The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

dear, liberated and new land.
The Soviet land nurtured and made great by Lenin and Stalin! How it is caressed by the rays of the spring which came with the
October revolution! The rivers rose, all the forces of the working people started moving, to show new ways to historical
development through the greatness of the Soviet Union, the splendor of its glory and might. The sprouts of a well-to-do life and of a
socialist culture are shooting up. We lift the red banner of communism to new heights, far up into the blue distances.
Soviet patriotism is the love of our people for the land which was taken from the capitalists and landowners with sword and blood;
it is the love for the wonderful life which our great people have created; it is the mighty guard in the West and the East; it is the
surrender to the great cultural heritage of human genius which has come to flower in our land and only in our land [italics
mine.—W.R.]. Is it surprising, then, that foreigners come to the borders of the Soviet Union, people with a different education, to
bow deeply to the refuge of culture, the nation of the Red Flag?
Soviet Union—spring of humanity! The name of Moscow sounds to [226] the workers, the peasants, to all honest and cultured
people of the whole world like a storm bell and the hope for a bright future, the victory over fascist barbarism . . . In our socialist
country, the interests of the people are inseparable from the interests of the country and its government. The source of Soviet
patriotism lies in the fact that the people, under the leadership of the communist party, shape their own lives for themselves, in the
fact that our beautiful and rich country has been made accessible to the working people only now, under Soviet power. And the
natural attachment to one's homeland, the soil, the skies under which one was born, grows into the mighty power of pride in one's
socialist homeland, in its great communist party, in its Stalin. Soviet patriotism grows heroes, knights and millions of brave warriors
who are ready, like an all-devouring avalanche, to throw themselves on the enemies of the country and to wipe them from the face of
the earth. Our youth absorbs love for the country with the milk from their mothers. It is our obligation to educate new generations of
Soviet patriots to whom the interests of the country mean more than anything else, more than life itself . . . With the greatest care and
skill we nurture, like a tender plant, the great invincible spirit of Soviet patriotism. Soviet patriotism is one of the most outstanding
manifestations of the October revolution. How full it is of strength, audacity, youth, heroism, gripping beauty and movement! Soviet
patriotism glows like a mighty flame. It drives life forward. It fires the motors of our storm tanks, of our heavy bombers and
destroyers, and loads the cannons. Soviet patriotism watches at our borders, where infamous enemies, doomed to destruction,
threaten our peaceful life, our might and our glory . . .
This is the political emotional plague. It has nothing to do with natural love for one's country. It is the trashy
sentimentality of a writer who knows no objective means of kindling people's enthusiasm. It is comparable to the
sexual erection in an impotent individual, brought about forcibly by an aphrodisiac. The social effects of such a
patriotism are comparable to the reaction of a healthy woman to a sexual embrace made possible by an
aphrodisiac.
Perhaps this "Soviet patriotism" was, after the extinction of the early revolutionary enthusiasm, a necessary
prerequisite for
[227] the later fight against "Wotan patriotism." Work democracy has no truck with such "patriotisms." In fact,
the appearance of such aphrodisiac patriotism is a sure sign that rational social guidance has failed. The love of a
people for their homeland, the attachment to the soil and to a language, are too deep and too serious human
feelings to be made the objects of political chicanery. Such aphrodisiac patriotisms do not solve one single factual
problem of the human society of working people, they have nothing to do with democracy. Where trashy pathos
appears, there is fear among those who are responsible.
Truly democratic, that is, work-democratic alteration of the structure of the masses can easily keep track of its
achievements. When the masses begin to call for giant pictures of their "Führers" they are on the path to
irresponsibility. At the time of Lenin, there was no Führer idolatry and no sky-high pictures of the leaders of the
proletariat. As is known, Lenin did not want any such thing.
A further indication of the true alteration of structure in the masses is their attitude to technical progress. In the
Soviet Union, the construction of the big transport plane "Gorki" was proclaimed a "revolutionary deed." But how
does it differ from the construction of large planes in Germany or America? It goes without saying that the
construction of airplanes is indispensable for the establishment of the industrial basis of modern work democracy.
What matters is whether the masses identify themselves with the plane construction in a nationalist, chauvinistic
way, whether it is a source of a feeling of superiority toward other nations, or whether the plane construction
serves to bring different nationalities closer together, whether, in other words, it serves internationalism. That is,