6 ideas
Religious, nationalist and revolutionary movements draw on the same pool of frustrated people. What those people seek is the act of self-surrender, not any particular doctrine. That is why a fanatic can switch from communism to fascism, or from one faith to another, more easily than a moderate can be converted at all.
The frustrated person feels their individual existence is irredeemably spoiled. They want to be rid of the self, not to improve it. A mass movement lets them lose that failed identity by merging into a corporate whole, and this gives them a new identity, a sense of worth and freedom from personal responsibility.
Discontent is sharpest when things are improving and the gap between what exists and what seems within reach becomes visible. It is not sharpest when misery is total. People crushed by abject poverty are too absorbed in survival to rebel. Revolutions tend to break out when an oppressive regime begins to liberalize or when the newly poor and the ambitious see their hopes blocked.
Movements can rise and spread without belief in a God but never without belief in a devil. A concrete, vivid enemy unites followers more reliably than any positive program. Hating a common foe also discharges each follower's own guilt and self-contempt onto an outside target.
Movements pass through three phases, each run by a different type of leader. Intellectual 'men of words' discredit the existing order and prepare the ground. Fanatics then seize the moment and drive the active upheaval. Finally, practical men of action consolidate the gains into institutions, which ends the movement's dynamic phase.
A movement's doctrine binds followers because it is certain and cannot be verified or understood, not because it is convincing. Belief placed beyond evidence cannot be refuted by facts. The true believer is trained to shut out any reality that contradicts the doctrine, and the effectiveness of a doctrine therefore depends on its certitude rather than its meaning.