inner obstacles to healthy adult sexuality. His crucial error during this period lay in the belief
that the “average individual will affirm the sex-economic regulation of sexual life if he is
made to understand it.” This statement is nonsense unless all kinds of qualifications are con-
tained in the subordinate clause. And as we have seen, Reich reacted as though the main
obstacle to getting his message over to the average person were some of the party leaders.
In his excessive optimism, Reich was also an extremely poor political tactician. He
said as much about himself in claiming, “I am not a politician.” But something more was
involved. Whenever he was engaged in a battle—whether with the Social Democrats in
1929, the Communists in 1932, or the Food and Drug Administration in the 1950s—he
could not make a realistic assessment of who was for him and who against him. Such over-
optimism would ultimately cost him dearly.
Reich remained in Vienna for less than two months. It soon became apparent that
his position there was untenable, for Freud’s objections to both Reich’s sex-political work
and his ardent communism had grown in the intervening years. Ironically, while the
Communists escalated their attacks on Reich as a “Freudian,” the psychoanalytic establish-
ment was eager to distance itself from the way Reich drew social conclusions from clinical
research.
The parallels were reflected in the matter of his publications. In January 1933,
Reich had signed a contract with the International Psychoanalytic Publishers (of which
Freud was the editorial director) to publish his book Character Analysis. On March 17, Freud
advised Reich—whether by letter, phone, or in person is not clear—that the contract was
cancelled^26. According to Reich, Freud gave as his reason the deteriorating political situa-
tion in Vienna. For on March 4 the right-wing government of Engelbert Dollfuss had uti-
lized “emergency laws” to restrict all civil liberties.
Undoubtedly, Freud’s decision was not due simply to political caution—as Reich
implies—but to his distaste for Reich’s sex-political activities. Reich protested the decision,
yet there was little he could do about it. The book was already in galleys, the psychoanalyt-
ic publishing house would help distribute it,but printing costs had to be paid for by Reich,
and the official publisher was to be his own Verlag fur Sexualpolitik.
Unhappy with the situation in Vienna, Reich decided to move to Copenhagen,
arriving on May i.Several people in Denmark had expressed interest in studying with him,
and very shortly he had a practice going. One of his first concerns there was to complete
his manuscript The Mass Psychology ofFascism,But he had to develop his analytic practice in
the new city before he could afford to publish the book in the fall of 1933.
No sooner had he left the psychoanalytic conflicts in Vienna than Reich was back
amid controversies with the Communists in Copenhagen. Despite all his difficulties in
Berlin, he still considered himself a Communist; accordingly, he turned to the Danish
Communist Party to help out many needy German refugees now settled in Copenhagen. But
when the party representative started asking to see the emigration permits, including Reich’s
own,Reich exploded with frustration. This incident, he believed, further aggravated the
wrath of the Communists against him^27.
13 : The Sex-political Furor: 1930-1934 165