Contents |
1. THEORY AND PRACTICE
Reactionary academic science postulates a separation of that which „is“ from that which „should be,“ of „recognizing“ from „acting“. Therefore, it feels itself „unpolitical,“ unpragmatic. Absolute logic even contends that from what „is“ it never follows what „should be“. The function of this restriction is that of enabling one to indulge serenely in academic research without having to draw the consequences which are inherent in any serious scientific insight. Consequences of scientific insights are always progressive and often revolutionary. To us, the formation of theoretical concepts is dictated by the necessities of actual life, by the necessity of solving practical problems. Such theoretical concepts lead to a better mastery of the practical tasks; more than that, to us a theory is of value only if it is confirmed in practice. The rest we leave to the intellectual gymnasts, to the guardians of the „higher values“. First of all, we have to overcome the basic failing of research in religion, that of getting bogged down in academic presentations which do not point any rational way. We agree with the many scientists who state that religious mysticism in all its forms means intellectual narrow-mindedness. We also agree with the many academic scientists who state that, in the course of centuries, the religiosity of people has come to be an instrument of power. We differ from them, however, in that we are determined to carry on a successful fight against mysticism and superstition, and to turn our knowledge into practice. Has natural science, we must ask, exhausted its possibilities in the fight against mysticism? Without any doubt, [146] it has not. Mysticism continues to keep the masses of people blind and dumb.
2. THE FIGHT AGAINST MYSTICISM TO DATE
In the development of mysticism and the fight against it, one can roughly distinguish four phases. The first phase is characterized by the complete lack of any scientific concepts; in their place, there are animistic concepts. The primitive tries to explain natural phenomena in an attempt to overcome his fear of the unknown. He seeks to protect himself against the overpowering forces of nature. This he achieves – subjectively though not objectively – by mysticism, superstition and animistic concepts of natural processes, including his inner, psychic processes. Thus he believes himself able to increase soil fertility by erecting phallic sculptures or to banish draught by urinating.
This situation remained basically unaltered in all peoples of the earth until, at the close of the Middle Ages, the ancient beginnings of a scientific comprehension of nature took on a serious character and began to threaten mysticism. In the course of the great bourgeois revolution a violent battle broke out against religion and for rationalism: The time approached when science would be able to replace mysticism in explaining nature, and when technics would be able to replace it in satisfying the human need for protection (second phase).
But after that, the former revolutionaries, once they had come to power, turned around and created a contradiction in the cultural process: On the one hand, they furthered scientific research with all possible means, because it advanced economic development; on the other hand, they turned mysticism into the most powerful tool for the suppression of millions of wage earners (third phase). This contradiction finds its tragicomic expression in such things as scientific films on „Nature and Love“ in which each section has two series of titles, such as: „The earth developed over millions of years due to mechanical and chemical cosmic processes,“ and below that, „In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth“. And there sit the learned [147] academicians, astronomers and chemists, placidly watching this idyllic harmony, convinced that „religion also has its good sides“. They are living examples of the separation of theory and practice. The consistent keeping away of scientific findings from the masses of people, and „monkey trials“ as they occurred in the USA, create and maintain humility, lack of criticism, renunciation and hope for happiness in a hereafter, belief in authority, recognition of the holiness of asceticism and the inviolability of the authoritarian family. The freethinkers' movement cannot make itself felt as a counterforce because it uses inadequate means; that is, only intellectual arguments. The church, on the other hand, enjoys the support of the state power and bases its mass-psychological influence on the most powerful emotion, sexual anxiety and sexual repression. This powerful emotional influence has no counterweight of even an approximately equal strength. To the extent to which the freethinkers engage in sexual policy, they do it again intellectually and usually within the narrow limits of population politics. At best, they include the advocation of economic equality of woman. But this has no effect against the powers of mysticism on a mass basis for in the majority of women the will to economic independence is unconsciously inhibited by the fear of the responsibility for sexual freedom which inevitably goes hand in hand with economic independence.
The difficulties of handling these emotional situations force the revolutionary freethinkers to push into the background the questions of „Weltanschauung“. They feel that treating these questions often results in the exact opposite of what was intended. This standpoint is justified in that there is no emotional force of corresponding power with which to oppose mysticism.
The Russian revolution brings the fight against religion to a much higher level. 1
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1 Cf., e.g., Schule und Kirche in Sowjetrussland, Süddeutsche Arbeiterzeitung, 9-26-1927; Stepanow, Kirche und Staat in der Sowjetrepublik, Jahrb.f.P.u.W., 1923-24; Taroslawski, Kirche und Staat, ibid., 1925-26; v.
The power is no longer in the hands of Muzak, Die Freidenkerbewegung in Russland, Der Freidenker, Nr. 6; v. Jakoby, Das Verhältnis von Kirche und Staat im neuen Russland, Neue Bahnen, 1928; Lenin, W. I., Ueber die Religion; Elgers, A., Die Kulturrevolution in der Sowjetunion, 1931; Kurella, A., Die sozialistische Kulturrevolution im 5-Jahresplan; Feodorow, Antireligiöse Propaganda im Dorf; Wogan, Sozialistischer Aufbau des Dorfes und die Religion.
[148] finance and the church, but of the Executive Committees of the Soviets. The anti-religious movement is put on a solid foundation, that of a collective economic reorganization. Now, for the first time it becomes possible on a mass scale to replace religion by natural science, to replace the illusory protection of superstition by technical achievement, to destroy mysticism by sociological elucidation of the function of mysticism.
The fight against religion takes place in three ways: by the withdrawal of the economic basis, that is, by direct economic means; by anti-religious propaganda, that is, by direct ideological means; and by raising the cultural level of the masses, that is, by indirect ideological means.
The enormous significance of the power apparatus of the church is evidenced by a few figures from Tsarist Russia. In 1905 the church possessed over four million acres of land. In 1903 the churches in Moscow owned 908 houses, the monasteries 146. The yearly income of the metropolitans in Kiev amounted to 84,000 rubles, in Petersburg to 259,000 rubles, in Moscow to 81,000 rubles, and in Nizhni-Novgorod to 307,000 rubles. The payments in kind and fees for individual religious performances cannot even be estimated. The taxpayers supported 200,000 people who were in the service of the church. The Troitskaya Lavra monastery, with an annual average of 100,000 pilgrims, possessed sacred vessels and garments to the value of 650 million rubles.
