When the Social-Democratic worker found himself in the economic crisis which degraded him to a coolie, the development of his revolutionary feelings was inhibited by the conservative structure which had been cultivated in him for decades. Either he remained in the Social-Democratic party, in spite of all his criticism and rebellion. Or, oscillating between his revolutionary and his conservative feelings, and disillusioned by Social- Democratic leadership, he followed the path of least resistance and switched to the NSDAP, hoping to find better leadership there. In this situation, it depended on the correct or incorrect mass leadership of the revolutionary party whether or not the worker would give up his conservative tendency and would develop the full consciousness of his responsibility in the production process, that is, his revolutionary consciousness. The Communist contention that it was Social-Democratic politics which had helped fascism come to power was—mass-psychologically— correct. Disillusionment in Social Democracy must, in the presence of a conflict between pauperization and conservative thinking, lead into the fascist camp if there are no effective revolutionary organizations. Thus there was, for example, a fascization of the workers in England after the fiasco of the Labor party in 1930–31; in the elections of 1931, the workers, instead of swinging to Communism, shifted to the right. Democratic Scandinavia, also, was threatened by such a development.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Wilhelm Reich
