The Limits of Education: Siegfried Bernfeld

on Psychology, Political Theory, and

Education
Robin Holloway/OISE

In the emergence of a new postwar generation of psychoanalysts like Wilhelm

Reich, Erich Fromm, and Siegfried Bernfeld, we can discern a profound tendency, originating in the concrete problems they encountered in their clinical
work with psychically ill individuals, to rediscover the radical implications of
Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis' mission, while simultaneously attempting to free it from the ahistorical distortions which had served up to then
to obscure the critical and sociological content latent within it. (Brown, 1973,
pp.46-47)
Who was Siegfried Bernfeld? Why should educators interest themselves in him?
His early work had until recently been all but forgotten. But between 1919 and
1935, he wrote severn dozen papers of the greatest value for a critical leftist
perspective on education. These papers disappeared during the Hitler era and
were not rediscovered until the late 1960s, with their publication in German
under the title Antiautorittire Erziehung and Psychoanalyse (Antiauthoritarian
education and psychoanalysis). They are still not translated into English. Quoting
the titles of six of them will locate Bernfeld theoretically without further explanation. Among his more interesting are "Sozialismus and Psychoanalyse"
("Socialism and Psychoanalysis," 1926), "Sozialistische Erziehungskritik" ("Socialist Critique of Education," 1926), ~eoersch~itzung der Schule" ("Overestimation of the School," 1927), "Das Massenproblem in der Sozialistischen
P~idogogik" ("The Problem of the Masses in Socialist Pedagogics," 1927),
"Die Schulgemeinde und ihre Funkfion im Klassenkampf" ("The School Community and its Function in Class Struggle," 1928), and "Zur Frage: Psychoanalyse und Marxismus" ("On the Problem of Psychoanalysis and Marxism,"
1928).
The first and most important reason why Bernfeld is of educational interest
is clear from these titles; he was a Freudo-Marxist who examined education
from this perspective, x Second, he was involved in theoretical controversies with
other Freudo-Marxists of the time (Wilhelm Reich for example) about educational and other issues. Third, he was an educator in his own right and opened
the very first psychoanalytically oriented school for children. 2 Finally, he was
a Zionist and, through his pedagogical teachings, he had a strong influence on
the kibbutz style of education developed in Israel. We will return to each of
these points of interest.

BiographicalBackground
Bernfeld was born in 1892 in Lemberg, then part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. He died in the United States in 1953. He studied pedagogy and psychology at the University of Vienna, from which he received his Ph.D. While
Interchange/VoI. 9, No. 2/1978-79

still a student, he joined youth movements and was involved with both socialist
and Zionist causes. In 1912, he founded the Academic Committee for School
Reform (ACS). Socialist education and elimination of middle class domination
of schools were part o~ a program that attracted a large student membership.
The police dissolved the ACS in 1914.
Bernfetd cooperated with teachers and students in promoting student selfgovernment, considered revolutionary at the time. Ekstein (1977), who was a
student of Bernfeld, writes that "what was important about this man was the
immense appeal he had as a youth leader, . . . One sees in him someone who
has immense experience as an educator, a youth leader, and as an analyst" (p.2).
Bernfeld began to contribute to both socialist and Zionist papers at the time
of the First World War. He wrote, for example, for Martin Buber's journal
Der Jude. In 1918 he founded a journal called Jerubbaal, in part aimed at
bringing together Zionist and socialist factions within Austrian Jewry. In the
same year he founded and was made president of the Association of the Jewish
Youth of Austria. He was also a functionary in a number of Jewish organizations, including the Jewish National Council.
Bernfetd served in the First World War, but spent almost all his time in
Vienna. After the war, Viennese Jews were threatened by the crumbling of the
Austrian social framework and by Polish soldiers returning home. Bernfeld
formed demobilized Jewish soldiers into a self-defence force.
In 1919, Bernfeld undertook his most important educational ext~riment,
the Kinderheim Baumgarten (Baumgarten Children's Home). The First World
War had left a large number of Polish Jewish children as orphans and refugees.
Bernfeld opened a residential school for 240 of these "proletarian" war orphans,
who ranged in age from three to sixteen. The school was established in some
former military barracks.
Bernfetd held high hopes for this school. It was to put his educational theories
into practice. The school was co-educational. The aim was to help rather than
control the children. Psychological difficulties were explored rather than suppressed. Sexual problems were approached in an enlightened way, based on
Freudian libidinal theories. Student self-government of the school was attempted.
Bernfeld intended that Baumgarten should grow and be the nucleus for
other similar establishments. But although he and his colleagues achieved great
success with the children, the school was forced to close after six months. It was
a little too progressive for its financial sponsor, and support was withdrawn.
The sponsor was the American Joint Distribution Committee, which Hoffer
(1965) calls a "narrow-minded charity organization" (p.67), and which Paret
(in Bernfeld, 1973) says had no sympathy for "progressive education for workers' children" (p.xx). There was also a lack of trained personnel in the school.
"With the end of Bernfeld's Kinderheim came also the end of his activity
as a practising pedagogical reformer, and of all his hopes of influencing contemporary education" (Hoffer, 1955, p.67). The only lasting result of this experiment was the book Baumgarten Children's Home, a report on a serious
attempt at new education (1921).
At this time, Bernfeld was already deeply committed to psychoanalysis. He
had taken a number of lecture courses and he knew Freud. By 1922, with
Freud's help, he had established himself as a practising psychoanalyst in Vienna.
In 1925, Bernfeld published two significant books. One was a pioneering
effort called The Psychology of the Infant. The other was Sisyphus or The Limits
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of Education. Much of his thinking in the latter was a result of his Baumgarten
experiment. It is Bernfeld's most important educational work, and is one of the
few of his books available in English. Ekstein (1966) summarizes the theme
of Sisyphus:
[Bernfeld] attacks idealistic notions of education that view the educator as
one who molds the child's character, as a sculptor turns the marble block into
a piece of perfection. He speaks of the sociological and the psychological boundaries of education. He uses insights from economics and sociology, and from
Marxist philosophy to show the socia/ boundaries of education, and he uses
the theory of the unconscious to demonstrate inner boundaries. These boundaries turn the teacher into a Sisyphus, who sees them as limits, as chains that tie
him down and force upon him impossible tasks. But if these boundaries are regarded as lawful, they can lead to insights that permit the creation of educational
theory, based not on narcissistic idealism but on science. (p.419)
One fascinating passage in Sisyphus - a speech given by "Minister of Education Machiavelli"-attests to Bernfeld's political astuteness. The policies
Bernfeld puts in the Minister's mouth were very close to those instituted by the
Nazis a decade later. Bernfeld has him propose the choice of the Jews as a
national scapegoat, maintenance of control of education in the hands of the
ruling party, restriction of education to certain groups and so forth. Bernfeld's
"Minister of Education Machiavelli" was an accurately predicted "fantasy forerunner of Goebbels" (Ekstein, 1966, p.420).
After the ruin of his Baumgarten educational experiment in 1919, Bernfeld became pessimistic about educational issues, and after the publication
of Sisyphus in 1925, he lost interest in them.
In 1926 he moved from Vienna to Berlin where he worked as a psychoanalyst until 1932. He published a number of papers during this time, including
one on Pestalozzi and several on adolescents. He continued to be actively involved in political issues and lectured to workers' groups. Hitler's election
victory in 1932 prompted him to leave Berlin. He returned for a short while to
Vienna, but, foreseeing what was to come, soon left.
At this time, Bernfeld's interests began to shift. He wrote no more papers
from a Freudo-Marxist standpoint. Instead, he turned his attention to natural
science aspects of psychoanalysis, such as the quantification and measurement
of libido.
From Vienna, Bernfeld went to southern France and then to England; in
1937 he emigrated to the United States. "After emigrating from Germany, Bernfeld left the field of education entirely. It was impossible for him to continue
with his work in Germany under Hitler, and when he came to America he was
disillusioned with socialism" (Buxbanm, 1966, p.8). Bernfeld worked as a
psychoanalyst in San Francisco until he died in 1953.

