Copyrights (C) by P.

Bornedal
 Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism
Throughout history we have experienced authoritarian rulers or governments. Kings and Emperors have been
governing countries and nations since the beginning of civilizations. In their Modern form, authoritarian regimes are
usually anti-liberal, anti-democratic, and anti-socialist, because the rulers as their immediate aim want to hold on to
their power, privileges, and wealth in a society where they are the undisputed rulers. However, beyond that aim,
they do not seek to control the lives, beliefs, and behaviors of their subjects. As long as people do not oppose and
challenge them and do not try to change the system, the authoritarian rulers tend to leave them in peace.
After World War I, the world will experience other forms of radical Authoritarianism, which has been labeled
Totalitarianism, because these new radical authoritarian regimes aim to control people and their lives in a much
more profound or ‘total’ sense. These new regimes aim at designing nations according to ideas or ideals, and they
control whether individuals live up to these ideas/ideals. Consequently, in their total aspiration for control they
want to control peoples beliefs and everyday behavior too.
The National Socialist movement in Germany, developing into Nazism, and the Communist movement in the Soviet
Union, developing in Stalinism, become the two most glaring and destructive examples of this new type of
totalitarian regime. (We could mention several other smaller nations emerging after the second world war
developing into totalitarian regimes).
Most often Nazism and Communism have been seen as opposite political systems, partly because there were
obvious differences in what counted as their ideals, and partly because they during the Second World War were
deadly enemies—Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, but was eventually defeated in the most decisive
battle of the war, the battle of Stalingrad). However, according to the social philosopher we will be reading, Hannah
Arendt, they have several features in common. They share their hostility to democratic and parliamentarian
government, and their contempt for liberal values and human rights. They reject utilitarian ideals about maximizing
the common good for the highest number of people, and do not shy away from suicidal policy decisions if they are
in conformity with the idea or ideal. Ultimately, the idea of sacrificing a population if it serves a higher ideal
becomes acceptable. Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal
 The Pursuit of Universal Unity
The two ideologies also share the pursuit of equality and unity of their people, although Nazism and
Stalinism have different ideas about what unifies and equalizes a people. The Nazis develop a racist theory
that claims that race is the unifying factor, and on government and state level they therefore strive to
protect the population from the contamination of impure races, which means in practice any other race than
the Aryan. It becomes a national goal to establish a so-called ‘peoples community’ (a ‘Volksgemeinschaft’) of
racially pure Aryans. The Bolsheviks and later Stalinists believe that the unifying factor is the economic
equality of a single class, and one tries to erase private property relations and class differences. The ideal of
unification is employed in both ideologies, meaning that individualism, independence, and creativity is
regarded as intolerable attitudes, and seen as potentially dangerous to the system. Both systems develop
elaborate secret intelligence and police institutions with the duty to intimidate and destroy those who are
seen to oppose the ideal. Both systems become far more invasive on peoples’ private sphere than in old-
fashioned authoritarianism, where the ruler only have the ‘modest’ goal to stay in power.

Another feature they share is their expansionism. The ideal is applied as universal, so they want to transform
the world according to their own image. The Nazis wanted a racially pure population not only in their own
Germany, but also in the neighboring countries they occupied. The reason for Hitler’s expansion to the East
was to create a certain ‘living space’ (‘Lebensraum’) for racially pure Aryans, since the Slavs were regarded as
racially inferior and supposed to be exterminated over time. The communists wanted a classless society not
only in Soviet Union but on an international scale. The Nazi’s went about their goal by exterminating Jews,
Slavs, and Gypsies in whichever new territories they conquered, the Communists made the socialist
revolution an international aim. Last, but not least, totalitarian regimes understood the value of propaganda
and how to make good use of new media such as the radio for propaganda and manipulation purposes.
Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal
 The Destruction of the Utilitarian Ideal
In liberal democratic and anti-authoritarian societies it has been an implicit ideal for Hannah Arendt’s argues that in
two or three centuries that social organization ought to strive for the welfare of a Totalitarianism the implicit
people. In Locke, human’s have a natural right to chose their own government, in idea of human freedom is
Smith they have a right to build their own businesses and consumers have the right perverted. Happiness and
to expect fair competition on the market and therefore the best and cheapest welfare are no longer ideals to
product the market can produce, in Marx they have a right not to be exploited and be followed and applied
scientifically.
to appropriate the product of their own labor, and in Bentham and Mill a society
must strive to maximize the ‘greatest happiness for the highest number of people.’ “Scientism” in politics still
In these different and often rivaling political ideologies, the ideal is after all, and presupposes that human
despite the many differences, peoples’ welfare, and usually the welfare for the welfare is its object, a concept
highest number, whether we talk about the common man, the consumer, or the which is utterly alien to
worker. In liberal, socialist, social-democratic, and utilitarian ideologies the human is totalitarianism.
at the center when one discusses improvement of societies. One assumes a human It is precisely because the
‘nature’ that can be accommodated or not accommodated, humans that can be utilitarian core of ideologies
‘happy’ or not. But it seems always to be taken for granted that one ought to pursue was taken for granted that the
and maximize ‘happiness.’ anti-utilitarian behavior of
Arendt describes totalitarianism as a social ideology that has turned this more or totalitarian governments, their
less implicit thinking around; the totalitarian society is essentially not interested in complete indifference to mass
human happiness and welfare, but in changing ‘human nature’ according to an interest, has been such a
abstract idea or ideal. When this becomes the priority, it does not matter whether shock. This introduced into
contemporary politics an
human are happy or unhappy about being exposed to this transformation, because
element of unheard-of
the Ideal has become the priority. On the contrary, if humans are unhappy, they unpredictability.” Arendt:
apparently do not understand the ideal, what makes them guilty in a crime against Selections p. 3
the totalitarian regime.
Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal
 Destruction of Individuality and Character
When one promotes, not the people, but an idea of society, “Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule over
ideology is put over and above factual life and social men, but toward a system in which men are
reality? superfluous. Total power can be achieved and
safeguarded only in a world of conditioned reflexes,
Now humans as individuals are superfluous, and their of marionettes without the slightest trace of
creativity and spontaneity is a threat rather than an asset to spontaneity. Therefore character is a threat. [ . . . ]
the system. The system prefers an automaton, a group- Individuality, anything indeed that distinguishes one
creature that only pursue the interests of the group. A man man from another, is intolerable.” Selections p. 8
of ‘intelligence,’ ‘character,’ ‘integrity,’ or ‘dignity’ becomes
a challenge to the system. A man showing respect for other “It substitutes for the boundaries and channels of
humans is also going against the ideology of absolute unity communication between individual men a band of
between citizens in the totalitarian system. According to its iron which holds them so tightly together that it is as
ideology, the system tolerates only one type of man; the though their plurality had disappeared into One Man
type the system itself has defined according to its abstract of gigantic dimensions.” Selections, p. 21 [466]
idea.
“By pressing men against each other, total terror
The system creates, Arendt says, an “iron band” between destroys the space between them. [ . . . ] Totalitarian
individuals, that binds them into one single social creature. government does not just curtail liberties or abolish
Plurality disappears. They are now so tightly wound up, so essential freedoms; nor does it succeed in eradicating
tightly pressed together that no movement, and therefore the love for freedom from the hearts of man. It
no freedom is possible. destroys the one essential prerequisite of all freedom
which is simply the capacity of motion which cannot
exist without space.” Selections, p. 21

Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal

 The Totalitarian “Super-Sense” for Logic
“An ideology is quite literally what its name indicates: it is the logic
Arendt argues that in totalitarianism the actual of an idea. Its subject matter is history, to which the “idea” is
applied; the result of this application is not a body of statements
‘sensual’ world, as apparent to our senses, does not
about something that is, but the unfolding of a process which is in
matter, because the idea of a ‘super-sensual’ world is constant change. The ideology treats the course of events as
promoted. This ‘super-sense’ gives contempt for though it followed the same “law” as the logical exposition of its
reality, always flawed and imperfect, a certain “idea.” Ideologies pretend to know the mysteries of the whole
consistency. According to this totalitarian ‘super- historical process – the secrets of the past, the intricacies of the
sense’ “nothing matters but consistency.” Reality is present, the uncertainties of the future – because of the logic
flawed and unpredictable, but the logical super-sense inherent in their respective ideas.” Selections p. 26 [469].
“It is chiefly for the sake of this super-sense, for the sake of
is there to repair the real world.
complete consistency, that it is necessary for totalitarianism to
Social individuals, society, and history are also too destroy every trace of what we commonly call human dignity. [ . . .
unpredictable, and instead of accepting this ] No ideology which aims at the explanation of all historical events
unpredictability, totalitarianism invents ‘ideology,’ of the past and at mapping out the course of all events of the
which is logical, insofar as ‘ideology’ literally implies a future can bear the unpredictability which springs from the fact
‘logic of the idea.’ that men are creative, that they can bring forward something so
new that nobody ever foresaw it.” Selections p. 10
The idea is put in place of the unpredictable empirical
“Over and above the senselessness of totalitarian society is
world. And however absurd and ridiculous it may be, it enthroned the ridiculous super-sense of its ideological superstition.
is now being followed consistently or logically. The Ideologies are harmless, uncritical, and arbitrary opinions only as
idea has become like the first premise in a logical long as they are not believed in seriously. Once their claim to total
chain of deduction. Now it does not matter how validity is taken literally they become the nuclei of logical systems
insane or brutal the actions are if just they follow the in which, as in the systems of paranoiacs, everything follows
first premise. comprehensibly and even compulsorily once the first premise s
accepted. The insanity of such systems lies not only in their first
If only one race is fit to live, it follows logically that
premise but in the very logicality with which they are constructed.
other races are unfit, and from here it follows logically The curious logicality of all isms [ . . . ] already harbors the first
that they must be exterminated. germs of totalitarian contempt for reality and factuality.”
Selections 9 [458]
Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal
 Totalitarianism's Natural Law versus Society’s Consensus Iuris
Related to this idea of the totalitarian super-sense for logic, is
the question of Law. “But it operates neither without guidance of law nor is it
arbitrary, for it claims to obey strictly and unequivocally
The totalitarian system is lawless if we talk about a law as
those laws of Nature or of History from which all positive
commonsensical consensual principles people agree upon. laws always have been supposed to spring. It is the
Arendt talks about a ‘consensus Iuris,’ that is somewhat flexible monstrous, yet seemingly unanswerable claim of
and somewhat vague insofar as it only prescribes what we totalitarian rule that, far from being “lawless,” it goes to
cannot do. “Lawfulness sets limitations to actions, but does not the sources of authority from which positive laws
inspire them; the greatness, but also the perplexity of laws in received their ultimate legitimation, that far from being
free societies is that they only tell what one should not, but arbitrary it is more obedient to these supra-human
forces than any government ever was before, and that it
never what one should do.” Selections p. 23
is quite prepared to sacrifice everybody’s vital immediate
Totalitarianism has no ‘consensus Iuris’, but replaces it with its interests to the execution of what it assumes to be the
own ‘natural laws’ of history or of race. It is therefore ‘lawful’ law of History or the law of Nature.” Select. p. 14 [461]
and ‘law abiding’ is a much more pervasive sense, because it “If it is true that the link between totalitarian countries
derives anything from a super-sensual principle, identical to the and the civilized world was broken through the
abstract ideal, and cancels everything that constitutes monstrous crimes of totalitarian regimes, it is also true
that this criminality was not due to simple
agreements among people, human decency, common
aggressiveness, ruthlessness, warfare and treachery, but
understanding what one can and one cannot do. After having to a conscious break of that consensus iuris which,
established this principle, it becomes far more strict than according to Cicero, constitutes a “people,” and which, as
consensual law. international law, in modern times has constituted the
According to common social agreement and consensus iuris we civilized world insofar as it remains the foundation-stone
do not steal, rape, torture, or kill, but if one completely of international relations even under the conditions of
dispenses with this social contract, and instead follow a natural war. Both moral judgment and legal punishment
presuppose this basic consent; the criminal can be
law decreeing that some races or some classes need to be
judged justly only because he takes part in the consensus
exterminated, one is suddenly transformed into a law-abiding iuris, and even the revealed law of God can function
citizen if stealing, raping, torturing, and killing, according the among men only when they listen and consent to it.”
natural law and the super-sense of logic. Select. p. 15 [462]
 Sentenced to Death as
Guilty of Existence
In Franz Kafka’s famous novel ‘The Process,’ the protagonist, K, “Guilt and innocence become senseless notions; “guilty”
wakes up one morning to find that he is being arrested. He has is he who stands in the way of the natural or historical
committed no crime, and he is not told what he is arrested for. process which has passed judgment over “inferior races,”
During the novel, he walks from court to court to try get over individuals “unfit to live,” over “dying classes and
information of what he is guilty of. It is all in vain, and at the end he decadent peoples.” Terror executes these judgments,
and before its court, all concerned are subjectively
is executed and dies, his last words, “like a dog” – as ignorant about
innocent: the murdered because they did nothing
his supposed crime as he was in the beginning of the novel. Kafka
against the system, and the murderers because they do
probably meant his novel to be a metaphor on modern existence not really murder but execute a death sentence
overwhelmed by an incomprehensible bureaucracy and haunted by pronounced by some higher tribunal. [ . . . ] Terror is
a pervasive sense of guilt. In terror regimes, however, Kafka’s lawfulness, if law is the law of the movement of some
creative allegory is no existential metaphor, and people, having suprahuman force. [ . . . ] Terror as the execution of a
committed no crimes, are de facto ‘arrested’ for nothing and killed law of movement whose ultimate goal is not the welfare
‘like dogs.’ of men or the interest of one man but the fabrication of
In totalitarian regimes, terror does not discriminate between who is mankind. [ . . . ] Terror sacrifices the “parts” for the sake
guilty and who is innocent. Guilty is anybody who stands in the way of the “whole.” The supra-human force of Nature or
of whatever has to be achieved: young or old, man or woman, adult History has its own beginning and its own end.”
or child. It is not essential whether one has committed a crime or
not. “Under conditions of total terror not even fear can any
longer serve as an advisor of how to behave, because
For that sake everybody are innocent, as Arendt notices: those who
terror chooses its victims without reference to individual
are murdered are innocent because they never committed a crime;
actions or thoughts, exclusively in accordance with the
those who murdered them are innocent because they only followed objective necessity of the natural or historical process.
an order issued by a higher tribunal, which again only followed the Under totalitarian conditions [ . . . ] fear has lost its
higher ‘supra-human’ natural law. practical usefulness when actions guided by it can no
Caught in this spiral of terror, natural self-preservation reactions like longer help to avoid the dangers man fears.” Selections p
fear, caution, timidity, escape, etc., are all futile under the system. 24 [468] Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal
Prof. P. Radcliff on Totalitarianism

Supporting Source Material:

Prof. Pamela Radcliff:

Interpreting the 20th Century
Lectures 13 & 14

The Great Courses;

The Teaching Company
2004
Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal
Prof. P. Radcliff on Totalitarianism and Stalinism

Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal

Prof. P. Radcliff on Totalitarianism and Stalinism, 3

Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal

Prof. P. Radcliff on Totalitarianism and Stalinism, 4

Copyrights (C) by P. Bornedal