The Meaning of the Term Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism was a one-party political system that was based on
dictatorship. It first started in Europe in the 1920s and 30s. It
was an absolutism that emphasized the importance of the state at the
expense of individual liberties. It displays the following features:
One-party dictatorship and one-man rule were emphasized in a
totalitarian state. Only one party ruled in a totalitarian state, for
example, the Fascist Part in Italy, the Nazi Party in Germany and the
Communist Party in the Soviet Union. All other political parties were
made illegal, banned and suppressed by terrorist acts. The party and
the part leader had absolute control over the state. All citizens
owed absolute obedience to the ruler, for example, Il Duce in Italy
and Fuhrer in Germany.
Opposition was suppressed. The totalitarian government can tolerate
no opposition. All opposition parties, newspaper and opponents were
suppressed by terrorist acts, persecution and secret police. Secret
police were set up to watch and arrest opponents, for example, OVRA in
Italy, Gestapo in Germany and Cheka in Soviet Russia.
The totalitarian government controlled thoughts and public opinions.
The totalitarian government controlled thoughts and public opinions
through censorship, religion, mass media and education. Textbooks
were changed to glorify the state, and were used to produce loyal
citizens, e.g. children in Germany were forced to join the Hitler
Youth to produce loyal Nazis.
The totalitarian government owned or supervised all industrial
productions. All economic production served the interests of the
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...er the weak,
hence supported the dictatorial rule of totalitarianism, which adopted
an expansionist foreign policy.
The personal ability of the totalitarianism leaders drew wide support
from the people. Mussolini and Hitler had good oratory skills to
build a good image of their political parties. They also had good
organization skills, such as the Blackshirts of Mussolini and the
Brownshirts of Hitler. They were able to make alternative promises to
gain support from different classes. Hence make the revival of
totalitarianism in Europe in the 1920s and 30s inevitable.
In short, the revival of totalitarianism in Europe in 1920s and 30s
was due to a number of subjective and objective factors. The above
reasons finally brought the revival of totalitarianism and hence
brought Europe to the Second World War.
It was during the 1920’s to the 1940’s that totalitarian control over the state escalated into full dictatorships, with the wills of the people being manipulated into a set of beliefs that would promote the fascist state and “doctrines”.
Inverted totalitarianism is a termed made by political philosopher Sheldon Wolin to describe the emerging form of government of the United States. Wolin believed that the United States is increasingly turning into a partial democracy. He used the term “inverted totalitarianism” to illustrate the similarities and differences between the United States governmental system and totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany with Hitler and Stalinist Soviet Union. Wolin central points are how are government is highly managed, money-saturated elections, the lobby-infested Congress, the imperial presidency, the class-biased judicial, the penal system, and the media. Inverted totalitarianism is different from traditional forms of totalitarianism. It doesn't
Totalitarian rulers often control the thoughts and beliefs of people as well. The citizens of the community are forbidden to question or explore things that are unknown to other citizens. By doing this, the government emphasizes that they know everything and have ...
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
Nazism possess the core features of totalitarianism, however has a few differences which distinguishes it. Totalitarianism, by the Friedrich-Brzezinski definition, is when the government establishes complete control over all aspects of the state,maintaining the complete control of laws and over what people can say, think and do. Nazi Germany satisfies most of this criteria, as they had a one party system without political opposition. Moreover, they had a single unchallenged leader, in Hitler, to whom the entire nation conformed to. Furthermore, the party had nearly complete control over the country, controlling what people thought through propaganda and censorship, as well as what people could do through fear and terror. However, there are
In her excerpt "Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government" from her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt reveals that terror is at the core of a totalitarian government, and that this terror is based upon ideology. This type of terror exceeds fear. Totalitarianism dominated many governments during the twentieth century. Unlike other forms of government that oppress its people; a totalitarian form of government escapes the boundaries of definition. A totalitarian government is commonly mistaken as a tyranny or dictatorship. Arendt explains that this is because it must begin as a tyranny to lift the boundaries of the laws. Arendt uses two particular governments as examples to help clarify the nature of a totalitarian government; fascist Germany and communist Russia. According to Arendt, the totalitarianism that rose in Germany was based upon the ideology of racism. It was propagated by Hitler and enforced by the Nazi regime. This form of totalitarianism led to the ultimate form of terror: human cruelty and death. Arendt compares that in communist Russi...