Freudo-Marxist Disputes
Having sketched the facts of Bernfeld's life, we can return to the reasons previously suggested for his interest to educators. One of these was the controversies in which he engaged with other Marxists and Freudo-Marxists. The
interest in Marxist thought in Europe of the time was strong. Theoretical differences arose which are reminiscent of the Marxist, Leninist, Trotskyite, Maoist
disputes of recent years.
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One of the reasons for the intensity of this debate was the existence of a strong
psychoanalytic society in Moscow. This is not generally known. "There was in
fact a flourishing psychoanalytical movement in Russia during the 1920s, a
movement that enjoyed Lenin's tolerance and Trotsky's active support. Only the
Stalinists turned against psychoanalysis" ("When Dogma Bites," 1971, p.25).
Eventually, increasing pressure was put on psychoanalysis in Russia to conform
to party teachings, and with the rise of Stalin, it disappeared.
In the early 1920s, Wilhelm Reich was interested in the development of
psychoanalysis in Russia. Later, he became bitterly disillusioned. Vera Schmidt
had, in 1921, established in Moscow a psychoanalytically based children's home.
Reich visited it in 1929, and reports on it at some length in The Sexual Revolution (1945, pp.240-247). Reich (1945) refers to it as "the first attempt in the
history of education to give the theory of infantile sexuality a practical content"
(p.247). The children were encouraged to develop self-regulation without an
atmosphere of moralistic authoritarianism. They were not given orders. They
were allowed to experiment with their sexual impulses, including masturbation,
without punishment or condemnation, and to mutually satisfy their sexual curiosities. Given these observations by Reich, it is of interest that one of his followers was A. S. Neill of Summerhill fame.
The immediate reason for the controversy between Reich and Bernfeld
was a paper by Reich entitled "The Masochistic Character" (t932). In this
paper Reich denied that there was such a thing as Freud's death instinct. Freud
postulated the death instinct as a form of primary masochism. Reich said that
masochism was only a secondary development, based on a pleasure anxiety
resulting from lack of full orgastic potency (1967, p.249). Reich also rejected
the notion of aggressive or destructive drives. He claimed that "cruel and
aggressive character traits were the result of authoritarian, sexually repressive
child-rearing practices" (Spring, 1975, p.83). Bernfeld was commissioned to
write a reply to Reich's paper. The result was "The Communistic Discussion
Concerning Psychoanalysis and Reich's 'Refutation of the Death Instinct Hypothesis'" (1932). In this paper, Bernfeld accused Reich of being motivated
by emotional and political biases. Emotionally, Reich was trying to pass off
"his private ideal of a world without/imitations on the sexual drive as the goal
of psychoanalysis" (Paret in Bernfeld, 1973, p.xxiii). Politically, Reich was
responding to the pressure on psychoanalysis in Russia by restricting it to the
study of the individual patient and excluding it from commentary on social or
political issues. Bernfetd attacked the work of analysts such as Jurinetz who
supported the party line as being superficial and crude. Scientific statements
are judged in Russia, said Bernfeld, not by their accuracy but by their conformity with party doctrine. In view of what is known about the fate of science (e.g.
genetics) in Russia under Stalin, these comments make sense.
Bernfeld's arguments led to conflicts with other socialists. Edwin Hoernle,
one of the founders of the German Communist Party and its chief spokesperson
on educational matters, criticized him for his attempt to improve educational
techniques. All this did was to help prop up the existing bourgeois regime. The
task was not to reform bourgeois capitalist society but to destroy it. Bernfeld
was accused of being a supporter of capitalism and a propounder of "shamrevolutionary pedagogic idealism."
Another conflict that Bernfeld had was with Alfred Adler - or rather with
his "individual psychology." Adler was a socialist and an early follower of
Freud, but he later broke away from Freud and from psychoanalysis. Bernfeld
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(1969b, pp.140-141) claimed that Marxism could use only "scientific" psychologies in the sense of a "materialistic scientific psychology." Psychoanalysis
was such a materialistic scientific psychology; but Adlerian individual psychology
mixed scientific psychology with philosophy (specifically, a petit-bourgeois philosophy of life) which made it part of capitalist ideology.
Bernfeld, however, certainly did not disagree with all the Freudo-Marxists
of the time. On several points, his views were very close to those of Wilhelm
Reich. Reich, for example, attacked the authoritarian compulsive family structure as it exists in capitalist society (1945, pp.71-79). The family is patriarchal,
and women and children have no rights in it. The authoritarian family is for
Reich (1945) "a factory for authoritarian ideologies and conservative [character] structures" (p.72). The main purpose of the family is political - to produce the kind of person who will support the exploitation and domination of
capitalist society. Bernfeld also criticized what he called the bourgeois family.
What is destructive about such a family is the individual possessive parent and
the kind of Oedipus situation this encourages. The only way to overcome this
kind of intense Oedipal relationship, he thought, was through collective education under socialism. Here, the children would be able to identify with their
teachers, older students, and peers, instead of just their parents. As we shall
see, this notion of collective education was realized in the kibbutz.
Bernfeld and Reich shared other views - in particular Marx's misconceived
notion that the human sciences were part of the natural sciences. Reich was for
a long time interested in the economics of the libido and its quantification, and
finally found this material sort of libido in the "orgone." Bernfeld too attempted "to introduce quantification into psychoanalytic instinct theory"
(Ekstein, 1966, p.424), and was interested in the measurement of libido. He
shared the positivist idea of the Vienna Circle that quantification must be a
goal of scientific theory. One paper he wrote was entitled "Concerning Psychic
Energy, Libido, and their Measurement" (1930). Another paper, which he coauthored, was entitled "The Principle of Entropy and the Death Instinct"
(1931). The latter attempted to base the death instinct on a number of principles of physics, specifically that of increasing entropy.
Bernfeld was, in fact, involved with early philosophical positivism. He discussed his theories with Moritz Schlick and Hans Reichenbach, both noted positivists. Throughout his writings, he stresses that pedagogy must become a
science. He has the model of a natural science in mind. But his ideas are based
on the positivist self-misunderstanding of Marx, and Marx's conception of the
human sciences as forms of natural science. If, following Marx and Bernfeld,
psychoanalysis and pedagogy are conceived of as natural sciences, then the
dimension of/iberation through self-reflection is lost. This is a crucial limitation
to Bernfeld's conception of pedagogy and psychoanalysis, and it must be kept
in mind when his theories are examined.
One thing emerges from a survey of the controversies in which Bernfeld
was involved. The socialists and Freudo-Marxists of the time were passionately
interested in theory. The discussions of it were widespread and intense.

