Mass Psychology of Fascism/IX. The Masses and the State

When the early settlers in America's wilderness got lost they tried to find the path on which they had come, in order to proceed anew from known into unknown terrain. For this, they did not form political parties, nor did they engage in endless debates about the unknown terrain, nor did they bash one another's heads in or demand of one another programs of settlement. On the basis of a given situation, they acted, spontaneously, in a work-democratic way: by common effort, they worked through to known terrain and tried to find their way again from there.

When a vegetotherapist, in the course of a treatment, loses his way in the maze of irrational reactions, he does not start a discussion with the patient about „the existence or non-existence of God“. He does not become neurotic or irrational, but he thinks the situation over and reviews the course of the treament; he goes back to the last point in the development at which the course of the treatment was still clear.

Every living being will spontaneously attempt to discover and to eliminate the cause of a catastrophe which has overcome it; it will not repeat actions which have brought about the very catastrophe. This lies in the nature of overcoming misfortune by experience. Our politicians, however, are far from having such natural reactions. One might rightly say that it is of the essence of the world of the politicos not to learn from experience. Austrian monarchism kindled the first world war in 1914; then, it engaged in armed warfare against the American democrats. In the second world war, in 1942, it demanded, with the aid of American politicians, to have the Hapsburg dynasty reinstated, in order „to avoid new wars“. This is irrational political nonsense.

[176] In the first world war, „the Italians“ were friends and allies of the Americans. In the second world war, 1942, they were enemies, and in 1943, again friends. In the first world war, 1914, „the Italians“ were deadly enemies of „the Germans,“ „hereditary foes“. In the second world war, 1940, „the Italians“ and „the Germans“ were blood brothers, again for „hereditary“ reasons, only to become again sworn enemies in 1943. In the next world war, say, 1963, „the Germans“ and „the French“ will have turned from „hereditary foes“ into „hereditary friends“.

All this is a manifestation of the emotional plague. Imagine that Copernicus, in the 16th century, declares that the earth revolves around the sun, that his pupil, in the 17th century, declares that the earth does not revolve around the sun, and that this man's pupil, in the 18th century, declares that it does, after all. But imagine that in the 20th century, the astronomers declare that Copernicus as well as his pupils were right, because the earth does revolve around the sun and remains, at the same time, stationary. If it is a matter of a Copernicus, one is only too ready to condemn him to be burned alive. If, however, a politico presents the most incredible nonsense as true, and maintains, in 1940, the exact opposite to be true from what he declared to be the truth in 1939, then millions of people acclaim the miracle that has happened.

In sound science, one does not develop any new theories as long as one can operate well with the old ones. When, however, the old theories have proven inadequate or erroneous, one tries to find the errors in them and develops new concepts on the basis of new facts. Such a natural procedure is alien to politicians. No matter how many new facts are added to the old, no matter how many errors have become obvious, the old theories continue to exist in the form of slogans and new facts are obfuscated in an illusory way. The democratic formalities disillusioned millions of people in Europe and thus made fascist dictatorship possible. The democratic politicians fail to go back to the starting points of the democratic principles, to correct them according to the radical changes that have taken place in social living, and to make them practically fruitful. They continue to arrange plebiscites [177] about formalities, about precisely those formalities which in Europe came to such an inglorious end.

People want to plan peace systems and vote on them. But clearly, they are afraid of these very peace systems even before planning them. The basic elements of peace and human collaboration are tangibly given in natural human work relationships. It is from these relationships that the guarantees of peaceableness have to be developed. It is not necessary first to „introduce“ them. A good physician does not „introduce“ a „new health“ into a sick organism. Instead, he finds out what elements of health are spontaneously present in the sick organism. When he has found them, he plays them against the disease process. The same thing applies to the sick social organism, if one approaches it from the standpoint of social science and not with political ideas and programs. One can only organically develop actually existing freedoms and eliminate the obstacles which stand in their way. One cannot graft legally guaranteed freedoms upon a sick social organism.

The Soviet Union lends itself best to a presentation of the relationship between the masses and the state, for the following reasons: The way was prepared for the social revolution of 1917 by a sociological theory which had been tested for decades. The Russian revolution made use of this theory. Many millions of people took part in this social revolution, suffered it, enjoyed it, carried it further. What has become of the sociological theory and of the masses in the „proletarian state“ in the course of 20 years?

One cannot ignore the development of the Soviet Union if one is seriously concerned with the questions of what democracy is and of whether and how it can be made a reality. The difference between work-democratic mastery of difficulties on the one hand and formal-democratic politicking was particularly clearly demonstrated in the attitude of the diverse political and economic organizations toward the Soviet Union.

1936: Telling truths – but how and when? The Italian-Abyssinian war had broken out, everything was in flux. Nobody knew [178] what changes the world would undergo in the next few months or years. The organized workers' movement did not take a hand in the events. It was internationally split up; it remained inactive or followed helplessly this or that political view. True, in Geneva the Soviet Union had fought for peace through Litvinov, but had completely failed as a pioneer social force. New, unheard-of catastrophes were to be expected for which one had to prepare. On the one hand, they might point to a way out of the social chaos; on the other hand, they might do so no more than had the events in Germany in 1918 and 1933. It was necessary to prepare oneself in time structurally for great social changes. It was necessary not to get lost in the maze of all the confused and contradictory political views, to isolate oneself from everyday political noise and, at the same time, to maintain close contact with the social processes of the day. Adherence to the work on the problem of human structure seemed more important than ever. Clarity concerning the development of the Soviet Union was imperative. Millions and millions of working people in Germany, England, America, China, etc., hopefully followed every step taken by the Soviet Union. Those trained in mass psychology knew that if disillusionment in the Soviet Union were added to the catastrophe in Germany, serious struggling for clarity would be the first prerequisite for maintaining scientific integrity.

The second world war in one generation was imminent. There was yet time to think about what would come after this second world war, to arrive, from the new massacre, at an understanding of the war psychosis which would be deadly to the war makers. Those who knew this were hard put to it to keep a cool head. But it had to be done, for this second war, which had started in Africa and would soon encircle the globe, would also come to an end sometime. Then, the answer would have to be „death to the war makers“ and „elimination of the causes of war“. But nobody knew what this answer would be like.

In 1935 it was clear that the development of the Soviet Union was about to take a catastrophic turn. The democratic politicians of Germany, Scandinavia, etc., did not look for the causes of this [179] catastrophe, although they talked about it a good deal. They failed to go back to the genuinely democratic endeavors of Engels and Lenin in order to familiarize themselves with the sociological starting points of the Soviet Union, and to proceed from there to a comprehension of the later development. It was no more possible in Europe to ignore these pioneers of genuine democracy than it is for a genuine democratic American to ignore the American constitution and the fundamental thoughts of such American pioneers as Jefferson or Lincoln. Engels was the outstanding exponent of German democracy, Lenin of Russian democracy. They had not remained bogged down in formalities but had disclosed the essence of democracy. They were avoided. It is irrelevant whether this was caused by fear of being suspected of being a Communist or by fear of losing academic positions or positions in a political party. Engels was a well-to-do manufacturer and Lenin a well-to-do son of an official. It was descendants of the „ruling classes“ who tried to develop a system of true democracy from Marx's socio-economic theory (which, incidentally, also originated in „bourgeois circles“).

The democratic thought system of Engels and Lenin became forgotten. It was too hard to swallow, it made too high demands on the conscientiousness of the European and, as was shown later, also of the Russian politicians and sociologists.

It is not possible today to present natural work democracy without studying the forms in which it was present in the thought of Engels and Lenin between 1850 and 1920, and in the early developmental processes in the Soviet Union between 1917 and about 1923. The Russian revolution was a gigantic deed of social progress. Its inhibition, therefore, is a highly important sociological experience, a tremendous lesson for any true democratic endeavor. Little indeed can be expected of the purely emotional enthusiasm for Russia's heroic deeds in the war against Hitler. The motives of this enthusiasm which were present in 1943 but not between 1917 and 1923 are more than dubious; they are based far more on egoistic war interests than on the will to arrive at true democracy.

[180] The examination of the development of the Soviet Union to follow was first written in 1935. One may ask why it was not published at that time. The reason is the following: In Europe, where practical mass-psychological work outside of the parties was not possible, it often happened that one was expelled from the organizations and thus deprived of contact with the masses if one made scientific investigations regardless of political interests and if one made predictions which were at variance with party politics. This was the same with all parties. It is of the essence of any party to gain its orientation not from truths but from illusions which usually correspond to the irrational mass structure. Scientific truths only interfered with the habit of the party politicians of avoiding difficulties with the aid of illusions. True, in the long run illusions do not help, as events in Europe after 1938 so clearly showed; true, in the long run scientific truths are the only reliable guiding lines in social life; but these truths with regard to the Soviet Union were as yet no more than germs, incapable of influencing public opinion or even of evoking mass enthusiasm. It remained for the second world war to increase the receptivity to facts everywhere and, what is more, to disclose the basically irrational nature of politics to great numbers of working people.

