I. Historical Requirements of the Present Time

The proletariat, the working class, strives upward. It still has unused brains. The lemon hasn't yet been completely squeezed dry; something of an atavistic character still comes out of the brain. Therefore, the proletariat still understands what is said in the sense of the new order of things. The situation today is such that the entire proletariat would be receptive to these things, but not their leaders, for they have become bourgeois. They have become greater philistines than the real philistines. They have taken over philistinism and have developed it into a high culture. But on the other hand there exists a terrible penchant for obedience. This obedience will first have to be broken, otherwise there will be no salvation here either.