In order to conclude the extent to which the Great Terror strengthened or weakened the USSR, the question is essentially whether totalitarianism strengthened or weakened the Soviet Union? Perhaps under the circumstances of the 1930s in the approach to war a dictatorship may have benefited the country in some way through strong leadership, the unifying effect of reintroducing Russian nationalism and increased party obedience. The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred on Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of party officials worked. During the purges Stalin's personal power can be seen to increase at the cost of the party.
During Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror in Germany, he had tried to form a totalitarian society based on hate, and in the end of it all, it did not survive. “The Government ran and censored the media. All forms of communication were liable to interference from above and could, and were, heavily censored. This removes freedom of speech, therefore enabling the government to influence popular opinion via propaganda and false news
Fascism is defined as, “an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.” Peter Hyland reports that throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, an economic depression was growing and becoming widespread throughout the world. People were losing faith in their democracies and in capitalism. Leaders who gained power supported powerful militarism, nationalism, and initiated the return of an authoritarian rule. J.R. Oppenheimer says that the rise of fascism and totalitarianism in Europe and Russia instigated a “critical step on the path to war.”
...ppress counter-revolutionaries rather than remove opposition. Because of the Bolsheviks abolished press freedom and control of the news indicated that opposition was bound to take place resulted in retaliating with violence which reduced opposition but established annihilation in Stalin’s regime. Censorship and other repressive methods were used often in tsarist regimes to effectively control radicals and anti-state crimes, which is reflected mainly in Nicholas 2nd’s regime indicating that this effective measure removed opposition without the use of terror or violence that Stalin always relied upon.
Fascism may be described as an extreme right-wing movement in the form of a radical authoritarian nationalism. Fascism was first created in Italy by Mussolini in 1922 to 1943. Mussolini implemented force wherever necessary to ensure the continuation of the controlling environment he was trying to perfect. The Italian government was endeavouring to control nearly all aspects of life and had completely thrown the private and public spheres of life out of balance. A fascist state needs a strong leader who can motivate the nation to feel a huge sense of nationalism and thus increase the army’s size, have a nostalgia for the past, show a hatred of communism, no opposition parties or even perhaps create a scapegoat of the opposite party. A fascist state would also require state control over production and major banks to ensure control. In the beginning of 1933 when Adolf Hitler was given the chancellorship he began implementing these fascist ideals into the German society through propaganda speeches, passing legislation that banned certain practices and ignoring the binding clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and rebuilding the army to its former glory. Many historians have argued that the Nazi ruled Germany was a fascist state. This report will show that Nazi Germany was infact a fascist state in regards to women, children and the control of the government.
Another reason that had a significant impact was the belief of fascists that their nations were superior to all other people. “Fascism was the governing ideology of Ge...
In many real and fictionalized totalitarian societies, children live apart from their families. There can be many reasons for them doing so. It could be because they want to brainwash them and don’t want their thoughts to be skewed from the belief of their families. And it could also because they don t want them to have any special connections to any other people to replicate a feeling of equality amongst all people. It also causes them to have no sense of individuality. Also, by separating the child at birth it prevents the parent from growing any feelings such as love towards the child. By separating the children from their families at birth it sets them up in a position to be taught without questioning the way the society wants them to believe.
The reasons for its occurrence have briefly been mentioned above, although there are much deeper ideological, social and economic reasons including imperialism and anti-Semitism. In order to fully understand it, we must also contrast it to other political systems like authoritarianism and dictatorship, which are similar to a certain extent, but lack crucial elements that are at the core of totalitarian ideology. Out of the many examples of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, Nazi Germany, Communist China and the Soviet Union stand out because of the way in which these regimes were run, using propaganda, terror, and brainwashing in order to be able to maintain complete control over the country.... ... middle of paper ...
MODERN HISTORY – RESEARCH ESSAY “To what extent was Nazi Germany a Totalitarian state in the period from 1934 to 1939?” The extent to which Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state can be classed as a substantial amount. With Hitler as Fuhrer and his ministers in control of most aspects of German social, political, legal, economical, and cultural life during the years 1934 to 1939, they mastered complete control and dictation upon Germany. In modern history, there have been some governments, which have successfully, and others unsuccessfully carried out a totalitarian state. A totalitarian state is one in which a single ideology is existent and addresses all aspects of life and outlines means to attain the final goal, government is run by a single mass party through which the people are mobilized to muster energy and support.