The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

implications for human structure formation. Between 1934 and 1937, it was again and again the officials of the
Communist parties who reminded the fascist circles in Europe of the "dangerousness" of sex-economy. The sexeconomic
publications were turned back at the Soviet Russian border as were the masses of fugitives who tried to
escape German fascism. These are facts which cannot be countered by any argument.
These happenings, which at the time of their occurrence seemed absolutely senseless, became entirely
understandable when, recently, I revised this book. The sex-economic psychological and biological findings had
been put into the terminology of vulgar Marxism like a square peg into a round hole. When, in 1938, I revised my
book, DER SEXUELLE KAMPF DER JUGEND, I had found that every word pertaining to sex-economy was as valid
as eight years previously, while every party slogan which had found its way into the book had become
meaningless. The same is true of the present book.
Today it has become absolutely clear that fascism is not the deed of a Hitler or Mussolini, but the expression of
the irrational structure of the mass individual. Today it is clearer than ten years [xvii] ago that the race theory is
biological mysticism. Today, one is closer to an understanding of the orgastic longing as a mass phenomenon
than ten years ago; there is more of a general inkling of the fact that fascist mysticism is orgastic longing under
the conditions of mystification and inhibition of natural sexuality. The sex-economic statements in the book
showed themselves to be as true as ten years ago, and to be further confirmed by the experiences of the past ten
years. The Marxist party slogans in the book, on the other hand, were all shown to be erroneous; they all had to be
replaced.
Does that mean that the economic theory of Marxism is fundamentally wrong? I should like to clarify this
question by an illustration. Is the microscope of Pasteur's time, or Leonardo da Vinci's water pump "wrong"?
Marxism is a scientific economic theory which stems from the social conditions of the early 19th century.
However, the social process did not stand still, but developed into the fundamentally different process of the 20th
century. In this new social process, it is true, we find all the basic elements of the 19th century, just as in the
modern microscope we find the basic structure of that of Pasteur, and in the modern plumbing system the basic
principle of Leonardo's pump. But one like the other would be of no use to us today. They have been surpassed by
fundamentally new processes and functions which correspond to fundamentally new concepts and techniques.
The Marxist parties in Europe failed and declined because they tried to comprehend fascism of the 20th century, a
fundamentally new phenomenon, with concepts belonging to the 19th century. They declined as social
organizations because they failed to keep alive the developmental possibilities inherent in any scientific theory. I
do not regret my many years' work as a physician in Marxist organizations. I owe my sociological knowledge not
to books, but primarily to the practical experience of the struggles on the part of the masses for a decent, free
existence. The best sex-economic insights, in fact, were gained as a result of the errors in thinking on the part of
the masses, the errors which brought them the fascist pestilence. To me as a physician, the working individual
with his [xviii] everyday concerns was accessible in a way he never is to a party politician. The party politician
saw only the "worker's class" which he was going to "fill with class consciousness." I saw the living being, man,
as he was living under social conditions of the worst kind, conditions which he had created himself, which,
characterologically anchored, he carried within him and from which he tried in vain to free himself. The chasm
between economistic and bio-sociological conception became unbridgeable. The theory of the "class individual"
became replaced by the knowledge of the irrational nature of the society formed by the animal, man.
Today everyone knows that the economic concepts of Marx have permeated modern thinking, even though a
great many economists and sociologists are not aware of the origin of their views. Such concepts as "class,"
"profit," "exploitation," "class struggle," "commodity," "surplus value," etc., have become common property. On
the other hand, there does not exist today any party which could claim to be the heir and the true advocate of the
scientific achievements of Marx when it comes to facts of social development instead of mere slogans which are
no longer in keeping with the facts.
Between 1937 and 1939 there developed among the workers in the field of sex-economy in Scandinavia and
Holland the new concept of work democracy. The present edition contains a presentation of the essence of this