The philosophy of totalitarianism: What is it and how does it affect our understanding of the past?

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The philosophy of totalitarianism: What is it and how does it affect our understanding of the past?

Synopsis

Initially having the aim of analysing Hitler’s rise to power, this paper now addresses the reality of totalitarianism and what it takes for any given state to be defined as totalitarian and the effects it has on the perception of such regimes throughout history; with a focus on Nazi Germany. A general conclusion had to be reached through comparison between the philosophies of both Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carl Friedrich, as set out in their book ‘Totalitarian dictatorship and autocracy’ published 1956 and revised in 1965, and Hannah Arendt, in her book The ‘Origins of Totalitarianism’ published 1952, with support from source material describing the realities of life under Hitler.

This paper highlights that it is of utmost importance that a totalitarian state be studied without automatically applying outdated stereotypical, ineffective, biased criteria; exactly what Arendt and Brzezinski have provided us with. It is through the use of a range of sources that the inadequacies in the definitions posed by Brzezinki and Arendt are unveiled and consequently identified. It follows that these inadequacies are inherent in every generic description of the qualities of any given political system and as such the usefulness of these definitions as comparative terms is extremely limited. This fact does not however deter people from using these terms in writing history to categorise leaders and regimes; it does not deter historians from allowing biases creeping into their work through the use of these words.

This paper has been formed through analysis of a broad spectrum of sources, mainly secondary sources. The references were carefully chosen with emphasis being given to the use of memoirs as well as revisionist histories from recent times and closer to the 1930’s and 1940’s. Such sources were included simply because it is important that histories come from different times and as such suffer from different contextual influences.

The Essay

Totalitarianism was never defined in the past because it could not exist. This is simply because totalitarianism implies total control, and in the past it was simply not possible to gain total control given the technological and cultural limitations. It has only been as recently as the 20th century that totalitarianism has become a real political option, as shown particularly by the Nazis. With such examples in mind political theorists have, over past fifty years, debated the real meaning of totalitarianism but it has still eluded concise definition. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carl Friedrich attempted to define it in their book ‘Totalitarian Autocracy and Dictatorship’ but attached a certain Cold-war, anti-Communist bias to it which created a model of totalitarianism that was not only damning but obviously represented the Communist regime of Russia; it is clearly propaganda. Hannah Arendt suffered at the hands of the Nazis, as she was a Jewish emigrant to America. While her book - and in turn her definition - is far fairer she does on some points let her experiences taint her understanding of totalitarianism. What totalitarianism is perceived to be taints how the past is viewed and how certain regimes from the past are thought of; thus what historians understand totalitarianism to be taints the meaning that they attach to the importance and reliability of sources relating to such regimes.

The first part of the commonly accepted definition of totalitarianism relates to a state ideology. Now, a totalitarian state does not need to follow or believe in any sort of ideology despite Friedrich and Brzezinski’s claim that a totalitarian state requires “an official ideology to which general adherence [is] demanded… intended to achieve a ‘perfect final stage of mankind.” Totalitarian states are, insofar as we have seen, revolutionary and as such the ideology put forward is one which offers to right the wrongs of the current political system and help the people out of troubled times. An ideology is an extremely important preliminary requirement for totalitarianism as it is a revolutionary or reactionary movement, but as time passes the significance of the ideology diminishes proportionally with the need for an ideology. While Hitler may have fanatically believed in the destruction of the Jews within German borders it is doubtful that he, at least initially, intended to reach the extremities to which the Nazis eventually did.

In support of Brzezinski’s first criteria, Hannah Arendt makes the point that the totalitarian ideology “singles out the foes of mankind against whom terror is let loose and no free action of either opposition or sympathy can be permitted to interfere with the elimination of the objective enemy”. Arendt’s point is a result of her experiences under Hitler, and as such she seems to be describing more how she felt about him by restricting the ideology to be racially based, rather than the diverse ideological positions totalitarian leaders are able to take. It is in the best interests of the infant revolutionary totalitarian state to attempt to quash an “objective enemy” only so far as to unite the people under a common cause, but it is not necessarily a sustained effort rather it is just necessary to establish control.

Control over the party is just as important as control over the people. Brzezinski believes that totalitarianism demands “a single mass party, hierarchically organised, closely interwoven with the state bureaucracy and typically led by one man”. Once Hitler passed the Enabling Act in 1933, he set his mind on systematically destroying all possibilities of opposition to his rule to achieve this, Hitler banned all rival political parties and ordered that no further political parties be formed. It is necessary that the party or the leader ensure that there is no opposition to the rule of the party through whatever means possible. Hitler “[gave] power to those below him but [encouraged] them to compete among themselves for power and influence” and thus ensured that Hitler’s subordinates fought amongst themselves too much to offer any real threat to his leadership, however a totalitarian system requires that total power rest in a single place; in Nazi Germany, too much power was allocated to too few people and thus the organised hierarchy required for a totalitarian state was undermined. The leader of a totalitarian government is thus either a figurehead or the bearer of total power, there is no grey area.

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Arendt rightly contests Brzezinski’s second point in saying that a “lack of or ignoring of a party program is by itself not necessarily a sign of totalitarianism”. In theory totalitarianism can be made to exist in any form of government, from democracy to communism to a dictatorial state. Should a democratic candidate be elected into an office which has been given total power over the state he/she will rule with the support of the party they are affiliated with; then they are a totalitarian ruler in a democratic system, despite the existence of other political parties. Hitler earned his power through the ...

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