The Mass Psychology of Fascism: Third Edition

by Wilhelm Reich

Book Overview

In this classic study, Reich provides insight into the phenomenon of fascism, which continues to ravage the international community in ways great and small.

Drawing on his medical expereinces with men and women of various classes, races, nations, and religious beliefs, Reich refutes the still generally held notion that fascism is a specific characteristic of certain nationalities or a political party ideology that is imposed on innocent...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374508844
• ISBN13: 9780374508845
• Release Date: November 1980
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Deserves to be widely read.

It's quite worrying how much of this book is still urgently relevant today. Whatever your views on Reich's conception of a universal 'orgone energy' (of which you need no understanding to comprehend the most pertinent points of the book, anyway) it's difficult to deny the main focus points here: that thousands of years of authoritarian, patriarchal society has left man 'muscularly armoured' against natural sexuality; that the masses are incapable of true freedom and need a father figure to guide them; and that the core reason that revolutions ultimately fail to bring true freedom is because they fail to address the fact that man has largely become *incapable* of freedom, and so fail to seek a remedy for this situation. A key point is that when natural, self-regulated sexuality is oppressed by society -- and so suppressed by the individual -- this gratification must be found elsewhere, and so is largely funneled into mystical experiences, causing masses of people to have an irrational structure (in short, leaving them ill-equipped to think for themselves). Thus, as highlighted powerfully by the rise of National Socialism in early Twentieth Century Germany, the masses -- incapable of thinking in a truly rational way -- can be stirred by purely emotional and mystical propaganda, even when it contradicts their own best interests. Reich illustrates how the patriarchal household mirrors wider society, and engenders and supports religious mysticism and irrational nationalism; with the father figure representing both God and Homeland/Fatherland, for example. Reich presents empirical data highlighting the fact that when sexuality is allowed to be expressed without ideology or mystical moralism checking it, then individuals invariably begin to think and act in a rational way, free of the inner contradictions that would impede them. While it can be stated that in many modern societies sexual morals are losing their control over individuals' sex lives, the legacy of patriarchy means that the sex act is still brutalized to an extent, and is still quite often wrapped up in feelings of guilt, or the sense of doing something 'naughty' (think how many young men, for example, have to make the sex act sound like it is something sordid, or that they are 'conquering their prey', instead of feeling like they are doing something biologically normal). Much of this can be traced to the negative feedback given to infants (as noted by Freud) and adolescents, in terms of masturbation and natural sexual urges, which are, usually always to some extent, suppressed. Reich goes on to offer an insight into the Soviet Union's failure to deliver actual democracy to the people. You'll get a much more detailed conception of this by reading the book, of course but, in summary: The original idea of socialism -- especially as developed in Lenin's writing -- was to give freedom to the masses firstly by giving them a dictatorial power in a formal sense, as a *temporary* measure -- i.

One of the Great Political and Pyschological Works of the 20th Century

If you want to read an outstanding analysis of why conservative "family values" politics are essential to capitalist society and how they can be defeated by a struggle for women's rights, sexual freedom, and true liberation, read The Mass Pyschology of Fascism. This work is a product of the marriage of the revolutionary political spirit that erupted in Central Europe with the Bolshevik revolution and the series of near revolutions in the countries Reich lived in until the Hitler Victory in 1933--Hungary, Austria, and Germany--with the great discovery by the Freudians that pathology was a product of patriarchial society and its sexual repression. In the 1920s and 1930s Reich took Freudianism a step further by pointing out that all the non-materialist, drives, complexes, and factors Freud invented to reconcile his discovery of sexual repression and family produced insanity with conservative views about "family values" were invalid ideologically driven pseudoscience. Reich pointed to the fact that Marxists and anthropologists from Morgan in the 19th Century to Malinowski in Reich's time had discovered a pre Patriarchal stage of development predating patriarchy and had also discovered in these socieities or remnants of them, little of the sexual repression Freud postulated was required to maintain society. So Reich set out in his study of pyschology and in his intervention in the working class political movement of Central Europe to fight for sexual freedom, for women's rights, and for the ending of imperialist and capitalist society. As his struggle brushed up against the growing adoption of bourgeois antisexual morality in the Soviet Union under Stalin and against the ultraleft and opportunist policies of the Comintern infected with Stalinism, Reich's critique turned on the Stalintern and the degenerated Soviet Union as well. Though he built a Sexpol movement of thousands of youth, women, and workers fighting against Hitler in Germany, Reich was expelled from the German Communist party as a "Trotskyist" in 1933. Sadly, with the victory of Hitler followed by the Moscow Trials, Reich withdrew from active working class politics, then despaired of revolution, and became obessed to the point of his insanity in the 1950s with the idea of "orgone energy" a basic natural universal energy released among other places in good sex. This bogus theory, observed by no other scientist, grew together with a raging paranoia. In the end it aided the witchhunting govenrment of the US put him in jail as a medical quack, and had all of his books including this great work burned and banned in the USA. In this book, a product of Reich's active struggle against Hitler, Reich traces the links between sexual repression, patriarchal society, and conservative and right wing ideology. He explains how patriarchy attempts to create the neurotic mental health that dominates modern capitalist society to use it to reign over working people. He shows the etiol

Reich beyond Reich

I first read this book in 1947. It had been recommended to me by a maverick sociologist. Fascinated from the first page on, I carried it with me on trolley cars, in subways and to class until finishing it. I was awestruck. Bridging the gap, and the seeming contradictions, between Freud and Marx, I could see Reich going beyond either. The book set me on a path that I've pursued for over 50 years, through sociobiology, shamanism, alchemy, medicine and martial arts. Reich's biographer entitles his book "Fury on Earth." For me,"Mass Psychology of Fascism" was a first step into that fury.

The role of sexual morality in a fascist/capitalist state

This book will force the reader to reflect on their own presupposed sexual morality. Reich inadvertently develops a formula for the Nietzschian over-man. As the first, and probably the most thought-out of the Freudian Left, Reich criticizes "dogmatic Marxism" and (to the joy of Marx) gives Maxism a new look without the dictation of unfounded morality. Not to be misunderstood as a nihilist, Reich calls for the reader to sever the ambilical cord of morality and take responsiblity for his or her desires. Reich undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the capitalist identity, or a dictatoriship like such as the Nazis: a hardened and repressed character, incapable of understanding its desires apart from destruction and conquest. It is also clear that he intended this analysis to be applied to the American way of life.Few authors are as capable of making both psychoanalysis and Marxism as accessible as Reich. However, this results in no compromise of depth. The reader will undergo a devestating re-evaluation of the role of sexual morality in everday life that is continually overlooked by both layman and acadamics.In his early years, while under the wing of Freud, Reich learned some bad habits in the overuse of metaphor. Taking this in stride however, "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" is one of the most usefull tools for understanding the inherent relations between fascism, capitalism and morality. In it, he forsees the comodification of the body image and the development of the consumer identity through the corruption of human sexuality.

Reich's book stimulating, thought-provoking...

Definitely a must-read for anyone concerned with freedom of thought and the development of a rational, just society. Reich is superb, delivering radical thoughts with rational explanations that force one to think even if one doesn't agree. Starting with the basic question of why the National Socialists came to power in Germany in the 1930s, Reich continues with a critique of modern society in general and examines the cultural implications of our attitudes towards sex, religion, the family, and the state. This is one of the few books that everyone should read at least once (if not twice).