Download or read book Communism and the Avant Garde in Weimar Germany written by Ben Fowkes and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-11-14 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the revolutionary Left view cultural modernists? Their uneasy relationship is illustrated in this book with quotations ranging from Alexander’s ‘Dada is merely an impertinence’ through Trotsky’s ‘There cannot be a proletarian culture’ to Averbakh’s ‘Tear off the masks!’ and Becher’s ‘There can only be one kind of genuine art: fighting art.’

Download or read book Weimar Communism as Mass Movement 1918 1933 written by Norman Laporte and published by Studies in Twentieth Century C. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 25 years after the archives were opened in Berlin and Moscow, the German Communist Party is the subject of new studies. This book makes this scholarship available in English for the first time.

Download or read book Weimar Communism as Mass Movement written by Norman Laporte and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a quarter of a century after the opening of the archives in Berlin and Moscow, the role of the German Communist Party (KPD) has been the subject of a new wave of studies. With this book, this new field of scholarship will be available in English for the first time. The book begins with the editors' comprehensive contextualisation of the KPD within the history of the ill-fated Weimar Republic, as well its location within the Moscow-based Communist International (Comintern) thus bringing together the global and the 'local'. In the rest of the book, authors offer a flavour of the rich texture of the world of German Communism. Attention is given to the party's revolutionary origins in 1918/19, accounting for the importance of not only Rosa Luxemburg's Spartacus League, but also the 'Left Radicals', whose stronghold was Bremen and north-western Germany. The policy dilemmas of being a mass party in Germany are then elucidated, but ultimately, the party's fate and its policy-making were dominated by Moscow in the process known as 'Stalinisation', which neared completion by the end of the 1920s. However, this volume also includes a detailed appraisal of left-wing Communists' opposition to Stalin and Stalinisation, as well as the party's changing relationship with the SPD-led trade unions. A section in the volume presents new research on how German communism aspired to reach beyond its core support among the working class by examining its overtures to peasants, avant-garde artists, pacifists and prominent left-wing personalities outside the party's ranks. Finally, an account of Stalin's own betrayal of German communism is offered after the Nazis' 'seizure of power' in 1933. This book represents essential reading for academic, undergraduate and general readers interested in twentieth German history and politics and the interwar communist movement. With thanks to the Nina Fishman translation award run by the Amiel Melburn Trust.

Download or read book Weimar Germany written by Paul Bookbinder and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Weimar period, which extended from 1919 to 1933, was a time of political violence, economic crisis, generational and gender tension, and cultural experiment and change in Germany. Despite these major issues, the Republic is often treated only as a preface to the study of the rise of Fascism. This text seeks to restore the balance, exploring the Weimar period in its own right. Amongst the topics discussed are: Weimar as the avant-garde artistic centre of Europe in the 1920s when many cultural figures were politically engaged on both sides of the political spectrum; Weimar as a German state racked by conflict over questions of morality versus ideas of greater sexual freedom for women, homosexual rights, abortion and birth control; the struggle to win the hearts and minds of German youth, a struggle won decisively by the right-wing; and Weimar as the first German state in which women played a significant political role.

Download or read book Weimar Radicals written by Timothy Scott Brown and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the gray zone of infiltration and subversion in which the Nazi and Communist parties sought to influence and undermine each other, this book offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between two defining ideologies of the twentieth century. The struggle between Fascism and Communism is situated within a broader conversation among right- and left-wing publicists, across the Youth Movement and in the “National Bolshevik” scene, thus revealing the existence of a discourse on revolutionary legitimacy fought according to a set of common assumptions about the qualities of the ideal revolutionary. Highlighting the importance of a masculine-militarist politics of youth revolt operative in both Marxist and anti-Marxist guises, Weimar Radicals forces us to re-think the fateful relationship between the two great ideological competitors of the Weimar Republic, while offering a challenging new interpretation of the distinctive radicalism of the interwar era.

Download or read book Communism in Germany under the Weimar Republic written by Ben Fowkes and published by Springer. This book was released on 1984-02-23 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Degeneration and Revolution written by Robert Heynen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Degeneration and Revolution: Radical Cultural Politics and the Body in Weimar Germany Robert Heynen explores the impact of conceptions of degeneration, exemplified by eugenics and social hygiene, on the social, cultural, and political history of the left in Germany, 1914–33. Hygienic practices of bodily regulation were integral to the extension of modern capitalist social relations, and profoundly shaped Weimar culture. Heynen’s innovative interdisciplinary approach draws on Marxist and other critical traditions to examine the politics of degeneration and socialist, communist, and anarchist responses. Drawing on key Weimar theorists and addressing artistic and cultural movements ranging from Dada to worker-produced media, this book challenges us to rethink conventional understandings of left culture and politics, and of Weimar culture more generally.