Educational Impact
Another reason cited for interest in Bernfeld was his practical involvement in
education. Bernfeld was clearly an educator himself, and his influence extended
far beyond the Kinderheim Baumgarten. In particular, he had a strong impact
on Jewish education. A Zionist, he saw Palestine as a Jewish homeland and at
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one time intended to emigrate there, z He was involved with Zionist youth
groups, but more importantly, he founded in Vienna a progressive teacher training college called the Jewish Paedagogium. Through this institution, Bernfeld
spread his ideas on progressive education to young teachers; some of these
teachers ended up in Israel.
Bernfeld wrote several books on Judaism, including one entitled The Jewish
People and Its Youth (1919). Paret (in Bernfeld, 973) comments that in this
book, Bernfeld:
outlined a system of education in a classless society, in which the school became
a central concern of the entire community. His proposals show similarities to
the educational practices of some of the kibbutzim, which, indeed, Bernfeld influenced both by his writings and through his work in the Paedagogium. (p.xviil)
Thus, through his activities in the training of teachers and through his educational writings, Bernfeld was indirectly very influential in the setting up of the
kibbutz style of education. His proposal to break down the bourgeois family by
removing the children and providing them with collective education has been
put into practice on the kibbutzim. Indeed, since the kibbutz system is in large
measure the realization of his ideas, a critique of kibbutz education will also
highlight weaknesses in his thinking.
Such a critique is provided by the psychoanalyst David Rapaport. Rapaport
(1958) notes that the kibbutz movement:
arose from the Zionist-Socialist youth movement of Eastern Europe, the main
tenets of which were: (a) Zionist ideology; (b) socialist ideology . . . . [It]arose
as a rebellion against the religious, paternalistic-familial.., life of East European Jewry. (p.588)
In the kibbutzim, "the upbringing of children by parents in their home is
replaced by an upbringing in communal children's houses" (p.589). This is
exactly Bernfeld's program. Even more specifically, the aim is to dispense "with
the institution of the bourgeois family, which results in the patriarchal position
of the father-provider" (p.590). This sounds as if it was written by Bernfeld
himself.
Rapaport makes the following observations about kibbutz children. The
biological parents still play an extremely important role in the young child's life.
Jealousy is intense, for example, if the parents have the task of caring for other
kibbutz children. The multiple parent figures, including the real parents, teachers,
and other caretakers, divide the sources of affection and discipline for the child,
and this division leads to pathological behavior because of clashing loyalties
and increased conflicts. By high school age, however, the main identification
is with the peer group, and the peer group is the main source of security.
Rapaport notes a high incidence of enuresis, masturbation, nail-biting,
thumb-sucking, feeding difficulties, and "unmitigated aggression" among the
younger children. He concludes that such pathology results from early separation from the parents and from collective education.
Collective education, by enforcing separation of the child from the parents,
brings these phenomena about, and they should therefore be considered pathological symptoms of separation. Mass upbringing, lacking individual care and
77

affection, is responsible for these phenomena, which must therefore be considered pathological. (p.594)
Bernfeld, of course, did not have some of the information possessed by
current psychoanalytic theory about early mother-child attachment and the consequences of early separation. Apparently neither the nuclear family nor the
Oedipus situation are as easy to eliminate as Bernfeld thought they were.
Rapaport (1958) concludes his paper on a conservative note. "It is likely
that a society, whatever its conscious intentions, more or less inevitably produces
a method of upbringing whose crises and difficulties, as well as assets, contribute
to the development of human beings adapted to that society" (p.596). Interestingly enough, Bernfeld endorses a very similar notion about the conservative nature of education.
Freudo-Marxist View of Education
In Sisyphus or The Limits of Education (published in German in 1925 and
in English in 1973) Bernfeld chooses Freud and Marx as "patron saints of the
new education" (p.46). For Bernfeld (1973), "political sociology . . . in its
most s o l i d - Marxist - form supplements the depth and vitality of Freudian psychology" (p.46). He sees his theory as an attempt to "construct a bridge
anchored in both pillars [Marx and Freud], from which a broad view of the
extensive educational landscape may be obtained" (p.45).
Bernfeld states clearly the relation he sees holding between psychoanalysis
and Marxism in his paper "On the Problem of Psychoanalysis and Marxism"
(1928). Marxism is superordinate to any psychology. Marxism is the basis for
a world view of the proletarian struggle. It is not a question of the "melding" of
Marxism with psychological teaching, nor of complementing Marxism with a
psychological theory; this would simply end in the replacement of Marxism
with some kind of veiled bourgeois philosophy. Rather psychology, including
psychoanalysis, is an object of Marxist thought and not its partner. Marxism
will use psychology for its own purposes , once the truth of the psychological
assertions are established. Marxism can best use a materialist scientific psychology. Psychoanalysis is such a psychology.
Bemfeld notes that psychology can enter directly into the class struggle as an
instrument of bourgeois exploitation. It is used as such in the intellectual testing
of school children and workers, in the provision of public assistance and so on.
This is a very clear assessment of the relationship between Marxism and
psychoanalysis. Marxist thought is basic. Marxism can use psychoanalysis in its
praxis insofar as psychoanalysis is scientific. As noted, it was this scientific view
of psychoanalysis that led Bemfeld into error.
In his paper "Overestimation of the School" (1927), Bernfeld argues that
the schools, through clever political manipulation, serve the politics of the right
wing parties. Education is an awful machine which functions by intimidating
the child. It produces only mediocrity. The school is the domain of the bourgeoisie. Bernfeld asks whether we require competitive examinations. Do we
even have to have schools? His answer is that neither examinations nor schools
are necessary. Real education is against them. We have the present system for
political reasons. Many of these comments sound very modem.
Bernfeld criticizes pedagogy in two papers. He considers it from a psychoanalytic perspective in the paper "Criticism of the Manner in which Psychoanalysis has hitherto been applied to Pedagogics" (1924) and from the Marxist
perspective in "Socialist Critique of Education" (1926).
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In the first paper, Bernfeld defines pedagogy as "the sum of the reactions
of adult society to the fact of ontogenetic development" (p.510). In dealing
with pedagogy, psychoanalysis must come to grips with the hidden motives for
education, with the different kinds of pedagogic ideologues and the rationalizations they use. Psychoanalysis leads to a decidedly pessimistic view of pedagogy. The child is not plastic and flexible. Rather, psychoanalysis:
gives us no occasion to regard childhood as a period of particular plasticity; it
shows, on the contrary, that the younger the person the more he is bound by
inflexible inherited and instinctual trends, the less he is accessible to [educational] influence. (p.510)
In the second paper, Bernfeld insists that pedagogy must become a science,
but again misconceives this kind of science as a natural science. He says it has
been tacitly assumed that pedagogy is a neutral science valid for all. This is
not the case. Instead, there is bourgeois pedagogy and socialist pedagogy. Pedagogy as it exists is really camouflaged bourgeois pedagogy. Bourgeois pedagogy
is not a science and can never become one. It fulfills its function precisely because of its unscientific nature. It is an instrument used by the bourgeoisie in
the class struggle.
Bourgeois political and economic science serves to conceal the true state of
affairs. Similarly, in the guise of a neutral and universally valid science, bourgeois pedagogy conceals the facts of education. It enlists idealistic thinking in
support of every institution that serves class dominance: school, familial childrearing, and so on. But family and school are not institutions that develop
eternal ideal human goals in children, as bourgeois pedagogy asserts. Rather
they have arisen from the economic conditions of business and they develop
according to the current state of the class struggle. Bourgeois pedagogy, disguised as science, is used to "prove" that school and family do not serve the
ruling class but are the only way of bringing up, for example, a religious and
ethical person. Bourgeois pedagogy is therefore, for Marxism, an example of
the ideological superstructure of the capitalist economic system. It serves to
camouflage the c/ass struggle.
Socialist pedagogy does not really exist yet. There are only meagre starts at
it. Socialist pedagogy will be a science, and only socialist pedagogy can be a
science. It is important in the proletarian struggle to demonstrate that bourgeois
pedagogy is not scientific. A radical socialist critique of contemporary education is the beginning of a future socialist pedagogy and education.
This political analysis of pedagogy is typical of Bemfeld. It is also typical
of Marxist analysis. But Bernfeld's notion of a scientific socialist pedagogy is
problematic. Socialist pedagogy is thought of as a natural science along positivist lines. And yet it is to be founded on critique. Positivist science is founded
on measurement. It excludes critical reflection and self-reflection. But critique
is founded on just such critical reflection and self-reflection. Thus Bernfeld's
notion of a scientific socialist pedagogy contains internal contradiction. This is
not surprising since, as previously noted, Marxist theory itself contains an identical contradiction.
Educational Limits
We now turn to Bernfeld's major work, Sisyphus or The Limits of Education
(1925). But as Ekstein (1977) points out, "Bernfeld at that time worked with

