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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
the masses in the late 1880's and early 1890's and reach similar conclusions; however, it is Gustave
Le Bon who in La Psychologie des foules (1895), and while basically agreeing with Sighele in his
definition of the crowd 5 , succeeds in providing the point of departure for most of the important
subsequent studies in mass psychology. Current studies in the field generally have some basis in
Le Bon and Freud whose work on the subject 6 begins with a résumé of Le Bon's thoughts on the
matter. In addition to the fact that Le Bon's study on crowd psychology has been highly influential
in twentieth-century social psychology, the practical application of La Psychologie des foules as a
textbook for the political manipulation of entire nations is notable; it was employed by Mussolini 7
and probably by Hitler. 8
sentenza dice: senatores boni viri, senatus autem mala bestia , e il filosofo oggi ripete e conferma
questa osservazione, quando, a proposito di certi gruppi sociali, afferma che presi gli individui uno
per uno son galantuomini, messi insieme, sono birbanti. » La Folla delinquente , 2.ª edizione (Torino:
Fratelli Bocca, 1894) , p. 13.
5 «In its essentials, however, Le Bon's definition of the crowd is the same as Sighele's. For both of
them, a study of the crowd begins with the idea that the crowd cannot be seen as a simple aggregate,
but is based on the special kind of mutual dependence among the individuals who compose it.» Robert
Ezra Park, The Crowd and the Public and other Essays , translated from Masse und Publikum by
Charlotte Elsner, edited and with introduction by Henry Elsner, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1972), p. 11.
6 Sigmund Freud, Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse (Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer
Verlag, 1921).
7 «The ease with which Mussolini raided Le Bon's writings for justifications of Fascist ideology is
striking.» Robert A. Nye, The Origins of Crowd Psychology: Gustave Le Bon and the Crisis of Mass
Democracy in the Third Republic (London; Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1975), p. 178.
8 «Though it may be claiming too much to ascribe directly to Le Bon's influence ideas which by 1905
were the lingua franca of nearly all European collective psychologists, the reader of Mein Kampf is
certainly struck by the similarity of the descriptive language Hitler used to Le Bon's 'classic' account
of crowd behavior.» Ibid. , p. 179. «Hitler's own phenomenal sensitivity to mass audiences might
possibly have been reinforced by the theoretical endorsement offered in Le Bon's succinct portrait
of the crowd.» Ibid.
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