In preparingthe nextgeneration for the classless society of the future, the
children’srepublics insisted on shared work responsibilities and total equality
between the sexes and, through group activities, trained new group behaviors
in line with coresocialist values,such as tolerance, nonviolence, and interna-
tional solidarity.During the lastyears of theWeimar Republic, the Kinderfreunde
also worked hardto distinguish theirholistic socialist pedagogyfrom the more
agitational, militaristic approachestaken by KPD-affiliated groups.Itwas in re-
sponse to these largerdevelopments that Löwenstein, whowasonthe school
board inBerlin-Neukölln, repeatedlycharacterized working-class children as
(socialist) builders of societyrather than (communist) destroyers of society
and concluded that
our childrenare the livingtestament and expression of their proletarian existence. This pro-
letarian existencemeans inferiority as long aswe do not create the oppositeeffect through
anewcommunity,throughadifferentreality.And that is exactlywhat we do with our
groups.Here our children arenot proletarians,but RedFalcons; here they arenotbelittled
and cast to the side. Instead they makedecisions for themselves, buildahappy and fulfill-
ing lifetogether,makeplans and carry them out,and in their children’srepublic, already
experienceanew socialist state.¹¹Equallyconcerned with the special problems of working-classchildren, but with
greater emphasis on their psychological preparation for class struggle, the KPD
by 1919 had alreadyfoundedacompetingKinderverband that agitated in the
schools and disseminated its ideas through the journalDas proletarische Kind.
The RoteJungpioniere (ages ten to fourteen),too, had their own weeklynewspa-
per titledJung-Spartakusand, later,DieTrommel.¹²Edwin Hoernle (1883–1952),
the author and editor of several works of communist pedagogy, becamealeading
figure in the children’sgroup movement and actively promoted the transforma-
tion of schools into centers of political agitation.Hisinfluencecan be traced all
the waytothe proletarian moment inJapan.¹³Arguing against the poisonous ef-
fects of bourgeois highcultureand the emptyrhetoric of liberal educational re-
Kurt Löwenstein,Freie Bahn den Kinderfreunden(Berlin: Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der
Kinderfreunde, 1930),41.Onhis conception of childhood, also seeDas Kind als Träger der wer-
denden Gesellschaft,sec. rev.ed. (Vienna:Jungbrunnen, 1928).
See HeikoMüller,“Kinder müssen Klassenkämpfer werden!”DerKommunistische Kinderver-
band in derWeimarer Republik (1920–1933)(Marburg: Tectum,2013).Forthe largerhistorical
context, also see PeterD. Stachura,TheWeimarRepublic and theYounger Proletariat: An Eco-
nomic and Social Analysis(NewYork: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989).
See Samuel Perry,Recasting Red CultureinProletarianJapan: Childhood,Korea, and the His-
toricalAvant-garde(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,2014), 14–15.
The Emotional Education of the ProletarianChild 275