''Sozialistische Monatshefte'' (, "Socialist Monthly Bulletins") was a German journal edited by Joseph Bloch from 1897 to 1933 and published by the ''Verlag der Sozialistischen Monatshefte'' in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

History and contents

It was close to the revisionist wing of the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

. It was not controlled by the party and provided a space for debates within the labor movement. Its opponents were representatives of the revolutionary viewpoint as well as the center of the party; they regarded the ''Monatshefte'' as the journalistic "center of international revisionism". The journal was originally founded in 1895 by as Der sozialistische Akademiker - Organ der sozialistischen Studirenden und Studirten deutscher Zunge (''The Socialist Academic - Organ of the Socialist Students and German Speaking Academics''). Two years later there were disagreements and Sassenbach left the editorial office. From then on Joseph Bloch continued the journal under the title ''Sozialistische Monatshefte'' as chief editor in July 1897, restarting the volume count. Since 1903, the ''Sozialistische Monatshefte'' had been a GmbH company with 20,000

German gold mark The German mark (german: Goldmark ; sign: ℳ) was the currency of the German Empire, which spanned from 1871 to 1918. The mark was paired with the minor unit of the pfennig (₰); 100 pfennigs were equivalent to 1 mark. The mark was on the g ...

s of capital. Shareholders were

Jakob Bamberger Jakob "Johnny" Bamberger (11 December 1913 – 1989) was a Sinti Boxing, boxer and later an activist in the Romani people, Romani civil rights movement. Life Jakob Bamberger was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, the son of Julius Bamberger, a H ...

(5,999 marks),

Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedric ...

(2,000 marks), Joseph Bloch (6,000 marks, of which, however, 5,000 marks came from

Leo Arons Martin Leo Arons (15 February 1860 – 10 October 1919) was a German physicist and social democratic politician. He was the namesake of the ''Lex Arons'', a law which disallowed members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemo ...

Charles Hallgarten Charles Hallgarten, or Charles/Karl Lazarus Hallgarten (18 November 1838, Mainz – 19 April 1908, Frankfurt/Main) was a German banker and philanthropist. His father was Lazarus Hallgarten, founder of Hallgarten & Company, and his mother was El ...

also supported the magazine, for example with 5,000 marks in 1905. The magazine was independent of the SPD. It first appeared monthly, fortnightly from the beginning of 1908 to 1922, and then monthly again. The magazine was close to the political viewpoint of the publisher, the revisionist wing of the SPD, but also offered room for representatives of other views, including some

anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...

and sympathizers of

Labor Zionism Labor Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת סוֹצְיָאלִיסְטִית, ) or socialist Zionism ( he, תְּנוּעָת הָעַבוֹדָה, label=none, translit=Tnuʽat haʽavoda) refers to the left-wing, socialist variation of Zionism. ...

. The latter was rejected within the SPD because of his ideas of settlement colonialism in

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

, but the ''Monatshefte'' did not share the SPD's strict colonial criticism. In 1902,

August Bebel Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...

strongly opposed the magazine and believed that the newspaper was "outside the party". However, a petition to punish publication in the ''Monatshefte'' by party exclusion was unsuccessful at the

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

Party Congress of 1909. In 1913, the SPD's party committee again considered the question of whether party members could publish in the ''Monatshefte'' Issues.

Philipp Scheidemann Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann (26 July 1865 – 29 November 1939) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the first quarter of the 20th century he played a leading role in both his party and in the young Weimar ...

describes it as a meeting point: "where everything is gathered that can give satisfaction to the opponents of our party". The ''Monatshefte'' had great significance for the struggle for recognition of the

consumer cooperative A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a fo ...

movement as one of three pillars (

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature f ...

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

s, consumer cooperatives) in the

labor movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

. This included not only the essays in the main section, by and others, but also regular reports in the section ''Genossenschaftswesen'' (''Consumer cooperative movement'').Cf. also: Erwin Hasselmann: ''Geschichte der deutschen Konsumgenossenschaften.''. Knapp, Frankfurt am Main 1971, p.246. Another fixed component was the column ''Frauenbewegung'' (''

Women's Movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such iss ...