The finding of facts does not ask whether the facts are welcome or not, but only whether they are correct or not. For this reason, it always comes into sharp conflict with politics which does not ask whether a fact is correct or not, but only whether or not it serves this or that political purpose. This makes things very difficult for the scientific sociologist. On the one hand, he must find and describe actual processes; on the other hand, he must remain in contact with actual social movements. In publishing painful findings, therefore, he must think over carefully what will be the effect of his correct statements on the masses of people who are predominantly under the influence of political irrationalism. A sociological concept of any considerable weight can penetrate and become practically important only if it has already been spontaneously acquired by the masses in their own lives. Outworn [181] systems of political thought and institutions inimical to freedom must, in the feelings of everyone, have been ruined by political machination before rational insights into the vital necessities of society can break through spontaneously and generally. In the United States, for example, the doings of the politicians have brought about a rather general realization that the politician is a cancer in the body social. In the Europe of 1935, one was far from such a realization. The politician was the one who determined what was to be considered true or false.

Important social insights usually develop in the people long before they are explicitly stated or can find organizational expression. Today, in 1945, hatred of politics, based on well-known facts, has become more or less general. If, now, a group of social scientists has observed facts and formulated them well, facts which really correspond to the objective social process, then the „theory“ will inevitably meet with the feeling for life on the part of the masses of people. It is as if two independent processes converged in one point, where the social process and the mass will become one with the sociological insight. This seems to be the case in all decisive social processes. It was so in the American emancipation from England in 1776 as well as in the emancipation of Russian society from the Tsarist state in 1917. The lack of correct sociological work may have catastrophic effects. In that case, objective process and mass will have matured, it is true, but they get lost again if the simple scientific concept is lacking which should unite them and carry them further. This was the case in Germany in 1918 when, though imperialism was overthrown, no true democracy developed.

The fusion of scientific and social process into the unity of a basic new social order fails to come about if the process of scientific insight does not grow from old concepts as organically as the social process grows from the misery of practical life. I say, „growing organically“; for one cannot „think out“ or „plan“ a new order; it must grow organically, in closest contact with the practical and theoretical facts of human life. For this reason, all attempts to [182] „reach the masses politically,“ to „give them revolutionary ideas,“ are bound to fail and to end in nothing but noisy and harmful party politics.

Insight into the nature of fascism which could not be comprehended by any economistic concept of social living, and insight into the authoritarian nationalistic structure of the Soviet Union of 1940, developed spontaneously everywhere, without any „party guidance“. That fascism had no more to do with the class rule of the „bourgeoisie“ than the „Soviet democracy“ of Stalin has to do with the social democracy of Lenin was general, though latent, knowledge. It was noted everywhere that the old concepts no longer covered the new processes. Those who worked with life as it is, who had come to know, through medical and pedagogical work, people of all professions in various countries, were in little danger of getting caught in the toils of political slogans. This was particularly true of those who had always been „unpolitical“ and had lived only for their work.

It was precisely these „unpolitical“ people, given over to their work, who were accessible to the sociological insights which were so decisive in Europe then. Those, on the other hand, who had identified themselves, economically and ideologically, with this or that party machine, were not only rigid and inaccessible to any new insight; more than that, they fought with irrational hatred against any attempt to make comprehensible the basically new phenomenon of the authoritarian, totalitarian dictatorship. Considering, furthermore, that the party organizations had a purely economistic orientation while the dictatorships originated not in economic processes but in irrational attitudes of the masses, one can readily see how cautiously a social scientist working in the field of mass psychology had to proceed. In fact, all he had to do was to register conscientiously whether the social development confirmed or contradicted his biopsychic insights. He found that it confirmed them. There grew, in many physicians, teachers, writers, social workers, adolescents, industrial workers, etc., the deep conviction that political irrationalism would one day run its course, and that one day the demands of [183] natural work, of love and of knowledge, would become part of the consciousness of the broad masses and would lead to action on their part, without any necessity for propagandizing a corresponding theory. True, one could not foresee the degree of catastrophe which political irrationalism would have to produce before it would be halted by the natural feeling for life of the working masses and would drown in its own deeds.

After the catastrophe in Germany in 1933, the Soviet Union found itself regressing rapidly to authoritarian and nationalistic social forms. That it was a matter of „nationalism“ was clear to a great many scientists, journalists and workers' officials; but it was not clear whether it was a matter of nationalism of the fascist pattern.

The word „fascism“ is no invective, no more than the word „capitalist“. It is a term which connotes a definite way of leading and influencing the masses: authoritarian, one-party-system, therefore totalitarian, might comes before real interests, political falsification of facts, etc. Consequently, there are „fascist Jews“ and „fascist democrats“.

If one had published such facts, the Soviet Union would immediately have branded them as „counter-revolutionary,“ as „Trotskyite-fascist“. At that time, the Soviet population still enjoyed the impetus of the revolution of 1917. Consumption was increasing, unemployment was practically nonexistent. The people enjoyed the newly created institutions – sports, theater, literature, etc. Those who had experienced the German catastrophe knew that these so-called cultural enjoyments of a population mean nothing with regard to the character and development of a society. To see movies and plays, to read books, to engage in sports, to brush one's teeth and to go to school is important, it is true, but it does not make the difference between a dictatorship and a democratic society. In either of the two, „culture is being enjoyed“. It was a typical and basic error of the Socialists and Communists to consider the building of an apartment house, a subway or a school a „socialistic“ achievement. Apartment buildings, subways [184] and schools have to do with the technical development of a society but do not indicate whether the members of this society are serfs or free workers, rational or irrational human beings.

Since the Soviet Russians presented every technical innovation as a „specifically communistic“ achievement, the Soviet population was under the impression that such things did not exist in capitalist countries. It was not to be expected, therefore, that the nationalistic degeneration of Soviet democracy would be understood by the population.

It is a basic principle of mass psychology not to proclaim, on principle, „objective truths,“ but to ask oneself how the average mass individual reacts to an objective process. This attitude automatically prevents political behavior. For if somebody believes he has found a truth he is forced to wait until it manifests itself objectively and independently of him. If it fails to do that, his truth was not a truth and should remain in the background as a possibility.

The catastrophic regression in the Soviet Union was anxiously followed everywhere in Europe. Only about 100 copies of the pamphlet on „The Masses and the State“ were sent out to various friends of sex-economic mass psychology in Europe, Russia and America. The prediction of the totalitarian dictatorial degeneration of Soviet democracy, made in 1929, was based on the fact that the sexual revolution in the Soviet Union had not only been inhibited, but repressed as if intentionally. As we know, sexual suppression serves the purpose of mechanizing the masses of people and making them dependent. Wherever we find authoritarian moralistic suppression of infantile and adolescent sexuality and a sexual legislation that goes with it, we can, with certainty, assume the existence of strong authoritarian and dictatorial tendencies in the social development, no matter what slogans the respective politicians may be using. Conversely, we can assume the existence of truly democratic tendencies wherever we find an understanding, life-affirmative attitude in the decisive social institutions toward the sexual life of children and adolescents; but only to the extent to which such [185] attitudes are present. When, therefore, sex-reactionary attitudes became more and more prominent around 1929 in the Soviet Union, one knew that an authoritarian dictatorial development was taking place. This I have documented extensively in my book, DIE SEXUALITÄT IM KULTURKAMPF. 1

________

1 In English: THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION, Orgone Institute Press, 1945.

My predictions were confirmed by the increasing re-introduction of sex-reactionary legislation after 1934, the abolition of coeducation, 2 etc.

________

2 Cf. International Journal of Sex-economy and Orgone-Research 2, 1943, 193f.

At that time, I did not know yet that in the meantime a new attitude in sex-economic questions had developed in the United States, an attitude which later on was to facilitate the reception of sex-economy.

We asked all our friends who received this unofficial pamphlet to give it some thought, and, if they agreed with its contents on the whole, to pass it on to such sociologists of their acquaintance who were in a position to grasp the contradiction in the development of the Soviet Union. The contents of this pamphlet were not to be the subject of newspaper articles or mass meetings; it was to be expected that events themselves would determine the time of public discussion. Between 1935 and 1939, there was in the leading sociological circles an increasing understanding for the mass-psychological causes of the authoritarian regression in the Soviet Union. This understanding replaced the fruitless indignation over the „regressions“: one learned to understand that the further development failed because of the structure of the masses which made them long for authority.

This insight, which the Soviet leaders lacked, was of tremendous importance.

1. WHAT GOES ON IN THE MASSES OF PEOPLE?

The question of the „how“ of a new social order is identical with the question of what is the character structure of the broad masses, of the unpolitical, irrationally influenced working population. The failure of a genuine social revolution, then, is the indication of the failure of the masses of people: they reproduce the ideology and the forms of living of political reaction, in themselves [186] and in every new generation. But at that time, the question, „How do the broad masses of the unpolitical population think, feel, and react?“ was not generally asked or understood, and the possibility of handling it practically was remote. There was, as a result, a great deal of confusion.

On the occasion of the Saar plebiscite in 1935, the Vienna sociologist Willi Schlamm wrote the following: In reality, the epoch is past during which it seemed as if masses of people were to rise of their own strength, guided by reason and insight into their own position. In reality, there is no longer any society-forming function left for the masses. They have shown themselves to be completely malleable, unconscious, capable of adapting to any kind of power or infamy. In the 20th century, the century of the tank and the radio, the masses have been excluded from the process which forms society.

