Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, published this in German in 1933. His subject is consent: the question of why populations hand power to fascists and authoritarians instead of refusing them. Reich locates his answer in sexuality. Repression imposed through political and ideological authority, he argues, produces masses trained to obey, and fascist movements draw their strength from that training.

The method is psychoanalytic and the tone is polemical. Reich treats ideology as something that works beneath argument, in habits formed long before anyone casts a vote. Expect a case pressed hard rather than a survey, with the clinic and the crowd held in one frame. The book stands among the earliest attempts to explain the popular appeal of fascism in psychological terms rather than economic ones.

Treat it as Reich's argument, his alone, and one readers have contested ever since. His later theories moved outside what science supports, and this book carries no settled authority. The edition catalogued here dates from 1946.