Psychoanalysis 
 and Sociology 
 
Psychoanalysis 
 and Sociology 
 
 By 
 
 Aurel Kolnai 
 
 Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul 
 
 I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 

 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/psychoanalysissoOOkoln 
 

 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 SOCIOLOGICAL RESULTS OF 
 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter One : Psychoanalysis and Sociology . 9 
 
 „ Two : Analysis of the Mass Mind . 20 
 
 „ Three : Beginnings of Cultural De- 
 velopment . . -34 
 
 „ Four : Social Organisation and the 
 
 Individual . . -45 
 
 PART TWO 
 SOCIOLOGICAL TASKS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 Chapter One : General Considerations . . 87 
 
 ,, Two : Attempt at the Psychoanalysis 
 
 of Anarchist Communism . 104 
 
 I. Definitions . . . .104 
 
PAGE 
 
 6 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 Chapter Two — (continued) 
 
 II. Anarchist Sociology . . .no 
 
 III. Psychical Characteristics of Anarchism 116 
 
 IV. Psychical Characteristics of Com- 
 
 Glossary 
 
 
 mumsm 
 
 . 124 
 
 V. 
 
 The Position of the Proletariat 
 
 . 132 
 
 VI. 
 
 Infantile El Dorado Fantasy 
 
 of 
 
 
 Communism 
 
 • 139 
 
 VII. 
 
 Origins of Proletarian Ideology 
 
 . 148 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Marxism as a Social Psychosis 
 
 • 157 
 
 IX. 
 
 Bolshevism 
 
 . 166 
 
 X. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 • 174 
 
 Y 
 
 
 . 181 
 
PART ONE 
 
 SOCIOLOGICAL RESULTS OF 
 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 OUR view of the relationship between 
 psychoanalysis and sociology will be 
 mainly determined by our view of the rela- 
 tionship between the individual and society. 
 Direct sociological applications of psycho- 
 analysis are impracticable unless the forces 
 which dominate the mental life of the individual 
 likewise exercise a decisive influence in the 
 life of society, or at least unless social happen- 
 ings are deducible from individual behaviour. 
 But apart from the consideration that psycho- 
 analysis has not yet effected a comprehensive 
 differential study of the individual, the in- 
 vestigator may well be restrained from any 
 such attempt by his recognition of the unique 
 nature of society. 
 
 Psychoanalysis, therefore, is still far from 
 exercising an exhaustive or even an extensive 
 influence in the domain of sociology. Never- 
 theless, it is undeniable that even to-day 
 psychoanalysis, leaving its own immediate 
 
10 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 field to enter the field of social science, can 
 render here services of considerable impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Apart from this, there is an indirect but 
 more promising point of contact between the 
 two disciplines. The point is interesting were 
 it only because psychoanalysis is in this matter 
 sharply distinguished from the other branches 
 of psychology, and acquires in this connexion 
 a character peculiar to itself. I refer to those 
 achievements of psychoanalysis which elucidate 
 the part played by society in individual 
 development. Psychoanalytic study has gone 
 far to convince us that purely individual 
 psychological categories are solely explicable 
 through their relationships to the environing 
 community. In this way psychoanalysis, 
 without propounding the priority of society 
 in any metaphysical sense, has been led to 
 recognise the existence of an intimate mutual 
 determinism between individual and society. 
 Psychoanalysts, indeed, have been much 
 occupied with the study of this mutual deter- 
 minism, though not so much from the stand- 
 point of society as from that of the indi- 
 vidual, and above all from that of the 
 psychopath. 
 
 At the outset, psychoanalysis was nothing 
 more than a branch of psychiatry. Now our 
 
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 11 
 
 science has greatly transcended these limits, 
 not only in a psychological direction, but 
 also in a sociological direction. The causes 
 of these new developments are various. The 
 most important point of all is that psycho- 
 analysis is avowedly aphysiological, that one 
 of the main impulses to its development has 
 come from those who were satiated with 
 phrase-making concerning the " nervous 
 system " and the " nerve centres." In addi- 
 tion, psychoanalysis is ametaphysical, in so 
 far as its essence lies in the descent into a 
 stratum of facts with which no one has 
 hitherto been systematically concerned. Con- 
 sequently it has become necessary to throw 
 a new light upon the mutual relationships 
 of individuals. 
 
 Nevertheless, analytical treatment is pre- 
 dominantly social in character, since it does 
 not consist of physical influences, but of 
 the psychical collaboration of another human 
 being, the physician. It is true that the 
 same assertion might be made of all branches 
 of psychotherapeutics. But there is an ob- 
 vious and important distinction. Other 
 methods of psychotherapeutics endeavour to 
 work through persuasion, suggestion, hyp- 
 nosis ; they do not aim at unlocking and 
 rebuilding the suffering soul, but at its mechani- 
 
12 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 cal guidance. Now the whole spirit of psy- 
 choanalysis is not mechanical but organic. 
 Psychoanalysis is not sorcery but work. 
 Society manifests itself quite differently in 
 the analyser and in the hypnotist respectively ; 
 utterly different is the aspect of individuality 
 in the subject of psychoanalysis and in the 
 subject of suggestion. The act of persuasion 
 is as it were pseudorationalistic, external, 
 and physical; the act of psychoanalysis is 
 as it were intensely rationalistic, internal, 
 and social. 
 
 The achievements which concern the re- 
 lationships between morbid and normal minds 
 have a definite bearing upon sociological 
 questions, for psychoanalysis discloses the 
 motives that operate in the normal no less 
 than in the morbid mind. But further, from 
 a new side, they exercise a disruptive influence 
 upon existing systems. Thus psychoanalysis 
 facilitates, not only the sociological study of 
 the mind, but also the observation of inter- 
 psychical reactions. 
 
 Finally, the free and emancipated spirit of 
 psychoanalysis is a stream which penetrates 
 the barriers erected — mainly for affective 
 reasons — between the individual mind and 
 the community. Psychoanalytical researches 
 in the domain of the sexual life throw a clear 
 
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 13 
 
 light upon the final enigma of the unity and 
 separateness of the individual and society, 
 upon the cleavage between the interindividual 
 affective trends, upon the problems of the 
 cleavage between the individual and the two- 
 fold " sociality." A recognition of the in- 
 timate connexion between individual and social 
 organisation will be facilitated by that spirit 
 which, transcending every previous progressive 
 thought, points to inward freedom as the 
 correlate of outward freedom. The same 
 spirit leads to the unprejudiced study of 
 collective ideas, convictions, and practices. 
 It likewise involves enfranchisement from 
 the materialistic obscurantism of recent 
 decades. 
 
 The question now arises, With which socio- 
 logical trend is psychoanalysis most in har- 
 mony ? I am not concerned with my own 
 immediate viewpoint, but am discussing gener- 
 alities. In my view, psychoanalysis, whose 
 primary aim and method must always remain 
 those of individual psychology, cannot aspire 
 to a dominant role in sociology. But it can 
 render valuable and almost indispensable 
 services to specialised sociology. Indeed, the 
 expert sociologist must be animated by a 
 spirit closely akin to that of the psychoanalyst. 
 He must be unprejudiced, but must not 
 
14 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 rest content with the simple accumulation of 
 facts. He must study the nature of social 
 organisation, the position which the individual 
 occupies in society. Sociology must not 
 shrink from becoming the basis of a political 
 method, and yet in this respect the roles 
 must not be reversed ; sociology must be 
 careful to avoid the mysticism of premature 
 simplification. It is obvious, moreover, that 
 psychoanalysis in its present form (being far 
 more concerned with typical contents which 
 have been brought to the surface than with 
 important groupings relating to some great 
 future) can be most readily linked with a 
 sociology dealing, not with the distinctive 
 peculiarities of individual civilised commu- 
 nities, but with the universal categories of 
 social life. 
 
 An important question is that of aim, the 
 aim which primarily differentiates politics from 
 sociology. The original aim of psychoanalysis 
 was extremely simple ; the cure of the patient. 
 The aim of politics cannot be so tersely defined. 
 Of late, however, the idea of psychoanalysis 
 has undergone expansion. It aims at securing 
 for the individual a better balance, at bringing 
 about a better adaptation to the environment, 
 at establishing a higher rationality, and pro- 
 ducing a more perfect harmony. But this is 
 
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 15 
 
 precisely the aim which politics should pursue 
 in relation to the community. As we have 
 already suggested, these two aims cannot 
 remain independent. There are no men with- 
 out institutions, and there are no institutions 
 without men. The observer may be especially 
 concerned either with men or with institutions, 
 but he must not fail to take the other element 
 into the reckoning. Psychoanalysis, there- 
 fore, while it need have nothing to do 
 with political party programs, must be in 
 spiritual touch with some fundamental political 
 trend. 
 
 Psychoanalysis is yet more intimately re- 
 lated to certain social aims which, though 
 political, are not political in the narrower 
 sense of that term. I refer to sexual reforms, 
 the reform of family life, and the reform of 
 education. The connexion of psychoanalysis 
 with these things is a matter both of form 
 and of content, for we are here concerned 
 with influences which society exercises on the 
 individual. Insistence upon the enormous im- 
 portance of childhood is a fundamental part 
 of Freudian psychology. The Freudians de- 
 mand extensive changes in pedagogy as part 
 of the campaign against mental disorder. 
 Psychoanalysts point out that reform in this 
 field is no mere matter of the provision of 
 
16 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 hospitals and cispensaries, but that remoter 
 causes are operative. 
 
 We can distinguish three sociological trends 
 of psychoanalytical research. In the first of 
 these, a socio-individual parallelism is demon- 
 strable, so that the contents of individual 
 ideas are discoverable in collective ideas. I 
 refer, in a word, to the so-called folk psy- 
 chology. The second trend is that in which 
 the individual psychological foundations of 
 social development or of civilisation constitute 
 the object of study, so that we now find 
 ourselves somewhat more deeply involved in 
 the realm of sociology. These investigations 
 are likewise concerned with primitive con- 
 ditions, but their starting-point is the formation 
 of society out of the individual and the family. 
 The third trend is that of psychoanalysis 
 proper, with its various radiations. Here we 
 are concerned with the individual in his 
 relations to extant society, and therefore with 
 the organisation and the actual problems of 
 society. To this domain belong analytical 
 therapy, the analysis of healthy persons, family 
 life, pedagogy, the problems of individualism 
 and socialism. 
 
 From the purely sociological standpoint, 
 the second trend might be considered the 
 most important ; though only as regards the 
 
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 17 
 
 object of study, and not as regards its nature. 
 Psychoanalysis tends especially to throw light 
 on relationships in so far as it discloses the 
 part played by society in shaping the modern 
 individual. It makes more extensive con- 
 tributions to sociology when it remains within 
 its own sphere than when it displays a directly 
 sociological trend. I hope in the present 
 work to give an empirical demonstration of 
 this assertion. It is, however, an illuminating 
 fact that the various sub-departments just 
 enumerated are separable by barriers which, 
 however necessary, are purely artificial. 
 Furthermore, it is necessary to state how 
 far I propose to go in the interpretation of 
 the material. 
 
 Since I regard psychoanalysis from a specific 
 outlook, and even within this sphere look 
 upon it as the manifestation of a specific 
 trend, I cannot use its results in the crude 
 state. But although I assume a certain free- 
 dom in this respect, I do so neither as critic 
 of psychoanalysis, nor that I may supplement 
 it or continue its work. I may merely find 
 it necessary to interpret certain psycho- 
 analytical results in a way which the investi- 
 gator who has furnished those results might 
 reject. I do not think that this will be a 
 general practice, for on broad lines, alike in 
 
 2 
 
18 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 respect of form and content, I stand intellect- 
 ually and affectively upon the platform of 
 psychoanalysis. I do this equally as against 
 opponents of the doctrine and as against the 
 members of the divergent schools. I hope, 
 indeed, that I shall nowise do violence to psy- 
 choanalysis. 
 
 Let me remark parenthetically that I am 
 convinced of the need, not merely for criticism 
 along certain lines, but also for expansion 
 and for new applications. Such an inde- 
 pendent expansion of psychoanalytical soci- 
 ology may be the topic of a later work, mainly 
 devoted to the study of certain phases of 
 modern social and political life. 
 
 It is further necessary to point out that the 
 subject of the present book is not one which 
 simply concerns the relationship between psy- 
 choanalysis and ethics. It is true that I do 
 not exclude the discussion of moral elements, 
 but it is necessary to. keep strictly within the 
 limits assigned to my study. Whereas political 
 and similar movements have to do with the 
 purposive moulding of social organisation and 
 with the relationships of the individual to the 
 community, ethics is concerned with individu- 
 ality and with the mutual relationships of 
 individuals. The difference relates to emphasis 
 rather than to the existence of objects. But 
 
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 19 
 
 the distinction cannot be eliminated, and we 
 must be careful not to forget the fact. The 
 present study will not be primarily concerned 
 with ethical relationships, nor ' indeed will 
 ethics receive even provisional consideration. 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 
 
 ONLY within limits does there exist a 
 parallelism between the individual mind 
 and the social mind. These limits determine 
 how far the mechanism of individual ideas 
 can be transferred to the social sphere. Why, 
 for example, is an infantile sexual theory 
 rediscoverable in a myth ? Why can a states- 
 man's political theory be reflected, in notable 
 fashion though with hazy outlines, in the 
 ideology of his own party ? Why is it so easy 
 to discern inspectionism in the most varied 
 manifestations of folk psychology, whereas it 
 would be extremely difficult to effect the 
 psychoanalysis of an industrial theory ? (I 
 am not speaking here of the assertions of 
 psychoanalysis, but of psychoanalysis in its 
 fundamental nature ; interpretation must set 
 out from this.) The most obvious answer 
 would seem to be that psychoanalysis can 
 elucidate the more general constructions of 
 
 20 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 21 
 
 folk psychology. Can it, however, be con- 
 tended that this applies to the two or three 
 main political trends of our day, which are 
 general enough at any rate ? We see that 
 the hypothesis is incomplete, if not radically 
 false. Inadequate, too, would be the asser- 
 tion that psychoanalysis does not avail where 
 interests and the ego impulses manifest 
 themselves. The analysis of warlike heroism 
 would not be a difficult task, although 
 the analysis of certain trends in contem- 
 porary sexual life might certainly prove more 
 laborious. 
 
 We should approximate far more closely to 
 the truth were we to contend that psycho- 
 analysis is empowered to interpret compara- 
 tively simple collective ideas. I think chiefly 
 of practically universal ideas, which are simple, 
 and are not dependent upon any of the 
 differentiations among human beings : of the 
 more or less obvious complications and sym- 
 bolisations of incest ; of the fundamental 
 partial impulses of the sexual life ; of the 
 relationship to other members of the family ; 
 of ambivalence ; of the omnipotence of 
 thought. It is especially worthy of note that 
 the mechanism of collective ideas exhibits 
 striking analogy with the mechanism of 
 dreams, mental disorders, and even some of 
 
22 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the products of contemporary literature. 1 
 Psychoanalysis has demonstrated a parallel- 
 ism between the more primitive groups of 
 individual and social ideas, and has shown 
 how this parallelism manifests itself, not merely 
 in vague and mechanical forms of thought, 
 but likewise in typical elaborations of uni- 
 versal content. Thereby is furnished an 
 almost definitive refutation of the sociological 
 relativism which would ascribe profoundly 
 and significantly diverse worlds of thought 
 to the various races or culture-groups. This 
 achievement may prove of considerable im- 
 portance in politics no less than in soci- 
 ology. 
 
 The other main result is the proof that the 
 purely collective ideas which originate from 
 the . simple summation or communalisation 
 of the thoughts of individuals, are dominant 
 at a low level. Psychoanalysis teaches us 
 that mental disorders are disturbances of the 
 adaptation to the extant form of society, are 
 regressions to lower stages, whereas dreams 
 
 1 The stratification of higher literary products is somewhat 
 complicated, but is nevertheless analysable. Cf. S. Freud, 
 Der Wahn und die Traume in W. Jensens Gradiva, 2nd 
 edition, Vienna and Leipzig, 191 2. — Delusion and Dream : 
 an Interpretation in the Light of Psychoanalysis of Gradiva, 
 a Novel by William Jensen, Moffat, New York, 1917. — Allen 
 and Unwin, London, 1921. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 23 
 
 are normal forms of similar regressions, cut 
 off from motor activity. Even the products 
 of art and literature are based upon regression, 
 though with an upward tending (anagogic) 
 aspect. 1 
 
 These regressions coalesce with primitive 
 social ideas. There is an inward connexion 
 between the collectivity (or rather the com- 
 munity) of individual ideas, and the primitive 
 state. This is one of the main pillars of 
 Durkheim's theory of social solidarity. 2 In 
 his view, the lower form of solidarity is 
 the one based upon or associated with a 
 similarity of the individuals which com- 
 pose it, and based upon the identity of 
 their ideologies. This is a mechanical or 
 religious solidarity. It is mechanical because 
 it presupposes a propulsive general ideology. 
 It is religious, because religion implies a 
 belief that is accepted in the same inter- 
 pretation by all the members of a particular 
 community. 
 
 To Durkheim's theory, based mainly upon 
 juristic philosophy, and to the general evo- 
 
 1 Cf. H. Silberer, Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik, 
 Vienna and Leipzig, 1914. Introversion und Wiedergeburt, 
 passim. — Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism, Moffat, 
 New York, 1917. 
 
 2 E Durkheim, De la division du travail social, 3rd 
 edition, Paris, 191 1. 
 
24 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 lutionary theory, psychoanalysis superadds a 
 third. Evolution deals exclusively with self- 
 evident entities. Durkheim speaks only of 
 institutions, and does not aim at a more 
 intimate comparison between the world of 
 individual thought and the world of social 
 thought. This gap is rilled in by psycho- 
 analysis, which thus furnishes the most valu- 
 able support to Durkheirn's sociological 
 conception. 
 
 Psychoanalysis furnishes interesting aid to 
 Durkheirn's criticism of Spencer's classification 
 of society. Durkheirn's " mechanical soli- 
 darity " does not correspond to the Spencerian 
 " militant society." Centralisation is already 
 a beginning of specialisation, a beginning of 
 the solidarity that is founded on the division 
 of labour. The primitiveness of society is 
 characterised by uniformity of ideologies, and 
 not by warlike institutions. Psychoanalysis 
 secured this result by ascertaining and stressing 
 the contents of the mind, and thus led to a 
 more immanent and steadfast theory of social 
 evolution. Analytical research has shown that 
 the fundamental complexes exercise an in- 
 fluence in the social structures that are most 
 important to organisation, in religions for 
 instance. Thus the root of primitive social 
 homogeneity is not to be found in militarist 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 25 
 
 centralisation, 1 but in some sort of " primal 
 unity " in which there has subsequently taken 
 place a differentiation of the individuals from 
 one another and from society. 
 
 This view is concreted in the detailed results 
 of psychoanalytical study. They show us that 
 the leading material of homogeneity and fix- 
 ation, of the mechanical socio-individual 
 parallelism, consists of sexuality. Now, to 
 speak with crude simplicity, if there be one 
 thing antecedent to the individual and to 
 society, one thing which embraces within 
 itself the potency both of individual and of 
 society, it is the " germ plasm," the sexual 
 part of mankind, the " species." It is the 
 species, too, which remains the identical ele- 
 ment in individual and society. From the 
 species issues the new individual which, during 
 the first years of life, apart from his ego 
 rudiment, reminds us so strongly of primitive 
 man. The specious plasticity and the inner 
 fixity of primitive men are reflected in 
 the manifold psychical constructions of the 
 neuroses and the psychoses, with their un- 
 mistakable mimicry of the primitive. 
 
 The further interpretation of sexuality sup- 
 plies much that is new and important. In 
 
 1 The psychoanalytical significance of militarism will be 
 briefly discussed in the sequel. 
 
26 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the light of psychoanalysis, the desire for 
 incestuous sexual activity would seem to be 
 general and central. Oedipus is the most 
 noted hero in the sagas of all ages. C. G. Jung 
 maintains that the only reality in the incest 
 wish is the trend, the reversion and the intro- 
 version. This may be more or less true. 
 There can, however, be no doubt, that the 
 incest tendency is either the most pregnant 
 form or else the most expressive symbol of 
 the reversion from the individual and social 
 being into the being of the species. Psycho- 
 analysis testifies to the effect that the mani- 
 festation of this universal wish, of the struggle 
 that is carried on against it, and of the result- 
 ant compromises, constitutes the most widely 
 diffused content of collective ideas, and is at 
 the same time the chief sustainer of homo- 
 geneity. 
 
 The relationship to the family is obviously 
 associated with the incest motif. First of all, 
 we have maternal incest as the type of all 
 incestuous trends, influencing the relationship 
 of the son to the father. Here a compli- 
 cation arises. The incest wish is in itself 
 perfectly simple ; but the relationship to the 
 father simultaneously exhibits the twofold 
 characters of love and hatred, and is thus 
 ambivalent. In the various individual and 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 27 
 
 social psychical products, however, it exhibits 
 a uniformity almost equal to that of the 
 incest wish. Its increased lability ! is con- 
 nected with the circumstance that it has 
 somewhat less to do with the species and 
 somewhat more to do with social organisation. 
 Ambivalence, psychical conflict, repression, 
 projection, and symbolisation, as psychical 
 forms ; modified forms of sexual partial im- 
 pulses, and the coexistent ego impulses, as 
 psychical contents — all demand further con- 
 sideration. As will appear later, these pheno- 
 mena are of social origin. This, however, does 
 not by any means signify that they cannot 
 manifest themselves as parts of the ideology 
 of a whole community in, default of the 
 influence of an external (more powerful) com- 
 munity. Through the similarity of indivi- 
 duals, through the mechanical uniformity 
 which is the outcome of their interrelations, 
 their ideas are simply welded together to 
 form collective ideas, of course with certain 
 modifications. Repression is not consciously 
 effected by any collective organ ; it applies 
 to the primitive community no less than to 
 
 1 For the quadruple form in which the ideas of god and 
 devil may represent the relationship between father and 
 son, cf. Ernest Jones, Uer Alptraum, etc., Leipzig and Vienna, 
 1912, p. 81. 
 
28 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the individual members of that community. 
 With progressive differentiation, this confor- 
 mity tends to disappear, persisting most con- 
 spicuously in respect of the previously enu- 
 merated psychical contents. Similar is the 
 behaviour of projection ; and also of symboli- 
 sation, which may be broadly viewed as a 
 stabilisation of projection. In accordance 
 with Otto Rank's train of reasoning, the most 
 characteristic feature of the symbol is its 
 independence of individuals. 1 This is an 
 empirical truth, proved by psychoanalytical 
 researches. From these we learn, in addition, 
 that the dominion of the species, that homo- 
 geneity, can maintain itself, not alone directly 
 in the impulses, but also in their general and 
 systematic modifications. Advancing some- 
 what further in our psychological study, we 
 find that it is impossible to subsume the lower 
 and the higher stages of society in two cate- 
 gories merely, that of a free life on the one 
 hand, and that of repression on the other. 
 We find that we must not neglect certain 
 intermediate qualitative elements. 
 
 To avoid misunderstanding, I must point 
 out that collective symbolisations, as alle- 
 gorical guiding ideas, must not be confused 
 
 1 Otto Rank, Psychoanalytische Beitrage zur Mythenfor- 
 schung, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1919, p. 37. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 29 
 
 with the purely emblematic technical symbols 
 which flourish concomitantly with civilisation. 
 But this discussion would lead beyond the 
 limits of the present work. 
 
 Let us turn, therefore, to the greater unities 
 among collective ideas. Myth and fable are 
 typical in this respect. Magic, religion, thought- 
 trends, are of a different character, for all 
 these have an economic basis. They are 
 closely connected with the organisation of 
 society, and they therefore fail to exhibit any 
 notable parallelism with the individual. Myth 
 and fable, on the other hand, are the negatives 
 of cultural development. 1 Myth is a more or 
 less disguised wish fulfilment. The writings 
 of Rank, in especial, have drawn attention to 
 the close analogy between, myth and the 
 individual's dreams. This analogy is much 
 more perfect, though perhaps less fruitful, 
 than the analogy between religion and com- 
 pulsion neurosis. The analogy between the 
 myth and the dream finds expression in 
 analytical literature far more readily and 
 consistently, but arouses fewer problems. What 
 is the meaning of this ? In the life of the 
 individual, the dream has no organic or posi- 
 tive part to play. Its function largely consists 
 in a discharge, in the relief of a sort of psychical 
 
 1 Rank, op. cit., p. 380. 
 
30 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 congestion. Its essential nature, as we might 
 infer from its physiological determinants, is 
 to withdraw the dreamer from his actual 
 environment. Similarly with myth — if we 
 understand by this term, not anything which 
 can be called a religious conviction in the 
 narrower sense, but something which has 
 the nature of saga. Myth is a copy of the 
 dream, inasmuch as myth looks wholly to- 
 wards the past, and is " titanic " (Silberer). 
 The persistent analogy between dream and 
 myth affords additional proof of the primitive, 
 specific unity of the individual and society. 
 This furnishes additional justification for our 
 sociological interpretation. Passing to con- 
 sider fable, we find that Rank sharply dis- 
 tinguishes it from myth. It is positively ethical, 
 " anagogical," from the civic point of view ; 
 it is conservative, though not retrograde ; it 
 stresses the material factor. Consequently, to 
 find a replica of fable in the individual would 
 be less easy. Perhaps certain fantasies, con- 
 scious fantasies for the most part, relating to 
 an upward movement within existing con- 
 ditions, deserve consideration in this connexion. 
 Here, however, the exceptions will be notable, 
 for the very reason that fable is less the product 
 of the spirit of the species than of society as 
 a whole. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 31 
 
 We may note how the analogy with the 
 dream loses its significance in so far as simple 
 myth gives place to structurally important 
 social phenomena. Ernest Jones demonstrates 
 the " communalisation " of nightmare as a 
 belief in ghosts, but forthwith proceeds to 
 researches into matters comparatively remote 
 from the individual, dealing with belief in the 
 devil and with epidemics of witchcraft. 
 
