Totalitarianism
From Wikinfo
Totalitarianism is a system of goverment characterized by extensive control of events backed by force. It can be differentiated from authoritarianism both by degree of control and use of force and by the nature of the organization necessary to effect totalitarian control. For example a voluntary organization, such as a religious denomination such as the Roman Catholic Church may be authoritarian but in the absence of governmental authority necessary to enforce sanctions is not totalitarian, expulsion from the organization being ordinarily its most extreme sanction.
A totalitarian regime is generally controlled by a political party such as the Nazi Party or a communist party which in turn is controled by a small group such as a politburo or central committee which is often dominated by a single individual, the dictator. Rulers of a totalitarian state may have the support of the majority of the population, perhaps the case of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, or of a substantial minority as was probably the case in the Soviet Union. However, even in the case where majority political support may exist elections are not generally held.
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Origin of concept
Benito Mussolini originally applied the term to his own regime (1922–1943) in Italy; Italian fascism became fully totalitarian by 1940. Leon Trotsky applied the term to both fascism and stalinism as "symmetrical phenomena" in his 1936 book Revolution Betrayed. Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) popularized the use of the term totalitarianism (notably in her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism) in order to illustrate the commonalities between Nazism and Stalinism
Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union and Adolf Hitler's Germany are widely considered to be the two best examples of totalitarian regimes. A contemporary example is North Korea; certain religious fundamentalist regimes, such as that found in Iran, are also sometimes described as totalitarian. In fiction, the Big Brother regime described in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is considered to be a quintessential example of totalitarianism.
Most political scientists believe totalitarian regimes were rare before the 20th century because neither technological means nor ideological justifications existed for controlling large numbers of people. The Qin Dynasty is perhaps a rare example of a possible pre-modern totalitarian state.
Today, however, television, radio, and other mass media make it relatively easy for totalitarian regimes to make their presence felt, often through campaigns of propaganda or the creation of a vast personality cult.
The terms totalitarian democracy and totalitarian republic have also been used to classify a different style of totalitarian rule. In these regimes, the government is generally popular (at least at the beginning), and the ideological justification of the state comes on behalf of the people. Hitler's democratically-elected regime of Nazi totalitarianism is often used as an example of a totalitarian democracy.
In political philosophies such as libertarianism, totalitarianism is regarded as the most extreme form of statism. However, other political philosophers disagree with this analysis as it implies that totalitarianism can come into being through a slow and gradual increase from an operational government, while totalitarian regimes almost uniformly come into being as a result of a revolution which replaces what is generally regarded as an ineffective government.
It has been argued that totalitarianism requires a cult of personality around a charismatic "great leader" who is glorified as the legitimator of the regime. Many totalitarian societies fit this model - for example, those of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot, and Kim Il-Sung. This is one of the reasons some scholars were reluctant to consider the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union and most of the Warsaw Pact nations totalitarian. When those governments fell, however, the majority of the populations and intellectuals of the countries argued that what they had experienced was indeed totalitarianism. This has made more popular the belief that a charismatic leader is a frequent but not a necessary characteristic of totalitarianism.
As you look back in history to despotic regimes of ancient times, to the Persian Empire, Rome and the Qin Dynasty of China; to the monarchies and church of the Europeian middle ages; then to the fascist and communist regimes of the twentieth century; and finally to emerging political movements such as the Taliban and Al-Qaida you can see that the nature of such regimes changes over time and present problems in the application of appropriate terminology to describe them.
Totalitarianism is any political system in which a citizen is totally subject to a governing authority in all aspects of day-to-day life. It goes well beyond dictatorship or typical police state measurers, and even beyond those measures required to sustain total war between states. It involves constant indoctrination achieved by propaganda to erase any potential for dissent, by anyone, including most especially the agents of government.
Political scientists generally see totalitarianism as the extreme form of dictatorship.
Totalitarian regimes
Historically, totalitarian regimes have generally surpassed authoritarian ones in size and in power. State control of all television, radio, and every other mass media makes it relatively easy for totalitarian regimes to make their presence felt, often through campaigns of propaganda or the creation of a vast personality cult.
Characteristics of the Soviet Union
Political system
Single party rule, combined with democratic centralism, which, in practice, consisted of a heirarchical structure which with the aid of a secret police organization enforced decisions made by a small group of leaders on members of the ruling party as well on the personnel of all governmental institutions, including the courts, the press, cultural and economic organizations and labor unions.
Economic system
All property and economic organizations were owned and controlled by the state which administered them according to plans developed by a central planning bureaucracy. Economic planners focused on development of heavy industry and defense industries. Consumer goods had a low priority. Imports were strictly controlled especially in the area of consumer goods and food.
Legal system
A large secret police organization monitored public activities closely; substantial efforts were made to discover expressions of dissent especially by government employees and Communist Party members and their families using a network of informers. Control over overt expressions of dissent was achieved through imprisonment, committment to mental hospitals, and especially during establishment of the regime by death. During the first decades of the regime an extensive system of labor camps was maintained, the Gulag. The judicial system was controlled by the Party. Travel was tightly controlled with borders closed to both entrance or exit.
Ideology
Education and political discourse proceeded on the assumption that it was possible to mould people using collectivist institutional forms into an ideal Soviet man or woman. The validity of ideas, public discourse, and institutional form were evaluated in terms of the official ideology of Marxism-Leninism as interpreted by the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Russian domination
Despite the formal organization of the Soviet Union as a federation of republics, control was highly centralized in central institutions dominated by Russians. Russian language and culture predominated in education and public discourse. Nationalities which resisted were subject to repression which in the early years of the regime included mass imprisonment and deportation.
