Beaten But Not Defeated

by Merilyn Moos

  These debates and struggles for control were not of marginal significance - agitprop groups were very popular during the 1920s and early 1930’s, particularly in working class Berlin (R. Bodek, 1996: 55-78). The ATBD alone had 300 affiliated troupes, with about 4000 members (Rote Fahne, 12 March 1930, from Bodek, 1996). In 1931, there were twenty eight troupes just in Berlin, with about 500 members (Bodek, 1996). The troupes were generally small: between six and twenty members, young, amateur, drawn mostly from the working class and working class districts, and dressed simply but distinctively (Bodek, 1996: 65). They generally played in the internal courtyards of Berlin’s’ working class districts, at factory, party and similar meetings. Indeed, one of Bodek’s themes is the similar characteristics of the ‘real’ working class youth cliques with the agitprop troupes.

  The importance of the troupes’ political role is illustrated by three examples (Bodek, 1996: 64, 65). The first (Bodek, 1996: 65) is when 20 Berlin agitprop troupes with around 500 members performed 180 times in two weeks during the 130,000 strong metal workers strike in Berlin in 1931. 100 of those performances were before striking workers. (My mother most unusually almost wept in 1981 when almost 1 million W. German metal workers went on strike for the first time since 1931, fifty years later and forty eight years after the unions were smashed. Today, she told me, it is worth living.) The second example of the troupes’ role is that, during the September 1930 election (when the NSDAP only gained just over 14.6% of the Berlin vote), the Red Wedding troupe appeared in the courtyards of Wedding (the best known of the Berlin working class militant areas), campaigning for a KPD vote (Bodek, 1996).

  The final example, which also raises broader issues, is from the ‘Large Press and Cultural Exhibitions in Red Wedding’ in March 1930, organised by the KPD. Of interest is the presence of so many different separate but intertwining organisations present under the KPD umbrella, including the Freethinkers and the Rote Front. One of the many agit-prop groups ‘Curve Left’ performed. The RFB, already outlawed, provided a brass band (in the 1950s and 60s, my father went on to love the miners’ brass bands which trumpeted in the Durham Miners Gala Day march). This proliferation of cultural/ideological organisations was a feature of the German mass working class movement, so different from anything we in the UK have ever experienced. Siegi, as we know, was a member of agit-prop, Freethinkers and RF groups, and he will not have been the only one.

  Thus the 1920s and the early 30s can be seen as a period when there was intense debate about the role of revolutionary theatre and its relationship to the Party. Siegi’s involvement in agit-prop and his articles have to be understood within this context. In the debates about traditional v popular theatre, he appears to have taken a broadly ‘neither one side, not the other’ position. Siegi is quoted in Weber’s introduction to Arbeiter Bühne und Film (1974) as stating that: ‘What the class struggle at the present moment requires [is]…that what we have to put on the stage has to be constructed in such a way that the worker recognises what has to be done today in order to reach the final goal: the fall of the capitalist societal order and the construction of the proletariat dictatorship. (…) Now the need is to mobilise the working class against the tyranny of class justice, against anti-Soviet incitement, against already existing or coming bans of revolutionary organisations, against reactionary culture, against arming for war, against the young plan and cutting wages and against sackings, against the existing societal order (…) the need is to stop the fascist murders.’ On the basis of the thesis formulated at the 6th World congress of the Comintern, Moos here made a connection: ‘that all single issue struggles (…) can only lead to a proletarian revolution in a roundabout way’ which he contrasted with the necessity for struggle of the revolutionary working class against the economic and political offensive of monopoly capital and against fascism to construct the dictatorship of the proletariat.

  Siegi was on the editorial board of Arbeiterbühne und Film, indeed, by the end of the short period for which we have these pamphlets (1930-1931), is writing the lead articles and can be seen as its editor. Why this is such a short period has not been established. The journal itself appears to cease publication in 1932. Was it that the Party told Siegi to put his efforts elsewhere and the paper then ceased publication? Was it that Siegi himself could not abide the party dictate? Bodek (op cit, 69) suggests the emphasis on subordination to work cells and the party became more intense. Or is that that there is some other reason why the journal’s publication ceased, maybe because it fell under one or other law, so that, like the Rote Fahne, it became illegal to publish it? Whatever the answer, we only have a short run, all of which fell clearly into the Third period.

