutionen”, SM, 2 (N.S.), 1898, pp.217-223, quotation p.223. Cf. idem, “Ueber die Grenzen der politischen Macht”, in ibid., pp.257-261, in which Kampffmeyer expands on the notion of “social power”, and its importance vis-à-vis political power, with the suggestion that Social Democracy overstated the importance of political power for the working class. 103 K. Kautsky, “Literarische Rundschau” (review of Kampffmeyer), Vorwärts, no.104, 5 May 1901, 4. Beilage. 104 Ibid.. From the parts of Kampffmeyer’s pamphlet cited by Kautsky, the reader is presented with the image of a state with a “proletarian backbone”, but a “capitalist stomach”(!), which was expanding with the growth of world markets. Cf. Kampffmeyer’s response, “Eine berichtigende Antwort auf die Angriffe Kautskys gegen den ‘freien kritischen Sozialismus’”, Vorwärts, no.121, 26 May 1905, 1. Beilage; Kautsky, “Mißverständnisse über Mißverständnisse”, Vorwärts, no.122, 29 May 1905, 1. Beilage. Kampffmeyer returned to the debate in his article “K. Kautsky und der ‘freie, kritische Sozialismus’”, SM, 5 (N.S.), 1901, pp.494-505. 105 Kampffmeyer, “K. Kautsky und der ‘freie, kritische Sozialismus’”, pp.494f. 106 Kampffmeyer, Sozialdemokratie im Lichte der Kulturentwicklung, p.126. 107 P. Kampffmeyer, “Die Arbeiterklasse und der preussische Landtag”, SM, 2 (N.S.), 1898, p.1. 108 Ibid.,p.5. 109 P. Kampffmeyer, “Der Classenkampf und der Culturfortschritt”, SM, 7 (N.S.), 1903, p.671, emphasis in original. Cf. also idem, “Vom Classenbewusstsein und vom Classenkampf”, in ibid., pp.825-831, esp. p.829. 110 Kampffmeyer, “Classenkampf und Culturfortschritt”, p.668; idem, “Lassalle- Ein Zeitgenosse. Zum 40. Todestag des großen Agitators”, SM 8 (N.S.), 1904, pp.735-738. 111 Gustav Eckstein, “Literarische Rundschau”, including a review of Kampffmeyer’s pamphlet Weltanschauung und Sozialdemokratie, NZ 30, 1, 1911/12, pp.429-430. Eckstein remarked (p.429) that Kampffmeyer apparently expected this sort of socialism to be well received in South Germany. Kampffmeyer had been editor of the Münchener Post since 1905, and published this pamphlet in a series called “Süddeutsche Volksbücher”. Cf. Kampffmeyer’s response, “Notizen”, in ibid., pp.541-542; Eckstein, “Entgegnung”, in ibid., pp.572-573. 112 P. Kampffmeyer, Fritz Ebert. Ein Lebensbild, Berlin, 1923, references respectively pp.11, 12, 14, 26, 30, 35, 38. 113 See Catherine Kramer, Käthe Kollwitz mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1985, pp.20-26; Pierson, op. cit., pp.4652, gives a useful account of Schmidt’s background and early career.

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114 On the significance of Engels’ correspondence with the German socialists of the next generation, see Gustav Mayer, Friedrich Engels. Eine Biographie, Vol.2, Frankfurt/ M./ Berlin/ Vienna, 1975, pp.448ff. 115 Engels to Laura Lafargue, 15 July 1887, MEW 36, p.682 116 MEW 36, p.843n840, n844. 117 Engels to Schmidt, 12 March 1889, MEW 37, pp.164-165. 118 Engels to Kautsky, 20 April 1889, MEW 37, p.187. Engels asked Kautsky to give Schmidt an opinion on the latter’s work, as Engels did not wish to touch on the third volume of Kapital before its publication. On Schmidt’s work as a journalist, Engels added, “for a journalist he is incomparably ponderous, but after all that isn’t any great disadvantage in Germany”. Ibid., p.188. 119 Engels to Schmidt, 17 October 1889, MEW 37, pp.290-291. To Bebel, Engels wrote that he would have to hurry up with the publication of Volume 3 of Kapital, “because the work by little Schmidt in Berlin on the average profit rate shows that the boy has already figured out more of it than is good — which redounds to his highest honour”. Engels to Bebel, 15 November 1889, ibid., p.302. Engels went on to describe Schmidt as a promising exception to “the relative weakness of the younger generation”. Ibid., p.304. 120 Berliner Volksblatt, no.184, 10 August 1890; Dirk H. Müller, op. cit., p.125, Pierson, op. cit., p.49. 121 Schmidt was number 8 on the first Freie Volksbühne membership list submitted to the police, and a speaker at the early meetings of the association, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv [=BLHA], Potsdam, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1094, Bl.23-24 (membership list), Bl.66-69, 70 (reports of a lecture by Schmidt at a meeting on 3 October 1890); see also Scherer, op. cit., p.84; S. Nestriepke, Geschichte der Volksbühne Berlin, I. Teil 1890 bis 1914, Berlin, 1930, pp.13f, 17, 20. 122 Engels to Schmidt, 27 October 1890, MEW 37, pp.494f; Engels to Kautsky, 18 Sept. 1890, in ibid., p.454. 123 Pierson, op. cit., pp.49-52 124 Eduard Bernstein, Geschichte der Berliner Arbeiterbewegung, Vol.III, Berlin, 1910 (Reprint Glashütten/ Ts., 1972), pp.402, 403. 125 Protokoll... Gotha 1896, p.101). This estimation of Schmidt was shared by Josef Bloch, who considered him the foremost theoretician of his day. Fletcher, op. cit., p.51. 126 Protokoll... Stuttgart 1898, pp.99f, 105-107, 117f. 127 Angel, op. cit., pp.192f; cf. Bernstein, “Das realistische und das ideologische Moment...”, p.226n, where he refers to Schmidt; Vorländer, Kant und der Sozialismus, pp.44-47. 128 C.S. [=Conrad Schmidt], “Literarische Rundschau” (Review of Kronenberg’s Kant, sein Leben und seine Lehre), Vorwärts, no. 243, 17 October 1897, 3. Beilage. 129 Vorländer, Kant und der Sozialismus, pp.45f. 130 C. Schmidt, “Socialismus und Ethik”, SM, 4 (N.S.), 1900, pp.522-531; cf. idem, “Egoismus und Sozialismus”, Der sozialistische Akademiker, 2, 1896, pp.3-9, which is a defence of the materialist view of history on the grounds

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that it allows for material interests, rather than being based on utopian ideals of altruism. 131 L. Woltmann, “Die Begründung der Moral”, SM, 4 (N.S.), 1900, pp.718-724; cf. Schmidt’s response, “Nochmals die Moral”, in ibid., pp.795798. 132 G. Plekhanov, “Konrad Schmidt gegen Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels”, NZ 17, 1, 1898/99, pp.133-145; and idem, “Materialismus oder Kantianismus?” in ibid., pp.589-596 and 626-632. Plekhanov’s articles are also published in idem, Selected Philosophical Works, Vol.II, Moscow, 1976, pp.379414, along with a third anti-Schmidt article (“Materialism Yet Again”, pp.415420) which neither Die Neue Zeit nor Vorwärts was willing to publish, either because of the article’s sarcastic tone, or because the polemic was thought to have gone on long enough. For Schmidt’s response to Plekhanov, C. Schmidt, “Einige Bemerkungen über Plekhanows Artikel”, NZ 17, 1, 1898/99, pp.324334, and idem, “Was ist Materialismus?”, in ibid., pp.697-698. Franz Mehring weighed into the debate, endorsing Plekhanov’s attack on Schmidt. Mehring, “Ästhetische Streifzüge” (originally in the same volume of NZ as above), Gesammelte Schriften, Vol.11, Berlin, 1980, p.139n. Cf. also the commentary by Chajm Schitlowsky, “Die Polemik Plechanow contra Stern und Conrad Schmidt”, SM, 3 (N.S.), 277-283 and 322-330; Samuel H. Baron, Plekhanov. The Father of Russian Marxism, Stanford, 1966, pp.178-180. 133 Engels to Conrad Schmidt, 12 March 1895, and 6 April 1895, MEW 39, pp.430-434, 461. 134 C. Schmidt, “Grenznutzpsychologie und Marx’sche Wertlehre”, SM, 1 (N.S.), 1897, pp.18-22. 135 C. Schmidt, “Endziel und Bewegung” (Literarische Rundschau), Vorwärts, no.43, 20 February 1898, 2. Beilage. This article was the occasion for Luxemburg to single out Schmidt for criticism along with Bernstein, both at the 1898 Stuttgart Party congress (as noted above) and in her Sozialreform oder Revolution?, in Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol.1/1, Berlin, 1987, pp.388394, 398f, 402. 136 C. Schmidt, “Nachträgliche Bemerkungen zur Bernstein- Diskussion”, SM, 3 (N.S.), 1899, pp.493-499, quotation p.496. 137 Ibid., p.494. Schmidt’s comments after the debates at the Hannover Party congress underline his attempt to maintain a moderate, mediating position, denying that there was a conflict between “opportunists and radicals” in the party, and stressing the importance of open debate on the basis of shared principles within the party. C. Schmidt, comments in “Die Ergebnisse des Hannoverschen Parteitags. Eine Umfrage”, SM, 3 (N.S.), 1899, p.620. 138 See F. Mehring, “Freies Kunstheim?” (originally in NZ, 24, 2, 1905/06, pp.513-516), idem, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol.12, Berlin, 1984, pp.335-339; C. Schmidt, “Freies Kunstheim” (Notiz), NZ, 24, 2, 1905/06, p.584. 139 C. Schmidt, “Zola über die Rolle des Geldes in der Literatur”, SM, 9 (N.S.), 1905, pp.66-72. 140 For a more detailed examination of Schmidt’s views on literature and workers’ relationship to literature, see below, Chapter 7.

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Angel, op. cit., p.236. See Brigitte Emig, op. cit., pp.304n6, 306n24. As Emig points out, Koigen’s book had relatively little resonance, although Eduard Bernstein did contribute an approving preface to the publication. 143 Pierson, op. cit., pp.108, 110. 144 Fletcher, Revisionism, pp.49, 50. 145 Pierson, op. cit., p.77. 146 Simon Katzenstein, “Arbeiterschaft und Bildungswesen”, SM, 7 (N.S.), 1903, pp.510-518, quotation p.518. 147 See Freya Eisner, Kurt Eisner: Die Politik des libertären Sozialismus, Frankfurt/ M., 1979; Bernhard Grau, Kurt Eisner 1867-1919. Eine Biographie, Munich, 2001. 148 Karl Frohme, Arbeit und Kultur, Hamburg, 1905, p.89. Frohme’s pretensions to great learning, evident in this (barely readable) work, appear to have been a standing joke in the party. See Pfannkuch’s remark (and the audience response) in Protokoll... Nürnberg 1908, p.241. 149 See Fletcher, Revisionism; less critically, Pierson, op. cit., pp.205-228. 150 Eduard Bernstein, “1878 und 1903”, SM, 7 (N.S.), 1903, p.746. Emphases in original. 151 Friedrich Hertz, “Revidieren wir!”, in ibid., p.823. 141 142

Chapter Five Gerhard Masur, Imperial Berlin, New York/ London, 1970, pp.241f. 2 On the idea of a German national theatre during the period of the Aufklärung, see Roland Krebs, L’Idée de “Théâtre National” dans l’Allemagne des Lumières, Wiesbaden, 1985, who traces the ideas for a national theatre from Gottsched’s plans for a reform of the existing stage in the interests of both moral and national objectives, to the attempts of Lessing and his contemporaries to put such ideals into practice. 3 Hermann Freiherr v. Maltzan [or Maltzahn — I am following the spelling on the original pamphlet], Die Errichtung deutscher Volksbühnen eine nationale Aufgabe, Berlin, 1889, pp.5, 6. 4 Ibid., pp.12-17. 5 Ibid., p.19. 6 Ibid., p.21. Von Maltzan’s lecture provided the inspiration for an abortive attempt to establish an “Association for the Founding of Volksbühnen”, which was temporarily successful in gaining the support of a few writers, such as Fritz Mauthner, and Raphael Löwenfeld, who later founded the SchillerTheater. Siegfried Nestriepke, Geschichte der Volksbühne Berlin.I. Teil:1890-1914, Berlin, 1930, pp.6f. 7 Kurt Eisner, “Errichtung eines Volkstheaters eine soziale Ehrenpflicht Berlins”, Die Gesellschaft, V, Sept. 1889, pp.1278-1290. 8 Ibid., pp.1278-1280. 9 Ibid., p.1285. 10 Ibid., pp.1286-1288. 11 Conrad Alberti, “Volksbühnen”, National-Zeitung, Sonntags-Beilage Nr.43, 27 October 1889. 1

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12 Georg Adler, “Die Sozialreform und das Theater”, Die Gegenwart, Vol.XXXVII, No.10, 8 March 1890, pp.153-155. In a later issue of Die Gegenwart Adler claimed intellectual paternity of the Berlin Freie Volksbühne which was then in the process of being established, although he expressed reservations about its financial viability in the absence of state subsidies and about the bias towards naturalism in the proposed theatrical programme. Georg Adler, “Noch einmal ‘Die Sozialreform und das Theater’”, Die Gegenwart, Vol.XXXVIII, No.37, 13 September 1890, pp.174f. 13 Karl Kautsky, “Literarische Rundschau”, NZ, 9, 2, 1890/91, p.251f. Kautsky was reviewing Adler’s Die Sozialreform und das Theater. Auch eine “soziale Frage”, Berlin, 1891, the first part of which is a largely word-for-word repetition of Adler’s earlier article on the subject, followed by a more extensive critique of the Freie Volksbühne as seen by Adler in the first few months of its existence. 14 Emil Reich, Die bürgerliche Kunst und die besitzlosen Volksklassen, Leipzig, 1892, quoted in Heinz Selo, Die “Freie Volksbühne” in Berlin, Berlin, 1930, p.19. See also Hugo Kaatz, Die Frage der Volksbühnen, Dresden/ Leipzig, n.d. [1890]; Selo, op. cit., pp.18-22. 15 From the founding programme of the Freie Bühne, quoted in Gernot Schley, Die Freie Bühne in Berlin, Berlin, 1967, p.27. 16 On the history of the Freie Bühne, see ibid.; John Osborne, The Naturalist Drama in Germany, Manchester, 1971, esp. pp.31-35, 173; Katharina Günther, Literarische Gruppenbildung im Berliner Naturalismus, Bonn, 1972, pp.78-101; on Brahm, see also Maxim Newmark, Otto Brahm. The Man and the Critic, New York, 1938; on censorship of theatre, see Gary D.Stark, “The Censorship of Literary Naturalism, 1885-1895”, CEH, 18, 1985, pp.326-343; and Gerhard Kutzsch, “Theaterzensur in Berlin”, Der Bär von Berlin, 38/39, 1989/90, pp.205-218. For a detailed description of the premiere of Vor Sonnenaufgang, see Paul Schlenther, Wozu der Lärm? Genesis der Freien Bühne, Berlin, 1889, and Schley, op. cit., pp.45-55. 17 Quoted in Schley, op. cit., p.15. 18 Willy [Willi] Wach, “Les préoccupations de culture intellectuelle du prolétariat berlinois”, La Revue Socialiste, Tome 28, No.168, December 1898, pp.641-663. Quotation from p.644. Wach appears to have been an active supporter of the “Jungen” in the SPD, his name appearing as a participant in a meeting supporting the Berliner Volks-Tribüne (report in Vorwärts, no.8, 10 January 1891, 2nd Beilage), although it is not clear whether this support for the Jungen preceded or followed the involvement in the Freie Volksbühne. 19 Ibid., pp.644f. 20 Ibid., p.649. Cf. Selo, op. cit., p.46 (based on Wach); Nestriepke, op. cit., p.10, who also includes the young bookbinder Heinrich Wibker in the delegation to Wille. Wibker later played a leading part in the running of the Neue Freie Volksbühne, setting up the “Volksbühnen-Buchhandlung” in 1911; Nestriepke, op. cit., p.335. Wibker is also named by the Friedrichshagen writer Wilhelm Spohr as having been in the delegation, albeit in a work published several decades after the event; W. Spohr, O ihr Tage von Friedrichshagen!, Berlin, 1950, p.34.

