Totalitarianism 1

Fabio Capano June 15, 2008

TOTALITARIANISM IN TWENTIETH CENTURY EUROPE

Labelled as a fictitious Cold War concept, totalitarianism has lost its former status as a

modern ideology. I argue that despite its use as a synthesizing Cold War tool, totalitarianism

remains central to our understanding of two important historical experiences and modern

governmental systems: Nazism and Stalinist Communism.

Totalitarianism became the unifying concept of the ideological struggle of the Cold War. As

stated by Gleason, “by 1947, it may be said to have entered into its golden age with the

proclamation of the Truman Doctrine, in which the term played an essential role in linking

America‟s former Soviet allies with Nazi Germany”1. Also, as noted by John Lewis Gaddis, “the

long telegram had the great influence that it did because it provided a way to fuse concerns about

totalitarianism and communism in dealing with the Soviet Union”2.

The intensity of the Cold War propaganda resulted in weakening an objective discussion of

the term. In doing so, totalitarianism was used to rhetorically depict the reality of the non

democratic world and stress the natural goodness of democracy. This rhetorical use contributed to

underpin the spread of democracy in the struggle against the “Evil‟s Empire”, and conferred to

democracy a specific sense of Messianism. The human happiness was strictly anchored to its

worldwide affirmation.

I analyze totalitarianism by adopting a historiographical approach. I assert that totalitarian

governments strove to forge a new classless society based on foundations of Darwinist or Marxist

interpretation of history. Race or class struggle directed the goals of this system, in particular the

creation of a new society centered on the proletarian class or a Master Aryan race. Totalitarian

ideologies became undisputed political creeds and promoted popular mobilization to justify

1
Abbott Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995), 61
2
Ibidem, p.75
 Totalitarianism 2

domestic and external repression of dissent. I study the main past and contemporary

historiographical works about totalitarianism and compare their main interpretations.

Hannah Arendt‟s Origins of Totalitarianism has been considered one of the literary feat on

the idea of totalitarianism. Arendt approaches totalitarianism by stressing the difference between

tyrannies and totalitarian forms of government3. She emphasizes the importance of the personality

cult as well as of terror to understand the totalitarian phenomenon. In particular, Arendt studies the

roots of totalitarianism by focusing on anti-Semitism as well as Imperialism yet she is unable to

fully explain the congruity between both issues and totalitarianism. As Domenico Losurdo points

out, Arendt‟s interpretation is undermined by a structural problem of coexistence between French

anti-Semitism, British Imperialism, and totalitarianism4. Moreover, Arendt fails to persuade the

reader about affinity or even influence between the European anti-Semitism and Imperialism in

regards to the Soviet totalitarianism.

Arendt analyzes the European anti-Semitism by inferring a causal relation between the

decline of the nation-state and the growth of anti-Semitism in the late nineteenth century Europe.

She argues that Jews‟ privileged position in the expansionist state of the eighteenth century

prevented them from assimilation in their respective social contexts. The European bourgeoisie and

promoted imperialist policies that badly collapsed after the First World War. In this context, Jews

became the object of hatred because of their useless wealth5. Arendt emphasizes how the reasons

underpinning anti-Semitism changed according to the national context. In Germany anti-Semitism

rested on nationalist feelings whereas in France it was based on the traditional vision of Jewish

bankers as agents of the aristocracy. In regards to the growing popular expectations for social

equality the privileged position of the Jews was perceived with resentment and discriminatory

feelings. As stated by Arendt, in the imperialist Great Britain “the cry of a secret alliance between

3
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.,1973), xxvii
4
Domenico Losurdo, 2004. Towards a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism. Historical Materialism 12 (2): 33
5
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.15
 Totalitarianism 3

the Jewish capitalist and the Jewish socialist was already anticipated”6. Anti-Semitic movements

emphasized the Jewish-Communist alliance to destroy Christendom. The Dreyfus Affair

exemplified popular suspicion toward the state apparatus and was proof of the wide anti-Semitism.

As stated above anti-Semitism was a European rather than German phenomenon. Arendt

asserts that anti-Semitism combined with imperialism and resulted in totalitarianism. In contrast,

Losurdo emphasizes how Popper interpreted totalitarianism not as a product of the modern age but

rather “as old or just as young as our civilization itself”7.

Arendt claims that imperialism rested on the state expansion of the nineteenth century as

well as the elites‟ desire to extend sovereignty outside the territorial boarders. After the seizure of

power, the bourgeoisie pursued its economic interests by employing political action and violence

against degraded alien people. Arendt argues that mob and bourgeois ambitions merged in

popular mobilization and the European race thinking further expanded. Race thinking denied

principles of equality and solidarity and combined with the elitist view of a Master race (Aryans)

which goal was to save civilization from the decadence of the post aristocratic order. I argue that

anti-Semitism and imperialism were essential preconditions for the affirmation of the Nazi

totalitarianism. As Nolte stated, the Nazi background rested on the race doctrine which was

formulated by Gobineau, Vacher de Lapouge, and Chamberlain8. Arendt clearly points out how

pan-Germanism played a pivotal role to promote a tribal nationalism which core was the feeling of

encirclement and fear of the Jew; however, in regards to the relation between pan-Slavism and

Communist totalitarianism her explanation is untenable. Arendt asserts that nationalism became the

cement of the nation and combined with an undisputed faith in the idea of scientific progress. The

6
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.77
7
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.28
8
Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, (New York: International Thomson Publishing, 1966), 354.
 Totalitarianism 4

human catastrophe of WWI contributed to the crisis of the ideal of citizenship and the identification

between rights of men and peoples became unenforceable9. .

Arendt studies the essence of the totalitarian phenomenon by stressing the commonality

between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Losurdo strongly criticizes Arendt and argues that

“Arendt‟s book is actually made up of two different layers, which were written during two different

periods, and are separated by the momentous constituted by the outbreak of the Cold War”10.

Even though Losurdo‟s criticism appears sensible, Arendt correctly points out that both

regimes aimed to build up a classless society. They profited of the modern parliamentary crisis and

attempted to rule society from within through a process of social indoctrination. In the inherent

dynamism of the movement Arendt finds the characterizing trait of totalitarianism11. In particular,

Arendt emphasizes the element of terror as the cornerstone of the totalitarian regime yet the

excessive attention she pays to violence ends to minimize other important criteria.

