From Communism to Work Democracy is the first book devoted solely to Wilhelm Reichs social and political thought and activities. It is an intellectual history tracing Reichs evolution from a 1920s-style communism to work democracy, a form of anarchism, all shaped by his understanding of Marxism. Communism refers to the radical social policies adopted in the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution, and to the political parties in both Austria and Germany to which Reich belonged (192733). Expelled from the Comintern in December 1933, by late 1936 Reich came to treat Communism as synonymous with Stalinism. His later anti-Communism was a critique of the Soviet Union as described in The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1946). In the 1950s he underwent a criminal prosecution by the United States government, leading to the burning of his books and his death in prison.