  The extent of the KPD takeover and the underlying tensions is interestingly revealed in an article by one of the old Social Democratic leadership, Bernhard, ‘Our opponents’ (September 1930, p7, 149). Bernhard was explicitly commenting on Siegi’s earlier and significant articles and role. Bernhard acknowledges that there has been opposition within the workers theatre movement to the position Siegi represented. He stated that ‘those coming from the right wanted to carry on sleeping, under the guise of favouring unity and keeping everybody happy‘. He argues that it was the movement’s failure under the Social Democratic leadership to fight against this tendency earlier, which allowed them to retain and build an opposition to the new position. So, there was an acquiescence in expansion for its own sake in the 1920s, which let in working class amateur theatre, including people without politics, who just wanted to put on their plays and use the available resources of the ANF. They continued with their performances which had a broad populist appeal and were entertaining but had little politics and less connection with the class struggle. So the organisation ended up making political compromises and generally went too far down the united front road. Bernhard suggests that, after the youth faction took over, the old guard drifted even further towards populist productions but that Siegi’s position, he believes, of a turn towards the class, was the correct one. The Berlin KPD group, of whom Siegi was a leading member, can clearly be seen to have won!

  What Siegi’s writing is noted for in this period is however not so much his ‘line’, as his interesting attempt to apply political principles to agit-prop theatre. The articles are of interest in terms of how the Third Period line is interpreted in terms of its application to agit-prop. It will be suggested moreover that limited elements of dissension are discernible. The articles will principally be considered chronologically.

  The first article we have is from 1929, therefore towards the beginning of the KPD dominance of the magazine/organisation and also almost at the start of the Third Period. Siegi’s position, interestingly, is that the prime fight is against the Nazis, not the Social Democrats (also Thaelmann’s line at the time), a position, as already examined, which was certainly not the Party line.

  A theme appears in the article, which will reoccur frequently, that the implications for the theatre is that the theatre needs to emphasise the political, and not go in for the easy laugh, for example, the capitalist with his cigar, the priest with a fat stomach. The task is to emphasise the role of the capitalist, the manager, not present a stereotype. That is too populist and not sufficiently agitational.

  In 1930, the Committee of the ATBD produces a call to all members of the Association of Workers in the Theatre. It is worth considering it and the subsequent article by Siegi in some detail, both to understand the contours of the general position which Siegi is taking and writing within, and to give expression to a fairly representative Third period perspective, albeit directed to the role of theatre.

  The ATBD statement of 1930 presents the line that the social fascists are the Social Democratic representatives of workers who compromise with the existing system, not the workers themselves. The Social Fascists split the working class and its organisations, and therefore act on behalf of the bourgeoisie and must be resisted.

  Moreover, in relation to the role of theat
re, the Social Democratic leaders destroy the cultural organisations of the working class and the revolutionary organisations of the proletariat. ‘But we will defeat them, in the path of the new revolutionary class struggle.’

  Siegi Moos follows this with a lead article which ‘applies’ this ‘line’ to the specific purpose, form and content of workers’ theatre. The workers’ theatre must appeal to a united working class. Workers’ theatre must fight to bring theatre to as high a stage as possible and free it from all ‘rubbish’. In Bourgeois theatre, each scene ends happily, for example with a kiss, but Workers theatre needs to end with a workers’ salute. Happy endings need to be used sparingly because they becalm the workers. The worker sees on stage victories against capitalism when he knows capitalism is still in power. So the play becomes empty rather than real, and leaves the audience dissatisfied. Workers need to be shown the tasks ahead, to stir them up.

  The theatre needs to display a revolutionary situation accurately, including the need to use weapons for the victorious storming by the working class. Then the ‘audience’ will swap the stage for the real fight and take the message into the dynamic of the class struggle and the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship.

