ilyconcerned with the relationship between literature and politics, the partici-
pants in the originaltendentious art debate set out to clarify unresolvedques-
tions about artistic quality and politicaltendency,the function of socialist art
under capitalism, and the workingclass’sdebt to bourgeois traditions, including
the classics.About twentyyears later,the official KPD position on proletarian lit-
erature presented tendencyand partialityasalternative models of literarypro-
duction (and, by extension, reception) and did so through arguments first devel-
oped in the SPD party press.²⁷Onlynow,tendencywas denouncedonaccount of
its superficial understanding of aesthetic critique and partiality introduced as
the formallyand politically more radical category.
The tendentious art debate had begun with several articles by the Dutch
dramatist Herman Heijermans (1864–1924) writing under the pseudonym
Heinz Sperber that,between 1910 and 1914, appeared in the SPD party newspa-
perVorwärtsandrelated publications. Against the defenders of the literary
canon, Sperber had denouncedthe promotion of great works and eternal values
as misguided, insisted thatall works hadapolitical tendency, and argued for the
development ofastrongand vibrant socialist art in the present.The proletarian
class instinct,heinsisted, should be the sole measure of the qualityofart,and
tendencythe guiding principle for all artistic practices and critical evaluations.²⁸
Sperber’sreference to instinct,with its implicit assumptionsabout class and
character,and his formulation of what detractors ridiculed as“the doctrine of
the callous fist (schwieligeFaust)”provoked strongcounterarguments. One in-
cluded the defense of aestheticautonomyand literary quality that,for instance,
includedadenunciation of naturalist writers and other modernists. Heinrich
Ströbel (1869–1944), soon to become the editor ofVorwärts,objected in partic-
ular to Sperber’swillful reduction of proletarian art to specific themes and views
and, worse, an evaluation of aesthetic qualities basedsolelyonrather subjective
measures of tendency. He reminded his readers thataproletarian class position
onlyguaranteedacertain“susceptibilityfor socialist ideology”that needed to be
cultivated.Forthat reason, socialistTendenzkunst(tendentious art) had to be de-
velopedinconjunction with the aesthetic education of the workers.²⁹Aware of
the dearthofsuitable works,Friedrich Stampfer(1874–1957), anotherVorwärts
tionto expressionism)and, in responseto the threatoffascism, presented arguments that would
later inspirethe distinction between progressive and reactionary modernism.
The maintexts of thetendentious art debatehavebeen reprintedinTanja Bürgel, ed.,Ten-
denzkunst-Debatte 1910–1912: Dokumente zur Literaturtheorie und Literaturkritik der revolutionä-
rendeutschen Sozialdemokratie(Berlin: Akademie, 1987).
Heinz Sperber,“Te ndenziöseKunst,”reprintedinBürgel,Tendenzkunst-Debatte, 10 – 14.
Heinrich Ströbel,“Eine ästhetischeWerttheorie,”Die Neue Zeit29.1 (1911):598.
Marxist Literary Theoryand Communist MilitantCulture 267