K
4

Fire Alarm

Walter Benjamin • 1928

Fire Alarm

A The notion of the class war can be misleading. It does not refer to a trial of strength to decide the question “Who shall win, who be defeated?”, or to a struggle the outcome of which is good for the victor and bad for the vanquished. To think in this way is to romanticize and obscure the facts. For whether the bourgeoisie B wins or loses the fight, it remains doomed by the inner contradictions that in the course of development will become deadly C.

French Revolutionary Time

The only question is whether its downfall will come through itself or through the proletariat. The continuance or the end of three thousand years of cultural development will be decided by the answer. History knows nothing of the evil infinity contained in the image of the two wrestlers locked in eternal combat. The true politician reckons only in dates. E And if the abolition of the bourgeoisie is not completed by an almost calculable moment in economic and technical development (a moment signalled by inflation and poison-gas warfare), all is lost. Before the spark reaches the dynamite, the lighted fuse must be cut F. The interventions, dangers, and tempi of politicians are technical-not chivalrous.