Based on this economic power, the church exerted its ideological power. It goes without saying that all schools were under the immediate control of the church. Article I of the Constitution stated, „The Tsar of all the Russians is the autonomous and absolute monarch, and God himself orders voluntary submission to his reign“. We know what is represented by „God,“ on what infantile emotions such presumptions of power are based. In Germany, Hitler reorganized the church in the same manner: he extended its power and invested it with the evil right of preparing the children's minds for the reception of reactionary ideologies. „Moral betterment“ is a frontline position of the „God-[149]sent“ Hitler. But to return to Tsarist Russia. In the religious seminaries and academies, there were special professorial chairs for the fight against the revolutionary movement. On January 9, 1905, the priests published a proclamation in which they accused the revolting workers of being bribed by the Japanese. The February revolution of 1917 brought only minor changes. All churches were put on an equal basis.
But the long-expected separation of church and state failed to materialize. In a church council of October 1917 the Bolshevists were excommunicated, and the patriarch Tikhon declared war on them.
On January 21, 1918, the Soviet Government issued a decree as follows:
With regard to religion, the Russian Communist Party is not content with the separation of the church from state and schools. This is a measure which is contained also in the programs of bourgeois democracies, although it has never been consistently put into practice, due to the numerous connections between capital and religious propaganda.
The Russian Communist Party is convinced that only the full development of social and economic consciousness in the masses will result in a decline of religious prejudices. The Party intends to eliminate all the connections between the exploiting classes and the organization of religious propaganda: it organizes a comprehensive scientific anti-religious propaganda and thus contributes in a factual manner to the liberation of the working masses from religious prejudices. In so doing, one must carefully avoid offending the sensibilities of religious people because this would only lead to an intensification of religious fanaticism.
In accordance with this, local ordinances which would restrict the freedom of religion or would create privileges for the members of a certain creed, are prohibited (Paragraph 2).
Every citizen may adopt any religion or none at all. All previous legal restrictions of this freedom are annulled.
Any indication as to religious denomination, to church membership or non-membership is to be eliminated from all official documents.
The activities of all public and social institutions will take place without any religious ceremonies (Par. 4).
[150] The free exercise of religious customs is guaranteed, provided it does not interfere with the public order and with the rights of citizens (Par. 5).
Nobody can claim exemption from his duties as a citizen on the basis of his religious beliefs. Exceptions can be granted only by the people's court and on the condition that one duty is replaced by another (Par. 6).
The religious oath is abolished (Par. 7).
The registers of birth, marriage and death are kept exclusively by the civil authorities (Par. 8).
The school is separated from the church.
The propagation of religious beliefs is prohibited in all public and private educational institutions with a curriculum of general education (Par. 9).
All religious and church societies are subject to the general laws pertaining to private societies and associations. They do not enjoy any special privileges or subsidies either from the state or from local authorities (Par. 10).
Compulsory taxation of its members by religious and church societies is inadmissible (Par. 11).
Religious and church societies enjoy no rights of private property, nor the status of legal personality (Par. 12).
Buildings and objects used for divine services are put at the disposal of religious societies free of charge, by special acts of the local or central authorities (Par. 13).
Priests, monks and nuns enjoy neither active nor passive voting rights because they do no productive work.
As early as December 18, 1917, the keeping of the civil registers was transferred to the Soviet authorities. The Commissariat for Justice established a division for the liquidation of church property. In the Troitskaya Lavra monastery, for example, an academy for the electrotechnical division of the Red Army and a teacher's training school were established. The lands of the monasteries were used for the establishment of workers' communes and the churches converted into workers' clubs and reading rooms. Anti-religious propaganda began with the unmasking of the fraudulent practices of the church hierarchy. The holy fountain in the [151] Sergius church was shown to be a simple pump, the forehead of many a saint, which the people were allowed to kiss for so and so much money was shown to be a cleverly arranged piece of leather. The effect of this unmasking, in the presence of large audiences, was prompt and radical. This propaganda was, of course, carried on with millions of pamphlets and newspapers. The establishment of anti-religious scientific museums made possible the comparison of the scientific and the superstitious concepts of life.
In spite of all this I heard in 1929 in Moscow that the only organized counter-revolutionary groups were the religious sects. The connection between religious sects and the sexual life of the sect members as well as the sexual structure of society in general, was almost completely neglected, both theoretically and practically, a fact which had serious consequences.
The contention, then, that the church in Soviet Russia was „destroyed“ has no basis in fact. The exercise of religious beliefs was free. All that happened was that the church lost its social and economic hegemony. It could no longer, beyond the circle of its believers, force people to believe in a God. Science and the unbelief in God had finally acquired the same social rights as mysticism. No longer could a church hierarchy decide that a scientist should be exiled. That was all. But the church did not let it rest there. Later, when the sexual revolution collapsed, that is, from about 1934 on, it regained large masses of people. 2
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2 [1945]: In 1944, the church was reinstated in its old Tsarist rights. Immediately, there were a number of reactionary marriage laws, non-recognition of common-law marriage, difficulties in obtaining a divorce, etc.
3. SEXUAL HAPPINESS VERSUS MYSTICISM
Destroying the power of the church exercised beyond its own domain can eliminate only the worst of its encroachments. Such a measure does not even touch its ideological power which is based on the receptivity of the average superstitious human structure. For this reason, the Soviets used the influence of science. It This is a development leading far behind that of say, American society. It is to be feared that American reactionaries will be quick to make capital of this.
[152] should be remembered, however, that scientific information and unmasking of religion does no more than set an intellectual – though strong – force over against the mystical feelings; the rest is left to the fight between intellect and mystical feeling in the individual. This fight succeeds only in relatively rare individuals who already have matured on a different basis. That it fails not infrequently even in them is shown in that even clear-cut materialists give in to their religious feelings in one way or another, such as compulsive praying. The clever advocate of religion will argue from this that it proves the eternal and ineradicable character of religious feeling. The argument is faulty. Such phenomena show only that, while the religious feeling is opposed by the power of the intellect, its sources have not been touched. The mystical feeling could be eradicated if not only the social hegemony of the church were eliminated and the mystical feeling were countered by an intellectual force; if, in addition, the emotions which feed the mystical feeling were themselves made conscious and capable of being expressed. Clinical experience shows beyond any doubt that religious feeling stems from inhibited sexuality, that mystical excitation is the result of inhibited sexual excitation. From this follows the incontrovertible conclusion that full sexual consciousness and a natural regulation of sexual life mean the end of mystical feelings of any kind, that, in other words, natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of mystical religion. The church, by making the fight against sexuality the center of its dogmas and of its influence over the masses, confirms this concept.
