THE SCHOOL FOR DICTATORS
33
tool) or Italian Fascism from the French or Irish varieties; but under–
neath these purely superficial diversities 'there is invariably a common
social and political denominator and a common psychological denom–
inator. It is true that in every :Fascist ideology you will find myths
borrowed from national tradition, but their effectiveness is solely due
to the fact that they are conceived of and felt by the masses as symbols
of primitive complexes. These complexes are also found in men en–
tirely devoid of national tradition, being relics of a time in which na–
tions did not even exist, and very probably they
will
continue to exist
even after the nations of the present day have disappeared. Professor
Pickup is almost certainly aware that modem psychology has dis–
covered that the content of the dreams of Negroes does not differ
from that of the dreams of Europeans or Indians. That is a vital fact
for you, Mr. W. The hundred apd thirty million
ci~ens
of America
come from many different countries and show much diversity in or–
dinary, workaday, waking life, but at night they are simply men,
dreaming the same dreams and oppressed by the same nightmares.
A national tradition is entirely superfluous. When all the other neces–
sary
social and political conditions exist, those dreams and nightmares
will
be the raw material from which the American Fascist ideology
will
be created.
MR.
w.
If
I have understood you rightly, I cannot help concluding that
America is Fascism's Promised
L~d.
In the past century there has
been no lack of premonitory signs. Have y<;>u ever heard of the cider
election of 1840, Mr. Cynic? A man without a program but with a
romantic mind conquered the country, traveling from place to place
in a log cabin on a large wagon, with a barrel of hard cider on tap for
the crowd.
PRoFESSOR PicKUP
The contempt for the masses that your words betray is justified,
my friends. But
if
you put the leaders on the same level as the masses,
I entirely disagree with you. Your true leader is skilled at manipulat–
ing primitive formulas in order to set the masses in motion, but he
needs a clear program
in
order to give them direction. I could give
you innumerable quotations from my
Breviary of Fascist Thought,
but I hope a few only
will
suffice to convince you. "The masses,"
Mussolini wrote, "ar.e nothing but a herd. They are the prey of supine,
ragmentary,and incoherent impulses. They are nothing but raw rna–
erial. The altars erected by Demos to Their Holinesses the masses
ust therefore be struck down. This does not mean that the masses'
ell-being must be neglected. On the contrary, one may recall that
ietzsche desired that the masses should have all the material well-
