Gustav Landauer--literary critic, mystical philosopher, and left-wing activists--was Germany's major anarchist thinker at the beginning of the twentieth century. In this full-scale intellectual biography, Lunn depicts the evolution of Landauer's social thought, a rich terrain within which to examine afresh some intellectual crosscurrents of the Wilhelmian era.

 

Landauer's work in the various circles and movements of his social milieu after 1900, including anarchist, youth movement, expressionist, and Zionist groups, reveal a convergence of volkisch and communitarian ideas with libertarian forms of socialist democracy. The study of this kind of "romantic socialism," in revolt against both industrial modernity and authoritarian government, highlights the inadequacy of viewing volkisch themes exclusively in terms of Nazi "roots."

 

What emerges from this study is the appeal of antiauthoritarian and communitarian ideas for middle-class Left intellectuals dissatisfied with the official Social Democratic Party. In the light of the tragic failures of democratic and socialist forces to gain middle-class support during the Weimar Republic, and of the Nazis' antidemocratic uses of Gemeinschaft, this earlier search for a communitarian democracy gains in importance.

 

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.