  The readers of the magazine are reminded of the importance of mobilising the working class against anti-Sovietism as well as against the programme of dismissals and wage cuts, associated with the austerity Young report, which had recently been introduced. (No wonder my father wanted to forget some of this!)

  The indifferent, found amongst Social Democratic and Christian workers’ organisations, must be won over to the class struggle. Siegi elaborates at some length on how, though one must understand and respect belief, Christian workers can be pulled over by revealing to them the corruption of their leaders, not by showing the priest as a semi-idiotic clown. That will not reveal the dangers of the Church.

  He calls for a fight against the bourgeois press and the importance of a revolutionary press. Only the revolutionary press represents the interests of workers. A worker who gets a subscription to the revolutionary press is a victory against the fascist thugs, though we also need workers’ fists. We need to show that mass action can stop dismissals. That is the way that female workers will become involved in active class struggle. Significantly, he argues that they must try to get trusted revolutionaries and their people into posts in works councils, shop stewards and Trade Union officials.

  To win over male and female workers, the theatre needs to reveal that workers can defeat the fascists with their fists. Then we will get a ‘happy end’. The audience became agitators in line with what they’ve seen on the stage. Lovely endings do not turn the audience into agitators (a position which has been debated from that time to this). Enjoyment needs to be only a side-effect. Agitation must be alive.

  This can be achieved through content, not from dramatic tricks. If the Church, bourgeois press or democracy are represented simply as idiots, as servants of Capitalism, as jesters and whores, this is enjoyment, not agitation. This is farce and will not win over an audience which is not already revolutionary, indeed could rather repel them. Satire, which is different from farce, convinces workers in part through presenting a factual analysis and explanation of, for example, the lies of the bourgeois press, the attacks on the working class or on the USSR and the rise of the Nazis. The Church must be shown as exploiters, as in league with the law. The fascist murderers must be stopped. The task of the revolutionary is to tear up the tissue of lies produced by capitalism. ‘Our enemies are not clowns but enemies, We need proper weapons not toys. Our troops must be fighting troops. Our words must be arrows.’

  Siegi develops on his theme in a subsequent article, published in July 1930, Vol 6 2.30 p2 in the original, Arbeiterbühne und Film, p 36, ANF Committee statement called ‘Revolutionary Theatre’. He states that the principals of revolutionary theatre are still not clear. He has three principal concerns. Firstly, he considers the limitations of the non-revolutionary left theatre. The theatre to be revolutionary must reveal the causes of proletarian misery as class society, not just display that misery. To be revolutionary, the theatre must show a revolutionary solution, the proletariat as a class that is both oppressed and fighting to abolish the existing social order and introduce a new social order. The theatre is only revolutionary art if the persons on stage or screen are real representatives of their class. So showing prosecutors, factory managers or doctors as compassionate is out. They must be shown as hypocrites or as meaningless exceptions, who are far more dangerous than their brutal colleagues, and are the exceptions which reveal the true nature of class contradictions. To show a doctor or judge who has revolutionary views only makes sense if we want to show to the intellectuals their common interests. Only when the proletariat and the wider audience form a unified whole, only then can we create something healthy and unified - the revolutionary theatre. In the framework of bourgeois commercial theatre, these conditions cannot be provided. The revolutionary theatre remains the task of revolutionary theatre.

  Secondly, as in the article we have already considered, Siegi is critical of the idea that the revolutionary theatre is there to entertain. He introduces two examples from the history of bourgeois theatre which demonstrate the possibility of its having a revolutionary effect - The Marriage of Figaro, performed in the revolutionary days of 1789, and Die Stumme der Porcini in the August days of 1830. Here, the effect was so great that, afterwards, the audience demonstrated through the streets, destroyed an enemy publishing house and burnt the houses of the Minister of Justice, Director of Police and hated journalists.

  Siegi adds that the free time of the proletarian actor is taken up with rehearsals, performances, and political education. He is a true functionary of the working class because workers theatre is not entertainment, but living effective agitation for class struggle.

