From Communism to Work Democracy

Philip W. Bennett, Ph.D. (1972), is a former college professor who is now an independent scholar, active in the new field of Reich Studies. He has published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals on Reich’s political and social thought.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Introduction
 1 Source Material: An Incomplete Survey
 2 Reich’s Archives
 3 Impediments to the Serious Study of Reich
 4 The Text in Brief

1 The Development of a Political Consciousness
 1 Reich’s Student Years
 2 The Social Democratic Workers Party’s ‘Red Vienna’
 3 A Close Male Friend: The Communist Deső Julius
 4 The First Reference to Social Change in Reich’s Writings: Der triebhafte Charakter (The Impulsive Character), 1925
 5 Marxism Enters Reich’s Psychoanalytic Writings: The Final Chapter of Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), 1927

2 From Political Awakening to Communist Activism
 1 July 15, 1927: A Political Awakening
 2 Wiener Neustadt, October 1928
 3 Sozialistische Gesellschaft für Sexualberatung und Sexualforschung (Socialist Society for Sexual Counselling and Sexual Research)
 4 Hugo Bettauer’s Erotic Revolution
 5 Lia Laszky and the Mobile Sex Education Bus
 6 SGSS’s Public Outreach
 7 Sexualerregung und Sexualbefriedigung (Sexual Excitation and Sexual Satisfaction), 1929
 8 The Banning of Sexualerregung und Sexualbefriedigung as Schund und Schmutz

3 The Communist Psychoanalyst
 1 ‘Dialektischer Materialismus und Psychoanalyse’ (Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis)
 2 Reich’s Study Tour of Soviet Russia
 3 ‘Psikhoanaliz kak Estestvenno-nauchnaia Distsiplina’ (Psychoanalysis as a Natural Science)
 4 ‘Die Stellung der Psychoanalyse in der Sowjetunion’ (The Position of Psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union)

4 An Inspired Revolutionary
 1 The Revolutionary Social Democrats
 2 A Communist Amongst Social Democrats
 3 Geschlechtsreife, Enhaltsamkeit, Ehemoral (Sexual Maturity, Abstinence, and Marital Morality), 1930
 4 More ‘Social Hygiene Work’: 1930 Conferences

5 At Home in Red Berlin
 1 The Social Fascism Thesis
 2 The Movement to Legalise Abortion
 3 Marxistische Arbeiterschule, The Marxist Workers School (MASCH)
 4 Sexpol: Organising a Mass Sexual/Political Movement

6 Reich’s Sexpol: Myth and Reality
 1 Reich and Liebe Verboten
 2 Reich’s Leadership in the EV
 3 Reich’s Role in the Wolf/Kienle Campaign
 4 Reich and Die Warte
 5 The Numbers Game
 6 Ernst Bornemann and Reich’s Counselling Centres

7 The Communist Writer
 1 Der sexuelle Kampf der Jugend (The Sexual Struggle of Youth)
 2 Wrestling with Lenin
 3 Not Just Adolescents but Children as well: The Chalk Triangle, 1932
 4 Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral (The Imposition of Sexual Morality)

8 The Loss of Institutional Identity: Reich’s Expulsion from the German Communist Party and the International Psychoanalytic Association
 1 Reich’s Expulsion from the German Communist Party
 2 The Reichstag Fire and its Consequences
 3 ‘Der masochistische Charakter’ (The Masochistic Character), 1932
 4 Charakteranalyse (Character Analysis), 1933
 5 The Ernest Jones–Anna Freud Correspondence: Reich’s Expulsion from the International Psychoanalytic Association
 6 The International Psychoanalytic Congress, Lucerne, 1934

9 Massenpsychologie des Faschismus (Mass Psychology of Fascism)
 1 Individual Psychology or Mass Psychology?
 2 Vulgar Marxism’s Failure
 3 The Role of the Family
 4 Race Theory
 5 Women
 6 The Church

10 Searching for a New Home: Denmark, Sweden, London, Paris
 1 Reich and the Danish Authorities
 2 In the Court of Public Opinion
 3 Reich’s Conflicts with the Danish Communist Party and His Expulsion from International Communism
 4 London: Visits with Ernest Jones and Bronislaw Malinowski
 5 Paris: A Meeting with Trotsky?