79

psychoanalytic theories and models of the mind which we consider today outdated, therefore, of course, [they] do not lend themselves well to integrate
sociological and psychological concepts" (p.2).
There has been much research done in psychoanalysis since 1925. At that
time, the analysis of children had barely begun. Freud's book The Ego and Id
(1923b), which formulated the structural theory of the mind now most widely
used in psychoanalysis, had been published only two years previously, and
Bemfeld does not use Freud's structural model. Furthermore, Bernfeld is only
concerned with the Oedipat and not the pre-Oedipal development of the child
(i.e. before age five). Several writers, especially Melanie Klein, have shown
that this period is crucial for the child's development and for the presence or
absence of intellectual and learning inhibitions. Bernfeld lacked the knowledge
we now have of this early period. 4
Bernfeld was equally restricted in the scope of his political theory. By 1925,
the Russian political experiment was less than a decade old. Bernfeld relies
completely on Marx for his political theory. Modern critical theory had not
yet appeared. Marxist and neo-Marxist writers such as Jiirgen Habermas, Lucien
Goldmann, Henri Lef~bvre, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkenheimer, and Louis Althusser (to name a few of the more important ones) had
not started to write. Georg Luk~ics had just begun his work - History and Class
Consciousness was published in 1923. In Sisyphus, Bernfeld refers only to Marx.
His psychoanalytic theories and his Marxism are therefore relatively crude, and
are borrowed directly from either Marx or Freud. He comments that "both Marx
and Freud are right, though not the Marxists or the Freudians" (p.64). But it
is the combination of these two points of view directed specifically at education
which makes Sisyphus particularly interesting.
Bernfeld defines education as "the reaction of society to the facts of maturation and development." This definition makes it necessary to look at social
structure in order to theorize about education. Education is for Bernfeld a
social process; it exists "only when, but always when, childhood is experienced in
society" (p.32).
There are two groups of factors - sociopolitical and individual psychologic a l - which limit the possibilities of education. The social limit is that education is inherently conservative. In Marxist terminology, it is a social infrastructure whose functioning is determined and limited by the functioning of the
social order as a whole. Bernfeld (1973) argued that " e d u c a t i o n . . . was at all
times conservative, always devoted to the preservation of the status quo" (p.xxi).
The idea so dear to the hearts of many American educators during the 1960s
that one could promote social change through educational reform is thus specifically denied by Bernfeld.
Education is inherently conservative and its organization especially so. Never
has education prepared changes in the social structure. Always - without except i o n - it was the result of changes that had already taken place . . . . We have
n o w . . , a real and insurmountable limit of education. All education is conservative relative to the society that does the educating and it intensifies and increases the power of the educating group . . . . If you want to change [the educational system] or some detail of it, you must first change the social structure
or the correlative detail in it . . . . This insight into the social limits of education
negates any effort to effect marked changes in education before the social structure has been changed. (1973, pp.90; 92; 93)
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Compare Bernfeld's statement with a similar comment made by Joel Spring

(1975) on present-day education. "The goals and methods of education have
mirrored the goals and interests of those who have power in society. This situation has resulted in public education being used primarily as a conservative
force for the solution of social problems" (p.131). Though fifty years separate
these two comments, their substance is the same.
It is easy to see how the failure of the Baumgarten Children's Home influenced Bernfeld's formulation of this principle. But if such a limit is valid, then
its implications are of the greatest importance. Educators must either become
politically involved or else resign themselves to the fact that educational policy
is forever the plaything of political forces and economic change. Bernfeld's
claim here is borne out by recent history. In a time of political liberalism and
economic prosperity (the 1960s), educational policy was liberal and funding
overabundant. With the retrenchment of the capitalist economies and the associated increase of political conservatism in the 1970s, education is now responding to conservative, fundamentalist pressures. This is the "back to the
basics" movement, and Thomas Wells (1976a), the Ontario Minister of Education, summed it all up in a speech on October 6, 1976. "I believe that in some
respects the pendulum of change in education all across North America swung
a little too far during the 1960s. T o d a y . . . we are easing the pendulum back."
The "pendulum" in this case was educational policy; Wells was referring specifically to his proposals for the increased centralization, codification, and rigidifying of school curricula. But the "spring" which drove the pendulum was politics and economics.
There are also psychological limits to education, and these result from
human nature. Bemfeld (1973) comments that "while the child is by no means
as malleable as wax, it is far more plastic than metal. The precise degree and
limits of his malleability remain an important problem, to the solution of which
the science of education has so far contributed little" (p.111).
Bernfeld's theory of human nature and the limits of its malleability is of
course based on psychoanalytic postulates. Both the educator and the child
are limited by their inherited natures in the extent to which they can participate
productively in the educational process. He postulates three psychological limits:
[First] is the limit defined by the psychic realities within the educator himself.
A second one, encountered long ago but now explicitly recognized as such, is
found in the psychic constants that place restrictions on all grand pedagogical
projects. The third l i m i t . . , lies in the educability of the child. (1973, p.109) 5
The first and third limits are clear. The second with its references to "psychic
constants" placing restrictions on "all grand pedagogical projects" is obscure.
This is Bernfeld's critique of educational idealism, which he regards as essentially narcissistic in nature. Unbounded zeal and optimism in educational endeavours, the kind of thinking that asks only the opportunity to "mould the
child" in order to change the world, is, in Bernfeld's opinion, determined by
unconscious processes. Unlimited educational optimism is not rational. The
three psychological limits of education are, then, the psychic limitations of the
educator (largely determined by his unconscious mental processes), the necessity of restricting educational aims to accord with a rational appraisal of human
nature ("psychic constants"), and the limited educability of the child.
The child within the educator, his unconscious functioning, limits his ability
81