  Finally, he looks at revolutionary theatre as party theatre. We want, he writes, to publicize the writings of Marx, Engels and Bebel on the stage by showing them in current conditions. He quotes Bebel: ‘If I, as a social democrat, join an association with the Bourgeoisie, I bet 1000:1 that it is not the Social Democrat who is the victor but the bourgeois parties and we are the losers…Party comrades must be aware that the leaders of the party do not damage the party’ (Given the range of possible quotes at his disposal, one might wonder why Siegi - presciently - chose this one) ‘The representatives of both a monarchy or of the bourgeoisie form class societies, which maintain a state which perpetuates the class domination of the bourgeoisie’.

  Then he approvingly quotes Engels: ‘Between capitalist and communist societies is the period of revolutionary change, of one into the other. This equals a politically temporary period, the state of which can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat’. Finally he returns to Marx’s most famous statement ‘The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains‘.

  He concludes that ‘We have the duty to use these teachings in creating our performances. The political basis of our plays must be what Marx and Engels said and the continuation of their thoughts. Workers theatre is not entertainment. We want revolutionary theatre, which can only be realised and must be reached by the workers theatre.’

  One other article from 1930 is worth highlighting, published in the issue of November 1930, and simply called ‘Material about…’ The broad position in Siegi’s article, as in the articles above, even though their purpose is to discuss the nature of revolutionary theatre, is that there have been too many concessions to the Social Democrats, their critique of capitalism has become too loose, allowing left workers to ‘fudge’ their allegiances, and therefore letting them off the hook of following the revolutionary path (so to speak!). The Social Democrats do not take on the bourgeoisie or address the real problems. The articles’ tone is of the ‘united front from below’, expressing the importance of relating to a wide audience, but not at the cost of political purity. In this same issue, there is a committee stateme
nt which is headed: ‘For the Unity of Workers Cultural organisations’, suggesting that some sort of split or dissension is being addressed, though we can only guess at what that was.

  While the Central Committee statement talks of the danger of the social fascists, Siegi’s article noticeably does not use this term. Though this has to be speculation, is the absence of the label ‘social fascist’ because he had doubts about this approach or because he is presenting essentially the same idea in a more subtle form? We cannot now know. It is tempting to expect Siegi to be more sensitive to the threat of real fascism, because of his experiences of the SA in Munich, which the comrades from Berlin and the North of Germany had not experienced. But at this point, even if his emphasis is not quite ‘on the line’, and despite his professed opinion that the Nazis are the enemy more than the Social Democrats; his writing does appear to target the Social Democrats.86

  There are also a couple of well-crafted but essentially polemical articles, which will briefly be mentioned here (9.1930 - Think about it and March 31 No 3…). Because of the rapidly changing political situation, it is worth, at least briefly, considering the March 1931 issue. The lead article: ‘The political position and situation of the ATB’ is by Siegi, indicating that he is now recognised as the lead theoretician, and the paper’s editor. His article as usual condemns the Social Democrats for being all words and no action, while the crisis of capitalism intensifies. It calls for further development of the role of revolutionary theatre. But significantly, it also calls for the need to build a mass opposition to the growing threat of the Nazis, a slight but suggestive shifting in position from earlier.

  To end this brief overview of Siegi’s analysis of the link between the political situation and revolutionary theatre with a telling quote from the March 1931 article about the role of revolutionary theatre: ‘Is the workers theatre armed for the tasks ahead ? Are our weapons sharpened? Our art will create, in a focused way, decisive connections between the class struggle and its environment which is decisive for the class struggle and it will activate the class for the daily struggle. In this, it will not just address the intellect, but chooses to address the emotions. Did we achieve this for example in the chasing out of capitalism by the workers as a stage happy ending? No. In this chase, we have formed in a concentrated manner, the emotional relations of the workers to the class enemy and we have managed an appropriate effect…The fatter the tummy.., the bigger the cigar of the capitalist, the easier the effect but the less the political value.’