Saying that sexual consciousness is the end of mysticism means reducing extremely complex facts to the simplest formula. We shall soon see that, as simple as this formula is, its basis and the conditions for its practical realization are extremely complex; that it takes all the scientific data at our disposal, and the deepest conviction of the necessity of the most relentless fight against mysticism, if one is to meet the artful apparatus of mysticism with adequate countermeasures. But the final result will one day repay the effort.
[153] In order to evaluate properly the difficulties which stand in the way of the practical realization of this simple formula, one has to understand some fundamental facts in the psychic organization of the average individual who has gone through a sex-suppressing upbringing. When some cultural organizations in the Catholic West of Germany refused to take part in the sex-economic fight against mysticism because, as they said, they had met with no success, this does not disprove my concept; it only shows the apprehensiveness, the fear of sexuality and the sex-economic inexperience of those who tried the undertaking, and the lack of patience and thoroughness in understanding and mastering a very complicated situation. If I were to tell a Christian woman who is in sexual difficulties that she was sexually ill and that only sexual happiness would relieve her psychic suffering, she would, rightly, show me the door. Not only does every individual have contradictions in himself which one must understand; the problem is different in different countries and different districts, and therefore requires different solutions. Undoubtedly, these difficulties will diminish with increasing sex-economic experience, but only practical endeavor can eliminate them. The most important thing is to realize the correctness of our basic formula and to comprehend the true nature of the difficulties. Mysticism having dominated humanity for thousands of years, it can expect of us beginners that we do not underestimate it, that we comprehend it correctly and show ourselves better informed and cleverer than its representatives.
4. THE INDIVIDUAL ERADICATION OF THE MYSTICAL FEELING
A comprehension of the biopsychic anchoring of mysticism can provide guiding principles for a mass mental hygiene. The changes shown by a mystical individual in the course of character-analytic treatment are of decisive importance. Clearly, they cannot be simply and directly applied to the masses; but they do disclose the conflicts, the forces and counterforces, in the average individual.
I have shown in what way the mystical feelings and concepts [154] become anchored. We shall now try to follow the opposite process, the eradication of mysticism.
In a typical manner, the mystical attitude appears, to begin with, as a powerful resistance against the uncovering of unconscious psychic life, in particular, of repressed genitality. Characteristically enough, the mystical defense is directed much less against pregenital impulses than against the natural genital impulses, especially against infantile masturbation. The patient clings desperately to his ascetic, moralistic and mystical attitudes and concepts; he intensifies the anthesis between that which is „moral“ and that which is „animal,“ that is, naturally genital; he fights against his own genital sexuality by depreciating it moralistically. He accuses the therapist of „gross, base materialism“ and of a lack of appreciation for „higher values“. In brief, to him who knows the political argumentation of the mystics and fascists and the „scientific“ argumentation of the characterologists, all this sounds like an old story; in fact, it is all one and the same thing. Typically, the fear of God and the moralistic defense become intensified as soon as one succeeds in loosening a bit of sexual repression. If one succeeds in overcoming the infantile fear of masturbation, if, as a result, the desire for genital gratification makes itself strongly felt, intellectual insight and the affirmation of sexuality begin to gain the upperhand. To the extent to which the fear of sexuality and the old parental sexual prohibitions disappears, to the same extent does the mystical credulity disappear.
What has happened in such a case? Previously the patient had utilized mysticism for keeping the sexual desires in repression. His personality was too apprehensive, too much alienated from its own sexuality, to be able to control and regulate the powerful natural forces. On the contrary, the more he fought off his sexuality, the stronger became its demands and the more intensely he had to put to use his moralistic and mystical inhibitions.
In the course of the treatment the infantile dependence on parents and educators was more and more eliminated; the patient recognized the naturalness of genitality; he learned [155] to distinguish what parts of his impulses were infantile and anachronistic, and what parts were in keeping with real life. The religious youth, e.g., will soon recognize the fact that his exhibitionistic or other perverse tendencies reflect partly a regression to infantile forms of sexuality, partly the inhibition of his natural genitality. He will also realize that his desire for sexual intercourse is not only in keeping with his age and natural organization, but that its gratification is necessary. He no longer needs the crutch of a belief in an Almighty God and of a moralistic inhibition. He becomes master in his own house and learns to regulate his sexual energies himself.
Character-analysis liberates him from the infantile submission to the authority of the father and those who take his place. The strengthening of the personality dissolves the God-fixation which is a continuation of the father-fixation. When, finally, character-analytic vegetotherapy enables the patient to establish a satisfactory love life, mysticism loses its last foothold. In this case, clerics get into great difficulties, because they can no longer, with conviction, continue in a profession which has affected their health in ways they know from experience. They have no other choice than to change their profession and to become teachers or social workers.
These changes in the mystical individual will remain hidden only to those analysts who either do not understand their patients' genital disturbance or who agree with a well-known psychoanalyst and minister who stated that „the probe of psychoanalysis should not be allowed to go into the unconscious any more deeply than is permitted by ethics“. With this kind of „unpolitical,“ „objective“ science we do not want anything to do, any more than with that kind of science which, assiduously fighting the revolutionary consequences of sex-economy as „politics,“ at the same time advises mothers to fight the erections of their little boys with exercises in holding their breath. The problem in such cases is what goes on in the physician who can reconcile such measures with his conscience, who becomes a cleric in a vain attempt to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the reaction.