Schlamm was right, but his approach was sterile. He did not ask the question of how such an attitude on the part of the masses could come about, or whether it was natural or alterable. He seemed to have no hope, not even in principle.

The fact has to be clearly understood that such statements were not only unpopular but dangerous to life, for the social-democratic parties in the countries which were as yet not fascist owed their very existence to the illusion that the masses, as they were, were capable of freedom, and that there would be paradise on earth if there only were not the evil Hitlers. Personal and public discussions showed again and again that the democratic politicians, particularly the social-democratic and communist politicians, did not have the slightest understanding of the simple fact that the masses, as a result of centuries of suppression, could be no other than incapable of freedom. In reality, everything that had happened in international politics since the Russian revolution in 1917 confirmed the correctness of the statement that the masses of people are incapable of freedom. Without this insight, an understanding of the fascist flood was absolutely impossible.

When, between 1930 and 1933, I gradually learned in Germany [187] to recognize this fact, I came in serious conflict with well-meaning liberal, socialist and communist politicians. It was first published in DIE MASSENPSYCHOLOGIE DES FASCHISMUS in 1933 and elaborated, particularly with regard to socialist politics, in a pamphlet, WAS IST KLASSENBEWUSSTSEIN by Ernst Parell.

The finding of the fact itself could only lead to hopelessness. For if it was true that the social process depends on the structure and behavior of the masses; if it is further true that the masses are incapable of freedom, then the victory of the fascist dictatorship was definitive. But this fact is not absolute and isolated.

It must be considered together with two further facts:

1. Incapacity for freedom is not naturally given. People have not always been incapable of freedom; in principle, then, they can become capable of freedom.

2. As social and clinical sex-economy has convincingly demonstrated, the mechanism which makes the masses of people incapable of freedom is the social suppression of genital love life in children, adolescents and adults.

This social suppression, also, is not naturally given. Rather, it has developed with patriarchy and can, in principle, be abolished. If, however, it can be abolished, and if it is the central mechanism of a character structure incapable of freedom, then things are not so hopeless. Then, society has at its disposal the means of eliminating all the social evils which we call „emotional plague“.

The mistake of Schlamm as of other sociologists consisted in confirming the fact of human incapacity for freedom yet at the same time failing to draw the consequences from social sex-economy, which he knew well enough, and to stand up for them. Erich Fromm, for example, in a review of DER EINBRUCH DER SEXUALMORAL in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, agreed with the presentation there of the relationship between sexual moralism and characterological serfdom; yet, in his later publications on authority and family, escape from freedom, etc., he managed to leave the sexual problem of the masses and its connection with fear of freedom and with craving for authority completely out of the picture. Such things are difficult to understand, but we know [188] that sex-negation in social and personal life plays many tricks.

The reader will have realized how much the emphasis of sociological examination shifted from economico-political facts to those of mass psychology, sex-economy and characterology. The finding of the masses' incapacity for freedom, of the suppression of natural love life as the main mechanism of producing this incapacity, and, principally, the shifting of responsibility from individual politicians or organizations to the masses themselves, were gigantic revolutions in thinking and, consequently, in the practical handling of social problems. One began to understand better the perennial complaint of the parties that „one had not yet succeeded in reaching the masses of workers“. One began to understand why the masses were „completely malleable, unconscious, capable of adapting to any kind of power or infamy“. One began to understand the fascist race enthusiasm of the masses, and the helplessness of those sociologists and politicians who had a merely economistic orientation, in the face of the catastrophic events of the first half of the 20th century. Political reaction, in all its forms, could now be reduced to the emotional plague which had developed since the introduction of authoritarian patriarchy.

The task of a true democratic-revolutionary movement is that of guiding (not of „leading“ from above!) the masses who, as a result of thousands of years of suppression of living functioning, have become weak-minded, incapable of criticism, biopathic and submissive, in such a way that they immediately become aware of any suppression and learn to shake it off in time, irrevocably and enduringly. It is easier to prevent a neurosis than to cure it. It is easier to keep an organism healthy than to free it of disease. Similarly, it is easier to keep a social organism free of dictatorial institutions than to eliminate them. It is the task of a genuine democratic guidance to make the masses go beyond themselves, as it were; this is only possible, however, if the masses develop, out of themselves, social organizations which do not vie with diplomats in political rigmarole, but which formulate and express for the masses that which the masses are incapable of expressing [189] because of need, lack of training, submissiveness to a Führer idea and the plague of irrationalism. That is, we ascribe to the masses of people the full responsibility for all social processes. We demand their responsibility and fight their irresponsibility. We blame them, but do not accuse them as one accuses a criminal.

A genuine new social order does not exhaust itself in the elimination of dictatorial authoritarian social institutions, nor in the establishment of new institutions; for these new institutions will inevitably degenerate in the authoritarian direction unless, at the same time, the characterological anchoring of authoritarian absolutism in the masses of people is eliminated by educational and mental-hygienic measures. It is not a matter of revolutionary angels here and reactionary devils there, of avaricious capitalists here and generous workers there. If sociology and mass psychology are to function practically as genuine sciences, they will have to rid themselves of the political habit of painting things black or white. They must penetrate to the contradictory basic nature of people brought up in the authoritarian manner and must see, describe and help to eliminate political reaction in the structure and behavior of the working masses. It should go without saying that in so doing these sociologists and mass psychologists should not exclude themselves. By now it will have become clear that socialization of production alone cannot change human serfdom in the least. A piece of land which one acquires to build a house in which to live and work is only a prerequisite for this life and work but by no means this life and work itself. To consider the economic process of a society the essence of the biosocial process of human society is the same as equating the piece of land and the house with the upbringing of children, with hygiene, work, dance and music. It was precisely this economistic concept of life – a concept which Lenin had already sharply criticized – which forced the Soviet Union into authoritarian regression.

Around 1920 it was expected that the economic processes of Sovietism would also change people. True, the elimination of illiteracy and the conversion of an agrarian into an industrial [190] country were gigantic achievements, but one could not point to them as specific socialist achievements for they were attained in the same way, and often better, by capitalist countries.

The fundamental mass-psychological question after 1917 was: Will the culture resulting from the social revolution produce a human society which is fundamentally different from the overthrown Tsarist authoritarian order?

Will the new socio-economic order reproduce itself in the character structure of people? If so, how? Will the new „Soviet people“ be free, non-authoritarian, capable of governing themselves rationally, and will they transmit these capacities to their children? Will the freedom which is thus developed in the human structure make any kind of authoritarian social leadership unnecessary or even impossible? The existence or non-existence of authoritarian dictatorial institutions in the Soviet Union was going to be an exact indication of the land of people who were developing.

Understandably enough, the whole world watched the development of the Soviet Union, anxiously or hopefully. In general, the attitude toward the Soviet Union was hardly rational. The Soviet system was as uncritically defended as it was condemned. Certain groups of intellectuals took the stand that „undoubtedly there were also many good things about the Soviet Union“. This sounds like a Hitlerite saying that „there are also decent Jews.

„ Such emotional judgments were senseless and fruitless. The leaders in the Soviet Union complained, rightly, that people did not render practical aid to the Soviet Union, but only quarreled about it.

The struggle between the rational, forward-striving forces in the social development and the reactionary forces of inhibition and regression continued. Thanks to Marx, Engels and Lenin, the economic conditions of a forward development were far better recognized than the forces which inhibited it. Nobody mentioned the irrationalism of the masses. Thus the development toward freedom, so promising in the beginning, first came to a standstill, and then turned into authoritarian degeneration.

It was more fruitful to understand the mechanism of this [191] regression than to deny it as did the European communist parties. By their credulous, religiously fanatic defense of everything taking place in the Soviet Union, they deprived themselves of every practical possibility of solving the social difficulties. On the other hand, there is no doubt that scientific clarification of the irrational contradictions in human character structure will, in the long run, help the development of the Soviet Union far more than does narrow-minded talk about salvation. Such a scientific attitude may be unpleasant and painful, but it is, in reality, based far more on friendly feelings than are political slogans. This the professionally working Soviet Russians know very well. I may say that at that time the concern of the sex-economic physicians and teachers was no less deep than that of the Sovietists.

This concern was well justified: In industry, authoritarian, „responsible“ direction took the place of the original „directorship of three“ and of the democratic production councils.

In the schools, the experiments in self-government (Dalton plan, etc.) failed and were replaced by the old authoritarian school order, even though camouflaged by formal student organizations.

In the army, the original simple and democratic commander system was replaced by a strict order of ranks. The „Marshal of the Soviet Union“ was at first an incomprehensible innovation, then it seemed dangerous, too reminiscent of „Tsar“ or „Kaiser“.

In social sex-economy, there was an increasing return to authoritarian, moralistic concepts and laws. This aspect is presented extensively in my book, THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION.

