The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

only in the workers' movement but also in the development of nationalistic dictatorships in Europe: Hitler in
Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Doriot and Laval in France, Stalin in Russia, Mannerheim in Finland, Horthy in
Hungary, etc. Nobody could have foreseen this divergence between socio-economic progress and structural
regression. The degeneration of the workers' internationalism into chauvinistic national socialism was more than a
collapse of the old freedom movements which had always been international. It was, rather, a novel and gigantic
outbreak of the emotional plague in [195] the midst of the suppressed people, people who, it had been hoped,
were one day to produce a new world order. One of the high points of this "national socialist" degeneration was
the white workers' hatred of colored workers in America, and the loss of any socio-political initiative and
perspective in so many large trade unions. When top sergeant types get hold of the idea of freedom, freedom is in
a bad way. In this way, the cruel injustice of old was visited upon the masses who had nothing to sell but their
working power. In this way, ruthless exploitation by powerful capitalists struck back like a boomerang. Because
internationalism failed structurally, the National Socialist movements stole its powder, especially by utilizing
international socialist longing. The international socialist movement, under the leadership of top sergeants rising
from the ranks of the suppressed, split up into nationally bound, separate and inimical mass movements which
were seemingly revolutionary. Perversely, some of these strictly nationalistic mass movements became
international, undoubtedly because of the old international mentality of their adherents. Italian and German
National Socialism became international fascism. It attracted masses on an international scale, thus becoming, in
the strict sense of the word, a perverse "nationalistic internationalism." As such, it quashed genuine democratic
uprisings in Spain and in Austria. The heroic struggle of the true revolutionaries in 1934 and 1936, isolated from
the masses of people, was a battle of Thermopylae.
In these facts, the irrationalism in the mass structure as well as that of politics in general was clearly expressed.
The masses of German working people had opposed the program of a revolutionary internationalism for years,
but since 1933 they had undergone all the suffering which a true social revolution would have caused, without,
however, enjoying one single fruit which a true revolution would have brought them. In this way, they had
deceived themselves. They had become the victim of their own irrationalism, that is, their fear of social
responsibility. Let us try to understand these seemingly incomprehensible facts as best we can.
Since the entry of the United States into the second world war, [196] an international and generally human
attitude has again gained ground in an increasing degree. It is to be feared, however, that there will be still more
irrational mass reactions and still deadlier social catastrophes unless the responsible sociologists and
psychologists rid themselves in time of their highfalutin academicism and help by honest clarification. The
problems of sociology have shifted fundamentally from economics to the structure of the masses. We no longer
ask whether the economic prerequisites of a work-democratic internationalism have already matured. We are
confronted by another, gigantic question: Even with fully matured international socio-economic prerequisites,
what obstacles may present themselves in the path of structural and ideological internationalism? How can the
social irresponsibility and the craving for authority of the masses be mastered in time? How can one prevent this
second international war—which, rightly, is called not an economic but an ideological war—from resulting in a
new, even more brutal and deadly disintegration into nationalistic, chauvinistic, fascist-dictatorial nationalisms?
Political reaction lives and works within the structure, the thinking and acting of the suppressed masses in the
form of character armor, fear of responsibility, incapacity for freedom and, last but not least, of endemic crippling
of biological functioning. These are deadly serious problems. On their solution or non-solution depends the fate
of the coming centuries. The responsibility of all leading circles is enormous. Political talk and formalities will
not solve a single one of these gigantic tasks. Our watchword, "Put an end to all politics! Turn to the practical
tasks of real life!" is not a play on words. Nothing is more impressive than the fact that a world population of two
billion people is not capable of removing a handful of oppressors and biopathic war murderers. The universal
longing for freedom is frustrated because there are so many concepts as to how one can best arrive at freedom
without taking the responsibility for the painful alteration of human structure and its social institutions.
The anarchists (anarcho-syndicalists) strove for social self-government; but they shrank from taking cognisance