 Anent the before-mentioned parallelism, we 
 encounter in extant analytical literature 
 (though only in isolated cases) allusions to 
 the formal problem of function, to the prob- 
 lem of the normal and the pathological. 
 In the comparison between religion and com- 
 pulsion neurosis, it is les§. conspicuous ; 
 although the view of those who imagined 
 that religion could be dismissed as pure 
 aberration because many of its theses were 
 erroneous, has now become obsolete. When 
 we consider the analogy between paranoia 
 and the philosophical systems, this particular 
 point assumes great importance. A philoso- 
 phical system does not possess a preeminently 
 social character ; that wherein it is distin- 
 guished from the delusions of the paranoiac 
 is to be found in its comparative accuracy 
 and in the attendant circumstances. As we 
 might have expected, psychoanalytical re- 
 
32 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 search has proved less illuminating here than 
 in the case of religion and of compulsion 
 neurosis. In this connexion, Freud, after his 
 parallel study of the taboo religion and of 
 the modern " taboo disease/' came to the 
 conclusion that the neurotic is more altruistic 
 and social than the primitive. Moreover, in 
 the neurotic, the part played by sexual com- 
 ponents is greater, and the impulses undergo 
 more extensive transformation. 1 All this may 
 be associated with the fact that our neurotic 
 has undergone greater differentiation from 
 the community (sociality being here by no 
 means identical with social homogeneity), and 
 that the system of repression is most powerful 
 and persistent in the sexual domain. Once 
 more we find confirmation of the view that 
 the " species " displays amazing constancy, 
 not only in its direct form, but likewise in 
 its veiled and blurred form. 
 
 Hitherto, for the most part, primitive social 
 ideas, and not the regressions of contemporary 
 society, have been compared with neurotic 
 regressions. The reason has doubtless been 
 that the individual, however much he may 
 tower over the crowd, has been compelled by 
 the laws of sex life to preserve the purely 
 
 1 Freud, Totem und Tabu, Leipzig and Vienna, 1913, 
 pp. 65, et seq. — Totem and Taboo, Routledge, London, 1919. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE MASS MIND 33 
 
 specific qualities far more perfectly than any 
 social group has been compelled to preserve 
 them. Nevertheless, Freud has made a pro- 
 found study of the war psychosis that has 
 been so prevalent during recent tragical years. 
 He found that the hidden regression of that 
 psychosis ran broadly parallel with regression 
 in the ailing individual. 1 
 
 As far as concerns socio-individual paral- 
 lelism, the main result of psychoanalysis may, 
 therefore, be summed up as follows. Whereas, 
 hitherto, the idea of a mechanical solidarity 
 based upon similarity has been a somewhat 
 anaemic schema, and liable to misunderstand- 
 ing, psychoanalysis has now filled in the out- 
 line with a living psychological content. 
 
 1 Freud, Zeitgemasses iiber Krieg und Tod, Sammlung 
 kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, IV, Vienna, 191 8, p. 504. 
 

 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF CULTURAL 
 DEVELOPMENT 
 
 LIKE the individual, society, the fact 
 of association, has its origin in the 
 species, in the germ plasm. Association arises 
 out of sexuality. This aspect of sexuality 
 may be termed altruistic, in contradistinction 
 to that which works on behalf of resistance 
 to society and tends towards dissociation. 
 Cooperation for the acquisition of food is 
 secondary, and is the most important step 
 in the differentiation of society from the 
 species. Its existence, though perhaps only 
 in the germ, must be presupposed in the 
 stage from which psychoanalytical research 
 takes its start, the stage of the primitive 
 horde. 1 This is a family in the widest sense 
 of the term, a family in which the father rules 
 while the younger males must obey and are 
 
 1 Cf. Freud, Totem und Tabu ; also T. Reik, Probleme 
 der Religionspsychologie, I, Das Ritual, Vienna, 1919, 
 passim. 
 
 34 
 
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 35 
 
 compelled by the patriarch to abstain from 
 intercourse with the women of the horde. 
 Such an organisation unquestionably rests 
 upon a sexual foundation, but only in the sign 
 of the ego impulses. Neither its origin nor 
 its characteristics have been fully elucidated, 
 but psychoanalysis has already sketched the 
 emergence of cultural development from this 
 stage. The psychoanalytical view runs as 
 follows. It may have been a general occur- 
 rence that the young adult males, the brethren 
 of the horde, driven by their sexual impulse 
 and by a certain primitively anarchical impulse 
 towards freedom, shattered the rising social 
 power with their own physical power. They 
 killed the father, devoured him, and took 
 possession of the women. Oedipus, therefore, 
 was something more than the chief figure of 
 mythology ; he was a widespread reality. 
 Parricide and incest are the two chief sins. 
 They constitute original sin, which Christ 
 the Son, through His Passion, and symbolically 
 becoming the victim of anthropophagy, atones 
 before God the Father. 
 
 How did original sin become a sin ? What 
 happened after the murder of the father and 
 after the break-up of the organisation ? There 
 did not result, not permanently at any rate, 
 the development of a community based upon 
 
36 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 equal rights and upon promiscuity. For one 
 reason or another, the young men reestablished 
 the old condition of affairs, characterised 
 by patriarchal authority and the prohibition 
 of incest. Exogamy became the form of sexual 
 activity, and upon the position of the father 
 a social institution and a religion were estab- 
 lished (totemism). Why did this change come 
 about ? Freud refers to a belated obedience, 
 to which Rank likewise alludes as a mythical 
 motif. 1 The significance of this is, that in 
 the act of parricide only one tendency of their 
 minds was dominant, whilst the other pole 
 of their ambivalent attitude was temporarily 
 repressed. Subsequently, however, the re- 
 pressed trend once more gained the upper 
 hand, doubtless through the influence of the 
 new condition of affairs. We might perhaps 
 imagine that the brethren recognised them- 
 selves " not to be sufficiently advanced " 
 to organise the horde without a patriarch. 
 But this explanation would be too crudely 
 rationalistic. Freud assumes that the brothers 
 themselves wished to become fathers, and 
 consequently came to honour, as the embodi- 
 ment of the approved system, the father they 
 had overthrown as a personal foe. In this 
 form, of course, the matter becomes some- 
 
 1 Freud, op. cit. ; Reik, op. cit., pp. 157, et seq. 
 
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 37 
 
 what too automatic, and the interpretation 
 is inadequate. 
 
 If we contemplate the state of affairs more 
 generally, and no longer as an isolated case, 
 we find that the parricide was a shattering, 
 a temporary regression, of the extant social 
 organisation, and must have had a more 
 specific cause than the general psychical state 
 of the young males. For in the latter case 
 the phenomena would have perpetually recurred 
 in a revolt of the new sons against the new 
 fathers. Even though the aforesaid specific 
 cause should elude us, it will be evident that 
 the new conditions created by expiation must 
 be notably distinguished from the old con- 
 ditions which preceded the parricide. Now 
 this difference can have been nothing else 
 than that to which Freud himself refers, 
 namely, exogamy, and the beginnings of social 
 integration. The old dominion of the father 
 had been broken, but the destructive tendency, 
 after its partial victory, was mastered by a 
 new method of organisation. The primitive 
 horde did not break up into new primitive 
 hordes, but grew to form a more composite 
 community, wherein a number of fathers 
 possessing equal rights continued to live. Out 
 of the primitive and still in large part physical 
 patriarchal organisation, there developed a 
 
38 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 social patriarchal organisation. Both Freud 
 and Reik emphasise the importance of the 
 cooperation of the brethren, a cooperation 
 which persists after the new stabilisation. 
 Reik, in especial, draws attention to the fact 
 that the son who has in his turn become a 
 father may conjecture that his own father 
 has returned in the shape of a new-born son. 
 At least the appearance of the son compels 
 him to assume a defensive attitude, and 
 henceforward in his own interest to recognise 
 paternal authority. 
 
 This state of affairs becomes the kernel of 
 totemism and of the consequent ritual. Totem- 
 ism is the sanction of exogamy, and is the poten- 
 tial repudiation of incest. It is the expression 
 of the principle that those who are members 
 of a narrower community must not enter 
 into sexual relations. The animal which is 
 the symbol of the clan, the animal which the 
 members of the totem-clan are forbidden 
 to hunt, represents the father. But as part 
 of the ritual of the totemistic religion we have 
 the slaying and eating of the animal which 
 constitutes the totem. This occurs only on 
 certain feast days, and serves to strengthen 
 the cohesion of the members of the totem- 
 clan. The revival of the repressed and for- 
 gotten parricide does not take place in order 
 
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 39 
 
 to break up the organisation once again, but 
 in order to consolidate it by the symbolical 
 repetition of its genesis. The subsequent rami- 
 fications of the religious systems (and in part 
 likewise of the systems of magic) are mani- 
 festations of a similar kind brought about 
 by further repression, fixation, and projec- 
 tion. Important are Reik's statements con- 
 cerning the couvade and the puberal rites. 
 The couvade, the symbolical pretence of ill- 
 ness on the part of the husband during the 
 wife's pregnancy, aims at keeping the husband 
 away from his wife and from his new-born 
 child. Its purpose is to prevent the man's 
 killing his son as the " returning father." 
 But the separation of the husband from the 
 pregnant wife is a radiation of the incest 
 inhibition. The most important feature of 
 the puberal rites is the withdrawal from 
 woman and the family, this being a fixation, 
 as it were a compulsion neurosis, which is 
 a replica of the incest prohibition. At the 
 same time, there is associated with these 
 rites the adoption into the secret society of 
 the males, and this signifies the young man's 
 acceptance into the band of the brethren 
 who are united against the father. The imita- 
 tion of the old deeds, and the consequent 
 reaction, thus fuse one with another, just as 
 
40 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 in the compromise formations of the individual 
 there is a fusion of tendencies with repressions. 
 From the social standpoint, this ritual resembles 
 the totem-meal which assumes the burden 
 of original sin, but it has an opposite purpose. 
 Moreover, we must be careful to avoid think- 
 ing that the system of these religious com- 
 promise formations actually and decisively 
 overcame the original antisocial primitive- 
 ness. In the next chapter we shall under- 
 take a fuller consideration of the significance 
 of repression. 
 
 Among all these researches, especially illumi- 
 nating is that which reveals the connexion 
 between the father and the social order. 
 Here psychoanalysis once more confirms Durk- 
 heim's sociology. According to this writer's 
 theory of religion and totemism * — a theory 
 to which Freud pays little attention in his 
 book— the idea of the saint, of the super- 
 natural, which underlies totemism no less than 
 other forms of religion, is nothing else than 
 the manifestation of the environing and guiding 
 society in the consciousness of the individual. 
 In the society of primitive solidarity, the 
 society which rests upon the uniformity of 
 
 1 Durkheim, Les formes elementaires de la vie religieuse, 
 Paris, 19 1 2, passim. — The Elementary Forms of the Religious 
 Life, Allen and Unwin, London, 1915. 
 
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 41 
 
 the component individuals, the main integrat- 
 ing force is some sort of idea which is identical 
 in the minds of all the individual members. 
 Formally speaking, it is the idea of the society 
 itself. 
 
 Durkheim concerns himself little about 
 psychical content, for his outlook is pre- 
 eminently sociological. From him, therefore, 
 we cannot learn whether the content of the 
 matter is that suggested above. Psycho- 
 analytical study gives a very different picture. 
 The father is the substantial representative 
 of society, the person with whom the individual 
 comes directly into contact. The first person 
 with whom a child comes into contact in addi- 
 tion to the mother, the one who incorporates 
 the first and most important inhibitions and 
 commands of society, is the father. Both 
 the suppression of incest, and exogamic inte- 
 gration, are effected under his sign. Now 
 according to psychoanalytical results, the vic- 
 tory of the father upon the wreckage of parri- 
 cide is not wholly analogous in its significance 
 to the victory of primitive social solidarity 
 over the repudiation of any kind of solidarity. 
 It already conceals a kernel of progress in 
 the direction of a solidarising division of 
 labour. There is no such thing as complete 
 absence of solidarity. Incestuous and un- 
 
42 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 bridled sexuality, the " titanic '•■ state, the 
 dominion of the species, signify the typical 
 primitive solidarity. The organisation that 
 is realised under the aegis of paternal authority 
 carries with it already the beginnings of the 
 division of labour. It does this all the more 
 surely inasmuch as exogamy and the coming 
 into touch with alien individualities are already 
 displayed at this stage, and these in especial 
 serve to set the forces of differentiation at 
 work. They contain an element which directly 
 conflicts with patriarchal dominion in the 
 primitive horde. There gradually ensues a 
 cleavage between father and society. In the 
 course of cultural revolution and in virtue 
 of a more complicated process of education, 
 this cleavage grows ever more conspicuous. 
 
 In this respect, too, psychoanalysis supports 
 Durkheim's views as against those of Spencer. 
 It shows that militarist society is not the 
 lowest form of society, since in militarist 
 society we already find the first elements 
 of the division of labour, in virtue of which 
 atomisation is replaced by differentiation, 
 and merging in the species is replaced 
 by integration. Psychoanalysis, too, is com- 
 petent to answer the question, how a com- 
 munity can keep itself holy (even though it 
 does so unconsciously). According to Durk- 
 
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 43 
 
 heim's idea, the individual members simply 
 regard their society as holy, and because of 
 their homogeneity, their faith becomes general. 
 But Durkheim's fundamental notion is that 
 a collective idea in every case possesses 
 a quasi-independent character. This persis- 
 tence of the idea of a supernatural quality, 
 its retention in the communal consciousness, 
 would be incomprehensible, had not the idea 
 some concrete sustainer, to constitute no mere 
 empty sign, but an essential content. Psycho- 
 analysis discloses this sustainer ; it is the 
 father. The " father " of the society, the 
 totem-animal, or tribal god, cannot by any 
 possible means be deduced psychologically 
 from the idea of society — though Durkheim 
 does not seem to have fully realised how signi- 
 ficant this difficulty is. Bat when we under- 
 stand the significance of the father-imago, the 
 difficulty disappears. Furthermore, the totem- 
 meal, as an act for the regeneration of religious 
 solidarity, demands an explanatory key, which 
 is supplied by psychoanalysis in the form of 
 affective ambivalence and of the father com- 
 plex. Psychoanalysis is unable to furnish 
 a complete explanation of the way in which 
 the physical power of the strongest male 
 member of the family became transformed 
 into the predominantly moral power of society 
 
44 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 and its authorities. Nevertheless, in this 
 matter likewise, psychoanalysis can so far 
 perform its task in that it fills in the outlines 
 of formal sociology with the requisite ps}'- 
 chological content. Working independently, 
 Freud and Durkheim studied totemism, and 
 achieved results which, as we have shown, 
 practically supplement one another. Or per- 
 haps it would be more correct to say that 
 psychoanalysis, approaching the matter from 
 without, supplements sociological research. 
 Probably the agreement will ultimately prove 
 at once more subtle and more profound. 
 In any case, the extant results serve on the 
 one hand to confirm Durkheim's sociological 
 theories, and on the other to give enhanced 
 weight to psychoanalytical results. We shall 
 see that this conclusion is strengthened by the 
 study of more immediately practical problems. 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 SOCIAL ORGANISATION AND THE 
 INDIVIDUAL 
 
 AT the outset, psychoanalysis noted the 
 influence which the social environment 
 exercises upon the deeper strata of the in- 
 dividual's mind. Although, in accordance 
 with its primary aim, the attention of psycho- 
 analysis was concentrated upon the organi- 
 sation of the individual mind, and not upon 
 the organisation of society, society came to 
 occupy an increasingly large place in psycho- 
 analytical material. The subsequent develop- 
 ment of the science made it possible to attempt 
 the solution of problems far transcending 
 those which concern the individual alone. 
 
 The psychoanalytical view of the mind is 
 helpful in the elucidation of social relation- 
 ships, were it only because psychoanalysts 
 contemplate the mind in purely dynamic 
 fashion, conceiving it as a system of action, 
 and refusing to commit themselves to any 
 physiological interpretation of the phenomena 
 
 45 
 
46 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 they investigate. But where we have to do 
 with actions, there a decisive influence must 
 be exercised by that portion of the environ- 
 ment which is associated with the individual 
 mind, not physiologically, but without direct 
 contact, in virtue of actions w T hich take place 
 in the environment. This portion of the en- 
 vironment is society, whose role in the mental 
 life of the individual must not be interpreted 
 as if its working were of a simple and obvious 
 character. Everyone is aware that a con- 
 siderable proportion of our actions and thoughts 
 concerns our fellow men, and this truth may 
 be confirmed by detailed investigations. But 
 psychoanalysis has wider implications. It dis- 
 closes the relationships of the individual mind, 
 of its structure and nature, to society. In the 
 psychoanalytical view, society does not simply 
 supply a content for the psychical framework, 
 but actually constructs this framework, and 
 it does so in relation, not only to the moral 
 but also to the mental constitution of the 
 individual. 
 
 Durkheim, discussing a fundamentally differ- 
 ent topic and setting out from an entirely 
 different starting-point, comes to the same 
 conclusion. He ascribes a social origin, not 
 only to religion, but also to the ideas of space, 
 time, causality, and the group. His socio- 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 47 
 
 logism is more epistemological, whereas that 
 of psychoanalysis is more psychological. This 
 is because the movement of which Durkheim 
 is the spokesman has to do with form rather 
 than with content, whereas psychoanalysis 
 deals with content rather than with form. 
 Nevertheless, the analog}^ grows striking when 
 we recall that analysis deduces the uncon- 
 scious, the censorship, sublimation, in a word, 
 the " autonomous " factors of the mental 
 life of the individual, from the influence of 
 society. Significant is the way in which psy- 
 choanalysis develops the views of Pierre Janet, 
 which are so closely akin to those of the 
 psychoanalysts. Janet, too, declares that psy- 
 chical disturbances are determined by a re- 
 duction of adaptation to the environment, of 
 psychical tension, of the " reality function " ; 
 he, likewise, concerns himself with an abnormal 
 restriction of consciousness. Psychoanalysis 
 provides a social content for the " outer 
 world," that to which the individual has to 
 adapt himself. The psychological formalism 
 of Janet (a doctrine whose importance must 
 on no account be underestimated), and the 
 epoch-making sociological formalism of Durk- 
 heim, are both furnished by psychoanalysis 
 with a significant content. 
 
 All these doctrines build on the same prin- 
 
48 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 ciple. They build upon the principle which is 
 used by Durkheim with such logical consis- 
 tency and generality, upon the principle that 
 the non-physical demands of society become, 
 in the individual, factors divorced from im- 
 mediacy. 1 Psychoanalysis does especially good 
 service here, for it breaks the vicious circle 
 of priority or conditionality, which has led 
 to so many vain verbal disputes. It effects 
 a fruitful application of the principle that 
 society exercises a formative influence upon 
 the individual, while remaining an essentially 
 individuo-psy etiological discipline. Obviously 
 this likewise involves certain shortcomings, 
 but such is the fate of every bold movement. 
 In all healthy division of labour there must 
 be a supreme grouping of individual data 
 which renders inevitable inadequacies harm- 
 less. 
 
 One of the first and most important ac- 
 quisitions of our new branch of science was 
 the way in which it paid due attention to 
 unconscious mental phenomena. It has done 
 this systematically and uncompromisingly, 
 never at haphazard. The idea of the uncon- 
 scious had obtained the freedom of the city 
 in the literary world before the days of psy- 
 
 1 " The inhibitions are taken up into the mind," Silberer, 
 op. cit., p. 171. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 49 
 
 choanalysis, but it had remained the sport of 
 occultist triflers and intellectualist chatterers, 
 with the aid of a few minor metaphysical 
 developments. This unscientific and super- 
 ficial aspect of the theory was cleared out 
 of the way by psychoanalysis. With the 
 aid of this method we have achieved a real 
 knowledge of the unconscious, and have also 
 secured a conception, no less essential though 
 not yet sufficiently precise, of the forecon- 
 scious. In the realm of the foreconscious 
 are such elements of the unconscious psyche 
 as are no more than temporarily in the un- 
 conscious ; such as frequently or regularly 
 cross the threshold of consciousness ; such as 
 are obliterated from consciousness, not on 
 account of the nature of their thought content, 
 but for accidental and temporary reasons. 
 Those elements, on the other hand, which 
 have been permanently forgotten, or which 
 have never entered the conscious mind, those 
 elements which cannot cross the threshold 
 of consciousness, constitute the unconscious. 
 No matter that there is a less sharply defined 
 boundary between the foreconscious and the 
 unconscious, than there is between the con- 
 scious and all that temporarily or permanently 
 lies beyond the threshold. In such classifi- 
 cations, the decisive consideration is not the 
 
 4 
 
50 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 extent of the cleavage but the criterion of 
 differentiation. 
 
 Psychoanalysis regards the existence of the 
 foreconscious as self-evident, and concentrates 
 its attention on the unconscious. Primarily 
 this is because the psychology of the uncon- 
 scious is closely associated with the neuroses. 
 This is not the only reason. Let us consider 
 the social bearing of these conceptions. What 
 have we to understand by the statement 
 that one of my psychical processes is con- 
 scious ? To put the matter crudely, this means 
 nothing else than that I can express it in 
 words, that by means of speech I can com- 
 municate it to others in a way they will be 
 able to understand. Whatever physiological 
 factors and accompaniments consciousness may 
 possess, direct psychological analysis can attach 
 itself only to the factor of the intelligible. I 
 do not relate everything that I think, but the 
 starting-point of any thought process cannot 
 but be my capacity to relate it should I so 
 desire. For the present we make no attempt 
 to discuss the significance of such a desire. 
 Beyond question, it is not the same thing to 
 be able to do something and to desire to 
 do it. We can take our stand upon this 
 difference. The conscious is what we are 
 able to communicate to others, what we are 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 51 
 
 able to disclose to society ; it is what can be 
 adequately incorporated in speech, that is to 
 say, in a system of extant social conven- 
 tions. 1 
 
 The difference between the conscious and 
 the foreconscious is inconsiderable. It is the 
 difference between actuality and potentiality ; 
 a difference which does not concern the struc- 
 ture of the mind, but depends solely upon the 
 momentary state of circumstances and the 
 individual. In so far as the foreconscious 
 occupies different relationships from those 
 occupied by the conscious, the difference 
 concerns only the formless situation and 
 not the essentially operative structure of 
 society. 
 
 Very different is it with the unconscious. 
 Here the decisive matter is, not that the 
 unconscious cannot come to play a salient 
 part in the psyche (for this assertion is only 
 true within limits), but that the unconscious 
 cannot present itself before society. What- 
 ever disturbances or excitations the uncon- 
 scious may produce within me, I have no 
 power to give even approximate expression 
 to the workings of my unconscious, or to 
 
 1 It is possible that to think of anything, necessarily involves 
 the incipient, rudimentary, unnoted utterance of the relevant 
 words. 
 
