racy,would not have been possible without the investment of vast resources by
the SED leadership inasubject matter of greatest relevance to the future of so-
cialism duringthe ColdWar.Ambitious editorial projects such as the twenty-five
volumes ofTextausgaben zurfrühen sozialistischen Literatur inDeutschland
(1963–1986), edited by Ursula Münchow and published by the Deutsche Akade-
mie derWissenschaften, made forgotten socialistauthorsand textsavailable
again.With theirextensive bibliographical annotations, these editions remain es-
sentialfor anyone workingonthe period.²²Asimilar collaborativeproject from
the 1970s, titledBeiträgezur Geschichte der deutschen sozialistischen Literatur im
20.Jahrhundert,focused specificallyonthe continuities betweenWeimar Repub-
lic and GDR and added an internationalist orientation by includingseveralvol-
umes on the Soviet Union.²³Todaythese publications, from facsimile reprints to
critical anthologies to specializedbibliographies,also document the patterns of
exclusion (e.g., regardingthe perspectivesofanarcho-syndicalism and council
socialism) thatmade these socialist archivesfullycompatible with Marxist-Len-
inism and the ideologyofstate socialism. East German literary and culturalhis-
torians had two not always compatible assignments,towrite the history of the
revolutionary working class on the basis of political orthodoxies thatwereal-
ways subjecttorevision and,secondly, to provide historicaland political legiti-
macy for the GDR’srole as the first German workers’state and the SED’sposition
as the party of socialist unity.Ifthereisone area in which East German research
institutes wereahead of theirWest German counterparts, it was in the inclusion
of socialist and communist artists in the history of modern artand ahistoriog-
raphyofmodernism thatpaid close attentionto socialist realist traditions.
Thus the class-based art history that produced the permanent exhibitionat
Otto-Nagel House in EastBerlin alreadyestablishedavisual archive for collective
imaginaries and socialist histories when manyofthe artists included had never
been mentioned inWest German overviews ofmodern German art–ashortcom-
Other projects coordinated by Ursula Münchow includeAusden Anfängen der sozialistischen
Dramatik,5vols. (Berlin: Akademie, 1964–73), as wellasFrühe deutsche Arbeiterautobiographie
(Berlin: Akademie, 1973)andArbeiter über ihreLeben:Vonden Anfängen der Arbeiterbewegung
bis zum Ende derWeimarer Republik(Berlin: Dietz, 1976). Other editorial projects includeHelmut
Barth,Zum Kulturprogramm des deutschen Proletariats im 19.Jahrhundert: Eine Sammlungkultur-
politischer und ästhetischer Dokumente(Dresden:Verlagder Kunst,1978).
Typical titles from that series includeFriedrich Albrecht,Deutsche Schriftsteller in der En-
tscheidung.Wegezur Arbeiterklasse 1918– 1933 (Berlin:Aufbau, 1970); AlfredKlein,Im Auftrag
ihrer Klasse.Wegund Leistung der deutschen Arbeiterschriftsteller 1918– 1933 (Berlin:Aufbau,
1976); Ursula Münchow,Arbeiterbewegung und Literatur 1860– 1914 (Berlin:Aufbau, 1981),
and several othervolumes on debates and developments in the Soviet Union.
AHistoriography of the Proletarian Dream 351