soul is in fact produced–beginning with the extensive exchanges between the
workers’writers and their bourgeois editors.For both participants in thesevery
unequal exchanges, emotions function asaprivileged marker of subjectivity,in-
cludingacollective subjectivity in the making.Reconstructing the processes by
which specific feelingsare identified and interpreted as proletarian not only
drawsattention to the cultural conventions and traditions that enter into such
decisions.It also offersaunique opportunitytoreflect on the conditions
under which speaking across class lines, and specificallyspeakingabout the
workingclass, almostalways involves hierarchies of power and knowledge
and complicatedgestures of accommodation and resistance.Forthat reason,
this chapter on workers’life writingswill payspecial attentionto how editors
such as the above-mentioned Levenstein and Paul Göhre, theLutheran-pastor-
turned-Social-Democrat who features prominentlyinthe second part,presented
the worker-writer asasentient being,infull awareness of their own investment
in the all-important process of communication andrapprochement.
Thewriting of workers’emotions always involved acollaborativeprocess,
but one with unequal participants, conflictinginterests, and different language
competencies. The emotional intensities unleashed through the“discovery”of
the worker’ssoul are on full displayinalong letter written by the miner Max
Lotz in responseto Levenstein’soriginal request foracontribution toOutof
the Depth.Lotz begins by confessingthat,“rarely has anything moved me as
much as the moment whenmywife handed meyour letter asIwas coming
home frommyshift.Anexpression of recognition.”But his gratefulness soon
givesway to barelyconcealedanger about what he sees as the editor’sprecon-
ceivednotions about his inner life:
Individuality smiles triumphantly! That’swhatyou oncewrote to me. Whydid youwrite
that?Iam consumed byrage,anindescribable,untamablerage.Myheart is filled with ha-
tred andmy soul devouredbyits sick pleasures.Youare challengingme? But wait,whata
foolIam! No,youare not challengingme,this carnallustful cadaver; youwantto force the
soul, the nature of the mind, that adversary andapostate of plain facts,tospeak up and
confess.Iam furious,inhumanly enraged. Whyhaveyou done this?Thefullbosom should
speak?Theawakened,troubledpersonality? Oh, fury!Trampled dreamsshould speakto
you? Go ahead and retrievethem from the great democratic swamp of egoism, the Orcus
of envy.There,inits poisonous gases, the last shards of the shattered soul areroaring,
screaming,craving, andraging–for redemption.Formuch, muchtoolong have Isup-
pressed aspects ofmypersonality. Redemption?Brutallyfoolish philosophy! The world
does not know this language. Reality,existence, and life are unrelentingintheir natural
tragedy. Even the embryoshivers in the diaper of downfall. Nothingisimmortal,nothingRe/WritingWorkers’Emotions 141