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PARTISAN REVIEW
All of this was sketched in a remarkably prescient way by the
forgotten member of the Marxian triad, Moses Hess . (Since Marx–
ism always emphasized the dialectic, there had to be a third man.)
Moses Hess was the first communist in Germany. He converted
Engels, and together they edited a communist newspaper in the
Rhineland, and he was an editor with Marx and Ruge of the
Deutsch–
Franzosische Jahrbucher.
Hess split with Marx after 1848, and there–
after was subject to the vituperation that Marx reserved for his party
opponents.
In his extraordinary book
Rome andjerusalem,
written in 1862,
Hess recalls some of his reflections of 1840 (written "in the midst of
my endeavors in behalf of the European proletariat") following the
Damascus affair:
The proper understanding of this persecution of Jews must
evoke a return to Judaism. . .. [Those] who for the sake of
emancipation would like to persuade themselves and others that
modern Jews no longer feel any trace of nationalism, do not
understand how it is possible that in Europe in the nineteenth
century men can give credence for a moment to so gross a
medieval lie as the 'Mamser Bilbul'.... the Germans after their
War of liberation not only repudiated the Jews who fought with
them against France but moreover even persecuted them with
the cry of 'Hep-Hep .'
For Hess, nationalism was still the most powerful current of
belief. "In spite of all enlightenment and emancipation, the Jew of
the Diaspora who denies his nationalism will still not win the respect
of the nations." And in concluding his foreword, Hess ends with a
peroration which stands in sharp contrast to the views of Marx:
All of past history was concerned with the struggle of races and
classes. Race struggle is primary; class struggle is secondary.
When racial antagonisms cease, class struggle also ceases.
Equality of all special classes follows on the heels of equality of
races and finally remains merely a question of sociology.
Merely! The worldwide storms of race are still before us. And
with them come precarious times for the jewish community, and for
the United States .
* * *
