(e.g.,“Edewatched”)and that of the intendedreader (e.g.,“onecouldsee”).
From thisbifurcated perspective, thereader is invitedatoncetowatch the
sceneand watchEde watchingand, in so doing, becomepartof acompelling
scene of interpellation.In addition, the rulesofthe game have Edestand on the
side withafewotherchildren cast as riot police waitingfor t heir cuetobeat up
the workers. Abriefmoment of inaction allows themto make appreciative com-
ments onthefictionalworkers’high level oforganization andtheir effective
useofsongs andsymbols. In lightofthe fact that thedreamsofrevolution
have always beenarticulatedinhomosocialterms,the lovingdescription of
aresplendentMax running his hand throughhis hair should notbedismissed
as gratuitous. In fact,thismomentofintimacy withinthe performanceofcom-
munistmilitancy functions as anintegral partof thelarger sceneofideological
seduction. Notsurprisingly,atthe endofthispassage, Ede,“theboy with the
balloon cap,”wouldratherfindhimself on the othersideofthe spectacle, to-
getherwith thecomrades.Atlast, thesharpeningofconsciousness that,for
Benjamin,made proletarianchildhood a“school of poverty andsuffering”
canprovide thekindofemotionaleducationthatpromotesclassunityand sol-
idarity.
To conclude, the competingapproaches to education taken by SPD and KPD
educators and children’sgroups (and theirAustriancounterparts)reproduce the
growingdifferences between the two main leftist partiesinthe postwaryears.At
the same time,theyreveal the enduringinfluenceofpsychoanalyticallyinspired
theories, includingAdler’sconcept of feelingsofinferiority,evenasthe behav-
iorist theories developed in the Soviet Union foundwider acceptanceespecially
among the practitioners of agitprop and the communist educators who would
have agreed with Stalin’scharacterization of culturalworkers as human engi-
neers of the soul. This chapter has shownthat individual psychology, socialist
pedagogy, and proletarian literature relyonsurprisingly similar assumptions
bothabout the transformational potential of imaginingalternative forms of so-
ciality and sociality and about the key role of emotions in forming proletarian
identifications and attachments. The same assumptions about the conditions
of the workingclass and the difficulties of class mobilization thatinformed ap-
proaches to childhood and adolescence can be extended to adulthood, and the
question of working-class sexuality in particular. As the next chapter sets out to
prove, the controversial work ofWilhelm Reich offers the best introduction to the
socialist project of sex education and sexual liberationduring theWeimaryears
and the inevitable clash between the competingmodels of free sexuality identi-
fied withFreudian and Marxist theories of repression.
The EmotionalEducation of the ProletarianChild 287