From hatred to hope: Emotions, memory and the German labour movement in the late-nineteenth century

Abstract

Over the past few years, scholars from a broad range of disciplines have started to explore the role that emotions play in the collective memory of social movements. Against this backdrop, they have proposed that activists do not necessarily commemorate failed struggles by drawing on negative emotions such as suffering and grief. As a case in point, the interdisciplinary literature has drawn attention to the fact that the historical labour movement commemorated even events that ended in bloodshed and defeat, such as the Paris Commune of 1871, through performances and writings that evoked feelings of hope and joy. Analysing commemorative practices by the German labour movement in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this article shows that Commune memory differed considerably in Germany. In a first step, the article shows that during the two decades following the Commune’s bloody demise, German socialists remembered the Paris Commune by drawing on hatred, anger, and grief – not hope or joy. In a second step, the article demonstrates that while the 1890s did see the rise of memory practices that emphasized hope, this was a peculiar kind of hope largely detached from the historical event that was commemorated. By the turn of the century, the German labour movement had established a memory tradition that saw the Commune as a painful but necessary step in the forward march of the movement. In a short conclusion, the article explores some of the reasons why memory traditions by the German labour movement differed from the pattern detected elsewhere. In so doing, it shows that the change in the affective repertoire corresponded to a change in the political needs of the movement. The conclusion thus points to how the historical examples discussed here contributes to a better understanding of role of emotions in social movements more generally.