52 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 recount these workings to other persons. Psy- 
 choanalysts formulate this by saying that 
 the unconscious is nonsocial. This must not 
 be interpreted as implying an individuality of 
 the unconscious, as implying that the un- 
 conscious is peculiarly differentiated in different 
 persons ; such an assertion would apply less 
 correctly to the unconscious than to the 
 conscious. What has to be understood is 
 that the unconscious, even if it be identical 
 in a number of persons, never manifests itself 
 among them. The unconscious may play an 
 important part as indicating a community 
 of common ancestry, but it does not dis- 
 close itself in the working life of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Investigation shows that this contrast really 
 exists, that the various unconsciouses do, in 
 fact, resemble one another closely, just as 
 there is a striking resemblance between the 
 above-described individual and mass mani- 
 festations of the unconscious. The contrast is 
 already known to us ; we discern in it the 
 contrast between the species and society. If 
 we may venture on a bolder simplification, we 
 shall infer that the unconscious, while posses- 
 sing the characteristics of the species, is non- 
 social — and at the same time, of course, 
 nonindividual. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 53 
 
 Before we pass from nonsociality to a 
 possible antisociality, we have to consider 
 psychoanalysis proper, to consider its aim of 
 rendering the unconscious conscious. The 
 purpose of psychoanalysis is to throw light on 
 the unconscious elements of the psyche, to 
 place them at the disposal of the conscious. 
 The means whereby we do this is the dis- 
 placement from its normal surroundings of 
 that which we have to analyse, and the in- 
 terpretation of the isolated and masked mani- 
 festations of the unconscious by comparing 
 and systematising these. The characteristic 
 view that psychoanalysis signifies a favouring 
 of the unconscious, signifies its enfranchise- 
 ment into the realm of action, is utterly false. 
 The analyst aims merely at rendering it 
 possible to recognise the unconscious, at making 
 it accessible to society, and in especial to the 
 physician and to the conscious ego. I must 
 point out that in many cases that which is 
 unconscious is not an individual idea, but 
 the relationship between conscious (or fore- 
 conscious) ideas. As a rule, however, it is 
 this very matter of a relationship which puts 
 the analyst on the track of the hidden psychical 
 contents. In any case, this may serve to 
 make the reader understand that we do not 
 look upon the unconscious as a substantial 
 
54 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 entity, as if it were the one and only reality. 1 
 The unconscious represents merely a transition 
 to that form of reality which is not the reality 
 of the consciousness, of the categories, but is 
 equivalent to the reality of the raw material. 
 There appears in the unconscious, as raw 
 material, everything which in the conscious 
 was an organic, formal, grammatical con- 
 struction. 2 The unconscious works only with 
 the coexistent ; the relationship of the al- 
 ternative, of the contrast, is unknown to it. 
 In association therewith, the unconscious has 
 the quality of mobility (forming associations 
 in freedom from outward determination) ; and 
 the quality of timelessness, in that it neglects 
 the circumstances of the outer world. 3 All 
 this agrees admirably with the theories ex- 
 pounded by Durkheim. The unconscious is 
 nonsocial. Psychoanalysis aims at replacing 
 it by a social equivalent. Of course this does 
 not mean solely an approximation of the 
 unconscious to society, but the converse as 
 well. Not only, however, does the un- 
 
 1 Cf. P. Bjerre, Bewusstsein kontra Unterbewusstsein, 
 Jahrbuch fur Psychoanalyse, V, p. 697. 
 
 3 Concerning the latent content of dreams, cf. Freud, 
 Die Traumdeutung, 4th edition, Vienna and Leipzig, 
 191 6, p. 247. — The Interpretation of Dreams, Allen and 
 Unwin, London, 1913, p. 260. 
 
 3 Freud, Das Unbewusste, Neurosenlehre, IV, p. 319. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 55 
 
 conscious protest against this ; but in society, 
 likewise, we discern a strong tendency to 
 resistance, despite the fact that the analytic 
 trend, as we shall learn more fully in the 
 sequel, is predominantly social. For the 
 moment, let it suffice to say that this antagon- 
 ism between the unconscious and society would 
 seem to be of no merely static character, but 
 presumably to possess a dynamic and militant 
 quality. 
 
 The content of the unconscious consists, in 
 fact, of wishes the realisation of which, and 
 even the expression of which, is forbidden by 
 society. The study of mass ideas and of the 
 beginnings of civilisation has familiarised us 
 with these wishes. They are forbidden forms 
 of sexuality and of allied trends which are 
 regarded with disapproval. In respect of the 
 repression of these complexes, in respect of 
 the way in which they are rendered uncon- 
 scious, modern man and the totemist resemble 
 one another far more closely than in respect 
 of other branches of their lives. This persis- 
 tence is a grave problem. No less grave is the 
 problem, what really causes repression ; why 
 not only the realisation of the wishes, but also 
 their expression, and even their very entry 
 into consciousness, are forbidden ; and why 
 this process is effected so forcibly that the 
 
56 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 relevant complexes are utterly unable to find 
 vent in speech. I shall make no attempt to 
 answer these questions definitively, since my 
 aim is merely one of interpretation. All I 
 wish is to arrange the problems in order of 
 importance. 
 
 Let me insist, above all, that there exists 
 in addition to repression an opposite way of 
 checking forbidden actions. I refer to self- 
 critical judgment, which bears the same sort 
 of relationship to repression that repression 
 bears to physical flight from an alarming or 
 loathsome object. 1 It is necessary to draw 
 attention to this conscious, critical judgment, 
 as the other pole within the psychical sphere. 
 Rational reflection finds nothing strange in 
 self-critical judgment ; but repression, being 
 a manifestly illogical attitude, seems incom- 
 prehensible. Nevertheless, it does not follow 
 that repression is more complicated than 
 self -critical judgment, any more than that 
 the dream is more complicated than waking 
 thought. 
 
 Let us dismiss the problem of the persistence 
 of the " nuclear complexes/' and turn to 
 that of repression. What is the link between 
 the realisation of the wishes and their ex- 
 pression, the link which psychoanalysis brings 
 
 1 Freud, Die Verdrangung, Neurosenlehre, IV, p. 279. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 57 
 
 so prominently before us ? Unquestionably 
 it is that the expression of the wish keeps it 
 permanently on the agenda, and thus prevents 
 its defeat, which has to be effected once and 
 for all. But this is not the whole matter. 
 The unconscious wish is felt, but its influence 
 does not extend beyond the limits of the 
 individual. It does not establish any barriers 
 between human beings. We know, indeed, 
 that persons can collaborate even when they 
 have sharp differences upon matters of feeling 
 and upon matters of opinion. But this can 
 only take place in a comparatively evolved 
 community ; it is impossible in primitive 
 communities, where cooperation is rigid, 
 mechanical, and based upon homogeneity. 
 Among primitive men, cooperation is physi- 
 cally enforced, or is enforced in a quasi 
 physical manner, with a uniformity of im- 
 pulsive rhythm which resembles the physical. 
 In the earlier stages of human life, impulse is 
 still very close to action, and solidarity cannot 
 tolerate any hostile acts that stand so close 
 to realisation. The expression of antisocial 
 wishes would imply anarchy and atomisation ; 
 the social organisation is inelastic ; solidarity, 
 therefore, represses any such expression. The 
 assumption lies ready to hand that in the 
 primitive type of solidarity it was found 
 
58 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 essential to forbid the mere mention of such 
 a wish, and to forbid no less the mere thinking 
 about it. Its public discussion would involve 
 the expression of opposing views. Where the 
 inhibition must be unconditional and general, 
 where it must be entirely uncontradicted, the 
 inhibited wish must be left wholly undis- 
 cussed. For either it would be a cause of 
 disturbance, and is therefore repressed, or else, 
 being entirely superfluous, it cannot even be 
 formulated. Nor can we suppose that that of 
 which it is forbidden to speak can remain 
 permanently in the consciousness. Mechanical 
 solidarity and the dominion of collective ideas 
 impose uniformity even in the realm of con- 
 sciousness, upon the very surface of social 
 contact. Moreover, we are concerned with 
 things which have no place in everyday life, 
 with things, any mention of which would 
 break up the mass unity. 
 
 Durkheim contends that the chief charac- 
 teristic of primitive solidarity was that the 
 prevailing law of primitive society was a 
 penal law (droit repressif). Repression, too, 
 has as its essence a forcible breaking-in of the 
 individual to fit him for the service of the 
 community. In the case of offences against 
 property, punishment came into play ; in the 
 case of sexual offences, repression was at work. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 59 
 
 The system is the same — quasi-physical, rigid, 
 and uniform. 
 
 If we recall that repression is not the most 
 primitive condition of all, but the one which 
 follows upon the condition in which impulses 
 were dominant, we shall realise that repression, 
 genetically regarded, stands between unre- 
 straint and self-critical judgment, and that 
 in certain respects it has closer affinities 
 with unrestraint. Repression, in fact, is far 
 from being a final settlement of antisocial 
 wishes. It merely carries them forward to 
 account, without destroying them, as psycho- 
 analysis has shown on innumerable occasions. 
 Freud writes that the repressed material con- 
 tinues to thrive in the darkness. 1 He says 
 also : " No one can be slain in absentia or 
 in effigie." % The inadequacy of repression is, 
 as Durkheim notes, precisely analogous to 
 the fragility of mechanical solidarity. Under 
 certain conditions, we can see in both the 
 fulfilment of the poet's words : 
 
 Majestic doom, interwoven with creation, 
 That he who strives for power shall by power be destroyed. 
 Rulers, in the end, must bow their necks beneath the yoke, 
 And he to-day is lord who yesterday was rebel. 3 
 
 1 Freud, loc. cit. 
 
 a Zur Dynamik der Uebertragung, Zentralblatt fur Psycho- 
 logie, anno II, p. 481. 
 
 a F. Werfel, Spruch eines gesturrten Saturnus. 
 
60 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOCxY 
 
 But the term analogy is by no means 
 apposite, seeing that repression, and a mechani- 
 cal solidarity which is dominant in virtue 
 of the mass idea, are respectively individual 
 and social formulas of the same institution. 
 
 The most highly developed form of the 
 overcoming of antisocial wishes is self-critical 
 judgment, the critical rejection of and the 
 refusal to satisfy an impulse. This is com- 
 patible with discussion, and is indeed con- 
 ditioned by discussion. Self-critical judgment 
 presupposes the consciousness that the wish 
 actually exists, and that its control demands 
 a certain trouble. In so far as the wish 
 gradually declines and disappears, its ex- 
 pression becomes purposeless ; but it may 
 of course persist as a topic of discussion. 
 
 The system of self-critical judgment belongs 
 to a social structure entirely different from 
 that to which the system of repression belongs. 
 The system of society based upon self-critical 
 judgment is elastic ; incipient onslaughts are 
 not able to threaten its stability. Its cohesion 
 cannot be ascribed to any coercive mass 
 ideas, inasmuch as all self-criticism is in 
 reality social criticism which destroys homo- 
 geneity. The social contrast to self-critical 
 judgment is dogma ; its social correlate is 
 conviction. I must refer, in especial, to S. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 61 
 
 Ferenczi's psychoanalytical publications. 1 He 
 gives the name of conquest to the success of 
 authority and of the moralisation that is 
 based on authority ; and he gives the name 
 of conviction to the governance that is based 
 upon the making of things accessible. 3 Con- 
 viction is a fact of such a nature that it 
 stands equally remote from authority and 
 from nihilism — not half way between them. 
 Incontestably, unfaith or scepticism often in- 
 trudes between faith and conviction, but this 
 must not be confused with the development 
 of faith into conviction. Whereas the social 
 expression of scepticism is anarchy, the social 
 expression of conviction is the union of free 
 individuals. This brings us back to Durk- 
 heim's conception, for Durkheim holds that 
 evolution tends towards organic solidarity. 
 Such a solidarity conditions a legal structure 
 wherein contractual law (droit restitutif) pre- 
 vails, a system based on the division of labour. 
 Now division of labour implies the existence 
 of diverse individuals, for whom the bond of 
 union is not a mass rhythm but the association 
 of their various working functions. In these 
 
 * The Progress of Psychoanalysis [Magyar], Budapest, 
 1920, pp. 22, et seq. 
 
 » In Magyar, as well as in English and in the Latin tongues, 
 the word " conviction " is formed from the same root as 
 " victory." 
 
62 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 circumstances there cannot, of course, be 
 any dominant dogma, any conquest and 
 repression ; but there can be free discussion, 
 conviction, and the reasoned condemnation 
 of antisocial tendencies. It is, however, 
 necessary to reiterate that this can be fully 
 achieved only in the ideal perfection of organic 
 solidarity. 
 
 No detailed proof need be offered of the 
 assertion that self-critical judgment, when it 
 can be achieved, is more effective than re- 
 pression. Repression has no annihilating force 
 whatever, whereas self-critical judgment seeks 
 out every particle of the condemned material, 
 endeavouring to detach it from its connexions. 
 Self-critical judgment does not leave the un- 
 conscious intact as a solid block, and it is 
 therefore able to avail itself of the methods 
 of dissociation and canalisation for the purpose 
 of rendering the unconscious harmless. Psy- 
 choanalytical methods of treatment give a 
 practical demonstration of this. Repression, 
 in so far as it has not been completely suc- 
 cessful, leads to the thriving of certain con- 
 structions wherein the repressed complex still 
 manifests itself as a unified entity ; but nothing 
 of this kind ensues upon self-critical judgment. 
 Moerover, self-critical judgment is not subject 
 to any liaison with the complex, such as 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 63 
 
 often gives a quaint colouring to repression, 
 as we are apt to see in the neuroses. The 
 totemistic organisation founded upon incest 
 and parricide is, qua content, permeated with 
 incest and parricide. Release from these 
 trends begins only at a later stage of develop- 
 ment, in the course of which differentiation 
 and criticism, however slowly, secure breathing 
 space. 
 
 Self-critical judgment, far from concealing 
 a consecration of the unconscious, is verily 
 the liberation of the individuality from the 
 thraldom of the unconscious. In repression, 
 not only the repressed material, but likewise 
 and necessarily the process of repression, be- 
 come unconscious. Deliberate attempts at 
 repression have practically no significance, or 
 at most are significant as temporary deflec- 
 tions. The authority which is at work on 
 the borderline between the unconscious and 
 the foreconscious, by psychoanalysts termed 
 the censor, is itself unconscious. We may 
 compare it with the press censorship, as the 
 important organ of a social dictatorship ; the 
 actual working of this press censorship is 
 concealed from men's eyes, although its ex- 
 istence makes itself felt. As a rule and for 
 organic reasons the press censorship is ar- 
 bitrary, pursues its own ends, and serves 
 
64 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 partisan aims. The same may be said of the 
 endopsychic censor, for this protects the con- 
 scious against the unconscious, without helping 
 the conscious to a victory over the uncon- 
 scious. For the censor is in great part a 
 denial of the conscious, a denial of the social 
 interchange of ideas. 
 
 As ultimate outcome we find that psycho- 
 analysis contributes to the theory of mechani- 
 cal solidarity and to the theory of organic 
 solidarity something more than a mere supply 
 of psychical contents. The schemata of re- 
 pression and self-critical judgment, of faith, 
 unfaith, and conviction, the discovery of the 
 unconscious, have thrown a new and clearer 
 light on the relationship of the individual to 
 the social organism. We must now consider 
 certain important details. 
 
 Psychoanalysis has drawn its main materials 
 from the study of the slighter and purely 
 functional mental disorders, from the study 
 of psychoneuroses. The background of these 
 disorders is formed by sexual wishes of an 
 antisocial character. These have been re- 
 pressed, but have not been destroyed. On the 
 contrary, they have become intensified ; and 
 concomitantly with this intensification there 
 has occurred an accentuation of repression. 
 The repressed trends break out in various 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 65 
 
 groups of symptoms, some of which are 
 physical, though to a predominant extent 
 they are mental. These syndromes and com- 
 promise formations, although they are far 
 from being tantamount to the conquest of 
 power by the repressed wishes, greatly reduce 
 the social value of the patient. The repressed 
 trends achieve this much, that the subject 
 neglects or abandons social relationships. 
 Furthermore, the repressed trends secure par- 
 tial satisfaction along various underground 
 channels. Anxiety is to be regarded as a 
 substitute for repressed sexual libido, the 
 anxiety being in part a direct expression of 
 the libido energy, but in part the expression 
 of dread of the punishments inflicted by society. 
 Here, then, we encounter a regression to re- 
 pression, a regression to mechanical solidarity, 
 at a stage of evolution wherein organic soli- 
 darity and self-critical judgment should prevail. 
 At the same time, however, this regression is 
 a relapse into the gratification of the con- 
 demned libido, which secures fulfilment un- 
 changed in its essence, though mutilated and 
 caricatured in point of form. Psychoanalysts 
 speak of these disguises as idealisation, in 
 contradistinction to sublimation, in which 
 there occurs an integral transference of the 
 impulsive energies into useful activities. 
 
 5 
 
66 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Idealisation is characterised by the morpho- 
 logical covering up of the repressed material, 
 with which it is therefore congruent ; x whereas 
 sublimation involves a thoroughgoing elabora- 
 tion of the repressed material. The hysterical 
 paroxysm is invariably the mask for an act 
 of coitus. In the compulsion neuroses we 
 often encounter the extreme case, in which 
 the patient imperturbably carries out some 
 perverse practice, while to satisfy his con- 
 science he rigidly abstains from some associated 
 or analogous but harmless and insignificant 
 form of activity, turning the matter off as 
 it were with a jest. A part of every neurosis 
 is the clinging to it, the " will to disease/' 
 the " flight towards disease/' There is a 
 lapse from the level of society to a lower 
 level which is nearer to the level of the species. 
 The essence of the lesser or functional psy- 
 choses is the turning away from society, 
 the exclusive concentration upon the ego, in 
 conjunction with the defence of the uncon- 
 scious, or even capitulation to the unconscious. 
 Of course this turning away from society 
 must not be described as a form of individual- 
 ism, which might well transcend the normal 
 life in value. The approximation takes place, 
 
 1 " The neurosis is the negative of the perversion," Freud, 
 Sexualtheorie, 3rd edition, Leipzig and Vienna, 1915, p. 30. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 67 
 
 not to the individuality, but to the system of 
 a more primitive society. This is shown, 
 among other indications, by the compulsive 
 character which " despite the best intentions 
 in the world " is manifest in every neurosis. 
 It is somewhat less strikingly present in 
 hysteria, where the symptoms are predomi- 
 nantly physical. But the other great psycho- 
 neurosis is preeminently termed the com- 
 pulsion neurosis. Now there are only two 
 kinds of compulsion : the compulsion exercised 
 by our impulses ; and the compulsion exer- 
 cised by a more primitive social environment. 
 Neurotic compulsion contains both forms in 
 varying degrees of intensity, according to the 
 adaptation to extant society,— an adaptation 
 which does not require compulsion in the 
 narrower sense of the term. 
 
 The content of the neuroses is in conformity 
 with these considerations. The points of con- 
 tact between the individual and the species, 
 and between society and the species —sexuality 
 and childhood — are here made manifest. Let 
 us first consider childhood, which is more 
 directly interconnected with society. 
 
 The mental characteristics of the child are 
 of supreme importance both sociologically and 
 psychologically. In theory this has often been 
 recognised ; but psychoanalysis has made of 
 
68 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the theory a working hypothesis, and has 
 boldly attempted to fill in its outlines. The 
 child's environment, that which at first in 
 the majority of instances constitutes for the 
 child the phenomenal form of society, consists 
 mainly of the parents. Thus the central 
 problem is the relationship of the child to 
 the parents. In my account of the matter, 
 I shall speak of male children only, first of 
 all because the available data relate chiefly 
 to boys and because their development is 
 unquestionably more important ; and secondly 
 because, as far as the broad lineaments are 
 concerned, what applies to boys applies to 
 girls, mutatis mutandis, and allowing for the 
 differences of sex. 
 
 Primarily the relationship of the son to the 
 mother is not social, but specifically physio- 
 logical (birth). The normally apparent incest 
 trend signifies, in part at least, the revival of 
 this relationship, as is proved by the frequent 
 occurrence of birth fantasies. The trend is 
 certainly antisocial, antievolutional. In nor- 
 mal life, however, it does not undergo any 
 independent development ; it is sublimated, 
 to constitute a source of energy in the later 
 sexual life, and in the general life. This 
 process of sublimation is apt to be arrested 
 by an excess of maternal tenderness, which 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 69 
 
 leads to a fixation of the incest trend, and 
 renders inevitable a conflict between that 
 trend and the accentuated repression. Such 
 fixation actually exists in most cases, a pheno- 
 menon which is unquestionably one of the 
 causes of the slowness of our evolution and 
 of the irrationality of our behaviour, especially 
 in sexual matters. 
 
 As we already know, the father represents 
 the inhibitions and commands of society. 
 Nowadays this identification of the father 
 with society has already become weaker. 
 Whereas society has travelled a long way 
 in the development towards free cooperation, 
 the actual father is still but imperfectly dis- 
 tinguished from the father who was honoured 
 in the form of the totem-animal. The cause 
 of this discrepancy is to be found, not only 
 in the child, not only in the child's eternal 
 primitiveness, but also in the regressive ten- 
 dencies of the adult, which he is of course 
 able to work off upon the child. The idea 
 of absolute monarchy loses credit notably, 
 when compared with the idea of absolutism 
 in education ; but we may rest assured that 
 the relative persistence of the latter helps to 
 retard political progress. Ferenczi warns the 
 socialist leaders that their actions will be 
 paralysed as long as they continue as fathers 
 
70 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 to demand for themselves blind respect and 
 servile subjection. 1 Mensendieck likewise cen- 
 sures the irrational behaviour of parents in 
 the domain of permissions and prohibitions, 
 their chief social functions. 2 The relationship 
 to the parents constitutes the very kernel of 
 the neuroses. I cannot refrain from sum- 
 marising the account of this matter given by 
 an intelligent youth suffering from compulsion 
 neurosis, for his record has scientific value 
 apart from the immediate psychological interest 
 of the particular case. 3 
 
 No special qualifications, he writes, are 
 requisite for the practice of the parental 
 profession. The parents bring a child into 
 the world irresponsibly, as an act of special 
 creation. The child is a plaything, which 
 comes into existence without the exercise of 
 its own will, and which is supposed to be 
 grateful for the boon forced upon it. Parent- 
 worship, he adds, is the root of the similar 
 
 J Ferenczi, Nervous Symptoms, etc. [Psychoanalytical 
 Essays, in Magyar], Budapest, 191 4, p. 24. — In any case, 
 Marxist, socialism is not incompatible with authoritarian 
 dogmatism. 
 
 3 Zur Technik des Unterrichts und der Erziehung wahrend 
 der psychoanalytischen Behandlung, Jahrbuch fur Psycho- 
 analyse, V, p. 460. 
 
 3 Riklirj, Aus der Analyse einer Zwangsneurose, Jahrbuch 
 fur Psychoanalyse, II, pp. 291, et seq. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 71 
 
 tendencies manifest in social life, the root of 
 monarchism and militarism. 
 
 The relationship of mutual irresponsibility, 
 whose ethics cannot here be discussed, neces- 
 sarily produces effects both upon the individual 
 and upon society, for the relationship to the 
 parent has an archetypal character. 1 Psycho- 
 analysis has shown us that hypnosis is a copy 
 of lulling by the mother or of intimidation by 
 the father. We are readily reminded of loyalty, 
 demagogy, and kindred social manifestations. 
 
 Psychoanalysis has further demonstrated the 
 determinative influence of other factors opera- 
 tive during childhood, and notably that of 
 sexual traumata. Subsequently Freud was 
 inclined to believe that the basis of the future 
 constitution was formed, not so much by 
 gross sexual traumata, as by the whole course 
 of the sexual life during childhood. This view, 
 far from underestimating the importance of 
 environment and education, is one which 
 takes every environmental and educational 
 element into account. The noxious influences 
 which have no connexion with the parents 
 may be ranged in two classes : (i) Premature 
 and immoderate awakening of sensuality, with 
 consequent fixation ; (2) Intensified repression, 
 
 1 Concerning the irresponsibility of children, cf. Mensen 
 dieck, op. cit., p. 457. 
 
72 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 in association with despotic behaviour towards 
 the child. 
 
 We must now sketch the sociological results 
 of psychosexualanalysis ; all the threads seem 
 to converge upon this point. This is a diffi- 
 cult field of study, and we cannot as yet boast 
 very exact knowledge of the subject. Indu- 
 bitably we have to seek in sexuality the 
 essence of that which we have termed 
 " species/' that which both the individual and 
 society have produced out of themselves, 
 but which is at the same time a continuous 
 drag upon progress. While it is true that, as 
 the material of sublimation, it constitutes a 
 main factor of evolution and of the great 
 creations, structurally nevertheless, as impulse 
 and as tissue of partial impulses, it is the 
 antagonist of progress. 1 Let us reconsider in 
 a single survey a few of the traits of this 
 " species." 
 
 It is characteristic. of sexuality that in this 
 domain there is a closer approximation be- 
 tween thought and action than elsewhere. 
 In the field of sex there seems to occur what 
 we may term a short circuit between body 
 and mind.* From this source may well arise 
 
 1 Cf. Silberer, op. cit., Introversion and Regeneration 
 [Reincarnation or Rebirth]. 
 
 a Concerning the specific role of the sexual organs when 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 73 
 
 the belief in the omnipotence of thought 
 which is so widely diffused at a primitive 
 stage, the belief which is fundamental both 
 in magic and in compulsion neurosis. In a 
 wider sense, associated therewith is every 
 irrational overvaluation, first of all of the 
 own ego (narcissism — which may have an 
 interesting function in war 1 ), and secondly of 
 the external sexual object (love). We now 
 have a clue to the reason why in so many 
 fields the restriction and regulation of sexuality 
 are still effected by repression and not by 
 self-critical judgment. We have been glad 
 to accept the idea that we must educate 
 children in a scientific, secular morality ; but 
 we are still far from realising that it would 
 be well to enlighten the child sexually, and 
 not to postpone this enlightenment with the 
 utmost caution and for the greatest possible 
 period. For here word and deed are in closest 
 association ; here the foundation for self- 
 critical judgment is of the slightest. On the 
 other hand, from the omnipotence of thought 
 and from the energising value of knowledge 
 
 in a state of excitement, cf . Freud, Zur Einfuhrung des 
 Narzissmus, Jahrbuch, VI, p. 9 ; Ueber Sexualitat und 
 Zwang, ibid., p. 13. 
 