11 Abandoning the Soviet Union and Communist Party Politics
 1 The Nachwort (Epilogue) to the Second Edition of Mass Psychology of Fascism
 2 Was ist Klassenbewußtsein? (What is Class Consciousness?)
 3 The Second Edition of ‘Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis’: The Beginning of Reich’s Criticism of the Soviet Union
 4 Reich, Fenichel and the Marxist Psychoanalysts
 5 Zeitschrift für politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie (The Journal for Political Psychology and Sex-Economy)
 6 Masse und Staat (The Masses and the State), 1935
 7 Two Short Articles from the ZPPS
 8 Mitteilungsblatt der Sexpol (The Sexpol Newsletter)

12 Soviet Sexual Repression, Trotsky, and the End of Sexpol
 1 Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf (Sexuality in the Cultural Struggle)
 2 ‘Charakter und Gesellschaft’ (Character and Society)
 3 Reich’s Secret Meeting with Trotsky
 4 J.H. Leunbach and the End of Sexpol

13 Exile
 1 Reich, Brandt(s) and the Spanish Civil War
 2 From Communist Struggles to Revolutionary Rights
 3 A Major Autobiography: Political Psychology or People in the State?
 4 The Norwegian Press Campaign: Bions or Blue Cheese?
 5 Emigration

14 From Communism to Work Democracy
 1 Leading an Institute: ‘On Management’
 2 Die natürliche Organisation der Arbeit in der Arbeitsdemokratie (The Natural Organisation of Work in Work Democracy), 1939
 3 Zum Abschied von meinen europäischen Freunden! (Farewell to My European Friends!)
 4 Weitere Probleme der Arbeitsdemokratie (Further Problems of Work Democracy), 1941

15 Government Persecution from Germany and the United States of America
 1 The Denaturalisation of Wilhelm Reich
 2 The FBI: Protecting America from its Foreign Enemies
 3 The Source of Wilhelm Reich’s FBI File
 4 Details from Reich’s FBI File
 5 Arrest and Detention
 6 Work Democracy Behind Bars
 7 ‘What is Work Democracy?’

16 A Cautious Retreat from Radicalism
 1 Emotional Turmoil
 2 ‘The Background of My Arrest in New York on Dec. 12, 1941’
 3 Work Democracy, Revised and Disguised: The Preface to The Function of the Orgasm
 4 ‘Give Responsibility to Vitally Necessary Work!’
 5 ‘The Biological Miscalculation in the Human Struggle for Freedom’ and ‘Work Democracy versus Politics’
 6 ‘Work Democracy in Action’

17 The Newly Revised ‘Acceptable’ Mass Psychology of Fascism
 1 Translating Massenpsychologie des Faschismus: Confusion, Hesitation, Compromise
 2 The Mass Psychology of Fascism in Context: Its New Preface
 3 The New Mass Psychology of Fascism
 4 The Initial Public Reaction

18 The Emotional Plague
 1 A Newly Diagnosed Socially Transmitted Disease
 2 Marx Revisited
 3 August 1945: The Atomic Bomb and US Militarism
 4 Factual Marriage, Legal Marriage, and Naturalisation
 5 Speaking to the Little Person in All of Us: Listen, Little Man!
 6 Reich’s English Language Texts are Discovered

19 Immigration and Communism: Citizenship Challenged Once Again
 1 Mildred Brady’s 1947 Article in Harper’s
 2 Brady’s Article in The New Republic
 3 From Quiet Research to Notoriety to Scorn
 4 Albert Crombie’s Anti-Communist Crusade and the INS
 5 The INS Investigation to Have Wilhelm Reich’s Citizenship Denaturalised

20 Establishing a Place in History
 1 Function of the Orgasm Redux
 2 Translating, Editing and Revisionism
 3 The Sexual Revolution Once More
 4 Returning to the Trobriand Islands

21 The Plague as Red Fascism: A Diagnosis Expanded and Revised
 1 Neill, Reich, and the State Department
 2 The Orgonomic Infant Research Center
 3 The Eissler Interview
 4 The Emotional Plague of Mankind: The Murder of Christ
 5 The Emotional Plague of Mankind: People in Trouble

22 The Silencing of Wilhelm Reich: The FDA’s Complaint
 1 The FDA in Action: The Spectro-Chrome
 2 From Dinshah Ghadiali to Wilhelm Reich
 3 The Sexual Politics of Government Intervention
 4 The FDA’s Complaint and Reich’s Decision not to Contest it in Court

23 The Silencing of Wilhelm Reich: The Injunction
 1 Request for Admissions
 2 ‘Response’
 3 The Injunction and its Immediate Aftermath

24 A Red Fascist Conspiracy
 1 The Attempted Intervention
 2 The Irwin Ross Interview
 3 Conspiracy: An Emotional Chain Reaction
 4 Reich’s ‘Naiveté’
 5 Conspiracy: Political, Emotional, and Imaginary

25 Contempt, Imprisonment and Death
 1 Violating the Injunction
 2 The Contempt of Court Trial
 3 Imprisonment and Death

Epilogue: Returning to Work Democracy
 1 The Silent Observer
 2 If Choose We Must … (1951)
 3 Marx’s Communism and the Little Man’s Red Fascism
 4 Matters of Fact (1934–1937)
 5 ‘Contradiction’ (1938) and the Remaining Articles for the New Journal

Bibliography
Index

This book is especially relevant to university libraries, academics and graduate students working in twentieth-century history, political theory, and social theory, as well as to an informed general readership.