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Berliner Volksblatt, no.70, 23 March 1890, 1st Beilage. Bruno Wille, “Die Freie Volks-Bühne”, Das Magazin für Literatur, no.42, 18 October 1890, p.654, claimed 600 provisional members within the first fortnight after the appeal, with approximately twice as many “later”. Cf. Berliner Volksblatt, no.175, 31 July 1890; Selo, op. cit., p.151, citing from a manuscript by Julius Türk, which mentioned 800 replies. 23 The Böhmisches Brauhaus was used as a venue for Social Democratic functions, being included on the list of the party’s “Lokalkommission”. Berliner Volksblatt, no.288, 10 December 1890, 2. Beilage. 24 Berliner Volksblatt, no.175, 31 July 1890; see also Selo, op. cit., p.151, citing other press reports which confirm this figure. 25 Berliner Volksblatt, no.175, 31 July 1890, reports a sharp exchange between the Social Democratic editor Curt Baake and Conrad Alberti, editor of the literary magazine Die Gesellschaft. 26 Ibid.. Wille elsewhere rejected the suggestion that the Freie Volksbühne be viewed as a Social Democratic organisation, as in Berliner Börsen-Courier [?], 11 June 1890, clipping in BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Blatt 8. 27 Berliner Volksblatt, no.175, 31 July 1890. 28 Berliner Volksblatt, no.184, 10 August 1890; report dated 9 August 1890, BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl. 16-19. The police report notes the presence of both men and women. See also the newspaper report from Germania, 10 August 1890, entitled “Die socialdemokratische Bühne”, which stated that “members of the acting profession as well as Kaufleute with their ladies were strongly represented”. Clipping in BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74 Th.1094, Bl. 21; the Vossische Zeitung, no.368, 9 August 1890, Abend-Ausgabe, also reported a large number of women present, noting that a motion was passed to cease smoking out of consideration for the ladies present, and also recorded three cheers for international Social Democracy. The police prevented a collection for Hamburg’s striking workers on this occasion. 29 Letter from Julius Türk, 11 August 1890, BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl. 22. 30 On Bruno Wille see his autobiographical writings, Aus Traum u. Kampf. Mein 60jähriges Leben, Berlin, 1920, and “Mein Werk und Leben”, in Das Bruno Wille-Buch, herausgegeben von seinen Freunden, Dresden, 1923. See also Herbert Scherer, Bürgerlich-oppositionelle Literaten und sozialdemokratische Arbeiterbewegung nach 1890, Stuttgart, 1974, esp. pp.19-23; Kurt Sollmann, “Zur Ideologie intellektuellen Opposition im beginnenden Imperialismus am Beispiel Bruno Willes”, in Gert Mattenklott and Klaus R. Scherpe, eds., Positionen der literarischen Intelligenz zwischen bürgerlicher Reaktion und Imperialismus, Kronberg/Ts., 1973, pp.179-209. 31 As noted above in Chapter 2. 32 Jochen-Christoph Kaiser, Arbeiterbewegung und organisierte Religionskritik: Proletarische Freidenkerverbände im Kaiserreich und Weimarer Republik, Stuttgart, 1981, here especially pp.86-89; Horst Groschopp, Zwischen Bierabend und Bildungsverein, Berlin, 1985, pp.67-70. 33 Wille, Aus Traum u. Kampf, p.13; see also idem, “Mein Werk und Leben”, p.16. 21 22

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34 In 1891, the Freireligiöse Gemeinde’s activities were still being promoted in Vorwärts, e.g., report in no.45, 22 February 1891, 2. Beilage, with advice on how to join the community. 35 Wille, Aus Traum u. Kampf, pp.13-17; idem, “Mein Werk und Leben”, pp.16f. 36 Wille, Aus Traum u. Kampf, p.30; idem, “Mein Werk und Leben”, p.19f, on Wille’s arrest for giving unauthorized religious instruction. See also the reports in Vorwärts, no.217, 17 September 1895; also no.219, 19 September; no.229, 1 October, Beilage; no. 266, 13 November, Beilage; no.268, 15 November; no.269, 16 November; no.270, 17 November, 1. Beilage; no.297, 20 December 1895, 1. Beilage. 37 On the Friedrichshagener Dichterkreis, see Adalbert von Hanstein, Das jüngste Deutschland, Leipzig, 1905; Albert Soergel, Dichtung und Dichter der Zeit, Leipzig, 1922 (1st ed. 1911), pp.242-244, 589-605; William Richard Cantwell, The Friedrichshagener Dichterkreis. A Study of Change and Continuity in the German Literature of the Jahrhundertwende, (Diss. University of Wisconsin), 1967; Ursula Münchow, Deutscher Naturalismus, Berlin, 1968, pp.74-86; Günther, Gruppenbildung, pp.123-129; James McFarlane, “Berlin and the Rise of Modernism, 1886-96”, in Malcolm Bradbury and J. McFarlane, eds., Modernism, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1987, pp.96-119; Scherer, op. cit.. 38 Another member of “Durch” was the actor, later Kaufmann, Julius Türk, who was also to play a major role in the early history of the Freie Volksbühne. See Soergel, op. cit., p.117 and the facsimile of a protocol of a “Durch” meeting, ibid., p.119. On “Durch” and its significance, see Soergel, op. cit., pp.116- 122; Cantwell, op. cit., pp.21ff; Günther, op. cit., pp.50-77. 39 Scherer, op. cit., pp.22-24. 40 See Wilhelm Bölsche, Die naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Poesie (ed. Johannes J. Braakenburg), München/ Tübingen, 1976 (first published 1887). Bölsche’s work asserts that “the basis of all our modern thought is formed by the natural sciences” (ibid., p.4), discusses Zola the “experimental novel” and heredity, but with the reservation that naturalism should not become the literature of the sick (ibid., pp.7-10). While insisting that the modern novel needs to keep to the scientifically and psychologically plausible, Bölsche's essay does not penetrate very far into questions of aesthetic theory, being more informative about his own interpretation of Darwinism, which revolves around the “struggle for existence” and the need to promote the propagation of the healthy. For a useful bibliography of Bölsche’s other writings (from 1885 to 1939) see ibid., pp.105-159. On Bölsche’s role in popularising Darwinism in Germany, see Alfred Kelly, The Descent of Darwin. The Popularization of Darwinism 1860-1914, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981, especially pp.123-141, where Bölsche’s influence (and that of other popularizers of Darwinism) on Social Democratic workers is dealt with. 41 The best study of the opposition of the Jungen is Dirk H. Müller, Idealismus und Revolution. Zur Opposition der Jungen gegen den Sozialdemokratischen Parteivorstand, 1890 bis 1894, Berlin, 1975. See also Hans Manfred Bock, “Die ‘Literaten- und Studenten-Revolte’ der Jungen in der SPD um 1890”, Das Argument 63, March 1971, pp.22-41; idem, Syndikalismus und Linkskommunismus

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von 1918-1923, Meisenheim am Glan, 1969, pp.5- 15. The contemporary polemical account from the point of view of the Jungen, Hans Müller, Der Klassenkampf in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, Zurich, 1892 (Reprint Heidelberg, 1969) contains useful documentation, as does Eduard Bernstein, Die Geschichte der Berliner Arbeiter-Bewegung, 3 vols., Berlin, 1907, (Reprint 1972), Vol.2, pp.309-327, Vol.3, pp.120-129; see also the debates in Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Halle 1890, Berlin, 1890, pp.43-47, 65, 69-79, 97-108, 276-295; Protokoll... Erfurt 1891, pp.53-80, 97-151, 165-172, 190-198, 201-210,221-226, 237, 240-253, 265-270, 286f. 42 D. Müller, Idealismus, p.47; cf. Friedrich Engels, Letter to the Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung, 7 September 1890, MEW 22, pp.68- 70. 43 D. Müller, Idealismus, p.47. There is some confusion in the secondary literature as to whether Wille was a member of the party or not. For example, Hyun-Back Chung, Die Kunst dem Volke oder dem Proletariat?, Frankfurt/M., Bern, New York, Paris, 1989, p.38n, claims that Wille was a party member without providing evidence. Dirk Müller states that he was not actually a member, citing the debate at the Party Congress at Halle, where Karl Grillenberger stated that “Herr Bruno Wille [...] was not at all to be regarded as a Party comrade, [he] wanted to wait first, to see if he got a job as a teacher, in which case he declared that he would not be able to join the party”. Protokoll... Halle 1890, p.55. Note also that Wille is not named among those formally resigning from or being expelled from the SPD, when other prominent members of the Jungen resigned and/or were expelled. See D. Müller, Idealismus, pp.108-109. 44 H. Müller, Klassenkampf, pp.23, 78ff; D. Müller, Idealismus, pp.50-64. 45 Berliner Volksblatt, no.184, 10 August 1890, 1. Beilage; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.20f. 46 Selo, op. cit., p.69. See also Otto Brahm to Gerhart Hauptmann, 24 August 1890, “Wille has sat in the nettles and seems to be about to be crushed by Bebel; hence slackness in the Freie Volksbühne”. Peter Sprengel, ed., Otto Brahm- Gerhart Hauptmann Briefwechsel 1889-1912, Tübingen, 1985, p.109. 47 R. Hinton Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society, 1890-1918, Manchester, 1983, p.9. 48 Statutes of the association in Berliner Volksblatt, no.184, 10 August 1890, 1. Beilage. 49 Bruno Wille, “Die Spaltung der Freien Volksbühne”, in Der Kunstwart, Vol.6, 2nd November issue, 1892, pp.49-52, here p.50. Emphasis in original. Partly reprinted in Die Neue Freie Volksbühne. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und Entwicklung, ed. by the Vorstand, Berlin, 1905, pp.19-23, suggesting that Wille still stood by these views. 50 See for example, B. Wille, “Der Mensch als Massenglied”, Freie Bühne für modernes Leben (hereafter Freie Bühne), Vol.1, 1890, pp.865-869; idem, “GemütsIndividualismus”, Freie Bühne, Vol.2, 1891, pp.305-310. Wille’s Nietzscheinfluenced individualism, with its rejection of egalitarianism, is developed at greater length in his Philosophie der Befreiung durch das reine Mittel, Berlin, 1894.

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51 Report on meeting of Freie Volksbühne, Berliner Volksblatt, no.184, 10 August 1890, 1. Beilage. 52 See the detailed list in Selo, op. cit., pp.201-202. The other Ibsen plays performed were The League of Youth, Nora (A Doll’s House) and Ghosts. The Sudermann play was Die Ehre. The other works (not already named) were A.F. Pisemskii’s Der Leibeigene (A Hard Lot), Fulda’s Das verlorene Paradies and Die Sklavin, an adaptation of Fritz Reuter’s Kein Husung by Jahnke and Schirmer, Anzengruber’s Doppelselbstmord and Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld, Hebbel’s Maria Magdalena, Gogol’s The Government Inspector, Halbe’s Eisgang, and Ludwig’s Der Erbförster. Chung (op. cit., p.197) states that fourteen Naturalist plays were produced, suggesting a very broad or loose definition of “Naturalism”. 53 Vorwärts, no.102, 3 May 1891, 1. Beilage; BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1095, Bl.37-38. 54 Vorwärts (no.185, 11 August 1891, Beilage) stressed the enjoyments provided by the Waldfest, while Die Post (11 August 1891) focussed on the presence of Social Democratic Vertrauensmänner, red flags, fund-raising activities for the Party, etc., underlining the Social Democratic character of the organisation. Clipping in BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1095, Bl.75. 55 On Naturalism and socialism, see Ursula Münchow, “Naturalismus und Proletariat”, Weimarer Beiträge, 10, ii, 1964, pp.599-617; Susanne Miller, “Critique littéraire de la Social-Démocratie Allemande à la fin du siècle dernier”, Le Mouvement Social, no.59, April-June 1967, pp.50-69; John Osborne, The Naturalist Drama in Germany, Manchester, 1971, pp.56-74; Georg Fülberth, Proletarische Partei und bürgerliche Partei, Neuwied/ Berlin, 1972, esp. pp.84-105; Manfred Brauneck, Literatur und Öffentlichkeit im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 1974, esp. pp.87-116; Vernon L. Lidtke, “Naturalism and Socialism in Germany”, American Historical Review, 79, 1974, pp.14-37; Dietger Pforte, “Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie und die Naturalisten”, in Helmut Scheuer, ed., Naturalismus. Bürgerliche Dichtung und soziales Engagement, Stuttgart/ Berlin/ Cologne/ Mainz, 1974, pp.175-205; Scherer, op. cit.; Kristina Zerges, Sozialdemokratische Presse und Literatur. Empirische Untersuchung zur Literaturvermittlung in der sozialdemokratischen Presse 1876 bis 1933, Stuttgart, 1982. 56 On the “academic (or intellectual) proletariat”, see H. Ströbel, “Das geistige Proletariat”, Freie Bühne, Vol.2, 1891, pp.37-41; Ddf, “Die soziale Lage des Akademikers”, Der sozialistische Akademiker, 1, 1895, pp.233-236 and 254257, one of a number of discussions on the theme in that journal; Scherer, op. cit., pp.33-52, for a critical discussion of the concept in this period. 57 See Michael Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1975, p.161. 58 See R.J.V. Lenman, “Art, Society, and the Law in Wilhelmine Germany: the Lex Heinze”, Oxford German Studies, 8, 1973, pp.86-113; Gary Stark, “Pornography and the Law in Imperial Germany”, Central European History, 14, 1981, pp.200-229; idem, “The Censorship of Literary Naturalism, 1885-1895: Prussia and Saxony”, Central European History, 18, 1985, pp.326-343. 59 See Franz Mehring, “Der heutige Naturalismus” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.3, 1892/93, pp.9-12), in GS 12, pp.127-129; idem, “Kunst und Proletariat” (originally NZ 15, 1, 1896/97, pp.129-133), in GS 12,

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pp.130-135; Wilhelm Liebknecht, “Brief aus Berlin”, NZ 9, 1, 1890/91, pp.709-711, and cf. the response to Liebknecht by Otto Brahm, “Naturalismus und Sozialismus”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.241-243; also the socialist author Robert Schweichel, “Deutschlands jüngste Dichterschule”, NZ 9, 2, 1890/91, pp.624-630, and cf. the response by the Friedrichshagener Julius Hart, “Ein sozialdemokratischer Angriff auf das ‘jüngste Deutschland’”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.913-916. 60 For the debate itself, occasioned by the Hamburg delegate Karl Frohme’s complaint that some Naturalist writing (specifically Wilhelm Hegeler’s novel Mutter Bertha) was not suitable for the Social Democratic literary and entertainment paper Die Neue Welt, as the latter was designed as a “family paper”, see Protokoll... Gotha 1896, pp.78-85, 92-99, 102-106, 108-110, 117; see the discussion in Fülberth, op. cit., pp.91- 102. To speak, as Fülberth does, of a “one-and-a-half day debate on literature” (p.97) is misleading as the debate over Die Neue Welt was embedded in a wide-ranging discussion of the Social Democratic press, in which many other issues were discussed. One of the instigators of the debate, Frohme, was characterized by the generally moderate Bernstein as “the most repulsive of our deputies — a puffed-up empty head, who knows how to fling a few phrases into the world with the dignity of a scholar [...] behind which there is absolutely nothing. The fellow is so miseducated, that he is almost ashamed of having been a worker...”. Letter from Bernstein to Engels, 1884, cited in Emig, op. cit., pp.111f. 61 M. G. Conrad, “Die Sozialdemokratie und die Moderne”, Die Gesellschaft, 7, 1891, pp.582-592. Conrad’s stress on German contemporary literature is perhaps a reflection of the difference between Munich and Berlin modernism, with foreign writers such as Zola and Ibsen being more strongly influential in the literary life of the Reich capital around 1890. 62 F. Engels to Laura Lafargue, 15 July 1887, MEW 36, p.682. Cf. Schmidt’s later, more differentiated discussion of Zola, “Zola über die Rolle des Geldes in der Literatur”, Sozialistische Monatshefte, 9 (New Series), 1905, pp.66-72. 63 Police report of meeting of Freie Volksbühne on 3 October 1890, BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl.66-69; cf. clipping from Die Post, 5 October 1890, ibid., Bl.70; B.W. (= Wille?), “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, pp.927-928. 64 Selo, op. cit., p.51. 65 Nestriepke, op. cit., p.20. 66 Ibid., pp.27, 36; Zerges, op. cit., pp.54f, 72-78, 241n192. 67 Zerges, op. cit., pp.54f. 68 To call Ibsen’s (and Hauptmann’s) work “Socialist realism” as does Lynn Abrams in a review of Chung’s Die Kunst dem Volke oder dem Proletariat? (in German History, 10, 1992, p.252) is anachronistic and erroneous. 69 As recalled by Otto Brahm, who later (1904) stated that the play immediately had a profound influence on him and his friend and fellow promoter of Naturalism Paul Schlenther. Otto Brahm, “Ibsen in Berlin”, in idem, Kritiken und Essays (ed. Fritz Martini), Zurich/ Stuttgart, 1964, pp.504ff. On the success of the play in Germany (and especially Berlin), see also

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Michael Meyer, Ibsen, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1974, p.459. The real wave of enthusiasm for Ibsen, however, did not eventuate until the second half of the 1880s. Osborne, op. cit., p.2; Maxim Newmark, op. cit., pp.72-81. 70 It had, for example, been performed in the Deutsches Theater the previous year (1889). Otto Brahm commented in his review of this performance that the play already belonged to a previous stage of Ibsen’s development, in which the social criticism was sharper and the belief in the possibility of truth prevailing more pronounced. O. Brahm, Kritiken und Essays, pp.278-282. Selo (op. cit., p.118) appears to be in error, however, in stating that Pillars of Society had already been staged by the Freie Bühne. Cf. the account of performances in Schley, op. cit.. 71 See the commentary in Meyer, op. cit., pp.449-456. The play had an enthusiastic reception among liberals and radicals in Norway, where the two issues touched on in the play of women’s emancipation and “floating coffins” (unsafe ships) were highly topical in the 1870s. 72 As noted by the authorities, the phrases cited appearing in the grounds given by the Oberverwaltungsgericht for its judgement on the Freie Volksbühne. Bruno Wille, “Die Justiz als Kunstrichterin”, Allgemeine TheaterRevue für Bühne und Welt, Vol.1, 3, 8 May 1892, p.4. Cf. the police report on the meeting in question (17 October 1890) which states: “The lecture did not deviate in any respect from the subject, and political matters were not discussed” (!). BLHA, Pr. Br. Berlin C. Titel 74, Th. 1094, Bl.82. 73 Otto Erich Hartleben, “Freie Volksbühne”, Berliner Volksblatt, no.245, 21 October 1890, 1. Beilage. 74 Franz Mehring, “Ibsens ‘Stützen der Gesellschaft’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.3, 3, 1894/95, pp.3-12), GS 12, pp.79-85, here p.79. 75 Ibid., pp.80, 84; cf. Otto Brahm, Kritiken und Essays, p.281 (“der anfechtbare Ausgang des Stückes”); Meyer, op. cit., pp.451, 452, 455 (“the unconvincing ending”). 76 Hinton Thomas, op. cit., p.10. 77 Cited by Bruno Wille, “Die Freie Volksbühne und der PolizeiPräsident”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.673-677. 78 Otto Brahm, “Theater”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, p.1204. 79 Cited in Wille, “Justiz als Kunstrichterin”, p.4. The court added “that [the fact that] at the same time patience in political matters was still recommended, appears, however, to be of no importance”. (!) 80 O. E. Hartleben, “Theater”, Berliner Volksblatt, no.293, 16 December 1890, 1. Beilage. Hartleben added that he hoped that the audience had understood the play correctly. While not a member of the SPD, Hartleben was a member of the Freie Volksbühne, along with several other non-party writers, (BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1095, Bl.200), and in 1891 he took Julius Türk’s place on the executive. Vorwärts, no.68, 21 March 1891, 1. Beilage. 81 “Versammlungen”, Berliner Volksblatt, no.295, 18 December, 2. Beilage. There is some evidence that in his unsuccessful struggle against the leadership of — and majority opinion in — the SPD, Wille identified himself strongly with Ibsen’s Dr. Stockmann. The article “Ketzereien über Demokratie” Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.1053-1056, 1077-1079, carries the pseudonym “Dr. med.

