GR translation: work, abstraction, required pain, bitter death

[Mike Jing]

V41.24-28, P42.12-16  . . . but both know, clearly, it’s better together,
snuggled in, than back out in the paper, fires, khaki, steel of the Home
Front. That, indeed, the Home Front is something of a fiction and lie,
designed, not too subtly, to draw them apart, to subvert love in favor of
work, abstraction, required pain, bitter death.

What does "abstraction" mean here?