Totalitarianism Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Totalitarianism is an ideal that, in practice, applies to any regime that promotes total control of a people in pursuit of the ideological goals of the leadership. Totalitarian rulers seek control through the elimination or co-optation of independent business groups, labor unions, religious bodies, educational institutions, and challengers to the regime, such as legislators from competing political parties or an independent judiciary.

Totalitarianism is a twentieth-century phenomenon. Notable totalitarian regimes include Italy under Benito Mussolini (1922–1943), Germany under Adolph Hitler (1933–1945), and the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin (1922–1953). Mussolini applied the term to his own regime, and Hannah Arendt (1951) used it to show parallels between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Origins of the concept may be traced to Aristotle’s normative distinction in Politics between good and bad forms of government. However, the characteristics of this distinction also yield empirical attributes. Good governments were those ruled in the public interest—of all those governed. All classes were represented, and law was supreme. Bad governments were administered in the private interest of the ruler or ruling class, and the will of the ruler was supreme.

Aristotle identified six major forms of government, two of which involved the rule of many: polity, the good form, and its bad counterpart, democracy. In the seventeenth century, polity began its evolution into constitutional democracy, which is democratic because voters choose representatives in competitive elections and constitutional because government power is limited and the rights of individuals and groups are protected by law. A met ideology of the center, it includes liberalism, conservatism, and democratic socialism. Aristotle’s notion of democracy developed into what Jacob L. Talmon (1952) termed totalitarian democracy, a met ideology of the extremes that includes orthodox communism on the left and fascism on the right. It arose to secure goals that constitutional democracy could not: the articulation of the true will of all the people, which is expressed in utopian economic and social goals, rather than the “merely formal” political and legal goals of constitutional democracy. A totalitarian democracy is democratic because its governments claim to rule in the real interest of many, even while barring competitive elections, and it is totalitarian because an elite minority, which allows no rights against the regime’s interests, controls government.

Some key characteristics of totalitarian democracy are

An ideology that promises a final solution to the problems of modernity by instituting a radical and revolutionary new order. It promotes a messianic civil religion that projects a utopian future of a united and happy multitude, based on the total reshaping of people and society. It also evinces relentless hostility to constitutional democracy in any of its permutations. Individual freedoms, rule of law, and open and competitive elections are anathema; ideology requires conformity, atomization of the masses, and unlimited regulation of everyday behavior.
A monopoly of violence, including control of the military and a terror system centered on secret police organizations that engage in widespread surveillance and punishment of suspected opponents.
State cooptation and control—collaboratively if possible, violently if necessary—of the economy, including raw materials and finished goods, business, and labor.
An elite one-party system tasked to staff the state’s bureaucracy.
State monopoly of information and communication to promote propaganda in support of the regime and to minimize vocal opposition.
A charismatic, almost divine leader as the focus of a cult of invincibility, designed to make the leader invulnerable to opposition or criticism.
Imperialist conquest as necessary to achieve utopian goals.

Totalitarianism of the right, or fascism, differs significantly from orthodox communism of the left. The right limits citizenship to males of one nation, race, or religion. It is reactionary, maintaining a traditional class structure, permanent ruling elite, and mythic past. It permits regulated private ownership and enterprise.

Totalitarianism of the left is universalist and revolutionary. It looks to the future, and all are welcome to join the crusade, regardless of race, religion, or gender. Major goals include the abolition of private property, religion, and classes in favor of the full economic and social equality of all members. In the society of the future, the state will disappear along with its oppressive, coercive organs, which are merely temporary means to a utopian end.

Bibliography:

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951.
Armstrong, John A. The Politics of Totalitarianism. New York: Random House, 1961.
Friedrich, Carl J., and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1956.
Friedrich, Carl J., Michael Curtis, and Benjamin Barber, eds. Totalitarianism in Perspective:Three Views. New York: Praeger, 1969.
Gleason, Abbot. Totalitarianism:The Inner History of the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943.
Mussolini, Benito. Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions. Rome: Ardita, 1935.
Neumann, Sigmund. Permanent Revolution: Totalitarianism in the Age of International Civil War. New York: Praeger, 1965.
Stalin, Joseph V. The Foundations of Leninism. Moscow: 1924.
Talmon, Jacob Leib. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. London: Secker and Warburg, 1952.

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