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Thomas Stockmann”, but is probably by Wille, given the comments on the Freie Volksbühne and Arbeiterbildungsschule, its closeness to his thoughts on democracy, and use of vocabulary such as “impure means”, in reference to politics. Cf. Wille’s “Gemüts- Individualismus”, in ibid., 2, 1891, pp.305-310, esp. 309f: “That an original and bold mind, an uncompromisingly honest thinker, can be faced with a fierce enemy in the conservatively inclined mass of the people, out for their own advantage, and stupid with it, is a sentence to which every young, half-way educated person will subscribe”. See also Wille’s Philosophie der Befreiung, p.304, where Wille expressly cites Stockmann in support of his own views on democracy. 82 Berliner Volksblatt, no.295, 18 December 2. Beilage. For a critical discussion of An Enemy of the People as part of the repertoire of the Freie Volksbühne, see also Scherer, op. cit., pp.99-104. 83 O.E. Hartleben, “Theater”, Vorwärts, no.239, 13 October 1891, 1. Beilage. 84 Julie Zadek, “Henrik Ibsen”, II, NZ 3, 1885, pp.305-310. 85 Franz Mehring, “Henrik Ibsen” (originally Der Wahre Jacob, no.365, 1900, pp.3290-3292), GS 12, p.68. Mehring’s sympathy towards women’s emancipation, expressed here and elsewhere, is overlooked by most writers on him. 86 Cyriax (pseud.), “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.15, 19 January 1892, Beilage. Wille had, in fact, just given a brief introduction to Nora at the meeting at which the decision to drop subsequent lectures was taken, reading from Lou Andreas-Salomé’s writings on the play. Ibid., no.14, 17 January 1892, 2. Beilage. 87 See Schley, op. cit., pp.38-45. 88 See Brahm, Kritiken und Essays, pp.172-179 (“Ibsen in Berlin. Die Gespenster”), 289f (“Zur Eröffnung der Freien Bühne”), 507- 512 (“Ibsen in Berlin”). 89 Julie Zadek, “Henrik Ibsen”, II, p.314. 90 Cyriax (pseud.), “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.136, 14 June 1892, 1. Beilage. 91 See Norbert Jaron, Renate Möhrmann, and Hedwig Müller, Berlin — Theater der Jahrhundertwende. Bühnengeschichte der Reichshauptstadt im Spiegel der Kritik (1889-1914), Tübingen, 1986, pp.84-99. 92 “Versammlungen”, Berliner Volksblatt, no.262, 9 November 1890, 1. Beilage. 93 W.A. Coupe, “An Ambiguous Hero: In Defence of Alfred Loth”, German Life and Letters, 31, 1977-78, pp.13-22. 94 See Groschopp, op. cit., pp.62-67; and the treatment of the question by Karl Kautsky, “Der Alkoholismus und seine Bekämpfung”, NZ 9, 2, 1890/91, pp.1-8, 46-55, 77-89, 105-116. Kautsky was critical of Bunge’s views and theories of hereditary alcoholism, seeing instead the causes of alcoholism in miserable social conditions. 95 Kautsky, “Alkoholismus”, pp.86f. Wilhelm Liebknecht (“Brief aus Berlin”, NZ 9, 2, 1890/91, p.43) also found that “Loth is not a socialist, he has not the faintest idea about socialism”.

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96 Julius Hart to Gerhart Hauptmann, 19 August 1889, in Gerhart Hauptmann, Notiz-Kalender 1889 bis 1891 (ed. Martin Machatzke), Frankfurt/M./ Berlin/ Vienna, 1982, p.155; Johannes Schlaf to Hauptmann, 21 August 1889, in ibid., p.158. 97 For example, Otto Brahm, who compared Wilhelm Liebknecht (who had just attacked Naturalist literature) with Loth, the “Don Quixote and Prinzipienreiter”. Otto Brahm, “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp..625-626. 98 See Coupe, op. cit.; Osborne, Naturalist Drama, pp.61, 82f. 99 Brauneck, op. cit., pp.140f, 154; cf. Scherer, op. cit., pp.96-99. 100 Soergel, op. cit., pp.343ff; Jaron et al., op. cit., pp.36f; Sigfrid Hoefert, Das Drama des Naturalismus, Stuttgart, 1968, pp.22f. 101 The Hinterhaus was in the rear part of a tenement building, accessible through one or more courtyards, while shops and respectable bourgeois dwellings were located in the presentable front of the building. 102 Franz Mehring, “Sudermanns ‘Ehre’” (originally Die Volksbühne,Vol.1, no.7, 1892/93, pp.3-8), GS 11, pp.237-240. 103 Vorwärts, no.30, 5 February 1891; O. E. Hartleben, “‘Die Ehre’ auf der ‘Freien Volksbühne’”, Vorwärts, no.34, 10 February 1891, 1. Beilage. 104 Wilhelm Bölsche, “Sudermann auf der ‘Freien Volks Bühne’”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.145-147. 105 Halbe was personally acquainted with Bruno Wille, and was a frequent guest among the Friedrichshagen writers’ group. Wille, Aus Traum und Kampf, p.32; Max Halbe, Jahrhundertwende. Erinnerungen an eine Epoche, Munich/ Vienna, 1976, pp.43-53. In his memoirs Halbe recalls his attendance at Freie Volksbühne performances and the performance of Eisgang (in February 1892) as part of his apprenticeship as a dramatist, before his first real success with Jugend in 1893. Ibid., pp.194f. 106 See Soergel, op. cit., pp.352f; Hoefert, op. cit., pp.36-38; Jaron, et al., op. cit., p.26. 107 Franz Mehring, “Berliner Theater”, NZ 11, 2, 1892/93, pp.154-156 (also GS 11, pp.347-349). 108 Jaron et al., op. cit., pp.26f; cf. Hoefert, op. cit., pp.53f; and the sharp criticism by Mehring, “Fuldas ‘Talisman’”, NZ 11, 1, 1892/93, p.669f (also GS 11, p.385). 109 O. E. Hartleben, “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.75, 1 April 1891, Beilage. Fulda took a personal interest in the performance of his play by the Freie Volksbühne, appearing at a meeting where the play was discussed. There, Fulda explained that the main character, the factory owner’s daughter Edith, had to learn that paradise did not consist in the enjoyment of luxury: “Edith recognizes that work is not a punishment, because we have lost Paradise, but that work is the means with which to win Paradise”.”Versammlungen”, Vorwärts, no.82, 9 April 1891, 22. Beilage; cf. BLHA, Rep.30, Bln. C, Th.1095, Bl.19. 110 Given that performances for the Freie Volksbühne attracted relatively little critical attention, once the initial curiosity regarding the new institution had worn off, the researcher has to work with what accounts of performances

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are available. Reviews also need to be used with an awareness of the aesthetic and political views of the reviewer. Bourgeois newspapers stressed the naiveté of the Freie Volksbühne audience, sometimes condescendingly, sometimes using the term “naïve” in a positive sense, especially in the case of partisans of Naturalism who saw a public whose taste had been unspoiled by sophisticated French comedies as fertile ground for the new stage realism. In some cases, police reports can supplement reviews, but the Berlin police were less concerned with reception aesthetics than with the observance of the laws of association (for example, whether non-members could obtain tickets at the theatre), evidence of political activity and the presence of “known Social Democrats” in the audience. Peter Bochow’s Der Geschmack des Volksbüuhnenpublikums (Diss. FU Berlin), 1965, is based on questionnaires conducted in the early 1960s, and is of little help for the period with which we are concerned. Hyun-Back Chung discusses the “taste of the audience” in a section on “factors inhibiting the programme of plays” (!). Chung, op. cit., p.184. 111 Otto Brahm, “Die freie Volksbühne”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, p.986. Cf. E.S. (Ernst Seiffarth), “Freie Volksbühne”, in ibid., 1, 1890, pp.1056f. The Vossische Zeitung (no.490, 20 October 1890), noted that “the parts with a social-political tendency had the strongest impact”. 112 M.H. (Maximilian Harden), “Freie Volksbühne”, Die Gegenwart, Vol.38, no.43, 25 October 1890, p.271. Harden expressed doubts as to whether the workers would benefit from the “paedagogical effects” of Naturalist plays intended more for the “bourgeoisie”. 113 See Selo, op. cit., pp.130-143. For the early performances, the Freie Volksbühne did have the services of its own director, Cord Hachmann, who sought to get the actors to speak in a naturalistic fashion, instead of the traditional declamatory style. 114 Otto Brahm, “Theater”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, pp.1204f. 115 Ibid.; Otto Erich Hartleben, “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, Berliner Volksblatt, no.293, 16 December 1890, 1. Beilage. 116 Otto Erich Hartleben, “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.239, 13 October 1891, 1. Beilage; “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, p.1014; Maximilian Harden wrote: “The harmless Sunday audience of the Freie Volksbühne took in the coarse fare cheerfully”, Die Gegenwart, Vol.40, no.42, 17 October 1891; cf. idem, in ibid., no.43, 24 October 1891. This performance was the first in the Belle-Alliance-Theater, considered an improvement over the Ostend-Theater. “Lokales”, Vorwärts, no.227, 29 September 1891, Beilage. 117 This seems to have been the impression of “Cyriax”, “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.15, 19 January 1892, Beilage. 118 Cyriax, “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.136, 14 June 1892, 1. Beilage. 119 Otto Erich Hartleben in Berliner Volks-Tribüne, 15 November 1890, cited in Heinrich Braulich, Die Volksbühne, Berlin, 1976, p.45; idem, “‘Vor Sonnenaufgang’ auf der freien Volksbühne”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, pp.1088f. 120 O.E. Hartleben, “‘Die Ehre’ auf der ‘Freien Volksbühne’”; cf. also Bölsche, “Sudermann auf der ‘Freien Volks Bühne’”; Oscar Blumenthal’s recollection of this performance also refers to a “storm of applause” at Robert

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Heinecke’s reckoning with his masters. Cited in Selo, op. cit., p.167. This performance was attended by Ibsen, who is said to have been impressed by the audience’s enthusiasm, exclaiming “That is an audience!”. Ibid.. 121 Cyriax, “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.33, 9 February 1892, Beilage; Hugo Grothe, “Berliner Theater”, Die Gesellschaft, Vol.8, May 1892, p.640. Cf. Halbe’s response to critics, “Eisgang”, Freie Volksbühne. Eine Schrift für den Verein Freie Volksbühne, no.2, 1891/92, pp.12-14, which claims that the play was well received by the Freie Volksbühne audience. 122 Mehring, “Fulda’s ‘Talisman’”, p.385. 123 Hartleben, “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.75, 1 April 1891, Beilage. The applause again may have been strongest for particular parts of the play. One critic noted first tension, then a burst of applause, when a striking worker was offered, and refused, a tip. Magazin für Litteratur, cited in Braulich, op. cit., p.44. 124 “Versammlungen”, Vorwärts, no.82, 9 April 1891, 2. Beilage. 125 Ernst Seiffarth, “Berliner Arbeiter-Bildung”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, p.915. 126 The Norwegian realist Alexander Kielland seems to have fared particularly badly in these meetings, although in one instance the weak voice of the reader seems to have been partly to blame. See W.B. (Wilhelm Bölsche), “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, pp.899f; cf. Das Kleine Journal, 19 September 1890, clipping in BLHA, Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl.58; Vossische Zeitung, no.436, 18 September 1890. 127 B.W. (=Bruno Wille), “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, p.928. 128 B.W. (Bruno Wille), “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.730f. 129 Ibid.; similarly, Bruno Wille, “Theater”, Vorwärts, no.167, 21 July 1891, Beilage. Cf. the review by the young Heinrich Mann in Die Gesellschaft, 7, October 1891, p.1413. 130 Cyriax, “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.63, 15 March 1892, Beilage; Hans Land (who felt that the play awakened the religious sentiments of the audience), Allgemeine Theater-Revue für Bühne und Welt, Vol.1, no.1, 1 April 1892, pp.37f ; Franz Mehring, “Anzengrubers ‘Pfarrer von Kirchfeld’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.3, no.9, 1894/95, pp.3-8), GS 11, pp.501-504. 131 See “Lokales”, Vorwärts, no.117, 23 May 1891, Beilage (protest of Jahnke and Schirmer against the “arbitrary and tendentious mutilation” of the play through the omission of the patriotic last act); C.B. (=Curt Baake?), “Die ‘Freie Volksbühne’ und Herr Otto Neumann-Hofer”, ibid., no.118, 24 May 1891, 2. Beilage (rejecting the final act as trivial and a falsification of Reuter’s radicalism); Otto Erich Hartleben, “Freie Volksbühne”, ibid., no. 119, 26 May 1891, Beilage; declaration of the executive of the Freie Volksbühne, signed by Wille, Hartleben, and Wildberger, attributing the dispute to a misunderstanding on Jahnke’s part and offering to put on an extra performance with the patriotic last act, ibid.; report of meeting of the Freie Volksbühne, at which the members were highly amused by Jahnke’s and Schirmer’s protest, while Wille, as always, denied that the Freie Volksbühne served Social Democratic tendencies, ibid.; cf. also “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.529f.

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132 O.E. Hartleben, “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.119, 26 May 1891, Beilage. 133 Vorwärts, no.225, 25 September 1892, 1. Beilage. 134 O.E. Hartleben, “Freie Volksbühne”, ibid.,no.119, 26 May 1891, Beilage. Hartleben predicted that the success of the play would help to win new members for the association. 135 “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.529f. 136 Berliner Zeitung, 26 May 1891, cited in Braulich, op. cit.,pp.43f; cf. “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.529f, which states that the audience identified with the “blutigen Naivitäten” of the play. Nearly four years later, Franz Mehring confirmed that Kein Hüsung had been one of the most popular plays to be performed by the Freie Volksbühne, with frequent requests from members for the play to be repeated. Mehring, “Kein Hüsung” (originally Die Volksbühne, vol.3, 3, 1894/95, pp.3-7), GS 11, p.88. 137 Vossische Zeitung, no.465, 5 October 1890. 138 Ernst Seiffarth, “Berliner Arbeiter-Bildung”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, p.915. Heinrich Heine had not yet, however, gained “canonical” status among the classics, with conservatives still resisting public memorials to Heine during the 1890s. 139 Wilhelm Bölsche, “Kabale und Liebe auf der Freien Volksbühne”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.93f; Leo Berg (“Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.23, 28 January 1891, Beilage) confirms Bölsche’s impressions, mentioning both the overwhelmingly positive reception of the play and the particular enthusiasm for “the most clearly revolutionary outbursts” in the play. Cf. also the review in Die Post, no.23, 27 January 1891, cited in Selo, op. cit., p.166n15. 140 “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, p.530. 141 Bruno Wille, “Die Justiz als Kunstrichterin”, p.4. Brahm was, of course, not a Social Democrat, and favoured an apolitical view of art. The reference to his lecture indicates the authorities’ sensitivity to any hint of revolutionary ideas at a time only months after the expiry of the anti-socialist law. 142 Br. W. (Bruno Wille), “Von neuer Kunst”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.652f. The police surveillance also noted that the performance was “in general received with the greatest applause”. BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1095, Bl.60. 143 See Germania, 10 August 1890 (clipping in BLHA, Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl.21); Berliner Zeitung, no.219, 19 September 1890, cited in Braulich, op. cit., p.55; Die Post, 5 October 1890 (clipping in BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl.70); Das Kleine Journal 20 October 1890 (clipping in ibid., Bl.83); Vossische Zeitung, no.490, 20 October 1890, all of which commented on an apparent absence of workers in the meetings and first performance of the Freie Volksbühne. 144 For example, for the Pillars of Society, the police reported that the audience consisted of equal halves male and female, with “the Jewish element predominant” (underlined in original. The Berlin police took a particular interest at this time in the presence of Jews, however this was determined, in assemblies) and numerous followers of the Freireligiöse Gemeinde, while “the actual Social Democratic circles” were in the minority. Report dated 20 October 1890, BLHA, Pr.Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl.83-84; another

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report of the same date agreed with Das Kleine Journal (see above, n.143), stating that “the audience consisted mainly of Jewish and petit bourgeois elements, while the actual working-class population was obviously only weakly represented”. Ibid., Bl.85. For Vor Sonnenaufgang, “the largest proportion of the spectators consisted once more of Jews [...] While one noticed predominantly members of the class of small shopkeepers and [petits] bourgeois, it was clear that there were relatively few spectators from the actual working class”. Report dated 9 November 1890, ibid., Bl.109; however, for An Enemy of the People, while there were apparently still many Jews in the audience (?!), it was noted that “there were relatively more workers [in the second section] than in the 1st [section]”. Report dated 15 December 1890, ibid., Bl.160; similarly, for Die Ehre, of about 1300 persons in the audience, about 600 belonged to the “Kaufmannsstand” (i.e. petite bourgeoisie), while the rest belonged to the working class (with an estimated 400 Jews included in the audience). Report dated 9 February 1891, ibid., Bl.167; however, for Kabale und Liebe, the audience was mainly working class (with an estimated 50 Jews out of 600800). Report dated 1 February 1891, ibid., Bl.184. As the Freie Volksbühne opened its second, then third section, the proportion of working-class members seems to increase, a trend for which other references from the files could be added. 145 Ernst Seiffarth, “Freie Volksbühne”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, p.1057; cf. “Eine Kritik unseres Vereins”, Freie Volksbühne. Eine Schrift für den Verein Freie Volksbühne, 1891/92, no.2, p.15. 146 “Versammlungen”, Berliner Volksblatt, no.262, 9 November 1890, 1. Beilage; Nestriepke, op. cit., p.89. 147 Selo, op. cit., pp.160f; for numbers of women at performances and meetings, see the material in the police files cited above in n.144 (and subsequent files in the same series). 148 This led, however, to problems with child care, with some parents joining separate sections for the sake of child-minding. Selo, op. cit., pp.164f. 149 “Versammlungen”, Berliner Volksblatt, no.262, 9 November 1890, 1. Beilage; Bruno Wille’s complaint about the conduct of the police, BLHA, Pr. Br. Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl.96-98. 150 See the letter from the Ministry of the Interior to Police President von Richthofen, 8 September 1890, decreeing police surveillance of the association, as one which in the final analysis pursued Social Democratic goals. BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1094, Bl.37. 151 Report on Pillars of Society, 20 October 1890, ibid., Bl.83. 152 Report dated 14 December 1890, ibid., Bl.157-159. 153 Report dated 19 March 1891, BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1095, Bl.6; report on a performance of Vor Sonnenaufgang, 7 September 1891, ibid., Bl.92. 154 See the detailed accounts in Selo, op. cit., pp.86-93; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.49-57. There is an account of the Bezirksausschuss (district court) sitting of 30 June 1891, in which the Freie Volksbühne, represented by Wolfgang Heine, succeeded in having the police order of 20 April 1891 lifted, in Vorwärts, no.150, 1 July 1891, 1. Beilage. The collection of quotations from meetings (including utterances by non-socialists, such as Otto Brahm and

