The Masses and the State

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This time we read a rather long chapter -"The Masses and the State" from Wilhelm Reich's book "The Mass Psychology of Fascism". Most of the regular members of the group were absent this time leaving only four of us, and we had to talk above the loud music coming from downstairs. I say it was a long chapter, because the PDF version of the whole book that I downloaded from the Internet just came in the form of one big vertical column of text, and it is not easy to see how this corresponds to the pages in a "real" paper-and-print book! Perhaps I was a bit lazy in not selecting appropriate passages from the whole chapter but, that be as it may we managed to finally get stuck in to the job of talking about it. Firstly as I have just said, most of the usual members weren't there especially Debra. In this chapter, Reich talks about the capacity (or incapacity) of the masses to do without leadership and it struck me that some of our difficulties in getting organised and getting the discussion started may have been due to her absence- we had to organise ourselves! The issues we were discussing were therefore very germane to the issue of our own group organisation, so possibly the choice of this particular chapter could not have come at a better time! The question is raised how can "the masses" ( a somewhat problematical label admittedly) dispense with authoritarian leadership and govern themselves in a free and non -hierarchical manner and dispense with leaders, the state and state capitalism- how do we get from here to there in other words. Reich being a member of the KPD -the German Communist Party- naturally had illusions about Lenin's theory of party organisation where, supposedly an an organisation that only appears to be authoritarian and whose authority is designed to undermine itself can alone lead the masses to freedom, the very different outcome of the Russian Revolution being attributed to the incapacity of the masses for freedom........and Lenin's failure to account for the character structure of the masses......... does not this argument sound a bit circular perhaps? In other words, a basically sound sociological theory fails in its application because the masses did not appreciate what Lenin was trying to do for them. Reich attributes this to the early imposition of infantile sexual repression which creates a character structure that craves authority and leadership and in turn produces an incapacity for self-government. One member of our group pointed out that later theorists, notably Michele Foucault were not so complacent in the belief that merely acknowledging and investigating the fact of human sexuality was in itself liberating- in fact as Foucault writes, from about the eighteenth century onward the study of sexuality was a means of defining and categorising people and was repressive rather than liberating- the scientific study of sexuality is discursive. Nowadays, many of Reich's prescriptions for sexual freedom have been followed or even dare I say recuperated.......monogamous marriage is no longer so prevalent but Capital still rules. Reich talked of sexual hygiene but then so did the Nazi Party! In my view Reich ignored or underestimated the capacity of the masses to liberate ourselves- and in the view of autonomist Marxism this capacity for self- organisation is what causes economic crises- the present one included. Subjectivity still exists and acts upon the world. The difficulty is to extend and consolidate the gains of struggle without reifying them and turning them into timeless dogmas-to institutionalise without institutionalising- and Lenin's vanguard party is certainly not the way.