and i stumbled onto a pretty good quote from Walter Benjamin, someone i'd never read before (please do look into him, he's a fascinating German Jewish philosopher) - i guess i'm just connecting a lot of dots here lately:
Social Democracy thought fit to assign to the working class the role of the redeemer of future generations, in this way cutting the sinews of its greatest strength. This training made the working class forget both its hatred and its spirit of sacrifice, for both are nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren.
from "On the Concept of History" aka "Theses on the Philosophy of History" by Walter Benjamin