The Mass Psychology of Fascism

1. Fascism: A Global Character Structure, Not Just a Party

"fascism" is only the politically organized expression of the average human character structure, a character structure which has nothing to do with this or that race, nation or party but which is general and international.

Beyond politics. Fascism is often mistakenly viewed as a specific political party or a national characteristic of certain countries like Germany or Japan. However, this perspective is fundamentally flawed and prevents a true understanding of its pervasive nature. Instead, fascism is a universal emotional attitude deeply embedded in the average human character within authoritarian societies, transcending racial, national, or party lines.

Mechanistic-mystical character. This underlying character structure, shaped by machine civilization and a mechanistic-mystical worldview, is the true progenitor of fascist parties, not the other way around. It's a basic emotional stance that exists internationally, permeating all societal organizations. The persistence of the fallacy that fascism is a national trait stems from a fear of acknowledging this uncomfortable truth.

Mass support. Unlike other reactionary movements, fascism gains its immense power from the active support and championship of the masses. This mass backing reveals that elements of fascist feeling and thinking reside within nearly every individual's psychological makeup. Recognizing this widespread responsibility is crucial for genuinely combating fascism, which is not merely the dictatorship of a small clique but a reflection of collective human tendencies.

2. Sexual Suppression: The Root of Authoritarian Character

The suppression of natural sexuality in the child, particularly of its genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, "good" and "adjusted" in the authoritarian sense; it paralyzes the rebellious forces because any rebellion is laden with anxiety; it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical faculties.

Character layers. Human biopsychic structure consists of three layers: a superficial layer of social cooperation, an intermediary layer of cruel and perverse impulses (the Freudian "unconscious"), and a deepest biological core of natural honesty and love. The tragedy of humanity is that the superficial layer is separated from the core by this perverse intermediary layer, which is a secondary result of repressing primary biological impulses.

Paralyzing rebellion. Sexual suppression, especially of infantile and adolescent genitality, is the primary mechanism that creates the authoritarian character. This repression instills deep-seated anxiety and guilt, particularly around sexual thoughts and actions, effectively paralyzing any natural rebellious impulses. The child, conditioned to fear its own sexuality, becomes compliant and submissive to authority.

Inhibition of thought. Beyond mere obedience, sexual repression leads to a general inhibition of critical thinking and intellectual curiosity. By stifling the child's natural sexual inquiry, it creates individuals who are "adjusted" to the authoritarian order, willing to submit despite misery. This process transforms natural social impulses into perverse ones, hindering genuine life manifestation and making individuals susceptible to irrational ideologies.

3. The Authoritarian Family: Factory of Fascist Ideology

The authoritarian state develops its enormous interest in the authoritarian family: the family is the factory of its structure and ideology.

Social reproduction. The authoritarian family serves as the primary institution for reproducing the authoritarian system within the psychological structure of each new generation. It is the central "germ cell" where reactionary and conservative individuals are forged, ensuring the perpetuation of the existing social order. This makes the family a crucial battleground in the fight for social freedom.

Economic and sexual intertwining. In the middle classes, the family is often intertwined with the economic unit (e.g., small businesses, farms), reinforcing patriarchal structures. This necessitates strict sexual suppression of women and children, transforming natural biological ties into indissoluble sexual fixations. The resulting sexual moralism compensates for economic deprivations, creating a snobbish distinction from "lower" strata and fostering identification with state authority.

Mother fixation and nationalism. Sexual inhibition fosters a deep, unconscious mother fixation, which then forms the emotional core of nationalist feelings. Concepts like "homeland" and "nation" become extensions of the idealized mother and family. This explains why the lower middle classes, with their compulsive familial structures, are highly susceptible to nationalist and imperialist ideologies, often voting against their own economic interests.

4. Race Theory: Mystified Sexual Anxiety and Social Control

Blood sin and desecration of the race are the original sin in this world and the end of a humanity which surrenders to it.

Irrational core. Fascist race theory, with its concepts of "race pollution" and "blood poisoning," is not merely an imperialistic interest or prejudice, but a profound expression of unconscious sexual anxiety and disgust. It projects the fear of natural sexuality and its "chaos" onto "alien races," equating racial mixing with moral and biological decay. This irrational fear becomes a potent source of political ideologies like antisemitism.

Sexual demonization. Historically, as patriarchal society developed, natural sexuality was increasingly suppressed and demonized, becoming associated with "filth," "lowliness," and "demoniacal" forces. Race theory leverages this ingrained cultural association, imputing "sensual sexuality" to "alien races" (e.g., Jews, Negroes) to justify their subjugation and maintain the "purity" of the dominant group.

Class and sexual mixing. The idea of "race mixing" often masks the deeper fear of sexual intercourse between different social classes. This reveals political reaction's desire to maintain sharp class distinctions, which is threatened by sexual intermingling. The suppression of middle-class women's sexuality, in particular, reinforces these barriers, making them upholders of anti-sexual morality and, by extension, the authoritarian order.

5. Mysticism: Organized Channel for Repressed Sexual Energy

Religious excitation is vegetative, sexual excitation in a disguised form.

Opium of the masses. Mysticism, including religious feeling, serves as a powerful mass-psychological groundwork for authoritarian ideologies. It functions as a substitute for natural gratification, diverting attention from earthly misery and preventing rebellion by accentuating sexual guilt and moral dependence on the existing order. This makes it a potent tool for political reaction.

