I mean, - about real leftism, - Yaroslav Hashek’s book that need not be named in Eastern and Central Europe has such a wonderful quote - “the human wants to be a giant, but in fact he’s shit”.

I’ve actually found a German translation in project Gutenberg:

Der Mensch möchte ein Gigant sein und ist ein Dreck, Kamerad.

This also relates to any pretentious ideologies with their pretentious symbolic.