 1 He who cannot believe in his own death becomes a hero. 
 Freud, Ueber Krieg und Tod, p. 519. — The species, the germ 
 plasm, is in fact immortal ! 
 
74 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 of sexual things, there is derivable one of 
 the most powerful motive forces of science and 
 research. 1 Science, however, corresponds to 
 the stage of self-critical judgment and of the 
 evolved division of labour. 
 
 Another salient characteristic of sexuality 
 is the frequency of perversion. In connexion 
 with the sexual impulse, which appears in 
 so many forms without notable transformation, 
 there frequently occurs the rigid fixation of 
 a single component or of a group of components. 
 The primary source of the phenomenon of 
 perversion is almost always to be found in 
 the earlier years of childhood. Its origin is 
 associated with the fact that during childhood 
 the sexual impulse is present, although sexual 
 functions properly speaking are completely 
 lacking. It is not unlikely that wholesale 
 sexual repression may have intensified the 
 antisocial or dangerous features of the per- 
 versions. From our. point of view, special 
 attention must be paid to a polar couple of 
 perversions. I refer to the form of sadism and 
 masochism which is not algolagniac, but signi- 
 fies the voluptuousness of domination and of 
 subjection thereto. We must also take into 
 account the preponderant role of homosexual 
 tendencies, a role which has been disclosed by 
 
 1 Cf. Freud, Totem und Tabu, p. 81. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 75 
 
 psychoanalysis. We are, then, in a position 
 to emphasise the probable significance of sadism 
 and masochism in the social organism. Es- 
 pecially in this connexion, we think of the 
 church and of army life. The repression of 
 these trends, and above all of sadism, likewise 
 has important bearings. 
 
 A consideration of the whole question shows 
 that the tenacious persistence of the system 
 of repression in the regulation of sexuality 
 affords evidence of the tenacity of the sexual 
 life itself and of the way in which sexual 
 evolution lags behind the general progress of 
 civilisation. Psychoanalysis has made us 
 familiar with the ideas of " psychosexual 
 parallelism/ ' of " sexual typicalness " — the con- 
 ception according to which sexuality consti- 
 tutes at least one of the prime sources of the 
 mind and part of its skeletal framework. 
 The problems thus thrust on our attention 
 naturally lead into the domain of a necessarily 
 general formal psychology, and into the 
 domain of biology. The achievements of psy- 
 choanalysis up to the present date are valuable 
 to this extent at any rate. They offer an 
 interesting counterpart to the economico- 
 materialistic mysticism of^ Marxist doctrine, 
 and are less one-sided than this. Yet more 
 important is the light psychoanalysis has 
 
76 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 thrown upon the problem of social organisa- 
 tion, the demonstration of the evolutional 
 disharmony of society. Psychoanalysis alone 
 has rendered possible a systematic study of 
 the attitude of society towards sexuality. 
 Freud describes that attitude as a mixture of 
 lasciviousness and prudery. 1 The need for 
 psychoanalysis receives additional justification 
 (though we can hardly congratulate ourselves 
 upon this matter) precisely from the attacks 
 made upon the new method. Its opponents, 
 renouncing all attempts at serious scientific 
 criticism, would fain suppress it as anti- 
 moral. A sexual ethic that stands above 
 and outside the system of repressions is 
 still almost incomprehensible to the public 
 mind. 
 
 But the reader must not suppose that sexual 
 repression stands as a sort of isolated rock 
 in the sea of critical thought. This would 
 not be true even if we were to contemplate 
 only the state of affairs before 1914 (a limita- 
 tion which would, unfortunately, be quite 
 without warrant). There can be no question 
 that sexual morality is closely connected with 
 the social order, even though the former 
 may not depend upon the latter quite so 
 
 1 Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, I, 191 1, 
 p. 212. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 77 
 
 absolutely as certain simple-minded revolu- 
 tionists imagine. This system of ideas has 
 secured notable support from the observation 
 of Ernest Jones, that in the middle ages 
 sexual repression was based upon compen- 
 satory delusions, but at a later date was 
 based upon hypocritical puritanism. 1 The 
 author cannot mean to imply that any absolute 
 increase of repression occurred during the 
 later period, for there can be no question 
 that the manifestations of sexuality became 
 freer subsequent to the middle ages. The so- 
 called " old liberalism " in like manner displays 
 a freer spirit than clericalism, but is none the 
 less characterised by an ostrich policy towards 
 the discussion of certain problems, and, above 
 all, of religious problems. I cannot follow up 
 this thought, and my only reason for referring 
 to the matter has been to show that evolution 
 never makes equal progress in all fields, and 
 that the study of isolated topics is indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 Let us now turn to the social aims of psy- 
 choanalysis. We know that the essential 
 object of analytic therapy is to lift to the 
 level of self-critical judgment the patients 
 who have remained fixed in the stage of re- 
 pression. Corresponding therewith in the 
 
 1 Jones, op. cit., p. 139. 
 
78 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 social field we have the acceleration of evolu- 
 tion a la Durkheim towards social solidarity. 
 This acceleration does not involve any blind 
 affirmation of a dogmatically conceived process, 
 like that contemplated by Marxist socialism, 
 but leaves room for courageous and purposive 
 effort to counteract enduring trends. More- 
 over, every detail, the most important details 
 not excepted, is the concern of politics, and 
 has nothing to do with psychoanalysis. For 
 psychoanalysis can hardly have a message to 
 convey upon land reform or the other pro- 
 posals of any political party. Only the 
 fundamental aim of evolution, the spirit, the 
 atmosphere, can serve as a link between psy- 
 choanalysis and politics. But as far as this 
 fundamental aim is concerned, it is positively 
 essential that they should join hands. In 
 addition, there are of course, many concrete 
 points of contact. 
 
 Analytical treatment aims at influencing 
 the patient so that he may on the one hand 
 recognise every possibility, antisocial possi- 
 bilities not excepted, and may on the other 
 hand comprehend what is socially necessary. 
 A purely static and intellectualist disclosure 
 of the pathogenic material is just as futile as 
 are superficial persuasion and sermonising. 
 In psychoanalysis, conviction means that the 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 79 
 
 patient must convince himself. No one can 
 give salvation to another. We can only place 
 in another's hands the means wherewith he 
 can work out his own salvation. Psycho- 
 analysis wishes to train human beings who 
 shall be free and individually different, but 
 who shall unremittingly advance towards co- 
 operation ; human beings united by organic 
 solidarity. To the economic basis of this 
 society, to the division of labour upon which 
 Durkheim lays so much stress, psychoanalysis 
 adds the pertinent psychological foundation — 
 critical thought that is free both outwardly 
 and inwardly. The other favourite idea of 
 Durkheim, that of contractual solidarity, is 
 the idea of unification, of conviction. It is 
 obvious that analytical treatment, within its 
 limits, contributes towards this end, for the 
 psychoneuroses are likewise social phenomena. 
 Furthermore, psychoanalysis springs in ad- 
 dition from regions quite distinct from path- 
 ology. The literature of the subject, and 
 especially the analytical books written by 
 non-medical authors, afford proof of the wide 
 radiations of the work. The analytical psy- 
 chology of religion has a spirit perfectly 
 identical with that of Durkheim ; using other 
 weapons, it reinforces the same novel trend 
 of freethought. In place of the contemptuous 
 
80 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 neglect of religion and in place of tasteless 
 mockery of religion (both of these are mani- 
 festations of repression), we have explanations 
 of the function of religion. The acquisitions 
 of psychoanalysis in the field of sexual morality, 
 those which support the demand for deliberate 
 regulation and sublimation, will help to free 
 us once for all from the hopeless alternatives 
 of hypocrisy or libertinism. Now this advance 
 cannot fail to react upon the whole system of 
 social organisation. 
 
 In the educational field, the aim of psycho- 
 analysis is to put an end to the present con- 
 dition of affairs, wherein the upbringing of 
 the child takes the form of establishing in- 
 hibitions of which the young man has to rid 
 himself with great difficulty in order that he 
 may enter into the comparatively free life 
 of society, inhibitions that interpose obstacles 
 against the further emancipation of this society. 
 Psychoanalysts wish to awaken parents to a 
 sense of responsibility, to make parents realise 
 how immoral it is to give vent to their own 
 impulses in their relations to their children, 
 to induce elders utterly to abandon the 
 policy of " ask no questions/' l The aim of 
 psychoanalysis is to put an end to the 
 
 1 K. Abraham, Ueber Schaulust, etc., Jahrbuch, VI, 
 P- 73- 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 81 
 
 fixation of birth, the archetype of human 
 weakness, to put an end to dependence and 
 irresponsibility. Psychoanalysts desire to free 
 the individual and society from the yoke of 
 the species. 
 
 I believe that I am correct in thus inter- 
 preting the clear indication of Ferenczi that 
 psychoanalysis desires an individualist-socialist 
 society. 1 This would not be a mingling of 
 unbridled anarchism and despotic communism, 
 but the very opposite. It would be a union 
 of libertarian individualism and regulative 
 collectivism, of self-government and control. 
 It would be the community of the division 
 of labour ; of the highest possible economic 
 and spiritual development ; of concord, justice, 
 and individuality. 
 
 We must reject all combinations of terror 
 and anarchy. Utterly false would it be to 
 maintain that psychoanalysis, which is indeed 
 revolutionary, approves every possible revo- 
 lution for its own sake. Psychoanalysts are 
 aware that the rebellion against paternal 
 authority which is the root of social reform/ 
 invariably contains elements of justice and 
 rationality ; they are aware that it can never 
 be superfluous : 
 
 1 Nervose Symptome, etc., p. 24. 
 a Cf. Rank, op. cit., p. 391. 
 6 
 
82 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 And even though the world, resolving other conflicts, should 
 
 grow beautiful, 
 There will persist the conflict between fathers and sons. 1 
 
 But to psychoanalysis, the creator of " self- 
 critical judgment/' this revolt cannot be an 
 end in itself. Psychoanalysts do not offer 
 up moral aims as a sacrifice to a mere desire 
 for change ; the revolution they hope for is 
 not an overthrow but an ascent. Equally 
 foreign, therefore, to the spirit of psychoanaly- 
 sis are red ruin and black reaction. No less 
 remote from that spirit, likewise, is of course 
 formal bourgeois democracy. The place of 
 psychoanalysis in the struggle of the great 
 powers is by the side of " liberal socialism/ ' 
 
 In these matters weighty issues hang upon 
 the future course of our movement. The 
 usual standpoint is that psychoanalytically 
 trained experts are to realise the fruitful 
 possibilities of the new system of thought ; 
 but it may well happen that the leadership 
 will for a long time remain in the hands of 
 the " professional " leaders. I may have 
 further occasion to refer to corrections, new 
 applications, and ethical relationships. This 
 much, at least, I can confidently assert at 
 the present stage of the enquiry. Without 
 being false to its psychological centre, to its 
 
 » F. Werfel, op. cit. 
 
SOCIAL ORGANISATION 83 
 
 essential etymological significance, to its primal 
 source of energy, psychoanalysis, that powerful 
 international spiritual movement, may boldly 
 undertake the realisation of its social aims. 
 For, in the end comes action. 
 
PART TWO 
 
 SOCIOLOGICAL TASKS OF 
 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 IN Part One, Sociological Results of Psycho- 
 analysis, I formulated a distinction between 
 results which had been achieved by the direct 
 observation of society and those which had 
 been achieved by the psychological and 
 psychiatric study of individuals. The results 
 belonging to the former class were again 
 divided into two groups : the first of these 
 comprised items of knowledge' concerning more 
 or less primitive collective ideas (especially 
 myths) ; the second comprised items of know- 
 ledge concerning primitive social structure. 
 I expressed the opinion that, although the 
 last-named branch of study is the typically 
 sociological field of investigation, the most 
 important sociological results had been secured 
 by means of psychoanalysis proper. We now 
 have to throw light on the possibilities which 
 lie open to psychoanalysis upon the sociological 
 field, and to outline researches deliberately 
 aiming in this direction. In addition, and 
 
88 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 above all, we shall attempt to give an example 
 of the realisation of one of these possibilities. 
 
 The conscious sociological orientation of 
 psychoanalysis would appropriately belong to 
 a higher stage of organisation in general. 
 Hitherto, psychoanalysis has achieved ^ the 
 observation of social phenomena in the follow- 
 ing way. The psychoanalyst, having again and 
 again discovered in his patients symbolical 
 expressions of typical contents of the un- 
 conscious, has then noted in mass psychology 
 the presence of constructions of ostensibly 
 similar form. In the case of primitive societies, 
 also, attention was directed to these likenesses. 
 The sociological trends of psychoanalysis in 
 the narrower sense of the term, were present 
 only in the germ. For psychoanalysis was 
 in general concerned rather with the typical 
 contents and their forms of expression, than 
 with their various structural configurations, 
 with characterology, with differential psycho- 
 logy. By such methods it was impossible to 
 produce even a moderately systematic picture. 
 
 If, however, we subject to a more intensive 
 statistical elaboration and systematisation 
 the materials hitherto furnished by psycho- 
 analysis, it would seem already certain, in 
 view of what psychoanatysis has taught 
 concerning the role of society in the develop- 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 89 
 
 ment of the individual, that interesting 
 sociological results would be secured. 
 
 Above all it would be important to note 
 the social environment of the patients under 
 treatment. We are familiar with the factors 
 which contribute to the causing of a psycho- 
 neurosis. Repression is a preeminently social 
 process. The pecuniary circumstances of the 
 patient, the class to which he belongs, his 
 occupation, the intellectual and social level 
 of the environment of his childhood's days, 
 i.e. of his family, are by no means indifferent. 
 Freud x discusses the comparative destinies 
 of girls belonging respectively to a propertyless 
 and to a well-to-do family. The former is 
 able to secure freer satisfaction of the impulsive 
 life, whereas the latter, unequal to the demands 
 of repression, becomes a neurotic being (of 
 course this is but one of many possible contrasts, 
 but it is a frequent form). Medical practi- 
 tioners have long been aware that neuroses are 
 especially common among well-to-do families, 
 whereas psychoses predominate among the 
 poorer classes of the population. Unquestion- 
 ably a part cause of this lies in the physical 
 conditions, which contribute especially to 
 engender psychoses, for these disorders find 
 
 1 Vorlesungen zur Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse, 
 Allgemeine Neurosenlehre, Vienna, 1907, p. 407. 
 
90 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 a more favourable soil in material want. 
 There must, however, also be psychical 
 determinants. Psychoanalysis teaches that 
 the two psychoses which are most accessible 
 to analytic study, paranoia and paraphrenia, 
 differ in their mechanism from the psycho- 
 neuroses, especially in this, that in the two 
 former the disorders of the ego predominate — 
 in association with narcissistic fixation. Now 
 uncertainty as to the position of the ego 
 begins very early in the families of the poor. 
 In our consideration of social relationships, 
 however, we have to take many things into 
 account besides financial position. First of 
 all, financial position and class status do not 
 necessarily coincide. Entirely different ideo- 
 logies and mental constellations prevail in an 
 impoverished patrician family, on the one hand, 
 and in a family of working-class origin that 
 has risen to a competence, on the other ; like 
 differences are seen as between a middle- 
 class family and an aristocratic family enjoying 
 the same income. The available means do 
 not in themselves produce either stability 
 or recklessness ; they do not produce either 
 steadfast clinging to tradition or love for 
 innovation ; nor do they account for the 
 varying family environment of the child. We 
 have to remember that occupation exercises 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 91 
 
 an influence in other spheres than those in 
 which class is at work ; that class exercises 
 its influence in other spheres than those in 
 which material position is at work ; and 
 so on. Religious and other traditions, and 
 various special qualities, must be considered. 
 Only a detailed study of the facts can throw 
 light on these questions. 
 
 The objection might be raised that this 
 would involve a return from psychoanalysis to 
 a purely descriptive and superficial psychiatric 
 method ; that it would imply a renunciation 
 of the endeavour to trace out the mechanism 
 of the disease, and would lead us to look once 
 more for purely external " causes." There is 
 no foundation for any such criticism. Psycho- 
 analysis has already displayed lively interest 
 in the family position of the patient, and has 
 paid peculiar attention to the qualities of the 
 father. Closely considered, this might be held 
 not to belong to the analysis of the psyche, 
 but might be regarded as a necessary utilisation 
 of the data acquired by psychoanalysis. In 
 a word, it is the systematic juxtaposition of 
 psychoanalytical data with other facts not 
 acquired by analysis. It would not so much 
 mean that the analyst would deduce a psychical 
 disorder from the social circumstances of the 
 parents, as that he would connect its genesis 
 
92 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 with the special circumstances of their married 
 life. Of this much I am certain, that if the 
 huge mass of available material were subjected 
 to some such more intensive comparison and 
 differentiation, the further analytical increase 
 of the material would be facilitated, for the 
 process would render possible the fixation 
 of details which have so far been left out of 
 the reckoning. What we have in view, 
 therefore, is not to replace psychoanalysis, 
 but to render it more profound. There can 
 be no doubt that the material and the symbol- 
 ism of the unconscious exhibit remarkable 
 similarity in different individuals. Every 
 analyst has noted the deviations, the varying 
 texture, of the material and its phenomenal 
 forms. An understanding of these things would 
 be notably enhanced if a light were thrown 
 upon their relationships to the situation of 
 the individual. 
 
 But why, when we speak of this situation, 
 do we lay so much stress upon social position ? 
 For this reason, because in the psychical 
 sphere the social position of the patient gives 
 occasion for the deduction of general laws. 
 I do not think that any psychiatrist can fail 
 to devote conscientious attention to the 
 patient's bodily state. Psychoanalysts, too, 
 if we except those of Adler's school with their 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 93 
 
 doctrine of the " inferiority of organs/' pay 
 attention to the secondary psychosexual 
 functions of the various organs essential to 
 the maintenance of life. A more precise and 
 detailed study of these interrelations beween 
 soma and psyche must be the task of biology, 
 or of the biological doctrine of the impulsive 
 life, wherein analysis will obviously have to 
 play a leading part. Upon the other side 
 of mental development we find the influence 
 of the family entourage and of additional 
 elements in the environment. These additional 
 elements, comprise in part those of a chance 
 character, which, owing to their immediacy, 
 come to the surface abundantly in every 
 analysis. But the more permanent elements 
 of the environment are those social character- 
 istics we have just been discussing. They 
 less readily press to the front of the stage in 
 the course of the analysis, but any far-reaching 
 development of analytical science must take 
 them adequately into account. Such a more 
 differential and more systematic psychology 
 would not be a metaphysical or dialectical 
 degeneration of psychoanalysis. It would 
 merely imply the fuller organisation and 
 promotion of the science, would necessitate 
 a more thrifty utilisation of the raw material, 
 and would presuppose a more fruitful collection 
 
94 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 of data. Analysis would remain the empirical 
 centre of the method, but would acquire 
 greater significance. A number of socio- 
 psychological questions, to the answering of 
 which analysis has as yet contributed no more 
 than indirectly by its search for analogies to 
 typical mental constructions, would now 
 become more directly accessible to actual 
 analysis. 
 
 In the first section, the idea was more than 
 once outlined that a link between two branches 
 of research would prove of almost equal use 
 to both. We need not consider the advantages 
 that might accrue to psychoanalysis from 
 such a supplementary study ; what concerns 
 us here is the profit to sociology. It is 
 essential to this science that those who study 
 it should be acquainted with the influences 
 which society and its subdepartments exercise 
 upon the individual mind. They must be 
 in a position to observe the unconscious 
 stirrings of the masses, not only in their results, 
 but likewise in their course, and indeed in the 
 nascent state. When the sociologist has at 
 his disposal data concerning the manifest and 
 empirically discovered psychical correlates of 
 the various social happenings, he will be able 
 to form far sounder judgments of social 
 dynamics, social possibilities, and social aims. 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 95 
 
 This of course does not imply that sociological 
 research will become superfluous, any more 
 than that psychoanalytical study will become 
 superfluous. Such a development would be 
 a retrogression of science, whereas the proposed 
 integration would be an advance. 
 
 Ferenczi holds [oral report] that, as part of 
 a neurotic syndrome, there may be a stirring 
 of sexual desire towards members of a different 
 social class from the patient's. The psycho- 
 logical study of this phenomenon will pre- 
 sumably help to explain why even persons 
 inspired by thoroughly democratic sentiments 
 and uninfluenced by material considerations, 
 will venerate the nobility ; and what part so 
 irrational an attitude may play in social 
 transformations, in revolutionary outbreaks, 
 etc. This branch of psychoanalytical study 
 will not, of course, serve to explain why such 
 transformations and outbreaks occur ; but 
 it should certainly serve to throw light upon 
 the mechanism of these processes, upon the 
 forms under which they usually manifest 
 themselves, upon changes in ideology, upon 
 inhibitions, etc. Another interesting state- 
 ment of Ferenczi's refers to the attitude of 
 impecunious patients towards the doctor. He 
 considers that there are two distinct types of 
 patient. Those belonging to one of these types 
 
96 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 feel a reverence for the doctor as the repre- 
 sentative of a higher class and a person 
 endowed with great power. Those of the 
 other type are defiant and stubborn, feeling 
 towards the doctor the mistrust and hatred 
 which they feel for everyone belonging to. the 
 master class. We are immediately reminded 
 that a similar duality of outlook prevails 
 towards the clergy among the broad masses 
 of the people. A study of the transference 
 of affect to the physician, especially as it 
 occurs among poor and uncultured patients, 
 may help us to an understanding of clericalism 
 and anticlericalism among the folk. On the 
 other hand, to keep to the same example, 
 we may expect to find characteristic varieties. 
 Suspicion of the man whose function it is 
 to know things, and suspicion of the man 
 who is in God's confidence, are not identical. 
 We must not uncritically transfer to the 
 latter, observations that have been made 
 regarding the former ; and conversely. 
 
 An important element in social relationships 
 is constituted by the mental characteristics 
 of the various nationalities, races, and culture- 
 groups. The expansion of psychoanalytical 
 study would help us to learn in what nations 
 particular impulsive trends are dominant, 
 which symbols are most widely diffused, which 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 97 
 
 constructions and which manifestations are 
 proper to the individual nations. We are 
 practically justified in assuming that such 
 characteristics exist. It seems most improb- 
 able that the groups of qualities which in- 
 dubitably stamp particular nations — which 
 produce a national aroma so to speak — are 
 mere mixtures of such general traits as civilisa- 
 tion and barbarism, tenacity and fickleness, 
 trustworthiness and un trust worthiness. These 
 cannot suffice to account for the matter. The 
 problem of the origin of national qualities 
 belongs chiefly to the spheres of geography, 
 history, and sociology ; but the inner mechan- 
 ism of these qualities cannot be fully elucidated 
 without analytical research. 
 
 We owe to Maeder an attempt at the system- 
 atic study of the English national character — 
 not directly analytical, but guided by psycho- 
 analytical ideas. 1 The author describes the 
 two main types of English youth, the " puppy " 
 and the " girl," the dominant part played 
 by women (" management "), the widespread 
 sexual repression, the manifestations of anal- 
 erotic character traits, the cult of pet animals, 
 and hero-worship. Noteworthy is his con- 
 cluding observation that the English character 
 
 1 Psychoanalytische Eindriicke von einer Reise in England, 
 Imago, 1 91 2. 
 
 7 
 
98 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 is far from producing a general impression 
 of being neurotic ; the prevailing repression 
 seems to be effected almost' without disturb- 
 ance, to be successful. It would be interesting 
 to carry Maeder's study further, in part by 
 the use of the psychoanalytical material 
 accumulated by British investigators, and in 
 part by a consideration of the light which the 
 thus-ascertained character traits throw upon 
 other British qualities and upon the course of 
 British policy. The peculiar hypocrisy of the 
 British (not wholly antipathetic), the hypocrisy 
 which is so manifest in British foreign policy, 
 becomes unquestionably more comprehensible 
 to one who is acquainted with the manifestations 
 of British prudery. The partial intensification 
 of repression, and on the other hand the 
 almost complete disappearance of the subjection 
 of women, are doubtless connected with the 
 peculiar cleavage between English traditional- 
 ism and English rationalism. There may also 
 be some connexion between this successful 
 repression and the continued success of Britain 
 in its relations with the foreign world. There 
 is a point of contact between navalism and 
 sexual symbolism ; the " ship " is of the 
 feminine gender. 
 
 Passing to consider other group character- 
 istics, we may recall that Freud makes a 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 99 
 
 passing reference to the comparative freedom 
 of the Viennese population in sexual matters. 1 
 This is of course related to the well-known 
 " easy-going " characteristics of the Viennese. 
 It would be impossible in the present sketch 
 to suggest where the determining causes may 
 lie. Let me next allude to the Prussian 
 junkerdom, a phenomenon often described, 
 which unquestionably derives in part from 
 nonrational erotic impulses. One of its 
 defenders, Scheler, 2 frankly declares that 
 western armies and their ideology signify 
 militarism for a purpose, whereas German 
 armies signify temperamental militarism. This 
 would imply that the German army was not 
 so much the technical instrument for achieving 
 the purposes of war, as the embodiment of a 
 self-sufficing hedonistic impulse. Now we are 
 aware that such an impulse can be analysed. 
 The more systematic study of national traits 
 by psychoanalytical methods will not become 
 possible until psychoanalysis has secured 
 wider recognition and has been more generally 
 practised. It is essential that country- 
 dwellers should be analysed as well as town- 
 
 1 Zur Geschichte der psychoanalytischen Bewegung, Samm- 
 lung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, IV, Vienna, 1918, 
 p. 42. — The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, New 
 York, 1917, p. 31. 
 
