Revolution and Drive

It is of course, understood that the question of importance of human drives and the part they play in the revolutionary movements of mankind cannot begin to be fully treated within the framework of an article of this kind. It is a matter which might well be the life-work of a social scientist. What I wish to express here are merely thoughts and observations, largely on the basis of my experience during the great Russian Revolution, seen in the light of many years of psychoanalytical work, and the knowledge which results from such work.

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Freud's psychoanalysis teaches us that human drives provide the impetus for every type of human activity. The question remains how to discover the sources of those drives which create the power that gives rise to humanity's revolutionary movements. At first, the answer seems to present no difficulties. We can hardly doubt that the destructive mass movements, which come into the foreground in times of revolution, receive their foremost impetus from aggressive, destructive drives. What gives food for thought is merely the question of exclusiveness, i.e., whether, apart from aggressive drives, other drives have their part in revolutionary movements—in other words, sexual drives. For we know that human expression finds its driving force and its source in these two types of drives which motivate all human beings.

Since the end of the eighteenth century, human society has been shaken periodically by revolutionary movements which were regularly followed by opposite and counter-revolutionary movements. Two basically opposed tendencies—social, political and economic—have found expression in these movements which have for their aim fundamentally opposing ideas. To-date this struggle has merely resulted in the constantly changing position of victory and defeat of either party. Neither could achieve more than temporary victory, only to be pushed aside by the other after more or less brief periods of time. The basic trend of one party is it