to function effectively as an educator. Says Bernfeld: "Man is a slave of his

psychic processes which after all make him what he is" (1973, p.36). This applies equally to the child. The child is not ha principle infinitely educable, as
behaviorists would have us believe. Nor would Bernfeld have any patience with
the "little flower" theory of children, the theory that says children are just like
little flowers- care for them, water them at the right time, give them enough
light and sustenance, and they will grow straight and tall, eventually to blossom forth. Rather the child is full of libidinal and destructive passions. The
school sets itself specifically against such passions - its job is to socialize them.
Thus, the school:
is compelled to act counter to the children's inherited urges and against their
spontaneous desires and interests. Whether methods are brutal or humane, it
is forever in opposition to the powers of nature. To the child it represents the
harshness and complexity of social reality . . . . (1973, p.55)
The arguments Bernfeld adduces in support of such limits to education are
complex. They must be reconstructed and examined in detail.
E d u c a t i o n a l T h e o r y - a Critique

Bernfeld begins with a critique of educational theory as it existed in 1925

(and probably still exists today) - that it is completely unscientific and amounts
to little more than "pedagogical sermons." The function of educational theory
is "to make educational practice rational." But clearly bourgeois educational
theory has failed in this task. As evidence, Bernfeld cites the wide variations
in educational practices. These practices "have run the gamut from love to
harsh discipline," have embraced both activity and restraint by the teacher, and
have required "free expression for the child's impulses" as well as their repression. The failure of educational theory is a result of the same psychological
and social barriers which limit education in general.
The unscientific character of pedagogy results from a number of psychic and
social conditions and that in turn fits it to be an instrument of certain psychic
and social forces in our society. (Bernfeld, 1923, p.29)
Bernfeld, as we have seen, has a particular notion of a scientific educational
theory. A scientific pedagogy is possible only in a socialist state, as part of a
theory of dialectical materialism.
The unconscious and the repressed as they operate both in educator and
child place severe limits on education. The Oedipal force is also important here.
Repression expunges from memory the "passionate and violent urges" of childhood. Nevertheless, they continue to operate unconsciously in the educator,
making objectivity in education very diflacult to obtain.
For Bernfeld, education in capitalist society is essentially a pair relationship
- t h a t is, a bond between a single educator and a single child. This does not
mean that the c/ass size is one student. It means that each child forms an emotional bond with his own teacher, and the teacher similarly has a personal
relationship with each child. This relationship has a number of consequences.
Bernfeld states that when people are in pair groups, "we will meet the eternal
constant of the uninhibited outbreak of adult emotion" (p.36) Education as a
pair-group activity cannot satisfy the adult. Educators have a "paradoxical love"
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for children, which is based on a powerful unconscious love urge. This is not
sexual love in its full form, but "goal-deflected love." The educator's love is
genuine but sublimated.
But the greatest problem with pair-group education is the repressed unconscious Oedipal wish in both educator and child. "If any relationship between child and educator exists at all, it will on both sides develop into the
Oedipal type" (p.106). However, this "Oedipus complex at the base of all personal educational relationships prevents their being controlled by rational purposes" (p.l14). Thus educational relationships between educator and child
fall under the sway of repressed desires. Collective education in a socialist
society is designed to overcome precisely this problem of Oedipal dynamics.
The child feels love and/or hate toward the educator as it did toward its
father or mother. The educator accepts this role which is forced upon him and
continues the parents' w o r k - t h a t is, he works toward the resolution of the
child's Oedipus complex. However, he also loves the child and assumes this role
under the influence of his own Oedipus complex. The child he confronts in the
school is psychologically the educator's self as a child, with "the same desires,
conflicts, and fate." His c o v e r t response to the child is conditioned by what his
parents did to him, even though his o v e r t response may be opposite. The educator thus fills a double role as child and as educator. So, in the educational
pair relationship, there are two children present: the child being educated and
the repressed child of the educator. Both children are treated by the educator
in similar fashion.
This situation can easily lead to problems. Both "children" wish to reexperience the Oedipus relationship but the ego of the educator takes vengeance
when the educator's ego rejects the actual re-creation of the Oedipus love situation. This vengeance takes the form of mistreatment of the child being educated
- annoyance, over-strictness and so on.
Historical D e v e l o p m e n t
Bernfeld puts forward a rather confusing theory of the historical development
of education. It is based squarely on the "primal horde theory" propounded by
Freud. Freud derived his speculative theory from what he called "a conjecture
of Darwin's to the effect that the primitive form of human society was that of
a horde ruled despotically by a powerful male" (SE, Vol.18, p.122). Freud's
reconstruction of what we find in the primal horde is as follows:
a violent and jealous father who keeps all the females for himself and drives
away his sons as they grow up . . . . If they roused their father's jealousy they
were killed or castrated or driven out . . . . One day the brothers who had been
driven out came together, killed and devoured their father and so made an end
of the patriarchal horde . . . . Cannibal savages as they were, it goes without
saying that they devoured their victim as well as killing him. (SE, VoL13, pp.
141-142; Voi.23, p.81)
Freud speculates that this event covered thousands of years and was repeated countless times. He refers to it as a "just-so story" and as a "scientific
myth." What he appears to be doing is giving a description of psychic reality
rather than historical reality. However, he wavers on this point, since there are
t h r e e different versions of the primal horde theory.
The sequence then is this: Darwin has a "conjecture" or "hypothesis" about
83