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Conrad Alberti) in the police documentation was too weak to convince the court, nor could the police demonstrate that the executive of the association had any knowledge of SPD fundraising activities among members. Cf. also Bruno Wille, “Die Freie Volksbühne und der Polizei-Präsident”, Freie Bühne, 2, 1891, pp.673-677; idem, “Von neuer Kunst”, in ibid., pp.800f (on the favourable judgement of the Bezirksausschuss and its grounds). 155 For the judgement of the higher court, the Oberverwaltungsgericht, see Wille, “Die Justiz als Kunstrichterin”; also Freie Volksbühne. Eine Schrift für den Verein Freie Volksbühne, 1891/92, no.1, pp.14-16, and no.2, 9-12; “GerichtsZeitung”, Vorwärts, no.26, 31 January 1892, 2. Beilage. Cf. also Richard Grelling, “Die Maßregelung der Freien Volksbühne”, Magazin für die Litteratur des In- und Auslandes, Vol.61, no.6, 6 February 1892, pp.92f, and no.7, 13 February 1892, pp.108-110. Grelling, a lawyer active in cases involving theatre and censorship, stressed the vagueness of the distinction between “public” and “political matters” under the law of association. 156 Heine’s motion to amend the statutes was accepted at the extraordinary general meeting held to discuss the implications of the Oberverwaltungsgericht’s findings. Vorwärts, no.14, 17 January 1892, 2.Beilage. 157 Franz Mehring, “Ein letztes Wort in Sachen der Freien Volksbühne” (originally NZ 11, 2, 1892/93, pp.317-323), GS 12, 287. 158 Türk (a “Kaufmann” by profession) was active as an agitator for the SPD, being a frequent speaker in Social Democratic meetings in Berlin. He was the author of a pamphlet entitled Ursprung und Lage der ländlichen Arbeiter, published by the Vorwärts publishing house (reviewed by Karl Kautsky, NZ 9, 1, 1890/91, pp.490f). Türk spent some of the summer of 1892, just before the éclat in the Freie Volksbühne on an agitational speaking tour, addressing meetings of white-collar workers in an attempt to combat the influence of Anti-semites on them. “Partei-Nachrichten”, Vorwärts, no.204, 1 September 1892, Beilage. In the 1893 Reichstag elections, Türk stood unsuccessfully as SPD candidate for Wolmirstedt-Neuhaldensleben (Magdeburg district). Ibid., no.108, 9 May 1893, 1. Beilage. For the account of the July 1892 general meeting of the Freie Volksbühne, in which Wille unsuccessfully attempted to make the re-election of the entire executive (including Bernhard Kampffmeyer as treasurer) the condition of his own re-election, ibid., no.164, 16 July 1892, 2. Beilage. Wille was, however, re-elected, and Kampffmeyer made secretary instead of treasurer. 159 Membership figure of 2,567 reported to general meeting. Vorwärts, no.164, 16 July 1892. Vorwärts carried all announcements of the Freie Volksbühne, advertisements of performances, meetings and other activities, so that the chief means of communicating with members was through the SPD press. 160 The course of the dispute can be reconstructed through: a declaration of 21 members (including Paul Dupont and Gustav Winkler) complaining about the conduct of the executive, “Sprechsaal”, Vorwärts, 23 September 1892, 1. Beilage; declaration of B. Wille and B. Kampffmeyer in reply, ibid., no.225, 25 September 1892, 2. Beilage; declaration by Julius Türk, ibid.,

NOTES

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no.226, 27 September 1892, 2. Beilage; statements by B. Kampffmeyer and P. Dupont, ibid., 4 October 1892, 2. Beilage. 161 Ibid., no.234, 6 October 1892, 1. Beilage, and no.237, 9 October 1892, 1. Beilage. Rival announcements concerning the continuation of the meeting in ibid., no.238, 11 October 1892, 1. Beilage. For the meeting on 12 October, see ibid., no.241, 14 October 1892, Beilage. For Wille’s version of events, see Wille, “Die freie Volksbühne”, Die Zukunft, Vol.1, no.5, 29 October 1892, pp.232-236 (“the Freie Volksbühne has taken a turn which leads one to fear that the original, purely popular-paedagogical and genuinely artistic direction... is being more and more pushed aside”, p.232); idem, “Die Spaltung der Freien Volksbühne”, Der Kunstwart, Vol.6, 2nd November issue, 1892, pp.49-52; Die Neue Freie Volksbühne. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und Entwicklung, Berlin, 1905, pp.15-24. Cf. Franz Mehring, “Zur ‘Krisis’ der Freien Volksbühne” (originally NZ 11, 1, 1892/93, pp.180-184), GS 12, pp.278-285; idem, “Ein letztes Wort in Sachen der Freien Volksbühne”: Georg Ledebour, “‘Zur Krisis der Freien Volksbühne’. Eine Erwiderung” NZ 11, 1, 1892/93, pp.284-289. 162 Die Neue Freie Volksbühne. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung...; Bruno Wille, “Selbstporträt”, Die Gesellschaft, Vol.9, February 1893, pp.171f; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.108-118. 163 Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.108f. Ultimately, however, the Neue Freie Volksbühne would attract a much larger and broader membership. As the Neue Freie Volksbühne was not linked to the SPD, it will only be dealt with below in so far as its fortunes directly affected the “old” Freie Volksbühne. Chapter Six Mehring’s Berliner Volks-Zeitung, no.233, 5 October 1890, 2. Blatt, claimed that “the association is increasingly subject to the spell of involuntary comedy. This fate is admittedly not surprising [...] in view of the fact that it is largely the same people at the head of the association who only a few weeks ago raised the accusation of corruption against men like Bebel and Auer...”. The Volks-Zeitung noted with satisfaction that “the workers have almost completely withdrawn from this farce”. See also Wille’s protest, ibid., no.237, 10 October 1890, 3. Blatt, and Mehring’s response below it, which also attacks the links of the Freie Volksbühne to Otto Brahm. 2 See Franz Mehring, Der Fall Lindau, Berlin, 1890 (2nd thousand; the first printing was anonymous); for the response, see Otto Brahm, “Sittliche Entrüstung. Zum Fall Lindau”, in Freie Bühne, Vol.1, 1890, pp.817-820; idem, “Die Lindau-Hetze”, in ibid., pp.852-854; anon. “Der Fall Brahm. Von Franz Mehring d. J.”, in ibid., pp.923-925 (a satire on Mehring’s anti-Lindau pamphlet). After Brahm sued Mehring for statements in the Volks-Zeitung, and Mehring countersued, the case ended up in court, where neither party received satisfaction. “Gerichts-Zeitung” in Vorwärts, no.44, 21 February 1891, 1. Beilage. Brahm, founder of the Freie Bühne, was a member of the first artistic committee of the Freie Volksbühne. 3 B. Wille, “Die Spaltung der Freien Volksbühne”, p.51. 4 Mehring, “Zur ‘Krisis’ der Freien Volksbühne”, pp.280f. 5 Mehring, “Ein letztes Wort in Sachen der Freien Volksbühne”, p.286. 1

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6 Mehring, “Proletarische Ästhetik” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.2, October 1893, pp.8-14), GS 12, p.273. 7 Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen” (originally NZ, 11, 2, 1892/93, pp.481485), GS 12, p.298; similarly, idem, “Freie Volksbühne und Neue Freie Volksbühne” (originally NZ 12, 2, 1893/94, pp.822- 824), GS 12, p.313. 8 Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, p.301. 9 Report of meeting, dated 15 October 1892, BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1095, Bl.401-406; the anarchistic Independent Socialist paper Der Sozialist (22 October 1892) referred to the new executive as “faithful followers of the Party” [fraktionsfromm], clipping in ibid., Bl.408. Cf. Das Kleine Journal (no.286, 17 October 1892), clipping in ibid., Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.14a. 10 Note dated 21 December 1892, ibid., Bl.49. A later surveillance report also noted that many members of the Freie Volksbühne were active in Social Democrat Wahlvereine. Report of Schutzmann Gerhardt, 1 June 1893, ibid., Bl.105-106. 11 Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.61, 63. 12 The other members of the executive were Otto Schneider (later replaced in the 1893/94 season by Gustav Nowak, who died in 1895, and was in turn replaced by Julius Cohn) and Bruno Dübelt (a lithographer). Ibid., pp.65, 91; BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.14, 267. 13 Vorwärts, no.257, 2 November 1892, 2. Beilage. Held, Nothnagel, and Wolf left in 1893, with Curt Baake returning to the Freie Volksbühne as a replacement, along with the SPD Reichstag deputy Emanuel Wurm and Richard Wrede. Nestriepke, op. cit., p.91. 14 On Schweichel, who died in 1907 at the age of 85, see the reviews of his works and tributes by Mehring, in GS, pp.445-462. 15 Julie Zadek was Ignaz Zadek’s sister, not wife, as stated in Nestriepke. She was married to a Russian doctor named Romm. See the obituary by Karl Kautsky in NZ 34, 1, 1915/16, p.704. Among her essays: Julie Zadek, “Henrik Ibsen”; eadem, “Noch einmal Zola”, NZ, 3, 1885, pp.175-179; under the name Zadek-Romm, “Neue norwegische Dichtungen”, NZ 9, 1, 1890/91, pp.798804, and “Lourdes von Emile Zola”, NZ 13, 1, 1894/95, pp.273-278. Die Neue Zeit also printed some of her translations from Russian. 16 Held/ Herzfeld (the father of the pioneer of photomontage John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) and the socialist writer Wieland Herzfelde), died in 1908, after ten years of being mentally incapacitated. See the review of his posthumously published collected works by Franz Mehring (originally NZ 30, 2, 1911/12, p.999), GS 11, pp.379f. 17 Details in Selo, op. cit., pp.188, 189. BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.14. 18 Declaration by Franz Mehring, “Sprechsaal”, Vorwärts, no.243, 16 October 1892, 1. Beilage; cf. idem, “Zur ‘Krisis’ der Freien Volksbühne”, pp.283f, defending the commitment to democracy against Wille’s criticisms, and characterizing Wille’s views as being in the most authoritarian and patronizing tradition of bourgeois “workers’ educational” efforts. 19 Franz Mehring, “Die Freie Volksbühne” (originally NZ 18, 2, 1899/1900, pp.530-536), GS 12, pp.321f.

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20 Ibid., p.322. Mehring adds that under these circumstances, Robert Schweichel became “the most reliable support” of the committee. In addition to the executive and the artistic committee, the administration also included three (later two) auditors and a team of Ordner (stewards) who attended to practical duties. Under Wille, most of the Ordner appear to have been Independent Socialists, but by 1892 most were Social Democrats. The treasurer was the only paid office-holder. See Selo, op. cit., pp.160, 187-194; Chung, op. cit., pp.132-144. 21 “Sprechsaal”, Vorwärts, no.25, 29 January 1893, 1. Beilage; Selo, op. cit., p.154. Selo writes that the split was a great propaganda success for the Freie Volksbühne, bringing it to the attention of many workers who had not previously considered joining it. Ibid., p.155. 22 Report of general meeting, Vorwärts, no.251, 25 October 1893, 2. Beilage. Most participants in the subsequent discussion do not seem to have shared Mehring’s fears on this point, however. 23 “Versammlungen”, Vorwärts, no.16, 20 January 1894, 2. Beilage. 24 “Versammlungen”, Vorwärts, no.155, 6 July 1895, Beilage. For a summary of the growth in membership during this period, see also Selo, op. cit., pp.154-156, who rightly stresses the high rate of fluctuation in membership, especially the tendency of memberships to lapse during the summer pause when no plays were performed. The records of general meetings also complain about the tendency for some members to attend the performances of the wrong section, leading to complications such as occasional overcrowding. By comparison, the Neue Freie Freie Volksbühne fluctuated during this period between 1,000 and 2,000. Chung, op. cit., p.77. 25 Paul Dupont, report to the general meeting, 25 April 1894, Vorwärts, no.101, 3 May 1894, 2. Beilage. 26 Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.8, 1893/94 (April 1894); cf. Selo, op. cit., p.161; Nestriepke, op. cit., p.89; Braulich, op. cit., p.55; Chung, op. cit., pp.86-88. 27 Only trades represented by at least 40 members are listed here. 28 Selo, op. cit., p.161. In addition to the “naiveté” of the audiences of the Freie Volksbühne, commented on by many reviewers, the lack of prior experience of the theatre was also manifested in a lack of knowledge of theatre etiquette, giving rise to frequent reminders in the association’s meetings and publications of the proper way to behave in theatres. Ibid., pp.161-165. 29 See the critical, somewhat over-simplified, presentation in Peter von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater (1848- 1914), Frankfurt/ M., 1973, pp.113ff. 30 Franz Mehring, “Der heutige Naturalismus” (originally in Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.3, 1892/93, pp.9-12), GS 11, p.129. 31 Franz Mehring, “Freie Volksbühne und Neue Freie Volksbühne”, p.313. 32 Robert Schweichel, “Deutschlands jüngste Dichterschule”, NZ 9, 2, 1890/91, pp.624-630. Schweichel also complained (p.627) of Naturalism’s lack of an ethical standpoint upon which a critique of bourgeois society could be based, contrasting it in this respect with the works of Schiller and Goethe. On the other hand, Schweichel reviewed Zola’s La Terre positively,

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contrasting the author favourably with his German “epigones”. Idem, “La Terre”, NZ 7, 1889, pp.10-18. 33 Zadek, “Noch einmal Zola”, p.175. 34 Zadek-Romm, “Neue norwegische Dichtungen”. 35 See report of general meeting on 14 June 1894, in Vorwärts, no.140, 20 June 1894, 2. Beilage; and the report on the general meeting on 29 October 1895, in ibid., no.260, 6 November 1895, 1. Beilage. At the latter meeting, Zadek spoke about two female poets, Johanna Ambrosia and Ada Negri, the talk being listened to “with great interest”. 36 See for example Vorwärts, no.187, 11 August 1893, Beilage; ibid., no.101, 3 May 1894, 2. Beilage; ibid., no.140, 20 June 1894, 2. Beilage. 37 See the detailed list of performances in Selo, op. cit., pp.202-207. The other plays performed were Emile Augier’s Les Lionnes pauvres and the same author’s Pelikan (Giboyer’s Son); Otto Blumenthal and G. Kadelburg’s Großstadtluft (not, as in Selo, a work by Fulda — as a filler on the same programme as Kleist’s Der zerbrochene Krug); Edgreen-Leffler, Wie man wohltut and Méllesville and Duveyrier, Michel Perrin (as a double bill); Paul Heyse’s Ehrenschulden and Bernhard Westenberger and Eugen Croissant, Hildegard Scholl (as a double bill); and Giovanni Verga’s Cavalleria Rusticana (with Molière’s L'Avare). 38 Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, p.300. 39 Ibid., p.301. 40 Franz Mehring, “Nathan der Weise” (Die Volksbühne. Eine Sammlung von Einführungen in Dramen und Opern, Berlin, 1909), GS 9, p.421. This article comes not from the journal of the Freie Volksbühne but from a later series of pamphlets also entitled Die Volksbühne, to which Mehring and others contributed. 41 F.M. (Mehring), “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.244, 18 October 1892, Beilage. Mehring’s review here of the performance of the Freie Volksbühne began by noting the unsuccessful efforts of the deposed executive to stop the performance proceeding under the new leadership. 42 Mehring, “Lessings ‘Emilia Galotti’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.3, no.1,1894/95), GS 9, pp.403-409, specific references to pp.403, 408f. The performance was staged by the Lessing-Theater especially at the request of the Freie Volksbühne. Vorwärts, no.252, 28 October 1894, 2. Beilage. The Lessing-Theater, paradoxically, did not often stage Lessing’s works, as it cultivated a mainly modern repertoire. 43 See Chapter Three. 44 Mehring, “Schillers ‘Kabale und Liebe’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.6, 1893/94, pp.3-8), GS 10, pp.628-632, quotation 631. 45 Ibid. 46 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.36, 13 February 1894, 1. Beilage. According to this reviewer, the decision to perform Kabale und Liebe had been largely influenced by “external circumstances” (presumably such factors as availability of actors or of a production as a whole) but was welcome all the same.

