Horkheimer and Pollock never joined the Bavarian revolution they witnessed

Evidence

From time to time the question of Horkheimer’s possible membership in the KPD has been raised. But hard evidence to support this view seems unavailable, and there is much in his writings and actions that makes his current denial of membership entirely plausible. During their student days together in Munich in 1919, Horkheimer and Pollock were nonparticipatory witnesses of the short-lived revolutionary activities of the Bavarian literati. Although helping to hide left-wing victims of the white terror that followed, they did not themselves join in the revolution, which they considered premature and inevitably doomed by the lack of objective conditions favoring true social change. Horkheimer’s earliest political sympathies were with Rosa Luxemburg, especially because of her critique of Bolshevik centralism. After her murder in 1919, he never found another socialist leader to follow. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 117

Categorization

• XREF: This positions Horkheimer against Bolshevik centralism early on, which resonates with the later critical-theory stance toward both Soviet Marxism and orthodox party discipline (the suppression of Fromm and Adorno’s Moscow-aligned loyalty later in this same history). — connects to: Horkheimer and Pollock initially refused Adorno’s membership in the Institute; The failed Bavarian revolution shaped Horkheimer’s lifelong abstention from activism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 117

Broader Connections

• The failed Bavarian revolution shaped Horkheimer’s lifelong abstention from activism #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 117
• Horkheimer and Pollock initially refused Adorno’s membership in the Institute #qualifies (0.80)