By contrast,rightwingauthors tend to focus on the“redterror”and its destruc-
tive impact on family, society,and nation.A1930book by ErwinBrauer,who was
sympathetic to the KPD position, includes chapter headingssuch as“The Fierce
Battle for Essen”and“Düsseldorf in theHands of theWorkers,”titles that could
just as easilyhaveappeared in the novels by Grünbergand Marchwitza or the
writingsofFreikorpsmen, for thatmatter.Inall cases, revolution is translated
into the languageofwar,and the homefront transformed intoyetanother battle-
ground.Twomonumental histories of theRuhr Uprising published in the 1970s,
ameticulouslyresearched three-volume work byWest German ErhardLucas and
alarge tome by East Germans ErwinKönnemann and Hans-Joachim Krusche that
carefullytoes the SED party line, confirm that theRuhr Uprising was not merely
apredominantlymale affair; the experience providedamuch-welcomed oppor-
tunity for celebrating militancy as an expression of vanguardism.⁹Confirming
this point,historians EricWeitz, Atina Grossmann, and SaraAnn Sewell have ex-
aminedthe cult ofhypermasculinity in the communist left withregards to the
homosocial bondsforgedinthe factories and trenches and the anxieties caused
by the NewWoman and her demands for social and sexual equality.¹⁰
The insistencebyhistorical participants on the factuality of events and their
subsequent transformation into truth events,to use AlainBadiou’sterm, givesa
The standardwork is ErhardLucas three-volume studythat includesMärzrevolution im Ruhr-
gebiet.Vom Generalstreik gegen den Militärputschzumbewaffneten ArbeiteraufstandMärz-April
1920 (Frankfurt am Main: März, 1970)andMärzrevolution 1920.Der bewaffnete Arbeiteraufstand
im Ruhrgebiet in seiner inneren Struktur und in seinemVerhältnis zu den Klassenkämpfen in den
verschiedenenRegionen des Reiches(Frankfurt am Main: Roter Stern, 1973). Together withLudger
Fittkauand Angelika Schlüter, Lucas also publishedRuhrkampf 1920: DievergesseneRevolution:
Ein politischerReiseführer(Essen: Klartext,1990).ForanEast German perspective that presents
the GDR as the telos of these historical struggles, see ErwinKönnemann and Hans-Joachim
Krusch,Aktionseinheit contraKapp-Putsch. DerKapp-Putsch imMärz 1920 und derKampf der
deutschen Arbeiterklasse sowie andererWerktätigergegen die Errichtung der Militärdiktatur und
fürdemokratischeVerhältnisse(Berlin: Dietz, 1972). CompareWerner Angress,StillbornRevolu-
tion:TheCommunistBidfor Power in Germany,1921– 1923 (Princeton:Princeton University
Press, 1963).
See EricD. Weitz,“TheHeroicMan and the Ever-ChangingWoman: German and Politics in
European Communism, 1917–1950,”inGender and Class inModern Europe,ed. LauraLevine
Frader and SonyaO. Rose (Ithaca, NY:Cornell University Press,1996), 311–352and Atina Gross-
mann,“German Communism and NewWomen: Dilemmas and Contradictions,”inWomen and
Socialism/Socialism andWomen: Europe between theTwoWorldWars,ed. Helmut Gruber and
Pamela M. Graves (NewYork: Berghahn, 1998), 135–168. On the visual representation of commu-
nist masculinity,compareSara Ann Sewell,“The Party Does Indeed FightLikeaMan: The Con-
struction ofaMasculine Idealinthe Weimar Communist Party,”inWeimar CultureRevisited,ed.
John AlexanderWilliams (NewYork: Palgrave, 2011), 161–182.
182 Chapter 9