early humankind living in hordes; Freud builds on this the hypothesis of the
primal horde; and Bernfeld constructs on Freud's hypothesis another series of
hypotheses about educational development. In effect, Bernfeld has a hypothesis
built on a hypothesis built on a hypothesis. This permits one to adopt a sympathetically skeptical attitude toward Bernfeld's arguments. As well as considering the primal horde, Bernfeld combines a theory of primitive education
(as expressed in puberty rites in tribal societies) with a theory of male versus
female education. By male and female education, Bemfeld means the different
attitudes of the mother and father toward bringing up the child.
In the Freudian primal horde, the brothers wish to possess their mother and
do away with the primal father - the Oedipus conflict. The reaction of the primal
father is to kill his sons. It is for this reason that Bernfeld writes of "the original
male reaction toward child development, the propensity for infanticide" (1973,
p.60).
The prima/horde theory is today universally rejected by anthropologists. 6
But such a theory becomes much more cogent if it is intended simply to represent unconscious psychic reality. Nonetheless, one shouldn't forget that throughout most of human history, at least until the end of the Roman Empire, infanticide was a perfectly acceptable practice, r The abuse of children in factories
in modern times is also worthy of note. Clearly, there are in history many examples of Bernfeld's putative "male reaction toward child development."
Puberty rites are for Bernfeld the best example of primitive education. They
are also a modified and symbolic re-enactment of what happened in Freud's
mythical prima/horde. In the primitive state, education by the mother is essentially nurturing. It is based on natural responses and is carried on in the pair
group with no external organization. The child is kept close to the mother's
body, is loved and protected. The female "archetypal reaction" is to intensify
tender emotions and moderate aggressive ones. The male reaction is the "polar
opposite" of this. In the primal horde, the father killed the sons. In puberty
rites, "fathers symbolically kill their sons and reawaken them to a new life, the
life of men" (p.41). 8 But in actual puberty rites the fathers may indulge in an
"aggressive orgy" against their s o n s - beatings, painful trials of strength, and
so on. The male reaction results in "collective education in a majority group,
organized in and by society." The male "archetypal reaction" is to keep the
child away from the mother's body, to inhibit tenderness and to reinforce
aggressiveness.
Notice that education as an institution derives from the male reaction. Bernfeld comments that the human species had an educational idea "only once at
the very beginning and has held onto it ever since: to extend and elaborate the
original male reaction into an auxiliary supplementary institution" (p.56). Even
though the beginning of education (nurture by the mother) is wholly female,
Bernfeld comments that "history records no educational institution that can be
ascribed to the female reaction" (p.51).
This "male model of education" as institutionalized in puberty rites has an
important cultural function: it is designed to preserve the incest barrier. The
incest barrier is the greatest cultural increment to the original "biopsychic"
state of man. 9 Freud speculates that it created culture- the brothers of the
primal horde were compelled to engage in relations among themselves in the
conspiracy to do away with the primal father. To prevent incest, the man takes
the boys away from the mother in puberty rites and, to prevent the murder of
the father, the boys are subjected to the initiation rite. Thus fear of incest and
84

the sense of guilt are purely social inventions whose preservation society entrusts to education.
A consequence of the incest prohibition is that "education [is] in accordance
with the original male reaction" (p.57), and the "social function of male education" is to preserve the "cultural increment" represented by the incest prohibition in the new generation.
So puberty rites are historically the original example of male educational
practices. But although puberty rites themselves are generally reserved for
boys, Bernfeld does not mean by male education "education of boys" but "education of children in accordance with the male reaction." Puberty rites are a
toned-down version of the hypothetical happenings in the primal horde. Bernfeld sees modern education as an institutionalized system similar in quality to
puberty rites. Recall that sadism albeit in symbolic form inflicted by the fathers
on the sons is an essential part of puberty rites. Bernfeld sees this sadism in
modern education. "Some of the ancient sadism and of the orgy of aggression
in whose shadow the school was first invented remains and transfigures it still
today" (p.55). Education as typified in puberty rites is thus one of the oldest
and most essential social structures.
Bernfeld's views are neither simplistic nor sexist. His vision of modern education as part of a continuum beginning with puberty rites is a compelling thesis
which does not require the primal horde theory to buttress it. He notes that:
The first educational arrangements had their psychological origins in the love
of women for their offspring and in the destructive urge and fear of retaliation
of the men. These psychological motives are still active today, though modified
and overlaid. (p.50)
The male and female archetypal reactions are present in everyone, men and
women, "in the form of unconscious individual constants." (p.49) The primal
horde represents these reactions in their pristine form. But both male and female reactions are present in every human being. Furthermore, in reality, the
male and female modes of education are combined and together ensure the
preservation of civilization in the next generation.
Of course, there are differences between the "education" of puberty rites
and modern education. The most important difference for Bernfeld is the creation of adolescence as almost a cultural artifact. Puberty rites of a few weeks'
duration have developed into an educational process often lasting a decade or
two. The consequence is that "psychic maturity may be delayed months and years
beyond the advent of physical maturity" (p.62).lo
In what way does Bernfeld's theory elucidate a limit of education? It is
clear how puberty rites, in separating the boys from their mothers and subjecting them to their father's aggressions, ensure the continuity of the incest
prohibition. This is, in turn, the psychological basis of the possibility of society.
For Bernfeld, modern education has the same function: it is a necessary social
institution. In spite of its immense curricular apparatus, modern education performs the essential function of maintaining the incest Wohibition and the sense
of guilt. It must therefore contain some echo of the ag~essiveness and sadism
of puberty rites. This essential, primary, but unrecognized function of education
thus severely limits the type of human relations that are possible within it. As
an essentially "male reaction," education as an institution is constrained in the
possible scope of its reactions to children.
85

Political and Social Considerations

Bernfeld's political statements are incisive. They are based on Marxist theory,
although he does not refer explicitly to any Marxist writings. Perhaps the most
interesting part is his idea of the functioning of education under a future socialist society.
The psychological and the socio-political are c/osely related for Bernfeld
(1973). He notes that:
Two groups of forces, it seems, co-operate in instituting any specific type of education and education in general: these are the psychological and the social. We
saw how education as a fact of nature originated in female and male forms in
the biopsychic primal reaction of the mothers and the fathers of the horde to
ontogenetie development. (p.87)
Bernfeld held that the sense of guilt through the erection of the incest bartier was the most important result of male education. Following Freud, he
claims that society is founded on this sense of gui/t: it is the force that holds
society together and prevents its members from exterminating one another. Thus
he says that "the events of world history are a consequence of the sense of
guilt that already penetrated economic life and society as a whole at the dawn
of human history" (p.63). He adds that "much of economic and social life may
be interpreted as a transposition of the drives" (p.64). This is interesting
since it represents a very psychologized form of Marxism. Except for a few
early comments on the "species-being" of humankind in his paper "Alienated
Labour, 'ul Marx propounded a political theory without a psychology. One
essential task for a Freudo-Marxist such as Bernfeld was to make his Marxism
compatible with his Freudianism by integrating them. Bernfeld, as we have
noted, specifically states that Marxism is to be the superordinate theory. Yet
here, Freudian drive theory is invoked to explain aspects of history, economics,
and social life.
Bernfeld also speculates as to the relation of the economic structure of society and the "biopsychic structure"-that is, the psychoanalytic theory of
drives. He says that "the biopsychic structure existed before the economy, which
came about as a reaction of this structure to economic want. A given economic
system may thereafter cause changes to occur in the biopsychie structure" (p.
66). Thus drives and the sense of guilt create the economy as a reaction to
material needs. Notice that Bernfeld invokes the drives qua natural forces as
the c a u s e of economic structures. This is a very unhistorical notion. The economy once functioning can alter the functioning of the drives. There is a dialectical relation between socioeconomics and the economics of the drives. Together,
socioeconomics and drives determine the nature of education.
The school has its origin in the economic, financial, and political forces of society and in the ideological requirements and cuItural valuations that reflect
those forces. It has its roots also in the nonrational views and valuations that
are the unconscious product of the relations between the generations and of the
prevailing class structure. (pp. 16-17)
The social limit to education is that education must be inherently conservative - that is, it must perform the function of maintaining the incest barrier and
reinforcing the sense of guilt if society is to survive. Thus education is limited
86

in that it cannot be altered in a way which would jeopardize these functions.

