From the Masses to the Mainstream: The Hollywood Left and the Movement for Social Democracy

This article discusses two different attitudes toward elections and democracy among the early Chinese communists. It argues that apart from some communist leaders in Shanghai who saw nothing of value in participating in elections, there were members of the party who favored social democracy. Two Cantonese Marxists, Chen Gongbo and Tan Pingshan, heavily influenced by German social democrats, especially Karl Kautsky, attached great importance to elections and “the enlightenment of the masses” on the road to communism. This led them to oppose their comrades in Shanghai, and to support the federalist self-government movement advocated by Chen Jiongming. After 1922, this rift between communists in Guangzhou and Shanghai grew into a serious intra-party conflict. Eventually, the Cantonese social democratic approach was politically discredited and largely forgotten. Exploring this Cantonese approach will clarify the connection and tension between democracy, enlightenment, and socialism in May Fourth China.

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The Stikhiinost of the Masses and the Purposiveness of Social Democracy

Lenin Rediscovered ◽

10.1163/9789047417873_019 ◽

2006 ◽

pp. 700-722

Keyword(s):

Social Democracy ◽

The Masses

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Codes of Comradeship: Class, Leadership, and Tradition in Munich Social Democracy

Central European History ◽

10.1017/s0008938900017064 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 385-412

Author(s):

Donna Harsch

Keyword(s):

Social Democracy ◽

Social Democrats ◽

Social Democratic ◽

Opening Scene ◽

The Social ◽

The Masses ◽

Democratic Security

In July 1923, the Munich chapter of the Social Democratic Security Troop (Sicherheitsabteilung, hereafter Socialist SA) staged a Festspiel in a suburban woods. The skit’s sylvan setting belied its combative leitmotif, echo of a wider German environment racked by occupation of the Ruhr, hyperinflation, unemployment, and threatening ultraright organizations. The drama aimed to convince its Social Democratic audience to join or support the Security Troop. In the opening scene, a “leader of the SPD” lamented proletarian disunity. As he resolved to quit politics, the “goddess of freedom” materialized and urged him to keep up the fight. To demonstrate that the masses were on the move against reaction, she pointed to a sky blanketed with flags born by members of the Security Troop.1 Four male mortals stepped forward: a former Independent Socialist, a Young Socialist, a Communist, and a “lumpenproletarian.” The Socialist exhorted the Communist to join the SPD but, instead, he lambasted its bureaucratic bosses and called for a council republic. Suddenly, the lumpen’s passivity aroused the group’s distrust. Unmasking him as a Nazi, they chased him offstage. As the Social Democrats went off to a meeting, the wife of the SPD leader told of her sacrifices for a husband and son who devoted themselves to the party. Yet she proclaimed her willingness to suffer “for the sake of proletarian freedom.” The men returned, disgusted that Nazis had busted up their conclave.

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Putting Radicalism to the Test: German Social Democracy and the 1905 Suffrage Demonstrations in Dresden

International Review of Social History ◽

10.1017/s0020859000113860 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 41 (2) ◽

pp. 183-208

Author(s):

Christoph Nonn

Keyword(s):

Civil Disobedience ◽

Social Democracy ◽

Great Majority ◽

Social Democrats ◽

Social Democratic ◽

Democratic Leadership ◽

Grass Roots ◽

Imperial Germany ◽

The Social ◽

The Masses

SummaryThroughout the long debate on whether the workers' movement of Imperial Germany was predominantly radical or reformist in nature, little attention has been paid to attitudes at the grass-roots level. It is argued here that during the years of 1905–1906, when all Europe was witnessing turmoil and an intensification of social conflict, the German Social Democratic leadership deliberately put the radicalism of the masses to the test. The Dresden suffrage demonstrations of December 1905 were the first to end in violent clashes between participants and police. However, contrary to what has been written to date on this incident and those similar to it, the great majority of the demonstrators were not militant. But they did exhibit a remarkable readiness to engage in civil disobedience, which the Social Democrats could use to press the party's political aims.

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In situ irradiation effects studies in medium- and high-voltage TEM

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100137549 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 234-235

Author(s):

Charles W. Allen

Keyword(s):

Cross Section ◽

Particle Flux ◽

Threshold Value ◽

High Energy ◽

Irradiation Damage ◽

Defect Complexes ◽

Lattice Position ◽

Electrons And Ions ◽

The Masses

With respect to structural consequences within a material, energetic electrons, above a threshold value of energy characteristic of a particular material, produce vacancy-interstial pairs (Frenkel pairs) by displacement of individual atoms, as illustrated for several materials in Table 1. Ion projectiles produce cascades of Frenkel pairs. Such displacement cascades result from high energy primary knock-on atoms which produce many secondary defects. These defects rearrange to form a variety of defect complexes on the time scale of tens of picoseconds following the primary displacement. A convenient measure of the extent of irradiation damage, both for electrons and ions, is the number of displacements per atom (dpa). 1 dpa means, on average, each atom in the irradiated region of material has been displaced once from its original lattice position. Displacement rate (dpa/s) is proportional to particle flux (cm-2s-1), the proportionality factor being the “displacement cross-section” σD (cm2). The cross-section σD depends mainly on the masses of target and projectile and on the kinetic energy of the projectile particle.

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