In interpersonal relationships, there was more and more distrust, cynicism, tactics and insincerity. While in 1929 the average Russian was still fired with enthusiasm for the Five-year-plan and full of hope for the success of the revolution, in 1935 they gave one a different impression: there was evasion, cynicism, disillusionment and that certain kind of „sophistication“ which is incompatible with a serious social attitude.

The cultural revolution in the Soviet Union had failed. More [192] than that, the regression in the cultural process smothered, in the course of a few years, the enthusiasm and the hope of a whole world. Now, it is not the fault of a social leadership if a social regression takes place. But this leadership actively promotes regression if it

a) proclaims the regression to be a progress;

b) proclaims itself the savior of the world; and

c) proceeds with the firing squad against those who remind it of its duties.

In that case, it will have to give way, sooner or later, to a social leadership which continues to adhere to the generally valid principles of social development.

2. THE „SOCIALIST LONGING“

There were socialist movements and a socialist longing long before there were any scientific insights into the social prerequisites of socialism. For thousands of years, the suppressed have been fighting their suppressors. It was these struggles which created the science of the suppressed people's striving for freedom, and not the other way around, as the fascist character believes. Between 1918 and 1938, that is, in a period of gigantic social events, the socialists suffered the most severe defeats. Precisely during a period which should have demonstrated the maturity and rationality of a socialist movement for freedom, the workers' movement split up and became bureaucratic, and increasingly lost the striving for freedom and truth to which it owed its origin.

The socialist longing of the millions was a longing for freedom from suppression of every kind. But this longing for freedom appeared in the form of a compromise with the fear of responsibility. This fear of social responsibility forced the socialist movement in the direction of the state. In the scientific sociology of Marx, which describes the economic prerequisites of human freedom, we find nothing about the „state“ as a goal of socialist freedom. The „socialist state“ is an invention of party bureaucrats. It, the state, was now supposed to introduce freedom; mind you, [193] not the masses of people, but the state. I shall have to show that not only has the socialistic idea of the state nothing to do with the theory of the early socialists, but more than that, it represents a falsification of the socialist movement, based on the structural helplessness of the masses longing for freedom. In the Soviet Union, the mixture of longing for freedom and structural fear of responsible self-government created a form of state which corresponded less and less to the original program of the Communists and which finally assumed authoritarian, totalitarian and dictatorial forms.

Let us try to summarize briefly the basic socialist character of the most important social movements for freedom.

Primitive Christianity is often, and rightly, called „socialistic“. Similarly, the slave rebellions of antiquity and the peasant wars of the middle ages were considered precursors of the socialist movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. They failed because of the lack of industry and international communications as well as because of the lack of a sociological theory. „Socialism,“ according to the sociology of its founders, was conceivable only in international terms. A national or even nationalistic socialism (= National Socialism, fascism) is sociological nonsense and, in the strict sense of the word, mass deceit. Imagine a physician who discovers a means of fighting a certain disease and who calls it „therapeutic serum“. Imagine, further, a clever crook who decides to capitalize on the people's illness and who invents a poison which creates in them the longing to get well and which he now calls „medicine“. He would be the National Socialist heir of this physician, just as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin have become the National Socialist heirs of Marx's international socialism.

The crook who wants to make money from people's illness calls his poison „medicine“ because he knows very well that he could not sell it if he called it poison. The same applies to the words „social“ and „socialist“.

Arbitrary use of terms which have been coined to have a definite connotation results inevitably in confusion. The concept of „socialism“ was strictly linked with the concept of „international“. [194] The theory of socialism demanded a certain degree of maturity in the international economy: the imperialistic struggle for markets, natural resources and strategic outposts must have assumed the character of greedy wars. The economic chaos must have become the most essential factor in the inhibition of the development of social productivity. The chaos must have become clear to everyone, from such facts, for example, as that excess goods are destroyed in order to prevent price slumps, while at the same time masses of people are starving. The private appropriation of collectively produced goods must have come in sharp conflict with the needs of society. International trade must have begun to feel the tariff boundaries of national states and the market principle as insurmountable barriers.

The objective socio-economic prerequisites of an international attitude have grown tremendously since 1918. The airplane has bridged spaces which previously maintained cultural differences of thousands of years.

International traffic increasingly obliterates differences in civilization. An Arab of the 19th century was infinitely farther removed from an Englishman of the 19th century than is an Arab from an Englishman today.

Capitalistic pirates have been more and more held in check. In brief, the socio-economic prerequisites of internationalism have grown by leaps and bounds, and this process was speeded up tremendously by the second world war. But this economic maturing was not accompanied by a structural and ideological maturing. While internationalism continued to grow in the economic field, it came to naught structurally and ideologically. This was shown not only in the workers' movement but also in the development of nationalistic dictatorships in Europe: Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Doriot and Laval in France, Stalin in Russia, Mannerheim in Finland, Horthy in Hungary, etc. Nobody could have foreseen this divergence between socio-economic progress and structural regression. The degeneration of the workers' internationalism into chauvinistic national socialism was more than a collapse of the old freedom movements which had always been international. It was, rather, a novel and gigantic outbreak of the emotional plague in [195] the midst of the suppressed people, people who, it had been hoped, were one day to produce a new world order. One of the high points of this „national socialist“ degeneration was the white workers' hatred of colored workers in America, and the loss of any socio-political initiative and perspective in so many large trade unions. When top sergeant types get hold of the idea of freedom, freedom is in a bad way. In this way, the cruel injustice of old was visited upon the masses who had nothing to sell but their working power. In this way, ruthless exploitation by powerful capitalists struck back like a boomerang. Because internationalism failed structurally, the National Socialist movements stole its powder, especially by utilizing international socialist longing. The international socialist movement, under the leadership of top sergeants rising from the ranks of the suppressed, split up into nationally bound, separate and inimical mass movements which were seemingly revolutionary. Perversely, some of these strictly nationalistic mass movements became international, undoubtedly because of the old international mentality of their adherents. Italian and German National Socialism became international fascism. It attracted masses on an international scale, thus becoming, in the strict sense of the word, a perverse „nationalistic internationalism“. As such, it quashed genuine democratic uprisings in Spain and in Austria. The heroic struggle of the true revolutionaries in 1934 and 1936, isolated from the masses of people, was a battle of Thermopylae.

In these facts, the irrationalism in the mass structure as well as that of politics in general was clearly expressed. The masses of German working people had opposed the program of a revolutionary internationalism for years, but since 1933 they had undergone all the suffering which a true social revolution would have caused, without, however, enjoying one single fruit which a true revolution would have brought them. In this way, they had deceived themselves. They had become the victim of their own irrationalism, that is, their fear of social responsibility. Let us try to understand these seemingly incomprehensible facts as best we can.

Since the entry of the United States into the second world war, [196] an international and generally human attitude has again gained ground in an increasing degree. It is to be feared, however, that there will be still more irrational mass reactions and still deadlier social catastrophes unless the responsible sociologists and psychologists rid themselves in time of their highfalutin academicism and help by honest clarification. The problems of sociology have shifted fundamentally from economics to the structure of the masses. We no longer ask whether the economic prerequisites of a work-democratic internationalism have already matured. We are confronted by another, gigantic question: Even with fully matured international socio-economic prerequisites, what obstacles may present themselves in the path of structural and ideological internationalism? How can the social irresponsibility and the craving for authority of the masses be mastered in time? How can one prevent this second international war – which, rightly, is called not an economic but an ideological war – from resulting in a new, even more brutal and deadly disintegration into nationalistic, chauvinistic, fascist-dictatorial nationalisms? Political reaction lives and works within the structure, the thinking and acting of the suppressed masses in the form of character armor, fear of responsibility, incapacity for freedom and, last but not least, of endemic crippling of biological functioning. These are deadly serious problems. On their solution or non-solution depends the fate of the coming centuries. The responsibility of all leading circles is enormous. Political talk and formalities will not solve a single one of these gigantic tasks. Our watchword, „Put an end to all politics! Turn to the practical tasks of real life!“ is not a play on words. Nothing is more impressive than the fact that a world population of two billion people is not capable of removing a handful of oppressors and biopathic war murderers. The universal longing for freedom is frustrated because there are so many concepts as to how one can best arrive at freedom without taking the responsibility for the painful alteration of human structure and its social institutions.

The anarchists (anarcho-syndicalists) strove for social self-government; but they shrank from taking cognisance of the gigantic [197] problem of human incapacity for freedom and refuted any guidance of social development. They were Utopians and perished in Spain. They only saw the longing for freedom, but they confused this longing with the ability really to be free and to be capable of living and working without authoritarian leadership. They refuted the party system but were unable to suggest how the enslaved masses could learn to govern their lives themselves. Hatred against the state alone will not achieve anything. The problem is deeper and more serious.

The international Christians preach peace, brotherly love, compassion and mutual aid. Ideologically, they were anti-capitalist and thought of human existence in international terms. Thus they had basically a socialist-international attitude, and called themselves, as e.g., in Austria, Christian-Socialist. In practice, however, they opposed, and still oppose, every step in social development in the very direction which they have made their ideal. Catholic Christianity, in particular, has long since shed the revolutionary character of primitive Christianity. It asks its millions of adherents to take war as a „fate,“ as „expiation of sin“.

