oriented.To theAnti-Socialist Laws, as well as otherlawslimiting the right of
free assemblyand association, Social Democrats responded with the founding
of seemingly apolitical clubs and associations wheresocialist ideas could contin-
ue to thrive.These external pressures mayhavebeenafactor in the emergence of
the party’sbureaucratic structure, institutional hierarchies,and what is some-
times dismissively calledVereinsmeierei(clubbishness); but they do not fullyex-
plain its locallybased and sociallyvalidated cultureofhomosociality.The life-
world of associations, clubs,anniversaries, festivities, rituals, and symbols
continued to thrive afterthe oppressive Anti-Socialist Lawswereallowedto
lapse in 1890,and the workers’emotional attachment to party and movement
inspired ever more examples of socialist kitsch, from plaques, banners, steins,
to proletarian pictures of the saints (seefigures3.1and 3.2).
Fig..WilhelmLiebknecht, August Bebel,
Ferdinand Lassalle, et al.,“Die Befreier des
Proletariats/TheLiberatorofthe Proletariat,
–,”-YearCelebration of the
Founding of the SPD,postcard. With
permission of Archiv der sozialen Demokratie
der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
Fig..August Bebel,“‘Ich hämmerejung das
altemorsche Ding den Staat./I Am Hammering
thatOld Decrepit ThingCalled the State,’Gruß
zurMaifeier!/May Day Greetings,”postcard, c.
.With permission of Archiv der sozialen
Demokratie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.Emotional Socialism and Sentimental Masculinity 81