[156] We do not discuss the existence or non-existence of God; all we do is to eliminate the sexual repressions and the infantile fixation on the parents. The destruction of mysticism is not a goal in itself. The therapist treats mysticism like any other psychic fact which aids sexual repression and absorbs the natural energies. The sex-economic process, then, does not consist in opposing the mystical ideology with a „materialistic, anti-religious“ ideology. Such ideological manipulation is explicitly avoided, since it would not alter the biopathy. The process is, rather, that of unmasking the mystical attitude as an antisexual force and of liberating the energies which nourish it, of making them available for rational use. The patient, previously moralistic in his ideology and perverse, lascivious and neurotic in reality, becomes free of this contradiction in himself; with his moralism he also loses his sexual anti-sociality and acquires a natural morality in the sex-economic sense. The inadequate moralistic and mystical inhibitions are replaced by sex-economic regulation of the sexual needs.
From its own standpoint, then, mysticism is entirely correct if, in order to maintain itself and in order to reproduce itself in people, it takes such a strong stand against sexuality. It is wrong only in one of its premises and in its most important justification: Its „morals“ create the very perverted sexual life which it presumes to regulate moralistically; and the elimination of these „morals“ is the prerequisite for an elimination of that immorality which it tries in vain to fight. This is the inexorable tragedy of any kind of moralism and mysticism. The uncovering of the sex-economic processes which nourish religious mysticism means its end, sooner or later, no matter what the mystics do.
Sexual consciousness and mystical feeling are mutually exclusive. From the point of view of energy, natural sexuality and mystical feeling are identical, as long as natural sexuality is repressed and its energies are transformed into mystical excitation.
These sex-economic facts have inevitable consequences for a mass mental hygiene. These we shall present after discussing some frequent objections.
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5. OBJECTIONS TO SEX-ECONOMIC PRACTICE
Sex-economic practice shows that economists argue against sex-economy because of its „exaggeration of the sexual problem,“ and that they use the least difficulties, many of which are inevitable in such a new field, as grounds to throw out the whole field. To begin with, these opponents of sex-economy have no reason for any jealousy. Sex-economic cultural work does not mean any encroachment on their domain, or a restriction of their field of work; its goal is the comprehension of a hitherto completely neglected but extremely important part of the cultural process. The sex-economic fight is part of the total fight of the suppressed and exploited against the suppressors and exploiters. To try to make an armchair decision on what will be the place of this fight in the struggle of the working people would mean indulgence in scholastic discussion. Up to now, in the discussions of the role and significance of sex-economy, it has been customary, instead of reaching a conclusion from practice, to postulate a rivalry between economic policy and sexual policy. Such discussions are a waste of time. When all professional workers do their utmost in the fight against dictatorial forms, when every worker masters his own field of work, then all discussions about the social significance of the various branches of work will become superfluous because this significance will become self-evident. It is important to remember the basic fact that the economic forms also determine the sexual forms, and that the conditions of sexual living cannot be changed without changing the economic and social forms of living.
The empty objection is continually made that sex-economy is „individualistic“ and therefore of no use for social endeavors. There are many slogans which are long-lived and which can be eliminated only by radical means.
True, the method by which sex-economic findings are obtained is „individualistic“. But, does the social suppression of sexuality not apply to all members of our society? Is the prevailing sexual misery not collective? Is the social fight against tuberculosis individualistic because the study [158] of tuberculosis is carried out in the individual patient? Up to now, the revolutionary movement has made the serious mistake of considering sexuality a „private matter“. But it is not a private matter to political reaction which always proceeds on two fronts simultaneously: that of economic politics, and that of „moral revival“. The movement for freedom, thus far, has proceeded on a single front. It is a matter of mastering the sexual problem on a social scale, of changing the backstage of personal living into mass mental hygiene, of including the sexual problem in the total fight, instead of restricting oneself to population politics. The revolutionary movement made the mistake of applying the political slogans from trade union politics and from the political struggle to all other fields of social life, instead of developing, in each field of human life and activity, a concept and policy which would correspond to that particular field. Thus, the leading officials of the German sex-political organization proposed, in 1932, to exclude the sexual question and to „mobilize“ the masses, in the sexual field, with the slogan „against hunger and cold“. They opposed the sexual question with the „social question,“ as if the sexual question were not part and parcel of the total social complex!
Population politics, to which the sexual reform movement restricts itself, are, in the strict sense of the word, not sex-political. They are not concerned with the regulation of the sexual needs, but only with the increase of birth rate. True, this makes the sexual act necessary, but otherwise they have nothing to do with sexuality in the social and biological sense. The population as a whole is not in the least interested in questions of population politics. They are interested in the legal aspect of abortion not for reasons of population politics but for reasons of personal need. To the extent to which the abortion paragraph leads to worries, misery and death, it is a problem of general social politics. It becomes a sex-political issue only when it is clearly realized that the paragraph is violated because people must have sexual intercourse, whether they want children or not. This has been completely overlooked although it is, emotionally, the most important [159] aspect of the problem. If anyone were to say to the masses today, „You complain about the disease and the deaths brought about by the abortion paragraph. Well – you don't have to have sexual intercourse,“ he would be laughed at. People are not interested in population politics. No sexual reform or sex policy movement makes sense unless it advocates, clearly and openly, the necessity of a satisfactory sex life. To the average man or woman of every social stratum, their sexual needs which are constantly on their minds are much more important than statistics concerning the deaths resulting from the abortion paragraph. The former appeals to their most personal interests, the latter presuppose a social conscience, something which cannot always be expected to be present in the human of today. In the field of the satisfaction of hunger, one appeals, propagandistically, to the personal needs and not to abstract social or political concepts; in the sex-economic field, this should be just as self-evident. The sexual problem, then, far from being individualistic, is a mass problem, a primordial problem of social life and mass mental hygiene.
A more serious objection is one which might be made by a psychoanalyst. He might say that it was altogether Utopian to utilize the sexual misery of people „politically“ in the way in which material misery is utilized, because in the treatment of the individual, it takes months and years of toil to make the patient conscious of his sexual needs; because the moralistic inhibitions are anchored just as deeply as the sexual demands and they have the upper hand. How, he will ask, will it be possible to overcome sexual repression in the masses if one does not have a mass technique corresponding to the individual analytic technique? This objection has to be taken seriously. But if such objections had kept me from starting practical sex-economic work with the masses which gave me invaluable experience, I would have had to agree with those who push aside sex-economy as an „individualistic“ problem and who wait for a second Messiah to solve the problem. A psychiatrist told me once that my work would amount to nothing but superficial enlightenment which would not touch the deep-seated sex-repressing forces. In the begin-[160]ning, I could not have answered these objections. The answers were provided, however, by practical experience.
