five fingersyouseize the enemy”); and thesubscriptio,which further clarifies the
relationship betweeninscriptioandpicture(“Vote for list5/Vote for the Commu-
nists”).
Thegestural codes of communistrage were at once informed by,and mobi-
lizedagainst,the rich imagery of hands inWestern art and the attendant dis-
course of faith and work that had sustained it since the Renaissance.Asimilar
argument about strategies of appropriation can be made withregardtothe gen-
dered nature of hands in Heartfield’sphotomontages. Their contribution to the
habitus of proletarian masculinity,which has alreadybeen discussed in chapters
10 and14,iseasilyconfirmed through acomparison with thevery different
hands–pleading,caressing, and protecting–in the woodcuts and drawings
of KätheKollwitz. Her mothersand children servetoinvite empathic identifica-
tion with the workingclass. Even the men and women in the lithographSolidar-
ität(1932,Solidarity), created in celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the
October Revolution, stand foracompassionateversion of communism that an-
nounces its social values through the highlysymbolicgesture of joininghands.
In termsofemotionalregimes,proletarianmodernisminvolved arejection
of thesentimentality of nineteenth-centurysocialism (discussed inchapter3)
andthe cultureofempathy advocatedbyhumanistsocialistslikeKollwitzor
Otto Nagel,for that matter.Accordingly,Hear tfieldchanneledthe productive
forceof rage totheworking-classrecipientand, in theprocess,gaveformto
the historicalsubject-to-be, the proletariatunderthe leadershiproleofthe
KPD. Hisrelianceonmontage as an artistictechnique for advancingthe hab-
itus ofKampfkulturtook placeacrossvisualmediaandinactivedialoguebe-
tween theartistic and politicalavant-gardes,especiallyinthe SovietUnion.
In line withthecollaborative nature of proletarianmodernism, this process
meantclose cooperationwiththe Malikpublishinghouse runbyWieland Herz-
feldeandthe IAH (International Workers’Aid),WilliMünzenberg’scommunist
media empire. Advancingthe goals of communistinternationalism,it meant
extensive exchangeswith Tretyakov, themostinfluential mediatorbetween
Berlin andMoscow,and creative encounters withEl Lissitzky,Alexander Rod-
chenko,and GustavsKlutsis.Aboveall, it meantembracingthe decidedlymas-
culinist vision of theNewSovietManpromoted by theBolsheviks andcelebrat-
ed by the photographersassociated withLef. Heartfield’sphotomontages have
sometimesbeendescribedas techniques of demystification,but hisworksin
supportof theSovietUnionattestevenmore to hisconsiderableskills at remys-
tification–or,touse Kriebel’spreferredterm, suturing. Ontheremaining
pages,thesequalitieswill be examined throughthe returnof an aesthetic
formand didacticmode seeminglyatoddswith theshock andruptureofpho-
tomontage,namely alle gory.
John Heartfield’sProductiveRage 315