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47 Mehring, “Goethe’s ‘Egmont’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.6, 1892/93, pp.3-12), GS 10, pp.63-70, especially 64-66. 48 Ibid., especially pp.66f. 49 Ibid., pp.63f. 50 Mehring, “Kleists ‘Zerbrochener Krug’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.5, 1892/93, pp.3-7), GS 10, pp.325-328. 51 Mehring, “Molière’s ‘Geiziger’” (originally in Die Volksbühne, Vol.3, no.7, 1894/95), GS 12, pp.18-21. 52 Mehring, “Calderón’s ‘Judge of Zalamea’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.8, 1892/93, pp.3-10), GS 12, pp.8-13, quotation p.11. 53 Mehring, “Gutzkows ‘Uriel Acosta’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.2, 1893/94, pp.3-7), GS 10, pp.360-363, quotation p.362. 54 Mehring, “Grillparzers ‘Traum ein Leben’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.3, no.5, 1894/95, pp.3-11), GS 11, pp.495-500 (reference to Schweichel’s judgement p.495). 55 See the report of the general meeting of 5 August 1893, at which a member, Böttcher, had a motion passed that the question of the place of the classics in the repertoire be debated. Vorwärts, no.187, 11 August 1893, Beilage: cf. comments in the review of Emilia Galotti, “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, ibid., no.205, 4 September 1894, 1. Beilage. 56 Report of meeting of 14 June 1894, Vorwärts, no.140, 20 June 1894, 2. Beilage. 57 F.M. (Mehring), “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.244, 18 October 1892, Beilage; cf. Mehring, “Zur ‘Krisis’ der Freien Volksbühne”, p.282. 58 Berliner Zeitung, 18 October 1892 . Cited in Selo, op. cit., p.177n42. See also Das Kleine Journal, 17 October 1892 (clipping in BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.14a) which, in an article predicting the demise of the Freie Volksbühne if the Parteitendenzen represented by the new leadership got the upper hand, makes an incidental reference to the “tempestuous applause” given to the performance of Nathan der Weise. 59 Report of general meeting 20 October 1898, Vorwärts, no.249, 23 October 1898, 3. Beilage; report of general meeting 29 April 1903, ibid., no.105, 7 May 1903, 2. Beilage. 60 “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.205, 4 September 1894, 1. Beilage. 61 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.36, 13 February 1894, 1. Beilage. 62 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.56, 7 March 1893, Beilage; cf. Freisinnige Zeitung, 8 March 1893, in Selo, op. cit., which records the great laughter with which Großstadtluft was received. 63 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.37, 13 February 1895, 2. Beilage. The title role, Harpagon, was played by Ferdinand Suske, who, according to the review, succeeded in arousing sympathy for the miser, even in the scenes in which his avarice was most clearly lampooned. 64 “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.143, 21 June 1893, Beilage. 65 See Selo, op. cit., p.177, and the examples already stated above. 66 “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.238, 10 October 1893.

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67 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.302, 29 December 1894, 2. Beilage. 68 See the police report dated 29 August 1895, BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.269. 69 See the documentation on Die Weber, and the controversy associated with the play in Hans Schwab-Felisch, ed., Gerhart Hauptmann. Die Weber, Frankfurt/ M./ Berlin/ Vienna, 1979; and Helmut Praschek, ed., Gerhart Hauptmanns “Weber”. Eine Dokumentation, Berlin, 1981 (the more comprehensive collection). 70 Text of the police ordinance banning Die Weber, 3 March 1892, in Praschek, op. cit., pp.254f. On the ban and the subsequent trials, see also Brauneck, op. cit., pp.51-62 (and the wealth of documentation cited in his footnotes, pp.214ff), who describes the case as “the most spectacular political censorship trial in the history of German literature” (p.51). The play was banned in its (Silesian) dialect version, De Waber, however to avoid possible confusion the High German form is used here throughout. On the censorship of Die Weber, see also Gerhard Schulz, “Naturalismus und Zensur”, in Scheuer, op. cit., pp.93-121, especially pp.104-107; Gary Stark, “The Censorship of Literary Naturalism, 1885-1895: Prussia and Saxony”, Central European History, 18, 1985, pp.326-343. Stark’s discussion adopts a functionalist interpretation of theatre censorship, arguing that it did little harm to the literary or commercial success of Naturalism, however, he glosses over the restrictions placed on performances of Die Weber, and plays down the political constraints — including self-censorship on the part of writers and theatre directors — imposed by the censorship regime. 71 Statement of Grelling to the Oberverwaltungsgericht, 31 May 1893, in Praschek, op. cit., p.267. Apart from tactical legal considerations, Hauptmann’s sincere aversion to being used for socialist propaganda purposes is clearly expressed in his diary (entry for 15 March 1894), Gerhart Hauptmann, Tagebuch 1892 bis 1894 (ed. Martin Machatzke), Frankfurt/M./ Berlin/ Vienna, 1985, p.106. Mehring criticized Grelling’s arguments in the case at the first instance, taking the view that Die Weber would be an excellent chance to challenge censorship on principle, rather than seeking to evade it. Mehring, “Entweder-Oder” (originally NZ11, 1, 1892/93, pp.777-782), GS 11, pp.279285. 72 As cited by Brauneck, op. cit., p.86. 73 Text of the judgement of the Oberverwaltungsgericht, 2 October 1893, in Praschek, op. cit., pp.273-27, quotation p.277. 74 Schley, op. cit., pp.99-102. See the collection of reviews of the Freie Bühne’s première in Praschek, op. cit., pp.134-174; Franz Mehring, “Gerhart Hauptmanns ‘Die Weber’” (originally NZ 11, 1, 1892/93, pp.769-774), GS 11, pp.270-278, praises the play while complaining that the reviews in the bourgeois press sought to depoliticize it. 75 Fritz Mauthner, Die Nation, 4 March 1893, in Praschek, op. cit., p.151. 76 See G. Hauptmann to F. Mehring, n.d. [September 1893?], in Rossiiskii Tsentr dlya Khraneniya i Issledovaniya Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii, Moscow, Fond 201, Opis 1, 788 (microfilm copy in IISH), in which

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Hauptmann refused permission for performance for the time being, in view of his current negotiations with the Polizei-Präsidium. In a (presumably) subsequent note dated 10 October 1893, Hauptmann gave his permission, ibid., 787; cf. Mehring’s note in Die Volksbühne (Vol.1, no.5, 1892/93, pp.13f), GS 11, p.558. 77 Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, p.299. 78 Mehring, “Hauptmanns ‘Weber’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.4, 1893/94, pp.3-6), GS 11, p.555. 79 Mehring, “Die Helden des Schiller-Preises”, NZ 12, 1, 1893/94, p.448. Kaiser Wilhelm II had demonstrated his disapproval of the “demoralizing tendency” of Die Weber by cancelling his box in the Deutsches Theater (a measure which cost the theatre 4,000 marks a year) and later vetoed the award of the Schiller Prize to Hauptmann, not for Die Weber, but for Hanneles Himmelfahrt, in 1896. See Schwab-Felisch, op. cit., pp.102f. 80 Mehring, “Hauptmanns ‘Weber’”, p.555. (The portrayal of such large groups of people on stage, and the large number of speaking parts, had the side effect of making professional productions of Die Weber, which also demanded detailed sets different from the usual bourgeois drawing room sets, a more expensive undertaking than most plays.) 81 See ibid., pp.556f. 82 Ibid., p.556. 83 Ibid., pp.555f. See Praschek, op. cit., pp.64-82. 84 Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, pp.299f. 85 For example, Vorwärts, no.232, 3 October 1893, reporting on the case of Die Weber in the Oberverwaltungsgericht. 86 Report of general meeting on 10 October 1893, Vorwärts, no.251, 25 October 1893, 2. Beilage; advertisement concerning repeat performance, Vorwärts, no.6, 9 January 1894; interest in seeing the play repeated expressed in report of general meeting, 16 January 1894, in Vorwärts, no.16, 20 January 1894, 2. Beilage. 87 Das Kleine Journal, 4 December 1893, in Praschek, op. cit., pp.184f. The underlining here (not in Praschek) reproduces the underlining by the police on the clipping in the police files, BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.171. 88 Report in BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.177. 89 See the opinion of Theodor Fontane, who described the ending as “revolutionary and anti-revolutionary at the same time [...] the play retains, through this two-facedness, a double admonition, one directed at above, the other at below, and speaks to the conscience of both parties”. Theodor Fontane, Gesammelte Werke (ed. Kurt Schreinert), Vol.4, Gütersloh, 1961, p.539. 90 Br., “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.285, 5 December 1893, Beilage. 91 Ibid.. Emphasis in original. 92 Freisinnige Zeitung, 5 December 1893, cited in Braulich, op. cit., pp.50f. This report also considered that some parts of the play were not properly

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understood by the audience, for example, when some members laughed during Old Baumert’s description to Old Hilse of the revolt. 93 Mehring, “Eine Diebskomödie” (NZ 12, 1, 1893/94, pp.17-20), GS 11, pp.288-293. 94 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.236, 10 October 1894. 95 Mehring, “Berliner Theater”, (NZ 13, 1, 1894/95, p.87), GS 11, p.249. 96 Mehring, “Sudermanns ‘Ehre’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.7, 1892/93, pp.3-8), GS 11, p.237. 97 Ibid., pp.237, 238f. 98 Mehring, “Sudermanns ‘Sodoms Ende’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.7, 1893/94, pp.3-7), GS 11, pp.241-244. 99 Ibid., p.242. 100 It was on the occasion of the ban of Sodoms Ende that Berlin Police President von Richthofen is said to have made the oft-quoted declaration to the director of the Lessing-Theater, Oscar Blumenthal, who had asked for the grounds for the ban: “Die janze Richtung paßt uns nicht!” (“It’s the whole tendency we don’t like!” — in Berlin dialect.) Schulz, “Naturalismus und Zensur”, pp.93, 94f. On the censorship case involving Sodoms Ende, see also Paul Schlenther, “Sudermann und die ‘neue’ Richtung”, Freie Bühne, 1, 1890, pp.1073-1076; Stark, “Censorship”, pp.328, 329, 339. 101 Mehring, “Sudermanns ‘Heimat’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.1, 1893/94, pp.3-8), GS 11, pp.549-553, quotation p.553. 102 Mehring, “Sudermanns ‘Ehre’”, p.237. Mehring did qualify this by adding that this did not of itself mean very much. 103 Hoefert, op. cit., pp.22, 44. 104 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.108, 9 May 1893, 1. Beilage. 105 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.208, 5 September 1893, Beilage. 106 Freisinnige Zeitung, 6 September 1893, cited in Selo, op. cit.,p.170n21. 107 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.54, 6 March 1894, 2. Beilage. At least one member queried the choice of Sodoms Ende (and of Wie man wohltut) at the next general meeting, although it is not clear on what grounds. Report of general meeting, 20 April 1894, in Vorwärts, no.101, 3 May 1894, 2. Beilage. 108 Mehring, “Ibsen’s ‘Stützen der Gesellschaft’”, p.79. 109 Br., “Theater. Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.259, 6 November 1894, 1. Beilage. 110 Meyer, Ibsen, p.421. For Mehring’s interpretation of the play, see Mehring, “Björnsons ‘Fallissement’” (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.5, 1893/94, pp.3-9), GS 12, pp.106-110. 111 Mehring, “Der freie Wille” (originally Die Volksbühne,Vol.1, no.1, 1892/93, pp.10-14), GS 11, pp.381-384. His account of the decision-making process, and the arguments pro and contra, leaving it for the members to decide, illustrates the collective and democratic nature of the association compared with Wille’s administration. 112 Ibid.. The subject matter may have appealed to Mehring, who frequently attacked what he considered corruption in the bourgeois press. He wrote that Faber’s play must be “an abomination” to the bourgeois press “for he depicted with a frankness and consistency, which distinguish this writer in the

NOTES

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most favourable manner, the conflicts of conscience, which a writer who takes himself and his job seriously must encounter within the capitalist press”. Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, p.300. Selo’s reference to Faber’s play as “decidedly Social Democratic” (Selo, op. cit., p.123n123) is, however, erroneous. 113 Br., “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.274, 22 November 1892, 1. Beilage; cf. Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, p.300. 114 Mehring, “‘Andere Zeiten’. Schauspiel von Paul Bader”, (originally Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.3, 1892/93, pp.3-8), GS 11, pp.464f, 467. 115 Ibid., p.464. See the synopsis and critique in Dietmar Trempenau, Frühe sozialdemokratische und sozialistische Arbeiterdramatik (1890-1914), Stuttgart, 1979, pp.119-125, 140f. Biographical data on Bader can be found in Friedrich Knilli and Ursula Münchow, Frühes Deutsches Arbeitertheater 1848-1918. Eine Dokumentation, Munich, 1970, p.230. 116 Trempenau, op. cit., pp.119-125, 140f, quotation p.120. Trempenau’s critique is based on a rejection of the SPD’s attachment to parliamentary and legal tactics, from which perspective the “orthodoxy” of the Erfurt Programme is itself criticized as “revisionist”. 117 Ibid., p.119. Bader’s play is not on Gary Stark’s list of banned Naturalist works, although it probably ought to be included. Stark, “Censorship”. 118 Mehring, “Andere Zeiten”, p.465. 119 Freisinnige Zeitung, 25 January 1893, cited in Selo, op. cit., p.171n22. This review is one of a large number which notes that actors often “hammed up” their roles for greater effect with the relatively unsophisticated audience, especially when it was a matter of obtaining greater comic effect. 120 Magazin für Litteratur, no.3, 1893, cited in Selo, op. cit., p.170n21. 121 Mehring, “Freie Volksbühnen”, p.300. 122 Report of general meeting on 14 June 1894, in Vorwärts, no.140, 20 June 1894, 2. Beilage. A previous work by Franz Held, Manometer auf 99, had been performed by the Verein Fresko-Bühne in late 1892, and seems to have been a complete flop. Ibid., no.286, 6 December 1892, 1. Beilage. Mehring recalled after Held’s death that Held’s “poetic imagination was as powerful as it was unrestrained”, and that it was difficult to get Held to agree to any necessary changes to his work. Mehring, review of Held, GS 11, p.379. For whatever reason, Mehring for once did not write the introduction to the play for Die Volksbühne. “T.” (Türk, perhaps?), “Das Fest auf der Bastille”, Die Volksbühne, Vol.2, no.10, 1893/94, pp.3-8. 123 Vorwärts, no.155, 7 July 1894, 1. Beilage. A performance was subsequently staged (not by the Freie Volksbühne) as part of a benefit show for striking brewery workers. Ibid., no.193, 21 August 1894, Beilage. Stark, “Censorship”, pp.328, 330, refers to a subsequent ban, from October 1894 to January 1896. 124 Br. “Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.127, 5 June 1894, 2. Beilage. 125 Julius Türk, “Preisausschreiben”, NZ 11, 2, 1892/93, pp.310f; Vorwärts, no.159, 9 July 1893. 126 Report, with programmes appended, in BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1096, Bl.110ff. Advertisement in Vorwärts, no.164, 15 July 1893. The

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programme included competitions and games for children and adults, indicating that the festivities were designed for family participation. 127 Von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater, pp.129-135; cf. Vernon L. Lidtke, The Alternative Culture, New York/ Oxford, 1985, pp.75-101, 202-222. 128 Selo, op. cit., pp.94f; Franz Mehring, “Wie man Verfassungen amputirt”, NZ 13, 2, 1894/95, pp.129-133; Bruno Wille, “Die Polizei über die ‘freien Bühnen’”, Magazin für Litteratur, Vol.64, no.26, 29 June 1895, columns 801809. 129 Selo, op. cit., pp.95ff. The appeal of the Neue Freie Volksbühne and its initial failure are documented in BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1104 (Acta des kgl. Polizei-Präsidii zu Berlin, betr. Einschreiten gegen die Neue Freie Volksbühne in Censursachen, 1895-1896); the appeal of the Freie Volksbühne is contained in ibid., Th.1100 (Acta... betr. Das Einschreiten gegen die Freie Volksbühne in Censursachen). It took until November 1896 for the Neue Freie Volksbühne to obtain the right to have its performances exempted from censorship after negotiations between Wille and the Police Presidium over new statutes. Vorwärts, no.273, 21 November 1896, 1. Beilage; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.144f. 130 Mehring, “Wie man Verfassungen amputirt”. Mehring based his argument on the conflict between the Prussian constitution, Article 27 of which guaranteed freedom of expression, and the 1851 Vereinsgesetz which constituted the basis of theatre censorship. 131 Report in Vorwärts, no.96, 25 April 1895, 1. Beilage;BLHA, Pr. Br., Bln.C, Titel 74, Th.1100, Bl.6. 132 Vorwärts, no.155, 6 July 1895, Beilage. 133 Vorwärts, no.27, 1 February 1896. See the account in Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.140-143. 134 Reports on the meeting, Vorwärts, no.59, 10 March 1896, 1. Beilage; ibid., no.60, 11 March 1896, 2. Beilage; final account published in the advertisement section of ibid., no.146, 25 June 1896, 2. Beilage. One person who found it difficult to reconcile himself to the end of the Freie Volksbühne was Julius Türk, who proceeded to organize Volks-Vorstellungen of various plays in the Belle-Alliance-Theater with his own ensemble, with himself as director and actor. His ensemble also contributed theatrical performances to various Social Democratic groups’ festivities. See ibid., no.5, 7 January 1896, 2. Beilage, and the advertisement section of subsequent issues; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.137f. 135 Mehring, “Preußische Polizeiwirtschaft” (originally NZ 14, 1, 1895/96, pp.769-772), GS 12, pp.314-318. 136 Mehring, “Wie man Verfassungen amputirt”, p.133. 137 Mehring, “Die Freie Volksbühne”, GS 12, p.323. 138 Ibid., pp.321-323. 139 In addition to the evidence cited above, see the findings of a 1906 survey by the journal Die Volksunterhaltung on the plays which made the biggest impression on workers attending instructional courses, which showed that of 190 workers, 34 nominated Kabale und Liebe, 33 Wilhelm Tell, 32 Gorkii’s The Lower Depths, 31 Die Räuber, 29 Die Weber, 14 Faust, and 14 Maria Stuart. Cited in Braulich, op. cit., p.224n55.

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140 The famous Meiningen theatrical troupe, which pioneered the reform of the late nineteenth-century German theatre in its emphasis on realism and ensemble playing instead of showcasing guest virtuosos, had a strong emphasis on the classics in its repertoire. See Jaron, et al., op. cit., pp.15f. In the Freie Volksbühne in 1891, the association’s director Cord Hachmann had managed to stage Kabale und Liebe in a Naturalist manner (with most, though not all, of the cast conforming to the style). Selo, op. cit., p.133. Later in Berlin theatre history, Max Reinhardt’s Shakespeare productions would also become associated with innovation on the stage. 141 Brauneck, op. cit., pp.47-49; contrast Fülberth, Proletarische Partei, pp.106110; von Rüden, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater, pp.117-120. 142 Ibid., p.48.