To begin with, we must realize that the task of sex-economic mass hygiene is different from that of individual vegetotherapeutic treatment. In the latter, we have to eliminate repressions and establish biological health.
This is not the task of social sex-economy. Its task is that of making conscious the conflict and the suffering in the suppressed mass individual. People know that they are „moral“. But they are not conscious of the fact that they have a sexuality which must be gratified; or, if they know it, this knowledge is inhibited to such an extent that it no longer has any practical consequence. One might object again that making people conscious of their sexual needs requires individual work on their repressions. But again, the problem is different on the mass basis than in individual therapy. Practical experience shows the following: If I talk with a sexually inhibited woman in my office about her sexual needs, she will mobilize her whole moral apparatus against me, and I shall not be able to convince her of anything. If, however, this same woman is exposed to a mass atmosphere, for example that of a meeting in which sexual needs, in their medical and social aspects, are clearly and openly discussed, she will react altogether differently. She does not feel alone. She feels that all the others also listen to these „prohibited“ things. Her individual moral inhibition is countered by a collective atmosphere of sexual affirmation, by a new, sex-economic morality. This will paralyze – though not eliminate – her sex negation, because, secretly, she has the same thoughts, because secretly she also longs for sexual happiness. The mass situation makes the sexual demand appear in a different light: it becomes more strongly conscious and becomes socially acceptable. If discussed correctly, it is a much more potent argument than that of the demand for asceticism; more human, closer to the heart of everybody, and, deep down, affirmed by everyone. It is, then, not a matter of giving immediate help. It is a matter of making the suppression conscious, of setting the fight between sexuality and mysticism into the focus of consciousness, of arousing it with the [161] pressure of a mass ideology and of channeling it into social action. One might say that such an undertaking was diabolical, for what one did was to push people into the greatest difficulties, was to make them really sick without being able to help them. One is reminded of Pallenberg's saying in „Der brave Sünder“: „A poor devil is man. He only does not know it. If he knew it, what a poor devil would he be!“
The answer is: The political reaction and mysticism are infinitely more diabolical. For the rest, the same objection holds with regard to hunger. The Chinese coolie, for example, who carries his yoke unconsciously and in resignation, suffers less inwardly than he who is aware of the terrible state of affairs and consciously rebels against slavery. But who would demand that, for reasons of humanity, one should keep from the coolie the truth about his existence? Only the mystic, his fascist guiding spirit or a Chinese professor of sociology. This „humanity“ means perpetuating its opposite. Our lack of „humanity“ is the fight for that about which the uplifters talk so much only to let themselves be immediately „gleichgeschaltet“ when a fascist reaction happens to occur. We admit: consistent sex-economic work brings silent suffering to the surface, it accentuates existing conflicts and creates new ones, it makes people incapable of tolerating their situation any longer. But at the same time it provides liberation: the possibility of fighting against the social causes of the suffering. True, sex-economic work touches upon the most difficult, most exciting and most personal aspects of human living. But, does not the mystical infestation of the masses do the same thing? What matters is, to what purpose one or the other is being done. He who has seen the light in the eyes of people in sex-economic meetings; he who has listened to and had to answer thousands of questions of a most personal nature, knows that here is social dynamite which can make this world of self-destruction stop and think. True, however, if this work should be done by „revolutionaries“ who vie with the church in the advocacy of moralistic mysticism; who consider answering sexual questions „beneath the sublime quality of the revolutionary ideology“; who do away [162] with such things as infantile masturbation as a „bourgeois invention“; who, in brief, in spite of their „Leninism“ and „Marxism“ are essentially reactionary, then, indeed, it might easily appear that my concepts are erroneous, for then the masses would immediately react with sex negation.
We shall have to say a few words more about the role of the moralistic resistance which we meet in our work. We have said that the moralistic inhibitions – which today, in contrast to the sexual demands, have the support of the total sex-negating atmosphere of authoritarian society – can be put out of operation by the creation of an opposite, sex-affirmative ideology. People can become capable of absorbing sex-economic knowledge and can thus be removed from the sphere of influence of mysticism and of the reactionary forces. Clearly, such an atmosphere of sex-affirmation can be created only by a powerful international sex-economic organization. It was impossible to convince the leadership of political parties that this would be one of their main tasks. In the meantime, politics themselves have been shown to be reactionary irrationalism. Thus we know that we cannot count on any political party. The task lies in the framework of natural work-democratic development.
Up to this point, we have mentioned only the mute, unexpressed needs of the mass individuals as a possible basis for our endeavors. These would be insufficient. Between the turn of the century and the first world war, these needs and their suppression were also in existence; nevertheless, a sex-economic movement would have had little chance of success in that period. Since then, some objective social prerequisites of sex-economic work have come about which it is necessary to know and understand thoroughly. The fact alone that in Germany, between the years of 1931 and 1933, a great number of sex-economic organizations, of diverse forms and tendencies, developed, points to the development of new concepts as part of the total social process. One important contributing factor was the creation of huge industrial plants with armies of workers and employees. This shook the very pillars of the moralistic and antisexual tradi-[163]tion, the small economic unit and the family. The second world war has already accelerated this process tremendously. The women and girls working in factories have developed freer concepts of sexual living than the authoritarian parental home allowed them to develop. While the industrial workers as a whole had always been more accessible to sex affirmation, the disintegration of authoritarian moralism also pervaded the middle classes to an ever-increasing degree. If one compares the middle class youth of today with that of 1910, it is easy to see that the chasm between the actuality of sexual living and social sexual ideology has become unbridgeable. The ideal of the ascetic girl has become something to be ashamed of, let alone the ideal of the sexless male. Even in the middle classes, more honest and open attitudes toward compulsive marital faithfulness become more and more frequent. The industrial mode of production made the contradictions of reactionary sexual politics obvious. A return to the old harmony between actual living and ascetic ideology – as it was still common around the turn of the century – is impossible. As a sex-economist, one is aware of the thorough disintegration of the moralistic ascetic forms of living, no matter how vociferously they may still be advocated. The collectivization of life, particularly among youth, has not only undermined the restrictive powers of the authoritarian parental home; it has also created in the youths of today a yearning for scientific facts in the fight for sexual health, a yearning for sexual consciousness and natural health. Around the turn of the century, it was inconceivable that Christian women would join birth control organizations; today it is commonplace. This process, in its totality, was not interrupted by the advent of fascism in Germany; it was only driven underground. The question remains how this process will develop if fascist mentality, after the destruction of organized fascism, is going to last longer than we have reason to fear anyhow.