Wars are, in fact, the result of sins, but in a different way. The Catholics place a peaceful existence in a hereafter, preach the necessity of tolerating misery in this world and systematically ruin people's capacity for honestly fighting for their freedom. They do not protest when rival churches, say, the Greek Orthodox, are bombed, but they point to God and culture when bombs fall on Rome. Catholicism creates structural helplessness in the masses of people so that, when in need, they appeal to God instead of their own strength and self-confidence. It makes people structurally afraid of pleasure and incapable of pleasure. This is the root of a good deal of human sadism. German Catholics bless German arms and American Catholics bless American arms. One and the same God is supposed to lead both inimical camps to victory. The irrationality of this is obvious.

Social Democracy, which followed Bernstein's adaptation of Marx's sociology, also suffered shipwreck on the problem of mass structure. Like Christianity and anarchism, it lived on the [198] compromise of the masses between striving for happiness and irresponsibility. Thus it developed a vague ideology of an „education for socialism“ without vigorous, honest work on concrete life tasks. It dreamed of social democracy without understanding that the structure of the masses must be basically altered before they are capable of being „social-democratic“. In practice, it was far from realizing that schools, nurseries, trade schools, etc., must function in a self-regulatory manner, that one has to fight, vigorously and objectively, any reactionary tendency, including those in one's own camp; that, finally, one has to give the word „freedom“ a concrete meaning if one is to establish social democracy. It is better to fight fascist reaction as long as one is in power than to develop the courage to do so only after one has lost it. In many European countries, social democracy had at its disposal all the necessary power to overthrow the old patriarchal power within the people and outside them, the power which finally found its bloodiest triumphs in the fascist ideology.

Social democracy assumed that man – though crippled by thousands of years of patriarchal power – was capable of democracy and self-government. It refuted serious scientific endeavor, as of a Freud, to comprehend the complicated human structure. Thus it became inevitably dictatorial within its ranks and compromising toward the outside. „Compromising“ not in the good sense of the word that one has to understand the standpoint of the opponent and has to agree with him where he is right, but compromising in the sense of sacrificing principles for fear of disputes and in the sense of trying „to be on good terms“ with an adversary bent on murder. It was Chamberlainism in the camp of socialism.

Social democracy was ideologically radical and practically conservative, as expressed in such monstrosities as „His Royal Highness and Majesty's socialist opposition“. Without intending to, it helped fascism, for fascism of the masses is nothing but disillusioned radicalism plus nationalistic philistinism. Social democracy suffered shipwreck on the contradictory mass structure which it did not understand.

The bourgeois governments of Europe had a democratic [199] ideology, it is true, but in practice they were conservative administrative bodies with an aversion to fundamental, scientifically grounded freedom movements.

The tremendous influence of the capitalist market economy and of profit interests outweighed all other interests. The European bourgeois democracies shed their original revolutionary character of the years after '48 much more quickly than Christianity had shed its revolutionary character. Measures in the direction of freedom were a kind of decorum, a proof of one's „democratic“ attitude. None of these governments would have known how the submissive masses could have been led out of their condition of uncriticality and craving for authority. They had all the power in their hands, but social self-government and self-regulation were a closed book to them. To raise the basic question of the sexual problem of the masses would have been impossible in these government circles. Calling the Dollfuss administration in Austria an example of democratic government proves utter political ignorance.

The capitalists who had emerged from the bourgeois revolution in Europe had great social power. They were able to determine who was going to govern. Basically, their action was shortsighted and self-injurious. With their power and means, they could have inspired society to unheard-of social achievements. I am not referring here to the building of palaces, churches, museums and theaters. I mean the practical realization of their cultural concepts. Instead, they drew a sharp line between themselves and the sellers of the commodity working power. Secretly, they had only contempt for „the people“. They were petty, narrow-minded, cynically contemptuous of people, avaricious and often unscrupulous. They helped Hitler to power. They showed themselves completely unworthy of the role which society had given them. They misused it, instead of guiding and educating the masses. They were not even capable of stemming the dangers which threatened their own cultural system and thus became weaker and weaker as a social stratum. To the extent to which they themselves knew work and achievement, it is true, they understood the democratic freedom movements. [200] But they did nothing to help them. It was pomp and not knowledge which they furthered. The support of the arts and sciences had once been in the hands of the feudal lords who were later overthrown by the bourgeois. But the bourgeois capitalists had much less of a real interest in the arts and sciences than the old courts had had. Their sons, who had died for the democratic ideals on the barricades of '48, derided the democratic ideals from the steps of the universities between 1920 and 1930. Later on, they were the vanguard of fascist chauvinism. True, they had fulfilled their function of opening up the world economically, but they smothered their own achievement with the institution of the tariffs, and they did not know what to do with the internationalism which had developed from their economic achievement. They aged rapidly, and as a social stratum became senescent.

This evaluation of the so-called business leaders is not derived from an ideology. I come myself from these circles and know them intimately. I am glad to have extricated myself from their influence.

From the conservatism of the Social Democrats and the narrow-minded senescence of the capitalists grew fascism. It contained, though not practically, but ideologically – and this alone is what mattered to the masses with their illusory structure – all the ideals advocated by its precursors. It contained the most brutal political reaction as it had devastated human life and possessions in the middle ages. It took into consideration the so-called home tradition of the soil, in a mystical and brutal manner which had nothing to do with genuine attachment to the soil. It called itself „socialist“ and „revolutionary“ and thus took over the functions which the socialists had left unfulfilled. With the dominance of the economic leaders, it took over capitalism. The achievement of „socialism“ was now given over to an omnipotent, God-sent Führer. The helplessness of the mass individuals made this Führer ideology victorious, after it had been prepared by the authoritarian school, by the church and the compulsive family. The „salvation of the nation“ by an omnipotent, God-sent Führer [201] corresponded exactly to the longing of the masses for salvation. Incapable of thinking of themselves differently, the enslaved masses avidly absorbed the theory of the unalterable nature of man, of the „natural division of humanity into the few who lead and the many who are led,“ for now the responsibility was in the hands of a strong man. This Führer ideology, whether met with in fascism or anywhere else, is based on the mystic hereditarian concept of the unalterable nature of man and on the helplessness, craving for authority, and incapacity for freedom of the masses. True, the formula that „people need leadership, discipline and order“ has a rational basis in people's antisocial structure; but to call this structure unalterable is reactionary. The intentions of fascist ideology were honest. If one does not recognize this subjective honesty, one cannot understand fascism and its attraction for the masses. Since the problem of human structure had not even been mentioned, the concept of a non-authoritarian, self-regulatory society appeared as a Utopian chimera.

It was precisely at this point that, between about 1850 and 1917, the criticism and constructive policy of the founders of the Russian revolution set in. Lenin's standpoint was the following: Social democracy fails; on their own, spontaneously, the masses cannot arrive at freedom. They need a leadership which has a hierarchic structure and appears authoritarian but which is at the same time intrinsically democratic. In Lenin's communism the „dictatorship of the proletariat“ is that social form which leads from a society with authoritarian leadership to that social order which is non-authoritarian, self-regulating, capable of doing without police enforcement and compulsive morality.

Basically, the Russian revolution of 1917 was a politico-ideological and not a genuine social revolution. It was based on political ideas derived from politics and economics and not from scientific knowledge about man.

We must clearly understand Lenin's sociological theory and his achievement in order to realize what was the gap which later led to the authoritarian and totalitarian technique of Russian leadership of the masses. It must be remembered that the biopathic nature of the masses was [202] unknown to the founders of the Russian revolution. But nobody will expect that social and individual freedom lies, ready-made, in the desk drawers of revolutionary thinkers or politicians. Every new social effort is based on the errors and gaps left by earlier sociologists and revolutionary leaders. Lenin's theory of the „dictatorship of the proletariat“ contained a number of prerequisites for genuine social democracy, but far from all. It aimed at a self-governing human society. It contained the insight that man of today is incapable of bringing about social revolution and of solving the gigantic social tasks without a hierarchic organization. The dictatorship of the proletariat in the sense of Lenin was to be that authority which had to be created for the abolition of any kind of authority.

Originally, it differed basically from the fascist ideology of dictatorship in that it set itself the task of undermining itself, that is, of replacing authoritarian leadership by social self-regulation.

Its task was – apart from the establishment of the economic prerequisites of social democracy – the alteration of human structure. True, this is not what Lenin called it, but this alteration of structure was an essential and integral part of his sociological theory. According to this, the task of the social revolution is not only that of eliminating external and actual serfdom but that of making people structurally incapable of serfdom.

The creation of the economic prerequisites of social democracy, that is, planned economy, proved a small task compared with that of bringing about an alteration of character structure in the masses. He who wants to understand the victory of fascism and the nationalistic development of the Soviet Union must understand this problem in its full import.

The first act of Lenin's program, the establishment of the „dictatorship of the proletariat,“ succeeded. An administration was established composed entirely of the sons of workers and peasants. Members of the former feudal and upper class strata were excluded from it.

The second and most important act, the replacement of the proletarian administrative apparatus by social self-government, [203] failed to come about. Today, 28 years after the victory of the Russian revolution, there is no sign of this second, truly democratic act. Instead, there is a dictatorial one-party-system with an authoritarian Führer at the head of the Russian population.

