People in Troublewas not in fact published until 1953, when Reich was living in the
relative social isolation of Rangeley, Maine, and long after his radical political phase had
ended. In his introduction, Reich wrote that “the book is composed of different writings
from the years between 1927 and I945-”^2 However, a careful examination of the text sug-
gests that most of it was written between 1936 and 1940, although Reich drew heavily on
notes written earlier. It is hard to date different sections because Reich had the disconcert-
ing habit of adding material to suit his purposes. The bulk of a section might have been writ-
ten in 1936, but put aside. If Reich found a newspaper clipping in 1942 that fitted his theme,
he would then insert it into the text without necessarily indicating that this material was
added some years after the rest of the chapter was written.
By 1927 the conservative Christian Socialist Party had gained national leadership,
although “Red Vienna” remained in the hands of the Social Democrats. The bitter political
polarization between the Christian Socialists with their rural Catholic constituency, many still
devoted to the monarchy, and the urban, secularly oriented Social Democrats was more
intense than ever. Like Germany with its paramilitary factions, the Christian Socialist Party
in Austria was linked to an independent military group, the Heimwehr, which received finan-
cial support from the Fascist Italian government. The Social Democrats had their armed
unit, the Schutzbund, which, unlike the Heimwehr, was clearly under civilian control.
Individuals on both the right and left, inside and outside the armed factions, participated in
sporadic violence, though rightists were the more frequent perpetrators. Moreover, conser-
vative judges often gave right-wing perpetrators light jail sentences, a policy that further
inflamed the Social Democrats and contributed to severe tension throughout the country,
but especially in Vienna^3.
One terrorist attack that particularly enraged the political left occurred on January
30, 1927, in Schattendorf, a small Austrian town near the Hungarian border. A group of
World War I veterans, all members of the Heimwehr, wantonly shot into a crowd of Social
Democrats,killing a man and a young child.The accused were brought to trial but acquit-
ted on July 14.
Whatever the fairness or unfairness of the verdict—and historians to this day
debate what actually happened at Schattendorf—it enraged the workers of Vienna. On July
15,a physician who had come to Reich for an analytic session told him that there was a
protest strike of Viennese workers, the police were armed, workers were occupying the inner
city, and several people had been killed. Reich interrupted the session to join the crowd out
in the streets.
The direct confrontation between police and crowd was limited to the area in front
of a courthouse, which the protestors had set fire to as a symbol of fraudulent justice. Then
they tried to block the firemen. With quick strokes Reich paints a vivid word picture in the
subsequent People in Trouble: the excitement, the impulsive movements of the crowd, the
mounted police riding into the demonstrators, the ambulances with red flags coming to col-
lect the wounded.
Reich continued to mill about with the large crowd. He was struck by the difference
10 : July 15, 1927, and Its Aftermath: 1927-1928 121