These functions are what Bernfeld would call a constant of education.
But education is conservative in an additional sense. Not only does it discharge the function of maintaining society in the new generation but also it contains an important variable, which Bemfeld calls the "social bias" of education.
The educational system maintains society, the existing economic system, and the
existing class structure, and it seeks to shift the balance of power in favour of
"the ruling and educating class." To the inherently conservative nature of education (conservation of society itself) is added the additional conservative
function of maintaining the status quo. The first is a constant of education
since, throughout human history, this has been education's raison d'etre. The
second is a variable of education since it changes according to the political
system within which education functions.
Bernfeld notes that "no matter what the prevailing social structure, education must to a degree fulfill this special function [of preserving the existing economic system] because its general purpose is the preservation of society on the
existing level of culture" (p.66). The economic system, of course, is not part
of the original "cultural increment" which education has the function of transmitting. However:
Despite this, our education is geared to the economy from birth on. The reason
is obvious . . . . Our education is ruled by power . . . . The ruling class Melds a
highly respectable weapon, education, to which it imparts a certain bias in order
thereby to protect its power . . . . The social function of education consists in the
preservation of the biopsychie and socio-economic structure of society along
with its cultural and intellectual attainments . . . . The whole of pedagogy is a
tool that serves the social Nas of contemporary education. (pp.68; 69; 82-83;

84)
This series of quotations summarizes Bernfeld's political position. Although
Berufeld calls the social bias of education a variable, it is for him an inescapable
fact that the educational system supports the prevailing socio-economic system. For confirmation of Bernfeld's position, we need only turn again to the
Ontario Minister of Education, Thomas Wells. For Mr. Wells, "education in
this province is a political thing" (The Toronto Star, January 22, 1977, p.B1).
Further, in a speech on 6 October 1976, Mr. Wells asserts that through education: "We must instill in our young people a sense of their personal responsibility for the survival of our democratic and free enterprise system of society."
What could be clearer? Education is political. It must encourage youth to support "democratic" society as it exists. Furthermore, it must make young people
feel personally responsible (!) for the survival of the so-called "free enterprise"
economic system espoused by the Ontario provincial political party temporarily
in power. Bernfeld's political theory is highly accurate in its claim. In view of
the current economic retrenchment in education throughout the continent, another of Bernfeld's (1973) statements rings true. "Education costs money, and
the money is in the hands of the bourgeoisie who would not think of investing
it unprofitably" (p.89).
Finally, we turn to Bernfeld's ideas on educational possibilities in a future
socialist state. What should education do? "The function of education should
consist in transmitting to the younger generation both the existing order and
the forces that oppose it" (p.80). If Berufeld is correct in claiming that the
87

educational system (even in a socialist state) inevitably reinforces the socioeconomic status quo, this statement is self-contradictory. He becomes momentarily enthusiastic about the revolutionary possibilities of education. "Through
education socialism will transmit this insight [into class inequalities] and courage
[to destroy the ruling order] to the young, making them class-conscious and
revolutionary so that they may accomplish the act of liberation when the time
comes" (p.82).13
This represents an outbreak of Bernfeld's suppressed idealism, as well perhaps as his anger at the ruining of some of his own educational experiments.
Attributing to education the potential of creating revolution flies in the face of
other statements he makes about the powerlessness of education to effect social
change and the necessity of changing the social structure before education can
be changed. It is clear that Bernfeld is not the purely scientific pedagogue he
thinks others should be.
Bernfeld has criticized existing educational theory as an unscientific system
whose prognoses are "often false and never reliable." There is a reason for its
unscientific nature. Capitalist education is concerned primarily with the individual child, the child-educator pair group. It is impossible to predict how an
individual child will behave in a planned educational situation - what the effect
and the duration of the effect of the educational measure will b e - b e c a u s e
scientific predictions can only be made about large groups. Psychoanalysis therefore is of little help to educational theory in a capitalist system. But socialist
education will plan for the whole educational system. Socialist education is concerned with the masses of children. Collective prognosis is therefore central.
A collectively oriented aim and prognosis, taking account of the totality of relevant educational factors, are realizable only in a socialist society; in a society
steeped in the ideology of the ruling capitalist group, they are impossible . . . .
Socialism and education under it are necessarily related, a n d . . , socialism constitutes that political order in which education can become a science. (pp.
114; 115)
Socialism must therefore grasp this idea of a "collective education and of
planned educational action" ( p . l l 6 ) . Socialism must not be:
imprisoned in the bourgeois educational conception whose structure is psychically and socially individualist and whose process consists in repeating and then
destroying the Oedipus situation, always within the confines and according to
the model of the family or pair group. (p. 116)
Bernfeld's emphasis on collective prognosis and mass educational planning,
and his apparent lack of interest in the individual child, strike a sour note to
modern ears. But Bernfeld w-as astute enough to change his mind. In one of his
last papers, delivered in 1952, Bernfeld inveighs against bureaucratic, authoritarian education. He argues for what he calls "student-centered" education.
Authoritarian education is to be opposed by a more "individualistic" system in
which bureaucracy does not overwhelm the individual. Here he has abandoned
"scientific pedagogy" operating on a mass basis. His concern is rather with individualizing and humanizing education. But twenty-seven years after Sisyphus,
Bernfeld is still attacking authoritarian education.
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Bernfeld offers some ideas about his notion of socialist education. He indicates some of the results from combining Freudianism and Marxism- for example he postulates different types of Oedipus complex and therefore different
family situations as foundational to different social systems. We have noted his
critique of the nuclear family system which under/ies capitalism and how it is
the nuclear family which is broken down in the kibbutz system. It is through
collective education that the child escapes "the ban of the Oedipus situation,"
so destructive under capitalist family structure. Bernfeld (1973) refers to the
"well-ordered child community" (p.118) in which the children "identify with
the teacher, their fellows, and the community." This describes both a school
like the Baumgarten Children's Home and a system like the kibbutz.
In the decade after the First World War, the existence of social oppression
and class differences in Europe became increasingly apparent. For a number
of analysts, Marxist theory as it then existed served to explain this state of affairs.
Clearly, psychoanalytic theory could not do so by itself. Freud, in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921c), did make some attempt to explain the structure of groups like the army and the church. But psychoanalysis
started with the individual, almost as a monad, and explained the individual's
interaction with others on the basis of the dynamics of drives conceived as
natural forces. At that time, psychoanalysis could not found an adequate social
theory. It probably could not do so today. Psychoanalysis simply has no way
of coping with such notions as class differences, social exploitation and domination, and the like. It can observe the results in individuals of some of the
renunciations demanded by society. It has no specific recommendations to make
for social change. It has no sociology.
Some analysts looked to Marxism to supply this social theory. Reich and
Bernfeld are the most noteworthy. Theoretically, psychoanalysis can supply
something lacking in traditional Marxist t h e o r y - an adequate notion of the
family as a group of psychodynamically melded people. Reich stressed the role
of the authoritarian compulsive family in maintaining capitalist society. Bernfeld similarly saw a need to dispense with the bourgeois nuclear family. In this
way, the intensity of the Oedipus complex was to be reduced, and early sexual
attachments to be made broader, and thus more social, in nature.