How, one must ask, was this possible? Did Stalin „betray“ Lenin's revolution, did he „usurp power“? Let us see what happened.

3. THE „WITHERING AWAY OF THE STATE“

To seek a socially and historically impossible goal is not in accord with a scientific point of view. The task of science is not that of thinking up systems or of chasing dreams of a „better future,“ but only that of comprehending a development as it actually takes place, to recognize its contradictions and to aid those forces which drive forward, which solve difficulties and which enable human society to master its conditions of existence. The „better future“ can come about only if its social and structural prerequisites are given.

Let us summarize first the concepts of Marx and Engels concerning the development of „Communist society“.

Engels and Lenin on self-regulation. In his most popular work, THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY, AND THE STATE, Engels destroyed the belief in the „absolute and eternal state,“ that is, in our context, in the indispensability of authoritarian leadership of society. Based on Lewis Morgan's studies of the organization of clan society, he arrived at the following conclusion: The state has not always been in existence. There have been societies which functioned without it, which had no trace of state or state power. When society split into classes, when the class differences threatened the existence of the total society, then state power developed of necessity. Society rapidly approached a stage in the development of production at which the existence of classes has not only ceased to be a necessity but becomes an actual hindrance to the development of production. „They will disappear as inevitably as they developed at an earlier stage. Along with them, the state will inevitably disappear. A [204] society which organizes production anew on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers will relegate the whole state machine to where it will then belong: in the museum of antiquities, side by side with the spinning wheel and the bronze axe“ (italics mine – W.R.).

In clan society, there was voluntary association and self-regulation of social life 3; with the development of classes, the state arose, for the purpose of „checking the class differences“ and of safeguarding the continued existence of society.

________

3 Cf. e.g., Malinowski's reports on the work discipline among the matriarchal Trobrianders; discussed in Reich, DER EINBRUCH DER SEXUALMORAL.

Soon, and „as a rule,“ it entered the service of the „most powerful, economically ruling class which, with the help of the state also became the political ruling class“ and thus acquired new means of suppressing and exploiting the suppressed class. What, then, takes the place of the state's authoritarian leadership from above and of obedience from below when the social revolution wins?

Engels' picture of the transition to the new social order was the following: The proletariat „seizes the power of the state“ and brings the means of production, FOR THE TIME BEING, under state ownership. In so doing, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes class differences and, also, „THE STATE AS STATE“. Up to that time, the state had been the official representation of the total society; this, however, only insofar as it was the state of that class which for its time represented society as a whole: in antiquity the slave-owning citizens, in the middle ages the feudal nobility, later on the bourgeoisie. Once the state actually becomes the representation of total society, it makes itself superfluous. This formulation of Engels becomes understandable when one considers what the state had become: from an agent which held the class society together it had become the instrument of the economically powerful class for the domination of the economically weaker class. For, continues Engels, as soon as there is no longer any class to be kept in suppression, as soon as, together with class rule and the struggle for individual existence which was caused by the chaos of production, the resulting excesses and clashes are [205] eliminated, there is nothing left to suppress which would make necessary a special suppressive power such as the state. The first act in which the state appears as the representation of the total society, that is, the taking over of the means of production in the name of society, is also its last independent act as „state“. From then on, the „participation of a state power in social conditions ... becomes superfluous in one field after another and finally ceases of itself“. GOVERNMENT OVER PERSONS IS REPLACED BY THE ADMINISTRATION OF THINGS AND OF PRODUCTION PROCESSES. The state is not „abolished,“ it „withers away“.

Lenin, in STATE AND REVOLUTION, amplified as follows: At first, the capitalist state (state apparatus) is by no means merely taken over or changed, it is „smashed“; this apparatus, and the capitalistic police, the capitalistic bureaucracy, are replaced by the „power apparatus of the proletariat“ and the peasants and other working people affiliated with it. This apparatus is still a suppressive apparatus, but now there is no longer a majority of workers suppressed by a minority of capital owners, but, conversely, the minority of the previous rulers is kept in check by the majority of working people. This is what is called the „dictatorship of the proletariat“.

The „withering away of the state“ as described by Engels, then, is preceded by the abolition of the capitalistic and the establishment of the „revolutionary proletarian state apparatus“. Lenin described in some detail why this transition in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat is „necessary“ and „indispensable,“ and why an immediate realization of a non-authoritarian, free society and „true social democracy“ is not possible.

Engels as well as Lenin criticized the social-democratic slogan of „the people's free state“ as an empty phrase. The dictatorship of the proletariat serves as a transition from the previous form of society to the striven-for „communistic“ form. The character of the „transition phase“ can be understood only from the final goals toward which society strives; these goals, in turn, can be realized only insofar as they have already visibly developed within the old society. Such final goals in the organization of communist [206] society are, among others, „voluntary respect“ for the rules of social living; the establishment of a free „community“ instead of the state (including the proletarian) as soon as the latter has fulfilled its function; „self-government“ of schools, factories, transportation organizations, etc., in brief, the organization of a „new generation“ which, „grown up under new, free social conditions, will be capable of throwing off all of the state machinery ... including the democratic-republican“ (Engels). To the extent to which the state „withers away,“ there emerges from it the „free organization“ in which, as Marx stated, „the free development of each“ becomes the basis of the „free development of all“.

Here, two problems arose which were of the greatest significance for the Soviet Union:

a) The „organization of a free generation in a free, self-governing community“ cannot be „created“. Rather, it must grow out of the „dictatorship of the proletariat“ – in the form of the „withering away of the state“ – just as the „dictatorship of the proletariat,“ as a transitory form of state, develops out of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, including the „democratic“. Were the „withering away of the state“ and the gradually maturing free, self-governing community present in the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1944?

b) If so, what did this „withering away of the state“ look like, and what did the „development of the new generation“ concretely and practically consist of? If not, why did the state not wither away, and what was the relationship between the forces which maintained the existence of the „proletarian state“ and the forces which represented its withering away? What held up the withering away of the state?

By 1935, this had become a burning question which no longer could be overlooked: Is the state in the process of withering away in the Soviet Union? If not, why not?

The essence of work democracy, in contradistinction to the authoritarian order of the state, is social self-regulation. It goes without saying that a society which is to consist of „free people,“ [207] which is to form a „free community“ and which is to govern itself, that is, to be „self-regulatory,“ cannot suddenly be created by decrees, but must be made to develop in an organic manner. It can create the prerequisites of the striven-for conditions organically only after having created the necessary freedom of movement, that is, after having freed itself from those influences which conflict with these conditions. The first prerequisite is the knowledge of the natural organization of work, of the biological and social prerequisites of work democracy. The founders of socialism lacked the knowledge of the biological prerequisites. The social prerequisites, on tie other hand, had to do with an era (1840 to about 1920) in which there was only capitalistic private economy on the one hand and masses of wage laborers on the other. There was at that time as yet no state-minded middle class of any weight, there was no development in the direction of state capitalism, and there were no masses who, in closed reactionary ranks, led „national socialism“ to victory. Thus, the sociological picture corresponded to the times of 1850, and not of 1940.

In the writings of Engels, the difference between „seizure of power by the proletariat,“ that is, the establishment of the „proletarian state,“ and the „cessation of the state“ was not worked out as clearly as it was by Lenin. Understandably enough, for unlike Lenin, Engels was not confronted with the practical task of making a sharp distinction.

When the seizure of power was at hand, in 1917, Lenin had to ascribe to the „transition period“ a greater significance than Engels; Lenin more clearly defined the tasks of this period. To begin with, he demanded that the institution of the „bourgeois“ state be replaced by the proletarian state, that is, by a state government of a „fundamentally different kind“. What was fundamentally different in the proletarian state? With the abolition of the bourgeois state, Lenin said, „democracy, established as fully and consistently as is conceivable,“ is transformed from bourgeois democracy into proletarian democracy; the state as a special institution for the suppression of a certain class is to be made into an institution „which really no longer is a state“. When [208] the majority of the people suppress their suppressors, a special suppressive institution is no longer necessary. In other words, what Lenin specifically meant by the „withering away of the state“ was that the people would actually, not seemingly or formally, determine production, distribution, social rules, increase of population, education, love life, relationship with other nations, etc. „In the place of special institutions,“ Lenin wrote, „in the place of a privileged minority (privileged officials, general staff of a standing army) the majority of people can do these things themselves, and the greater the participation of the people as a whole in the functions of state power, the less they are in need of this power“.

