Wilhelm Reich - The Mass Psychology of Fascism

At the time when this book was originally written, fascism was generally regarded a "political party" which, like any other "social group," was an organized representation of a "political idea." According to this concept, the fascist party "introduced" fascism by force or by "political manoeuvre."
Contrary to this concept, my medical experience with individuals from all kinds of social strata, races, nationalities and religions showed me that "fascism" is only the politically organized expression of the average human character structure, a character structure which has nothing to do with this or that race, nation or party but which is general and international. In this characterological sense, "fascism" is the basic emotional attitude of man in authoritarian society, with its machine civilization and its mechanistic-mystical view of life. It is the mechanistic-mystical character of man in our times which creates fascist parties, and not vice versa.
Even today, as a result of fallacious political thinking, fascism is still being considered a specific national characteristic of the Germans or the Japanese. The stubborn persistence of this fallacy is due to the fear of recognizing the truth: fascism is an international phenomenon which permeates all organizations of human society in all nations. This conclusion is confirmed by the international events of the past 15 years.