musical, and artistic movements sustainedthe bourgeoisie duringthese simulta-
neous struggles for class emancipation and national unification. Therepresenta-
tion of class-based interests as universal values and of the bourgeois habitus as
an expression of national characterwaspart and parcel of the desired ideolog-
ical effects.
The appointment of the workingclass as the legitimate heir ofWeimar clas-
sicism meant the completion of the utopian project of cultureand education
started in the late eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries through the com-
bined forces of idealistphilosophy, classical aesthetics, and bourgeois emanci-
pation. These legacies profoundlyinformedFranz Mehring’sviews on therela-
tionship between literaryform and social relevance thatwill be used on the
remainingpages to examine its manifestations in the context of one bodyof
work.²²As theauthor ofamonumental history of Social Democracy and the ed-
itor of Marx, Engels, and Lassalle, Mehring (1846–1919) came as close as anyone
to formulating the official SPD position on proletarian literature and socialist
culture. His writingsfrom the 1890s to the 1910s forDie Neue Zeit,the party’s
theoretical organedited byKautsky,established the main elements of Marxist
aesthetics and articulated the proper relationship between culture, society,
and politics. Scholars have explainedthe tension between historical materialism
and idealist aesthetics in his writingsaseither theresult of his bourgeois up-
bringingand taste or as an indication of the struggles over the place of Marxism
in Social Democracy.²³Like manyparty leaders, Mehring denounced naturalism
as asymptom of decadence even as he acknowledgedindividualauthors’com-
mitmentto the social question. He believed in the classical heritagebut rejected
its normative function in bourgeois culture. He promoted the cause of the people
but had mostlycontempt for popularculture. And he outlinedanambitious pro-
On Franz Mehring, see HansKoch,FranzMehringsBeitrag zur marxistischen Literaturtheorie
(Berlin: Dietz, 1959); Theo Buck,Franz Mehring.Anfänge der materialistischen Literaturbetrach-
tung in Deutschland(Stuttgart: Klett,1973); and Peter Kiefer,Bildungserlebnis und ökonomische
Bürde. Franz Mehrings historischeStrategie einer Kultur des Proletariats(Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang, 1986).
Foranoverview fromthe West German perspective,see GeorgFülberth,ProletarischePartei
und bürgerliche Literatur:Auseinandersetzungen in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie der II.Inter-
nationale überMöglichkeiten und Grenzen einer sozialistischen Literaturpolitik(Neuwied:Luchter-
hand, 1972).
Forthe East German position, seeUtaKösser,“Unter denWaffen schweigendie Musen
nicht.Probleme der Theorieentwicklungund Theoriebildung im ästhetischenDenken der deut-
schen Arbeiterbewegungvon 1830 bis 1930.Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der marxistisch-leninis-
tischen Ästhetik,”2vols. (PhD diss., University of Leipzig, 1987).
168 Chapter8