Despite this, Arendt emphasizes how totalitarianism was anchored to both the Nazi and

Communist determinism to respectively follow the laws of nature and historical materialism12. As

Losurdo correctly points out, Arendt‟s accusation against Marx are hardly justified. Despite this, I

argue that Losurdo is wrong in affirming that “it is unclear the association… between Bolshevism

and Nazism” because it was Lenin, not Stalin, who founded the Bolshevik Party13. As stated by

Franz Borkenau, the Bolshevik Party formulated a well dogmatic set of ideals which required

constant elimination of any quarrel about the transition toward socialism14. Stalin pursued his idea

of building socialism by employing Leninist means and structures. As stated by Zbigniew

9
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.293
10
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.31
11
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.323
12
Ibidem, p.346
13
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.36
14
Franz Borkenau, The Totalitarian Enemy, (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1940),228
 Totalitarianism 5

Brzezinski “the most enduring achievements of Leninism were the dogmatization of the party”

which resulted in paving the way and offering the concrete means to Stalin‟s rule15. Even though

the debate about continuity or discontinuity in Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism is an open issue,

Losurdo is right to point out discontinuity between Marxism and totalitarianism yet to exempt

Bolshevism from Stalinism appears historically misleading.

Arendt points out how in both regimes the state became a means to fulfill the will of the

leader who was endowed with the myth of infallibility and the monopoly of responsibility. To

promote popular support, both regimes aimed to mobilize people around the lie of the Jewish

conspiracy or capitalist encirclement. Arendt stresses the role of the concentration camps within the

totalitarian regime as “special laboratories to carry through its experiment in total domination”16.

In particular Arendt claims that the totalitarian state is a dual structure with a lawlessness system

and without a hierarchical organization17.

Arch Getty argues that this feature of the Soviet system makes untenable the idea of

totalitarianism. According to this author, the Bolshevik Party represented a confused and chaotic

administration. As a consequence, “the technical and technological sophistication that separates

totalitarianism from dictatorship was lacking in the thirties”18. In contrast, Arendt argues that this

disordered state exemplifies the crucial difference between totalitarian and authoritarian state. The

former aims to abolish freedom and human spontaneity and therefore between leader and people

intermediate layers of authority cannot exist. In contrast, authoritarian systems aim to restrict

freedom. This assumption seems to find further evidence in the works of Leonard Schapiro and

Franz Neumann. As Schapiro argues, “the state, with its rules and established order and

institutions is as much the victim of the totalitarian all-pervasive cancer (which recognizes neither

15
Robert Tucker, Stalinism: essays in historical interpretation, (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1999),6.
16
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.392
17
Ibidem, p.404
18
Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges, (New York: Cambridge University Press,1985),198
 Totalitarianism 6

rules nor established order nor institutions) as are society and the individual”19. This statement

emphasizes how totalitarianism did not fit the Hegelian idea of state order; rather, the totalitarian

system was a confused state that, according to Franz Neumann, fit the idea of “Behemoth”. As

Philippe Burrin explains, “the biblical figure of Behemoth, borrowed from Thomas Hobbes,

symbolizes the chaos engendered by the disappearance of the state and the total absence of laws, the

opposite figure to the “leviathan”, which Hobbes preferred”20. It appears as the Nazi state was a

“regression and progression into barbarism”21.

Arendt identifies the engine of the totalitarian regime, the secret police and its hunt for what

she defines the “objective enemy”22. According to Arendt, this concept defines the threat to the

regime‟s survival and legitimizes its policies. Even though Arendt is unable to draw a clear

distinction between concentration and extermination camps, her idea of objective enemy helps us to

understand the Holocaust or the Great Terror as unplanned historical events ideologically driven. In

contrast, Losurdo focuses on other major human catastrophes of the twentieth century to claim “the

limits of the category of totalitarianism”23. I argue that this argument enforces rather then

weakening the category of totalitarianism because, as stated by Schapiro, “totalitarianism has to be

treated as a six point‟s syndrome which needs to simultaneously present a specific set of factors to

be labelled as a disease”24.

Arendt herself articulates an interesting argument concerning the pivotal role of ideology

yet she does not seem to fully understand its implications. She states that both regimes planned to

kill human spontaneity in order to accomplish the laws of nature or history that were part of the

19
Leonardo Schapiro, Totalitarianism, (New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc., 1972),74
20
Henry Rousso, Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared, English Language edition edited and
introduced by Richard J. Golsan, (Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004),,p.58
21
Burleigh, and Wippermann, The racial state: Germany 1933-1945, p.10
22
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.422
23
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.39
24
Schapiro, Totalitarianism, p.18
 Totalitarianism 7

Marxist idea of the most progressive class as well as of the Darwinist ideal of the fittest race. This

is why the specific attention that Arendt pays to terror risks to obscure her intuitions about the

philosophical landscape that backed both totalitarianisms as well as invalidate the usefulness of this

historical category. Losurdo further criticizes totalitarianism by referring to it as an arbitrary

deductivism because of its lack of historical evidence25. Losurdo interprets the relationship between

the intellectual terrain that preceded totalitarianism and totalitarianism as a causal one. As it will

clearly emerge later, Roberts offers evidence for an opposing argument that emphasizes a relation

of influence rather than affinity between past intellectual traditions and the totalitarian

phenomenon26.

Several authors have undertaken the minimization of the totalitarian category as a historical

issue in regards to Soviet Communism. Getty‟s Origins of the Great Purges exemplifies this

theoretical approach. Getty rejects the notion of totalitarianism by pointing out the fragmented

structure of the Bolshevik Party. In particular, he argues that the practice of economic planning and

the inherent tension between moderates and gradualists, the party factionalism, and the tension

between central and peripheral branches of the party provided the atmosphere for the outbreak of

the Great Purges27. The Purges exemplified Moscow‟s inability to control local events and were

strategically oriented toward the resolution of the intra-party struggle rather than toward the

persecution of the political opposition. Getty claims that the purges were not the outcome of a

planned strategy and the disorder of the system made them possible. This specific emphasis on the

purges helps us to not overstate Stalin‟s personality yet it risks overlooking the ideological

pronouncements that backed the campaign of terror against the Soviet society. The weakness of the

issue of disorder to ascertain the category of totalitarianism has been already discussed. What has

to be stressed in dealing with Getty‟s argument is another element of weakness. Even though Getty

25
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.40
26
David Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, (New York: Routledge,2006),91
27
Getty, Origins of the Great Purges, p.25
 Totalitarianism 8

is right in pointing out the absence of a planned violent strategy, the use of this issue to invalidate

totalitarianism appears misleading. According to the most recent studies on the Holocaust,

evidence from Christopher Browning‟s The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final

Solution, this tragic event was not pre determined yet this is insufficient to consider Nazi Germany

as not totalitarian.

Henry Rousso undertakes an accurate historical comparison between what he perceives to

have been the great scourges of the twentieth century28. The author brings back totalitarianism in

the realm of history by focusing on three main areas: the role of the dictator, the logic of violence,

and the relationship between power and society.

