Naturalism and Socialism in Germany

Abstract

IN MIARXISM\4 the Social Democratic movement in Imperial Germany had one of the most powerful and appealing systems of thought of the nineteenth century, and yet it is noteworthy that the party failed to attract more than a handful of intellectuals, writers, and artists to its ranks. To be sure, Social Democracy had its thinkers and theoreticians, but it was characteristic that their reputations as intellectuals were completely merged with and subordinated to the socialist movement. Indeed many of them-for example, Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, and Rosa Luxemburg-had grown up and matured intellectually within the party and enjoyed no recognition as thinkers apart from Social Democracy. Those few, stuch as Franz Mehring, wvho joined the movement only after having achieved stature as intellectuals, wvere soon wholly absorbed with problems of Marxist thought and no longer maintained an identity independent of the socialist party. Only in rare instances did a writer or artist succeed in preserving an autonomous reputation as an intellectual while cooperating openly with the Social Democratic movement. As a means of approaching the problen of Social Democracy's relationship to intellectuals in German society, it is frtuitful to examine specific instances of attempted collaboration. The contacts between socialists and the naturalist literary school in Germany in the i88os and 189os offer a case especially suited for such an investigation. Not only did these two movements share a number of assumptions about modern life, but for a few years their members also cooperated in endeavors of mutual interest. Contemporaries easily thought of them as similar in outlook. The author of one of the most successful histories of recent German literature, Albert Soergel, joined naturalism and socialism together as if they were intellectual twinsfraternal, if not identical. Certainly socialism and naturalism could be viewed at the very least as siblings: intellectually, they shared a new outlook that emphasized the value of science; socially, they were big-city movements, participating in the emerging consciousness of a new class; philosophically,