The Daily Bleed on Gustav Landauer

Let it be stated that I do not share Landauer's enthusiasm for the teachings of Jesus.

That Gustav Landauer's influence is on the increase in socialist youth circles

-- among the educated as well as among the proletarians -- should be received

with deepest joy. He was execrably murdered by brutalized soldiers for being an

accursed agitator--he, this profound friend of German mysticism, this fighter

for the spirit of a true national community. It is impossible to kill the truth,

however. At no time while Gustav Landauer was alive did he assemble around

himself such a large circle of friends--friends gripped by his ideas--as is now

gathered around the core of what was his life's task. This spiritual current

which is so strong among the young people of today has been described as

anarchist communism, but anarchy must here be understood solely in the sense of

an order that is organic in its structure, an order based on free-willing

associations.

As this movement sees it, the longed-for communist culture does not rest on some

form of technology or on a certain method of satisfying men's needs, but rather

on the spirit of justice. The communal settlements which are aimed at and in

part have already been begun in this country, are to be built up into models of

justice and of joyous work. Everywhere one finds clearly expressed the longing

that the spirit ruling over men should be that of community. The spirit yearned

for by these circles, so stirred by what Gustav Landauer represents, is the

uniting spirit of common work, the active, creative spirit of a love that welds

men together. There is no other movement with--at first glance--a non-Christian

appearance, where there is so much talk about the spirit; no other movement

where there is such a strong affirmation of life as constructive work for the

coming time, as is the case with this group of communist anarchists. It is not

at all a question here of mere talk--on the contrary, this movement sees the

spirit as a uniting awareness of inward fellowship, as an inner drive towards

justice and integrated wholeness, an urge to, and joy in, comradeship. The

spirit thus experienced as the very quintessence of life can therefore signify

nothing else but practical reality and effective activity. It represents

free-willingness and joy in creative work, strength and serenity, enthusiasm and

bravery, will and deed, a power that frees and binds at the same time. These

revolutionaries bent on building up a new order recognize quite correctly that

in the past there is nothing we have lacked more than such a spirit of

community--a spirit guaranteeing social unity just as much as spiritual

independence.

Gustav Landauer expects to find the salvation in work-true work that is filled,

guided, and organized by a brotherly spirit free from greed; work as the deed of

honest hands and as a witness to the rulership of a pure and truthful spirit.

What he envisions as the fundamental character of the future is work as an

expression of the spirit, as provision for men's needs, as cooperative action.

Side by side with the joy one feels in comradeship and in showing consideration

to one another, man's joy in his work is to bring it about that he experiences

his work as the actual fulfillment of his life and thus finds joy in living.

"Man needs to have joy in what he does; his soul must take an active part in the

functioning of his body."

This, however, truly demands the presence of that Spirit who "links all life to

Eternity, who makes our senses holy and our physical existence heavenly; who

imparts joy, verve and revolutionary exuberance to all our ways and all we do."

It should be clear to everybody that one cannot assure the presence of this

Spirit by simply moving out into the country and in a rural setting seeking to

combine mental and physical work. This much is true: man's future is bound to

lie on the land. It is and remains man's task to cultivate the soil and to

preserve the purity of the spirit. That the new rural culture wants to carry

spiritual vitality out into the countryside is a healthy idea. A life really in

accord with human dignity will be achieved only if, side by side with our work

on the land, we can build up a genuine inner culture which concerns itself with

the true interests of the spirit. It is clear even now to every reasonable

person that the best recreation, the best education, and the best training

consists in a right alternation of mental and physical work. Everything, of

course, depends on what will be the content of the new cultivation of the mind

which is to pervade rural life.

That the earth and its products should be common property is no doubt a

prophetic demand of justice. The anarchist communists' watchword that land and

work must be newly experienced as something all men share in common corresponds

to the original destiny of mankind just as much as their emphasis on the spirit.

That the land should be the common property and that work be the common task of

all men is more than a lofty ideal aiming at a renewal of man's condition. Land

and spirit--the new demand of this revolutionary movement--is but the age-old

prophetic proclamation of the truth which alone can assure a healthy future for

mankind. The divine Spirit voiced by the prophets pointed out ways by which to

reach these goals that are indispensable for a life worthy of human beings; it

showed how man's egoism can be transformed into a spirit of fellowship, into

love and devoted creative work. Only by being infused with the Holy Spirit of

the living God can the yearned-for spirit of community be saved from

degenerating into a spirit of vile commonness. The Holy Spirit alone proves to

be the uniting power that engenders true community. God alone, as the

personification of creative life, brings about the longed-for, ultimate unity of

freewillingness and creative joy, of inner independence and social justice, of

free self-determination and complete love. God's Spirit is that power which, as

truth, separates what is bad and half-hearted from that which is good and

genuine, and which, as love, calls forth the will and the deed of loving

kindness. The fruits of this Spirit can only be goodness and justice, peace and

joy, self-control, and the gift to produce and to achieve, for He can show forth

nothing else but God's own nature. God's Spirit is the life-begetting Spirit of

life, He is the uniting Spirit of unity, for He is the Spirit of divine

life--the Spirit of that life which pulses in Jesus.

We rejoice in the spiritual deepening which the anarchist-communist elements

bring to socialism. By their very nature they had to see through and unmask the

unspiritual ingredients in Marxism and materialism so that Gustav Landauer was

able to write:

Jesus was a truly inexhaustible figure--so rich, so bountiful and generous, that

quite apart from the significance He has for men's spirit and life He was also a

tremendous socialist. But take a Philistine and place him on the one hand before

the living Jesus on the Cross, and on the other hand before some new machine

designed to transport persons or goods: if he is honest and free of any cultural

pretensions he will regard this crucified human being as totally useless and

superfluous and will run after that machine. And yet, how immeasurably more have

men been really moved by Jesus' calm, tranquil, suffering greatness of heart and

mind than by all the machines we have for the purpose of moving people! And

yet, where would our whole transport machinery be without this calm, tranquil,

suffering great One on the Cross of mankind! (Call to Socialism, pp. 47-48)

Excerpted from EA 20/11, originally printed as "Familienverband und

Siedlungsleben" in Das neue Werk, 1920.