Further, related objective facts are the rapid increase of neurotic and biopathic diseases as an expression of a disturbed sexual economy, and the accentuation of the conflict between actual [164] sexual demands on the one hand and old moralistic inhibition and education on the other. The rapid increase of the biopathies 3 leads to an increased recognition of the sexual causation of many diseases.
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3 Cf. Thorburn, Wm. F., „Mechanistic medicine and the biopathies“. Internat. J. of Sex-economy and Orgone-Research 1, 1942, 257.
The most important fact, from the point of view of practical sex-economy, is the impotence of political reaction in the face of sex-economic work. It is a well-known fact that in public libraries, the sexological trash is read more avidly than anything else. This provides a measure of the importance of the problem of sex-economy if it succeeds in rationally guiding this enormous interest. The Fascists can dupe the masses, mystical and authoritarian as they are, for a considerable period of time by pretending that they are advocating the right to work and the right of the workers. But it is different in the sex-economic field. Political reaction can never succeed in countering a revolutionary sex-economic program by a reactionary sex-political program other than by complete suppression and negation of sexual life. Such a program would immediately repulse the masses, with the exception of politically insignificant groups of old women and hopelessly dessicated individuals. It is youth that matters. And youth is no longer on a mass basis accessible to a sex-negating ideology. This is our strength. In 1932, sex-economic organizations in Germany succeeded in gaining the support of organizations which had remained for years resistant to the propaganda of the „Red Union“. It is clear that sex-economic mass hygiene must become an integral part of the general social freedom movements. But the fact must be kept in mind that there are fascist workers, employees and students who are in entire agreement with the revolutionary affirmation of sexuality, which brings them into conflict with their leadership. What could this leadership do if one were to succeed in solving this conflict? Nothing but use terror. To the same extent it would lose in influence. To repeat, the objective loosening of the reactionary fetters on sexuality cannot be undone, and this represents our greatest strength.
[165] There is, of course, the possibility that, if the revolutionary movement does not master this field, youth will have to continue leading a secret life as before, without being conscious of the causation and of the consequences of such living. If sex-economic work were done consistently and correctly, political reaction would have no answer, no ideology with which to counter it. Its ascetic ideology is tenable only as long as the element of sex affirmation in the masses is secret and contradictory, as long as it is not collectively opposed to the reactionary ideology.
German fascism made every possible effort to anchor itself in the psychic structure, and therefore placed the greatest emphasis on the conversion of adolescents and children. To do this, it had at its disposal no other means than the creation and the nurturing of submissiveness to authority the basic prerequisite of which is an ascetic, sex-negating upbringing. The natural sexual strivings for the other sex, strivings which from infancy on urge for gratification, were replaced partly by homosexual and sadistic strivings, partly by asceticism. There was, for instance, the „spirit of comradeship“ in the work service camps, and the cultivation of the so-called „spirit of discipline and self-sacrifice“. These measures served the purpose of mobilizing sadistic brutality to be utilized in the imperialistic war. Sadism derives from unsatisfied orgastic longing. The facade is called „comradeship,“ „honor,“ „voluntary discipline“; behind it is secret rebellion because of the suppression of any individual life, in particular, of a sexual life. A consistent sex-economic policy must set this sexual deprivation into focus; in so doing, it will have the liveliest response among the young people. The fascist leader will be perplexed and helpless in the face of this response. It is easy to see why the average youth can easily be made conscious of his sexual deprivation. Experience among youth shows that adolescents, particularly girls, comprehend their social responsibility much more quickly, readily and affectively if one explains it to them by way of making them conscious of their sexual suppression. It is only a matter of correctly comprehending the sexual question and of going on from there to the general [166] social situation. This can be substantiated with thousands of examples. One should not be intimidated by empty objections and should let oneself be guided by sex-economic experience alone.
What answer would political reaction have to such a query as the following from German youth?
The inclusion of German youth in the labor service has interfered tremendously with their private and sexual life. Urgent questions have to be solved; there are serious conditions everywhere. The situation is made all the more serious by a general hesitation on the part of the adolescents to bring up their personal problems, burning as they may be, for discussion; in addition, the camp administration prohibits the discussion of any such questions. But it is a matter of the psychic and physical health of the youths!
What is the sex life of the adolescents in the camps like?
The labor service youths are at the age of flourishing sexuality. Most of them previously had been maintaining a satisfactory love relationship. True, their love life was even then impeded by the lack of rooms which would make a healthy love life possible, by the lack of money for proper contraceptives, by the enmity of the state authorities and the reactionaries. But this situation has been made ever so much worse by the labor service. There are all of the following things, and others:
No chance of getting together with girls, of maintaining the old love relationships;
Being forced into abstinence or masturbation;
This leads to a disintegration and brutalization of sexuality, the weedlike growth of dirty jokes and talk, the cancer-like growth of unhealthy, paralyzing phantasies (of rape, beating and all kinds of perversions);
Nocturnal emissions which undermine health and give no satisfaction;
Development of homosexual tendencies and of homosexual relations between fellows who previously had never thought of such things; being pestered by homosexuals;
Increased nervousness, irritability, neurotic states and physical complaints.
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Dangers for the future.
Every adolescent, particularly at this age of between seventeen and twenty-five, who lacks a satisfactory sex life is threatened with a later disturbance of potency which always leads to depression and a reduction of the ability to work. If an organ or a natural function is not used for a long time, it will refuse to function later on. The usual results are nervous and mental disease, and perversions.
What should our attitude be toward the measures and decrees of the administration in these matters?
The leadership keeps talking in general terms of „moral strengthening of youth“. We don't understand what that means. In the course of the years, German youth, in a hard struggle against the parental home and the bosses of the system, have begun to establish their right to a healthy sex life. True, under present social conditions they succeeded only partially. But their idea was clear: Youth has to fight, will all possible means, against the sexual hypocrisy, intolerance and indecency which result from the sexual oppression of youth. Their idea was that girls and boys are to live in good intellectual and sexual companionship, and that it is the duty of society to help them to do so. What is the attitude of the new German Reich?
