Working‐class movement and working‐class life : Frankfurt am Main during the Weimar Republic∗

In the general election of 1928 the German social democratic party, the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) polled 9 i million votes, 29-8 per cent of the total, while the communist party, the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) polled 3 3 million votes, i o6 per cent of the total. In the same year the SPD claimed goo,ooo members, the KPD 130,000.1 Such figures alone show the strength of the working-class movement in Weimar Germany. In addition to these parties there also existed a range of left-wing sporting and cultural organizations, such as the German workers' singing clubs, the DAS (Deutsche Arbeitersanger-Bund) and the workers' sporting movement, the ATUS (ArbeiterTurnund Sportbund), with in I 928 270,000 and 770,000 members respectively.2 Impressive as they are, such numbers tell us little about the relationship between these organizations and the social class they claimed to represent. The first part of this paper uses Gramsci's concept of 'organic intellectuals' to pose in general terms the ways in which left-wing organizations could be seen as rooted in the working class. From this discussion there follow three stages of empirical analysis, using a case-study of the city of Frankfurt am Main: the social composition of the local leadership of the SPD, USPD and KPD; the relationship between these political organizations and what will be termed the 'working-class movement' as a whole; the ideological influence of this 'working-class movement' on workingclass everyday life.