'') supervised by . In addition, the ''Monatshefte'' published

belletristic is a category of writing, originally meaning beautiful or fine writing. In the modern narrow sense, it is a label for literary works that do not fall into the major categories such as fiction, poetry, or drama. The phrase is sometimes used pejora ...

texts, for example, 17

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...

s by the West Prussian writer appeared between 1908 and 1923. The journal contained the supplements ''The Socialist Student'' (nine issues in total) and ''Documents of Socialism''. included

Julius Bab Julius Bab (December 11, 1880 – February 12, 1955) was a German dramatist and theater critic. He was a cofounder of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden. Bab was a close friend of journalist and theater critic Siegfried Jacobsohn and a key contribut ...

, Eduard Bernstein,

Gertrud David Gertrud David, née Swiderski, (25 December 1872 – 21 June 1936) was a German journalist, film producer, director, and screenwriter. Biography Gertrud Swiderski was born on 25 December 1872 in Leipzig to Helene (née Schlenk) and Philipp Sw ...

Eduard David Eduard Heinrich Rudolph David (11 June 1863 – 24 December 1930) was a German politician. He was an important figure in the history of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and of the German political labour movement. After the German Re ...

, Adolph von Elm,

Henriette Fürth Henriette Fürth (born Henriette Katzenstein, 15 August 1861 – 1 June 1938) was a German sociologist, women's rights activist, author-journalist and poet. After the ban on female participation in political organisation was revoked in 1908, s ...

Wolfgang Heine Wolfgang Heine (3 May 1861 – 9 May 1944) was a German jurist and social democrat politician. Heine was a member of the Imperial parliament and the Weimar National Assembly, he served as Minister President of the Free State of Anhalt and Prus ...

, Gerhard Hildebrand, , ,

Max Nettlau Max Heinrich Hermann Reinhardt Nettlau (; 30 April 1865 – 23 July 1944) was a German anarchist and historian. Although born in Neuwaldegg (today part of Vienna) and raised in Vienna, he lived there until the anschluss to Nazi Germany in 193 ...

, , ,

Gustav Landauer Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism and an avowed pacifist. In 1919, he ...

Hope Bridges Adams Lehmann Hope Bridges Adams Lehmann (16 December 1855 – 10 October 1916) was the first female general practitioner and gynecologist in Munich, Germany. She was the daughter of the English journalist and railway engineer William Bridges Adams. She st ...

Élisée Reclus Jacques Élisée Reclus (; 15 March 18304 July 1905) was a French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork, ''La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes'' ("Universal Geography"), over a period of ...

Karl Renner Karl Renner (14 December 1870 – 31 December 1950) was an Austrian politician and jurist of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria. He is often referred to as the "Father of the Republic" because he led the first government of German-A ...

, Rosa Schapire, Max Schippel, , , , ,

Georg von Vollmar Georg Heinrich Ritter (Chevalier) von Vollmar auf Veldheim (March 7, 1850 – June 30, 1922) was a democratic socialist politician from Bavaria. Biography Vollmar was born in Munich, and educated in a school attached to a Benedictine monastery at ...

, .

References

External links

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(German)
''Der sozialistische Akademiker'' (1895–1896)
at the

Friedrich Ebert Foundation The Friedrich Ebert Foundation (''German: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.; Abbreviation: FES'') is a German political party foundation associated with, but independent from, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Established in 1925 as the ...

''Sozialistische Monatshefte (1897–1933)''
at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation &mdash
Introduction
(in German, PDF, 36 KB) by Hubert Woltering
Record
in the anarchist database {{ill, Datenbank des deutschsprachigen Anarchismus, de
Archive
at the

International Institute of Social History The International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) is one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world. Located in Amsterdam, its one million volumes and 2,300 archival collections include the papers of major figur ...

Defunct political magazines published in Germany Biweekly magazines published in Germany Monthly magazines published in Germany Magazines established in 1897 Magazines disestablished in 1933 Magazines published in Berlin Social Democratic Party of Germany