Everything about Totalitarian totally explained
Totalitarianism (or
totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe
political systems where a
state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life. The term is usually applied to
Fascist Italy,
Nazi Germany or hard-line
communist regimes, such as
Stalinist Russia,
Democratic Kampuchea or
North Korea. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in
political power by means of an official all-embracing
ideology and
propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled
mass media,
a single party that controls the state,
personality cults, central state-controlled economy, regulation and
restriction of
free discussion and criticism, the use of
mass surveillance, and widespread use of
terror tactics.
Etymology
The notion of
Totalitarianism as "total" political power by state was formulated in
1923 by
Giovanni Amendola who criticized
Italian fascism as a system fundamentally different from conventional dictatorships . The term was later assigned a positive meaning in the writings of
Giovanni Gentile and
Benito Mussolini. They described totalitarianism as a society in which the ideology of the state had influence, if not power, over most of its citizens. . According to Mussolini, this system politicizes everything spiritual and human
Some political scientists, especially those in the field of
comparative politics, have applied the term "
totalitarian" to modern
regimes which do this.
There is significant controversy over the terms
totalitarian and
totalitarianism, as well as the concepts themselves (see below).
Influential scholars such as
Lawrence Aronsen,
Karl Popper,
Hannah Arendt,
Carl Friedrich, and
Juan Linz have each described totalitarianism in a slightly different way. Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the official state
ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, entailing repression or state control of
business,
labour unions,
churches or
political parties.
Examples of the term's use
While originally referring to an 'all-embracing, total state,' the label has been applied to a wide variety of regimes and orders of rule in a critical sense.
Isabel Paterson, in
The God of the Machine (1943) used the term in connection with the
collectivist societies of
Nazi Germany and the
Soviet Union.
Karl Popper, in
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and
The Poverty of Historicism (1961) developed an influential critique of totalitarianism: in both works, he contrasted the "open society" of
liberal democracy with totalitarianism, and argued that the latter is grounded in the belief that history moves toward an immutable future, in accord with knowable laws. During the
Cold War period, the term gained renewed currency, especially following the publication of
Hannah Arendt's
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). Arendt argued that
Nazi and
Stalinist regimes were completely new forms of government, and not merely updated versions of the old
tyrannies. According to Arendt, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes was their ideology which provided a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future. For
Nazism, all history is the history of racial struggle; and, for
Marxism, all history is the history of
class struggle. Once that premise was accepted by the public, all actions of the regime could be justified by appeal to the Law of History or Nature.
Cold War-era research
The political scientists
Carl Friedrich and
Zbigniew Brzezinski were primarily responsible for expanding the usage of the term in university social science and professional research, reformulating it as a paradigm for the communist
Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin as well as
fascist regimes. For Friedrich and Brzezinski, the defining elements were intended to be taken as a mutually supportive organic entity comprised of the following: an elaborating guiding ideology;
a single mass party, typically led by a
dictator; a system of terror; a monopoly of the means of communication and physical force; and central direction and control of the economy through
state planning. Such regimes had initial origins in the chaos that followed in the wake of
World War I, at which point the sophistication of modern weapons and communications enabled totalitarian movements to consolidate power in
Italy,
Germany, and
Russia.
Eric Hoffer in his book
The True Believer argues that mass movements like
Communism, Fascism and Nazism had a common trait in picturing Western democracies and their values as decadent, with people "too soft, too pleasure-loving and too selfish" to sacrifice for a higher cause, which for them implies an inner moral and biological decay. He further claims that those movements offered the prospect of a glorious, yet imaginary, future to frustrated people, enabling them to find a refuge from the lack of personal accomplishments in their individual existence. Individual is then assimilated into a compact collective body and "fact-proof screens from reality" are established.
Criticism and recent work with the concept
In the
social sciences, the approach of Friedrich and Brzezinski came under criticism from scholars who argued that the Soviet system, both as a political and as a social entity, was in fact better understood in terms of
interest groups, competing elites, or even in
class terms (using the concept of the
nomenklatura as a vehicle for a new ruling class). These critics pointed to evidence of popular support for the regime and widespread dispersion of power, at least in the implementation of policy, among sectoral and regional authorities. For some followers of this 'pluralist' approach, this was evidence of the ability of the regime to adapt to include new demands. However, proponents of the totalitarian model claimed that the failure of the system to survive showed not only its inability to adapt but the mere formality of supposed popular participation. Its proponents don't agree on when the Soviet Union ceased to be describable as totalitarian.
