However, The Mass Psychology of Fascism was seen as being so critical of the communist regime in the Soviet Union that Reich was considered to be a liability to the KPD, and was subsequently kicked out of the party upon the book's publication in 1933.

Reich argued that the reason why German fascism (i.e., Nazism) was chosen over communism was that of increased sexual repression in Germany – as opposed to the somewhat more liberal (post-revolutionary) Russia.

As children, Reich believed that members of the (German) proletariat learned from their parents to suppress nearly all sexual desire and – instead – expend the repressed energy into authoritarian idealism.

[7]Reich believed that the symbolism of the swastika, evoking the fantasy of the primal scene, showed in spectacular fashion how Nazism systematically manipulated the collective unconscious.

He believed that reason alone would be able to check the forces of his own projected irrationality, and loosen the grip of mysticism and is also capable of playing its own part in developing original modes of political action, building on a deep respect for life, and promoting a harmonious channelling of libido and orgastic potency.

In this connection, the findings of Morgan and of Engels are still entirely correct.Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari reprised Reich arguments in their joint work Anti-Oedipus (1972), in which they discuss the formation of fascism at the molecular level of society.