Pojam totalitarizma

In: Politicka misao, Band 48, Heft 3, S. 210-229

Abstract

The cognitive worth of the concept of totalitarianism is constantly refuted. In this text, the author begins by confronting his perception of totalitarianism as a new social formation, which he advocated in many of his works, with four scientific arguments raised by historians against totalitarianism as a political category or in favour of a limited use thereof. The first is that communism and fascism are fundamentally different, that the ideologies which characterize them are radically opposed to one another. This argument overlooks the fact that in such regimes ideology is not merely the prevalent discourse -- it has a new function and efficiency, it establishes a totalitarian "regime" of language and thought in which the power of discourse and the discourse of power are made equal. The second argument is that totalitarianism is evident, in Germany and Russia, only during limited periods. To this the author replies that it is a "realistic" illusion to assume that the totalitarian project was ever fully realized in history. According to the third objection, the concept of totalitarianism is of no cognitive worth to the historian, and totalitarian regimes belong to the order of contingency, and not of historical necessity. On the other hand, the author stresses the historical novelty of totalitarianism, which does spring and can spring only from the modern "democratic revolution" (in Tocqueville's sense) as a radical refutation thereof. The final objection of a methodologically aware historian (F. Furet) is that the concept of totalitarianism can be analytically fruitful only if used as an "ideal type", as a common trait of regimes established in atomized societies through total domination by way of ideology and terror. To this the author replies that we cannot be satisfied with the use of the concept "ideal type", although it is true that it liberates the historian from the naivety of positivistic descriptive historiography. The making of an ideal type thus makes it possible to avoid the choice between philosophy and descriptive history, but only inasmuch as the historian is transformed into a cognizant subject which is external with regard to history. In the second part of the text, the author provides a critical evaluation of the theory of totalitarianism by H. Arendt, particularly her central thesis that totalitarian society comes into being in modern atomized society. Namely, totalitarianism is characterized, on the one hand, by an artificialist project of organization, and, on the other, by a substantialist ideal of incorporation: both are realized in the Party, which is not only devised as an organization, but is also a "mystical person" in which all its members are brought together. As such, it incorporates the people. The figure of the indivisible people is put forward in the Party; the figure of the indivisible party is put forward in the figure of the people. In the first, organizational aspect the Party contains the project of an organisable whole, while in the other, substantialist aspect it contains the project of an incorporable whole. Adapted from the source document.