with the leadership claims of theBolsheviks as the vanguard party.⁸Under the
influenceofthis proletarian moment,the most famous Soviet agitprop troupe,
the Blue Blousecollective,perfectedauniquestyle of speaking usuallydescribed
as hard-hittingand assault-like; mental and physical alertness wereessential
components of their rehearsal practices and performance styles.Their highlyan-
ticipated appearance at Erwin Piscator’sTheater am Nollendorfplatz in 1927 and
their subsequent German tour led to the founding of numerous agitprop troupes,
such as Rote Raketen andKolonne Links inBerlin, RoteFanfaren in Stuttgart,
Rote Rebellen in Chemnitz, Rote Ratten in Dresden, and so forth;agroup of chil-
dren even agitated under the name RoteTrommler.⁹Gustavvon Wangenheim’s
productions withTruppe 1931 (Troupe 1931) and, before that,his experiments
with choralplays and masspantomimes confirm the stronginfluenceofProlet-
kultontheatrical practices that combine agitation, information,and entertain-
ment.Following the example of Piscator’sRevue RoterRummel (1924,Revue
Red Rabble), agitprop troupes oftensought inspiration from distinctly urban di-
versions, includingasvariety shows, and producedabarrageofstimuli some-
times comparedto hammering and drumfire.¹⁰Their performances became
more propagandistic and lessimaginative after Stalin’sconsolidation of power
after the death of Lenin in 1924.Atthe request of the Comintern, the IAH-funded
Kolonne Links and other troupes soon created entire programs in support of the
Soviet Union, with the resultthatthe playful elements that had made agitprop
part ofastaged multimedia aesthetic graduallydisappeared and gave waytopre-
dictable exercises in political indoctrination.
Through agitprop, key ideas of the Proletkult movement gained entrance
into the international debates on proletarian culture, includingbehavioristmod-
els of human behavior and conditioninginspired by Pavlovianism.Against the
classic Marxist formulation provided by GeorgiPlekhanov,“that social con-
sciousnessisdetermined by social existence”and that art“expresses the striv-
Foracomprehensive accountofproletarian theater,includingagitpropduring the earlyWei-
mar Republic, also see RichardWeber,ProletarischesTheater und revolutionäre Arbeiterbewe-
gung 1918– 1925 (Cologne: Prometh, 1976). On Proletkult and itsagitational practices,see
Peter Gorsen and EberhardKnödler-Bunte,Proletkult,2vols.(Stuttgart:Frommann-Holzboog,
1974 – 75).
Twolesser-known agitprop troupes arethe focus inSusanne Seelbach,Proletarisch-revolutio-
näres Theater inDüsseldorf 1930–1933: DieBühne als politischesMedium(Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang, 1994).Formorepersonal recollections, see DanielHoffmann-Ostwald, ed.,Aufder
roten Rampe. Erlebnisberichte undTexte aus der Arbeit der Agitproptruppen vor 1933(Berlin: Hen-
schel, 1963).
Erwin Piscator,“R. R. R.(Revue RoterRummel),”Das politischeTheater,ed. Ludwig Hoff-
mann (Berlin:Henschel, 1968), 60–62.
242 Chapter13