Its decrees, thus far, are at strict variance with the concepts worked out by youth. The prohibition of the public sale of contraceptives has made it impossible to get them. Measures such as that of the Hamburg police against sport people, their threatening them with the concentration camp for „offending public morals“ is at variance with our rights. Is it „offending public morals“ when a boy sleeps with his girl?
We ask the Reich Administration for German Youth: What kind of a sexual life is youth to lead? There are only four possibilities:
1. Abstinence. Is youth supposed to live in abstinence, that is, to abstain from any sexual activity until marriage?
2. Masturbation. Is youth supposed to indulge in self-gratification?
3. Homosexuality. Is German youth supposed to engage in homosexual activity? If so, what kind? Mutual masturbation? Pederasty?
4. Natural love life. Should there be natural sexual relationships between German boys and girls? Should they affirm and further natural sexuality?
If so, we ask the following questions:
Where shall this love life take place (problem of housing)?
[168] When is it to take place?
What is to be done about contraceptives?
Is the adolescent allowed to do the same thing as the leader?
Similar questions apply to the work with children. It may sound strange, and incomprehensible to many, but it is a fact: Revolutionary work with children can be essentially only sex-economic work. Why are children of pre-adolescent age most easily guided by sexual education?
1. In all social strata, including those in which material needs play an outstanding role, the period of childhood more than any other is filled with sexual interests. While dire material need and hunger are acute problems for only a part of the children, sexual suppression affects every single child of every social stratum. This makes the social sphere of attack enormous.
2. The usual methods of the freedom movements in organizing children are the reactionary methods of work with children: group plays, singing, marching, uniforms, bands, etc. The average child makes no distinction in content between the reactionary and the revolutionary forms of propaganda. One should have no illusions: children and adolescents will march as readily to the sound of a fascist band tomorrow as they march today to the sound of a democratic band. In addition, political reaction is much better at organizing group propaganda among children than the antifascist movement ever was. This was shown in the fact that the Socialist movement in Germany was always very weak as compared with the reactionaries in their work with children.
3. Although the reactionary work with children may be more efficient in everything else, there is one thing it cannot do under any circumstances: Give the children true sexual knowledge, free them from sexual confusion.
This only the revolutionary movement can do. First, because it has no interest in the sexual suppression of children, it has only the opposite interest; second, because the revolutionary movement was always the advocate of a consistent natural upbringing. This mighty weapon, however, [169] remained unused; more than that, the children's organizations in Germany showed a definite aversion to changing the customary individual sexual enlightenment into a mass measure. In a tragicomic manner, these opponents of sex-economic work among children pointed to Marx and Lenin. True, their writings contained nothing about sex-economy. But there was the fact that the children, en masse, fell victim to the influence of political reaction. In spite of great difficulties, the possibilities of sex-economic work with children are enormous because the children will show a burning interest. Once children and adolescents are reached on a mass basis through their sexual interests, there will be a powerful counterweight against the reactionary forces: political reaction will be powerless.
For the doubters and those who are moralistically concerned about the „purity“ of the children, one need cite only two practical experiences out of many: First: the church is not so scrupulous. A boy of fifteen, who had left a fascist organization to join the Communist youth, reported that in the former organization a priest would have a private talk with every individual boy once a week in which he would question him about his sexual behavior. Regularly, he asked them whether they had masturbated, which, of course, was the case and guiltily admitted. The priest then would say: „This is a great sin, indeed, my boy. But you can atone for it by working for the church industriously. Go and distribute these pamphlets tomorrow“. Such is the sex-political practice of mysticism. We, on the other hand, are „inhibited,“ „pure,“ do not want to have anything to do with „such things“. And then we are surprised that mysticism gets hold of the majority of adolescents.
Second: the sex-economic work group in Berlin had collectively outlined a booklet to be used in the work with children, entitled, DAS KREIDEDREIECK. VEREIN ZUR ERFORSCHUNG DER GEHEIMNISSE DER ERWACHSENEN triangle. Association for the discovery of the adults' secrets). Before going to press with it, it was decided to read it to a group of children to study their reaction. One could have wished that all those who turn up [170] their noses in contempt at the mention of social sex-economy had been present. To begin with, there were seventy children present, instead of the usual twenty. While ordinarily it was difficult to get the children's attention, now they were all ears, their faces expressed rapt attention. At many points, the reading was interrupted by loud applause. At the end, the children were asked for their criticism and suggestions. A great many responded. One had good reason to be ashamed of one's prudishness and hesitation. The teachers who were among the authors had decided to omit the topics of contraception and infantile masturbation. Promptly there were questions like, „Why don't you say anything about how one avoids getting children?“ while a boy laughingly interjected, „That we know anyhow“. „What's that, a harlot? Nothing was said about that“. „Tomorrow we'll go to the Christians,“ they said enthusiastically, „they always talk about such things. We'll show them“. „When is the book going to come out? How much will it be? Will it be cheap enough so we can buy it and also distribute it?“ The part which had been read dealt mostly with sex information; the children were told that a second part was planned which would deal with social problems. The immediate reaction was, „When will the second volume come out? Will that also be so entertaining?“ When did a group of children ever ask so enthusiastically for social literature? Should this not teach us something? Yes, there is no doubt: By the affirmation of their sexual interests and the gratification of their urge for knowledge, the children must be educated to social responsibility. They must get the conviction that that is something which political reaction cannot give them. In this way, one will win them on a mass basis, will immunize them, in all countries, against reactionary influences, and will make them part of the revolutionary freedom movement. For the time being, however, this task is impeded not only by political reaction but also by the moralists in the freedom movement.
Another important sex-economic task is the clarification of the sexual situation which has been created anew in Germany by the relegation of women from industry back to the hearth. It must [171] become clear that the freedom of woman means, first of all, sexual freedom. It must be realized that to a great many women, economic dependence on the man is a burden not in itself but essentially because of the sexual restriction that goes with it. This is also shown by the fact that women who have repressed their sexuality to such an extent that they are not aware of any sexual needs not only tolerate their economic dependence without conflict, but even affirm it. If economic dependence on the man is to be utilized politically, then the arousing of sexual consciousness in women and their knowledge of the result of sexual abstinence are the most important prerequisites.