Chapter Seven Report of meeting in Vorwärts, no.62, 14 March 1897. 2 Mehring, “Die Freie Volksbühne”, GS 12, p.323. On Schmidt, see above, Chapter 4. 3 The police were quick to note that Cohn had been a known Social Democrat since 1894. BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1097, Bl.109. 4 Vorwärts, no.62, 14 March 1897; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.157ff. 5 See the report of the general meeting of 6 May 1898 in Freie Volksbühne. Eine Monatsschrift (hereafter FVb), Vol.2, no.10, June 1898, pp.153-156. Here Schmidt complained that Schönhoff’s style of negative criticism was injuring the Freie Volksbühne, while Benno Maass, Dupont, and Mehring attacked Schönhoff more vigorously, Mehring alleging that Schönhoff, who had supported the attempt by a clique of writers to boycott the Freie Volksbühne in 1892, was motivated by malice against the association. (See Vorwärts, no.251, 26 October 1892, for the appeal to found the Neue Freie Volksbühne, with Schönhoff as one of the signatories.) A motion to have Schönhoff cited before the SPD press commission was not taken up by Schmidt. (The report in Vorwärts, no.109, 11 May 1898, 1. Beilage omits most of this.) See also Mehring, “Ein letztes Wort in Sachen der Freien Volksbühne” (originally NZ, 19, 1, 1900/01, pp.58-62), GS 12, p.331. The report of the general meeting of 13 July 1898 notes Mehring’s resignation, with the regret of the members being recorded. Vorwärts, no.164, 16 July 1898. 6 See Conrad Schmidt, “Herr Schlaikjer und die ‘Freie Volksbühne’”, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.90, 10 May 1900; Erich Schlaikjer, “Herr Schmidt als Bühnenleiter”, ibid., no.91, 11 May 1900; C. Schmidt, “Nochmals Herr Schlaikjer”, ibid., no.109, 12 May 1900, 1. Beilage. The polemic continued over several issues of Vorwärts. Declaration of Mehring, Vorwärts, no.115, 19 May 1900; Mehring, “Die Freie Volksbühne”, GS 12, pp.319-328; C. Schmidt, “Genosse Mehring und die Freie Volksbühne”, NZ 18, 2, 1899/1900, pp.659-662 (with a declaration by A. Berthold, p.662); Mehring, “Ein letztes Wort in Sachen der Freien Volksbühne”, GS 12, pp.329-334. 7 Mehring, “Die Freie Volksbühne”, GS 12, p.320. 8 Ibid., pp.324f. 1

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Ibid., pp.319f, 327. Appeal printed in Vorwärts, no.155, 7 July 1906, 2. Beilage. 11 Mehring, “Freies Kunstheim?” (originally NZ 24, 2, 1905/06, pp.513516), GS 12, pp.335-339, quotation p.338. (Actresses — unlike their male counterparts — had to provide their own costumes, so that an actress earning 100 marks a month could be faced with costume expenses of anything up to 1,000 marks a season, although an agreement between the Deutsche Bühnengenossenschaft, representing actors, and the Deutscher Bühnenverein in 1906 alleviated the situation to some extent. Brauneck, op. cit., pp.12f.) 12 Mehring, “Freies Kunstheim?”, pp.338f. This discussion took place against the background of recent events such as the 1905 Russian revolution, the 1905 Ruhr strike, and the debate over the mass strike question which occupied the party in 1905/06. 13 The question of Social Democrats contributing to the bourgeois press was one of the points at issue in the controversy over revisionism at the Dresden Party congress in 1903. Mehring attempted to have Berthold (who had not only written for a non-party journal but had taken editorial responsibility for anti-socialist articles in Die Zukunft) expelled from the SPD, an attempt which only narrowly failed. See Protokoll... Dresden 1903, pp.154f. 14 For Schulz’s departure in June 1897 (not in 1898 as in Nestriepke), Vorwärts, no.146, 26 June 1897; FVb, Vol.4,1899/1900, p.156; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.159-161. 15 Nestriepke, op. cit., p.161. 16 Report of general meeting of 24 January 1901, Vorwärts, no.24, 29 January 1901; FVb, 5, 1900/01, pp.93f. On Emil Rosenow, see Christian Gaehde, “Biographische Einleitung”, in Emil Rosenow, Gesammelte Dramen, Berlin, 1912, pp.i-xiv; obituary in Vorwärts, no.33, 9 February 1904. 17 Reports in Vorwärts, no.101, 1 May 1902, 3. Beilage; ibid., no.108, 11 May 1902, 4. Beilage; FVb, 7, 1902/03, pp.16-22. Emil Rosenow resigned from the committee, claiming that both sides in the dispute were at fault. Ibid., pp.17f. The motion for the representatives of the Ordner to sit on committee meetings was supported by Reichstag deputies Hoffmann and Zubeil. Ibid., p.22. 18 FVb, 7, 1902/03, p.22; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.164, 221f. 19 Report of general meeting, 29 April 1903, Vorwärts, no.105, 7 May 1903, 2. Beilage. 20 Vorwärts, no.163, 15 July 1905; ibid., no.258, 3 November 1905; FVb, 10, 1905/06, pp.18, 63. Salomon had spoken out against the committee at the general meeting of 5 July 1905, criticizing its arrangement with the OstendTheater, and opposing an increase in the treasurer’s pay. His election in the first place can therefore be interpreted as a protest vote (albeit by a narrow margin). At the second meeting (25 October 1905), Schmidt sought and obtained indemnification for his unconstitutional actions. 21 FVb, 7, 1902/03, p.17. 22 Cohn had supported Rosenow against the revisionist candidate Zepler, FVb, 5, 1900/01, p94; and Maass took a similar view of the polemics between Schmidt and Erich Schlaikjer to Mehring (supporting Schlaikjer’s freedom as a critic), FVb, 5, 1900/01, p.13, so they may well have been motivated to some 9

10

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extent by political considerations, as well as personal and managerial, in their conflict with Schmidt. 23 Eisner resigned when he left Berlin after the 1905 conflict over the editorial policy of Vorwärts resulted in his departure from his position with the party paper. He was replaced in the Freie Volksbühne by Dr. John Schikowski. Nestriepke, op. cit., p.222; Freya Eisner, Kurt Eisner: Die Politik des libertären Sozialismus, Frankfurt/ M., 1979, pp.24-39. In 1909, Buschold and Friedländer were replaced in the executive by the trade unionist Johannes Sassenbach, and Eisner’s one-time colleague on the editorial board of Vorwärts, Julius Kaliski, by which the reformist-revisionist character of the leadership was if anything reinforced. FVb, 14, 1909/10, p.30; Nestriepke, op. cit., p.280. 24 Friedrich Stampfer, “Klein Eyolf”, FVb, 8, 1903/04, p.7. 25 F. Stampfer, “Götz von Berlichingen”, FVb, 9, 1904/05, p.8. 26 FVb, 4, 1899/1900, pp.123f. On Zepler’s critical attitude towards historical materialism and the class struggle, and her views on the need for subjective and individual-psychological factors to be given greater consideration in socialist thought, see Stanley Pierson, Marxist Intellectuals and the Working-Class Mentality, 1887-1912, Cambridge, Mass., 1993, pp.207f, 211, 218. 27 FVb, 10, 1905/06, p.63. 28 FVb, 10, 1905/06, p.147. 29 FVb, 12, 1907/08, p.83; Vorwärts, no.252, 27 October 1910, 2. Beilage (advertisement); FVb, 16, 1911/12, no.6-7, p.23. For Bernstein on Shaw, see his two-part article (reviewing a book by Julius Bab), “George Bernard Shaw”, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, nos.145 and 146, 28 and 29 July 1910. (Like most German critics of the time, Bernstein insisted on characterizing Shaw as particularly “English”.) 30 FVb, 12, 1907/08, p.166. 31 Vorwärts, no.149, 29 June 1910. 32 FVb, 4, 1899/1900, pp.27-29; FVb, 8, 1903/04, p.52. 33 FVb, 7, 1902/03, p.100. 34 FVb, 16, 1911/12, no.9-10, pp.30f. There were several other non-party speakers, mostly connected with the arts. 35 FVb, 13, 1908/09, p.107; FVb, 17, 1912/13, p.43. 36 FVb, 14, 1909/10, p.62. 37 Vorwärts, no.22, 26 January 1911, 2. Beilage (advertisement). 38 [Conrad Schmidt], “Zur Einführung”, FVb, 1, 1897, p.3. 39 Ibid., pp.5f. 40 FVb, 3, 1898/99, p.87. 41 Anon. [Conrad Schmidt?], “Galeotto”, FVb, 1898/99, p.2. See also Conrad Schmidt, “Die Arbeiter und das Theater”, Dokumente des Fortschritts, Vol.1, no. 6, May 1908, pp.542-547, especially pp.545f; and the statement of Friedrich Stampfer, arguing that aesthetic enjoyment should not be restricted by the “prejudices” of any literary school. FVb, 7, 1902/03, p.148. 42 FVb, 13, 1908/09, pp.66f. 43 “Anzengrubers G’wissenswurm”, FVb, 1, 1897, p.35. My emphases.

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44 On the difficulties encountered in putting together a programme (difficulties which also included disputes over copyright and royalties), see FVb, 2, 1897/98, pp.9f, 42. Despite his differences with Vorwärts critics, Schmidt also had to concede that the standard of performances had been uneven. FVb, 3, 1898/99, p.156; Vorwärts, no.108, 10 May 1898, 1. Beilage. 45 For example, FVb, 3, 1898/99, p.44. 46 The first year, the season 1897/98 under discussion here, includes three performances in early 1897, before the summer recess, as the Freie Volksbühne began its activity in April. 47 Shylock, the introductory article argues, should be seen as a downtrodden representative of the oppressed Jewish people: “For all his infamy there is a glowing, healthy spirit of rebellion in him”. “Der Kaufmann von Venedig”, FVb, 1, 1897, p.11. The reviewer in Vorwärts contrasted two ways of playing Shylock: as a “grotesque-comical monster” (common in the past), or the more “sentimental” approach to the character, seeing him as a “strong avenger”, as did Gustav Kober in this production. Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.68, 6 April 1897. 48 Hoefert, op. cit., p.41. The introductory article conceded that the “‘hero’ of the play is a weak fellow, who will arouse little sympathy among the audience of the Freie Volksbühne”. “Die Mütter”, FVb, 1, 1897, p.19. 49 Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.180, 14 September 1897; FVb, 2, 1897/98, p.44. 50 Conrad Schmidt, “Die Hexe”, FVb, 2, 1897/98, p.17; ibid., p.44. 51 See Soergel, op. cit., p.350; Hoefert, op. cit., pp.60f. The play received a generally positive review in Die Neue Zeit, which expressed the hope (which was to remain unfulfilled) that Langmann might yet write the great drama of the working class, Bartel Turaser, despite its strike scenes, being ultimately more of a “Charaktertragödie”. D.B., “Bartel Turaser”, NZ 16, 1, 1897/98, pp.727-730. The play had also just been successfully performed in Berlin by the Lessing-Theater. Conrad Schmidt, “Bartel Turaser”, FVb, 2, 1897/98, p.65. 52 Review by -hl (=Kühl), Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.27, 8 February 1898. 53 “Die Weber”, FVb, 2, 1897/98, p.113; notice in Vorwärts, no.69, 23 March 1898, Beilage. 54 Review by -ff (=Schönhoff), Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.86, 3 May 1898. 55 Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness was banned from public performance in Berlin from 1892 to 1900. Stark, “Censorship”, pp.328, 330. It was, however, performed by the Freie Bühne in 1890. Schley, op. cit., pp.63-65; Jaron, et al., op. cit., pp.114-123. Mehring considered the ban strange in the light of the strongly moralistic nature of the play. Franz Mehring, review of Macht der Finsternis (originally NZ 19, 1, 1900/01, pp.186- 188), GS 12, pp.151-154. Bjørnson’s Beyond Mortal Power was also banned from public performance in Berlin in January 1897 (not mentioned by Stark), but was performed by the Neue Freie Volksbühne a few months later. Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.12, 17 January 1897; ibid., no.106, 1 June 1897. The Vorwärts reviewer

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(ibid.) also found the ban on Bjørnson’s play overlooked that the work, with its religious-mystical content, was “in its innermost essence antirevolutionary”. 56 Information on the programme is mainly from FVb, Vorwärts, and Julius Bab, ed., Die Volksbühne in Berlin, Wesen und Geschichte, Berlin, 1919, pp.34f; Braulich, op. cit., pp.254-268. 57 The standard of the performance may have been partly to blame for this. Review by -hl (=Kühl), Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.2, 3 January 1899; FVb, 3, 1898/99, pp.88, 90. 58 Kabale und Liebe again showed that it was able to generate great enthusiasm among the Freie Volksbühne’s audience. Review by e.s. (=Erich Schlaikjer), Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.82, 28 April 1905. 59 The choice of Maria Stuart apparently depended on the theatre concerned. Review by e.k. (=Ernst Kreowski), Vorwärts, no.256, 2 November 1909, 1. Beilage. 60 FVb, 12, 1907/08, p.227 (report of general meeting). 61 Review by -hl (=Kühl), Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.174, 4 October 1898; cf. FVb, 3, 1898/99, p.90. 62 Review by e.k. (=Kreowski), Vorwärts, no.56, 7 March 1911, 1. Beilage. 63 See Nestriepke, op. cit., p.179. The almost simultaneous performances by the Neue Freie Volksbühne and the “old” Freie Volksbühne in 1902 were the first ever of the play, which was written in 1835. 64 Review by -n, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.9, 14 January 1902. While cuts were perhaps necessary for the staging of this difficult work, with its frequent scene changes, the reviewer noted that some scenes were toned down by being made to take place offstage, and that some “allzu stark aufgetragene Kraftstellen” had been cut. 65 On the play’s unsuccessful stage history, see Meyer, Ibsen, pp.624f, 627. Judging from the Vorwärts review, The Master Builder may also have encountered difficulties with the Freie Volksbühne audience. e.k. (Ernst Kreowski), review in Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.40, 26 Februry 1907. 66 Mehring considered that Hauptmann’s “fairy-tale drama”, Die versunkene Glocke ought to cure a working-class audience of excessive respect for contemporary literature. Mehring, “Ein Märchendrama” (originally NZ 15, 1, 1896/97, pp.347-349), GS 11, pp.303-306, especially p.306. Cf., however, the more differentiated appreciation of the play by Heinrich Ströbel, who lectured on Hauptmann to the Freie Volksbühne: “Die versunkene Glocke”, NZ 15, 1, 1896/97, pp.652-659. 67 See the review of Gorkii’s The Smug Citizens, which received “sincere and strong” applause in the Freie Volksbühne. e.k. (=Kreowski), review in Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, 16 September 1902. The Lessing-Theater had placed this play on its repertoire at the urging of the Freie Volksbühne. C.S. (=Schmidt), “Gorki’s ‘Kleinbürger’”, Ibid., no.175, 9 September 1902. The powerful impact of The Lower Depths (Nachtasyl) is described in the review of the Freie Volksbühne performance in Vorwärts, no.69, 23 March 1909, 1. Beilage. The Lower Depths was performed several years after the Neue Freie Volksbühne’s staging of the work, despite the wishes of members to see it

280

NOTES

performed as early as 1903. FVb, 8, 1903/04, p.53. For a report on the Gorkii evening, which paid tribute to the writer as a “victim of Russian absolutism”, see ibid., no.52, 1 March 1905, 2. Beilage. Gorkii’s Enemies also had a “deeply moving effect” on the audience, receiving “unanimous applause”. e.k., review, Vorwärts, no.188, 10 December 1912, 1. Beilage. 68 FVb, 12, 1907/08, p.227. Neither of the other works by Maeterlinck, the short play L’intruse (Der Eindringling) nor the Renaissance drama Monna Vanna, seems to have been particularly successful in the Freie Volksbühne. e.k. (=Kreowski), review of L’intruse and other short plays, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.13, 20 January 1903; e.k., review of Monna Vanna, Vorwärts, no.285, 6 December 1910, 1. Beilage. 69 The Freie Volksbühne was credited with helping to establish Shaw on the German stage. e.k. (=Kreowski), review of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, 6 April 1904; Nestriepke, op. cit., p.231. According to Kreowski, Mrs. Warren’s Profession provoked considerable discussion among members between the acts, revealing that the audience had appreciated and understood the play. The choice of The Devil’s Disciple, on the other hand, with its deliberately melodramatic and farcical elements, was queried by Kreowski, and by Krille, a member of the Freie Volksbühne. e.k., review in Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.47, 7 March 1905; FVb, 10, 1905/06, p.18. 70 While Johannes Gaulke, writing on Wilde in Die Neue Zeit in 1897 had tried to treat Wilde seriously as a satirist of the English class system (Gaulke, “Oscar Wilde”, NZ 15, 2, 1896/97, pp.143-148), the Freie Volksbühne introduction dismissed any discussion of the content of Wilde’s plays, regarding only their style and wit as being worth any consideration. FVb, 14, 1909/10, pp.106-112. 71 Bab, Die Volksbühne in Berlin, p.38; Nestriepke, op. cit., p.271. 72 Review by e.k. (Kreowski), Vorwärts, no.290, 12 December 1911, 1. Beilage. 73 Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.230, 25 November 1898. 74 “Berliner Theaterkultur”, Vorwärts, no.137, 14 June 1908, 1. Beilage. 75 “Das Elend des deutschen Bühnenspielplans”, Vorwärts, no.299, 22 December 1910, 1. Beilage. 76 See “Aus der Praxis”, Die Schaubühne, Vol.8, 1912, pp.643f; ibid., Vol.9, 1913, pp.269-271. 77 Figures for the number of performances on the German stage in the 1911/12 season from ibid., Vol.9, 1913, pp.269-271. Authors performed by the Freie Volksbühne in that season who were not included in this listing were: Galsworthy, Augier, Greinz, Sven Lange, Haller and Wolf, Halm and Saudeck, G. Dregely, Nestroy, F. Friedmann, and Schmidt and Ilgenstein. 78 FVb, 13, 1908/09, p.108. 79 “Die drei Töchter des Herrn Dupont”, FVb, 4, 1899/1900, pp.129f. 80 FVb, 9, 1904/05, p.15. 81 FVb, 14, 1909/10, p.30. 82 Review, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.220, 9 November 1897. On Preczang’s life and work, see Knilli and Münchow, op. cit., pp.352f; Helga