Strengths and Weaknesses

There are typical problems in Freudo-Marxist theories, and a/so typical strengths.
Bernfeld's theory exhibits both. The most common problem for a FreudoMarxist theory is the joining together of a drive-based psychology and an historically-based sociology. If the human species is self-formed in the labour
process within history, then how can drives as psychic forces a/so be said to
determine behaviour? Which theory is to have priority, Freud's or Marx's? Will
we end up with a sociology reduced to the sum of individual psychologies
(Freud's position, in fact)? There are a number of ways of coping with this
problem. Marcuse, for example, historicizes the instincts, thus placing them on
the same level as an historically-based sociology. Bernfeld attempts to handle
this problem by making Marxism the superordinate theory. He does not see the
problem of joining to Marx's historically-based sociology a psychology based on
what he saw as drives closely connected to natural f o r c e s - and, in principle,
measurable as such. This is because Freud and Marx were both afflicted with a
similar positivistic misunderstanding of their own theories. As Marx saw the
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human sciences as part of natural science, so Freud saw drives as forces with
a physical aspect, even though the psychology he developed rested ultimately
on a guided form of self-reflection. Bernfeld's theory reflects this confusion.
The typical strength of a Freudo-Marxist theory is that the two aspects
of it can mutually inform each other. This is the major merit of Bernfeld's
theory. Marxism supplies the social theory psychoanalysis lacks, psychoanalysis
supplies the psychology Marxism lacks, specifically ha the form of a psychodynamic understanding of the family group and its relation to society. A combination of the two theories provides a potentially more penetrating analysis of
numerous phenomena, education included, than either theory by itself.
There is one final question to be asked about Bernfeld. He was an educational pioneer as well as being one of the first Freudo-Marxists. Yet his work
has almost been forgotten (unlike Reich's work, some of which was simply
madness). It is almost as if Bernfeld had been repressed from social consciousness. Why?

Notes
The author would like to thank Rudolf Ekstein, Ph.D., for his many helpful suggestions and comments. Thanks are also due to Prof. Dieter Misgeld and Prof. Otto
Weininger for their encouragement and comments on earlier drafts of this paper,
and to Craig Chaudron and Walter Hoops for translations.
"Bernfeld was an Austrian Marxist who managed to combine Freudian orthodoxy
with active party work on the extreme left of the Austrian and German Social
Democrats" (Freedom or organization, 1970, p. 152).
2 "Bernfeld is art important figure because of his vast experience as a practical educator. He ran organizations of all sorts and sizes, from experimental schools to youth
dubs, from organizations for the care of delinquent children to left groups within
the traditional Jugendbewegung [Youth Movement]" (Freedom or organization,
1970, p.152).
z Bernfeld never relinquished the "hope that a strong Jewish state would emerge in
Palestine" (Paret in Bernfeld, 1973, p.xx).
4 To give a single example, Melanie Klein (1975) asserts that "there exist earlier
pregenital stages of the Oedipus complex in addition to the oedipal situation discovered by Freud" (13.437).
5 Compare Melanie Klein (1975). "Limits [to the child's educability] are set by the
child's complex-formations, particularly by his relationship to his father, which determines beforehand his attitude towards school and teacher" (p.76).
To quote just one example, Robin Fox (1967) in writing of the myth of the primal
horde says: "I shall argue, not that the myth is untrue, for such a criterion is not
really applicable to myths, but that it is not plausible - it does not resolve enough of
the problems that it seeks to cover" (p.164).
r See for example DeMause (1974). He writes that "infanticide of both legitimate
and illegitimate children was a regular practice of antiquity, that the killing of
legitimate children was only slowly reduced during the Middle Ages, and that illegitimate children continued regularly to be killed right up into the nineteenth century"
(p.25).
8 A further problem with the primal horde theory and the whole notion of puberty
rites as developed by Freud is discussed by Bettelheim (1962). His notion undercuts
the whole idea of puberty rites being based on the primal horde, and the attempt
to make male children submissive to the father. Traditional psychoanalytic theory
links circumcision to the (symbolic) castration of the sons. Bettelheim suggests
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rather that rites such as circumcision and subincision result from the envy that men
feel for the female's sexual organs and reproductive capacities. Puberty rites are thus
efforts by the males of the tribe to acquire (by subincision or circumcision) the female genitals, and also the reproductive powers of the woman. If this notion is valid,
then it casts doubt on Bernfeld's notions of the nature of puberty rites, and thus on
the relation of such rites to educational practices.
9 Another of Bernfeld's positivistic notions.
10 A more verbose way of making the same claim can be found in Hall et al. (1968).
"The clear-cut 'coming-of-age' rites of primitive societies are completely lacking in
Ontario culture, so that the end of childhood is not easily discerned by the parents
or by the child himself. Our modern society has placed increasing stress on the need
for longer educational experience, and in this way has left numbers of young adults
unproductive and financially dependent on their parents for many years. Further,
such relationships have often kept the adolescent in an early child-parent relationship
despite the fact that the threshold of adulthood has already been crossed" (p.41).
11 The early Marx (1964) views free productive activity as the essential nature of
humankind. He writes that "productive life is, however, species-life. It is life creating
life. In the type of life activity resides the whole character of the species, its speciescharacter; and free, conscious activity is the species-character of human beings"
(0.127).
12 Freud and Bernfeld remained on good terms until Freud's death. But Freud,
without specifically mentioning Bernfeld, criticizes the views he put forward: "It has
been s a i d - a n d no doubt j u s t l y - t h a t every education has a partisan aim, that it
endeavours to bring the child into line with the established order of society, without
considering how valuable or how stable that order may be in itself. If [,it is argued,]
one is convinced of the defects in our present social arrangements, education with a
psychoanalytic alignment cannot justifiably be put at their service as well; it must be
given another and higher aim, liberated from the prevailing demands of society. In
my opinion, however, this argument is out of place here. Such a demand goes
beyond the legitimate function of analysis . . . .
Psycho-analytic education wiU be
taking an uninvited responsibility on itself if it proposes to mould its pupils into
rebets . . . . It is even my opinion that revolutionary children are not desirable from
any point of view" (S.E., Vol.22, pp. 150-151).

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