 * Die Ursachen des Deutschenhasses, Leipzig, 191 7. 
 
100 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 dwellers. It seems probable that folklorist 
 studies may contribute to our knowledge in 
 this respect. 
 
 Finally, psychoanalysis can assist in certain 
 social constructions, can render valuable aid 
 to various trends and movements. The main 
 topic of this volume, however, is the indirect 
 application of psychoanalysis to social move- 
 ments. The task is certainly more difficult 
 than the analytical study of mythology, for 
 in the former branch of investigation the 
 elements conflicting with the reality principle x 
 that are elucidated by psychoanalysis give 
 greater scope for economic and rationalist 
 deductions — and the complications are so great 
 that their unravelling becomes very difficult. 
 How difficult, for example, would it be, in 
 studying the origin of capitalism, to elucidate 
 the part played by some immanent disorganisa- 
 tion in the middle ages, the part played by 
 anal-erotic character traits, and the connexion 
 between the two. I consider that the combined 
 work of many investigators will be requisite 
 for such studies. But I may lay down the 
 following general principles. 
 
 Psychoanalysis is best fitted to undertake 
 the study of those constructions in which the 
 elements conflicting with the reality principle 
 
 1 Lorenz, Der politische Mythus, Imago, 1920. 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 101 
 
 are most numerous. 1 The science can do more 
 to explain mass impulses than to explain the 
 phases of industrial development. Psycho- 
 analysis is especially at home in the domain 
 of the regressions. Adaptation to reality must 
 apriori play a more notable part in anagogic 
 movements. But since all such movements 
 must possess a regressive libido-capital, they 
 cannot be excluded from the domain of psycho- 
 analysis, any more than sublimation in general 
 can be excluded ; the regressive element 
 remains of permanent importance. Our study, 
 however, must not put forward the claim that 
 the construction under consideration is to be 
 simply referred to an individuo-psychological 
 schema ; this would obviously be an attempt 
 at an unduly crude simplification. On the 
 other hand, care must be taken to avoid 
 wandering off into the logic and dialectics of 
 the question or into the critique of conflicting 
 outlooks, and against entering too far into 
 the investigation of the basic social reality, 
 for ail these things lie beyond the field of 
 study. The aim is merely to rediscover in 
 the social constructions the unconscious 
 tendencies and their modes of expression that 
 have been made manifest in the individual 
 
 1 Cf. Rank and Sachs, Die Bedeutung der Psychoanalyse 
 fur die Geisteswissenschaften, Wiesbaden, 191 3. 
 
102 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 psyche — to rediscover them in whatever form 
 they may manifest themselves. If we should 
 suceed in this without any falsification of the 
 data, the results will be applicable in various 
 directions. Our general understanding of 
 sociology will be facilitated ; gaps will be filled 
 in ; hints will be furnished as to how libido- 
 masses which are working along dangerous 
 paths can be rendered harmless or can be 
 diverted to useful routes. Perhaps, too, 
 further light will be thrown upon the individual 
 psyche, it may be in relation to the reciprocal 
 influences between the elements conflicting 
 with the reality principle, and reality itself. 
 
 As topic for my first venture, I choose 
 Anarchist Communism, especially as a move- 
 ment whose assumed cohesion may have more 
 light thrown on it in the sequel. Why I do this, 
 why I am convinced that this tendency- 
 complex is of an entirely regressive character, 
 will not perhaps be fully intelligible at the 
 outset. I may, however, point out here that 
 it is equipped with a vigorous and direct 
 hedonistic theory, that it looks towards an 
 earthly paradise as its goal, and that it aims 
 at the complete destruction of the extant form 
 of society. Wherever it wins to control, it 
 brings about extreme disorganisation and a 
 relapse to more primitive forms. I think, 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 103 
 
 therefore, that psychoanalysis promises in- 
 teresting results in this field. Moreover, 
 the topical importance of the problem, and 
 the widespread general knowledge of certain 
 forms of communism, render it desirable that 
 psychoanalysts should turn their attention 
 to this social complex. 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 ATTEMPT AT THE PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 OF ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 
 
 Anarchism leads to communism and communism to 
 anarchism. 
 
 P. Kropotkin. 
 
 The communist state which would be brought into existence 
 by the proletarian revolution, would be nothing else than a 
 titanic system of landed proprietorship, embracing all the 
 land in the country. 
 
 A. Daniel, 1910. 
 
 A state which should undertake the comprehensive care of 
 all members of the population on equal terms . . r . would 
 be the most complete renewal of the matriarchal type of 
 community of primitive days. 
 
 E. Lorenz. 
 
 I 
 
 Definitions 
 
 BEFORE we attempt the psychoanalysis of 
 anarchist communism, we must explain 
 what we understand by the term, and must 
 forestall a number of possible misunderstand- 
 ings. 
 
 104 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 105 
 
 Many believe that anarchism, as extreme 
 individualism, and communism, as extreme 
 socialism, are polar opposites. Some assume 
 that these poles come in contact, in virtue of 
 the principle that extremes meet. This view 
 is erroneous. It would be superfluous to 
 expound here the problems of individualism 
 and socialism. Enough to refer to the trends 
 of anarchism and communism as ordinarily 
 understood and as enunciated by their most 
 distinguished advocates. Anarchism demands 
 the abolition, not only of dominion, despotism, 
 authority forcibly exercised over the individual, 
 but in general of laws, regulations, and restric- 
 tions. Communism does not imply the maxi- 
 mum of social cooperation, but the direct 
 psychical fusion of individuals in a manner 
 that would annihilate all partitions between 
 them. Why, then, does one aim involve 
 the other ? Anarchism wishes to abolish rules 
 and restrictions. Should this be effected, there 
 would necessarily ensue a war of all against 
 all, the absolute dissolution of the community. 
 But this is not the aim of the anarchists. Such 
 dissolution would be avoidable on one con- 
 dition, namely, if human selfishness were so 
 infinitesimal and self-sacrifice and solidarity 
 were so intense, that without any law human 
 beings would voluntarily seek one another's 
 
106 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 good. But this can only ensue through an 
 actual welding together, through communism. 
 Now let us turn to the basic principle of com- 
 munism : From every man according to his 
 powers, to every man according to his needs. 
 Apart from momentary exercises of will, man 
 does not work to the limit of his powers even 
 under the most extreme coercion, but only 
 does so in a spirit of voluntary sacrifice. On 
 the other hand, no compulsion is requisite 
 to make man satisfy his needs. Such a 
 system is only conceivable if the needs of every 
 man were such that their full satisfaction 
 would not interfere with the equally full 
 satisfaction of the needs of others. Conse- 
 quently the anarchistic and communistic ideals 
 are permanently coterminous. It is pure 
 anarchism that men should unreservedly make 
 others' interests their own when all external 
 direction has been abolished ; the unrestricted 
 fusion of individualities is pure communism. 
 It is true that there is also an individualist 
 anarchism, which takes self-interest as its 
 basis. But even the anarchists of this school 
 are constrained to recognise that progress along 
 these lines will only be possible if human 
 beings respect one another's claims on pruden- 
 tial grounds, if they impose restrictions upon 
 themselves for well-considered reasons of their 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 107 
 
 own advantage. This, however, implies the 
 transcending of anarchism. It is w r hat Franz 
 Oppenheimer has termed " acratia " ; it is in- 
 dividualism ; or perhaps we might better 
 term it " personalism," since it implies that 
 the community consists of self-controlling 
 individuals, of personalities. Now the most 
 elementary degree of sociological insight should 
 suffice to convince the student that the way 
 to this highly differentiated state of affairs 
 is not to be found through the complete 
 destruction of extant society. 
 
 There likewise exists a despotic form of 
 communism, in which goods are distributed, 
 not according to needs, but with mechanical 
 equality. On the one hand, this communism 
 is dogmatic, levelling, and fusionist ; it closely 
 resembles mechanical solidarity. On the other 
 hand, equal distribution involves a transition 
 towards justice, towards collectivism, whose 
 essential principle is distribution in accordance 
 with the work done by the recipient. Collec- 
 tivism of this character, with socialised pro- 
 duction, is, as Kropotkin aptly remarks, a 
 logical contradiction. 1 It is quite impossible 
 for any council to determine the value of labour ; 
 
 J P. Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, Chapman and 
 Hall, London, 1906. Chapter XIII, The Collectivist Wages 
 System. 
 
108 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 this can only be decided by free exchange, 
 in the absence of monopoly. But a community 
 in which there prevailed free competition and 
 a purely working property, would be a society 
 of personal collectivism, of organic solidarity, 
 and would be the very opposite of anarchist 
 communism. With such a society, therefore, 
 we are not concerned. If we allude to it at 
 all, it will only be by way of illustration. 
 
 Let me enumerate some of the traits 
 which are common to anarchism and to com- 
 munism, which distinguish both from per- 
 sonal collectivism, and from the intermediate 
 systems. Both reject private property, the 
 differentiation of economic life as the division 
 of labour guaranteeing surplus production, 
 and the differentiation or the very existence 
 of the functions of the state. There is a yet 
 closer uniformity exhibited by the two move- 
 ments. Whatever differences they may mani- 
 fest after they have been established, both 
 systems look for the salvation of the world 
 to a revolt of the oppressed which shall sweep 
 away all that has hitherto existed. There is 
 no individualist anarchist movement of any 
 dimensions worth considering. The com- 
 munism of the social democrats has a definitely 
 collectivist trend, without, however, aban- 
 doning its ultimate aim. We must not under- 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 109 
 
 estimate the importance of the individualistic 
 trends in social democracy, the trends that 
 are statist, democratic, and realist. Never- 
 theless, this does not imply that we cannot 
 find among the social democrats the chief 
 elements of the communist and proletarian 
 position, at any rate now, when in consequence 
 of the war a powerful communist trend has 
 manifested itself. I do not posit the existence 
 of an anarchist communist movement entirely 
 free from contradictions ; I merely presume 
 a certain fundamental unity, which is crystal- 
 lisable in a unified type of social organisation 
 (cf. §IX). 
 
 It is, moreover, needless to explain that, 
 for the purposes of this investigation, anarchist 
 communist literature — even when considered 
 in outline — is just as incomprehensible as are 
 the other manifestations of the movement. 
 I have done my best to take into account its 
 most typical and important elements. Let 
 me repeat that my aim is not to criticise 
 anarchist communism, not even to write a 
 most elementary sociology or psychology of 
 the doctrine, but to provide as far as I am 
 able a psychoanalytical interpretation. This, 
 however, involves references to anarchist com- 
 munist sociology, and even to its critical 
 method. In the present state of our ter- 
 
110 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 minology, morphological designations fre- 
 quently carry with them implications of judg- 
 ments of value (e.g. evolution, reversion). 
 Were we to be too scrupulous in the avoidance 
 of criticism, we should turn our backs on 
 knowledge. Besides, it is impossible to avoid 
 drawing certain distinctions, as between theory 
 and practice, between programs and possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 II 
 
 Anarchist Sociology 
 
 The essence of anarchism is the detestation 
 of all law, the revolt against law and any 
 kind of outward coercion. Augustin Hamon, 
 who is sympathetic to the anarchist movement, 
 has studied its psychology upon the basis of 
 materials obtained by the circulation of a 
 questionnaire. In his book, 1 he maintains 
 that the tendency to revolt comes first, 
 " individualism " second. But this individual- 
 ism is of a kind which does not recognise 
 private property. In one of the answers we 
 read : " Everything belongs to all ; nothing 
 belongs to anyone individually unless he is 
 actually using it." There are also allusions 
 
 1 Psychologie de l'anarchiste-socialiste, Paris, 1895. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 111 
 
 to the family community as a social aim. 
 Another reply condemns the cult of the ego. 
 Another correspondent writes : " Physical 
 needs are the same for every one." Thus, as 
 is plain from the quotations, the spirit of 
 revolt does not signify the autonomy of the 
 individual, but, as Hamon himself insists, 
 absolute antitraditionalism and the cosmo- 
 politanism which this carries with it. The 
 entire lack of roots is disclosed in the fanatic- 
 ism which would throw everything overboard ; 
 perhaps it is also shown by the measureless 
 innovationism to which the book refers, the 
 spirit which confidently regards all the extant 
 as fit for the scrap-heap, and demands a clean 
 sweep. Evidence of this spirit is afforded 
 by religious indifference, by the abandonment 
 of everything which links us to the existing 
 world, by fanatical adhesion to the anarchist 
 ideal. Let us take examples from various 
 authors. Among the Greeks, Zeno was an 
 anarchist, an opponent of private property ; 
 Carpocrates was a communist anarchist. 
 In the middle ages, Amalrich of Bona ad- 
 vocated a communist form of anarchism, 
 preaching the mystical direct union of the 
 individual soul with God. P. Chelcicky 
 emphasised the abandonment of law, as did 
 subsequently J. P. Proudhon and Johann Most. 
 
112 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Improvised decisions were to take the place 
 of laws. Alexander Herzen wrote : " Long 
 live chaos and destruction. Make way for 
 the future. We are the executioners of the 
 past/' Mihail Bakunin declared : " The best 
 constitution in the world would not satisfy 
 me"; he considered the only good life would 
 be without either law or majority principle. 
 It is obvious that if the majority can in 
 no circumstances impose constraint on the 
 minority, the only way of avoiding complete 
 atomisation will be that all men shall share 
 the same view, shall automatically move in 
 a single direction. Bearing this in mind, 
 let us proceed with our study of anarchist 
 revolutionism, which actually involves the 
 repudiation of every statist and democratic 
 majority principle. 
 
 We know that the prototype of all revolt is 
 rebellion against the father. The reader of 
 the first section may recall the psychological 
 identity which was established between the 
 father and society. From this outlook, 
 anarchism might be regarded as an extreme 
 form of revolt against the father ; the revolt 
 of those who are not content to accept paternal 
 authority in a modified, sublimated, non- 
 despotic, democratic form, a form which in- 
 volves no oppression, but supplies rational 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 113 
 
 inhibition or guidance ; the revolt of those who 
 wish to destroy all such coercion in the germ. 
 
 It is, however, undeniable that at least the 
 communist wing of the anarchists, by far the 
 most numerous, does not aim at the abolition 
 of all external influence. If, indeed, the in- 
 fluence of the community is so powerful that 
 the individual accepts it blindly, if, that is to 
 say, the consciousness does not feel any 
 coercion, we may speak of the total abandon- 
 ment of individual autonomy. We have proto- 
 types of this condition : in the foetus ; to a 
 lesser extent in the infant ; and to a still 
 lesser extent in the child. The radical destruc- 
 tion of paternal coercion would thus be a 
 return to the painless and pleasurable maternal 
 coercion ; the correlate of the slaying of the 
 father is incest with the mother. It now 
 becomes easy for us to understand why in- 
 dividualist anarchism has comparatively little 
 significance, and why it cannot supply the 
 ideology of a movement. It does not attach 
 to parricide the idea of incest with the mother, 
 but the idea of emancipation. Now this does 
 not suffice to satisfy the great aim of regres- 
 sion, and it is therefore doomed to remain 
 an isolated phenomenon. 
 
 From this the cult of the tabula rasa is 
 entirely deducible. Those trends which aim at 
 
 8 
 
114 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 abolishing dominion, at acratia or pure demo- 
 cracy, at the complete reduction of coercion to 
 law and regulation, naturally desire to maintain 
 and further the previous evolution, in so far 
 as it was really evolution ; they are content 
 with a reform, however radical, of the extant. 
 But the anarchists, desiring the complete 
 abolition of paternal coercion, move in an 
 opposite direction, move regressively towards 
 the killing of the father. They desire neither 
 an intermediate stage nor an evolution, but 
 simply the renewal of the titanic deed. It is 
 owing to this intransigeance that communist 
 anarchism is less widely diffused than com- 
 munism in the narrower sense. The matter 
 will become clearer when we study communist 
 regression. 
 
 The passionate and impulsive revolt of the 
 anarchists against all restrictions, does not, 
 of course, entail the freedom proper to the 
 adult, but only the unrestrictedness of the 
 child, or, to speak more precisely, of the foetus. 
 It corresponds to a condition wherein there is 
 no need for adaptation, or for conflict of any 
 sort. Rousseau's " return to nature " is purely 
 anarchistic ; we know that nature is the 
 symbol of the mother. 1 Hatred of theistic 
 
 1 Cf. H. Sachs, Ueber Naturgefiihl, Imago, 1912. — E. Hitsch- 
 mann, Ein Dichter und sein Vater, Imago, IV, 1915-16, p. 337. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 115 
 
 religions does not imply the lack of all religious 
 sentiment, of pantheistic sentiment, for 
 instance. Far from it ; fanaticism, abandon- 
 ment of individual aims, complete loss of 
 interest in the other elements of life, are 
 religious and antirational. Hamon lays stress 
 on the proselytising tendencies of anarchism. 
 All that the anarchist is alien to is the religiosity 
 and the antirationalism of extant historical 
 traditions ; he desires, so to speak, to regress 
 into the intra-uterine existence with its pseudo- 
 rationalistic religiosity, and to destroy every- 
 thing which stands in his way. The anarchistic 
 ideal is, beyond question, also the abolition of 
 repression. But repression is not to be 
 replaced by self-critical judgment ; it is to 
 be replaced by libertinism, And yet (this is 
 the essential matter, and almost the only 
 one which bears any relationship to reality), 
 in theory at least, and for the time being, the 
 impulses of man are to be of such a character 
 that their indulgence will not render social 
 life impossible. Herein, however, lies the 
 essential conflict with the reality principle, 
 and therefore the essential impracticability 
 of anarchism. In psychoanalytical termin- 
 ology, we can explain as follows why social 
 progress is possible and why anarchism is 
 impossible. Social progress is possible because 
 
116 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 it aims, not at repression, but at self-critical 
 judgment ; the possibility of this substitution 
 has been proved. Anarchism, on the other 
 hand, aims at unrestricted self-indulgence, 
 and therewith at a complete transformation of 
 the impulses. But all our experience leads us 
 to deny that this is possible. Anarchism is 
 the faithful social projection of the uterus, 
 with repudiation of the manifest uterus wish ; 
 this construction, in the simplicity of its 
 relationships, bears witness to the utter 
 absurdity of the doctrine. The system does 
 not seem to be sufficiently developed to bear 
 comparison with more complex psychical con- 
 structions, such as the psychoneuroses. It 
 offers, however, interesting material for study. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Psychical Characteristics of Anarchism 
 
 There is one trait of anarchism with which 
 the psychoanalyst has long been familiar. 
 The anarchist doctrine proclaims complete 
 solidarity, declares rules restricting the in- 
 dividual to be superfluous, announces universal 
 brotherhood. On the other hand, in the public 
 mind, the concept of anarchism is for excellent 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 117 
 
 reasons associated with that of a thirst for 
 blood, of bomb throwing, of the desolation of 
 " art for art's sake." It is but a step from 
 Reclus the vegetarian, who conceived of the 
 whole world as united in a single family, to 
 Nechayeff and propaganda by deed. Bakunin's 
 phrase, "brotherhood by force, " gives an 
 excellent picture of this cleavage. Obviously 
 we here encounter a variety of ambivalence, 
 something which is not rational but affective. 
 Could not psychoanalysis throw light upon 
 this application of the technical term ? The 
 primary instance of ambivalence, we might 
 say the leading instance, derives from that 
 society of brethren who, in the primitive horde, 
 had united to slay the father. 1 The ambi- 
 valence did not, properly speaking, relate to the 
 father. Towards him there was felt, in the 
 instance under consideration, an inward, un- 
 restricted hatred ; and his ambivalent affec- 
 tive value did not make itself felt until later, 
 when the time for the restoration of the father 
 came. The ambivalence applied in the first 
 instance to the community of the brethren, 
 a community to which in the primitive con- 
 sciousness no sociological significance attached. 
 This community had two concrete points of 
 
 1 Cf., in addition to Freud's Totem und Tabu, B. von 
 Felszeghy, Panik und Pan-Komplex, Imago, 1920. 
 
118 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 condensation : the first of these was the 
 mother, from whom the brethren were derived, 
 and to whom (or, to express it more boldly, 
 into whom) they all wished to return — the 
 libido concerned her ; the other was the father, 
 who kept the sons away from their goal and 
 held sway over them— the hatred concerned 
 him. Anarchism is a regression to this atti- 
 tude of mind. Its ideal is brotherhood in the 
 primitive sense of the word, the confraternal 
 uterine introversion. The anarchist rages irre- 
 concilably against everything that represents 
 a hindrance to the satisfaction of this desire, 
 against the dominion of the father and all 
 that it signifies. The eroticism which had 
 developed among the brethren was merely 
 the precipitation of the ungratified incest 
 wish, with the maintenance of the incest 
 principle. This explains the simultaneous 
 enthusiasm for community, and hostility to- 
 wards society, manifested by the anarchists. 
 Neither of these sentiments really bears upon 
 the abstract concept of society. The former con- 
 cerns the mother and the return to the mother ; 
 the latter concerns the father and the social 
 cooperation which takes place under his sign. 
 The comparatively scientific formulas of 
 anarchist writers have at their base this 
 primevally ancient affective content, which 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 119 
 
 can serve as the foundation of theories ; but 
 the content itself, remote from all theories, 
 signifies the regressive wish of the clan of 
 brethren. 
 
 In this way, perhaps, we can gain a glimpse 
 into the depths of anarchist projection and 
 absurdity. According to the psychoanalytic 
 hypotheses, after the parricide the brethren 
 did not attain their goal, and were unable to 
 get along without the father. The principal 
 cause of this turn of affairs may have been the 
 actual impossibility of the incest gratification. 
 In the course of evolution this led to various 
 methods of compensation. The mother was 
 replaced by other women (by sisters at first, 
 and subsequently by having recourse to 
 exogamy). Another resource was the 
 invention and utilisation of the earth 
 symbol. Another was identification with 
 the father. At first this was taken literally, 
 by the adoption of the father's relationship 
 towards the mother. Later, sublimation hav- 
 ing occurred, the identification took rather the 
 form of adopting the relationship expressed 
 in that of the prince to the country. 1 Last 
 of all came modern democracy. Anarchism 
 rejects these institutions which provide satis- 
 faction by devious routes and in ways whereby 
 
 1 Lorenz, op. cit. 
 
120 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the primeval condition is completely trans- 
 formed. The anarchists detest legal marriage, 
 popular traditions, international organisation, 
 and democracy. Nevertheless, as we have 
 pointed out, anarchists must keep in touch 
 with reality in one respect ; they must recog- 
 nise the actual state of affairs as an extant 
 reality, even if it is to be completely destroyed. 
 From this results the automatic social pro- 
 jection of the primitive wish, the transforma- 
 tion of the paternal and suprapaternal com- 
 munity to become an infrapaternal community. 
 We do not know to what extent the success 
 of the anarchist principle would bring about 
 a retrogression to the primitive horde. As 
 far as communism is concerned, we shall see 
 that such a tendency is at work ; we shall see 
 that the pansocial idea of humanity has 
 no real content, being merely a projection 
 adjusted to the contemporary state of affairs. 
 As the ultimate absurdity of anarchist doctrine, 
 however, we encounter the primal absurdity, 
 to wit, the impossibility of the actual union 
 within the mother. Social projection is the 
 maintenance of social cohesion in conjunction 
 with the abolition of all regulation. Just as 
 the slaying of the father necessarily resulted 
 in the isolation of the mother (Penelope could 
 not give her hand to any of the suitors), so 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 121 
 
 the abolition of the stable organisation would 
 necessarily involve the destruction of societ}^ 1 
 Let us consider a few additional charac- 
 teristics of anarchism, characteristics which 
 distinguish it from communism, or to speak 
 more precisely, from the purely Marxist pro- 
 letarian ideology. Hamon lays stress upon 
 the anarchist's desire for a logical social order. 
 This signifies a desire for simplicity and com- 
 prehensibility without traditions or compli- 
 cations. The logic is a logic of passion, a 
 physicist logic " which tolerates no contra- 
 dictions/ ■ The corresponding attitude of mind 
 is not that of the political radicalism which, 
 refusing to subject itself to the inertia of 
 tradition, desires to reorganise,society in accord- 
 ance with the results of sociological research 
 and rational conviction. Nor is it the attitude 
 of the rigidly dogmatic and pseudorationalist 
 Marxist system, although this is closely akin. 
 Anarchism is not criticism, but cynicism ; it 
 is not reform, but a tabula rasa. Looking 
 upon it as a social conception, what corre- 
 sponds to it in the general sphere is nihilism, 
 the philosophy of the return to nullity, chaos. 
 The libidinous symbolical significance of death 
 
 1 On the other hand, the further sublimation of the father 
 motif (and, parallel thereto, of the mother motif) is a possible 
 and real conception. 
 