Control of information
All publications and electronic media were censored, use of copying machines was rigidly controlled, imports of written material tightly controlled, foreign electonic media jammed. Access to government documents and press archives was strictly limited.
Foreign affairs
The regime maintained close relationships on a world wide basis with revolutionary parties continuing support for an international movement to supplant capitalism with communism. It saw itself as subject to attack by developed capitalist countries and maintained massive defensive forces over many decades in anticipation of war.
Problems of Identification and Distinction: Stalinism, Nazism and Totalitarianism
Both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany came into conflict with the "free world", either directly and violently (World War 2), or indirectly (the Cold War). Allied forces led by the Soviet Union and the United States (amongst others) liberated Germany on V-E Day. Arendt, in particular, draws parallels between fascism and Stalinism.
Since the fall of the Nazi regime in Germany, many other theorists in the United States and Western Europe have argued that similarities exist between the government of Nazi Germany and that of Stalin's Soviet Union. In most cases, this has not taken the form of emphasising the perceived "socialism" of the National Socialists (Nazis) — mainly because this "socialism" appeared chiefly in Nazi propaganda and did not make any significant appearance in mature Nazi theory or practice — but of arguing that both Nazism and Stalinism represent forms of totalitarianism.
Historians such as Ian Kershaw, Hans Mommsen, and Joachim Fest argue that the origins of the Nazi Party lie in the far-right nationalist and racist movements that existed in Germany in the post-World War I period as well as in older movements such as the Thule Society. Hitler, Goebbels and the Nazi ideologues consistently rejected any and all of the traditions of nineteenth and early twentieth century German socialism as articulated by Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl Kautsky, August Bebel and others. Rather, such historians agree that the intellectuals to whom the Nazis looked from the beginning (whether Nietzsche or Houston Stewart Chamberlain) stood consistently to the right of centre, implying that the intellectual origins of Nazism lie in right-wing nationalist and racist thought, not in the socialist tradition.
Further, the cultural and political traditions the Nazis celebrated did not belong to the socialist tradition. Hitler and the Nazis revered the nationalist operas of Wagner, particularly The Ring Cycle, and found heroes in history such as Frederick the Great or the Teutonic Knights. Conversely, the Nazis rejected and even reviled socialist cultural and historical traditions such as the celebration of the French Revolution and the 1848 Revolutions or the lore of workers' struggles in momentous strikes and protests. The Nazis condemned and rejected the eighteenth and nineteenth century revolutionary movements and blamed these events for destroying traditional values and social relations. They also saw these revolutions as part of a Jewish conspiracy, since those revolutions resulted (inter alia) in the emancipation of the Jews.
The hierarchical nature of the anti-modern corporatism espoused by Nazism and other forms of fascism contrasts directly with the egalitarianism espoused by most forms of socialism. Kershaw argues that the Nazis opposed egalitarianism, had an elitist view of society and asserted that in competition amongst citizens the superior individual would emerge on top.
Much of this debate ultimately revolves around the question of the meaning of the term socialism, making argument on the subject frequently as much about semantics as about actual substantive differences.
Theories of totalitarianism
The relationship between totalitarianism and authoritarianism also remains controversial: some see totalitarianism as an extreme form of authoritarianism, while others argue that they differ completely.
Some political analysts, notably neo-conservatives such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, have studied the various distinctions between totalitarianism and authoritarianism. They argue that while both types of governments can behave extremely brutally to political opponents, in an authoritarian government the government's efforts focus mostly on those classified as political opponents, and the government has neither the will nor, often, the means to control every aspect of an individual's life. In a totalitarian system, the ruling ideology requires that every aspect of an individual's life become subordinated to the state, including occupation, income, and religion. Personal survival links to the regime's survival, and thus the concepts of "the state" and "the people" become merged. This is also called the carceral state — like a prison.
Political theories such as libertarianism regard totalitarianism as the most extreme form of statism. However, other political philosophers disagree with this analysis as it implies that totalitarianism can develop through a slow and gradual increase from an operational government, while totalitarian regimes almost uniformly come about as a result of a revolution which replaces a government generally regarded as ineffective.
Some analysts have argued that totalitarianism requires a cult of personality around a charismatic "great leader" glorified as the legitimator of the regime. Many totalitarian societies fit this model — for example, those of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and Kim Il-Sung. Partially for this reason, some scholars do not consider the post-Stalin Soviet Union and most of the Warsaw Pact nations as totalitarian. When those governments fell, however, many intellectuals and average citizens of the countries argued that they had indeed experienced totalitarianism. This has made more popular the belief that totalitarianism frequently features a charismatic leader but does not require one.
Validity of the theory of totalitarianism
A theory of totalitarianism (or rather, several such theories) was developed by historians and political scientists in democratic countries during the second half of the 20th century. The theory appeared solid until the 1980s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union overturned many established ideas about "totalitarianism". Although there is little doubt that theories of totalitarianism have shaped and continue to shape U.S. foreign policy and journalistic discussion, the actual predictive value of totalitarianism as a theory is disputable.
The collapse of the Soviet bloc tested numerous aspects of the theory of totalitarianism. Many decades earlier, in 1957, theorist Bertram Wolfe claimed that Soviet society had all power flowing to the top with 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."
Most classic theories of totalitarianism left out even the possibility of an explosion from within as mentioned by Bertram Wolfe. These were largely discredited when the Soviet Union fell completely without an invasion from outside.
See also: Gleichschaltung, Stalinism, communism, fascism, single-party state and Marxist-Leninist dictatorship
Further Reading
- Abbott Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, Oxford University Press, 1997, hardcover, ISBN 0195050177; trade paperback, 1997, 320 pages, ISBN 0195050185
References
- Some material has been adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Totalitarianism" http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