NOTES

281

Herting, “Einführung. Leben und Werk Ernst Preczangs”, in Ernst Preczang, Auswahl aus Seinem Werk (ed. Helga Herting), Berlin, 1969, pp.ix-xxxvi. 83 Conrad Schmidt’s discussion of the play, FVb, 2, 1897/98, pp.33-37. 84 Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.220, 9 November 1897. 85 See the discussion of the play in Ursula Münchow, ed., Aus den Anfängen der sozialistischen Dramatik, III, Berlin, 1972, pp.vii-xl. Text of the play in ibid., pp.1-105. Münchow (p.xl) notes that Petzold is far from “a beaming optimist”, and that the play emphasizes the sacrifices he must make in his personal life in order to work for socialism. See also the critique of Im Hinterhause in Trempenau, op. cit., pp.62, 184-186. Trempenau agrees that Petzold’s departure represents a moment of hope, and that the audience is led to believe that he will certainly continue to agitate for socialism, but on the other hand he interprets Petzold’s behaviour as opportunistic and selfish, as Petzold departs from the scene of the present conflict. For Trempenau (p.62): “It is ‘drawing-room’ socialism, which is expressed in the current of Social Democratic drama which demands reconciliation through emotional shock and pity”. Münchow’s treatment of the work, while not uncritical, is somewhat more balanced, especially in the discussion of Petzold. 86 Ernst Kreowski, review, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.82, 28 April 1903. 87 Gaehde, op. cit., p.vii. According to Gaehde, this was a severe disappointment to Rosenow. 88 For the stage history, see ibid., p.13; Knilli and Münchow, op. cit., pp.391394; Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.60, 27 March 1906 (on public performance in Lessing-Theater). The play is discussed in Münchow, Aus den Anfängen..., III, pp.vii-xlix, especially pp.xl-xlix. Münchow sees the strength of Kater Lampe in the positive depiction of proletarian characters, the author relying on a socialist view of humanity rather than on the depiction of poverty and oppressive social conditions for conveying socialist ideas. Text of the play in ibid., pp.107-236; Rosenow (ed. Gaehde), op. cit., pp.237-317. 89 Review, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.45, 6 March 1906. 90 Ursula Münchow is mistaken in stating that Die im Schatten leben had its première in the Freie Volksbühne. Münchow, Aus den Anfängen..., III, p.viii. 91 Johannes Gaulke, “Die Hoffnung”, FVb, 6, 1901/02, pp.149-156. 92 Reviews from Vorwärts and Die Welt am Montag, reprinted in FVb, 6, 1901/02, pp.189-191. 93 The Vorwärts reviewer, Erich Schlaikjer, and the Freie Volksbühne’s magazine were in agreement on this point. e.s. (=Schlaikjer), review, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.172, 5 September 1905; FVb, 10, 1905/06, pp.1-8, especially p.4. 94 e.s., review, Vorwärts, Unterhaltungsblatt, no.172, 5 September 1905. 95 e.k. (Kreowski), review, Vorwärts, no.268, 16 November 1906, 1. Beilage; FVb, 11, 1906/07, pp.53-58. 96 The debate is documented in Tanja Bürgel, ed., Tendenzkunst-Debatte 1910-1912. Dokumente zur Literaturtheorie und Literaturkritik der revolutionären Sozialdemokratie, Berlin, 1987. See also Georg Fülberth, Proletarische Partei, pp.127-150.

282

NOTES

97 F. S. (Friedrich Stampfer), “Kunst und Klassenkampf”, FVb, 15, no.9, 1910/11, pp.15-19; also in Bürgel, op. cit., pp.53-57. 98 Heinz Sperber, “Die Theatersaison”, Vorwärts, no.125, 31 May 1911, 1. Beilage; also Bürgel, op. cit., pp.61-64. 99 Friedrich Stampfer, “Klasseninstinkt und Kunstverständnis”, Vorwärts, no.132, 9 June 1911, 1. Beilage; Bürgel, op. cit., pp.64-67. 100 Heinz Sperber, “Klasseninstinkt und Kunstverständnis”, Vorwärts, no.135, 13 June 1911, 1. Beilage; also Bürgel, op. cit., pp.64-67. 101 Ibid. (Emphasis in Vorwärts original). 102 FVb, 16, no.9/10, 1911/12, p.1. 103 There is insufficient room here to discuss the musical activities of the Freie Volksbühne in any detail, except to note that the “abstract” character of music may have made it even more susceptible than literature to a reception which abstracted aesthetic qualities from any consideration of social relations of production. On the musical activities, see Albrecht Dümling, “Vision einer schöpferischen Gemeinschaft. Musik in der Freien Volksbühne”, in Dietger Pforte, ed., Freie Volksbühne Berlin, 1890-1990, Berlin, 1990, pp.107-122. 104 FVb, 8, 1903/04, p.196; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.240f, 281. In 1909 the then chairman of the Volkschor, the former Protestant pastor and recruit to the revisionist wing of the SPD, Paul Göhre, rejected charges that the Volkschor was following in the train of the bourgeoisie. FVb, 14, 1909/10, p.62. Göhre was in fact a prominent exponent of religious and anti-Marxist ideology within the SPD, advocating a policy of accommodation with the Imperial German state. See Pierson, op. cit., pp.132f, 160. 105 Vorwärts, no.178, 2 August 1902, 3. Beilage. 106 Vorwärts, no.225, 17 November 1903. 107 Vorwärts, no.238, 11 October 1898, Beilage. 108 Vorwärts, no.69, 22 March 1904, 2. Beilage. 109 FVb, 5, 1900/01, pp.45f; FVb, 9, 1904/05, p.16. On the decision of the Neue Freie Volksbühne to break with the Philharmonie boycott, see Vorwärts, no.66, 18 March 1905, 2. Beilage; ibid., no.68, 21 March 1905, 2. Beilage; ibid., no.87, 12 April 1905, 2. Beilage. The Social Democratic Lokalkommission declared a boycott of venues which refused to rent out their rooms for workers’ assemblies, which was binding on party members. 110 “An die Arbeiterschaft Berlins und seiner Vororte”, Vorwärts, no.155, 7 July 1906, 2. Beilage (emphasis in original). 111 Mehring, “Freies Kunstheim”. 112 See Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.242-249. A substitute project, to take over and renovate the run-down Zentral-Theater, was also found to be unworkable. 113 Vorwärts, no.66, 18 March 1911, 1. Beilage. The laying of the foundation stone took place in September 1913 just after the cartel agreement was announced. Ibid., no.240, 15 September 1913, Beilage. The Volksbühne building was completed in December 1914. 114 FVb, 5, 1900/01, p.156. 115 Vorwärts, no.257, 2 November 1902; ibid., no.105, 7 May 1903, 2. Beilage; FVb, 8, 1903/04, p.53; FVb, 9, 1904/05, p.67. In 1904/05 the Freie

NOTES

283

Volksbühne’s performances alternated between the Berliner Theater and the Metropol-Theater. 116 FVb, 13, 1908/09, p.26. The increase was catered for by the use of four theatres, the Berliner Theater, the Neues Schauspielhaus, the Luisen-Theater and the Lortzing-Theater, including evening performances in the latter two theatres (in addition to the traditional Sunday afternoon performances). 117 Vorwärts, no.150, 30 June 1910, 2. Beilage; ibid., no.145, 25 June 1912, 3. Beilage; Nestriepke, op. cit., p.279. 118 The accounts of general meetings suggest that attendance was generally low (for example, 238 members voted on a committee position in January 1901. FVb, 5, 1900/01, p.94.) 119 Statements by Curt Baake to general meetings in both FVb, 11, 1906/07, pp.82f; and FVb, 13, 1908/09, p.27. 120 Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.191-193, 250f, 302f. 121 Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.250f, 261f, 264ff. on Reinhardt, see J.L. Styan, Max Reinhardt, Cambridge, 1982. Ettlinger (later replaced as first chairman by Georg Springer) and Neft replaced Bruno Wille as the driving forces in the Neue Freie Volksbühne, although Wille remained in the executive until late 1909. By then there was dissatisfaction within the executive over the fact that with the huge increase of work for executive members, Wille was not pulling his weight either on the executive or on the editorial board of the association’s magazine. In recognition of his past services to the organisation, however, he was made honorary chairman while being removed from the active executive. Protocol of executive meeting of 18 October 1909, in Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep.42, Acc.1899, Bl.37. 122 “Eine Berufsstatistik”, FVb, 6, 1901/02, pp.13-18. Cf. Nestriepke, op. cit., p.156; Chung, op. cit., p.92. 123 Vorwärts, no.145, 25 June 1912, 3. Beilage. 124 Nestriepke, op. cit., p.251. 125 Neue Freie Volksbühne (formerly Die Kunst dem Volke!), 17, 1906/07, pp.180-183. Cf. Chung, op. cit., p.94. 126 Letter from Police President, Abt.VIII, to Bezirkskommando VI, Berlin-Schöneberg, 12 November 1913, in a response to an inquiry about the suitability of membership in the Neue Freie Volksbühne for army noncommissioned officers. BLHA, Rep.30, Bln.C, Th.1103, Bl.105. 127 Confidential report in ibid., Bl.108-111. 128 Notice in Vorwärts, no.300, 24 December 1897, 1. Beilage. 129 Vorwärts, no.297, 30 November 1897. See also ibid., no.107, 9 May 1905, 1. Beilage, on the obtrusive police presence at the 1905 Schiller-Feier. 130 Vorwärts, no.67, 20 March 1910. 131 Vorwärts, no.237, 10 October 1903, 2. Beilage; ibid., no.241, 15 October 1903; ibid., no.243, 17 October 1903, 2. Beilage; FVb, 8, 1903/04, pp.75-77, 118, 196. The Bürgersaal in the town hall was eventually made available, on week-day evenings only. 132 Vorwärts, no.148, 28 June 1910, 1. Beilage; ibid., no.149, 29 June 1910; ibid., no.150, 30 June 1910.

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133 “Polizeipräsident v. Jagow gegen die Freie Volksbühne”, Vorwärts, no.183, 7 August 1910; ibid., no.186, 11 August 1910. 134 “Der Oberpräsident gegen die ‘Freie Volksbühne’”, Vorwärts, no.231, 2 October 1910, 1. Beilage. 135 Vorwärts, no.211, 9 September 1910; ibid., no.212, 10 September 1910, 1. Beilage; ibid., no.267, 13 November 1910, 5. Beilage; ibid., no.268, 15 November 1910. 136 FVb, 17, 1912/13, p.82; Vorwärts, no.232, 4 October 1912, 2. Beilage. 137 “Die Berliner ‘Freie Volksbühne’ und die Zensur”, Vorwärts, no.223, 23 September 1911, 1. Beilage; FVb, 16, 1911/12, pp.10- 14. 138 Vorwärts, no.107, 9 May 1912, 1. Beilage. 139 Vorwärts, no.110, 7 May 1913, 1. Beilage; ibid., no.152, 19 June 1913, 2. Beilage; FVb, 17, 1912/13, p.45. 140 Vorwärts, no.292, 6 November 1913. 141 “Der tote Jagow gegen den lebenden Rosenow”, Vorwärts, no.103, 4 May 1912. 142 Shaw to Conrad Schmidt, in Vorwärts, no.148, 28 June 1912, 1. Beilage. 143 “Die Freie Volksbühne unter Ausnahmerecht”, Vorwärts, no. 196, 23 August 1912; copy of judgement in Wolfgang Heine Teilnachlass, No.101. Theaterzensur, IISH (microfilm copy of original formerly in Staatsarchiv Potsdam). The play had already been performed for a large working-class audience in Frankfurt without serious breaches of the peace resulting. Ibid., no.100, 30 April 1912, 1. Beilage; ibid., no.106, 8 May 1912, 1. Beilage. 144 “Die im Schatten leben”, Vorwärts, no.26, 27 January 1914, 1. Beilage; “Jagows Kunsterlaß”, ibid., no.27, 28 January 1914. 145 Vorwärts, no.76, 2 April 1913, 1. Beilage; Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.379f. 146 See Nestriepke, op. cit., pp.379-399. 147 Conrad Schmidt, “Die ‘Freie Volksbühne’ während ihres Alleinwirkens”, in Bab, ed., Die Volksbühne in Berlin, p.11. My emphasis. Similarly, see Schmidt, “Mit vereinten Kräften”, Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.2, December 1914, pp.3f. 148 Die Volksbühne, Vol.1, no.1, October 1914, p.1. 149 Robert Schmidt, “Deutsche Kulturarbeit”, SM, 18 (N.S.), 1914, pp.1176-1181, especially p.1180. 150 Ruth Freydank, “Zwischen den Fronten. Die Politik der Berliner Volksbühne zwischen 1917 und 1939”, in Pfortge, op. cit., pp.33, 36.

Conclusion See my dissertation, “Class, Culture and Social Democracy. Cultural Theory and Practice in German Social Democracy, 1890-1914” (PhD. diss., University of Sydney), 1994, Ch.6 for details. 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archives Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv (BLHA), Potsdam (formerly Staatsarchiv der DDR) Rep.30 Berlin C. Polizeipräsidium, Titel 74: Th.1093, betr. Vorstellungen des Vereins “Freie Volksbühne”, 1890-1918. Th.1094, betr. den Verein “Freie Volksbühne”, 1890/1891. Th.1095, betr. den Verein “Freie Volksbühne”, 1891/1892. Th.1096, betr. den Verein “Freie Volksbühne”, 1892-1896. Th.1097, betr. den Verein “Freie Volksbühne”, 1897-1904. Th.1098, betr. den Verein “Freie Volksbühne”, 1904-1919. Th.1099, betr. die für die Freie Volksbühne genehmigten Stücke. Th.1100, betr. das Einschreiten gegen die Freie Volksbühne in Censursachen. Th.1101, betr. Censurverfügung über die Freie Volksbühne und die Neue Freie Volksbühne, 1909-1911. Th.1103, betr. die Neue Freie Volksbühne. 1904-1917. Censursachen, 1895-1896. International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam Wolfgang Heine Teilnachlass, IISH holdings. Wolfgang Heine Teilnachlass (microfilm holdings, originals in Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam). Karl Kautsky Nachlass. Wilhelm Liebknecht Nachlass. Franz Mehring correspondence (microfilm copies: originals in Rossiiskii Tsentr dlya Khraneniya i Issledovaniya Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii, Moscow). Landesarchiv Berlin Rep.42, Acc.1899. Blattsammlung des Amtgerichts Berlin Mitte/ Charlottenburg, betr. Neue Freie Volksbühne und Volksbühne. Acc.1882. Theatersammlung Matthes.

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Newspapers and Periodicals Die Aktion, 1911ff. Allgemeine Theater-Revue für Bühne und Welt, 1892. Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, 1911ff. Berliner Volksblatt, 1890. Berliner Volkszeitung, 1890. Der Bibliothekar. Monatsschrift für Arbeiterbibliotheken, 1909ff. Freie Bühne für modernes Leben, 1890ff. Freie Volksbühne. Eine Schrift für den Verein “Freie Volksbühne”, 1891-1892. Freie Volksbühne. Eine Monatsschrift, 1897-1914. Die Gegenwart, 1890ff. Die Gesellschaft, 1889ff. Die Kunst dem Volke! Neue Freie Volksbühne, 1906ff. Das Magazin für die Litteratur des In- und Auslandes, 1890ff. März, 1907ff. Die neue Rundschau, 1910ff. Die Neue Zeit, 1883-1918. Die Schaubühne, 1905ff. Der Sozialistische Akademiker, 1895/96. Sozialistische Monatshefte, 1897-1914. Die Volksbühne, 1892-1895. Die Volksbühne, 1914/15. Der Volksstaat, 1869-1876. Vorwärts. Berliner Volksblatt, 1891-1914. Vossische Zeitung, 1890. Die Zukunft, 1892ff. Selected Secondary Literature Abrams, Lynn, Workers’ Culture in Imperial Germany. Leisure and Recreation in the Rhineland and Westphalia, London and New York, 1992. Barclay, David E. and Weitz, Eric D., eds., Between Reform and Revolution. German Socialism and Communism from 1840 to 1990, New York and Oxford, 1998. Braulich, Heinrich, Die Volksbühne. Theater und Politik in der deutschen Volksbühnenbewegung, Berlin, 1976. Brauneck, Manfred, Literatur und Öffentlichkeit im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 1974. Chung, Hyun-Back, Die Kunst dem Volke oder dem Proletariat?, Frankfurt/M./ Bern/ New York/ Paris, 1989 (also as Diss., Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 1984). Davies, Cecil W., Theatre for the People. The story of the Volksbühne, Manchester, 1977; revised and expanded ed., The Volksbühne Movement. A History, Amsterdam, 2000. Emig, Brigitte, Die Veredelung des Arbeiters. Sozialdemokratie als Kulturbewegung, Frankfurt/ M.,/ New York, 1980. Evans, Richard J., Proletarians and Politics. Socialism, protest and the working class in Germany before the First World War, New York, 1990. Fülberth, Georg, Proletarische Partei und bürgerliche Literatur, Neuwied/ Berlin, 1972. Geary, Dick, Karl Kautsky, Manchester, 1987.