122 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 is comprised herein. Anarchism is logical in 
 so far as it recognises that the social order 
 is not only logical, but is likewise unrational 
 and extralogical. The anarchist, however, does 
 not strive after the elimination of the un- 
 rational ; he does not attempt to make a logical 
 use of the extralogical materials ; he aims 
 at the void of immaterial logic as symbol of 
 libido regression. 
 
 The esoteric character of anarchism vividly 
 recalls the clan of the brethren and the secret 
 societies of savages. An invariable charac- 
 teristic of anarchism, as compared with com- 
 munism, is that anarchistic action is more 
 individual and more in conflict with the 
 criminal law. Bomb throwing is an entirely 
 mystical, individual, unsophisticated copy of 
 parricide. It is impossible to ascertain by 
 what means the clan of the brethren may have 
 carried out the act of parricide. It is, how- 
 ever, a fact that in the preparation of bombs 
 by the anarchistic associations, the anarchist 
 technique and logic are most clearly illustrated 
 — just as Marxist technique and logic are best 
 illustrated by the dogmatism of the class war, 
 and radical technique and logic by sociology. 
 
 We cannot here attempt a thorough dis- 
 cussion of the question in what epochs anar- 
 chism, in the narrower sense of the term, 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 123 
 
 flourishes, and what sort of individuals are 
 marshalled in the ranks of the anarchist 
 army. The anarchist movement is utterly 
 devoid of the historicity and coordination 
 which are proper to Marxism, for anarchism 
 is too much in conflict with the reality principle 
 and too individual to possess these qualities. 
 In any case, the anarchists are personally 
 speaking far more often pathological speci- 
 mens than the communists are. Psycho- 
 analysis of the former would consequently 
 give more valuable results. Hamon admits 
 that many moral and mental defectives join 
 the anarchist movement. More important is 
 the fact that anarchists for the most part are 
 not typical proletarians. Many of them are 
 petty bourgeois, but the anarchist ranks 
 are recruited in especial from among those 
 who work alone. Thus the anarchist trend 
 would seem to be accentuated by the lack of 
 social cooperation, probably in conjunction 
 with arduous conditions of life. 1 
 
 i I do not mean to imply that the petty bourgeois class 
 is anarchistically inclined. There is no such thing as an 
 anarchistic class ; and the petty bourgeois tends rather to 
 be a conservative or a radical. To work alone entails nothing 
 more than a good chance of complete regression. It cannot 
 per se cause such regression. The so-called individualistic 
 character of anarchism is connected with the asociality of 
 foetal life. See below, where the case of the proletariat is 
 considered. 
 
124 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 IV 
 
 Psychical Characteristics of Communism 
 
 Communism gives the preference to a motive 
 which the anarchists regard merely as an 
 indispensable condition, and one which can 
 be fulfilled without any difficulty, namely, 
 direct, mechanical solidarity rising superior 
 to all individual interests. Unrestraint, the 
 giving of free rein to impulse, which plays 
 the chief part in anarchism, will for com- 
 munists be a later development. Communism 
 is, indeed, far more inclined to make conces- 
 sions to the despotic principle than anarchism 
 is inclined to make concessions to individual- 
 ism. The communism of Plato recognised 
 rules of life ; it was aristocratic ; it breathed 
 the spirit of tutelage, the repudiation of 
 individual autonomy. The communism of the 
 early Christian associations was not essentially 
 despotic, but was dominated by the aim to 
 put a bridle upon desire ; this bridle was 
 supplied by the cult of poverty, though the 
 poverty was doubtless to be compensated by 
 happiness in the life beyond. Saint-Simon's 
 doctrine was a purely despotic communism. 
 Compare also the Inca state, and Paraguay 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 125 
 
 under Jesuit rule. The Marxist communism 
 which is threatening contemporary civilisation, 
 though anarchistic in its ultimate aims, is 
 prepared to make a most extensive use of 
 the coercive powers of the state, of militarism 
 and of dogmatism. These methods, we are 
 told, may have to be employed for years or 
 even decades. 
 
 Nevertheless it would be an error to believe 
 that communism is nothing more than neo- 
 feudalism with a libertarian gloss. In The 
 State and Revolution, Lenin adopts and ampli- 
 fies the Marx-Engels theory of the state. 
 Every state, he declares, is a mechanism for 
 exploitation and oppression in the. hands of 
 the dominant class. The proletariat must 
 use this instrument against its former tyrants. 
 When by this means the system of exploitation 
 and oppression has been completely shattered, 
 the state will die out. What is the difference 
 between this ideology and that of the anar- 
 chists ? Merely that the anarchists are more 
 intransigeant, while the communists are more 
 methodical. Anarchism will hear of no delay 
 in the application of force, and will tolerate 
 no pause in the evolution towards brother- 
 hood ; whereas communism endeavours to 
 destroy existing society by seizing it in its 
 own fortress. 
 
126 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Before I expound the difference psycho- 
 analytically, let me point out that communism 
 is not only more methodical than anarchism, 
 but is also more scientific, more accordant 
 with facts, less impulsive. Its social sup- 
 porters are proletarians. These, owing to 
 their productive functions, and in virtue of 
 the concentration of their forces, are naturally 
 less averse than the anarchists from the work 
 of social cooperation ; and their lives bring 
 them into touch with reality, with industrial 
 and economic technique. For this reason, 
 the regressive element in communism is less 
 extreme. There are, in fact, many indications 
 that communists exhibit less hostility towards 
 the father, or at least towards certain forms 
 of the father imago. Enfantin, the leader of 
 the Saint-Simonians, bore the title of Father. 
 In Fourier's scheme it was expressly declared 
 that there were to be rulers or unarchs ; and 
 the supreme ruler, who was to reside in Con- 
 stantinople, would be known as the omniarch. 
 The anxiety which many earnest communists 
 (Kropotkin, for instance) feel, lest under the 
 dictatorship of the proletariat the dictatorship 
 should become an end in itself, suffices to 
 prove that there is no diametrical opposition 
 between the communist spirit and paternal 
 authority. The communist formula, " from 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 127 
 
 everyone according to his powers, to everyone 
 according to his needs," accepted in its literal 
 sense, leads to anarchism. But from this 
 interpretation there are two deviations. When 
 we say that we expect from everyone work 
 according to his powers, this may mean that 
 work according to power is to be exacted 
 by the state ; it may mean enforced altruism. 
 On the other hand, the satisfaction of needs 
 can be understood in the sense that the state 
 shall prescribe what those needs are to be. 
 This is, indeed, the condition of affairs in 
 the first phase of communist society, the so- 
 called socialist phase. There, everyone is a 
 state employee. Apart from a comparatively 
 small number of authoritative persons, all will 
 receive the same wage or the same assignments. 
 Consumption will be mechanically levelled, in 
 respect of quality no less than of quantity. 
 
 As long as communist society has failed 
 to attain the stage of complete anarchism, 
 it rests solely upon patriarchal foundations. 
 Persons are subject to an authority which 
 by hypothesis is benevolent, but which is 
 absolute. Everyone is aware that the dicta- 
 torship of the proletariat by no means signifies 
 the dictatorship of the proletariat over the 
 bourgeoisie ; but the dictatorship of the pro- 
 letarian principle, incorporated in the leaders, 
 
128 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 over all members of the community and in 
 especial over the proletarians themselves. It 
 further signifies the deliberate proletarianisa- 
 tion of society. Private property and an 
 economy based upon exchange, which guarantee 
 individual independence and autonomy., are 
 to perish ; all persons are to become children 
 of the state. For the time being, the state 
 will have a well-defined paternal character. 
 From this transitional form, the purely com- 
 munistic " state " that is to follow will be 
 distinguished (we can confidently predict) by 
 its predominantly maternal character. 
 
 Thus we maintain that communism signifies 
 a compromise between the father principle 
 and the mother principle ; but the assertion 
 requires to be stated with greater precision. 
 That with which we have to do is not a middle 
 course between regression and evolution, but 
 simply a mitigation of regression accompanied 
 by a greater regard for reality. We have to 
 do with a compromise, which can hardly be 
 anything more than a compromise. Com- 
 munism bears the same sort of relationship 
 to anarchism as paranoia to paraphrenia (de- 
 mentia praecox). The father principle is in 
 this form likewise a regressive principle, asso- 
 ciated of course with projection. According 
 to Vandervelde, socialism is an " apparent " 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 129 
 
 return to primitive methods of production, 
 in which the production of use values for 
 the social community will take the place of 
 the production of values for the family com- 
 munity, 1 I must here draw attention to one 
 of the basic ideas of communism, namely 
 that the undeveloped condition of social organi- 
 sation will be combined with a measure of 
 certain quanta among which we may include 
 the comprehensiveness of the society, technical 
 and cultural requisites, etc. But as a standard 
 of human progress, it is not the quanta of 
 products that are significant, even when these 
 are forthcoming and are important ; what 
 counts is the degree of advancement of social 
 organisation. In the first section I showed 
 the parallelism which exists' between Durk- 
 heim's mechanical solidarity and Freud's 
 repression ; and on the other hand the 
 parallelism between organic solidarity and 
 self-critical judgment. I contend that, not 
 chronologically alone, but also in accordance 
 with its essential nature, repression occupies 
 a place between unrestricted self-indulgence 
 and the reasoned condemnation of antisocial 
 wishes. I consider that even in a society 
 based upon mechanical solidarity, the sys- 
 
 1 Vandervelde, Collectivism and Industrial Evolution, 
 London, 1907, p. 163. 
 
 9 
 
130 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 tematisation of outward coercion (militarism) 
 represents an advance in the direction of 
 organic solidarity. Thus the path of regres- 
 sion runs much after this fashion : sublimated 
 social order ; primitive father principle ; primi- 
 tive mother principle. Logically this .path 
 leads to anarchism, in so far as the regulatory 
 functions of the state decay concomitantly 
 with the regression. One cannot immediately 
 explain the appearance of coercion, of tyranny, 
 in the father stage. It would be erroneous 
 to believe that the father is the first incor- 
 poration of coercion, of the restriction of 
 individual autonomy. In the father, coercion 
 becomes more fully conscious, it already 
 approximates to masterless rule. But the 
 first incorporation is in the mother : the 
 womb is the prototype of all prisons, and the 
 umbilical cord is the prototype of all chains. 
 Whilst maternal coercion possesses a high 
 libidinous value (mother hypnosis), this libido- 
 tinting by no means disappears in paternal 
 coercion, though it becomes paler. This is 
 proved by a number of homosexual-masochistic 
 fixations (father hypnosis). 1 Mother eroticism, 
 was not only the erotic feeling of man towards 
 
 1 Cf. Jung, Die Bedeutung des Vaters fur das Schicksal 
 des Einzelnen, Jahrbuch, I, 1909. — Concerning the hypnoses, 
 cf. Ferenczi, Introjektion und Uebertragung, ibid. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 131 
 
 woman ; it was in part a brother eroticism 
 (a feeling of man towards man), and in part 
 a father eroticism (cf. Lorenz). The com- 
 munist movement, therefore, arises from a 
 social regressive tendency in the direction of 
 the mother by way of the primitive father, 
 in conflict with the contemporary, greatly 
 sublimated manifestation of the father imago. 
 A characteristically communist attitude (which 
 has as its ideology the " relative value of 
 personal freedom "j is the straightforwardly 
 enthusiastic campaign against the feudalist- 
 capitalist infringement of personal liberty ; 
 which is followed, as soon as the communists 
 attain power, by a sudden and affectively 
 endorsed entire rejection of jthe concept of 
 personal liberty. 1 
 
 The reasons why the proletarian movement 
 has taken this course will only become com- 
 prehensible from the psychoanalytical stand- 
 point when we have studied the position of 
 the proletariat. 
 
 1 In Budapest, after the proclamation of the Soviet 
 Republic, I complained to a friend, who had always been a 
 progressive and had recently become a communist, that the 
 liberties gained by the revolution were now being thrown 
 into the melting-pot, for criticism of the ordinances issued 
 by the Soviet Government was strictly prohibited. He 
 looked at me in astonishment, saying : " But what on earth 
 do you find to complain of in the ordinances of the Soviet 
 Government ? " 
 
132 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 The Position of the Proletariat 
 
 The position of the proletariat might be 
 briefly described by saying that in the pro- 
 letariat there is no opportunity for a number 
 of more or less sublimatory forms of libido 
 displacement, and that in consequence there 
 occurs a dangerous damming-up of libido. 
 Now this does not take place as concerns the 
 individual proletarian, but as concerns the 
 proletarian class, for the reason that the class, 
 the proletarian community, offers the only 
 refuge both in respect of the utilisation of 
 libido and in respect of the preservation of 
 the ego. I speak of the typical proletarian, 
 without ignoring that all this can be applied 
 only with reserve to a considerable part of 
 the proletariat. Consequently, even a typically 
 proletarian communism has often taken an 
 " innocuous " turn, becoming democratic and 
 collectivism 
 
 Very important in the case of the prole- 
 tarian is his poverty, when considered not 
 so much absolutely as dynamically. He con- 
 sumes the whole of his earnings, so that he 
 can never save more than a trifling sum, 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 133 
 
 and he has practically no prospect of rising 
 out of his class. Nor is he threatened merely 
 by poverty in his old age ; his existence is 
 distressingly uncertain, seeing that he goes 
 ever in peril from accidents and from strikes 
 and lock-outs — misfortunes for which social 
 legislation can provide little help, and even 
 labour organisation no adequate remedy. 
 Moreover the proletarian when at work uses 
 tools and machinery owned by another, his 
 labour power is controlled by others' will, 
 and he works for the benefit of a stranger. 
 Payment by results is supposed to fulfil the 
 collectivist and individualist demand of har- 
 monising the earnings with the real value of 
 the labour ; but in reality it furnishes the 
 merest caricature of civic occupation, and 
 the only privilege secured by the proletarian 
 on piecework is as a rule the privilege of 
 over-working himself. Finally we have to 
 note the divorce of the proletarian from the 
 soil, and the massing of the industrial 
 workers that results from the concentration 
 of industry. This matter will first be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 Agriculture in all its varieties, the associa- 
 tion of life and work with what is termed 
 " nature/' provides, as psychoanalysis has 
 shown, extremely important sublimations of 
 
134 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the incest wish. Otto Rank and Sachs x 
 attribute to the inauguration of agriculture a 
 role in the breaking-down of taboos. In actual 
 fact, agriculture is the basis of civilisation, 
 chronologically, economically, and psychically. 
 In the ideology of all nations, union with 
 the earth denotes union with the mother as 
 primal source of energy, the creation of force 
 out of that which is the very foundation of 
 life. At the same time the earth (which can 
 so exhaustively symbolise the mother in virtue 
 of its protective and nutritive characteristics, 
 its all-embracing qualities, and numerous other 
 analogies) serves as the foundation of so 
 effectively autonomous a system of work and 
 enjoyment that it can persistently function 
 for the sublimation of the incest wish. More- 
 over, from this union with the soil springs 
 fidelity to various traditions, an unaggressive 
 national sentiment, stability. The French 
 revolution gave an interesting demonstration 
 that no progress can be achieved without 
 such a foundation, for this revolution did 
 not originate among the tillers of the soil, 
 but among the town-dwellers, burghers and 
 intellectuals, in whom there arose a powerful 
 ideology aiming at the return to mother earth 
 
 1 Die Bedeutung der Psychoanalyse fur die Geisteswis- 
 senschaften, Wiesbaden, 1913, p. 73. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 135 
 
 and at the creation of force from the earth. 1 
 The proletariat is the first social class which 
 has been radically, we might say patho- 
 logically, divorced from the soil. Whilst the 
 urban bourgeoisie is saved from complete de- 
 tachment from the soil because of its financial 
 resources, power of mobility, and various 
 other associations, the proletariat, owing to 
 its poverty, and owing to long hours of labour 
 and to atomisation (a proletarian characteristic 
 which is nowise in conflict with concentration), 
 has been exiled from the land. Proletarians 
 lose all contact with the soil ; they lose all 
 affective traditions, not excepting undogmatic 
 traditions ; and they lose national sentiment, 
 not because they have many opportunities 
 for contact with the foreign world, but for 
 internal reasons. Thus the proletariat can 
 think of mankind only as a homogeneous, 
 landless mass, like itself. The impulse to- 
 wards emigration, though it often has a 
 rationalistic basis, may in part arise from an 
 exogamic trend. 2 
 
 Every loss of tradition, especially if it be 
 not associated with a material and general 
 
 * Cf. the detailed account of this matter in Lorenz's 
 previously quoted work. 
 
 3 Cf. Wurzellosigkeit, Ahasuerismus, A. von Winterstein, 
 Zur Psychoanalyse des Reisens, Imago, 191 2. 
 
136 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 rise in level, with new and more refined 
 sublimations, brings danger in its train, for 
 it engenders a tendency towards grave re- 
 gression to older and coarser traditions. The 
 proletariat, cut loose from the soil, yearns 
 for a return to earth as an end in itself. With- 
 out traditions, the proletariat nevertheless 
 clings tenaciously to its Marxist dogmas. The 
 workers, by strenuous toil, can secure no 
 more than means for a penurious existence ; 
 but they dream of the paradise which mother 
 earth will provide. " Bountiful nature pro- 
 vides for all/' writes Wilhelm Weitling. As 
 we have seen, the anarchist communist status 
 is the world of the mother regression. Lorenz 
 insists that the communist movement is under 
 the sign of man-to-man eroticism (Proletarians 
 of all lands unite !) ; but, he says, the ideal 
 to be attained is the pure mother principle. 
 The contrast with the ideology of the French 
 revolution is classical. In the last-named 
 movement, even in its preparatory stages, 
 interest was concentrated upon the land (the 
 physiocratic doctrine) ; subsequently the An- 
 taeus motif received its due meed of attention, 
 this being in part the foundation of panegyrics 
 of war. Here the earth is a basis, but not 
 a goal ; the road leads through the earth, 
 but not to the earth (introversion and re- 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 137 
 
 generation, the deriving of force from the 
 unconscious for the conscious). The ideology 
 of " virtue " is anagogic, sublimatory, pro- 
 gressive. Very different is it with communism. 
 The preparatory theories, and, above all, the 
 proletariat, have no dealings with the earth 
 from which they have been estranged ; they 
 apply to agriculture superficial analogies bor- 
 rowed from industrial life, and they lack both 
 knowledge of and feeling for the real nature 
 of the agricultural problem. In especial the 
 proletarian has no understanding for the moral 
 value of non-exploiting private property in 
 land, petty proprietorship — although in ulti- 
 mate analysis this moral value is unquestion- 
 ably not affectively conditioned. He regards 
 a mechanical counterpart of industrial con- 
 centration as essential. Since his own class 
 is agglomerated and is devoid of private 
 property, he depicts the return to the land 
 as a mass movement, which would not be a 
 collection of forces for further evolution, but 
 an ascent into heaven for which evolution 
 would be superfluous. Karl Kautsky x de- 
 scribes the aim as communism in material 
 production and anarchism in spiritual pro- 
 duction. This phrase excellently sums up 
 proletarian anarchist communism. The con- 
 
 1 The Social Revolution. 
 
138 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 dition cannot be a perfect one, for in that 
 case it would forfeit the proletarian class 
 character. The goal of the proletarian brethren 
 is not the womb, but a far more social mother 
 community. And despite all hostility for the 
 actual father, there may still, in such a com- 
 munity, remain a place for the father. The 
 intention to bring about the involution or 
 at least the reduction of the division of labour, 1 
 is likewise connected with the general return 
 to earth. Gustave le Bon's saying, that social- 
 ism is the religion of persons who in the 
 contemporary world have been deprived of 
 their foothold, may be restated by saying 
 that proletarian ideology, arising in the souls 
 of those who are divorced from the soil, 
 aspires towards complete regression to earth. 
 The substratum of communist Russia is con- 
 stituted, on the one hand by a still extant 
 primeval agrarian communism, and on the 
 other hand by the ." class-conscious " prole- 
 tariat of an extensively small but intensively 
 highly developed industry — a proletariat which 
 has adopted the role of the old-time Varangian 
 invaders. 
 
 1 Cf. Kropotkin, op. cit., Chap. XV., etc. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 139 
 
 VI 
 
 Infantile El Dorado Fantasy of 
 Communism 
 
 It is no mere empty simile to say that the 
 proletariat wishes to unite itself into a huge 
 family community. The communist principle, 
 work according to power, consumption accord- 
 ing to need, is in its essence an infantile 
 principle. Stress is not laid on the develop- 
 ment of the powers, for communists hope to 
 get along with very little work ! Stress is 
 laid upon voluntary, direct, spontaneous sym- 
 pathy with the community ; .upon obedience 
 inspired by the personal impulse of the doer ; 
 upon the qualities of the " good " child. 
 Enjoyment according to need relates no less 
 clearly to the childish existence. The child 
 does not fend for itself ; its consumption is 
 not regulated in accordance with the work 
 it does. The characteristic of its position is 
 that it is more often at odds with its parents 
 on account of unsuitable wishes than on 
 account of immoderate wishes ; very often 
 trouble arises because of its unwillingness to 
 accept something, especially some particular 
 food. The principle of the peaceful regulation 
 
140 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 of needs, or that of the enforced regulation 
 of needs, is maintained in full validity. On 
 the one hand, communism proposes to abolish 
 all work which produces a disagreeable feeling 
 of fatigue (this is communism in the anarchistic 
 form) ; on the other hand, it proposes in 
 case of need to constrain people to the per- 
 formance of certain disagreeable tasks. What 
 is lacking to the whole system is an indirectly 
 applicable coercion of life ; a constraint which, 
 as is needful, will demand from human beings 
 vigorous work ; but which — notably through 
 the free choice of occupation and the honour- 
 ing of toil — shall create a specific and some- 
 what severe hedonism of labour. This form 
 of labour is a strongly sublimated adult form, 
 whereas the form of labour under communism 
 is a dualism of childish play and childish 
 learning. We may regard as an emanation 
 of this, Kautsky's naive formula concerning 
 communism in economic life and anarchism 
 in spiritual life, which involves a reversal of 
 the primitive relationship of play in the 
 physical field and compulsory work in the 
 intellectual field. This compromise formation 
 between the wish on the one hand and the 
 demands of reality on the other (the work 
 of adults, especially of proletarian adults, is 
 predominantly physical) is natural enough in 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 141 
 
 the sedate Kautsky, a man of thoroughly 
 scientific temperament. The more extreme 
 anarchist communist conception involves the 
 adoption of a coercion to associated labour — 
 a coercion which is in due time to be replaced 
 by voluntary impulse — the whole process being 
 purely regressive. 
 
 The progressive modification of communism, 
 authoritarian collectivism, tends to an in- 
 creasing extent to adopt the father principle, 
 projecting into society the father who is just 
 in the allotment of rewards ; this implies a 
 transition from infantilism to the condition of 
 riper youth, with at the same time a closer 
 relationship to reality. We are already on the 
 way to the real justice which makes use of 
 the father merely as a principle of systematisa- 
 tion ; we are on the way to adulthood. 
 