Sexual substitute. The genuinely religious individual, having lost the capacity for natural sexual gratification due to sex-negating ideas and fear of punishment, experiences chronic somatic excitation. This dammed-up energy finds illusory release in religious forepleasure excitations and ecstatic states, which resemble gratification but lack true somatic relaxation. This explains the strength and tenacity of religions, being both anti-sexual and a substitute for sexuality.

Sadism and self-castigation. Repressed sexual energy, when not channeled into mystical feelings, can manifest as sadistic brutality, often rationalized by social causes. The desire for self-castigation or martyrdom in religious fanatics stems from a need to achieve gratification without guilt, where intolerable somatic tensions are discharged through self-injurious acts. This intertwining of sadism and mysticism is a hallmark of authoritarian character structures.

6. The "Unpolitical" Individual: Susceptible to Authoritarianism

The socially irresponsible individual is the individual absorbed in sexual conflicts.

Active defense. The "unpolitical" individual is not merely passive or indifferent; rather, this stance is an active defense mechanism against acknowledging social responsibility. This attitude, often rooted in personal conflicts and worries (predominantly sexual), inhibits rational thinking and fosters apprehension, making individuals armored against social engagement.

Sexual conflicts as inhibitors. Sexual conflicts, whether conscious or unconscious, consume psychic energy and prevent the development of social consciousness. When confronted with political demagoguery, especially from fascists who appeal to credulity and mysticism, these individuals may turn to authoritarian leaders. This is not due to the program's merit, but because surrender to a "Führer" offers a momentary release from chronic inner tension and a pseudo-solution to their personal struggles.

Exploiting helplessness. Dictators like Hitler understood how to exploit this helplessness born of sexual misery. The erotic excitement of fascist displays and the promise of order provide a form of gratification for sexually resigned individuals, diverting them from their true economic and social interests. This highlights how private life, particularly sex life, plays a subterranean yet decisive role in the overall social process, making mass mental hygiene crucial.

7. The State's Persistence: A Reflection of Mass Incapacity for Freedom

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's vision. Marx and Engels envisioned the state as a temporary necessity arising from class divisions, destined to "wither away" once class society was abolished and replaced by self-governing communities. Lenin further elaborated on this, proposing a "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a transitional phase to smash the bourgeois state and establish a new, fundamentally different apparatus that would gradually empower the masses for self-regulation.

Failure of self-governance. However, the Soviet Union's development tragically diverged from this path. Instead of the state withering away, its power was strengthened, and the goal of social self-regulation was abandoned. This failure was not due to "betrayal" by leaders like Stalin, but fundamentally to the masses' "biopathic" incapacity for freedom and their longing for authority, which Lenin and his contemporaries did not fully comprehend.

Bureaucracy's rise. The inability of the working masses to assume responsibility for self-governance led to the re-establishment and strengthening of a bureaucratic state apparatus. This new officialdom, initially from the proletariat, inevitably developed into a new ruling class, alienated from the workers. The "introduction of Soviet democracy" in 1935, 16 years after the revolution, was a regression, camouflaging a powerful, authoritarian state with formal democratic illusions.

8. Work Democracy: The Natural Path Beyond Politics and Dictatorship

Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it.

Natural functions. Work democracy is not a political ideology or a system to be imposed, but the inherent, natural process of love, work, and knowledge that fundamentally governs human society. These rational life functions are diametrically opposed to irrationalism and political systems that hinder them. They are always in operation, whether recognized or not, forming the only solid basis for rational social progress.

Beyond politics. Political ideological systems, detached from these natural life functions, often impede rather than further genuine human development. Work democracy advocates for the determination of the social process to be handed over to these natural functions, represented by the best workers in all vital professions. This would create an invincible international body with factual authority, ending political irrationalism.

Self-regulation. The inherent interdependence of social production and consumption forms a naturally organized system. Work democracy envisions a society where responsibility for needs rests with producers and consumers, fostering self-administration. This approach replaces political opposition with cooperation, as rational work processes are intrinsically "for" something (improvement, creation) rather than "against" something, unlike much of politics.

9. The Biological Miscalculation: Human Rigidity Undermines Freedom

As a result of thousands of years of social and educational warping, the masses of the people have become biologically rigid and incapable of freedom.

Incapacity for freedom. A fundamental miscalculation in all past freedom movements is the failure to recognize that the masses, due to millennia of social and educational warping, have become biologically rigid and inherently incapable of genuine freedom. This deep-seated fear of responsibility and freedom is not a moral failing but a physiological anchoring in the human organism, making them susceptible to tyranny.

Mechanistic man. This biological rigidity manifests as a machine-like, unspontaneous character, a "brain machine" that thinks, loves, and hates mechanistically. This is a direct consequence of a civilization that has denied man's animal nature, overvalued machines, and suppressed genitality. The resulting loss of natural self-regulatory intelligence leads to a craving for authority and a perpetuation of authoritarian structures.

The path forward. While the biological rigidity of the current generation may be irreversible, the future lies in protecting new generations from this crippling influence. This requires rigorous laws safeguarding infantile and adolescent sexuality, mandatory sex-economic training for educators and physicians, and a shift from political ideologies to the affirmation of natural life functions. Only by addressing this biological dimension can humanity break the cycle of war and dictatorship.

Last updated: January 6, 2026