THE WANDERING JEW
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of the Russian and Polish revolutionary
elan
and idealism, some–
thing of that "revolutionary romanticism" which so great a realist
as Lenin unabashingly extolled; and occasionally she tried to trans–
plant the Western European democratic spirit and tradition into the
socialist underground movements of Eastern Europe. She failed in
her main purpose and paid with her life. But not only she paid for
it. In her assassination Hohenzollern Germany celebrated its last
triumph and Nazi Germany- its first.
Trotsky, the author of Permanent Revolution, had before him
the vision of a global upheaval transforming mankind. The leader,
together with Lenin, of the Russian revolution and the founder of
the Red Army, he came in conflict with the State he had het1ped
to create when that State and its leaders put up the banner of so–
cialism in one country. Not for him was the limitation of the vision
of socialism to the boundaries of one country.
All these great revolutionaries were extremely vulnerable. They
were as Jews, ro01l1ess, in a sense; but they were so only in some
respects, for they had the deepest roots in intellectual tradition and
in the noblest aspirations of their times. Yet, whenever religious in–
tolerance or nationalist emotion was on the ascendant, whenever dog–
matic narrowmindedness and fanaticism triumphed, they were the
first victims. They were excommunicated by Jewish rabbis; they were
persecuted by Christian priests; they were hunted down by the gen–
darmes of absolute rulers and by the soldateska; they were hated
by pseudo-democratic philistines; and they were expelled by their
own parties. Nearly all of them were exiled from their countries;
and the writings of all were burned at the stake at one time or
another. Spinoza's name could not be mentioned for over a century
after his death-even Leibnitz, who was indebted to Spinoza for so
much of his thought, did not dare to mention it. Trotsky is still under
anathema in Russia today. The names of Marx, Heine, Freud, and
Rosa Luxemburg were forbidden in Germany quite recently. But
theirs is the ultimate victory. After a century during which Spinoza's
name was covered with oblivion they put up monuments to him and
acknowledged him as the greatest fructifier of the human mind.
Herder once said about Goethe: "I wish Goethe read some Latin
books apart from Spinoza's
Ethics."
Goethe was indeed steeped in
Spinoza's thought; and Heine rightly describes him as "Spinoza who
