political lies; the unity of the oppressed (the children) overcomes the oppressors (the boys’
parents); and so forth.
All three publications were extremely popular in working-class circles.The Chalk
Trianglewas used by Communist discussion leaders for children’s groups. But The Sexual
Struggle of Youthwas to evoke a controversy so intense that it culminated in Reich’s exclusion
from the Communist Party. There were intimations of the controversy in the pre-publica-
tion period. Reich wanted the Communist Party to publish the work, so he submitted the
final manuscript to the committee for youth in the German Communist Party. The latter
accepted it but sent it along to the central committee for youth in Moscow. The Moscow
committee approved the book but felt it would be wiser if the party were not to publish it.
They recommended its publication by a “front” organization, a workers’ cultural association
close to the party but not part of it. Reich gave this association the manuscript during the
summer of 1931; by March 1932 it still had not appeared. Reich believed the organization
was sabotaging publication, but exactly why was not clear to him^21.
Ever impatient and ever the analyst, Reich always observed resistance and hostility,
or at least ambivalence, in such postponements, and he could work himself into a fury about
such stumbling blocks. Finally, exasperated with the delays, convinced that publication of
the pamphlet was essential to counteract the Nazis’appeal to youth, Reich established in the
summer of 1932 his own publishing house, Verlag fur Sexualpolitik. The same year it
brought out The Sexual Struggle of Youthas well as When Your Child Asks Youand The Chalk
Triangle.
Reich’s decision to establish his own press was wise, since by 1932 he was begin-
ning to have difficulties in publishing his clinical papers in the International Journal of
Psychoanalysis. Before that, he had always published his papers and books through analytic
media or in Marxist journals. After 1932, no publishing house other than his own would
accept his manuscripts during his lifetime.*
For some months the German Communist Party helped to circulate the sex educa-
tional works,which initially received positive reviews in the various party newspapers. But
trouble was already brewing. New difficulties arose when Reich attended a youth conference
in Dresden on October 16, 1932. At its conclusion a resolution was issued strongly endors-
ing adolescent sexuality,within the framework of the revolutionary movement.
The adult Communist leaders were aghast. Afraid that opponents would make
political capital out ofthis bold statement,they quickly disowned it, claiming that the reso-
lution dragged political tasks “down to the level of the gutter.” They also asserted that the
“instigator ofthe resolution should be excluded from the Party immediately.”^22
When it was learned that Reich was the instigator, there was considerable embar-
rassment. Not only had the party distributed his writings; he himself was prominent in left-
ist circles. Something clearly had to be done to put a distance between the party and Reich.
13 : The Sex-political Furor: 1930-1934 163
* Four years after his death, in 1961, Farrar, Straus & Giroux began the publication of much of his work in
the English language.