Editing Totalitarianism

{{Quote|The [[United States of America|foreign]] [[reactionary|reactionaries]] who accuse us of practicing "[[dictatorship]]" or "totalitarianism" are the very persons who practice it. They practice the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie|dictatorship or totalitarianism of one class]], the [[bourgeoisie]], over the [[proletariat]] and the rest of the people.|[[Mao Zedong]]|[https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_65.htm On the People's Democratic Dictatorship]|1949 June 30}}[[File:Polish totalitarian protest.png|thumb|A march in [[Republic of Poland|Poland]] equating [[Marxism–Leninism]], [[National Socialism|Nazism]], and [[LGBT+|homosexuality]] as "totalitarianism."]]
'''Totalitarianism''' is a concept widely used by the [[Imperial core|Western]] [[bourgeois media]] to conflate progressive [[Communism|communist]] governments with [[reactionary]] [[Fascism|fascist]] governments. 

This term has been developed by Western scholars who defend [[Liberalism|liberal]] democracy as the highest form of human society, completely ignoring the negative dimensions of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]]. 

== History ==
In ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', [[Hannah Arendt]] argued that [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Nazi]] and Communist governments were new forms of government and not merely updated versions of the old tyrannies. According to Arendt, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes is their [[ideology]] which provides a comforting and single answer to the mysteries of the past, present and future. For Nazism, all history is the history of race struggle and for Marxism–Leninism all history is the history of [[class struggle]]. Once that premise is accepted, all actions of the state can be justified by appeal to nature or the law of history, justifying their establishment of authoritarian state apparatus.<ref>{{citation|author=Villa, Dana Richard|year=2000|title=The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=2–3|isbn=9781139000314|doi=10.1017/CCOL0521641985}}</ref>

National Security Advisor for [[Jimmy Carter]] and Rockefeller-connected [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]] helped to introduce the concept of totalitarianism to university social science and professional research as a way to characterize and criticize the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]] during the [[Cold War]].<ref name="Brzezinski & Friedrich 1956">{{Citation|isbn=9780674332607|author=Brzezinski, Zbigniew; Friedrich, Carl|year=1956|title=Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy|publisher=Harvard University Press}}</ref>

[[Michael Parenti]] and James Petras have suggested that the totalitarianism concept has been politically employed and used for [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] purposes. Parenti has also analysed how "[[Left-wing anticommunism|left anti-communism]]" attacked the Soviet Union during the Cold War.<ref>{{Citation|isbn=978-0872863293|author=Parenti, Michael|year=1997|title=Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism|city=San Francisco|publisher=City Lights Books|page=41–58}}</ref> For Petras, the [[CIA]] funded the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom]] in order to attack "Stalinist totalitarianism".<ref>{{Citation|author=James Petras|title=The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited|publisher=Monthly Review|volume=51|issue=Issue 06|year=1999}}</ref> More recently, Enzo Traverso has attacked the creators of the concept of totalitarianism as having invented it to designate the enemies of the West.<ref>{{Citation|isbn=978-2020378574|author=Traverso, Enzo|year=2001|title=Totalitarianism: the twentieth century in debate|trans-lang=French|trans-title=Le Totalitarisme: Le XXe siècle en débat|publisher=Poche}}</ref> Historian [[Domenico Losurdo]] outlines that the horrors which supposedly equate Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are not without historical parallel. He further outlines that they had significantly differing policies on the treatment of Eastern European nations and that Nazi rhetoric struck a chord with Western [[Colonialism|colonial]] ideas. In fact, [[Republic of India|Indian]] leader [[Mohandas Gandhi|Gandhi]] remarked that [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] was a "great man" and that  "in India we have Hitlerian rule, however disguised it may be in softer terms." The fact that the Soviet Union was the last to compromise and the political-historical conditions behind the [[Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]] must be remembered rather than using the historical event to invent such a false dichotomy.<ref>{{Citation|author=Losurdo, Domenico|year=2016|title='''Stalin and Hitler: Twin Brothers or Mortal Enemies''<nowiki/>'}}</ref>

== Definition ==
According to Arendt, features of totalitarianism include [[Autocracy|one-man rule]], a communications monopoly, and terroristic [[police]]. The United States fits all three of these characteristics: unilateral action by the [[President of the United States|President]] such as starting wars without approval from [[United States Congress|Congress]], state-controlled media (the [[Committee on Public Information]] during the [[First World War]]), and the [[Espionage Act]], which bans all criticism of the state.<ref>{{Web citation|date=2023-06-23|title=Towards a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism|url=https://redsails.org/losurdo-on-totalitarianism/|newspaper=[[Red Sails]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230623121339/https://redsails.org/losurdo-on-totalitarianism/|archive-date=2023-06-23|author=[[Domenico Losurdo]]}}</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Left-wing anticommunism]]

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Capitalist progaganda]]