Download or read book The German Left and the Weimar Republic written by Ben Fowkes and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-07-10 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German Left and the Weimar Republic illuminates the history of the political left by presenting a wide range of documents on various aspects of socialist and communist activity in Germany. Separate chapters deal with the policy of Social Democracy in and out of government, the attempts of the Communist Party to overthrow the Weimar Republic, and then later to oppose it. Later chapters move away from the political scene to treat the attitudes of the parties to key social issues, in particular questions of gender and sexuality. The book concludes with a presentation of documents on various groups of socialist and communist dissidents. Many of the documents are made accessible for the first time, and each chapter begins with an original introduction indicating the current state of research.

Download or read book Weimar Germany written by Eric D. Weitz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of Weimar politics, culture, and society A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice A Financial Times Best Book of the Year Thoroughly up-to-date, skillfully written, and strikingly illustrated, Weimar Germany brings to life an era of unmatched creativity in the twentieth century—one whose influence and inspiration still resonate today. Eric Weitz has written the authoritative history that this fascinating and complex period deserves, and he illuminates the uniquely progressive achievements and even greater promise of the Weimar Republic. Weitz reveals how Germans rose from the turbulence and defeat of World War I and revolution to forge democratic institutions and make Berlin a world capital of avant-garde art. He explores the period’s groundbreaking cultural creativity, from architecture and theater, to the new field of "sexology"—and presents richly detailed portraits of some of the Weimar’s greatest figures. Weimar Germany also shows that beneath this glossy veneer lay political turmoil that ultimately led to the demise of the republic and the rise of the radical Right. Yet for decades after, the Weimar period continued to powerfully influence contemporary art, urban design, and intellectual life—from Tokyo to Ankara, and Brasilia to New York. Featuring a new preface, this comprehensive and compelling book demonstrates why Weimar is an example of all that is liberating and all that can go wrong in a democracy.

Download or read book Art and Politics in the Weimar Period written by John Willett and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 1978 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The period between the end of World War I and Hitler's accession to power witnessed an unprecedented cultural explosion that embraced the whole of Europe but was, above all, centered in Germany. John Willett here provides a brilliant explanation of the aesthetic and political currents which made Germany the focal point of a new, down-to-earth, socially committed cultural movement that drew a significant measure of inspiration from revolutionary Russia and left-wing social thought, American technology, and the devastating experience of war."--Back cover.

Download or read book Weimar written by Walter Laqueur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term "Weimar culture," while generally accepted, is in some respects unsatisfactory, if only because political and cultural history seldom coincides in time. Expressionism was not born with the defeat of the Imperial German army, nor is there any obvious connection between abstract painting and atonal music and the escape of the Kaiser, nor were the great scientific discoveries triggered off by the proclamation of the Republic in 1919. As the eminent historian Walter Laqueur demonstrates, the avant-gardism commonly associated with post-World War One precedes the Weimar Republic by a decade.It would no doubt be easier for the historian if the cultural history of Weimar were identical with the plays and theories of Bertolt Brecht; the creations of the Bauhaus and the articles published by the Weltbühne. But there were a great many other individuals and groups at work, and Laqueur gives a full and vivid accounting of their ideas and activities. The realities of Weimar culture comprise the political right as well as the left, the universities as well as the literary intelligentsia. It would not be complete without occasional glances beyond avant-garde thought and creation and their effects upon traditional German social and cultural attitudes and the often violent reactions against "Weimar" that would culminate with the rise of Hitler and the fall of the republic in 1933.This authoritative work is of immense importance to anyone interested in the history of Germany in this critical period of the country's life.

Download or read book Illuminations of the Everyday Philosophical and Cultural Expressions of Redemption in Weimar Germany written by Madeleine Claire Hall and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2011-03-16 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benjamin's work has been classified either according to the principles of historical materialism, or according to the principles of metaphysics. This fragmentation of his ideas, however, obscures the real impetus of his oeuvre, particularly in the interpretation of his central notion of redemption. If instead one considers Benjamin as a critic of the everyday in search of a mechanism for change, influenced by the historical condition and his intellectual contemporaries, then we are able better to understand his narrative. The Weimar Republic was a period dominated by the dialectic between hope and despair. The intellectual sphere of Critical Theory attempted to understand their condition of alienation and establish a solution. Redemption is key to Benjamin's approach. Redemption carries the stigma of theology and has therefore been dismissed because, unlike revolution, it has no historical precedent and appears to have limited value. In common with the other Critical Theorists, for Benjamin the conditions of alienation as well as the structure of its solution were in the everyday. Through the concepts of the dialectical image and now-time, Benjamin readdresses the question of revolution, which he finds to be limited by its maintenance of linear historic time. Benjamin's redemption is an amalgam of the historic and the metaphysical and represents a powerful social critique, propelled by revolutionary rhetoric.

