TheLeague for Proletarian Culture (German:Bund für proletarische Kultur) was a short-lived Germanleft-wing organisation for the promotion ofproletarian culture. It was founded inBerlin in spring1919 byAlfons Goldschmidt,Arthur Holitscher, andLudwig Rubiner and was dissolved in early 1920.[1] It sought to promote "the eternal values bequeathed by the illustrious spirits of the past."[2]
They publishedAufruf zu einem Bund für proletarische Kultur (Call for a League for Proletarian Culture) which referred toAlexander Bogdanov and theProletkult movement he had established as a mass movement inRussia. They set out to "lay the foundations for a new proletarian culture" to which end they subsequently published theirGrundsätze und Programm. Here they claimed they sought to wipe out the last traces of bourgeois culture from working class consciousness, seeing the disappearance of this pseudo-culture as no loss. They envisaged a new proletarian culture dormant within the working class which could be woken up and play a role in the revolutionary transformation of society.[3]
Under the auspices of theexperimental theatre, the Tribüne (founded in September 1919), the league stagedErnst Toller'sTransformation (Die Wandlung), which opened on 30 September 1919 with a cast that includedFritz Kortner.[4] The production ran into difficulties in mid-October, however, when some of its cast refused to play for metalworkers who were on strike at the time, which led to the termination of the relationship between the League and the Tribüne.[5] ThedirectorKarlheinz Martin anddramaturgRudolf Leonhard, both of whom had worked on the Toller production, formed the "Proletarian Theatre of the League for Proletarian Culture" (Proletarisches Theater des Bundes für proletarische Kultur).[6] It producedHerbert Kranz'sFreiheit (Freedom), which opened on 14 December 1919 on the platform of theOld Philharmonie Berlin.[7] Despite the production's success, having filled the auditorium, only one performance was given.[8] The newspaper of theCommunist Party of Germany (KPD),Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag) thought that in its promotion of individual self-realisation through self-sacrifice the play adopted ananarchist political position.[9] However this took place following the departure of the left-wing of the KPD, firstly into the KPD(Opposition), before forming their own party, theKAPD.[3]
Whilst the KPD did little in the field of the arts, the KAPD stated in their programme: "a decisive factor in hastening the social revolution is revolutionising the proletariat's entire mental view of the world. With this in mind, the party supports all revolutionary tendencies in science and in the arts".[3]
