Published: in Solidarity, VII, 2 (June 1972)
Transcribed: by Jonas Holmgren
This pamphlet[1] consists of a translation of Reich's famous essay, "What is Class Consciousness?", first published in 1934 (under the pseudonym of Ernst Parell). It includes an introduction, some well-chosen illustrations, an excerpt from the preface to the third (1945) edition of Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism and the full text of the Sexpol Manifesto of 1936.
The subject is topical in view of the resurgence of interest in Reich's writings and of the new awareness, at least among some revolutionaries, of the many factors influencing class consciousness, delaying its appearance or distorting its features. The essay is essential reading for anyone interested in looking a little deeper than the surface of things, or dissatisfied with the facile political "explanations" which are the stock-in-trade of so many on the Left.
Unfortunately Reich's text, while containing many insights of deep significance, is vitiated by a number of Leninist residues. Throughout Reich endorses the belief that "the leadership must bring revolutionary consciousness to the masses". He claims that "awareness of the social situation, of the means of its mastery and of the correct path to socialism must be concentrated in the revolutionary vanguard". Party members are described as the "engineers ... bricklayers and carpenters" of the building of socialism. Lenin is described as "the greatest mass psychologist of all time". All this moreover is not merely a verbal tribute: it permeates much of the practical approach. It is always the Party which is failing to understand the real nature of class consciousness, failing to stress this or that in its propaganda, and thereby failing to evoke the appropriate echoes.
It would be a tragedy, however, if modern revolutionaries saw no further than these hang-ups and, in their revulsion, failed to get to grips with Reich's main message, namely that "one of the reasons for the failure of the revolutionary movement is that the real life of individuals is played out on a different level than the instigators of social revolution believe". "While we were presenting the masses with grandiose historical analyses and economic arguments about the contradictions of imperialism, their innermost feelings were being kindled for Hitler". Still shocked at the "total failure" of the German Left, in the early 1930s "to seize the imagination and enthusiasm of the masses", Reich is making a plea for a revolutionary political psychology. This is a useful approach, provided it is seen as a means of gaining a new awareness into the springs of human behaviour, rather than as a means of developing a new manipulative technique.
Despite its title, Reich's essay is not really about the nature of class consciousness. It is about all that prevents the growth of such consciousness. Although constantly stressing the need for revolutionary leadership, Reich is realist enough to perceive that even the best of leadership cannot create class consciousness. It could not even contribute to the growth of such consciousness if it were not "inherent in the daily experience of the working class". The main problem for Reich is to seek what it is, in society at large (and in the practice of revolutionaries, in particular), which inhibits the growth of that consciousnessly forty years ago. Honest discussion about all aspects of life will, on the other hand gain workers to the revolutionary cause, "if not immediately for a strike, certainly for later, when such islands of comprehension of the psychology of the masses come together in suburbs, towns and provinces, and the feeling that there are people who know exactly what is preoccupying one, arousing one's indignation, holding one back, driving one on and at the same time restricting one begins to gather people like an avalanche".
In a passage of deep relevance to what might happen tomorrow Reich writes "that in the course of the last ten years adolescents, adults, men and women, people from every walk of life have passed through the revolutionary organizations without becoming attached or committed to the revolutionary cause". What drove them in, in the first place? "Not uniforms, not material advantage, merely vague socialist conviction, revolutionary feeling". Why did they not stay in? "Because the organizations failed to develop this revolutionary feeling". Why did people lapse into indifference, or go over to the Right? "Because there were bourgeois structures in them that were not destroyed". Why were they not destroyed? "Because nobody knew what to promote and what to destroy". The desired objective could not be achieved by appeals to discipline not even "by music and marching, for the others the Right could do that a lot better". Nor could it be done with slogans "for the political clamour of the others was better and more powerful". "The only thing which the revolutionary organizations could, without competition, have offered the masses and which in reality they did not offer ... would have been the knowledge of what the uneducated, oppressed children of capitalism, hankering both after freedom and after authoritarian protection really wanted, without themselves being clearly aware of it". The revolutionaries should have put all this into words, and said it for the masses, in their own language, "but organizations which dismissed all psychology as counter-revolutionary were not up to such tasks". Underlying these formulations of Reich's are a number of very important matters (the role of intellectuals in the revolutionary movement, the importance of knowledge as a basis of self-activity, the growth of "consciousness", etc.) which we cannot here go into.
Among other interesting insights of Reich's one might mention his observations that organizations which saw themselves "the preordained leaders of the coming revolution" repelled people and would be swamped in the revolution itself. Reich also repeatedly stressed that revolutionary propaganda should be positive. It should not be frightened of discussing the future, as concretely as possible. Fear of revolution was partly the product of ignorance. The broad "apolitical" masses would have a decisive effect upon the fate of the revolution. Revolutionaries should therefore find them where they were. They should "politicize private life, fairs, dance halls, cinemas, markets, bedrooms, hostels and betting shops". Long before the Situationists (or Solidarity) came on the scene Reich had proclaimed that "revolutionary energy lies in everyday life".
This synopsis can only give a partial insight into the sort of problems Reich is dealing with. It should be enough, however, to cause serious revolutionaries to ask themselves a few questions about what they are really doing, about the emphases and priorities of their work, about the "triumphalist" myths some are so busy con-cocting and about the lasting content of their "interventions".
[1] Wilhelm Reich, What is Class Consciousness? (London: Socialist Reproduction, 1971).
Last updated on: 8.15.2009