Nicholas Werth examines the intentionalist and structuralist approach to Stalinism by

emphasizing the accent on personality or structure to explain the nature of the system. He stresses

how Bolshevism broke with Marxism by creating a party-state that put at center an oligarchy of

plenipotentiaries and betrayed the Marxist idea of state disappearance29. In particular, this author

studies Stalin‟s seizure of power and his process of strict bureaucratic centralization, forced

collectivization, and massive industrialization in the thirties. He argues that the final step of this

process was the elimination of collegiality inside the Politburo and offers evidence by enunciating

the drastic reduction of the Politburo‟s plenary meetings. Werth states that the turning point of the

system was the unbalanced power of the despotic secret police in 193630. From that moment the

leader released a wave of mass terror that eliminated the political, economic, and military elite.

Stalin used his personality cult to maintain his personal power rather than to guarantee the function

of the Party. After the war, Stalin‟s power turned to nationalism and chauvinism by deflating the

socialist appeal.

28
Rousso, Stalinism and Nazism, p.17

29
Ibidem, p.32
30
Ibidem, p.41
 Totalitarianism 9

Philippe Burrin points out the main difference between the Nazi and Soviet leader. He

argues that Hitler presented himself as the founder rather than interpreter of a doctrine. In particular,

he claimed to be the Messiah of the German people and the man of Providence. These rhetorical

statements were the cornerstone of Nazi propaganda and underpinned the promotion of his cult of

personality. Hitler‟s charismatic power was the means to resolve the tensions between party and

state agencies as well as the institutional conflicts of a chaotic state31.

As stated above, this work clearly emphasizes the centrality of both leaders in the totalitarian

system. Gertrude Himmelfarb points out that to adopt a structural approach without paying attention

to Leader‟s personality means that “such unfortunate episodes as the famine, collectivization, and

de-kulakization, are attributed to impersonal socio-political and economic forces and to the complex

webs of industrialization and state-building”32.

Werth describes the logic of violence that characterized both systems. In dealing with the

Soviet Union, he argues that violence went along three different phases33. Initially, dekulakization

and forced collectivization brought to the heinous law whose core was the repression of any theft of

social property as well as the criminalization of common behaviour. Then, he argues that “as the

outcome of a strategy of extreme violence and repression implemented with collectivization, the

famine of 1932-1933 is also a pivotal event in opening the doorway to that other paroxysm of

Stalinism, the Great Terror of 1937-38”34. In contrast, Mark Tauger in his review on Le Livre Noire

du Communisme argues that “the 1932 harvest was much smaller than officially admitted and was a

primary cause of the famine”35. This assumption finds historical evidence and contributes to

31
Rousso, Stalinism and Nazism,, p.63
32
Gertrude Himmelfarb, On looking into the abyss, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994),45
33
Rousso, Stalinism and Nazism, p.73
34
Ibidem, p.81
35
Mark Tauger, "War die Hungersnot in der Ukraine intendiert?" in Jens Mecklenburg and Wolfgang Wippermann, ed,
"Roter Holocaust?" Kritikdes Schwarzbuchs des Kommunismus, (Hamburg: Konkret Literatur
Verlag,1998),167
 Totalitarianism 10

highlight the structural factors that led to the famine of 1932-33. Tauger does not minimize the

responsibility of the Soviet regime and leaves open space for further analysis concerning the

management of the famine by the Soviet leadership. Werths concludes his study by asserting that

repressive measures such as the introduction of the state-passport legislation as well as the practice

of public trial contributed to inflame the struggle between state apparatus and Soviet society. The

final step of the Stalinist violence was the resurgence of Russian nationalism and mass deportation

that during the war affected around 2.6 million people36.

In contrast, Nazi violence was externally oriented and characterized by secrecy.

Concentration camps became means to eliminate political opposition, asocial elements, and

cleansing the occupied territories. Violence became the means to accomplish the ideological goal

of the official doctrine and achieved its apogee with the war radicalization. Burrin stresses the

incremental steps of the Nazi racial policies through sterilization, euthanasia, legal discrimination,

expulsion, and extermination and correctly points out the difference between Stalin‟s camps and

Nazis in terms of Purgatory and Hell37.

Werth focuses his attention on the relationship between the apparatus of power and the

subjugated society. He asserts that in both societies phenomena of resistance took place. Since the

beginning of the „30s peasants‟ revolts and workers‟ riots broke out in the Soviet society. Also,

insubordination and deviancy from the official directives spread as exemplified from the

establishment of black market, parallel economy, false cooperatives, acts of banditism, and

administrative insolvency. Moreover, people resisted to the new cultural paths by employing active

or passive strategies of dissent. Finally, after the war popular reticence to Sovietization increased.

36
Rousso, Stalinism and Nazism, p.87
37
Ibidem, p.99
 Totalitarianism 11

These phenomena brought Merle Fainsod to define the Soviet system as an “inefficient

totalitarianism”38.

In contrast, Nazism found a wide resignation, support, or adherence to the regime‟s policies.

Despite this, Burrin stresses how the Nazi attempt to replace the traditional institutions of

socialization with the party agencies failed as evident in the continuity of confessional cleavages,

workers complaints, and prominence of the big firms‟ interests.

Pierre Hassner concludes this comparison by claiming the historicity of totalitarianism as

antithesis of democracy and pointing out the similarities and differences between both regimes in all

three areas under observation. Both leaders did not harbor scruples and used populist strategies yet

the nature of the personality cult differed. Moreover, violence was more diffused in the Stalinist

Soviet Union and concentrated in Nazi Germany yet in both contexts was legitimized by their

respective mythologies. Finally, both regimes were bureaucratic chaotic structures yet highly

efficient in extermination and conquest. In particular, totalitarian regimes not only repressed but

also mobilized people by propaganda and mass organization39. As stated by Roberts, totalitarianism

has to be studied as an assault on men that was fed by two opposing ideological views that

postulated human inclusiveness or exclusiveness. That is why this historical phenomenon presented

two opposing sides: the elimination of Jews and bourgeoisie and the promotion of mass

mobilization40.

Abbott Gleason sheds light on the idea of totalitarianism by discussing its main

historiographical interpretations and emphasizing how the historical analysis was polluted by the

rhetoric of the Cold War.

Gleason emphasizes how both Hegel and Marx postulated the subordination of the private to

the public sphere. According to Andrzej Walicki, their thoughts deserve “to be classified as a kind

38
Rousso, Stalinism and Nazism, p.111
39
Ibidem, p.297
40
David Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.426
 Totalitarianism 12

of democratic totalitarianism”41. Gleason points out how the term totalitarianism was shaped by the

Fascist ideologue Emilio Gentile. He intended the achievement of the total control of the state

machine on human individuality by penetrating every area of human life. Despite this,Gleason

emphasizes the Nazi reticence to employ the term because of the accent on movement rather than

state within Nazi ideology.