 I must now approach a problem of extra- 
 ordinary importance. It seems to me that 
 the more extensive the regression towards the 
 ideal of the embryonic condition, the less 
 will this unceasing backward pursuit of the 
 primitive horde constellation be crowned with 
 success, and the more essential will it become 
 to take into consideration the elements of 
 reality. In fact the climax of the condition 
 conflicting with the reality principle is the 
 foetal condition, wiiere the environment is 
 
142 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 utterly different from our reality. The more 
 the individual develops, the more manifold 
 the ways in which he enters the sphere of 
 our reality, and the more decisively therefore 
 does the ontogenetic or the social motif super- 
 sede the phylogenetic motif. For an under- 
 standing of proletarian communism we need 
 a far greater number of realist outlooks than 
 we need for an understanding of absolute 
 anarchism. As we approach the goal of man- 
 hood, the relationships of the primitive horde 
 pass from our ken. It may be open to question 
 whether this interesting association of the 
 forms of organisation with their contents 
 exists along the whole line. I consider that 
 to this extent at least there is such an asso- 
 ciation, that we are justified in attempting 
 to refute a communist theory which assumes 
 a psychoanalytical complexion. I am think- 
 ing of Paul Federn's theory. 1 Federn holds 
 that communism, the abolition of private 
 property, represents an action of the brethren 
 against the father, and signifies the overthrow 
 of paternal dominion. This idea is unsound 
 in so far as the revolt against the father, 
 and the communalisation of his privileges, do 
 not represent a progressive motif, but a re- 
 
 * Zur Psychologie der Revolution, Die Vaterlose Gesellschaft, 
 Vienna and Leipzig, 19 19. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 143 
 
 gressive and titanic motif, whereas progress 
 is synonymous with the disappearance of the 
 whole situation characteristic of the primitive 
 horde. From the outlook of progress, it is 
 necessary that in the revolutionary struggle 
 against the contemporary father, who is often 
 regressive, use should be made of antipaternal 
 regressive forces ; but as soon as the aim 
 of regression has been attained, we find our- 
 selves not on the remoter but on the hither 
 side of the father. The intellectual cause of 
 the error lies in the assumption that the 
 condition of the primitive horde, and, speak- 
 ing generally, our knowledge of the impulsive 
 life as ascertained by psychoanalysis, provide 
 a key for the understanding of life in its en- 
 tirety, whereas it remains the preeminent task 
 of psychoanalysis applied to higher spheres, to 
 ascertain precisely what limits are imposed 
 upon the influence of this factor. Whilst 
 the decisive victory of the primitive factor 
 affords an exhaustive explanation of anarch- 
 ism, it is far from giving an exhaustive 
 explanation of proletarian ideology. Even 
 though we see that in extant society the 
 father principle operates to some extent as 
 a force hostile to progress, nevertheless no 
 syllogism exists to convince us that progress 
 is to be secured by the destruction of the 
 
144 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 father principle, by the gratification of the 
 fatherhood wish of the brethren of the horde, 
 perhaps in the form of a new paternal dominion 
 (dictatorship) even stricter than the old. What 
 we need is the further sublimation of the 
 father principle, a further remove from the 
 primitive horde. What we need, consequently, 
 is not communism, but the generalisation of 
 property (liberal socialism). If we must use 
 the " dialect of original sin " we may say 
 that this would be a society consisting only 
 of fathers. But such an idea would be some- 
 what of a caricature, and considering the 
 matter simply from the libido outlook it 
 could not be fully adapted to the primitive 
 horde conception. A society based upon the 
 generalisation of property would realise 
 Federn's hope that the parricidal brand can 
 be effaced from the brow of man. On the 
 other hand, it would not signify the renewal 
 and the final success (as Federn imagines) 
 of the attempt of the clan brethren — no such 
 success could ever be achieved. The generali- 
 sation of property would imply a further 
 evolution of extant society upon the founda- 
 tion of preexistent development, and not upon 
 the foundation of the renouncement of pre- 
 existent development. It would be a society 
 which would not only be fatherless, without 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 145 
 
 paternal rule, but would also be motherless — 
 not of course in the sense of lifelessness, but 
 in the sense of the higher life, sublimation 
 and not regression. 
 
 Communism, nevertheless, does not propose 
 the abandonment of such goods as progress 
 has achieved. What communists, apart from 
 a few enthusiasts for poverty, desire, is not 
 the sacrifice of the acquirements of technical 
 progress. For the establishment of the future 
 society they look to a technical progress which 
 is almost inconceivable to-day. 
 
 Now herein lies the absurdity of communism. 
 Herein we have a further self-revelation of 
 communist infantilism. To the anarchist ab- 
 surdity, which we stigmatised ^as the absurdity 
 of a society of foetuses, there succeeds a 
 mitigated absurdity, less uncongenial, less 
 blatant, but in reality no less absurd. The 
 communists aspire to found a society with 
 undeveloped organisation in conjunction with 
 marvellously developed technique. No one 
 needs a profound knowledge of sociology to 
 perceive the impossibility of carrying out 
 such a plan. But the psychoanalyst will 
 push his criticism a stage further, and w T ill 
 discover traces of a manifestation with which 
 the study of the psychology of individuals 
 has long made him familiar. I refer to the 
 
 10 
 
146 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 belief in the omnipotence of thought. 1 Speak- 
 ing generally, a magical belief in the powers 
 of thought is characteristic of the primitive 
 stage » and above all of childhood. In the 
 embryo there is no discrepancy between wish 
 and reality (anarchism) ; in the subsequent 
 course of development, the omnipotence of 
 hallucination, gesture, and thought, becomes 
 dominant. In totemism and compulsion 
 neurosis, the part played by the omnipotence 
 of thought is very striking. In communism, 
 the manifestation of this fancy takes a some- 
 what different form — a matter to which we 
 shall refer presently. From the " omnipo- 
 tence " of thought springs scientific research, 
 the passage from imaginary to real activity. 
 Should this transition fail to occur, we are 
 confronted with a new species of the omnipo- 
 tence of thought, side by side with the 
 autoerotic manifestation of totemism ; this 
 we may term the narcissistic variety. I mean 
 that the above-described construction of reality 
 makes a further (imaginary) concession, adopt- 
 
 1 Cf . Totem und Tabu, III ; Ferenczi, Die Entwick- 
 lungsstufen des Wirklichkeitssinnes, Internationale Zeitschrift 
 fur Psychoanalyse, 191 3 ; J. MacCurdy, Die Allmacht der 
 Gedanken und die Mutterleibsphantasie, Imago, 191 2. 
 
 3 Cf. the present writer's essay, Activity and Passivity 
 in the Growth of Civilisation [Hungarian], Huszadik Szazad, 
 Budapest, 191 8. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 147 
 
 ing a form which corresponds better to the 
 actual taking of reality into consideration ; 
 it relates to the already developed ego, devotes 
 the ego to the service of libido regression, 
 and is therefore narcissistic. The idea of the 
 omnipotence of thought manifests itself in 
 the imaginary systems, and psychiatrists are 
 familiar with it as paranoia. But the matter 
 cannot be fully considered here. The im- 
 portant point for our purposes is that com- 
 munism looks for a development of a mass 
 of requisites, for the high development of 
 industrial technique, without any structural 
 and real development of society. In actual 
 fact, however, the advance of technique can 
 only occur concomitantly with an advance 
 in the division of labour, concomitantly with 
 the advance of social differentiation. But that 
 some fine day social differentiation may be- 
 come superfluous, and that even its regression 
 may be possible, is merely the idea of the 
 dull pupil who has far too concrete a con- 
 ception of the materials of knowledge, and 
 who cherishes some such fancy as that know- 
 ledge can be poured into the brain through 
 a funnel. Just as the foetus is unable to 
 use its hand, and just as a little child is 
 incompetent to drive a motor car, so the 
 fruits of technical progress will not be at 
 
148 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the disposal of a community which is not 
 a master of technique, which cannot develop 
 technique, and which cannot even make an 
 intelligent use of extant technical acquire- 
 ments. The war might at least have taught 
 this lesson. 1 
 
 Consequently the rationalism of the pro- 
 letariat, the blind faith in the power of in- 
 dustrial technique, is an antisociological, 
 imaginative, and infantile rationalism, although 
 not identical with the tabula rasa rationalism 
 of the anarchists. We shall shortly consider 
 its proletarian foundations and its theoretical 
 superstructure. Our immediate concern has 
 merely been to elucidate the infantile El 
 Dorado fantasy of the communists. 2 
 
 VII 
 
 Origins of Proletarian Ideology 
 
 It may have struck the reader that I have 
 failed to follow to its logical end the deduction 
 of proletarian ideology from the proletarian 
 mode of life, and that after describing the 
 
 1 Cf. B. Boyneburg, Die Despotie der Mittel, Vienna and 
 Leipzig, 1 91 9. 
 
 3 The El Dorado fantasy is admirably described by P. Ernst, 
 Der Zusammenbruch des Marxismus, Munich, 1919, p. 113. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 149 
 
 land complex I returned to the direct charac- 
 terisation of communist regression. My reason 
 was that a systematic description of the 
 causes and forms of the communist movement 
 would have lain beyond the scope of the 
 present work, which is concerned only with 
 such matters as come within the purview of 
 the psychoanalyst. It therefore seemed more 
 appropriate to examine characteristics and 
 origins by turns. A glance at origins may 
 now usefully precede a further study of 
 characteristics. 
 
 The land complex was not introduced for- 
 tuitously. Capitalism, the institutional form 
 whence the proletariat and proletarian com- 
 munism are derived, is itself closely connected 
 with the land problem. It is far from my 
 intention to formulate hypotheses concerning 
 the origin of capitalism, or to attempt an 
 answer to the question why the application 
 of liberal principles has led to the establish- 
 ment of a social order which is neither liberal 
 nor individualistic. Light is thrown upon 
 the economic and sociological side of the 
 problem by the works of liberal socialist 
 writers, but, for my purposes, the state of 
 affairs must be accepted as given. Never- 
 theless I cannot refrain from a few remarks 
 which concern our subject. What may be 
 
150 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 termed the leading trends of liberal socialism, 
 those of Henry George and Franz Oppen- 
 heimer, agree in representing that the unhappy 
 developments of capitalism through which it 
 has been brought into sharp contrast with 
 individualism and free exchange, originated 
 through the monopolisation of the land by 
 individuals, or through the allowing of this 
 system of monopoly to become established. 
 The principles of equal rights and of private 
 property were necessarily destroyed, for their 
 very essence was injuriously affected by the 
 economic identification of land with other 
 things — seeing that land is not the outcome 
 of human labour, is absolutely indispensable, 
 and is not susceptible of increase, so that 
 consequently its annexation by individuals 
 is not private ownership properly speaking, 
 but merely robbery sanctioned by custom. 
 It is true that Oppenheimer considers that 
 the main trouble does not lie in land owner- 
 ship per se, but in large-scale landed pro- 
 prietorship, which is the persistence of 
 feudalism and the incorporation of the principle 
 of domination, and cannot fail to poison the 
 social order. It is probable, however, that 
 a synthesis could be effected of George's and 
 Oppenheimer's theories and the kindred pro- 
 grams of action. Lorenz (op. cit.) reaches 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 151 
 
 an outlook analogous to that of these two 
 economists. He considers that the cause of 
 regression to the condition of the primitive 
 horde is to be found in the false identification 
 of land with commodities. 
 
 It is evident, however, that at the founda- 
 tion of the matter there lies hid, not a 
 generalised logical fallacy perpetrated by the 
 liberal theorists, but some deeply rooted social 
 constellation. As far as concerns large-scale 
 landed proprietorship, there is a manifest 
 connexion between the libidinous tie man- 
 earth and the authoritative tie father-child. 
 When the end of serfdom came, and when 
 liberalism won the victory, large-scale landed 
 proprietorship ought to have come to an end, 
 earth-eroticism ought to have assumed the 
 form of petty proprietorship, while the like- 
 wise sublimated father principle should have 
 indued the form of cooperative organisation. 
 This did not happen, or at any rate not to 
 a preponderant extent. Landed dominion 
 persisted, although the libido tie of the 
 " underlings " was to some extent loosened. 
 Organisation upon the land did not keep 
 pace with town development ; eluding a 
 further sublimation of libido, it underwent 
 fixation at a lower stage. Hence the dis- 
 harmony in social evolution. Peculiarly 
 
152 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 characteristic of capitalism is the way in 
 which this disharmony manifests itself by 
 the lagging behind of agricultural production 
 while industrial production advances. For 
 reasons which cannot be adequately discussed, 
 there has been a solution of continuity between 
 the comparatively advanced portion of the 
 social soul, and that portion which remains 
 closer to fundamentals ; there has been a 
 collision between real life and the " archaic " 
 libido fixation. 1 The treatment of land as 
 a commodity may, just like the spirit of 
 mammonism, the regressive element of capital- 
 ism as contrasted with the nobler individual- 
 istic element, be explained as an extensive 
 resurgence of (repressed) analeroticism. Such 
 a degradation, such a symbolic transformation, 
 of the earth, in conjunction with the febrile 
 increase in the mobility of the bourgeoisie, 
 and on the other hand the fixation of the 
 old earth hedonism, constitute the libido con- 
 stellation which threatens to destroy the in- 
 dustrial sublimation. 
 
 In accordance therewith, during the course 
 of capitalist concentration, there occurred an 
 
 1 Freud institutes a comparison between entail and the 
 germ plasm, the unprogressive specific factor. Vorlesungen 
 zur Einfiihrung in die Psychoanalyse, III, p. 482 ; Kleine 
 Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, IV, p. 84. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 153 
 
 increase of that father motif which recalls 
 large-scale landed proprietorship (trusts, the 
 formation of propertyless proletarian masses, 
 a " policy of social reform " as a secondary 
 mitigation). In sharp contrast, however, to 
 what took place under large-scale landed 
 proprietorship, there simultaneously occurred 
 a divorce from the soil, a lack of earth hedon- 
 ism, insecurity, and landlessness. Hence arises 
 the desire of the proletariat for a great re- 
 gression and a return to earth, as a destructive 
 aim. 
 
 We are now confronted with the problem 
 which presents itself in similar form in the 
 psychology of the individual as well. Wishes 
 always proceed from extant' reality. Which 
 portion of reality do they approve, and which 
 portion do they try to subvert ? It would, 
 for example, be expedient to study dreams 
 in order to ascertain what elements of the 
 dream are a reproduction of the situation 
 which functions as its basis, and what elements 
 represent the true wish fantasy. We may 
 certainly assume that a wish gratification of 
 this kind, deviating from a realist modification 
 of the facts, will completely transform a 
 part of the reality (by the path of the easiest 
 application of the libido) ; whereas it will 
 cling tenaciously to another portion of the 
 
154 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 reality. This is what happens in connexion 
 with proletarian ideology, which is not a 
 critical project for reform, but an impulsive 
 reaction against capitalist oppression. 
 
 The most definitely progressive elements of 
 capitalism, namely, formal freedom of ex- 
 change, and private property, do not come 
 into direct contact with the proletarian, and 
 are not enjoyed by him. Consequently pro- 
 letarians are inclined to seek the cause of 
 their miseries in freedom of exchange and 
 private property. The proletarian detests the 
 authoritative elements of capitalism in their 
 extant forms, but owing to his complete 
 subordination and subjection he is incompetent 
 to overcome them in the world of reality. 
 Transforming them as it were in the sense 
 of the Oedipus complex, he retains the power 
 principle, endorses class egoism, and likewise 
 acquiesces in mammonism in the form of 
 historical materialism and in the form of 
 indifference to agriculture. Finally, he wholly 
 approves that class formation which subjects 
 capitalism to the working class, since, for 
 the orphaned proletarian individual, this class 
 contains all the values of libido and struggle. 
 The class becomes the symbol of the clan 
 of the brethren, inspired with the aim of 
 becoming father, of abolishing class and all 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 155 
 
 distinctions of class, of fusing in the great 
 regression. For the abolition of class does 
 not in this connexion signify the abolition 
 of unearned income, but the abolition of 
 differences in income and of the occupational 
 differentiation necessarily associated therewith. 
 The characteristics that distinguish commun- 
 ism from anarchism are likewise manifest. 
 Whereas the regression of anarchism is im- 
 mediate and direct, communism derives to 
 a far greater extent from reality, reckoning 
 with reality, and receiving from reality its 
 formal manifestations. Its ambivalence is less 
 conspicuous, the stress being transferred by 
 communism, from unbridled force and un- 
 restricted regression, to the 'fatherhood wish 
 of the horde of brethren. Indeed, the inter- 
 weaving with motifs akin to reality, especially 
 in certain phases and varieties of the move- 
 ment, is so remarkable, that a keen eye is 
 requisite for the detection of the kernel which 
 conflicts with the reality principle. 
 
 Marxist ideology and the rationalism peculiar 
 to that ideology cannot be fully analysed 
 without a glance at the role of the machine. 
 The machine is doubtless able to fulfil a very 
 different psychical function from that fulfilled 
 by the earth and by the living environment. 
 Whereas these latter can become the objects 
 
156 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 of a general psychical community (earth 
 hedonism, the feeling for nature), machines 
 are introjective transferences, and at a higher 
 stage they are projective transferences, of 
 the bodily (working) organs. 1 They arouse 
 a technico-rationalistic spirit. In virtue of 
 their symbolism it seems probable that they 
 can also act as psychical derivatives, but 
 there are several obstacles to this. K. Biicher z 
 maintains that the machine gradually loses 
 the old rhythm ; new rhythms doubtless arise, 
 but are not apperceived because of the 
 specialisation of the workers, because they 
 have become means to an end. Worth noting 
 is J. ZitzlafFs 3 observation that in the higher 
 stages of machine development the compre- 
 hensive activity of the workman must increase, 
 but this tendency is counteracted by the 
 capitalist interest in keeping wages down — 
 an interest hostile to production. It is also 
 of decisive importance that the machine is 
 neither the individual nor the collective pro- 
 perty of the worker. The universal material- 
 ism associated with machine development is 
 accompanied by a hatred for the machine 
 
 1 Cf. Ferenczi, Zur Psychogenese der Mechanik, Imago, 
 1919, p. 394- 
 
 a Arbeit und Rhythmus, 3rd edition, Leipzig, 1902, p. 418. 
 
 3 Arbeitsgliederung in Maschinenbauunternehmungen, Jena, 
 I9i3» PP. 30-8. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 157 
 
 which often finds expression in sabotage, and 
 this supplies one component of the ardent 
 antirationalism which is at work within com- 
 munism, and of the fantasy of the absolute 
 regression to the earth. The disturbance of 
 equilibrium characteristic of capitalism, the 
 fatality which has placed the acquirements 
 of evolution at the service of regression, is 
 markedly accentuated in proletarian ideology. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Marxism as a Social Psychosis 
 
 Historical materialism, one of the main 
 pillars of Marxist doctrine, is in part filched 
 from capitalist mammonism, but has been 
 reclad in a philosophical vesture which was 
 prepared for Marx by Hegel, a thinker with 
 a feudalist trend. Marx espoused the Hegelian 
 dialectic with great energy, merely replacing 
 spirit in that system by economics, conceived 
 as autonomous, independent, mystically opera- 
 tive. Ultimately capitalism was to be re- 
 pudiated, but only through its own activities. 
 At the highest stage of capitalist development 
 would ensue the expropriation of the small 
 number of large-scale capitalists who would 
 
158 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 then remain in existence, and the transition 
 to communism would take place. Simul- 
 taneously, historical materialism would cease 
 to be applicable ; man would pass from the 
 realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. 
 Everything which might interfere with this 
 development is to be regarded as unessential 
 detail, as vestigial, as the manifestation of 
 petty-bourgeois narrowness, and so on. The 
 whole task of mankind is to be found in 
 measures for accelerating transformation, in 
 the overcoming of temporarily determined hin- 
 drances, in tactics. 
 
 This mystical materialism discerns in every- 
 thing the ego impulse alone, the impulse to 
 self-preservation, and, dependent thereon, the 
 impulse to establish and maintain the power 
 of class. To this extent it is rationalistic. 
 It is likewise rationalistic in that it compresses 
 all its doctrines into a rigid system of strict 
 and inalterable determinism, predestined to a 
 definite historical close, when it will be re- 
 placed by an entirely different world, the 
 anarchist communist kingdom of heaven. The 
 applied form is likewise ultra-scientific, 
 equipped with dry, technical designations and 
 mathematical formulas. Nevertheless, the 
 idolatrous character of the system, and the 
 brusque stigmatisation as " unscientific " of 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 159 
 
 all questions as to the " future state " (that 
 is to say, as to the real aim of Marxism), 
 suffice to arouse the suspicion that the whole 
 has an affective rather than a rational basis. 
 The idea of the salvation of the world by the 
 proletarian class vividly recalls the motif of 
 the role as saviour and the great good fortune 
 of the youngest brother or some other person 
 who has been despised and rejected ; * it 
 signifies the wish fantasy of the son, who is 
 inferior in power to the father, and longs 
 to gain possession of the mother (earth, land, 
 the world). For the rest, we have all the 
 signs of a paranoid construction. The follow- 
 ing characteristics confirm this conclusion. 
 There is an exclusive stressing of the ego, 
 which is however projected upon an impersonal 
 Moloch, economics. The psychical significance 
 of the machine, and the early disturbance 
 of the proletarian's ego, are additional indi- 
 cations ; a similar disturbance of the ego 
 usually plays its part in the mechanism of 
 paranoia, but in this case its uniform character 
 as a class manifestation elucidates the mass 
 summation of the psychosis. I have already 
 referred to the megalomania, which is another 
 characteristic of paranoia. Hand in hand 
 with this goes delusion of persecution. The 
 
 fee a x This matter is fully discussed by Lorenz, op. cit. 
 
160 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 exploitation of the proletariat by the bour- 
 geoisie is grotesquely caricatured, so that all 
 the institutions of the state, religious and 
 moral systems, and even dominant scientific 
 trends, are lumped together as methods of 
 exploitation. I think there is good reason 
 for the assertion, that Marxists are not free 
 from the delusion of persecution ; they regard 
 every attempt at social reform made by those 
 who are not Marxist devotees as designed 
 by the exploiters to mislead and befool the 
 proletariat. The salvation fantasy is common 
 in religious paranoia. 1 The wrapping-up of 
 the essential irrationality in an excessively 
 rigid rationalistic system 2 corresponds to the 
 aimless rationalism of the Marxists. The 
 shrewd dialectic of paranoiacs is familiar ; 
 no less familiar is the manner in which they 
 shut themselves away, erecting an impenetrable 
 barrier between themselves and the rest of 
 the world. Common to Marxism and paranoia 
 are a dogmatic adhesion to doctrine and an 
 equally uncritical scornful scepticism towards 
 all extraneous ideas. The Marxist theory of 
 value, which measures all value by labour 
 
 1 Cf. Freud, Psychoanalytische Bemerkungen liber einen 
 autobiographisch beschriebenen Fall von Paranoia, Kleine 
 Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, II, p. 206. 
 
 » Cf. Freud, Ueber soziale Wirkungen, p. 248. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 161 
 
 time, is an elementary example of the ration- 
 alism of those who preach art for art's sake, 
 of those in whose eyes " precision " outweighs 
 knowledge. 
 
 Two characteristics show clearly that it 
 would be wrong to look upon Marxism simply 
 as a "case" of paranoia. The terminal aim 
 as an exit from the system, the act of redemp- 
 tion which forces its way through the repres- 
 sion, the deliberate combination of the terminal 
 regression with the intermediate constructions, 
 bear witness to the unique character of the 
 social psychosis. Moreover, we cannot detect 
 in the social psychosis that homosexual fixation 
 plays an important part such as it is supposed 
 to play in paranoia. It is, however, necessary 
 to point out that homosexuality associated 
 with paranoia is not primary, but is a psychical, 
 narcissistic construction. Therein, likewise, 
 the important point is the entangling of the 
 ego in the disorders of the libido develop- 
 ment. 1 In this connexion there forces itself 
 on our attention a comparison with a move- 
 ment which exhibits numerous resemblances 
 
 * In the writings of Fourier, one of the most distinguished 
 premarxian communists, we find strange expressions which 
 recall the words coined by paraphrenics (for example : 
 cdbaliste, composite, papillonne). Fourier was aware that a 
 great many absurdities were intermingled with his ideas ; 
 cf. the apparent dementia in paraphrenia. 
 
 11 
 
162 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 to the Marxist movement ; I refer to Chris- 
 tianity. The manifestations of the Oedipus 
 complex, redemption, and the kingdom of 
 heaven, which appear in Christian ideology 
 in an archaic and metaphysical vesture, are 
 poured by the Marxists into a scientific and 
 materialistic mould. At first sight we may 
 be allured by the notion that Christianity 
 displays the characteristics of a compulsion 
 neurosis, just as Freud declares that religion 
 in general is "a universal compulsion neu- 
 rosis." But there are many reasons for with- 
 holding assent to such a view. We seek 
 vainly for the typical symptoms of the before- 
 mentioned disease, for investigation compul- 
 sion, obvious indecision, a disharmony between 
 ritual and conviction. As soon as Christianity 
 had got beyond the primitive, anarchistic, 
 antiritualistic attitude, equal attention was 
 paid to ritual and to creed, and sometimes the 
 preference was given to creed. 1 The important 
 
 1 Judaism, on the other hand, with its hypertrophied 
 ritual, its Talmudism, and its disdain for inner faith, displays 
 a close kinship with compulsion neurosis. This may explain 
 why Judaism could not conquer the world. It may not 
 have been a chance matter that in the beginnings of the 
 Christian and of the Marxist movement Jews played a leading 
 part. Emancipation from compulsion neurosis (" salvation 
 from ritual ") may be either sublimatory or profoundly 
 regressive. Cf. Reik, Das Kolnidre, op. cit. ; also an un- 
 published work by S. Feldmann dealing with the psycho- 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 163 
 
 part which hallucinatory ideas play in Chris- 
 tianity, makes that religion akin to para- 
 phrenia and hysteria ; nevertheless, we en- 
 counter in Christianity manic and depressive 
 elements (ecstasy, seclusion from the world) 
 which are foreign to communism. Taking all 
 these points into consideration, it seems to 
 me that they do not signify that communism 
 is less regressive, but merely that the com- 
 munist regression begins at a higher stage of 
 evolution. The proletarians of the capitalist 
 era are differentiated from the poor and the 
 slaves of the classical world by far greater 
 concentration, more systematic work, and more 
 complete divorce from the soil-; the regression 
 of the proletariat is rooted in a highly 
 developed society and in the ego itself ; the pro- 
 jection is not cosmologico-physical, but socio- 
 economic. 1 Class, the machine, " education in 
 the factory " (Marx), confer upon proletarian 
 ideology the stamp of paranoia ; they give 
 rise to the narcissistic idea of the omnipotence 
 of thought, in contradistinction to totemism, 
 
 analysis of Judaism. Concerning religion as a manifestation 
 of compulsion neurosis, and philosophy as a manifestation 
 of paranoia, consult Rank, Der Kunstler, 3rd edition, 
 Vienna, 191 8, p. 60. 
 
