ABSTRACT
NOT everyone had welcomed the revolution; many withdrew into evasive attitudes and some were actively hostile. ‘The fox has been set to keep the geese,’ said one of the critics, ‘the illiterate is now made minister of education, the anarchist is appointed chief of police, and the Jew-a German statesman.’1 Those who held such opinions watched the leftward development of the Freideutsche with growing dismay. Some charged it with ‘perman ent high treason,’2 others were altogether sceptical about the un ending and fruitless discussions: ‘Just look at those Freideutsche leaders and their intellectual leap-frogging from Dostoevsky to Chuang-tse, Count Keyserling, Spengler, Buddha, Jesus, Landauer, Lenin, and whichever literary Jew happens to be fashionable at the moment. Of their own substance they have little or nothing.’3
