Sergei Chakhotin

Sergei Stepanovich Chakhotin (13 September 1883, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire - 24 December 1973, Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union) was a German biologist, sociologist and social activist of Russian origin. He was one of the first thinkers to describe the effect of propaganda on the psychology of masses and warned against the techniques used by the Nazi Party. He was a member of the German Social Democratic Party, which declined to use the counter-measures he proposed. He was friends with Einstein and Pavlov, and based part of his work on the psychological theories of the latter. Chakhotin designed the Antifascist Circle, the symbol of the Iron Front.

Translated Works

The rape of the masses; the psychology of totalitarian political propaganda, translated by E. W. Dickes, New York, Alliance Book Corp., [1940].