Lenin, then, by no means equated „state“ and „rule of the bourgeoisie“ or else he could not have spoken of a „state“ after the „overthrow of the bourgeoisie“. By „state“ was meant the sum total of those „institutions“ which previously had been in the service of the ruling class, the moneyed bourgeoisie, but which now disappeared from their position „above society“ to the same extent to which the majority of the people took over the administration of society („self-government“). The withering away of the state, then, is to be measured by the degree of the gradual elimination of the organizations above society and by the extent of the inclusion of the majority of the people in its administration, that is, self-regulation of society. „The corrupt and rotten parliamentarism of bourgeois society,“ writes Lenin, „is replaced in the Commune by institutions in which freedom of opinion and discussion does not degenerate into deception, for the parliamentarians must themselves work, must themselves execute their own laws, must themselves verify their results in actual life, must themselves be directly responsible to their electorate. Representative institutions remain, but parliamentarism as a special system, as a division of labor between the legislative and the executive functions, as a privileged position for the deputies, no longer exists. Without representative bodies we cannot imagine democracy, not even proletarian democracy; but we can and must think of democracy without parliamentarism, if criticism [209] of bourgeois society is not a mere empty phrase for us, if the desire to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie is our serious and sincere desire, and not a mere „election slogan“ for catching workers' votes …“.

A sharp distinction is being made between „representative institutions“ and „parliaments“. The former are affirmed, the latter refuted. Nothing is said about what and how these bodies represent. We shall see later that this gap in Lenin's theory of the state made it possible for „Stalinism“ to establish its state power.

The representative bodies, called „Soviets,“ originated from the workers', peasants' and soldiers' councils, were to take over the function of the bourgeois parliaments, by changing them from „chatter clubs“ (Marx) into working bodies. This change in the character of the representative body already implies a change in the representatives themselves, from „chatterers“ to working functionaries responsible to the people. On the other hand, they are not lasting institutions, but they too, continue to change to the same degree to which the majority of the people participate in the functions of social administration; the self-regulation of society becomes the more complete the more people participate; this means, at the same time, the less the Soviets are elected „representatives,“ the more determining and executive functions are taken over by the total population.

For until then the Soviets are still bodies which are more or less separate from the total society, even though originated from it. According to Lenin, the proletarian representative bodies serve a transitory function; they are thought of as mediators between a still necessary, still existing, but already withering „proletarian state power“ and a developing but not yet fully developed self-regulation of society. The Soviets may either become more and more identical with the total society which develops in the direction of self-regulation, or they may develop into mere appendages and executive organs of the proletarian state power. They act between two forces: a power which is still state power, and a new social system of self-regulation. What, then, decides whether the Soviets fulfil their forward-striving, revolutionary function, or whether [210] they become empty, purely formalistic organs of a state administration? Obviously, the following factors:

1. Whether the proletarian state power remains true to its function of gradually eliminating itself;

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 now already within the capacity of the average city dweller and can well be performed for „workingmen's wages“. Let us organize large-scale production, starting from what capitalism has already created; we workers ourselves, relying on our own experience as workers, establishing a strict, iron discipline, supported by the state power of the armed workers, shall reduce the role of the state officials to that of simply carrying out our instructions as responsible, moderately paid „managers“ (of course, with technical knowledge of all sorts, types and degrees). This is our proletarian task, with this we can and must begin when carrying through a proletarian revolution. Such a beginning, on the basis of large-scale production, of itself leads to the gradual „withering away“ of all bureaucracy, to the gradual creation of a new order, an order without quotation marks, an order which has nothing to do with wage slavery [italics mine. – W.R.], an order in which the more and more simplified functions of control and accounting will be performed by each in turn, will then become a habit, and will finally die out as special functions of a special stratum of the population.

Lenin overlooked the dangers of the new state officialdom. He seemed to believe that the officials from the proletariat would not misuse their power but would lead the workers to independence. He overlooked the abysmal biopathy of human structure, because he did not know it.

A fact which has been given scant attention in sociological literature is the fact that Lenin, in his main work on the revolution, put the main emphasis not on the „overthrow of the bour-[213]geoisie“ but on the tasks arising afterwards: the substitution of the proletarian state for the capitalist state apparatus and the substitution of the self-regulation of society for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Following the Soviet literature after 1937, one found that what was in the center of Soviet endeavors was not the weakening but the strengthening of the proletarian state apparatus. The necessity of its eventual replacement by self-regulation was no longer even mentioned. This point is of decisive significance for an understanding of the Soviet Union. It is not without reason that it assumes such an important place in Lenin's main work on the state. It is and remains the life system of any genuine social democracy. No politician mentions it.

4. The Program Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union, 1919

Russian „social democracy“ under Lenin grew out of Russian despotism. The program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of 1919, two years after the revolution, shows the true democratic character of its endeavors.

It demands a state power which is to prevent a return of despotism and which is to safeguard the establishment of free self-government of the masses. But in no way does it hint at the nature of people's incapacity for freedom, at their biopathic fear of freedom or their biopathic sexual structure. The sex-revolutionary laws of 1917 to 1920 were in the right direction, that of a recognition of human biological functioning. But they remained bogged down in legal formalism, as I have shown in my book, THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION. It is at this point that the alteration of human structure suffered shipwreck, and with it the fulfilment of the democratic program. This catastrophic failure of a gigantic social endeavor should be a lesson to any new democratic-revolutionary movement: No freedom program has any chance of success without an alteration of human sexual structure.

The program of the Communist party was the following: 4

________

4 Italics, throughout, are mine. Cf. also the principle of local self-government in the United States after the emancipation of 1776.

[214]

1. The bourgeois republics, even in their most democratic forms ... inevitably remained a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, an apparatus for the exploitation and suppression of the great majority of working people by a handful of capitalists; this for the simple reason that the private ownership of the means of production continued to exist. In contradistinction, the proletarian or Soviet democracy changed the mass organization precisely of the classes which were suppressed by capitalism, the proletarians and poor peasants, the semi-proletarians, that is, the overwhelming majority of the population, making them the only basis of the total state apparatus, the local as well as the central, and from the bottom up. It is precisely in this manner that the Soviet state, to an incomparably greater extent than was possible anywhere else, made local and provincial self-government, without any superimposed authority, a reality. The task of the party is to work indefatigably on the complete establishment of this highest type of democracy, which, in order to function properly, requires constant raising of the cultural level, of the organization and of the independence of the masses.

2. In contradistinction to bourgeois democracy, which obfuscates the class character of its state, the Soviets openly acknowledge that every state, inevitably, must have a class character 5 as long as the division of society into classes, and with that any state power, has not definitely disappeared.

________

5 This important democratic point of view was lost sight of later on. The emphasis came to be on the „state,“ without the fact being mentioned that „class society“ is an important characteristic of any state apparatus.

It is inherent in the Soviet state to suppress the resistance of the exploiters; since the Soviet constitution believes that every freedom is a fraud if it is at variance with the liberation of work from the pressure of capital, it does not shrink from depriving the exploiters of political rights. The task of the party of the proletariat is to suppress incessantly the resistance of the exploiters, to fight, ideologically, the deeply-rooted prejudices concerning the absolute character of the bourgeois rights and freedoms, and to make clear that the deprivation of political rights and any restriction of freedom are nothing but transitory means of fighting the attempts of the exploiters to maintain their privileges or to re-establish them. To the extent to which the objective possibilities For if there were no classes, ruling and suppressed, there would also be no state apparatus, but a simple apparatus of social administration [215] of exploitation disappear will also the necessity of these transitory measures disappear, and the party will strive for their reduction and complete abolition.

3. Bourgeois democracy limited itself to extending, in a formal way, the political rights and freedoms, such as the freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, to all citizens. In reality, however, administrative policy and, even to a greater extent, the economic slavery of the workers under bourgeois democracy made it impossible for the people to enjoy these rights and freedoms to any considerable extent. In contradistinction, proletarian democracy replaces the formal proclamation of rights and freedoms by their actual establishment, and primarily for those classes who were suppressed by capitalism, that is, the proletariat and the peasantry. To that end, the Soviets expropriate printing establishments, paper stocks, etc., and put them at the exclusive disposal of the workers and their organizations. The task of the Communist party of the Soviet Union is to provide democratic rights and freedoms to ever larger masses of working people and to provide ever increasing economic possibilities for these rights and freedoms.

4. Bourgeois democracy, for centuries, proclaimed the equality of all people, regardless of sex, religion, race and nationality, but capitalism everywhere prevented this equality from becoming a reality, and in its imperialistic stage led to an acute intensification of the suppression of nationalities and races. Only because the power of the Soviets is the power of the working people, did it succeed, for the first time in the history of world, in making this equality a reality, in all fields, including the eradication of the last traces of inequality between man and woman in the field of marriage and family legislation. The task of the party is at present primarily an educational one; all traces of the previous inequality and previous prejudice, particularly among the backward strata of the proletariat and the peasantry, must be definitively eradicated. The party, not content with a formal equality of the woman, strives to free her from the burdens of the obsolete, domestic economy by replacing it by communes, public eating places, central laundries, nurseries, etc.

5. The Soviet power secures for the working masses, to an incomparably higher degree than was possible under bourgeois democracy and parliamentarism, the possibility of electing and recalling deputies [216] in a manner most easily accessible to workers and peasants; at the same time, it eliminates the negative aspects of parliamentarism, especially the separation of legislative and executive power, and the lack of any bonds between the representative bodies and the masses. The Soviet state takes the state apparatus to the people also by the fact that the election unit and the cell of the state is not the district of domicile, but the unit of production (mine, factory, etc.). It is the task of the party to bring about a still closer cooperation between the organs of power and the masses of workers by an ever stricter and more complete realization of democracy by the action of the masses, and particularly by the introduction of responsibility and obligatory accounting of officials concerning their activities.

