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PARTISAN REVIEW
drowned in blood. During the revolution Sonia (the only
individualized person) loses control of events to "der Namenlose,"
the nameless one, the faceless image of mass violence. The
revolution fails and Sonia is condemned to death. "Der Namenlose"
appears in prison and tells Sonia she can be freed, bu t only at the
expense of the death of a warder. Sonia refuses, and in a dialogue
that echoes Weber and adumbrates Brecht (the apology for
revolution written ten years later,
Die Massnahme,
a
Lehrstiick
whose
title echoes Toller's so eerily), Toller writes:
The Nameless:
The Woman:
The Nameless:
The Woman :
The Nameless:
The Woman:
The Masses count, not man.
No, you are not our heroine, our leader!
Each carries the infirmities of origin;
And you birth-marks of your class–
Weakness and self-deception.
No, you do not love people!
Our Cause comes first.
I love the people that shall be,
I love the future .
People come first .
You sacrifice to dogmas,
The people that are now.
Our Cause demands their sacrifice .
But you betray the Masses, you betray
The Cause.
You must decide to-day .
Who wavers, helps our masters-
The masters who oppress us and starve us–
Who wavers,
Is our foe .
If
I took but one human life,
I should betray the Masses.
Who acts may only sacrifice himself.
Hear me : no man may kill for a cause .
Unholy every cause that needs to kill.
Whoever calls for blood of men,
Is Moloch.
So God was Moloch,
The State Moloch,
And the Masses–
Moloch.
I met Toller in New York in 1937. I was chairman then of the
Student Strike Against War at the downtown branch of the City Col-
