movements; and,aboveall, the unique qualifications of German working-class
culturefor aseries of case studies on historical emotions and emotions in histo-
ry.With the proletarian dream functioning bothasthe main topic and as the or-
ganizingdevice, the process ofrediscovery had to involveaclear separation be-
tween collective imaginary and working-class reality and an equallycareful
distinction between Marxist,socialist,and communist positions on culture,
and actual visual,literary,and musicalpractices.
The main findingscan be summarized inanumber of ways,beginning with
their conceptual significance for futureresearch in this area.To beginwith, the
case studies have shown the proletarian dream as an extension of, and an alter-
native to,working-classreality and Marxist theory.Bytaking the chosen texts se-
riouslyasaesthetic phenomena, thereadingswereabletoconfirm working-class
cultureasasemiautonomous public sphere. The introduction of political emo-
tions as an importantbut understudied forceinsocial movements, and the work-
ers’movement in particular,has not onlyuncovered new aspects of working-
class culture but also expanded the area of inquiry to includeseemingly compet-
ing traditions and countervailingtendencies.These includethe enduringinflu-
ence ofreligion and religiosity in the cultureofsocialism; the belief in the bour-
geois heritageand the formative qualityofcultureand education; the resonances
of the cultureindustry in socialistversions of mass culture; the uniquestatus of
proletarian modernism as part of international developments; the profound rup-
ture marked byWorld WarIand the Revolution of 1918/19; and the considerable
debts of the proletarian dreamto nineteenth-century discourses of community,
folk, and culturalnationalism.
Four propositions with particular relevance to the secondvolume can be
highlighted: First,the central term that propelled the proletarian dream from
the first songsand treatises writtenduring theVormärzeratothe Weimar-eraof-
feringsofculturalsocialism was thatofcommunity–and specificallythe emo-
tional communities imagined through words, stories,songs, and images.Before
its appropriationbythe Nazis, community and related termssuch as people,
folk, and mankind functionedasthe main category of proletarian identifications
and socialist commitments,projecting shared understandingsofprecapitalist
forms of belonging,harmony, and unity into utopian postcapitalist conditions.
Despite the strongtheoretical commitment to internationalism in the workers’
movement and the manyborder crossingsinvolving socialist leaders, groups,
and texts,the proletarian imagination beforeWorld WarIremained largely con-
fined by local and provincial perspectivesonathus defined community.Aspart
of the complicated Germanhistory of socialism and nationalism, the internation-
alist,collectivist positions cultivated in theKampfkulturof theWeimar KPD re-
mainedthe exception.Nonetheless the famous artists, writers, and thinkers as-
336 Afterword