The goal of the cultural revolution in the light of fascist reaction

The social revolution concentrates all of its forces on the elimination of the social basis of human suffering. The priority given to the necessity of revolutionizing the social order obscures the sex-economic goals and intentions. The revolutionary is compelled to put off the solution of very urgent questions until the most urgent task, the establishment of the preconditions for the practical solution of these questions, is accomplished. The reactionary, on the other hand, spares no effort in assailing precisely the ultimate cultural goals of the revolution, which are obscured by the preliminary and immediate tasks.

Cultural Bolshevism aims at the destruction of our existing culture and wants to so reconstruct it as to serve man’s earthly happiness... [Sic I]

That’s how Kurt Hutten put it in his call to arms, Kulturbol-schewismus, published by the Volksbundes, 1931. Does political reaction’s accusation relate to that which the

cultural revolution really, has in mind, or does it, for demagogic reasons, impute goals to the revolution that definitely do not lie within its compass? In the former case a defence and cleat elucidation of the necessity of these goals would be indispensable. In the latter, the proof of false imputation would be sufficient, that is to say, a denial of that which political reaction imputes to the revolution.

How does political reaction itself appraise the antithesis between earthly happiness and religion? Kurt Hutten writes:

To begin with: Cultural Bolshevism’s most fierce fight is directed against religion. For religion, as long as it is alive, constitutes the strongest bulwark against its goals . . . Religion subordinates all of human life to something supernatural, and eternal authority. It demands denial, sacrifice, renunciation of one’s own wishes. It imbues human life with responsibility, guilt, judgement, eternity. It inhibits an unbridled exhaustion of human drives. The revolution of culture is the cultural revolution of man, is the subjugation of all spheres of life to the pleasure principle [my italics, WR].

Here we have a clear articulation of the reactionary rejection of earthly happiness. The reactionary leader senses a threat to the anchoring of imperialistic mysticism (‘culture’). He is much more keenly aware of this threat than the revolutionary is aware of his goal, for the latter must first concentrate his energy and knowledge on the changing of the social order. The reactionary leader recognizes the danger that the revolution constitutes to the authoritarian family and mystical moralism, long before the average revolutionary has the least notion that the revolution will entail such consequences. In this respect, indeed, the social revolutionary himself is very often prepossessed. The reactionary leader stands for heroism, the acceptance of affliction, the abiding of privation, absolutely and eternally; hence, he represents the interests of imperialism, whether he wants to or not (cf. Japan). To this end, however, he needs mysticism, that is to say, he needs sexual abstinence. To him happiness is essentially sexual gratification, and he is right in this appraisal. The revolutionary also demands a great deal of restraint, duty, renunciation, for the possibilities of happiness must first be fought for. In his practical work for the masses, the revolutionary easily forgets - and sometimes likes to forget - that the real goal is not work (social freedom brings about a continuous reduction of the working day), but sexual play and life in all of its forms, from orgasm to the highest accomplishments. Work is and remains the basis of life, but within the social framework, work is transferred from man to the machine. That is the essence of the economy of work.

Sentences such as the following are to be found in many mystical and reactionary writings, even if they are not always so clearly formulated as in the case of Kurt Hutten:

Cultural Bolshevism is not a recent thing. It takes as its basis a striving that was planted in man’s breast in primeval times: The intense longing for happiness. It is the primordial nostalgia for paradise on earth . . . The religion of faith is replaced by the religion of pleasure.

We, however, want to know: Why shouldn’t we have happiness on earth? Why shouldn’t pleasure be the substance of life?

Let the masses vote on this question! No reactionary conception of life would stand the test.

To be sure, the reactionary leader perceives the relation of mysticism to compulsive marriage and compulsive family in a mystical way, but he perceives it correctly.

To fulfil this responsibility (for the consequences of pleasure), human society has founded the institution of marriage which, as a life-long partnership, is intended to represent the protective framework for the sexual relationship.

And the complete register of’ cultural values’, which fits into the fabric of reactionary ideology as parts into a machine, is immediately appended:

Marriage as a tie, family as a duty, fatherland as a value in itself, morality as authority, religion as an obligation deriving from eternity.

The rigidity of the human plasma could not be more accurately described!

All reactionary types condemn sexual pleasure (not without impunity, however) because it attracts and repulses them at one and the same time. They cannot resolve the contradiction between sexual demands and moralistic inhibitions in themselves. The revolutionary negates perverse and pathological pleasure because it is not his pleasure, is not the sexuality of the future, but the pleasure born of the contradiction between morality and instinct; it is the pleasure of a dictatorial society, debased, sordid, pathological pleasure. Only when he himself is not clear, he makes the mistake of condemning pathological pleasure, instead of opposing it with his own positive sex-economy. If, as a result of his own sexual inhibitions, he does not fully comprehend the goal of a social organization founded on freedom, he is apt to repudiate pleasure altogether, become an ascetic and thereby lose all possibility of establishing contact with the youth. In the otherwise excellent film The Road to Life, the sexual practices of disreputable people (in the tavern scene) are contrasted not with the sexual practices of people who are free but with ascetism and anti-sexuality. The sexual problem of adolescents is completely set aside. This is wrong and confuses the issue instead of solving it.

The disintegration of moralistic codes in the sexual sphere is initially expressed as sexual rebellion; but at the outset it remains pathological sexual rebellion, from which the sex-economist rightly flees. The task, however, is to give a rational form to this rebellion, to lead it into a sex-economic channel, just as freedom of life was once born of convulsions of life.

Sex-Economy in the Fight against Mysticism

at a mass rally in Berlin in January of 1933, the National Socialist Otto Strasser asked his opponent, the sociologist and sinologist Wittfogel, a question which was so penetrating that it had a disconcerting effect. Those who were present were given the impression that Wittfogel’s reply could have meant mysticism’s doom. Strasser accused the Marxists of underestimating the importance of psychic life and religious feeling. His argument ran as follows: If religion, according to Marx, were really only the flower on the chain of the exploitation of toiling humanity, then how was it to be explained that religion had held up for thousands of years - the Christian religion, indeed, almost unchanged for two thousand years - especially in view of the fact that in the beginning its survival had demanded more sacrifice than all revolutions taken together. The question

was not answered, but it fits in very well with the material under discussion. It had to be admitted that the question was justified. It was time for natural science to take stock of itself to determine whether its comprehension of mysticism and the means of its anchoring in the human structure was as thorough and as complete as it could be. The answer had to be in the negative: natural science had not yet succeeded in comprehending the powerful emotional content of mysticism. The exponents of mysticism had dealt with all sides of the question and given practical answers in their writings and sermons. The sex-political nature of every form of mysticism is evident. Yet it was as completely overlooked by the freethinkers as the equally evident sexuality of children had been overlooked by the most famous educators. It is clear that mysticism has a hidden bulwark at its disposal and that it has been defending this bulwark against natural science with every means at its command. Science is only beginning to divine its existence.