THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM By WILHELM REICH English translation by THEODORE P. WOLFE By Wilhelm Reich DER TRIEBHAFTE CHARAKTER Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1925. 132 pp. DIE FUNKTION DES ORGASMUS Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927. 206 pp. DER SEXUELLE KAMPF DER JUGEND Sexpol Verlag, 1932. 152 pp. CHARAKTER-ANALYSE Sexpol Verlag, 1933. 288 pp. MASSENPSYCHOLOGIE DES FASCHISMUS 2. Auflage, Sexpol Verlag, 1933. 292 pp. DIALEKTISCHER MATERIALISMUS UND PSYCHOANALYSE Sexpol Verlag, 1934. 60 pp. PSYCHISCHER KONTAKT UND VEGETATIVE STROEMUNG Abhandl. zur personellen Sexualökonomie, Nr. 3. Sexpol Verlag, 1935. 61 pp. DER EINBRUCH DER SEXUALMORAL 2. Auflage, Sexpol Verlag, 1935. 155 pp. DIE SEXUALITAET IM KULTURKAMPF 2. Auflage, Sexpol Verlag, 1936. 250 pp. EXPERIMENTELLE ERGEBNISSE UEBER DIE ELEKTRISCHE FUNKTION VON SEXUALITAET UND ANGST Abhandl. zur personellen Sexualökonomie, Nr. 4. Sexpol Verlag, 1937. 55 pp. ORGASMUSREFLEX, MUSKELHALTUNG UND KOERPERAUSDRUCK Abhandl. zur personellen Sexualökonomie, Nr. 5. Sexpol Verlag. 1937. 50 pp. DIE BIONE Klinische und experimentelle Berichte, Nr. 6. Sexpol Verlag, 1938. 205 pp. BION EXPERIMENTS ON THE CANCER PROBLEM. DREI VERSUCHE AM STATISCHEN ELEKTROSKOP. Klinische und experimentelle Berichte, Nr. 7. Sexpol Verlag, 1939. 30 pp. THE FUNCTION OF THE ORGASM Orgone Institute Press, 1942. xxxvi + 368 pp. CHARACTER-ANALYSIS Orgone Institute Press, 1945. xxii + 328 pp. THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION Orgone Institute Press, 1945. xxvii + 273 pp. THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM By WILHELM REICH Third, revised and enlarged edition Translated from the German Manuscript By THEODORE P. WOLFE ORGONE INSTITUTE PRESS NEW YORK . 1946 COPYRIGHT, 1946 ORGONE INSTITUTE PRESS, INC. 157 CHRISTOPHER STREET, NEW YORK 14, N. Y. DIE MASSENPSYCHOLOGIE DES FASCHISMUS First Edition, 1933 Second Edition, 1934 First English Edition, 1946 TRANSLATED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE REVISED AND ENLARGED THIRD EDITION PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [v] CONTENTS PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION vii I. IDEOLOGY AS MATERIAL POWER 1 1. The divergence of ideology and economic situation 1 2. Economic and ideological structure of German society between 1928 and 7 1933 3. The problem of mass psychology 14 4. The social function of sexual suppression 19 AUTHORITARIAN FAMILY IDEOLOGY AND THE MASS II. 28 PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM 1. Führer and mass structure 28 2. Hitler's origin 30 3. On the mass psychology of the lower middle classes 33 4. Family Fixation and nationalistic feeling 40 5. Nationalistic self-confidence 52 6. The middle-class adaptation of the industrial workers 60 III. THE RACE THEORY 63 1. Its content 63 2. The objective and subjective functions of ideology 67 3. Racial purity, blood poisoning, and mysticism 68 IV. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SWASTIKA 83 V. THE SEX-ECONOMIC BASIS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN FAMILY 88 ORGANIZED MYSTICISM: THE INTERNATIONAL ANTISEXUAL VI. 97 ORGANIZATION 1. The interest in the church 97 2. The fight against "Kulturbolschewismus" 102 3. The appeal to mystical feeling 109 4. The goal of the cultural revolution in the light of the fascist reaction 118 [vi] VII. SEX-ECONOMY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST MYSTICISM 122 1. The three basic elements of religious feeling 123 2. The anchoring of religion through sexual anxiety 130 3. Healthy and neurotic self-confidence 143 VIII. SOME PROBLEMS OF SEX-POLITICAL PRACTICE 145 1. Theory and practice 145 2. The fight against mysticism to date 146 3. Sexual happiness versus mysticism 151 4. The individual eradication of the mystical feeling 153 5. Objections to sex-economic practice 157 6. The unpolitical individual 172 IX. THE MASSES AND THE STATE 175 1. What goes on in the masses of people? 185 2. The "socialist longing" 192 3. The "withering away of the state" 203 4. The program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1919 213 5. "The introduction of Soviet democracy" 218 6. The development of the authoritarian state apparatus from rational social 229 interrelationships 7. The social function of state capitalism 237 8. The biosocial functions of work. The problem of "voluntary work 243 discipline" X. WORK DEMOCRACY 264 1. Give responsibility to vitally necessary work! 264 2. The biological miscalculation in the human struggle for freedom 269 3. Work democracy versus politics. The natural social forces for the mastery 310 of the emotional plague 341 INDEX [vii] PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION Extensive and conscientious therapeutic work on the human character has taught me that, in judging human reactions, we have to take into account three different layers of the biopsychic