There are parallels between three movements which blossomed during the first decades of the 20th century: Marxism, Zionism and psychoanalysis. Utopian elements were present in all three, expressing a deep commitment to improving human life, but also aspects of denial and illusion which contributed to more complex results than initially expected. Rescue fantasies played a role in these movements, leading to omnipotence, self-idealization and demonization of a guilty party. The kibbutz movement in Israel was influenced by all three, and its communal childrearing system proved to be flawed. Dangers of rigidity and dogmatism in psychoanalysis are related to this background.
Key words: authoritarianism, communist ethos, false analytic self, infantilization, Middle East, New Person fantasy, pacifism, peer group, primal scene, „Vertigo”.