Gleason undertakes the question of the role of the state within the idea of totalitarianism. He

asserts the commonality between Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union by pointing out

the role of violence, the role of the myth, the legacy of Sorel‟s syndicalism and elitism, the anti-

liberal mood, and popular mobilization. In particular, he stresses some pre war definitions of the

phenomenon by emphasizing the specific attention that authors such as Tillich, Hoover, and

Chamberlain paid to the idea of an all-embracing state in dealing with totalitarianism42. Losurdo

argues that to exclude fascism from the totalitarian category because of the survival of pre-existent

structures means to move away from its ideological dimension43. According to Ernst Nolte

totalitarianism was a political concept in Fascist ideology and stressed the necessity of uniformity.

Nolte argued that the very essence of totalitarianism is “the total claim of the state on the citizen

involving the elimination of his religious and moral obligations toward God”44. These authors

agree to point out that the state was the final target of fascism. The attention that these authors pay

to the idea of state appears misleading if we consider the place of the state in Nazism. As Alfred

Rosenberg clearly pointed out, what mattered was “not the so-called totality of the state, but rather

the totality of the national Socialist movement”45. It appears as the movement rather than the state

was the key player in Nazi ideology. As a consequence, to stress the idea of total state as the key

41
Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, p.9
42
Ibidem, p.37
43
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.46
44
Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, p.36
45
Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, p.27
 Totalitarianism 13

criterion to label a regime as totalitarian means to leave out Nazism and Communism that are

considered the totalitarian ideal-types. In particular, Losurdo argues that studying Nazi Germany,

the existence of the one party rule is an insufficient condition to validate the historicity of

totalitarianism46. This assumption finds evidence in Gentile‟s work on Fascist Italy. This author

argues that to reduce totalitarianism to a single party with monopoly of power means overlook the

totalitarian side of popular mobilization and participation47.

Gleason studies the debate on totalitarianism during the warfare time and in particular the

Cold War by arguing that the linkage between the ideological struggle against Communism and the

idea of totalitarianism was exemplified by the Internal Security Act of 195048. Totalitarianism was

further politicized as clearly shown by the rhetoric of McCarthyism and the attack against Arendt‟s

work.

Gleason attempts to clarify the roots of the totalitarian phenomenon by pointing out how the

survival of alternative sources of power invalidated the use of the totalitarian category to define

Fascist Italy. In particular, Gleason discusses the common approaches to totalitarianism yet he does

not formulate an autonomous statement on the value or flaws of the leading interpretations.

Gleason emphasizes how Arendt found in the modernization process and its promotion of human

loneliness and isolation the essential pre conditions to make easier totalitarianism. In contrast,

according to Jacob Talmon, the enlightened thought and its emphasis on political Messianism as a

preordained, harmonious, and perfect scheme of things made totalitarianism possible49. Another

author stressed the intellectual background that preceded totalitarianism. Charles Taylor

emphasized how totalitarianism was the outcome of the philosophical legacy of Rousseau‟s idea of

46
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.46
47
Emilio Gentile, La via Italiana al Totalitarismo: il Partito e lo Stato nel regime Fascista, (Roma:Carocci, 1995),46
48
Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, p.87
49
Ibidem, p.115
 Totalitarianism 14

general will and its emphasis on the achievement of human freedom by the suppression of social

dissent.

Gleason turns his attention to the discussion of totalitarianism among sovietologists. He

stresses how Fainsod account passed virtually unnoticed if compared to Arendt or Talmon

arguments. Fainsod argued that Soviet totalitarianism was the outcome of Russian backwardness

yet her focus on autocracy does not explain the inception of a totalitarian government in the German

case. Also, Gleason emphasizes how Friederich and Kennan‟s classification with their emphasis on

social coordination attained a growing consensus during the sixties yet this interpretation

experienced an intense blowback as result of the strong anti-Americanism of the late sixties.

Besides this, Schapiro as well as Cohen‟s emphasis on the breach between Bolshevism and

Stalinism revitalized the use of the term but had to compete with the emerging approach of “History

from below” that Fitzpatrick used to attack the uselessness of the historical notion of

totalitarianism50.

Gleason explores the idea of totalitarianism in Cold War‟s Europe by bringing up the

philosophical discussion around the meaning of Communism. As clearly shown by Raymond Aron,

Communism became a dogmatic ideology that identified the party with the state and used violence

to impose its social creed. Aron contributed to demystify Marxism and highlighted the

responsibility of a European left that was unable to understand the reality of the socialist world. He

argued that the roots of totalitarianism sank in “the absolute power of the state, bolstered by a single,

unrepresentative party…and a dogmatic ideology represented as the official truth”51. Jean Francois

Revel in his work Totalitarian Temptation saw the self destructive utopianism of Communism as

the main obstacle to the progress of socialism. According to Revel, a systematic confusion

between socialism and communism was fomented52. In particular, Revel argued that Communism

50
Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, p.140
51
Ibidem, p. 147
52
Jean-Francois Revel, The Totalitarian Temptation, (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1977), 22
 Totalitarianism 15

claimed to embody an absolute truth which appealed to Marx and his fundamental precepts. The

objectives of the Marxist thought were a more equal and just world and therefore, each individual

was pressured into conformity with the Communist ideal. Albert Camus emphasized how this

strategy to use violence to favor social progress represented the characterizing trait of Jacobinism

which represented a specific form of protototalitarian politics53. The goals of the Marxist doctrine

were interpreted and manipulated by the Communist leadership in order to legitimate its actions54. I

argue that Communism as an ideology carried out a mind-sets assumption and shaped an

autonomous way to control complex human societies. It created a totalitarian regime that according

to Leszek Kolakowski, “could not be achieved without…the destruction of a class of people. Once

this class had been liquidated…the state with its artificial ties embracing the whole of an atomised

and terrorised society, became omnipotent”55. In contrast, Eric Hobsbawm assumed that , “brutal

and dictatorial thought it was, the Soviet system was not totalitarian, a term which…stood for an

all-embracing centralized system which not only imposed total physical control…but succeeded in

getting its people to internalize its values”56. This author interpreted the depoliticization of Soviet

citizens as proof of the non totalitarian nature of the system. As cited above this assumption

appears misleading considering that the peculiarity of totalitarianism was the utopian essence of its

project of social engineering and its pretension to invalidate the separation between private and

public sphere in human society. In the words of Milosz Czeslaw, “the rule over men‟s mind was

the key to rule over an entire country and the word was the cornerstone of the system”57. Schapiro

further articulated this brilliant intuition by arguing that in Nazi Germany and Stalin‟s Russia the

53
Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, p.153
54
Milovan Djilas, The New Class, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), 149
55
G.R. Urban, Stalinism: its impact on Russia and the World, ( Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1986), 253
56
Eric Hobsbawm, The age of extremes, 1914-1991, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994),387
57
Milosz Czeslaw, The Captive Mind. (New York: Knopf, 1953),161
 Totalitarianism 16

mobilization of mass support and enthusiasm from which totalitarian regimes derive their

legitimacy “was achieved as it was ever possible to achieve them, since man‟s resistance to tyranny

is never easily quenched”58.

