tuallydismissed astoomechanisticand replaced by“partiality”as the aestheti-
callyand politically more productive term.
August Wittfogel publishedaseries of articles inDie Linkskurvein 1931 and
1932 in response to the writer and criticLuMärten (18 79 – 1970)that insisted on
the incommensurability of proletarian literature and literarymodernism and
confirmed the KPD’santagonistic course in literaryand political matters.²¹
TodayWittfogel, whose earlyliterary experiments included an expressionist
play,Rote Soldaten(1921,Red Soldiers), is best known for his scholarlywork
on the Asiatic mode of production–and therabid anticommunism of his later
years in theUS.The unjustlyneglected Märten had earlier publishedahighly
original historical-materialist treatise, titledWesen undVeränderung derFormen/
Künste(1924,About the Nature andTransformationofForms/ Arts), that exam-
ined the transformation of artistic forms since the industrial revolution with a
viewtoward theradical potential unleashed by this process. In the shortLink-
skurvearticle on Marxist aesthetics that caught Wittfogel’sattention, Märtens
onceagain argued for the primacyofartistic form over content and insisted
on the interrelatedness of modes of production and aesthetic styles.²²Articulat-
ingacritique of theautonomyofart that foregrounded the conceptshistorical’
connection to the rise of capitalism and the industrialrevolution, she called for a
materialist aesthetic at once basedonthe communal modes of production prev-
alent duringthe medieval period and informed by themost advanced media and
technologiesavailable in the present.Onlyaprogrammatic rejection ofautono-
mous art in favorofthe collectivist practices modeled by Proletkult and others
could give riseto new art forms and functions in the ageofmechanical reprodu-
cibility. ForMärtens,the compatibility of Marxism and modernism provided both
the meansand the ends in setting into motion suchatrulymaterialistrevolu-
tionary process.
Aware of othermodernist sympathizers in theradical left but singlingout
Märtens by name,Wittfogel obviouslyfelt compelledto defend the BPRS’spreoc-
The discussionbegan withKarl AugustWittfogel,“Zu rFrage der marxistischen Ästhetik,”
Die Linkskurve2.5(1930): 6–7and“Weitereszur Frageeiner marxistischen Ästhetik,”Die Link-
skurve2.8(1930): 15–17.
Lu Märten,“Zu rFrage einer marxistischen Ästhetik,“Die Linkskurve3.5(1931): 15–19.For
the response byWittfogel, see“Antwort an die GenossinLuMärten,”Die Linkskurve3.6
(1931): 23 – 26.The debatebetween Märtens andWittfogel has been reprinted inZur Frage
einer marxistischen Ästhetik:Abhandlung(Cologne:Kölnkalkverlag, 1973). The writings by
Märtens have been reprinted inFormenfürden Alltag.Schriften,Aufsätze,Vorträge,ed. Reinhard
May(Dresden: VEBVerlag derKunst,1982), including the 1929 article“Ku nst und Proletariat”
(109–116).
Marxist Literary Theoryand Communist MilitantCulture 265