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Traces emerging conceptions of authoritarianism, their transformation, and their fate through the recent history of social psychology. The issue was first formulated by W. Reich (1933 (1946)) in an attempt to combine Freudian and Marxist ideas into an explanation of political developments in Germany. E. FROMM pursued the idea further in the analysis of a questionnaire study of German workers and in his 1941 book Escape from Freedom. Subsequent work by the Frankfurt Institute merged with research at Berkeley and produced The Authoritarian Personality by T. W. Adorno et al. (1950). Initially received enthusiastically, the theory gradually succumbed under the impact of attempts to redirect its political impact and to drain its political meaning. This series of transformations in changing historical contexts points to the need for a better historical understanding of social psychology.