This specific attempt to achieve total domination and control over human society is one of

the main arguments of Bernard Lèvy in dealing with the limits of the socialist left to understand

Communism. Lèvy argues that the left used Marxism as a tool to manipulate masses and elaborated

a theory of power that concretely organized the subjugated society59.

Lévy adopts a post-modernist approach by arguing that the language represents a political

means to deconstruct reality. His accent on the properties and use of language implicitly

emphasizes the importance of propaganda in politics. The post modernist nature of his argument

considers history as the final statement of a priori discourse. He states that “history quite simply

does not exist”60. History is considered an illusion and the idea of social contract is perceived as a

theoretical construct that fictitiously links citizens‟ rights to prince‟s duties. That is why, state is

not a historical entity rather it is a contemporary creation. Lévy argues that state is an irreversible

entity that claims control up the individual who dissolves his identity into the community. As a

consequence, individualism cannot exist without totalitarianism yet experience proves that “the

state without the individual means naked violence and concentration camps”61. The value of this

post modernist argument is the capacity to emphasize the inherent utopianism of the totalitarian

state yet this argument risks to minimize the historicity of the phenomenon under observation.

Lèvy argues that the inherent socialist mysticism and determinism underpinned the spread of

its revolutionary ideas. Despite this, the double identity of the proletarian class and the illusion of

an undefined crisis of capitalism adversely affected the validity of Marxism. Lèvy examines the

58
Schapiro, Totalitarianism, p.119
59
Bernard-Henri Lévy, Barbarism with a human face, (New York: Harper & Row,1979),25

60
Ibidem, p.44
61
Ibidem, p.64
 Totalitarianism 17

causal link between Marxism and capitalism by stressing their undisputable interdependence. In

particular, he associates capitalism to Western civilization and emphasizes how the death of the

former would mean to free the forces of barbarism62. Lévy states the vitality of capitalism and

denies the classic categorization of fascism and Nazism as diseases of developed societies; rather,

he points out that technological progress, desire of power, and socialism represented the primary

elements of the contemporary tragedy of the late „60s. This author unconsciously emphasizes the

elements of modernity (Arendt) and uniformity (Talmon) within the idea of totalitarianism.

Lévy defines totalitarianism as a state without brakes that comes up from the crisis of

modernity and pursues control over human minds by technological means according to ideological

imperatives. That is why, he points out the importance of the work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn by

affirming that what he did “was to speak and we awoke from a dogmatic sleep”63.

As outlined above, Lévy not only aims to highlight the limits of Marxism but also to stress

its use as a dogmatic faith that inhibited people to understand the Soviet reality. He exemplifies the

link between the manipulation of Marxism and the institutionalization of terror by asserting that “no

socialism without camps, no classless society without its terrorist truth”64.

The debate on the meaning of totalitarianism interested not only the Soviet Communism but

also the Italian Fascism and German Nazism. Even though debates concerning the definition of the

Italian Fascist experience are far away from being resolved, it seems important to stress that the

Nazi movement achieved at a large extent the liquidation of constitutional provisions as compared

to fascism. As Nolte stated “the only thing Mussolini dared not touch was the institution of

monarchy”65. In these terms, the historian Gaetano Salvemini described the fascist regime as a

62
Lévy, Barbarism with a human face, p.111

63
Ibidem, p.154
64
Ibidem, p.158
65
Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, p.283
 Totalitarianism 18

“dualistic dictatorship”66. This means that the regime was characterized by the presence of a double

source of power, namely Duce and King that did not let Mussolini achieve the same absolute power

as Hitler did.

Gleason examines the debate over totalitarianism in Eastern Europe and considers the

disillusionment toward socialism during the seventies by emphasizing the pivotal role that the

counter hegemonic discourse as well as the rise of nationalism inside the Communist satellites

played to promote the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Charter 77 and its emphasis on the idea of

parallel structures and human rights greatly contributed to the dissolution of the Communist bloc67.

Despite the climate of ideological disarray in the Eastern world, Gleason stresses the resurgence of

an aggressive American foreign policy whose core was the rhetorical appeal to the idea of

totalitarianism.

Finally, Gleason pays attention to an important aspect of totalitarianism: violence as an

object of mystical worship and adoration. He reflects on the importance of violence by claiming

that its relaxation during the post-Stalinist era signed the transition of the system. In this way,

Gleason seems to move towards Arendt yet he shows a remarkable awareness of the complexity of

the phenomenon.

David Roberts undertakes the most recent and complete historiographical analysis of

totalitarianism. Roberts points out how the term totalitarianism was coined by Italian anti-Fascists

in 1923 and quickly became a matter of discussion between Nazis and Fascists68. Even though both

movements rejected liberalism and parliamentary democracy, Nazism opposed its dynamism to the

Fascist conservative statism. Roberts aims to avoid comparison between what he identifies as the

twentieth century totalitarian experiences: Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. He rather

66
Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, (New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2004),120

67
Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, p.186
68
David Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics,p.3
 Totalitarianism 19

emphasizes the common place that all the three historical phenomena had in the modern political

experiment. He clearly states that what emerged from the Great War was “totalitarianism” as a

central interpretative category to shed light on the nature of these three regimes69.

Roberts carefully examines the evolution of the discussion about totalitarianism and its

historical specificity. He emphasizes how historiographical interpretations moved from the top-

down approach of the „50s to the bottom-up approach of the „80s. Historians switched their

attention from statecraft to society inquiring the totalitarian issue and totalitarianism lost its specific

historicity. The end of the Cold War led historians reappraise totalitarianism as a historical

category and highlight the difference between its theory and practice. As stated by Robert Thurston,

“totalitarianism is of some use in thinking about what the Nazi and Soviet regimes wanted, but it

does not have much to do with what they got”70. According to Roberts, ”we need to approach

totalitarianism not as a form of rule or set of extreme outcomes but as a historically specific

dynamic” that offer us the framework to understand the departure from the liberal mainstream of

the twentieth century71.