Download or read book Between the Avant garde and the Everyday written by Timothy Brown and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wave of anti-authoritarian political activity associated with the term “1968” can by no means be confined under the rubric of “protest,” understood narrowly in terms of street marches and other reactions to state initiatives. Indeed, the actions generated in response to “1968” frequently involved attempts to elaborate resistance within the realm of culture generally, and in the arts in particular. This blurring of the boundary between art and politics was a characteristic development of the political activism of the postwar period. This volume brings together a group of essays concerned with the multifaceted link between culture and politics, highlighting lesser-known case studies and opening new perspectives on the development of anti-authoritarian politics in Europe from the 1950s to the fall of Communism and beyond.

Download or read book Travellers of the World Revolution written by Brigitte Studer and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2023-06-20 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hope, Struggle and Defeat: The Communist International and the Global Fight for Freedom The Communist International was the first organised attempt to bring about worldwide revolution and left a lasting mark on 20th-century history. The book offers a new and fascinating account of this transnational organisation founded in 1919 by Lenin and Trotsky and dissolved by Stalin in 1943, telling the story through the eyes of the activists who became its “professional revolutionaries.” Studer follows such figures as Willi Münzenberg, Mikhail Borodin, M.N. Roy and Evelyn Trent, Tina Modotti, Agnes Smedley and many others less well-known as they are despatched to the successive political hotspots of the 1920s and ’30s, from revolutionary Berlin to Baku, from Shanghai to Spain, from Nazi Germany to Stalin’s Moscow. It traces their journeys from revolutionary hope to accommodation, defeat or death, looking at questions of motivation and commitment, agency and negotiation, of life and love, conflict and frustration. In doing so, it reveals a forgotten Comintern, the expression of a multi-dimensional revolutionary moment, which attracted not only working-class but feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activists, highlighting the role of women in the Comintern and the centrality of anti-colonialism to the Communist project. The book concludes with a reflection on the ultimate demise of a historically unique undertaking.

Download or read book Art for the Workers written by W. L. Guttsman and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the popular culture institutions created by the German Labor Movement after 1890, focusing on the role of visual art in the working class environment, both as an influence in the home and in the political agitation and propaganda of the political parties. Political art of this period reflected both a utopian belief in the success of the struggle and the harsh images of a revolutionary ideology, and represented a range of political beliefs, from Social Democracy to the Communist movement. Includes many high-quality bandw illustrations. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book A Short History of the Weimar Republic written by Colin Storer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is impossible to understand the history of modern Europe without some knowledge of the Weimar Republic. The brief fourteen-year period of democracy was marked by unstable government, economic crisis and the rise of extremist political movements. Yet at the same time a vibrant cultural scene flourished, which continues to influence the international art world, whether indirectly via the enduring popularity of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Novels and Bob Fosse's Cabaret, or in more concrete ways through the aesthetics of Expressionism and the Bauhaus movement. Historians have seen the Weimar Republic as a democratic experiment set between the authoritarian monarchism of the Wilhelmine Empire and the tyranny of the Third Reich, but contemporaries were not so pessimistic. While some disparaged the new democratic system and fulminated against Weimar cosmopolitanism and 'decadence', most praised attempts to bring social improvement and the emancipation of women, or celebrated the exciting forays into the avant-garde of Weimar's artistic elite. In the fields of visual art, literature, theatre, cinema, music and architecture - not to mention chemistry, physics and psychology - Germany became a world leader during the 1920s, while her perilous political and economic position ensured that no US or European statesman could afford to ignore her. Weimar Germany was thus much more than merely a cul-de-sac off Germany's difficult 'special path' to modernity, it was a key period in German and European history whose influence continues to be felt. Incorporating original research and a synthesis of the existing historiography, this book will provide students and a general readership with a clear and concise introduction to the history of the first German Republic. It highlights key concepts and themes in the study of German history in general and the Weimar Republic in particular.

Download or read book Inside German Communism written by Rosa Leviné-Meyer and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 1977 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: