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Totalitarianism
David D. Roberts
polity
Copyright page
Copyright © David D. Roberts 2020
The right of David D. Roberts to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Polity Press
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3239-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3240-7(pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Roberts, David D., 1943- author. | Polity Press.
Title: Totalitarianism / David D. Roberts.
Other titles: Key concepts in political theory.
Description: Medford, Massachusetts : Polity, 2020. | Series: Key concepts in political theory | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “David Roberts outlines the contours and history of totalitarianism”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019038605 (print) | LCCN 2019038606 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509532391 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781509532407 (Paperback) | ISBN 9781509532421 (ePUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Totalitarianism. | Totalitarianism--History.
Classification: LCC JC480 .R635 2020 (print) | LCC JC480 (ebook) | DDC 321.9--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038605
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038606
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon
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1 Why Should We Care about Totalitarianism?
A new political phenomenon
Coined by an Italian anti-fascist in 1923, the term “totalitarianism” quickly became part of our vocabulary, and the concept has now been central to political discussion for almost a century. However, it has long been one of the most uncertain and controversial of the key concepts in political theory. Some critics advocate abandoning it altogether. But after surveying the uses that have been made of the category, and looking again at the most prominent cases, this book will argue that totalitarianism remains essential to understanding the modern political universe. Still, the notion has often been misused or misconstrued, so we need a deeper, recast understanding of what totalitarianism might mean.
It is not hard to explain why we should care about the political phenomena most frequently labeled totalitarian, starting with three novel experiments that emerged in Europe in the wake of World War I. These were the fascist regime in Italy, the Nazi regime in Germany, and the communist regime in the Soviet Union, especially as it settled out the 1930s under Joseph Stalin. They were not only new but largely unanticipated, though in retrospect we can see foreshadowing in the “total mobilization” during World War I, including government coordination of the economy and manipulation of public opinion. For the influential Bulgarian-born Parisian intellectual Tzvetan Todorov, writing in 2000, the emergence of totalitarianism, leading to a long conflict with democracy, was nothing less than the central event of the twentieth century.1
The trajectories of the Soviet, German, and Italian experiments profoundly affected not only the shape of our world but also