The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

Let us say that a law student, in the course of his studies, realizes that antisocial acts are to be considered not
crimes but diseases, that, consequently, they should not be punished but prevented. He gives up the study of law
and turns to the study of medicine. He replaces formal ethical by factual and practical activities. He [219] realizes
further that in his medical work he will have to use many non-medical measures. For example, he would like to
give up the strait-jacket as a method of treatment for mental patients and to replace it by preventive educational
measures. Yet, he is forced to use the strait-jacket willy-nilly: there are too many mental patients to be treated and
he is forced still to use old, poor methods; but while he uses them, he always does so with the intention of
replacing them by better methods if and when possible. In the course of the years, the task becomes too much for
him; too little is known about mental diseases, and there are too many of them; education creates them by the
thousands every day. As a physician, he has to protect society against the mental diseases. He is incapable of
translating his good intentions into practice, and is forced to go back to old methods which, years ago, he
condemned and tried to replace. He uses the strait-jacket more and more; his plans for education and prevention
fail; thus he goes back to old measures. The treatment of criminals as patients failed, so he has them imprisoned
again. But he does not admit his failure, either to himself or to others. He does not have the courage, perhaps he
does not even know it himself. But now he proclaims the following nonsense: "The introduction of strait-jackets
and prisons for criminals and mental patients represents an enormous advance in the application of medicine. It is
the true art of medicine, the fulfilment of my original goal."
This illustration applies, down to the smallest detail, to the "introduction of Soviet democracy" 16 years after the
"introduction of Soviet democracy." It is understandable only in the light of Lenin's basic concept of "social
democracy" and the "abolition of the state." The reason given by the Soviet government for this act is not
important here. But a quotation from it (as reported in Rundschau, 1935, No.7) will show that this act invalidated
Lenin's concept of social democracy:
The dictatorship of the proletariat has always been the only real power of the people. Thus far, it has successfully fulfilled its two
main tasks: the destruction of the exploiters as a class together with their [220] expropriation and suppression, and the socialist
education of the masses. The proletarian dictatorship continues to exist, unweakened . . .
To state that the class of exploiters has been destroyed and that the socialist education of the masses has
succeeded, and to state in the same breath that the dictatorship continues to exist, unweakened, is complete
nonsense. What does the dictatorship continue for if the exploiters are destroyed and the masses are already
educated in self-government? Such nonsense in formulation hides a meaning which is only too true: the
dictatorship continues, directed not against the exploiters of old, but against the masses themselves. Further:
This higher socialist phase of the alliance between workers and peasants gives to the dictatorship of the proletariat a new, higher
content, makes it the democracy of the working people. This new content calls for new forms . . . This expression is the transition to
equal, direct and secret balloting for the workers.
In another place, Soviet democracy is called the "most democratic" democracy in the world! To say that the
dictatorship of the proletariat (which gradually should have given way to self-regulation of the masses) coexists
with the "most democratic" democracy is sociological nonsense, is confusion of all sociological concepts. It is a
matter here exclusively of the central question as to whether the cardinal goal of the social revolution of 1917 has
actually been achieved: abolition of the state and establishment of social self-regulation. If so, then there must be
an essential difference between the "Soviet democracy" of 1935 and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" of 1919
on the one hand and the bourgeois parliamentary democracies, say, of England or America, on the other hand.
There is talk of "further democratization" of the Soviet system. How is this to be done? We thought that the
"dictatorship of the proletariat" was, in the meaning of its founders as well as actually, completely identical with
social democracy (= proletarian democracy). If, however, the dictatorship of the proletariat is [221] identical with
social democracy, then a Soviet democracy cannot be introduced 16 years after the establishment of social