ism, it proves surprisingly ill-suited in making sense of socialist allegory.For in-
stead of revealing the signs of decline,allegory’svery conventionalityand obso-
lescenceset adifferent history into motion once the capitalist dream world yields
to the socialist utopia of the nineteenth century.
To ensure their correct interpretation, socialist allegories sometimes came
with detailedinstructions onreading images as texts.The presentation of a
work by Max Slevogt(1868–1932)inthe 1903Mai-Festzeitungis based on the as-
sumption that interpretive stability requiresasurfeit oftextuality,both as part of
the imageand in the form of additional commentary.Titled“We Are the Power!,”
the imagefeaturesayoung,muscular blacksmith withahammertucked into his
apron and two eagles perched on his extended arms. The captionreads:“We are
the power!We hammerthe state, that old, decrepit thing,into new shape!/Born
of the wrath of God,weare todaythe proletariat!”Lest that figure be seen as a
typicalworker standing in front of smoking factory chimneys,the accompanying
text describes the image’s“painted Marxism”as amuch-needed antidote to the
“painted socialism of emotion”and elaborates:“There he stands,‘all muscle,
nerve, and tendon’and surely[he] does not say:‘My life is so bad! Dear people,
please feed me!’He also does not say:‘Look, how virtuousIam, myvirtue is
boundto win!’ No, if there is one wordwritten on his pressed lips, it reads
short and simple:‘Iwill!’”²²(see figure5.5). Allegory’sdependence on highlyfor-
malizedreadingpractices is confirmed byWalter Crane’searlier representation
of“The CapitalistVampire”(1885) in the SPD’s1901Mai-Festzeitung(see figure
5.6). Depicted as an angel withatorch, this Arts and Crafts personification of So-
cialism aggressively confronts the capitalist vampireasheisabout to attack
sleeping“Labor,”shown here asakind of anti-Prometheus.The accompanying
interpretation calls the image“aclarion call to the ears of indifferent workers.
With thetorch of knowledge and enlightenment in hand and the trumpet of so-
cialism at the lips, thegenius of freedom approaches toawaken the last worker
from the leaden sleep of indifference and ignorance that allows the vampire of
capitalismto suck his heart’sblood in the form of religioushypocrisy and polit-
ical stultification.”
and MichaelW. Jennings(Cambridge,MA: BelknapPress,2003), 183. Forsuchareading,see
Heinz DieterKittsteiner,“The Allegory of the PhilosophyofHistory in theNineteenth Century,”
inWalter Benjamin and the Demands of History,ed. MichaelP. Steinberg(Ithaca, NY:Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1996).
Reprinted in UdoAchten, ed.,Zum Lichte empor!Mai-Festzeitungen der Sozialdemokratie
1891 – 1914 (Berlin: Dietz, 1980), 125and 126.
The Proletarian Prometheus and SocialistAllegory 113