Roberts deals with the origins of totalitarianism by examining the work of Jacob Talmon in

order to emphasize the problematic use of ahistorical categories to analyze the totalitarian

phenomenon. As already mentioned, Talmon drawn a net differentiation between totalitarianism of

the left and that of the right and argued that both found a common source in the Enlightenment

schism between totalitarian and liberal democracy 72 . He argued that totalitarianism of the right

offered a racial and organic vision of human society whereas totalitarianism of the left proposed a

rational and universal response to the liberal mainstream of the late eighteenth century. Roberts

69
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.6
70
Ibidem, p.15
71
Ibidem, p.17
72
Jacob Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
Publishers, 1960),3
 Totalitarianism 20

emphasizes how From in his work “Escape from Freedom”, Talmon and Isaiah Berlin explained

totalitarianism as a response to human insecurity73. By employing psychological categories these

authors overlooked the historicity of the phenomenon and minimized the specificities of the

national context.

Roberts stresses how the contingent interplay between the supranational intellectual layer

and the national level enables us a better understanding of the German, Russian, and Italian

departure from the liberal mainstream74. This emphasis on the departure from liberalism appears

sensible in the Italian and German case yet it is misleading in the Russian case. The main limit to

Roberts‟ analysis of the Soviet experiment is to not consider the historical background that preceded

it. According to Theodore H. Von Laue, the Tsarist regime contained the seeds of the future Soviet

totalitarianism because incessantly strived to reshape “the deepest promptings of the human will for

political ends” 75 . Lewin argued that the Stalinist system reproduced the Tsarist pattern of

government by “transforming rulers and ruled alike into cogs of the state” 76. Despite this, both

authors were unable to elucidate the casual link between autocratic and totalitarian forms of

government. I argue that, in the Russian case, the autocratic nature of the Tsarist regime was

necessary but not sufficient condition to explain the totalitarian rule of the Soviet system yet

Roberts appears minimize the importance of previous national context in dealing with the Soviet

experiment.

Roberts reviews Arendt‟s interpretation of totalitarianism by asserting that the bourgeoisie‟s

marginalization of political virtues to pursue economic interests resulted in weakening the

nineteenth century idea of state as guarantor of collective interests. That is why the state became

73
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.28
74
Ibidem, p.45
75
Theodore H. Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin?: a reappraisal of the Russian Revolution 1900-1930, (New York:
J.B. Lippincott Company, 1971), 24
76
Tucker, Stalinism: essays in historical interpretation,p.125
 Totalitarianism 21

the instrument of particularist interests. The expansion of imperialism undermined the concepts of

stable law and human rights. Roberts stresses how both concepts were already under attack by

Rousseau‟s idea of general will which put at center the notion of popular fulfilment and self-

expression. This ambiguous concept postulated the necessity of unanimity and was source of

contradictions and antinomies. Schapiro claims that “ Rousseau became enmeshed in an abstraction,

the general will, and failed to discern that the utopia which he proposed, and in which he provided

no safeguards for the individual against the state could led to the most complete tyranny”77. The

idea of self-realization and liberty found in Hegel one of its main conceptualization. As stated by

Gertrude Himmelfarb, “for Hegel, Consciousness is the primary, determining condition of our

Being, our existence-unlike Marx, for whom Being, material existence, preceded and determined

Consciousness” 78 . This means that Hegel saw human freedom as expression of human

consciousness whose embodiment was the idea of state.

Roberts combines historical and philosophical considerations to point out a third way to

explain the inception of totalitarianism. He studies the work of Charles Taylor who asserted that

the expansion of human participation and its growing faith in progress within the positivist

framework of the nineteenth century brought up the question of new modes of popular involvement

in politics. The totalitarian movement postulated collective action within the Marxist or Darwinist

mind‟s framework and pushing for behavioural uniformity. Human creativity became

inconceivable with collective action within both schools of thoughts and was suppressed by

mobilization or violence79.

Roberts points out that after the First World War liberalism had to face an internal identity

crisis and compete with the emerging ideals of democratic renewal that were elaborated by thinkers

77
Schapiro, Totalitarianism, p.79
78
Himmelfarb, On looking into the abyss, p.57
79
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.57
 Totalitarianism 22

such as Bernstein, Durkheim, Mosca, and Sorel. These thinkers emphasized elitism, corporativism,

and socialist principles80. This is the crucial point of Roberts‟ analysis. In front of the crisis of the

nation-state, totalitarian movements fused popular concerns for security with promises of spiritual

and political renewal. To support his argument, Roberts examines every single national context and

points out that the experience of the war was a crucible for the totalitarian departure. The war

experience promoted total mobilization, the myth of an unjust peace, the opportunity for

revolutionary action, the upheaval of nationalism and eugenics, the mythology of violence, the

socialist aspirations, and stimulated the impatience of the masses81.

Roberts studies all of three regimes by pointing out their salient features. Initially, he pays

attention to the dynamics of Leninism-Stalinism by discussing the main historiographical

interpretations on the issue of continuity or discontinuity of the Soviet experiment yet he does not

underpin a specific interpretation. Despite this, he summarizes the main criticisms to the Soviet

experiment by arguing that moving from Lenin to Stalin the Soviet society experienced the

downside of the rupture of Lenin‟s pragmatism and moderation and was pervaded by Stalin‟s

paranoia, collectivization, forced industrialization and nationalism82. Also, Roberts emphasizes the

breach between Marxism and Leninism-Stalinism by highlighting the approach to the idea of state,

the economic backwardness of the Soviet reality, and the broad use of terror. Roberts cites the

work of Martin Edward Malia on Leninism by pointing out how the militarization of the party and

the spread use of propaganda as means of indoctrination exemplified Lenin‟s difficulties to

implement the utopian goal of the Marxist ideology. The main value of Roberts‟ analysis is the

accent on the content of Marxism and Bolshevism83. He points out how both ideologies represented

an alternative to modernity and rested on the idealism of the former and the practice of the latter.

80
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.115
81
Ibidem, p.165

82
Ibidem, p.219
83
Ibidem, p.227
 Totalitarianism 23

Marxism rested on the idea of workers‟ revolution whereas Bolshevism worked toward the building

up of a modern society. The inherent statism of Leninism pervaded the Stalinist era. Roberts

inquires the leading interpretations concerning the First Five Year Plan by focusing on the process

of dekulakization, the famine, and the accomplishment of industrialization. He agrees with Malia to

state the importance of the interplay between Stalin‟s personality and the historical context to

understand the Soviet reality. In particular, he agrees with Gatty to state the separation between

Stalinist terror and purges, debates Conquest‟s account of the magnitude of the terror, and defines

this event as a process out of control. He asserts that “the preponderance of recent research

suggests that the terror targeted specific cohorts, so vulnerability varied considerably across the

population”84. This assumption resembles Arendt‟s idea of objective enemy in terms of a fraction

of the national community previously selected as target of the regime‟s violence. Roberts

concludes his analysis by stressing the challenges of the process of detotalitarianization, in

particular in Eastern Europe.

Roberts considers fascist Italy by pointing out the ambiguous nature of this totalitarian

experiment. He summarizes the fascist seizure to power and highlights the main features of the

fascist state. Roberts correctly points out how popular mobilization and corporativism revealed the

totalitarian ambition of fascism. He argues that natalism was revelatory of the fascist project of

“totalitarian social engineering” yet he does not explain the link between the goal of demographical

increase and totalitarianism85. As stated by Marcello Flores and Francesco Gori, the Nazi and Soviet

camps were laboratories to carry out plans of social engineering respectively in terms of class and

race and completely alternative to any political system human civility had never run into86. This

84
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics p.260
85
Ibidem, p.275
86
Marcello Flores and Francesco Gori, Il sistema dei Lager in Urss, (Milano: Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 1999),52
 Totalitarianism 24

interpretation emphasizes the impact of state terror on society and highlights how both totalitarian

governments attempted to shape a new society by employing coercion rather than rational policies.

Furthermore, Roberts pays attention to the idea of state in the fascist totalitarian framework. He

argues that since 1927 the fascist party was subordinated to the state87. In regards to totalitarianism

Linz argues that “the party had to conquer and retain the power in the state” 88. This opposing

approach casts doubts on the use of the category of totalitarianism in dealing with fascist Italy.

Finally, Roberts affirms that “the Concordat and the Lateran Pacts of 1929 have long been seemed

the archetypal indication that any radical and /or totalitarian thrust in Fascism bogged down in

compromising with existing elites and institutions” yet he claims that by the eve of the Second

World War the Church was enveloped by the totalitarian effort of the fascist state to promote

imperialism 89 . This interpretation finds evidence in the works of Renzo DeFelice and Emilio

Gentile. In contrast, it is undermined by Bosworth, Sternhell, and Knox who emphasize the

survival of traditional identities and powers, the political and economic structural limits, and in

particular “the absence…of anything resembling the powerful ideological mechanisms that gave

Marxism-Leninism and National Socialism their fanatical elites and masses”90. It seems evident that

totalitarianism appealed to pseudo-scientific rather than historical ideals. Roberts moves throughout

the internal conflicts of the fascist regime, the institutional tensions, its imperialist ambitions, and

the survival of dissent in order to state the Italian failure in doing great politics yet he unclearly

places the Italian case among the totalitarian experiments.

The last case under observation is Nazi Germany. Roberts describes the importance of

popular mobilization in Nazi ideology and stresses the charismatic power of the leadership. In

particular, he agrees with Ian Kershaw to explain the Nazi specific mode of action as the result of
87
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.277
88
Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, (Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers,2000),81
89
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.278
90
Ibidem, p.288
 Totalitarianism 25

an inherent dynamism and political liturgy that resolved the institutional chaos by the practice to

work toward the accomplishment of the Fuhrer‟s will 91 . This means that in National Socialist

ideology “political power was not in the institutions or organs of the state but in the person of the

leader as “personification” of the Volksgemeinschft” 92 . As consequence, the Nazi state simply

became “an instrument to further racial purification and hygiene” 93 . Roberts emphasizes the

importance of Nietzsche‟s frame of mind to contribute to the demise of rule of law as well as to

exacerbate the incompatibility between Christendom and Nazism and points out the historical

conditions that combined with these ahistorical factors.

What deserves a specific attention in Roberts‟ analysis is the elucidation of the concept of

social engineering. He analyzes the change from policies of natalism to eugenic by reminding the

reader that these policies had a historical antecedent in the United States. Eugenic was a double

side phenomenon that implied a positive and negative selection. The negative selection

materialized in the process of sterilization. Roberts argues that sterilization was initially employed

in the United States but it did not follow the German moral degradation. He affirms that

“sterilization does not necessarily lead to euthanasia”94. In particular, he emphasizes how the Nazi

moral descent and the demonization of the Jews brought to legal discrimination, euthanasia, forced

emigration, and finally physical extermination. Roberts studies the most recent interpretations of

the Holocaust by concluding that it was an unintended but contingent outcome of the Nazi

totalitarian ambitions. The combination of a set of specific historical conditions with ahistorical

feelings of brutality, distancing, and elation that derived from the war experience, put in motion a

process that spun out of control95.

91
Ian Kershaw, Hitler, (Singapore: Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd., 1991),78
92
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf , (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999),233
93
Ibidem, p.241

94
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.360
 Totalitarianism 26

In contrast to Roberts, Losurdo argues that the existence of racial and eugenic programs lead

us to a different direction from the category of totalitarianism; rather, I argue that, it is the contrary

because the implementation of these programs was proof of the Nazi willingness to make possible

the leading pronouncements of the official doctrine. Losurdo supports his assumption by citing the

American eugenic legislation. As stated above, Roberts explains the reasons upon which this

legislation rested. It was driven by pragmatic considerations, yet it reflected the Western idea of

“white supremacy”. Not only by discussing eugenic but also in considering racism Losurdo appears

to arbitrarily present his argument. He affirms that “the Third Reich represented the attempt,

through total war, to create a regime world-scale white supremacy under German hegemony by

resorting to eugenic, sociopolitical, and military measures”96. Rather than downturn the historicity

of the totalitarian experiment, this argument offers further evidence to assert the uniqueness of the

totalitarian systems in combining ideological goals with governmental policies. Losurdo claims the

antagonist nature of Bolshevism and Nazism by highlighting how the doctrine that backed the

October Revolution attacked human slavery. Despite this and considering the previous arguments

about the breach between Marxism and Communism, it appears as the revolutionary Bolshevik elite

enslaved rather than freed the Soviet society.

Roberts concludes his broad analysis of these three European historical experiences by

pointing out the commonality of these systems with the precise aim to historicize the totalitarian

phenomena. He asserts that they represented a new mode of political action that transcended the

classical liberal state. In particular all of three regimes promoted a classless or corporativist society

by calling for an elitist leadership that drove a society under constant mobilization to pursue three

leading myths: building socialism, building an ethical state and edify a healthy racial community97.

95
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.383
96
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.50
97
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.448
 Totalitarianism 27

These regimes were driven by a dynamic movement freed of the invasive presence of rational state

structures. Roberts‟ main limit is the attempt to encompass all three regimes by employing the

same historical category that unclearly fits the Italian case. The main weakness of this approach is

to emphasize the above cited criterion of inclusiveness to categorize the Italian experiment as

totalitarian. This arbitrary choice adversely affects the clarity and definition of the idea of

totalitarianism. Despite this, the contribution of the author to the comprehension of the

philosophical and historical terrain that backed the totalitarian effort to do great politics is

impressive.

