Learning and Suffering in Vienna
homeward. On the way I saw in a tobacco shop the Workers’ Times, the Arbeiterzeitung, the official organ of the old Austrian Social Democratic Party. It was also available at a cheap café where I often went to read the papers; but I had never succeeded in bringing myself to read the wretched sheet (whose whole tone affected me like intellectual vitriol) for more than two minutes at a time. Now, under the depressing effect of the demonstration, an inner voice pushed me on to buy a copy and read it thoroughly. I did so that evening, fighting down frequent rage at this concentrated essence of lies.
By reading the Social Democratic press daily I could study the inner nature of its train of thought better than from any theoretical literature. What a difference between the glittering phrases in the theoretical writings—freedom, beauty and dignity, the illusory shuffle of words apparently with difficulty expressing profound wisdom, the disgustingly human morality, all written with a brazen front of prophetic certainty,—and the brutal daily press of this doctrine of salvation of a new humanity, hesitating at no vileness, working with every resource of slander and an absolutely stunning virtuosity in lying! The one is intended for stupid gulls of the middle and upper “levels of intelligence,” the other for the masses.
To me, absorption in the literature and press of this doctrine and organization meant finding my way back to my own people.
What had before seemed to me an impassable gulf now created a love greater than ever before.
Only a fool, knowing this enormous work of corruption, could still condemn the victims. The more independent I grew in the next few years, the more my insight into the inner causes of Social Democratic success grew. Now I understood the meaning of the brutal demand that only Red newspapers be subscribed for, only Red meetings be attended, only Red books be read, etc. With sparkling clarity I saw before me the inevitable result of this doctrine of intolerance.
The soul of the great masses is receptive to nothing weak or half-way.
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