Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a
typology employed by
political scientists, especially those in the field of
comparative politics, to describe modern
regimes in which the
state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.
The most influential scholars of totalitarianism, such as
Karl Popper,
Hannah Arendt,
Carl Friedrich,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, 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 offical state
ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, such as involvement with
labour unions,
churches or
political parties. Totalitarian regimes maintain themselves in
political power by means of
secret police,
propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled
mass media, regulation and restriction of
free discussion and criticism, the use of
mass surveillance, and widespread use of
terror tactics.
Critics of the concept say that the term lacks explanatory power. They argue that governments which may be classified as totalitarian often lack characteristics said to be associated with the term. They may not be as monolithic as they appear from the outside, if they incorporate several groups, such as the army, political leaders, industrialists, which compete for power and influence. In this sense, these regimes may exhibit
pluralism through the involvement of several groups in the political process.
[Peter Burnham "Totalitarianism" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.]The term, employed in the writings of the philosopher
Giovanni Gentile, was popularized in the
20th century by the
Italian fascists under
Benito Mussolini. The original meaning of the word as described by Mussolini and Gentile, was a society in which the main ideology of the state had influence, if not power, over most of its citizens. According to them, thanks to modern technologies like radio and the printing press, which the state could and probably would use to spread its ideology, most modern nations would naturally become totalitarian in the above stated sense.
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.
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).
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
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 the
World War I, at which point the sophistication of modern weapons and communications enabled totalitarian movements to consolidate power in
Italy,
Germany, and
Russia.
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 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 do not 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 many commentators, such as Linz and
Alfred Stepan, the Soviet Union entered a new phase after the abandonment of mass terror on 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 later the total and sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, demonstrated that the totalitarian model had little explanatory value for researchers. Several decades earlier, for example,
Bertram Wolfe in
1957 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.
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
1978 essay for
Commentary, "Dictatorships and Double Standards" (later expanded upon),
Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that a number of foreign policy implications can be drawn by distinguishing "totalitarian" regimes from "
authoritarian" ones. According to Kirkpatrick, authoritarian regimes are primarily interested in their own survival, and as such have allowed for varying degrees of
autonomy 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 authoritarian 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."
*
Hannah Arendt,
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1958, new ed. 1966)
*
Carl Friedrich and
Z. K. Brzezinski,
Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (2d ed. 1967)
*
Jeane Kirkpatrick,
Dictatorships and Double Standards: Rationalism and reason in politics (1982)
* Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan,
Problems of Democratic Consolidation (1996)
*
J. L. Talmon,
The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, (1952)
* John A. Armstrong,
The Politics of Totalitarianism (New York: Random House, 1961)
*
Colonialism*
Authoritarianism*
Ethnocide*
Police state*
Single-party state*
Typology