structure. As I have shown in my book, CHARACTER-ANALYSIS, these layers are autonomously functioning representations of social development. In the superficial layer, the average individual is restrained, polite, compassionate and conscientious. There would be no social tragedy of the animal, man, if this superficial layer were in immediate contact with his deep natural core. His tragedy is that such is not the case. The superficial layer of social cooperation is not in contact with the biological core of the person, but separated from it by a second, intermediary character layer consisting of cruel, sadistic, lascivious, predatory and envious impulses. This is the Freudian "unconscious" or "repressed"; in sex- economic language, it is the sum total of the "secondary impulses." Orgone biophysics has shown that the Freudian unconscious, the antisocial element in the human structure, is a secondary result of the repression of primary biological impulses. If one penetrates through this second, perverse and antisocial layer, one arrives regularly at a third, the deepest layer, which we call the biological core. In this deepest layer, man, under favorable social conditions, is an honest, industrious, cooperative animal capable of love and also of rational hatred. In character-analytic work, one cannot penetrate to this deep, promising layer without first eliminating the false, sham-social surface. What makes its appearance when this cultivated mask falls away, however, is not natural sociality, but the perverse antisocial layer of the character. As a result of this unfortunate structure, every natural social or libidinous impulse from the biological core must, on its way to action, pass the layer of the perverse secondary impulses where it becomes deflected. This deflection changes the originally social [viii] character of the natural impulse into a perverse impulse and thus inhibits any natural life manifestation. We can now apply our insights into human structure to the social and political field. It is not difficult to see that the diverse political and ideological groups in human society correspond to the various layers of human character structure. We do, of course, not follow idealistic philosophy in its belief that this human structure is eternal and unalterable. After social conditions and changes have formed the original biological needs into the character structure, the latter, in the form of ideologies, reproduces the social structure. Since the decline of the primitive work-democratic organization, the biological core of man has remained without social representation. That which is "natural" in man, which makes him one with the cosmos, has found its genuine expression only in the arts, particularly in music and painting. Until now, however, it has remained without any essential influence upon the form of human society, if by society is meant not the culture of a small rich upper crust but the community of all people. In the ethical and social ideals of liberalism we recognize the representation of the superficial layer of the character, of self-control and tolerance. The ethics of this liberalism serve to keep down "the beast" in man, the second layer, our "secondary impulses," the Freudian "unconscious." The natural sociality of the deepest, nuclear layer is alien to the liberal. He deplores the perversion of human character and fights it with ethical norms, but the social catastrophes of this century show the inadequacy of this approach. All that which is genuinely revolutionary, all genuine art and science stems from the natural biological nucleus. Neither the genuine revolutionary nor the artist or scientist has been able thus far to win over and lead masses or, if so, to keep them in the realm of the life interests. In contradistinction to liberalism, which represents the superficial character layer, and to genuine revolution, which repre-[ix]sents the deepest layer, fascism represents essentially the second character layer, that of the secondary impulses. At the time when this book was originally written, fascism was generally regarded a "political party" which, like any other "social group," was an organized representation of a "political idea." According to this concept, the fascist party "introduced" fascism by force or by "political manoeuvre." Contrary to this concept, my medical experience with individuals from all kinds of social strata, races, nationalities and religions showed me that "fascism" is only the politically organized expression of the average human character structure, a character structure which has nothing to do with this or that race, nation or party but which is general and international. In this characterological sense, "fascism" is the basic emotional attitude of man in authoritarian society, with its machine civilization and its mechanistic-mystical view of life. It is the mechanistic-mystical character of man in our times which creates fascist