The Mass Psychology of Fascism

The Mass Psychology of Fascism

File:The Mass Psychology of Fascism (German edition).jpg Cover of the German edition
Author	Wilhelm Reich
Original title	Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus
Language	German
Subject	Fascism
Publisher	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date	September 1933
Published in English	November 1980 (translation based on the third, enlarged edition from August 1942)
ISBN	978-0-374-50884-5
OCLC	411193197

The Mass Psychology of Fascism (German: Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus) is a 1933 book by Wilhelm Reich, in which Reich explores how fascists come into power, and explains their rise as a symptom of sexual repression.

Background

Main articles: Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany

Reich—originally from Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and practicing psychoanalysis and psychiatry in Vienna—joined the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) in 1928. He joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) upon moving his psychoanalytic practice to Berlin in 1930. However, The Mass Psychology of Fascism was seen as being so critical of the Nazi regime (as well as the Communist regime in the Soviet Union) that Reich was considered to be a liability to the KPD and was kicked out of the party upon the book's publication in 1933.

Summary

The question at the heart of Reich's book was this: why did the masses turn to authoritarianism even though it is clearly against their interests? Reich set out to analyze "the economic and ideological structure of German society between 1928 and 1933" in this book. In it, he calls Bolshevism "red fascism", and groups it in the same category as Nazism.

Reich argued that the reason Nazism was chosen over communism was sexual repression. As children, members of the proletariat had learned from their parents to suppress sexual desire. Hence, in adults, rebellious and sexual impulses caused anxiety. Fear of revolt, as well as fear of sexuality, were thus "anchored" in the character of the masses. This influenced the irrationality of the people, Reich would argue:

Suppression of the natural sexuality in the child, particularly of its genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, good and adjusted in the authoritarian sense; it paralyzes the rebellious forces because any rebellion is laden with anxiety; it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical faculties. In brief, the goal of sexual suppression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation. At first the child has to submit to the structure of the authoritarian miniature state, the family; this makes it capable of later subordination to the general authoritarian system. The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and anxiety.

Reich noted that the symbolism of the swastika, evoking the fantasy of the primal scene, showed in spectacular fashion how Nazism systematically manipulated the unconscious. A repressive family, a baneful religion, a sadistic educational system, the terrorism of the party, and economic violence all operated in and through individuals' unconscious psychology of emotions, traumatic experiences, fantasies, libidinal economies, and so on, and Nazi political ideology and practice exacerbated and exploited these tendencies.

For Reich, fighting fascism meant first of all studying it scientifically, which was to say, using the methods of psychoanalysis. He believed that reason—alone able to check the forces of irrationality and loosen the grip of mysticism—is also capable of playing its own part in developing original modes of political action, building on a deep respect for life, and promoting a harmonious channeling of libido and orgastic potency. Reich proposed "work democracy", a self-managing form of social organization that would preserve the individual's freedom, independence, and responsibility and base itself on them.

Banning

As a result of writing the book, Reich was kicked out of the Communist Party of Germany. The book was banned by the Nazis when they came to power. He realized he was in danger and hurriedly left Germany disguised as a tourist on a ski trip to Austria. Reich was expelled from the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1934 for political militancy. The book was ordered to be burned on request of the FDA by a judge in Maine, United States in 1956, amongst other works by Reich.

The authoritarian family as the first cell of the fascist society

Chapter V contains the famous statement that the family is the first cell of the fascist society:

From the standpoint of social development, the family cannot be considered the basis of the authoritarian state, only as one of the most important institutions which support it. It is, however, its central reactionary germ cell, the most important place of reproduction of the reactionary and conservative individual. Being itself caused by the authoritarian system, the family becomes the most important institution for its conservation. In this connection, the findings of Morgan and of Engels are still entirely correct.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari reprised Reich arguments in their joint work Anti-Oedipus (1972), in which they discuss the formation of fascism at the molecular level of society.

See also

• Psychoanalytic sociology