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“Socialism and the German Labour Movement before 1914”, in idem, ed., Labour and Socialist Movements in Europe before 1914, Oxford/ New York/ Munich, 1989, pp.101-136. Grebing, Helga, Arbeiterbewegung. Sozialer Protest und kollektive Interessenvertretung bis 1914, Munich, 1985. Groh, Dieter, Negative Integration und revolutionärer Attentismus. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges, Frankfurt/ M./ Berlin/ Vienna, 1973. Kocka, Jürgen, Lohnarbeit und Klassenbildung. Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland 1800-1875, Berlin/ Bonn, 1983. Arbeitsverhältnisse und Arbeiterexistenzen. Grundlagen der Klassenbildung im 19. Jahrhundert, Bonn, 1990. Lidtke, Vernon L., The Alternative Culture. Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany, New York/ Oxford, 1985. ] Müller, Dirk H., Idealismus und Revolution. Zur Opposition der Jungen gegen den Sozialdemokratischen Parteivorstand 1890 bis 1894 (IWK-Beiheft 3), Berlin, 1975. Nestriepke, Siegfried, Geschichte der Volksbühne Berlin. 1. Teil: 1890-1914, Berlin, 1930. Nettl, J.P., Rosa Luxemburg, 2 vols., London, 1966. Pforte, Dietger, ed., Freie Volksbühne Berlin 1890 bis 1990, Berlin, 1990. Ritter, Gerhard A., Die Arbeiterbewegung im Wilhelminischen Reich, Berlin, 1959. ed., Arbeiterkultur, Königstein/ Ts., 1979. Ritter, Gerhard A. and Tenfelde, Klaus, Arbeiter im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1871 bis 1914, Bonn, 1992. Roth, Guenther, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany, Totowa, N.J., 1963. Rüden, Peter von, Sozialdemokratisches Arbeitertheater (1848-1914), Frankfurt/ M., 1973. Rüden, Peter von, et al., eds., Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 1848-1918, Frankfurt/ M./ Vienna/ Zürich, 1979. Saldern, Adelheid von, “Wilhelminische Gesellschaft und Arbeiterklasse: Emanzipations- und Integrationsprozesse im kulturellen und sozialen Bereich”, Internationale Wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 13, 4, 1977, pp.469-505. Scherer, Herbert, Bürgerlich-oppositionelle Literaten und sozialdemokratische Arbeiterbewegung nach 1890, Stuttgart, 1974. Schorske, Carl E., German Social Democracy 1905-1917. The Development of the Great Schism, Cambridge, Mass., 1983 (first published 1955). Selo, Heinz, Die “Freie Volksbühne” in Berlin. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und ihre Entwicklung bis zur Auflösung im Jahre 1896, Berlin, 1930. Steenson, Gary P., “Not One Man! Not One Penny!” German Social Democracy, 18631914, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1981. Karl Kautsky, 1854-1938. Marxism in the Classical Years, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1991. Steger, Manfred B., The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism. Eduard Bernstein and social democracy, Cambridge, 1997. Steinberg, Hans-Josef, Sozialismus und deutsche Sozialdemokratie, Berlin/ Bonn, 1979. Trempenau, Dietmar, Frühe sozialdemokratische und sozialistische Arbeiterdramatik (1890-1914), Stuttgart, 1979.

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Zwahr, Hartmut, Zur Konstituierung des Proletariats als Klasse. Strukturuntersuchung über das Leipziger Proletariat während der industriellen Revolution, Berlin, 1978. “Class Formation and the Labor Movement as the Subject of Dialectic Social History”, International Review of Social History, 38, 1993, Supplement, pp.85-103.

INDEX

Abrams, Lynn 26f Adler, Georg 123f, 178 Adler, Max 94f Alberti, Conrad 123, 127 Angel, Pierre 103, 114, 117 Antoine, André 124 Anzengruber, Ludwig 132, 144f, 157, 185, 188 Auer, Ignaz 92, 119 Auerbach, Albert 105 Baake, Curt 130, 134, 180, 189, 201 Bader, Paul 77, 157, 170f Baginski, Richard 130 Bahr, Hermann 189 Bebel, August 32, 37, 38, 43, 70, 92, 104, 130 Beethoven, Ludwig van 189 Beier, Gerhard 32 Berg, Leo 129 Berlioz, Hector 195 Bernstein, Eduard 55, 62, 91-104, 106f, 109, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 182, 199 Berthold, Alfred 178, 179 Beyerlein, F.A. 188, 189 Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte 123 Birker, Karl 33 Bismarck, Otto von 35, 42, 49, 52, 67, 92, 121, 167 Bisson, A. 188 Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne 157, 169, 185, 189

Blackbourn, David 53 Blaschko, Alfred 153 Bloch, Joseph 108, 117, 179, 180, 181 Blumenthal, Oscar 141, 162, 185, 188, 189 Bölsche, Wilhelm 128, 129, 134, 135, 141 Borchardt, Bruno 177, 180 Born, Stefan 31 Bracher, Karl Dietrich 52 Brahm, Otto 124, 125, 130, 134, 136, 138, 142, 143, 146, 164 Braulich, Heinrich 4 Braun, Heinrich 117f Braun, Lily 181 Brauneck, Manfred 174f Brecht, Bertolt 5, 163 Brieux, Eugène 188, 193 Brüggemeier, Franz-Josef 18 Büchner, Georg 127, 186 Büchner, Ludwig 56 Bunge, Gustav von 140 Buschold, Max 177, 180 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro 157, 158, 160, 162 Calwer, Richard 118 Caprivi, Leo von 49 Charvey, Robert 188 Chung, Hyun-Back 4 Cohn, Julius 177, 180 Conrad, Michael Georg 134, 182

290

INDEX

Corneille, Pierre 73 Crew, David 20 Dammer, Otto 36 David, Eduard 90, 182 Davidsohn, Hans 180 Davies, Cecil 4 Diederich, Franz 78 Dietz, Heinrich 113 Dietzgen, Josef 128 Dörnmann, F. 188 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 125, 126 Dreyer, Max 188 Duncker, Hermann 46 Dupont, Paul 149, 153, 155, 177 Ebert, Friedrich 112 Eckstein, Gustav 112 Eisner, Kurt 118, 122f, 180, 181 Eley, Geoff 2, 9, 53 Elm, Adolph von 93, 119 Emig, Brigitte 1f, 3, 41, 48, 88 Engels, Friedrich 17, 34, 36, 40, 55, 57, 68, 70f, 74, 79, 95, 96, 103, 108, 113, 114, 115 Ernst, Paul 71f, 117 Ettliinger, Josef 197 Evans, Richard 2, 9, 93 Everett, Robert 140 Faber, Hermann 157, 170 Ferri, Enrico 57 Feuerbach, Ludwig 70, 74 Fichte, J.G. 88 Fitger, Arthur 185 Fletcher, Roger 93, 117 Fourier, Charles 35 Frederick the Great 68f Freiligrath, Ferdinand 182 Freytag, Gustav 160 Friedländer, Willy 180f Fritzsche, F.W. 36 Frohme, Karl 118 Fülberth, Georg 1 Fulda, Ludwig 132, 139, 142, 144, 146, 187 Fullerton, Ronald A. 23

Gaulke, Johannes 179 Gavault, Paul 188 Geary, Dick 49 Gerlach, Hellmuth von 49, 199 Gersdorf, E. 172 Gluck, C.W. von 195 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 76, 78, 80, 121, 157, 158, 159, 181, 182, 185, 186 Gorkii, Maxim 187, 192 Gounod, Charles 195 Grebing, Helga 44f Greinz, Rudolf 188 Grelling, Richard 163 Griepenkerl, Robert 127 Grillparzer, Franz 157, 160, 162, 186, 189 Groschopp, Horst 2 Grün, Karl 35 Grunwald, Max 119 Gutzkow, Karl 157, 160, 162 Habermas, Jürgen 10f, 27 Haeckel, Ernst 56 Halbe, Max 132, 139, 141f, 143, 185 Hall, Alex 50 Hamsun, Knut 157 Harden, Maximilian 124, 142, 178 Hart, Heinrich 128, 129 Hart, Julius 127, 128, 129, 130, 140 Hartleben, Otto Erich 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 187, 188 Hasselmann, Wilhelm 42 Hauptmann, Gerhart 77, 121, 125, 127, 131, 132, 133, 136, 139141, 142, 143, 157, 163-167, 183, 187, 189, 191 Hebbel, Friedrich 80, 132, 186 Hegel, G.W.F. 80, 82, 94f, 114 Hegeler, Wilhelm 129 Heijermans, Hermann (“Sperber, Heinz”, pseud.) 86f, 182, 190, 191-194 Heine, Heinrich 62, 76, 146, 163 Heine, Wolfgang 114, 136, 148f, 199

INDEX “Held, Franz” (pseud. for Herzfeld, Franz) 153, 157, 170, 171 Helphand, Alexander, see “Parvus” Henckell, Karl 199 Hertz, Friedrich 119 Herwegh, Georg 36 Herzfeld, Franz, see “Held, Franz” Heuss, Theodor 182 Hickey, Stephen 2 Hirschfeld, Georg 184 Hodler, Ferdinand 85 Hoefert, Sigfrid 185 Hoffmann, Adolf 180, 189 Hoggart, Richard 8 Holz, Arno 127, 187, 189 Homer 80 Huck, Gerhard 32 Husserl, Edmund 10 Ibsen, Henrik 77, 117, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131f, 135-139, 142, 143, 144, 156f, 169, 181, 182, 185, 187, 189 Jacobowski, Ludwig 129 Jacoby, Johann 65, 74 Jagow, Traugott von 199, 200 Jahnke, Hermann 145 Jelavich, Peter 24 Jerschke, Oskar 189 Jordan, Wilhelm 188 Kadelburg, Gustav 162, 188, 189 Kaiser, Georg 24 Kampffmeyer, Bernhard 104, 105 Kampffmeyer, Paul 91, 94, 104-112, 116, 117, 149 Kant, Immanuel 62, 67, 73f, 77, 80, 95, 114, 115 Katzenstein, Simon 117, 118,180, 181 Kautsky, Karl 37, 49, 55-65, 70, 77, 78, 84, 107, 109, 110, 113, 114, 119, 124, 140 Kautsky, Minna 77 Kielland, Alexander 126 Kleist, Heinrich von 157, 160, 162 Kocka, Jürgen 6, 9f, 15 Koigen, David 117

291 Kolb, Wilhelm 119 Kollwitz, Käthe 113 Koszyk, Kurt 2, 41 Kracauer, Seigfried 24 Krause, August 201 Kreowski, Ernst 186 Krille, Otto 78, 87 Kronenberg, M. 114 Küster, Konrad 129 Landauer, Gustav 198 Lange, Friedrich Albert 95 Langmann, Philipp 185 Lassalle, Ferdinand 34-36, 38, 43, 66, 67, 68, 74, 99f, 102, 112, 117, 172 Lasswitz, Kurd 111 Legien, Carl 93 Lenau, Nikolaus 199 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 67, 68f, 72, 73, 75, 80, 121, 157, 158, 160, 161, 185, 189 Leuthner, Karl 118 Lichtenstein, Gustav 153 Lidtke, Vernon L. 2, 45, 48 Liebknecht, Wilhelm 28-31, 38, 39f, 47, 66, 92, 102, 114, 117, 133, 153, 172 Lindau, Paul 68, 152 Ludwig, Otto 132 Lukács, Georg 70, 73, 75 Lux, Heinrich 105 Luxemburg, Rosa 48f, 56, 79-86, 88, 107, 114, 119 Maass, Benno 179, 180, 185 Mackay, John Henry 129 Madai, Guido von 43 Maeterlinck, Maurice 182, 187 Maltzan, Hermann Freiherr von 122 Mars, Antony 188 Märten, Lu 77 Marx, Karl 17, 30, 34, 35f, 37, 40, 41, 56, 57, 58, 64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 79, 95, 96, 107, 108, 109, 115, 116, 165, 172 Matthias, Erich 56, 57

292

INDEX

Maurenbrecher, Max 181 Mauthner, Fritz 164 Mehring, Franz 4, 32, 47, 48, 56, 6580, 84, 87, 92, 108, 116, 119, 120, 133, 136, 138, 141, 142, 144, 149, 151-161, 164f, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172-175, 177-179, 181, 182, 184, 186, 192, 195, 197, 199, 205, 206 Mendelssohn, Moses 69 Meyer, Thomas 103 Meyer-Förster, Wilhelm 189 Mickiewicz, Adam 84 Mirbeau, Octave 188 Molière, J.-B. 157, 160, 162 Molkenbuhr, Hermann 199 Moltke, Field Marshall Helmuth von 22 Mönckeberg, Karl 185 More, Thomas 148 Most, Johann 42 Mühlberg, Dietrich 14 Müller, Hans 104, 105, 129 Müller-Renz, F.A. 33 Na’aman, Shlomo 33 Najac, E. de 185, 188, 189 Naumann, Friedrich 75f Neft, Heinrich 197, 198, 201 Nestriepke, Siegfried 4, 201 Nicolai, Friedrich 69 Nielsen, Asta 25 Niethammer, Lutz 18f Nietzsche, Friedrich 130 Nipperdey, Thomas 52f Nolan, Mary 2 Nothnagel, G. 153 Offenbach, Jacques 194 Offermann, Toni 34 Owen, Robert 35 “Parvus” (pseud. Helphand, Alexnder) 119 Pfau, Ludwig 182 Pforte, Dietger 4 Pierson, Stanley 117 Piscator, Erwin 5

Plekhanov, Georgi V. 96, 115 Preczang, Ernst 78, 180, 185, 190, 199 Reinhardt, Max 197 Reuter, Fritz 145 Richthofen, Bernhard von 51 Ritter, Gerhard A. 9, 95 Roland-Holst, Henriette 192 Rosenow, Emil 180, 190f, 200f Roth, Guenther 1, 3, 44f, 206 Rubinstein, Anton 195 Rüden, Peter von 2, 37, 77 Rüederer, Joseph 185 Rühle, Otto 90 Sachs, Hans 80, 182 Sackett, Robert Eben 24 Salingré, H. 188 Salomon 181 Sardou, Victorien 184, 185, 188, 189 “Scävola, C.M.” (pseud.) 51 Schabelsky, Else von 152 Scherer, Wilhelm 68 Scherl, August 22f Schildt, Gerhard 14 Schiller, Friedrich 51, 67, 73, 76, 77, 80, 84, 88, 100, 121f, 123, 132, 145, 146, 147, 157, 159, 165, 185, 186 Schippel, Max 113, 118 Schirmer, William 145 Schlaf, Johannes 127, 140, 187 Schlaikjer, Erich 178, 191, 194 Schleupner (sculptor) 126 Schmelzer, Schutzmann 166 Schmidt, Conrad 91, 94, 112-117, 118, 120, 130, 134, 177, 178183, 190, 191, 202, 206 Schmidt, Erich 68 Schmidt, Julian 68 Schmidt, Robert 180, 181, 201, 202 Schmiedel, Otto 153 Schmoller, Gustav 67 Schnitzler, Arthur 182, 187f Schoenlank, Bruno 84, 92

INDEX Schofer, Lawrence 13f Schönau, M. 188 Schönhoff, Leopold 178, 190 Schönthan, F. 188f Schönthan, P. 188f Schulz, Heinrich 89f, 163, 177, 179, 182 Schulze-Delitzsch, Hermann 32f, 36 Schweichel, Robert 38f, 77, 153, 156, 160, 177, 179 Schweitzer, Johann Baptist von 36f, 38 Scott, Joan 19 Scribe, Eugène 188 Seiffarth, Ernst 147 Selo, Heinz 4, 44, 156 Shakespeare, William 73, 86, 161, 183, 185 Shaw, George Bernard 182, 187, 200 Singer, Paul 92 Slevogt, Max 85 Smetana, Bedřich 195 Sonnemann, Leopold 33, 67 Spencer, Herbert 56f “Sperber, Heinz”, see Hermann Heijermans Springer, Georg 198, 201 Stadthagen, Arthur 119 Stahl, Franz 51 Stampfer, Friedrich 180, 181, 192f, 206 Stearns, Peter N. 13 Steenson, Gary P. 56 Steinberg, Hans-Josef 92 Steiner, Rudolf 182 Sternheim, Carl 188 Strindberg, August 182, 187, 189 Ströbel, Heinrich 182, 199 Südekum, Albert 182 Sudermann, Hermann 121, 132, 139, 141, 143, 157, 167-169, 182, 189, 190 Taine, Hippolyte 116 Tenfelde, Klaus 34 Tessendorf, Hermann 42 Thomas, Richard Hinton 130, 136 Thompson, E.P. 8, 15 Tilly, Louise 19

293 Timm, Johannes 46, 119 Tinel, Edgar 200 Tölcke, Carl Wilhelm 36 Tolstoy, Leo 85, 126, 127, 144, 185 Träger, Albert 199 Treitschke, Heinrich von 66f Trempenau, Dietmar 2, 170 Türk, Julius 127, 130, 137, 149, 152, 153, 154, 177 Uspenski, Gleb 85 Vahlteich, Julius 36 Verga, Giovanni 162 Vollmar, Georg von 91f, 106, 108, 114, 119 Vorländer, Karl 98, 115 Wabersky, Gustav 50 Wach, Willy 44, 125, 126, 180 Wagner, Richard 88, 182, 195 Walden, F. 188 Waldoff, Claire 24 Walster, Otto 39 Wedekind, Frank 182, 188 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich 52f Weiss, Guido 65 Weitling, Wilhelm 33 Werner, Wilhelm 130, 149 Wied, Gustav 192 Wildberger, Carl 130, 136, 149 Wilde, Oscar 187 Wildenbruch, Ernst von 122 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 133, 165 Wille, Bruno 104, 105, 126, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149f, 151, 153, 160, 175, 177, 178, 182, 184, 196, 297, 201, 205 Windheim, Ludwig von 51 Winkler, Gustav 177, 180, 201 Wittich, Manfred 46f Witz, A. 51 Wolf, Robert 153 Wolff, Eugen 129 Wolff, Wilhelm 165 Wolff, Theodor 124

294 Woltmann, Ludwig 115 Wolzogen, Ernst von 185 Wurm, Emanuel 177, 179 Zadek, Ignaz 153 Zadek(-Romm), Julie 139, 153, 156f, 161, 171, 177, 180, 183

INDEX Zepler, Georg 117 Zepler, Wally 180, 181 Zetkin, Clara 86-89 Zola, Emile 113, 116, 121, 126, 128, 132, 133, 134, 140, 144, 156, 182 Zubeil, Fritz 180 Zwahr, Hartmut 6