If these are not fulfilled by the sex-economic organizations then the new wave of sexual suppression in fascism will make the women unaware of their economic slavery. In Germany and other highly industrialized countries, the objective social prerequisites of a stormy rebellion of women and adolescents against the sexual reaction are given. Absolutely consistent sex-economic work in this field would finally eliminate a problem which again and again occupies the freethinkers and the politicians, without their finding the answer: the problem of why women and adolescents show such an incomparably greater readiness to follow political reaction. No other field shows so clearly the social function of sexual suppression, the close connection between sexual repression and a reactionary political attitude.
Finally, an objection which is difficult to answer: True, the sexual problem is the most burning problem among the masses; but does that mean that this interest can be utilized for the social revolution which requires such great sacrifices? Will not the masses insist on getting sexual freedom immediately once they are conscious of their sexual oppression? The more difficult the task is, the more imperative is it to scrutinize thoroughly every objection. One must guard against wishful thinking and against taking for practicable what is only in itself correct. In the fight against hunger, the decisive factor is not one's burning wish to eliminate it, but whether or not the objective prerequisites are given. The question, then, is whether the sexual interest and the sexual misery of the masses can be translated, like the gross material [172] misery, into social action against the system which creates the misery. We have mentioned some practical experiences and the theoretical considerations which indicate that what succeeds in individual groups, in individual mass meetings, must be possible also on a mass basis. But we failed to mention some indispensable prerequisites. They are: A unification of the workers' movement in itself; without this, the sex-economic work can have only a preparatory character; the creation of an international sex-economic organization which would organize and carry out the practical realization; a number of thoroughly trained leaders of the movement. For the rest, one should not try to solve in advance every problem to the last detail; that would be only confusing and paralyzing. The practical details will be solved in the course of practical work.
6. THE UNPOLITICAL INDIVIDUAL
Hitler not only based his power originally on masses which previously had been essentially unpolitical; he also achieved his final victory in March, 1933, in a „legal“ manner, by the mobilization of not less than five million of previous non-voters, that is, unpolitical people. The Leftist parties had made every effort to win the indifferent masses, without asking themselves what being „indifferent“ or „unpolitical“ means.
When an industrialist is clearly Rightist, this is understandable on the basis of his immediate economic interests. A Leftist orientation in him would be at variance with his social situation and would, therefore, be irrationally motivated. When an industrial worker is Leftist, this again is consistent with his economic and social position. If, on the other hand, a worker or employee has a Rightist orientation, it is for want of political clarity, because of an ignorance of his social position. The more unpolitical an individual belonging to the great masses of working people is, the more accessible he is to the ideology of political reaction. It is erroneous to believe that this being-unpolitical is a passive psychic condition. On the contrary, it is a highly active attitude, a defense against the awareness of social responsibility. An analysis of this attitude throws light on many aspects of the behavior of the [173] unpolitical masses. The average intellectual who „does not want to have anything to do with politics“ is motivated by immediate economic interests and fear for his existence, dependent as it is on public opinion; out of this fear, he sacrifices knowledge and conviction to a grotesque degree. Among the people who are in some way part of the process of production and yet are socially irresponsible, two large groups can be distinguished. In one, the concept of politics is unconsciously associated with the concept of violence and bodily danger, that is, with an intense fear which prevents them from a realistic orientation. In the other, much larger group, social irresponsibility is due to personal conflicts and worries, among which sexual conflicts predominate. When a young employee, whose economic position is such as to make her conscious of her social responsibility, is, nevertheless, socially irresponsible, it is, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, because of her „love affairs,“ that is, her sexual conflicts. The same is true of the middle-class woman who must muster all her psychic strength in order to master her sexual situation at least to such an extent that she does not completely collapse. Up to now, the revolutionary movement has misunderstood this situation. It tried to mobilize the „unpolitical“ individuals politically solely by trying to make them conscious of their thwarted economic interests. Experience has shown that the majority of these „unpolitical“ individuals would not even listen to such economico-political talks; but they would be readily swayed by the mystical phrases of a National Socialist who would not even say much about economic interests. How is this to be explained? It is explained by the fact that sexual conflicts – in the broadest sense of the word – be they conscious or unconscious, inhibit rational thinking and the development of social responsibility; they make the individual apprehensive and armored. If, then, such an individual meets a Fascist who works with the means of credulity and mysticism, that is, with sexual, libidinous means, he turns completely to him. This is not because the fascist program impresses him more than the revolutionary program, but because his surrender to the Führer and his ideology provides a momentary release from his chronic inner tension; because he can unconsciously give a new form to [174] his conflict and thereby seemingly solve it; because he may even look upon the Fascist as a revolutionary, consider Hitler the German Lenin. It is easy to see how the erotically exciting forms of fascism provide a sort of gratification to a sexually resigned middle-class woman who never thought of social responsibility or to a salesgirl who cannot develop a consciousness of social responsibility because of her preoccupation with her sexual conflicts. One has to know the life of these millions of socially suppressed unpolitical individuals in order to understand the role which people's private life, that is essentially their sex life, plays in the total social process in a subterranean way. Hitler knew how to utilize this helplessness born of sexual misery.
The socially irresponsible individual is the individual absorbed in sexual conflicts. To try to make him socially responsible by excluding his sexuality from consideration, as has been done hitherto, is not only hopeless; it is the surest way of handing him over to political reaction which knows very well how to utilize the results of his sexual misery. Clearly, the only way out is social comprehension of his sex life. As simple as this conclusion is, there was a time when I myself shrank from it. I can understand, therefore, that professional politicians may consider such a concept the product of a politically naive armchair scientist. But if one attended sex-economic meetings one found that they attracted for the most part people who had never gone to any political meetings. The sex-economic organizations in Western Germany were comprised predominantly of unorganized and unpolitical people. The ignorance of the professional politicians in this regard is demonstrated by the fact that for thousands of years the international organization of mysticism, in every city, town and hamlet, has been holding, at least once a week, an impressive sex-political meeting in their sense, for this is what the church meetings or the rituals of the Mohammedans, Jews, etc., are. In the face of existing sex-economic experience and the findings concerning the relationship between mysticism and sexual suppression, neglect or even denial of these facts lends an unpardonable, reactionary support to intellectual medievalism and economic slavery.
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