 1 Christianity was far less concerned with a direct onslaught 
 upon slavery. Cf. F. X. Kiefl, Die Theorien des modernen 
 Sozialismus uber den Ursprung des Christentums, Munich, 
 1915. 
 
164 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 wherein there is noticed no contradiction 
 between the rudimentary ego and the (auto- 
 erotic) belief in omnipotence ; and in contra- 
 distinction to the sufferer from compulsion 
 neurosis, whose evolved ego negates the (auto- 
 erotic) belief in omnipotence (" obsession " !). 
 Here the ego itself becomes a means towards 
 the (narcissistic) belief in omnipotence. Con- 
 tributory causes, doubtless, are the specific 
 insecurity of the existence of the proletarian 
 as a free workman, homelessness, 1 and the 
 premature labours of the proletarian child, 
 whereby it is led to outgrow both the childish 
 world of fable and the intellectual and aesthetic 
 atmosphere of our civilisation. * 
 
 The comparison of Marxist communism with 
 Christianity and with the bourgeois revolution 
 (the French revolution, with its peculiar differ- 
 ences both from communism and from Chris- 
 tianity) would be far more searching. Such a 
 comparison, in conjunction with a systematic 
 study of the neuropsychoses, could not fail 
 to give valuable results, alike in the domain 
 of the immanent problems, and in that of 
 the relationships of individual and social 
 
 1 Concerning the psychical significance of the home, and in 
 especial concerning its mother significance, cf. Charlotte 
 Perkins Gilman, The Home, its Work and Influence, New 
 York, 1910, p. 22. 
 
 a Cf. R. Tschudi, Das proletarische Kind, Zurich, 191 8. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 165 
 
 psychoses. I have previously referred to the 
 contrasted schema of the French revolution. 
 I may add here that in association with the 
 capitalistic materialism which has been adopted 
 and accentuated by the proletariat, certain 
 elements of proletarian ideology were already 
 manifest in the French revolution. Lorenz 
 quotes from Taine a case in which a country 
 landlord was murdered because he was re- 
 ceiving from the state an annual income of 
 thirty-six thousand francs, which would now 
 be retained by the community. Here we 
 already have in the germ the projection of 
 historical materialism. But whilst the money 
 element in this matter may justify inferences 
 concerning anal-eroticism, materialism acquires 
 in Marxism another complexion which is more 
 general and which is completely antimaterial- 
 istic, antirationalistic, and regressive, in its 
 trend. A sentiment of justice together with 
 rationalism are contributory when Marx 
 demonstrates with the aid of the theory of 
 surplus value that the worker does not receive 
 an adequate equivalent for his toil. Yet the 
 communistic aim, whose realisation will make 
 the value of the work done utterly irrelevant, 
 is adduced as a logical inference from Marxist 
 principles. This shows us once again how 
 justice, rationality, and analogous develop- 
 
166 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 mental values, can be turned to account in 
 a reversionary canalisation of regression. 
 
 IX 
 
 Bolshevism 
 
 Marxism loses much of its precision in the 
 form of social democracy, where the trade 
 unions in especial stand for moderation, for 
 compliance with realist demands, and for 
 collaboration with bourgeois democracy. The 
 trade unions, indeed, in contrast with the 
 class which takes its stand upon the doctrine 
 of increasing misery and unalloyed Marxist 
 " evolution/ ' represent the real working-class 
 organisations engaged in the fight for economic 
 advantages. Obviously the social democrats 
 of the trade unions lack coherent aim and 
 far-reaching impetus. In them the titanic 
 energy idealised by Marxist theory is damped 
 down and dispersed rather than sublimated 
 (in so far as the trade unions fail to bring any 
 cooperatives into being). The same remark 
 applies to Bernstein's revisionist trend, which 
 is almost completely devoid of regressive 
 character. A peculiar compost, which I can 
 touch upon only in passing, is presented by 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 167 
 
 syndicalism. The adherents of this doctrine 
 utterly reject the father principle, so that it 
 culminates in a purely economic anarchism ; 
 the increasing disregard of the communist 
 aim, and the assigning of enhanced significance 
 to the trade unions might perhaps be regarded 
 as indications of an ameliorative process. A 
 grave turn in the direction of psychosis is, 
 however, manifest in bolshevism or Leninism. 
 Owing to the war, this doctrine has risen to 
 enormous power. I propose, therefore, to 
 consider it in detail. 
 
 The war, that great syndrome of the malady 
 of our civilisation, brought about for a time 
 an extensive feudalist regression even among 
 those nations which had more or less com- 
 pletely entered the bourgeois phase. Conse- 
 quently the labour movement likewise expe- 
 rienced a change in the same direction. On 
 the one hand the dissolution of reality stimu- 
 lated the desire for the anarchist paradise ; 
 on the other hand the reign of force and the 
 widespread introduction of coercive regulations 
 aroused in the brethren of the proletarian 
 clan the desire to secure the rights of father- 
 hood. Socialism, which had been formed in 
 the image of capitalism, remodelled itself on 
 the feudalist example. A large proportion of 
 the working class now espoused the dictator- 
 
168 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 ship of the proletariat sustained by bayonets 
 and the inquisition ; hoped " to skip the 
 capitalist phase " ; aspired to inaugurate a 
 centralised, despotic, and mechanical kneading 
 of society. There appeared, as H. Mann has 
 aptly expressed it, ' ' a mixture of blood halitus 
 and logarithms/ ' Bolshevism was so direct 
 an issue from the war, that psychoanalysis 
 has few observations to make in this field. 
 Nevertheless, I must refer once more to the 
 Psychology of Revolution by Paul Federn, 
 who discerns in the development of the soviet 
 system the birth of the fatherless society of 
 the brethren, and perceives therein the evolu- 
 tionary potentialities of society. I have endeav- 
 oured to prove that these potentialities would 
 not be realised through the victory of the 
 brethren, but through the renewed sublimation 
 of the father principle and a general remove 
 from the condition of the primitive horde. 
 In one of its forms the soviet system may 
 really be an anagogic manifestation. But it 
 cannot possibly be this as the restoration of 
 patriarchal authority, which belongs to a 
 lower stage of social evolution than bourgeois 
 authority. It can only mark an advance as 
 the cooperative democracy of free human 
 beings, individual fathers as it were. This pre- 
 supposes individual ownership. It is equally 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 169 
 
 incompatible with the fusion and with the 
 subjugation of individuals. It is possible that 
 the extant occupational councils, if the situa- 
 tion improves, may become the germs of such 
 an evolution. This, however, would contrast, 
 not only with bolshevism, but also with the 
 peaceful communism which secures Federn's 
 approval. Indeed, communism a la Federn 
 is distinguished from bolshevism only by the 
 lack of the outward insignia of the infringe- 
 ment of individual autonomy. 
 
 We may interpret bolshevism as a peculiar 
 feudalist middle course between the direct 
 regression of anarchism and the paranoid 
 regression of Marxist socialism. It is most 
 plainly characterised by its rejection of the 
 written law and by the straightforward appli- 
 cation of force. For the comparatively pro- 
 gressive, regulative, and organisatory form of 
 the father principle, it substitutes the earlier, 
 despotic form. Bolshevism excludes from the 
 community the capitalists who have hitherto 
 functioned as " fathers," and also excludes 
 the members of the mercantile class who 
 have not typically functioned either as 
 " fathers "or as " sons," in order to have 
 free scope for its own neopaternal caesarism. 
 The abandonment of all moral and other 
 scruples, the disregard, the rejection on prin- 
 
170 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 ciple, of all distinctions whether individual 
 or national, and the secondary, enforced, 
 omnivorous extension of the class idea, throw 
 a striking light upon the great regression, 
 which is competent to acquire so effective a 
 control even over the elements of reality. 
 In like manner the rejection of the family 
 indicates the libido concentration upon the 
 foundation of a " united social family." I 
 must emphasise my opinion that this does not 
 imply an integrative or evolutionary develop- 
 ment, any more than the mental constructions 
 of the insane patient involve integration and 
 evolution, even when they presuppose a kind 
 of sexual repression. The exceptionally vigor- 
 ous blazing up of militarism in the train of 
 bolshevism, as well as other signs (the adoption 
 of the feudalist policy of Jesuitism, corruption, 
 secret agents, etc.), enable us to recognise 
 that the bolshevisation of the world would 
 signify its atomisation. 1 
 
 The uniformity of the movement is doubtless 
 one of the causes of its poverty in symbolism. 
 
 1 The Leninist view, in accordance with which a stateless 
 paradise is to ensue upon the phase of intensified terror, 
 singularly recalls the mystical schema of introversion and 
 regeneration (Silberer). We know, however, that we really 
 have to do with an unmitigated reversion. Of course, in 
 the ultimate issue there might ensue, instead of the result 
 really aimed at, the birth of a new civilisation. (In decades 
 or centuries ?) 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 171 
 
 The general and compulsory use of the terms 
 " comrade " or " brother " in the Soviet 
 Republic is accordant with the whole spirit. 
 Remarkably enough, under the Hungarian 
 Soviet Dictatorship, the term used for " com- 
 rade " was " elvtars." This signifies "one 
 who holds the same views or principles," 
 and the use of the term illustrates the dog- 
 matist trend, Other practices remind us of 
 the homogeneous horde of the brethren : for 
 instance that everyone must be accounted a 
 proletarian before he is worthy to be accounted 
 a human being ; the official designation of 
 an author's earnings as " wages " ; and so on. 
 The effacement of differentiation is manifest 
 in ideology as well as in administrative struc- 
 ture. For example : " The soviet is not a 
 talking group but a working group. 1 ' Sadism 
 and masochism find the most manifold forms 
 of expression (the " camp-followers "). As far 
 as the colour red is concerned, this has had 
 great official significance in the social demo- 
 cratic movement, but in the bolshevist move- 
 ment it has risen to supreme dominion. 
 Psychologically, red can function as the symbol 
 of three different concepts, love, sin, and the 
 revolution. 1 It thus logically corresponds to 
 
 1 At the sitting of the Budapest Psychoanalytical Society, 
 in May, 1920, Ferenczi summarised the matter by saying 
 
172 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 uniformity, to the all-devouring action of the 
 libido. Silberer * alludes to red as the colour 
 of the philosopher's stone, of universal energy, 
 and also as the colour of absolute love which 
 knows nothing of conflict. The contrasted 
 pair red and white which symbolises the 
 opposed forces of bolshevism and the counter- 
 revolution, is likewise of old date. Silberer 
 points out that it expresses the contrasted 
 pair man and woman, corresponding to the 
 contrasted pair blood and bone ; and it would 
 seem that we might substitute the mechani- 
 cally interpreted schema of activity and 
 passivity. Unquestionably it is not to the 
 revolution in general, but only to the bolshevik 
 revolution that the colour red owes this 
 important role. 3 The official art of the Hun- 
 garian Soviet Republic was the work of an 
 ultrafuturist group of young poets and painters, 
 
 that the flush of joy suggested love, the blush of 9hame 
 suggested sin, and the flush of anger suggested revolution. 
 In this matter he followed Freud. 
 
 1 Op. cit. 
 
 a From the psychological point of view it would be instruc- 
 tive to compare the aesthetics of Hungarian bolshevism 
 (March to July, 1919) with that of the earlier bourgeois social 
 democratic revolution (October, 1918). In the October revolu- 
 tion the tone was set by various distinctions, by nationalist 
 and other specialities. On the day of the revolution the 
 chrysanthemum served as symbol, and the name of the flower 
 became the nickname of the revolution. 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 173 
 
 the study of whose mentality would con- 
 tribute valuable results to a ps3^chology of 
 bolshevist intellectuals. There would loom 
 largely in such a study the figure of the anar- 
 chist who has been given a chance for the 
 realisation of his aims. Speaking generally, 
 bolshevism is characterised by the withdrawal 
 of inhibitions and repressions, by a motor 
 discharge, subject of course to the essential 
 demands of Marxist orthodoxy. To some 
 extent, however, bolshevism may be looked 
 upon as a regressive dissolution of paranoiac 
 rigidity, to enable the adherents of the move- 
 ment to draw nearer to their goal. Anent 
 the part played by Russianism in this develop- 
 ment, I may refer to a valuable essay by 
 H. Hess on The Brothers Karamazoff or the 
 Destruction of Europe. 1 Hess traces the asso- 
 ciations of the Russian psyche in its certainty 
 that the overthrow of Europe is imminent. 
 These associations are : regression into the 
 Asiatic home, into the primal mother ; hos- 
 tility to every ethical norm ; the unity of 
 good and evil (the Demiurge = God-Devil, the 
 regressive abolition of the condition of the 
 primitive horde ?) ; chaos. He characterises 
 the typical Russian in the following terms : 
 
 1 Die Bruder Karamasoff oder der Untergang Europas, 
 Neue Rundschau, 1920. 
 
174 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 " The Russian is dangerous, emotional, and 
 irresponsible ; at the same time he has a 
 tender conscience, is sensitive, dreamy, cruel, 
 profoundly childlike.' ' We may regard the 
 bolshevik as representing a transitional per- 
 sonality between the proletarian of central 
 and western Europe and the type described 
 by Hess. 
 
 X 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 I am fully aware that this disquisition is 
 sketchy and elementary. A systematic survey 
 and discussion, from the psychoanalytical 
 standpoint, of the manifold varieties of anar- 
 chist communism, a consideration of their 
 sociological and psychological relationships, 
 would require a much more comprehensive 
 work. My aim has been to stimulate thought 
 on the subject, and I have introduced socio- 
 logical and critical considerations in passing 
 merely, when these were indispensable. No 
 far-reaching study of the psychology of the 
 subject has been attempted ; nothing has been 
 said concerning the psychical reactions of 
 strikes ; tactical problems, etc., have hardly 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 175 
 
 been considered at all. Unless compelled to 
 do so, the author has not transcended the 
 limits of the conflict with the reality principle 
 which is of interest to psychoanalysts. In 
 so far as the study I have initiated may, in 
 a more expanded form, be found to possess 
 sociological and political value, this value will 
 consist in the demonstration that in ultimate 
 analysis anarchist communism has a reac- 
 tionary character. In matters of detail, 
 psychoanalysis can only be regarded as an 
 instrument of adequate investigation. It 
 seems still more questionable for the time 
 being whether these studies can advance the 
 study of the psychology and psychiatry of 
 the individual. In any case/ a knowledge of 
 the considerations I have adduced may help 
 to sharpen the vision of the practising psycho- 
 analyst, and may even make it easier for him 
 to discover hitherto unnoticed pathological 
 mechanisms. 
 
 A few associated themes still require men- 
 tion. One of these is the psychoanalysis of 
 the individuals who participate in and lead 
 such movements. Analytical methods are 
 likely to yield a rich harvest in this field. 
 A few points may be mentioned. Quite a 
 number of anarchists are dogmatic vegetarians 
 and teetotallers, being influenced perhaps by 
 
176 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 the idea of a return to nature ; « the same 
 remark applies to the excessive simplification 
 of clothing, to the wearing of sandals, to the 
 growing of beards. Young people of the 
 anarchist communist persuasion, especially 
 those who are Russian in origin or tastes, 
 like to dress simply and yet conspicuously ; 
 they wear grey jerseys ; the young men have 
 very long hair, the young women very short 
 hair. These manifestations lead us to infer 
 the existence, in part of narcissism, and in 
 part of bisexuality. Such narcissism may be 
 an individual parallel of the narcissism which 
 affects the proletarian class (absorption of the 
 ego in regression, ultramodernism). Bisexu- 
 ality may help to explain women's eager 
 participation in advanced social movements. 
 This andromorphism, this assumption of mas- 
 culine characteristics, is so conspicuous, and 
 psychoanalytical investigations disclose it so 
 indubitably, that in women with ardent 
 political convictions (in so far as their attitude 
 is not mere conservatism or caprice) we have 
 every reason to expect the discovery of mas- 
 culine traits. Our first need, however, is for 
 
 1 During the bolshevist episode in Hungary I heard an 
 elderly anarchist say : " Henceforward we must cure our 
 illnesses by natural methods ; we have got rid of the lawyers, 
 and we must get rid of the doctors as well." 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 177 
 
 facts, and in this respect the psychoanalytical 
 study of individuals has more important 
 tasks ! 
 
 The first fruits to be expected from the 
 continuation of study along the lines sug- 
 gested in the present work will be the solu- 
 tion of socio-psychological and methodological 
 problems. What is the nature of the paral- 
 lelism between the individual and society, 
 and within what limits does that parallelism 
 exist ? In what social movements is it most 
 conspicuous ? What is the value of analogies 
 between individual psychoses and social 
 psychoses ? Can we from these analogies 
 draw conclusions which would be useful for 
 therapeutic purposes ? Such -questions can 
 be answered as follows. The mechanical paral- 
 lelism is more conspicuous, the more predomi- 
 nant the regressive element ; progress involves 
 increasing differentiation. Analogies certainly 
 exist between individual psychoses and social 
 psychoses, but social projection in the case 
 of the community corresponds to the ego 
 projection of the individual ; moreover, in 
 society there are more extensive opportunities 
 for contact with reality, but on the other 
 hand there are wider possibilities for regression. 
 The structural differences, in so far as they 
 are not further reducible, may be grouped 
 
 12 
 
178 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 around this nucleus. As far as therapy is 
 concerned, in the social psychoses the canalisa- 
 tion of the libido towards useful ends seems 
 a valuable principle, but it is one which is 
 not simply coincident with the adequate solu- 
 tion of the social problem. When we con- 
 template the matter from this outlook, we 
 see that the liberal socialist movement bears 
 to purely formal democracy and liberalism 
 the same sort of relationship that psycho- 
 analysis, with its demand for greater activity 
 on the part of the physician, bears to the 
 older, cathartic method of cure. That trend 
 of liberal socialism which favours a mechanical 
 break-up of landed property into small areas, 
 and at the establishment of a system of petty 
 proprietorship, wrests from ideal economic 
 expediency a temporary concession in favour 
 of transient psychical expediency— effecting 
 so to speak a canalisation of libido. Just as 
 the lower stage of repression avails itself of 
 idealisation, so too in social life does the 
 negative principle of the critical condemnation 
 of antisocial wishes require to be supplemented 
 by the positive principle of sublimation. But 
 to follow up these considerations would lead 
 us beyond the scope of the present work. 
 I shall have achieved my aim if the psycho- 
 analytical study initiated and continued 
 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 179 
 
 therein should attract the attention of master 
 minds, and if the tasks I have outlined should 
 be earnestly undertaken by competent inves- 
 tigators. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 [With special acknowledgments to Dr. Ernest Jones, many 
 of the definitions being taken from his Papers on Psycho- 
 analysis.] 
 
 Affect. Feeling ; the essential constituent of emotion. 
 
 Algolagnia. Sexual excitement aroused by pain. When the 
 excitement is caused by the infliction or by the witnessing 
 of pain, we speak of Sadism. When the excitement is 
 caused by the suffering of pain, we speak of Masochism. 
 
 Ambivalence. The coexistence of vopposed feelings, e.g. 
 love and hate. 
 
 AnagOgic. Upward-tending, i.e. tending to promote an 
 upward movement. Used figuratively in the moral 
 sense. 
 
 Anal-erotism. Sexual excitement aroused by stimulation of 
 the anus. 
 
 Autoerotism. Sexual excitement occurring independently of 
 actual relations with another individual, and self -induced 
 either physically or mentally. 
 
 Canalisation. A term employed of the libido, which see. 
 The diversion of the libido into a new channel. See 
 Sublimation. 
 
 Cathartic. Adjectival form of Catharsis, which see. 
 
 Catharsis. The purging of the effects of a pent-up emotion 
 by bringing it to the surface of consciousness. 
 
 181 
 
182 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Censor and Censorship. A figurative impersonation to denote 
 the sum of repressive forces. Also spoken of as " the 
 endopsychic censor." (See Repression.) 
 
 Complex. A group of emotionally tinged ideas partially or 
 entirely repressed. 
 
 Compromise Formation. A compromise between memory 
 and the repressive forces, whereby the partially repressed 
 memory is permitted to enter consciousness, but in a 
 disguised form. 
 
 Compulsion Neurosis. A neurosis in which, by unconscious 
 psychic determinism, the patient is compelled to think 
 or act in a way which is usually repugnant to his 
 conscious mind. 
 
 Constellation. A group of emotionally invested ideas not 
 repressed. 
 
 Dementia praecox. A common form of insanity in which the 
 patient loses contact with reality and withdraws into a 
 world of his own imaginings. 
 
 Electra Complex. Excessive attachment, sexually tinged, 
 of the daughter for the father. The feminine counter- 
 part of the Oedipus complex, which see. 
 
 Endopsychic Censor. See Censor. 
 
 Fixation. The arrest of an affect at a more primitive stage 
 than that normally corresponding to the individual's 
 age and development. Especially used of the fixation 
 of a daughter's sexual affection upon the father (father- 
 fixation, see Electra Complex) ; and of the fixation of 
 a son's sexual affection upon the mother (mother-fixation 
 see Oedipus Complex). 
 
 Foreconscious. A region of the mind containing memory 
 traces which can only be aroused by exceptionally strong 
 stimuli or by special effort. 
 
GLOSSARY 183 
 
 Fundamental Complexes. Those complexes that are universal 
 constituents of the normal mind, notably the ego com- 
 plex, the herd complex, and the sex complex. The 
 term is also applied to the " nuclear complexes," 
 which see. 
 
 Homosexuality. Love for a member of the same sex. 
 
 Idealisation. A form of projection (which see), wherein the 
 mind projects an ideal of personality upon some real 
 person — hero or beloved. 
 
 Incest. Sexual act with a near relative, or the desire for 
 this ; often unconscious. See Oedipus Complex and 
 Electra Complex. 
 
 Inspectionism. The desire to look at, especially the desire 
 to look at the sexual organs or sexual acts, or at organs 
 and acts mentally associated with sex. The counterpart 
 of " exhibitionism." 
 
 Introversion. The turning of mental interest inward, away 
 from the realities of the outer world. 
 
 Libidinous. Adjectival form of libido, which see. Must not 
 be understood in the narrow sense of purely physical 
 sexual desire. 
 
 Libido. Sexual hunger ; the mental aspect of the sexual 
 instinct. But by psychoanalysts the term " sexual " is 
 used with very wide connotations, so that " libido " 
 becomes almost synonymous with " psychic energy." 
 Indeed, Tansley defines libido as " the psychic energy 
 inherent in the great natural complexes, or becoming 
 attached to any individual complex, and discharging 
 itself along the appropriate conative channels." 
 
 Masochism. See Algolagnia. 
 
 Narcissism. The concentration of interest (usually sexual 
 interest) upon one's own body and one's own personality 
 in general. 
 
184 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Nuclear Complexes. Freud gives this name to the Oedipus 
 complex and the Electra complex. 
 
 Oedipus Complex. The (usually unconscious) desire of a 
 son to kill his father and possess his mother. 
 
 Paranoia. A form of insanity characterised by systematic 
 delusions. 
 
 Paraphrenia. Freud's name for dementia praecox, which see. 
 
 Projection. The ascribing to the outer world mental processes 
 that are not recognised to be of personal origin ; a 
 characteristic symptom in paranoia. 
 
 Psychoanalysis. A study and analysis of man's unconscious 
 motives and desires as shown in various nervous dis- 
 turbances and in certain manifestations of everyday 
 life in normal individuals. 
 
 Reality Principle. The principle in virtue of which (for the 
 needs of self-preservation and species-preservation) the 
 growing organism has to become adapted to the exigencies 
 of reality, has to subordinate to distant aims the imperious 
 demand for instant gratification. 
 
 Regression. The reversion of mental life, in some respects, 
 to that characteristic of an earlier stage of development, 
 often an infantile one. 
 
 Repression. The keeping from consciousness of mental 
 processes that would be painful to it. 
 
 Reversion. See Regression. 
 
 Sadism. See Algolagnia. 
 
 Sublimation. The employment of energy belonging to a 
 primitive instinct in a new and derived, i.e. non-primitive 
 channel. E.g. the use of sexual energy in " intellectual " 
 love or creative artistic work. 
 
 Symbolism and Symbolisation. The means whereby the 
 workings of 
 scious mind. 
 
 workings of the unconscious are veiled from the con- 
 
GLOSSARY 185 
 
 Syndrome. A group of associated symptoms, appearing 
 simultaneously or successively, so as to form a definite 
 clinical picture of disease. 
 
 Titan, the* A figurative impersonation of the unconscious. 
 (See Unconscious.) 
 
 Titanic. Adjectival form of Titan, which see. 
 
 Traumata. Injuries, mental or bodily. " Sexual traumata " 
 are experiences in the sphere of the sexual life, bodily 
 or mental, which have produced a mental shock. 
 
 Unconscious. A region of the mind normally inaccessible 
 to consciousness. Often figuratively impersonated. 
 
 Printed in Gteat Britain by 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED WOKING AND LONDON 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Oct. 2004 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 1 1 1 Tnomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111