6. While bourgeois democracy – its protestations to the contrary notwithstanding – made the army a tool of the ruling class and separated the army from the working people, setting it over against them, and made the exercise of their political rights difficult or impossible to the soldiers, the Soviets, on the other hand, combine the workers and soldiers on the basis of complete equality and common interests. It is the task of the part to defend and further develop this unity of the workers and soldiers in the Soviets, and to consolidate the bonds between the armed forces and the organizations of the proletariat.

7. The urban industrial proletariat, being the most concentrated, well-informed and battle-tested part of the working masses, has had a leading role in the whole revolution, as was shown in the development of the Soviets as well as in the whole course of their development into government organs. This leading role is reflected in the Soviet constitution in certain privileges which are granted the industrial proletariat as compared with the less organized petit-bourgeois masses of the country. The Communist party of the Soviet Union has to make clear the fact that these privileges, which are due to the difficulties of socialist organization in the open country, are of a transitory nature.

8. It was only due to the Soviet organization of the state that the proletarian revolution was capable of smashing and completely destroying the old bourgeois state machinery, the state apparatus of officials and judges.

However, the still relatively low cultural level of the broad masses, 6 the lack of administrative experience on the part of [217] individuals elected to posts of high responsibility, the necessity of calling on professionals of the old school in difficult situations, and the call into the army of the most highly developed stratum of the urban workers, have led to a partial redevelopment of bureaucracy within the Soviet order. 7

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6 The „still relatively low cultural level of the broad masses“ is a rationalistic concept of the biopathic human structure; it does in no way comprehend the fact that serfdom is deeply anchored physiologically, that it has become second nature, so that the masses go on reproducing their own suppression.

7 Here, the close connection between bureaucracy and human incapacity for freedom is obvious.

For the complete eradication of bureaucracy, the Communist party of the Soviet Union, which wages the most decisive fight against this evil, advocates the following means:

(1) Obligatory participation of every member of a Soviet in some aspect of the work of government administration.

(2) Consistent rotation of the Soviet members in this work, so that it gradually extends to all branches of administration.

(3) Gradual participation of the total working population in state administration.

The complete realization of all these measures which represents a further step on the path on which the Paris Commune set out, and a simplification of the administrative functions with a simultaneous raising of the cultural level of the workers, lead to the abolition of state power.

The following points of the program characterize Soviet democracy:

1. Local and provincial self-government, without any superimposed authority.

2. Independence of the masses.

3. Deprivation of political rights and restriction of freedom as a transitory means.

4. Not formal but factual granting of all rights and freedoms to all non-capitalistic classes.

5. Simple, direct vote.

6. The right to elect and recall the deputies.

7. Voting not according to districts of domicile but according to units of production.

8. Responsibility of officials and obligatory accounting to the Soviets of workers and peasants. [218]

9. Rotation of the Soviet members in the various branches of administration.

10. Gradual inclusion of the total working population in the state administration.

11. Simplification of administrative functions.

12. Abolition of state power.

In these historically decisive principles, one thought fights for clarification: that of simplifying social living in a factual manner. It remains bogged down, however, in formal political thinking. The nature of state politics itself is not yet clarified. True, the masses are given the framework of freedom, but they are as yet not confronted with factual social tasks. The fact is not mentioned that the masses of people cannot take over the state and (later on) the social administration, such as they are today. For the state-political thinking of today was originally created, by the first hierarchic representatives of the state, against the masses. No matter how much we talk about „democracy,“ politically we are still bogged down in the thought systems of the old Greek and Roman slave states. If social self-government is to become possible, more is needed than changing the form of the state. Social existence and its guidance must be altered according to the tasks and needs of the masses of people. Social self-regulation must gradually replace the state apparatus or take over its rational function.

5. „THE INTRODUCTION OF SOVIET DEMOCRACY“

Now, after the 8th Party Day of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had founded the Soviet democracy in 1919, the 7th Soviet Congress in January, 1935, proclaimed the „introduction of Soviet democracy“. What was the meaning of this nonsense?

Let us try to clarify this process by an illustration: 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 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 self-government of the working people. The simultaneous existence of the „dictatorship of the proletariat“ and of self-government 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 which has become strong enough to give the masses, without danger to itself, the illusion of freedom, precisely as did Hitler's National Socialism. The „introduction of Soviet democracy“ was not progress, but one of the many regressions to old forms of social living. What guarantees are there that the Soviet state apparatus will make itself superfluous by educating the masses in self-government? There is no use denying the fact: the Russian revolution met an obstacle which it did not recognize and consequently covered up with illusions. THIS OBSTACLE WAS THE BIOPATHIC HUMAN STRUCTURE. It would be senseless to „blame“ Stalin or anybody else; Stalin was only a tool of the circumstances. The process of social development looks easy only on paper. In hard reality, it keeps coming up against new, unrecognized difficulties; there are regressions and catastrophes; one has to learn to know and master them. One reproach, however, remains: A promising social plan must again and again be examined honestly. One must find out honestly whether the plan is wrong or whether something was overlooked in the development; then one can consciously change and improve the plan and master the development better. One can overcome the inhibition of the development toward freedom by mobilizing the thinking of the people. But political obfuscation of the masses with illusions is a social crime. When an honest mass leader finds himself in a blind alley he resigns. If nobody better can be found, he explains the difficulties honestly to the community, and a solution may be found after all, be it through the course of events, be it through the discoveries of individuals. But the politician is afraid of such honesty.

[224] From the standpoint of the international workers' movement, the reproach must be made that its struggle for a genuine democracy was made so much more difficult. Those seemed to be right who had always said, „The dictatorship of the proletariat is a dictatorship like any other. Now this is obvious enough, or why should they have to 'introduce democracy' now?“ An objective regression in the course of a development is often necessary and must be borne; but to camouflage such a regression with illusions by way of fascist methods of lying is unjustifiable. Imagine that Lenin, at the time of the introduction of the New Economic Policy in 1923 had said: „We have progressed from a lower phase of the proletarian dictatorship to a higher phase. The introduction of the NEP means a tremendous step forward on the path to communism“. Such a statement would have immediately undermined confidence in Soviet leadership. What Lenin really said was the following: „It is sad and cruel, but for the time being nothing else can be done. The economy of war communism has brought about unforeseen difficulties. We must take a step backward in order to go forward again all the more safely. We give private commerce some leeway in order to manage at all, but we know very well what we are doing“.

At the time of the „introduction of Soviet democracy“ such matter-of-course insight and frankness were missing. At that time, around 1935, it was more necessary than ever: it would have gained millions of friends all over the world; it would have made people think; it might even have prevented the pact with Hitler. As it was, Lenin's social democracy turned into the new Russian nationalism.

The Leningrad Krasnaya gazeta, the central organ of the Russian bolsheviks, wrote on February 4, 1935: All our love, our faith, our strength, our heart, our heroism, our life – all is for you, take it, great Stalin, everything is yours, leader of the great homeland. Command your sons, they can move in the air and under the earth, in the water and in the stratosphere [as if the sons of the „great German homeland“ or of the United States could not do that! – W.R.]. People of all times and nations will call your name the most magnificent, wisest and most beautiful. Your name is written on [225] every factory and machine, on every piece of ground, in every heart. When my beloved wife gives me a child, the first word I shall teach him will be: Stalin.

If anybody had predicted such a thing in 1918, he would have been called crazy. The Pravda of March 19, 1935, published an article, „Soviet patriotism,“ in which „socialist patriotism“ begins to vie with „fascist patriotism“: Soviet patriotism – the flaming feeling of infinite love, unconditional submission to one's own land, of deepest responsibility for its fate and its defense – rises mightily from the depth of our people. Never before has the heroic fight for one's own land risen to the skies as with us. The whole inimitable and miraculous history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, the whole history of the Soviet Union, shows what the workers are capable of when it is a matter of their home soil. In the illegal work, on the barricades, in the rush of Budenny's mounted army, in the rifle fire of the army of the revolution, in the humming of the factories of the socialist industry, in the work rhythm of the towns and villages, in the work of the communist party, sounds the great, immortal song of our 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, from the point of view of character structure, airplane construction in itself can have a reactionary as well as a work-democratic effect. It may serve to create nationalistic chauvinism if used by power-greedy politicians; it may also serve to transport masses of Germans to Russia, Russians to China or Germany, Americans to Germany or Italy, Chinese to America or Germany. Then, the German may learn [228] that he is not really so different from the Russian worker, or the English worker may learn to regard the Indian worker as something else than a born subject for exploitation.

This illustration shows again that the technical development of a society is not identical with its cultural development, and that human character structure represents a social force of itself, reactionary or internationally human, even if the technical base is the same in one or the other case. A purely economistic viewpoint is catastrophic and must be fought vigorously.

What is necessary is that the working masses learn no longer to be content with illusory gratifications – which always end up in some sort of fascism – but to consider actual gratification of the vital needs as a matter of course and to take the responsibility for it.

The social-democratically organized workers of Vi