“The “Theses [On The Concept Of History]” reflect [Walter] Benjamin’s apocalyptic vision of European politics in the late Thirties and his disappointment with communism’s betrayal in the Hitler-Stalin pact…. Stalin’s pact with the devil finally shattered any illusions he may have had about communism’s redemptive mission. In the Twenties Benjamin had played with the ideas of divine violence, radical decisionism, and political nihilism; in the early Thirties he could still idealize the frenzy of what he called “the destructive character.” But now the real apocalypse approached, bringing with it satanic violence, not the Messiah. At a deeper level, the “Theses” represent the last dramatic encounter between Benjamin’s theological metaphysics and his historical materialism. The essay opens with an image of the philosophy of history as a chess game, which a puppet called historical materialism can win only “if it enlists the services of theology, which today,” he says, “is wizened and has to keep out of sight.” And what can materialism learn from theology? Essentially that the idea of historical progress is an illusion, that history is nothing but a series of catastrophes piling wreckage upon wreckage, reaching up to the heavens. The members of the working class had been corrupted by the idea of progress, which blinded them to the regressive social consequences that accompanied increased domination of the natural world. They were lulled into ignoring the “state of emergency” caused by the rising forces of fascism, and failed to respond. Materialism must now withdraw with “monastic discipline” from this belief in a progressive historical continuum, replacing it with a conception of history closer to that of traditional Judaism, which believed that “every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.” As [Gershom] Scholem later remarked, nothing remains of historical materialism in this hermetic text but the term itself.”
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