Whereas Roberts states the importance of the category of totalitarianism in terms of new

mode of actions in doing politics, Losurdo calls for the redefinition of the category by contesting its

usefulness to explain the political processes that took place in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet

Union. Roberts and Losurdo moves on two different layers; however, Losurdo and his criticisms

appears to minimize the historicity of the totalitarian phenomenon and deserve attention98.

Losurdo states that, in associating the Soviet Union and the Third Reich, the category of

totalitarianism simply pays attention to the single party and minimizes the issue of eugenics and

racial politics. This statement highlights obvious differences between both regimes and appears an

arbitrary construct that overlooks important commonalities such as the idea of objective enemy

within both systems. In particular, Losurdo attacks the idea of totalitarianism by asserting the

doubtful utility to inquire ideological affinities and leave out geopolitical factors in comparing both

regimes. As Roberts stresses, the intellectual background of both ideologies combined with

common historical conditions such as the post war context made totalitarianism possible. Also,

Losurdo contests popular mobilization as a totalitarian criterion by claiming that it should link

Nazism and Fascism rather than Communism yet he minimizes how all of three regimes pursued

popular involvement. Finally, he casts doubts on the utility of the element of concentration camp to

define a regime as totalitarian and cites the American case yet he appears to forget the common

98
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.50
 Totalitarianism 28

criticisms to this issue that in any case do not invalidate the category of totalitarianism. Losurdo

concludes by criticizing the use of the category of totalitarianism against the Islamic

Fundamentalism. He argues that it clearly proves the Western use of the term as a means to attack

its enemies and justify violation of human rights 99. Even though this argument correctly resembles

the criticisms to the instrumentalization of totalitarianism during the Cold War, it risks to obscure

how the politicization of this issue does not deny is historical status. As Roberts argues,

totalitarianism appears as a post modernist concept whose meaning derives from the new sense of

act collectively but remains central to our understanding of historical experiences. In the dynamism

of the totalitarian attractiveness rests the implicit risks of new modes of action that leave the modern

mainstream and turn towards the redefinition of the relationship between power and society100.

To conclude, during the „50s Arendt affirmed that “totalitarian government always

transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system, not by one-party dictatorships, but by

a mass movement, shifted the center of power from the army to the police, and established a foreign

policy openly directed toward world domination”101. Arendt analyzed totalitarianism by focusing

on institutionalized terror in terms of concentration camps. Rousso examined similarities and

differences between both totalitarian forms and highlighted the importance to undertake historical

analysis in dealing with these twentieth century phenomena. Friedrich and Brzezinski offered an

exhaustive definition of totalitarianism by arguing that a regime is totalitarian when it presents six

specific features: a totalist ideology; a single party committed to this ideology and ruled by one man;

a fully developed secret police, three kinds of monopolistic control such as mass communications,

operational weapons, and economic organizations which are strictly involved in a centrally planned

99
Losurdo, Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, p.53
100
Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great
Politics, p.484
101
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.,1973), 460
 Totalitarianism 29

economy102. This comprehensive definition underpinned the use of the term yet it was adversely

affected by a broad ideological instrumentalization during the Cold War. Gleason analyzed the

inner Cold War debate about totalitarianism and formulated a set of specific assumptions to stress

its politicization. He argued that Arendt “approaches totalitarianism through its existential

underpinnings, rather than as a traditional political philosopher might have”103. This means that

Arendt examined totalitarianism by looking at a specific regime‟s practice rather than at the

combination between intellectual terrain and historical conditions. Roberts detailed examined this

issue and pointed out its crucial importance to our understanding of the category of totalitarianism

by deflating the criticisms formulated by Losurdo. The combination between historical conditions

and attractiveness of both ideologies made totalitarian systems possible. As Friedrich and

Brzezinski argued, “the particular criterion of totalitarian rule is the creeping rape of man by the

perversion of his thoughts and his social life”104. This statement embodied the utopian potential of

totalitarianism and the study of the regimes‟ practices reasserted its historicity. The presence of

forms of resistance in the German and Soviet societies testified the impossibility to completely win

human minds on the binding ideologies. Despite this, the totalitarian experience remains central to

our understanding of the twentieth century and its new collective mode of political action. During

the age of technology and mass democracy totalitarianism represented a regression to human

brutality and barbarism.

102
Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and autocracy, (New York: Preager Publishers,
1965),, p.22
103
Gleason, Totalitarianism, p. 109
104
Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and autocracy,p.16
 Totalitarianism 30

Selected Bibliography

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.,1973.
Borkenau, Franz. The Totalitarian Enemy. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1940.
Burleigh, Michael and Wippermann Wolfgang. The racial state: Germany 1933-1945. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Czeslaw, Milosz. The Captive Mind. New York: Knopf, 1953.
Djilas, Milovan. The New Class. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957.
Friedrich Carl and Brzezinski Zbigniew. Totalitarian Dictatorship and autocracy. New
York: Preager Publishers, 1965.
Gentile, Emilio. La via Italiana al Totalitarismo: il Partito e lo Stato nel regime Fascista.
Roma:Carocci, 1995.
Getty, Arch. Origins of the Great Purges. New York: Cambridge University Press,1985.
Gleason, Abbott. Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War. New York: OxfordUniversity
Press, 1995.
Himmelfarb, Gertrude. On looking into the abyss. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994.
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The age of extremes, 1914-1991. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.
Kershaw, Ian. Hitler. Singapore: Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd., 1991.
Lévy, Bernard. Barbarism with a human face. New York: Harper & Row,1979.
Linz, Juan J. Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers,2000.
Losurdo, Domenico (2004). Towards a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism, Historical
Materialism 12 (2):25-55
Nolte, Ernst. Three Faces of Fascism. New York: International Thomson Publishing, 1966.
Paxton, Robert O. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2004.
Revel, Jean-Francois. The Totalitarian Temptation. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1977.
Roberts, David. The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the
Poverty of Great Politics. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Rousso, Henry. Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared. Lincoln NE: University of
Nebraska Press, 2004.
Schapiro, Leonardo. Totalitarianism. New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc., 1972.
Talmon, Jacob L. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
Publishers, 1960.
Tauger, Mark. War die Hungersnot in der Ukraine intendiert? in Jens Mecklenburg and Wolfgang
Wippermann, ed, Roter Holocaust? Kritikdes Schwarzbuchs des Kommunismus. Hamburg:
Konkret Literatur Verlag,1998.
Tucker, Robert C. Stalinism: essays in historical interpretation. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers,
1999.
Urban, Urban G.R. Stalinism: its impact on Russia and the World. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1986.
Von Laue, Theodore H. Why Lenin? Why Stalin?: a reappraisal of the Russian Revolution 1900-
1930. New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1971.
Totalitarianism 31