3.3 Draft of “Moscow” (c. spring 1927)—Manuscript, one side.
The manuscript contains drafts for the article “Moscow,” published in the journal Die Kreatur in 1927. Benjamin was in Moscow from December 1926 until February 1927, having traveled there in order to visit the Latvian director Asja Lacis, who had fled to the Soviet capital for political reasons and was recuperating in a sanatorium following an illness. Benjamin recorded striking experiences and impressions of his visit in his Moscow Diary, which he also used as the basis of his article. The notes depicted here relay observations on Moscow city life—lively descriptions of traffic, the Kremlin, street traders, and the proletarian quarter with its youth groups.
3.4 Dream Kitsch: Gloss on Surrealism (c. 1925)—Manuscript, two sides; shown here, page 1. Compare SW 2:1, pp. 3–5.
3.5 Sonnet, untitled. From the cycle of 73 sonnets on the death of Christoph Friedrich Heinle—Manuscript, one side. Compare GS VII.1, p. 56.
3.6 Letter to Florens Christian Rang from 27 January 1923—Manuscript, two sides; shown here, page 1. Compare GB II, pp. 309f.
3.7 Language and Logic II (1921)—Manuscript, two sides; shown here, page 1. Compare SW 1, pp. 272–3.
Fig. 3.1
Fig. 3.1
Peace Commodity
“Leafing through your volumes!”
From 1920 to 1923, in Rome, in Zurich, in Paris—in short, whatever place outside of German soil one might have happened to land upon—German products could be found for half the price that one would usually have paid for the same goods abroad, or indeed in Germany itself. Poorly assembled goods for an impoverished population who were no longer capable of normal consumption were thrown into the dumping ground of the inflation era, placed on the European market as “peace commodities” at bargain prices. Around that time the barriers began to lift again and the traveling salesman set off on tour. One had to live on clearance sales and the higher the dollar rose, the greater was the circulation of export goods. At the height of the catastrophe it included intellectual and cultural goods too. For, even if the financial benefit was smaller, turnover raised the prestige of the entrepreneur. The Kantian idea of eternal peace—long undeliverable in a spiritually bankrupt Germany—was right in the first ranks of those spiritual export articles. Uncheckable in its manufacture, a slow seller for the previous ten years, it was available at unbeatable prices. It was a heaven-sent opportunity to smooth the way for more serious export. No thought was given to the genuine quality of its peace. Immanuel Kant’s raw, homemade weave of thought had indeed proven itself to be highly durable, but it did not appeal to a broader public. It was necessary to take account of the modern taste of bourgeois democracy. The cloth of the peace flag was tie-dyed, its white, threadbare weave brightly patterned and, given all the signs and symbols, it was difficult—this will be found to be corroborated—for the green of hope to stand out from the bellicose red of the lobster, the blue of faithfulness from the drab brown of the roast turkey. In such a form this renovated weave of a pacifism in all the colors of the world’s ways—which was sated in other ways too—was to be unveiled before the international public. And just as one expects that the simplest apprentice can throw out, fold, and prepare the bales of cloth according to the rules, so too the gentleman who markets this gaily colored pile, for good or for evil, has to drape himself in the colors of the universe and hold in front of the customer’s nose the world of God which he sells in pieces. All that was necessary was to find the traveling salesman who also had at his immediate disposal the required vim of gesticulation, such as has the journalist with his triply loosened wrist and pen. That the reserve lieutenant was formerly popularly perceived as a traveling salesman is well known. He was easily imported into “better circles.” This is also thoroughly true of Mr von Unruh, who, in 1922, as a traveling salesman going from city to city for eternal peace, processed the Paris position. Of course—and this was accordingly so apt that Mr von Unruh himself bridled at moments—his import into French circles some years ago at Verdun did not occur without furore, not without commotion, not without the spilling of blood. Be that as it may, the report that he presents—Wings of Nike: The Book of a Journey—implies that his contact with his customer base has persisted, even when he presented for inspection peace commodities rather than heavy munitions. It is not equally as certain whether it can be assured that the publication of this travel journal—a list of his customers and done deals—is of use to the broader course of business. For barely had it occurred before the commodity began to be returned from Paris.
In any case it is extremely instructive to examine Mr von Unruh’s pacifism more closely. Since the supposed convergence of the moral idea and that of right, on whose presupposition the European proof of the Kantian gospel of peace rested, began to disconnect in the mind of the nineteenth century, German “peace” has pointed more and more to metaphysics as the place of its foundation. The German image of peace emanates from metaphysics. In contrast to this it has long been observed that the idea of peace in West European democracies is a thoroughly worldly, political, and, in the final instance, juristically justifiable one. Pax is for them the ideal of international law. To this corresponds, in practical terms, the instrument of the arbitration court and its treaties. The great moral conflict of an unlimited and reinforced right to peace with an equitable peace, the diverse ways in which this theme has been instrumentalized in the course of history, are not up for discussion in Mr von Unruh’s pacifism, just as indeed the world-historical events of this hour remain unaddressed. And “in terms of the philosophical politics of France”—Florens Christian Rang analyzed them for the Germans (in his final work German Shelters, the most truthful critique of war and post-war literature and one of the greatest political works ever, and of which out of the entire German daily press only the Frankfurter Zeitung took note in any sort of adequate fashion): its rigor matched by its humanity, its precision detracting not in the least from its depth—here, though, “philosophical politics” fuses in Unruh’s pathos with idealistic waffle. “Tout action de l’esprit est aisée si elle n’est plus soumise au réel”—that is how Proust phrases the old truth. Mr von Unruh has heroically wrestled himself free from reality. In any case, the great formal dinners are the only international facts that his new pacifism takes into account. His new international is hatched in the peace of the communal digestion and the gala menu is the magna carta of the future peace of nations. And just as a cocky sidekick might smash a valuable vessel at a love feast, so the thin terminology of the Königsberg philosopher dispatches to the devil with the kick of a jackboot, and what remains is the innerness of the heavenly eye in its attractive alcoholic glassiness. The image of the gifted blabbermouth with a teary look, as Shakespeare alone could capture!—The great prose of all evangelists of peace spoke of war. To stress one’s own love of peace is always the close concern of those who have instigated war. But he who wants peace should speak of war. He should speak of the past one (is he not called Fritz von Unruh,1 the one thing about which he would remain silent), and, above all, he should speak of the coming one. He should speak of its threatening plotters, its powerful causes, its terrifying means. And yet this would be perhaps the only discourse against which the salons, which allowed Mr von Unruh entry, remain completely hermetically sealed? The much pleaded peace, which is already in existence, proves, when seen by daylight, to be the one—the only “eternal,” known to us—which those enjoy who have commanded in war and who wish to set the tone at the peace party. For this is what Mr von Unruh has become too. “Woe” his Cassandra-like gobbledegook clamors over all who have realized at the correct moment—that is roughly between the fish and the roast—that “inner conversion” is the only acceptable revolt and that the
Fig. 3.2
Fig. 3.2
“In