Totalitarianism and the Rise of Dictatorships
The interwar decades saw the rise of fascist, Nazi, and communist dictatorships that sought total control over society, politics, and the individual.
Definition
The study of twentieth-century dictatorships—especially Fascist, Nazi, and Soviet—and of the concept of totalitarianism used to characterize regimes seeking total domination of society.
Scope
This topic examines the dictatorships of the twentieth century and the contested concept of totalitarianism: the rise of Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Soviet Communism, their ideologies and techniques of mobilization, terror, and propaganda, and the lived experience of ordinary people under them. It surveys the historiography of fascism and Stalinism and the long debate over whether 'totalitarianism' usefully links regimes of the right and left.
Core questions
- What conditions enabled the rise of dictatorships after the First World War?
- Is 'totalitarianism' a useful category linking fascism and communism?
- How did these regimes mobilize support and impose terror?
- How did ordinary people live, comply, and resist under dictatorship?
Key concepts
- totalitarianism
- fascism
- Stalinism
- propaganda and terror
- mass mobilization
Key theories
- The origins of totalitarianism
- Hannah Arendt analyzed Nazism and Stalinism as a novel form of total domination rooted in imperialism, antisemitism, mass society, and terror that destroys the boundary between public and private life.
- A definition of fascism
- Robert Paxton argued that fascism is best understood through its functions and stages of development rather than a fixed doctrine, emphasizing what fascist movements did over what they said.
History
The instability following the First World War, economic crisis, and fear of revolution fostered Mussolini's Fascism, Hitler's Nazism, and Stalin's consolidation of Soviet power. The concept of totalitarianism, developed during the Cold War and theorized by Arendt, grouped these regimes together, while later social historians such as Fitzpatrick explored everyday life within them.
Debates
- The usefulness of 'totalitarianism'
- Historians debate whether 'totalitarianism' illuminates real similarities between Nazi and Soviet regimes or obscures their differences and served Cold War polemics.
- Top-down versus society-centered explanations
- Scholars dispute whether these regimes are best understood through their leaders and terror or through social support, participation, and everyday accommodation.
Key figures
- Hannah Arendt
- Ian Kershaw
- Sheila Fitzpatrick
- Robert Paxton
- Robert Conquest
Related topics
Seminal works
- arendt1951
- kershaw1998
- paxton2004
Frequently asked questions
- What does 'totalitarian' mean?
- It describes regimes that claim total control over politics, society, and private life through a single ideology, party, terror, and propaganda; whether it usefully links fascism and communism is debated.
- Are fascism and Nazism the same thing?
- Nazism is often treated as a form of fascism, but it had distinctive features, above all its central racial ideology and genocidal antisemitism; scholars debate how closely to identify them.