The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

democracy, nor can there be any "further democratization." The "introduction of democracy," clearly, can mean
only that previously there was no social democracy, and that the dictatorship of the proletariat was not identical
with social democracy. It is also confusing to say that social democracy is the "most democratic" system. Is
bourgeois democracy only "a little" and social democracy "more" democratic? What does that mean, "a little" and
"more"? Bourgeois-parliamentary democracy is in reality a formal democracy; the masses elect their
representatives, but they do not govern themselves through their work organizations. The social democracy of
Lenin was to be a qualitatively different form of social regulation, and not merely a quantitative improvement of
formal parliamentarism. It was to replace the proletarian state dictatorship by factual and practical selfgovernment
of the working people. The simultaneous existence of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and of selfgovernment
of the working masses is impossible; as a demand, it is a confusing nonsense. In reality, the
dictatorship of the party bureaucracy rules over the masses under the guise of a formal-democratic
parliamentarism.
We should not forget for a moment that Hitler always appealed to the justified hatred of the masses against sham
democracy and the parliamentary system, and with what success! After such political manoeuvres of the Russian
communists, the "unity of Marxism and parliamentary bourgeois liberalism" became a potent slogan of fascism.
Around 1935 the hopes held by the masses of the world in the Soviet Union dwindled more and more. Actual
problems cannot be solved with political illusions. One has to have the courage to call difficulties by their names.
One cannot, with impunity, confuse once clarified social concepts.
The "introduction of Soviet democracy" emphasizes the participation of the masses in government, the influence
of factories on government, the fact that the people's commissariats "also contain" councils of the workers and
peasants. But that is not the question; what matters is the following:
[222] 1. What does the participation of the masses in government actually look like? Is this participation an
increasing taking over of the administrative functions, as demanded by social democracy?
2. Formal influence of a factory on a government is not self-government. Does the government rule the factory,
or the factory the government?
3. Councils "contained in" the people's commissariats mean appendages or, at best, executive organs of the
commissariats, while Lenin's demand was the following: Replacement of all bureaucratic government functions
by the Soviets which increasingly spread through the masses.
4. "Introduction" of Soviet democracy and simultaneous "strengthening" of the dictatorship of the proletariat
means clearly the relinquishing of the goal that, in continued development, the proletarian state and the
proletarian dictatorship must wither away.
The introduction of "Soviet democracy" 16 years after the introduction of the Soviet democracy can hardly have
any other meaning than this: The transition from authoritarian state government to self-government of society
could not be achieved. It failed because the biopathic structure of the masses and the means of altering this
structure were not recognized. True, the expropriation and suppression of individual capitalists succeeded, but the
education of the masses to make them capable of bringing about the withering away of the state above them, and
of taking over its functions, did not succeed. For this reason, social democracy, as it began to develop in the early
years of the revolution, gradually and inevitably withered away. For this reason also, the state apparatus, which
was not replaced, had to be strengthened again, in order to safeguard the existence of society. The "introduction
of universal suffrage" in 1935 meant nothing but a shifting of the political emphasis to the mass of kolchos
peasants and the reintroduction of formal democracy, of parliamentary sham rights granted by an increasingly
powerful bureaucratic state apparatus to the masses who were unable to destroy [223] this apparatus and to learn
to govern themselves. There is not any indication which points to the slightest intention of ever giving the
working masses access to the administration of society. To teach reading and writing and knowledge of engines,
and to introduce sanitary measures, is necessary, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with social self-government.
All such things Hitler did also.
The development of Soviet society, then, is characterized by the formation of a new, autonomous state apparatus