Heinrich Cunow


Heinrich Cunow was a German Social Democratic Party politician and a Marxist theorist.
Cunow was originally against the First World War in 1914 but he changed his viewpoint. In 1915 he joined Paul Lensch and Konrad Haenisch in the Lensch-Cunow-Haenisch group. Cunow argued that German imperialism was progressive as antiquated methods of production by primitive people was swept aside by modernisation and industrial growth. In this period he denounced the statement by the Social Democratic parliamentary group in defence of a universal right of self-determination for all people. Rather than being a natural right, Cunow defended self-determination for nations with a higher and democratic culture, but opposed it when it provided a subterfuge behind which mere national aggrandisement lay hidden. In this he was opposed by Karl Kautsky.
He took over as editor the Social Democratic theoretical journal Die Neue Zeit when Kautsky split to join the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1917 and held the position until 1923 following the merger of the USPD with the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany. Cunow was appointed in 1919 as an associate professor of social sciences and economic history at the Frederick William University of Berlin.

Selected works