The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

2. Whether the Soviets consider themselves not merely as executive organs of proletarian state power but as that
highly responsible institution which transfers the function of social direction more and more from proletarian
state power to total society;
3. Whether the mass individuals succeed in their task of increasingly taking over the functions of the still
existing state apparatus as well as those of the Soviets to the extent to which they are merely the "representatives"
of the masses.
The third point is decisive, for on its fulfilment depended the "withering away of the state" as well as the taking
over of the functions of the Soviets by the masses of the working people.
The dictatorship of the proletariat, then, was not meant to be a permanent institution, but a process beginning
with the abolition of the authoritarian state apparatus and establishment of the proletarian state, and ending in
total self-government, in self-regulation of society.
The function and development of the Soviets was the safest index for an evaluation of the social process. This
process could not remain hidden behind any kind of illusion if one paid attention to the following: It did not
matter whether there was a 90% voters' participation instead of the previous 60%; what matters is whether the
Soviet voters (not Soviet representatives) actually took over the social process to an increasing degree. "90%
participation" was no proof of the increasing social self-regulation for no other reason than that it conveys nothing
concerning the content of the activity of the masses. In addition, it is not specific to the Soviet system, for even in
bourgeois democracies, even in the fascist "plebiscites," there was 90% and more participation. Work democracy
judges the maturity of a society not according to the quantity of the votes but according to the actual, tangible
content of its social activities.
[211] It is, then, again a matter of the cardinal question of any social order: What goes on in the masses of
people, how do they experience the social process of which they are the subjects? Does the working population
become capable of bringing about the withering away of the authoritarian state which is above society and
against it, and of taking over its functions, that is, of organically developing social self-regulation?
Lenin obviously had this question in mind when he pointed out that there was no question of a sudden and
general elimination of bureaucracy but that, instead, a new official apparatus would have to be built which
"gradually makes any bureaucracy unnecessary and eliminates it." "This is no Utopia," writes Lenin, "it is the
experience of the commune, the immediate task of the revolutionary proletariat." He did not say why he believed
the abolition of bureaucracy not to be a Utopia, or how life without officials, without direction "from above" was
possible or, more, the "immediate task of the revolutionary proletariat."
This emphasis on the part of Lenin can be understood only if one keeps in mind the apparently ineradicable
belief in the immaturity of the masses, in their incapacity of doing without authoritarian leadership. Such things
as "self-government," "self-regulation," "discipline without authority" only evoked condescending smiles or
derision in the face of fascism. "Anarchists' dreams, utopias, chimeras," it was said. More, those who said so
could point to the Soviet Union, to Stalin's statement that there could be no question of the abolition of the state,
that, rather, the power of the proletarian state had to be strengthened and extended. Had Lenin been wrong after
all? Was man forever going to be a serf who refused to work without authority and compulsion, who only wanted
to "indulge in his pleasures and be lazy"? Was every undertaking based on a different belief nothing but a waste
of time? If so, the leadership of the Soviet Union could be expected to provide an official correction of Lenin; it
would have to show that Lenin was wrong when he wrote:
We are not Utopians. We do not indulge in "dreams" of how best to [212] do away immediately with all administration, with all
subordination. These Anarchist dreams, based upon a lack of understanding of the task of proletarian dictatorship, are basically
foreign to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, they serve only to put off the Socialist revolution until human nature is different. No, we
want the Socialist revolution with human nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot do without subordination, control,
"managers and bookkeepers." But if there be subordination, it must be to the armed vanguard of all the exploited and the
laboring—to the proletariat. The specific "commanding" methods of the state officials can and must begin to be
replaced—immediately, within twenty-four hours—by the simple functions of "managers" and bookkeepers, functions which are