Learning and Suffering in Vienna
in one’s mouth, and flatly denied a sentence just spoken, only to claim it for themselves the next moment!
No. The better I became acquainted with the Jew, the more I felt obliged to forgive the worker.
I now felt that the chief guilt belonged not to him, but to all those who thought it not worth the trouble to take pity on him, and with iron justice give to the son of the people what was his, and nail the seducer and corrupter to the wall.
Stimulated by the experience of daily life I now began to search for the sources of the Marxist doctrine itself. I had come to understand its effect in detail; its success daily struck any attentive eye, and with a little imagination I could depict its results. The only remaining question was whether the founders had foreseen the results of their creation in its final form, or whether they themselves were victims of error. I felt that both answers were possible.
On the one hand it was the duty of every thinking person to force his way into the front ranks of the accursed movement, thus perhaps to prevent it from going to extremes; on the other hand, however, the actual creators of this national disease must have been true devils. Only in the brain of a monster—not of a human being—could the plan take shape for an organization the eventual result of whose activity must be the collapse of human civilization and the desolation of the world.
In this case the last hope was battle, battle by every weapon which the human mind, understanding and will could grasp, no matter to whom Fate then gave its blessing.
I therefore began now to familiarize myself with the founders of this doctrine, in order thus to study the foundations of the movement. The fact that I got results sooner than perhaps even I had dared to hope I owed to my new, if not yet profound, knowledge of the Jewish question. That alone allowed me to compare its realities with the theoretical shuffling of the founding apostles of Social Democracy, since it had taught me to understand the language of the Jewish people, who talk to conceal their thoughts, or at least to veil them. Their real purpose is often not on the page, but sleeping snugly between the lines.
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