In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

384 CODES COLLAPSED
the Italian nation from an only slightly different angle, while maintaining
the paradox of mutual subordination. Instead of following those he
leads, the Leader is driven by those he drives: "Mussolini is a man who
is driven by the forces he drives, and I am sure that if one day he decided
to stand still, Italy's young people would oblige him to march" (Buarque
de Holanda, 77). But leadership is also part of the utopian aura that
surrounds the concept of democracy. Speaking before a huge assembly
of students on Tuesday, July 6, Gustav Stresemann, Germany's foreign
secretary, begins by emphasizing this very implication: "You know that
we often label the age in which we live 'the age of democracy.' In such
an era, the problem of the leader and the masses is much more important
than it is at other times" (Stresemann, 262). Leadership can be associated
with hope for democracy only when preestablished hierarchical superiority
is renounced. In the Soviet Union, teachers have no more rights
over their students than the collective student body has over the teachers:
The rules which the children have made for themselves forbid the
wearing of hats in the building. In the lobby a teacher meets a child
who has kept his hat on, and the teacher removes it with a peremptory
gesture. The boy looks at him resolutely. "What are you doing? I am
not your serf. You have offended me." He takes the case to a court
which consists of the student council. Witnesses are heard, and the
following ruling is handed down: The boy was in the wrong because
he kept his hat on; he is reprimanded for it. But the teacher's behavior
was also wrong: he didn't have the right to remove the hat from the
boy's head without explanation. This example shows how schools are
trying to foster the free development of individual and collective life."
(Toller, 184-185)
Such unambiguous enthusiasm for the ideal of a paradoxical convergence
of Individuality and Collectivity stands in sharp contrast to a
pragmatic discourse that tries to assess, with ostentatious Sobriety, the
achievements of several politicians who for a number of years have
embodied the new principle of leadership. Referring to Benito Mussolini
in Italy, Kemal Pasha in Turkey, Theodore Pangalos in Greece, and
Miguel Primo de Rivera in Spain, an essay published by the Berliner
Tageblatt on July 29 identifies a central problem in the everyday practice
of such Leaders: if they wish to maintain their prestige, they must con-