contribution by the culturalsocialists. Meanwhile, Dieter Klenke has highlighted
the close connections between theatrical and musical practices that,since the
workers’choral societies of themid-nineteenthcentury,defined socialist culture
as an event cultureindifferentto the pressures of normative poetics.²⁶While
there exists widespread agreement on the multimedia qualities of theSprechchor
and related mass spectacles, scholarlyassessmentstend to reproduceofficial
party positions when they distinguish alltooclearly between the educational
theater of the SPD and the agitational theater of the KPD.Acomparison of actual
plays and productions cannot confirm such clear and simple ideological divides.
Forthis reason, in theseremainingpages, the uniquecontribution of theSprech-
chor,whether socialist or communist,will be evaluated as part of the longer his-
tory that brought the workingclass to the theatrical stage: first in the form of so-
cial types and, eventually, as acollective body.
In most literary histories,the appearance of workers on the modernstageis
equatedwith the formal and political provocation of Gerhart Hauptmann’sDie
Weber(1892,TheWeavers)about the 1844Weavers’Revolt in Silesia.²⁷Fewac-
counts mention an earlier treatment of theWeavers’Revolt,Julius Leopold
Klein’snever performedCavalier und Arbeiter(1850,Squireand Worker), which
contains the first depiction of class struggle inaGerman-languagedrama. The
earlysocialist movement after the Revolutions of 1848 producednumerous large-
ly forgotten plays (of negligible quality), typicallywritten by workers turned ac-
tivists, performedduringsocialist festivities and anniversaries, and concerned
aboveall with labor struggles and social conflicts.²⁸PublishersAdolf Hoffmann
in Berlin and Richard Lipinski in Leipzigprinted these plays primarilyfor use by
amateur theater groups–asituation that changed onlywith the turn towarda
more professional workers’theater in the early1900s. Lengthydialogues and
monologues on the social question and stereotypical characters without psycho-
logical depth are the two main reasons for the plays’lack ofreception beyond
socialist associations; another factor that would become obvious onlyinretro-
movement through thework of its most active proponent,see JonClark,Bruno Schönlank und die
Arbeitersprechchorbewegung(Cologne: Prometh, 1984).
On this connection during theWeimaryears, see Dietmar Klenke,Arbeitersänger undVolks-
bühnen in derWeimarerRepublik(Bonn: Dietz, 1992).
Foranoverview of theWilhelmine period, see Andrew Bonnell,ThePeople’sStage in Impe-
rial Germany:Social Democracy and Culture1890– 1914 (London:Tauris,2005).
The contradictions in the SPD’sapproachto theater beforeWorldWarIcan be studied ex-
emplarilyinRudolfFranz,Theater undVolk:Nebst einem Anhange.Die Debatten des Sozialde-
mokratischenParteitagesinGotha 1896 über Kunst und Proletariat(Munich: G. Birk, 1914). On
Franz, see GerhardEngel,Dr.RudolfFranz (1882–1956). Zwischen allen Stühlen–ein Leben in
der Arbeiterbewegung(Berlin: edition bodoni,2013).
Social Democracy and the PerformanceofCommunity 235