The notion of "post-totalitarianism" was put forward by political scientist
Juan Linz . For certain commentators, such as Linz and
Alfred Stepan, the Soviet Union entered a new phase after the abandonment of mass terror upon Stalin's death. Discussion of "post-totalitarianism" featured prominently in debates about the reformability and durability of the Soviet system in
comparative politics.
As the Soviet system disintegrated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, opponents of the concept claimed that the transformation of the Soviet Union under
Mikhail Gorbachev, and its subsequent sudden collapse, demonstrated that the totalitarian model had little explanatory value for researchers. Several decades earlier, for example, in 1957,
Bertram Wolfe claimed that the Soviet Union faced no challenge or change possible from society at large. He called it a "solid and durable political system dominating a society that has been totally fragmented or atomized," one which will remain "barring explosion from within or battering down from without." Many classic theories of totalitarianism discounted the possibility of such change; however, later theorists not only acknowledged the possibility but in fact encouraged and welcomed it. Any suggestions of the indefinite stability of states labeled totalitarian among proponents of the term were largely discredited when the Soviet Union fell by the wayside.
In recent work,
Slovenen philosopher and critic
Slavoj Žižek has aimed at the concept of totalitarianism itself, claiming that its political usage is purely ideologically-driven. In his collection of five essays "Did somebody say Totalitarianism?", Žižek rethinks the usage of this notion and suggests that it functions as a "tamer of free radicals". In other words, to those political processes that we can't explain or understand from within the logic of
liberal democracy, we simply disregard by tagging them as totalitarian.
Political usage
While the term fell into disuse during the 1970s among many Soviet specialists, other commentators found the typology not only useful for the purposes of classification but for guiding official policy. In her 1979 essay for
Commentary, "
Dictatorships and Double Standards",
Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that a number of foreign policy implications can be drawn by distinguishing "totalitarian" regimes from
autocracies in general. According to Kirkpatrick, typical autocracies are primarily interested in their own survival, and as such have allowed for varying degrees of regarding elements of
civil society,
religious institutions, court, and
the press. On the other hand, under totalitarianism, no individual or institution is autonomous from the state's all-encompassing ideology. Therefore, U.S. policy should distinguish between the two and even grant support, if temporary, to non-totalitarian autocratic governments in order to combat totalitarian movements and promote U.S. interests. Kirkpatrick's influence, particularly as foreign policy adviser and
United Nations ambassador, was essential to the formation of the
Reagan administration's foreign policy and her ideas came to be known as the "
Kirkpatrick Doctrine."
Communism and Fascism
Adolf Hitler admitted that he'd "learned a great deal from
Marxism". He conceded that
» "The whole of
National Socialism is based on it. Look at the workers' sports clubs, the industrial cells, the mass demonstrations, the propaganda leaflets written specifically for the comprehension of the masses; all these methods of political struggle are essentially
Marxist in origin. All I'd to do is take over these methods and adopt them for our purpose... National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with a democratic order".
The term "
Totalitarian Twins" was used by
François Furet to link
Communism
and
Fascism.
Gary M. Grobman wrote:
- Totalitarian regimes, in contrast to a dictatorship, establish complete political, social, and cultural control over their subjects, and are usually headed by a charismatic leader. Fascism is a form of right-wing totalitarianism which emphasizes the subordination of the individual to advance the interests of the state. (External Link
)
Michael Parenti both acknowledged and criticized the linkage:
Both the Italian fascists and the Nazis consciously tried to imitate the left: youth organizations, mass mobilizations, rallies, parades, banners, symbols, slogans, uniforms. And I think for this reason, too, many mainstream writers treat fascism and communism as totalitarian twins. But most workers and peasants could tell the difference. Industrialists and bankers could tell the difference. And certainly the communists and the fascists could tell the difference. (External Link)
Daniel Singer wrote:
Central to Furet's argument is the belief that in a Europe shaken by World War I, Communism and Fascism were propping each other up. ... The Nazi-Soviet pact is for him perfect proof of complicity between the two systems.
While the totalitarian nature of Stalin's Russia is undeniable, I find the thesis of "totalitarian twins" both wrong and unproductive. ("Exploiting a Tragedy, or Le Rouge en Noir")Further Information
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