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Did They Read Marx? Marx Reception and Social Democratic Party Members in Imperial Germany, 1890–1914
Author(s) -
Bonnell Andrew G.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8497.00248
Subject(s) - german , social democratic party , reading (process) , democracy , social democracy , rank (graph theory) , marxist philosophy , economic history , political science , sociology , political economy , law , history , politics , mathematics , combinatorics , archaeology
Did rank‐and‐file members of the German Social Democratic party before 1914 bother to read Marx? A number of studies of borrowing from trade union and other workers' libraries since the 1970s have indicated that workers who read Marx were rare, although this does not mean that workers' reading habits were not influenced by socialist ideas. However, for a broader understanding of the reception of Marx's writings among rank‐and‐file German socialists, it is necessary to consider not only books, but the pamphlet literature produced by the SPD in huge quantities, serialisations and other treatments in the party press, and oral communication. When the full range of sources is considered, the extent of the reception of Marx's writings, albeit often in very simplified forms, can be more fully appreciated.