(bourgeois or diaspora) restlessness, changeability, doubt, self-reflexivity, irony, cleverness, eloquence, and cowardice. “Stalin,” “Molotov,” and “Kamenev” stood for “steel,” “hammer,” and “rock.” Among the most popular names created by early Zionists were Peled (“steel”), Tzur (“rock”), Even/Avni (“stone”), Allon (“oak”), and Eyal (“ram,” “strength”). “We are not yeshiva students debating the finer points of self-improvement,” said BenGurion in 1922. “We are conquerors of the land facing an iron wall, and we have to break through it.” The original leaders were Mercurians transformed by true faith; their disciples were Apollonians endowed with idealism. Their common descendants would be harmonious new men with new names. 9 War and hard work were supposed to bring all the true believers together, steeling yesterday’s Mercurians and tempering youthful Apollonians. War made peaceful labor possible; peaceful labor drained swamps, conquered nature, made deserts bloom, and tempered human steel still further. The need for war and work perpetuated the culture of asceticism and asexuality, which required more war and work in order to reproduce itself (and thus ensure eternal youth and brotherhood). In both Jewish Palestine (the Yishuv) and Soviet Russia, brotherhood stood for the full identity of all true believers (always the few against the many) and their complete identification with the cause (ardently desired and genuinely felt by most young Jews in both places). Eventually, both revolutions evolved in the direction of greater hierarchy, institutionalized militarism, intense anxiety about aliens, and the cult of generals, boy soldiers, and elite forces, but between 1917 and the mid-1930s they were overflowing with youthful energy and the spirit of fraternal effort, achievement, and self- sacrifice. They were not equal in scale, however (the Zionist emigration was much smaller than the Soviet one), and they were not equal in prestige. Because the Russian Empire was the main source of all three emigrations, the birthplace of most Zionist and Communist heroes, and the cradle of much of modern Jewish mythology, the migrants to the Soviet interior benefited a great deal from linguistic connection and geographic proximity. In Palestine, Russian shirts, boots, and caps were adopted as the uniform of the early settlers; the flowing Cossack forelock developed into one of the most recognizable trademarks of the young Sabra; Russian songs (both revolutionary and folk) provided the melodies and sometimes the lyrics of many Zionist songs; and the Russian literary canon (both classical and socialist-realist) became the single most important inspiration for new Sabra literature. Ben-Gurion’s letter to his wife was written in the language of Russian (and Polish) revolutionary messianism. 10