Totalitarianism
In: Exploring world governments
Introduces totalitarianism, discusses the social, political, economic, religious, and cultural effects, and examines various totalitarian leaders' ideas.
In: Exploring world governments
Introduces totalitarianism, discusses the social, political, economic, religious, and cultural effects, and examines various totalitarian leaders' ideas.
In: Transaction books
In: International affairs, Band 72, Heft 3, S. 556-557
ISSN: 1468-2346
ISSN: 1612-9008
ISSN: 2196-8276
In: The review of politics, Band 68, Heft 2, S. 318-328
ISSN: 1748-6858
"Totalitarianism" is a powerful word rich in historical associations and rebounding in current political usage. The four books under review reflect both the term's range of usage and the enduring fascination with the phenomena it described. Totalitarianism's initial terminological siblings, "nazism" and "communism," are applied chiefly to the original historical subjects that generated them. A close political cousin, "fascism," long ago escaped its close ideological family and is applied to everything from brutal police to road hogs. In contrast, "totalitarianism," formerly confined to a narrow political as opposed to a cultural context, is suddenly in play. In recent issues of the New York Times, David Brooks excoriates Iraqi proponents of "totalitarian theocracy" (5/16/2004); President Bush deplores the terrorists' "totalitarian ideology" (5/29/05), and Condoleezza Rice abhors Iran as a "totalitarian state" (5/29/2005). A Central Asian despot is characterized as a "fragile totalitarian" in a feature by David E. Sangler (5/29/2005), and the group of army officers (the Military Council for Justice and Democracy) that overthrew President Maouya Sidi Ahmed Taya in Mauritania in August 2005 defend their decision "to put an end to the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime." Totalitarianism is back, but what does it mean?
In: The Western political quarterly, Band 26, Heft 2, S. 344
ISSN: 1938-274X
In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 53, Heft 3, S. 77-84
ISSN: 0012-3846
Considers the utility of the term totalitarianism & the return of antitotalitarian rhetoric in the current struggle against terrorism, providing a historical perspective to shed light on its protean meaning & the related intellectual debate on its definition. Historical moments of totalitarianism are discussed: 1920s "antifascism"; the response to the Hitler-Stalin pact; the term's post-1947 renewal as anti-Sovietism/anticommunism; the post-Vietnam-era (1975-1980) response to violent aspects of the new Left; & the period from 1993 to the run up to the 2003 Iraq War, called the "antitotalitarianism of the 68ers." The political facets of the debate over totalitarianism are highlighted, & it is argued that antitotalitarian rhetoric often obscures political & moral ambiguities. D. Edelman
In: American political science review, Band 50, Heft 3, S. 757-763
ISSN: 0003-0554
The distinctive quality of totalitarianism is its institutionalized revolutionary zeal. It is this feature which distinguishes it from other dictatorial systems. It can be defined as a system where technologically advanced instruments of pol'al power are wielded without restraint by centralized leadership of an elite movement, for the purpose of effecting a total soc revolution, including the conditioning of man, on the basis of certain arbitrary ideological assumptions proclaimed by the leadership, in an atmosphere of coerced unanimity of the entire pop. The totalitarian qualities of the system manifest themselves some time after the seizure of power, when the regime proceeds to engage in soc engineering according to its ideological predispositions. It is then that some of the 'irrational' aberrations of totalitarianism, such as terror, manifest themselves. Nonetheless, these 'irrational' qualities are not inherent in all phases of totalitarian development & a 'rational' totalitarianism can be conceived, without the 'rational' features produced for instance by technocratic considerations leading inevitably towards a democratic development. The factors which would prevent such an evolution are the party, the ideology & the goal-oriented & centrally directed economy. Furthermore, the pol'al process itself cannot be fully made subject to technocratic rationality. (AA-IPSA). Adapted from the source document.
In: Journal of democracy, Band 1, Heft 1, S. 72-74
ISSN: 1045-5736
THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES THE PROCESS OF GOING FROM TOTALITARIANISM TO DEMOCRACY IN POLAND. TOTALITARIANISM IS AM ATTEMPT TO COMMAND ALL SOCIAL LIFE. IT IS BASED ON THE EXCLUSIVE CONTROL OF THE POWER CENTER OVER THE ORGANIZATION OF ALL ACTIVITIES. SUCH A SYSTEM IN POLAND HAS BEEN OVERCOME. IN JUNE OF 1989 ELECTIONS WERE HELD IN THAT COUNTRY. THESE ELECTIONS WERE AN OUTGROWTH OF "ROUNDTABLE" DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN THE OPPOSITION, UNITED AROUND SOLIDARITY, AND THE AUTHORITIES. THESE TALKS MARKED A CERTAIN STAGE IN THE CONTINUING STRUGGLE OF THE POLISH PEOPLE FOR DEMOCRACY. IT BECAME POSSIBLE TO REACH THIS STAGE ONLY AFTER THE ENORMOUS SOCIAL ACTIVITY IN THE LEGAL DAYS OF SOLIDARITY AND THE WIDESPREAD CLANDESTINE RESISTANCE DURING THE YEARS OF MARTIAL LAW.
In: Telos, Heft 112, S. 3-22
ISSN: 0040-2842, 0090-6514
Zygmunt Bauman's (1989) assertion that the Holocaust was engendered by the bureaucratic rationality of the Germans is challenged, arguing that his interpretation of the linkage between modernity & the Holocaust is based on a distorted understanding of totalitarianism. Further, Bauman is charged with identifying modernity in relation to an instrumental rationality. Bauman's spurious understanding of modernity is connected to Max Horkheimer & Theodor Adorno's (1972 translation) text that associates modernity with totalitarianism & Herbert Marcuse's (1960) treatment of the combat between dialectical & positivistic forms of reason in the modern world. Identified are seven essential characteristics of modernity, including universalized rights of citizens & capitalist rationalization. The search for an autonomous civil society is held responsible for the development of modern civilization & its defining characteristic -- the normalization of perpetual change. The conception of the modern city as promulgated by the Bolshevik Revolution is perceived as a response to Western culture. It is concluded that totalitarianism is the product of a form of anticapitalist domination rather than of instrumental rationality. J. W. Parker