logne Progressivesinthese terms.⁶Their rejection of sentiment and pathos did
by no means signal emotional detachment or,still less, the kind of cynical rea-
son diagnosed by Peter Sloterdijk in his influential studyonWeimar mentalities.
On the contrary,detachmentopenedupthe possibilityfor adifferent kind of en-
gagementbased on the recognition of similarity–which alsomeans solidarity–
shared by the unified figures within the picture frame and theradicalized artists
and workers themselves. It should be clear that retrievingthis habitus of critical
empathyisonlypossible through an expanded definition of proletarian modern-
ism that takes into account its interventionist and collectivist qualities.
Fig..FranzWilhelmSeiwert,Sozialistische Republik,April,front page.
On 30April 1925,the daybefore the annual MayDay celebrations, theSozia-
listischeRepublik,acommunist newspaper in Cologne, featured an illustration
by Seiwert on its front pagethat can be usedtointroduce Seiwert’sown lifelong
quest for an oppositional aesthetic beyondverisimilitude and sentimentality.The
imageshowsalarge group of workers marchingtogether duringademonstra-
tion, with the hammerand sickle flagsidentifying them as communists.The
See HelmutLethen,CoolConduct:TheCultureofDistance inWeimar Germany,trans. Don Re-
neau(Berkeley:University of California Press,2002)and Peter Sloterdijk,Critique of CynicalRea-
son,intr.AndreasHuyssen, trans. Michael Eldred (Minneapolis:University of MinnesotaPress,
1988).Forthe Anglo-American context,see Jessica Burstein,ColdModernism: Literature,Fash-
ion, Art(University Park,PA:PennStateUniversity Press,2012).
208 Chapter11