ABSTRACT
Wolfenstein's method is to develop his notion of a "revolutionary personality" from three life histories: Lenin, Trotsky, and Gandhi. Repeatedly, we are told that Wolfenstein is only erecting "hypotheses" on these case studies, which other empirical studies will confirm or disconfirm. Wolfenstein's hypotheses are as follows. The "revolutionary personality" is a man
who "had an unusually ambivalent relationship with his father." Two more conditions, however, are necessary to turn him into a revolutionary: "The conflict with paternal authority must be alive and unresolvable in the family context as adolescence draws to a close" (the father has just died, or the son leaves the family); and "there must exist a political context in terms of which the conflict can be expressed." This last is made more specific by Wolfenstein's shrewd observation that the precipitant factor emerges when "established political authority acts with unexpected aggressiveness towards the potential revolutionist" (e.g., executing Lenin's brother, imprisoning Trotsky). This may sound like naive Freudianism but as worked out, it is most soberly and persuasively handled. Whether Wolfenstein is using a "fair sample" is, of course, another matter.
