The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

As a doctrine, Communism follows the philosophy of 19th-century author Karl Marx, who criticized capitalist societies and called for a worldwide revolution of the industrial working class. Hoffer, however, downplays the importance of ideologies. In The True Believer, Communism refers to the specific mass movement that seized power in Russia in 1917, which ushered in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and, by 1951, appeared as the chief rival of the Western democracies.

Fanaticism describes the worldview of the true believer, particularly during a mass movement’s active phase. Some people might dabble on the fringes of a movement, but the fanatic surrenders his or her entire being to it. The conversion from autonomous individual to true believer is almost always a passionate act of self-renunciation. This produces in the true believer a wholesale submission to the movement, an unquestioning devotion to the cause, and a willingness to commit any action, including self-sacrifice, should the movement require it. Hoffer uses “fanatics” and “true believers” as synonymous terms.

A mass movement is a large-scale uprising of people who seek to change something significant about the status quo. Hoffer describes mass movements as ugly and violent affairs, particularly during their active phases, when they are dominated by fanatical true believers. Hoffer regards the length of a mass movement’s active phase as the determining factor in whether or not the movement will produce greater degrees of individual liberty and justice. The longer the active phase, the less likely the movement will result in anything good. The True Believer is a study of mass movements and why they attract certain types of people.

“Men of words” are disgruntled intellectuals who pave the way for mass movements by criticizing and thereby undermining existing regimes. Hoffer describes these “men of words” as fundamentally vain and thus easily mollified by agents of a regime who are willing to flatter them. If they do not believe that these agents sufficiently appreciate their intellectual abilities, “men of words” are likely to turn against the regime. For all their vanity, however, “men of words” often remain theoretically committed to the ideals they espouse, so they make good agitators but terrible fanatics. Thus, when the mass movement’s fanatic-led active phase begins, these “men of words” often find themselves even more disillusioned.

“Nationalism” literally means “belief in nation.” Many of the mass movements Hoffer describes, including the Nazi Party in Germany, transformed their adherents into true believers while promising a glorious national future. Even during World War II in the Soviet Union, where the prevailing orthodoxy stressed Marxist internationalism, Communists rallied to the defense of “Mother Russia.” Hoffer discounts the importance of specific doctrines, but he also notes that many mass movements, regardless of the ideologies they promote, stoke some degree of nationalist enthusiasm.

Propaganda is the deliberate spreading of information, in most cases false or embellished, that serves the interests of a mass movement or regime. The purpose of propaganda is not to inform but to manipulate people and render them compliant. While all mass movements engage in propaganda of some kind, the same is true—perhaps to a far greater degree—of established regimes. Hoffer regards propaganda as an insignificant factor in the molding of true believers.