The Ashkenazi Revolution

260existence was the result of several forces that worked to its benefit, mainlythe force of the pioneer-activists in the Labor movement and in otherZionist parties. The pioneer-activist saved the Labor movement from theproblematic and experimental, and always returned it to the firm ground ofcertainty and continuity. This trend is the only one in the Labor movementthat has a continuity of time that proceeds in a straight line from the verybeginnings of its economic activity until our own time. The pioneeractivistis the hero of the Labor movement, but its ideologue is the one whobrought about its downfall through unripe ideas and through persistentevasiveness. Any objective assessment of the Labor movement willrecognize the great division that exists within it, between pioneer-workeractivity, which often reached great heights in awakening the admiration ofthe world, and pitiful ideological thought. This pioneer-worker activitydeserves much praise, while the ideologues deserve every condemnation.However, the picture gets more complicated due to the fact that many ofthe great men of the Labor movement are both ideologues and pioneerworkersat the same time. The ideological creation of Berl Katzenelson isvery weak and has already become outmoded, but Berl Katzenelson is agenius as a social engineer, and the building that he constructed will lastmany more years. Ben-Gurion accomplished great things as the founder ofthe army and the former of the foundations of the state, however in hishistorical writings, he is dishonest. In every sector of the Labor movement,the pioneer-worker is greater than the ideologue, and the creativity of thepioneer-worker is what allowed the movement to survive the hazards thatawaited it.A second force that saved the Labor movement, and the entire settlement,from decline was the Revisionist Movement. The tools of the Labormovement, which were too experimental, did not have the ability, in anyway shape or form, to extricate the settlement from the English-Arab trapin which it found itself at the end of the 1930’s. The settlement got tangledup more and more in this trap, and it faced certain destruction in the 1950’s,if not for the rise of the Revisionist Movement. This movement was notexperimental like the Labor movement; rather it was a movement that actedaccording to certain historical schemes that had withstood the test of