women, for instance through the habitus of androgyny, will be considered in
greater detail in chapter 18.
Proletarian identifications wereformed both through propaganda asatech-
nique of persuasion and through agitation in the sense of physical and emotion-
al stimulation.During the laterWeimaryears, agitprop emergedasthe KPD’s
preferred method ofmass mobilization and found privileged expression in the
ubiquitous figure of theagitator.Aportmanteauword,“agitprop”is usuallyde-
fined asamusicalortheatrical performance distinguishedbyits improvised sets
and settings, shortpieces and mixed forms, and heavy relianceonparody, satire,
and the grotesque.Combining posters, songs, speeches, dances,skits, and film
clips in short programs and longer revues,agitprop troupes addressed typical
working-class problems,such as labor struggles, low wages, familystrife, unem-
ployment,homelessness, poverty,and so forth. Thesegroups developed pro-
grams in solidarity with the Soviet Union and appeared atKPDelectionrallies,
RFB mass demonstrations, RGO factory cell meetings, and events organized by
the KJVD(CommunistYouth Association of Germany).Beyond these political
contexts, agitprop at the time alsodefinedaparticular mode of enunciation,
or form of presentation, adopted acrossawiderangeofbodypractices in mod-
ern theater,music, and dance.Historian RichardBodek rightlyinsists on the im-
portance of proletarian performancesto Weimarmodernism asawhole. Commu-
nication scholar Robert Heynen makesasimilar point about the class politics of
embodiment and its little understoodrole in (the critique of)capitalist modern-
ity.⁶Preciselybylinking the spheres of the aestheticand the political,both
scholars conclude, agitprop servedradicalizing functionsinthe highlypoliti-
cized cultureofthe Weimar Republic.⁷
In the Soviet Union, agitprop had been introduced originallyasacoordinat-
ed propaganda effort in support of newBolshevikinitiativesand policies.Its
forms and techniques weredevelopedwithin the Proletkult movement that pro-
vided agitational visual,literary, theatrical, and educational materials from a
proletarian point of view,that treated proletarian cultureasaprivileged siteof
socialist modernity and industrial modernization–and that eventuallyclashed
See RichardBodek,Proletarian Performance inWeimar Berlin: Agitprop,Chorus,and Brecht
(Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997) and RobertHeynen,“Revolution and the Degeneration
of theWeimar Republic:WorkerCulture and the Rise ofFascism,”inDegeneration andRevolu-
tion: Radical Cultural Politics and theBody inWeimar Germany(Leiden: Brill,2015), 496–583.
Forabrief introduction toWeimar-era agitprop, see ErikaFunk-Hennigs,“DieAgitpropbewe-
gung alsTeil der Arbeiterkultur derWeimarer Republik,”Beiträgezur Popularmusikforschung
15 – 16 (1995): 82–117.
Taking aStand: The Habitus of Agitprop 241