Fromm’s worker study blamed party officials for weak resistance

Evidence

The programme of attempting to `form a picture of the depth and consistency of individuals’ political opinions’ by analysing their relation to party membership and their character structure led to the conclusion that the supporters of the workers’ parties could be accused of not supporting decisively enough their most progressive sections, represented above all by the ranks of the party officials. It was not a very plausible result, in view of the fact that many workers had been prepared to defend themselves actively and with violence, while officials had failed to organize this demand for defence properly and, above all, Communist and Social Democrat officials had viewed and treated each other as the worst of enemies. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 714

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why did the Institute’s empirical study reach a conclusion that contradicted the known facts about worker militancy vs. official inaction?
• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer suppressed Fromm’s worker study as both too Marxist and not Marxist enough — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 195; The workers’ inquiry findings were suppressed partly for their politically damaging implications — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 475; The Institute suppressed Fromm’s Weimar worker study for ideological reasons — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 716

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer suppressed Fromm’s worker study as both too Marxist and not Marxist enough #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 195
• The Institute suppressed Fromm’s Weimar worker study for ideological reasons #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 716
• The workers’ inquiry findings were suppressed partly for their politically damaging implications #corroborates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 475