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In today's lesson we're going to take a look at the rise of totalitarian dictatorships. The big picture here is that the Great Depression created a complicated situation when people wanted simple answers, and those answers were increasingly provided by regimes that wanted to take complete control of the entire society. Character assassination and purges — also hallmarks of a totalitarian temptation — are on the rise. A University of Chicago economist was forced to resign as editor of the Journal of Political.

1. Stalinism, the method of rule, or policies, of Joseph Stalin, Soviet Communist Party and state leader from 1929 until his death in 1953. Stalinism is associated with a regime of terror and totalitarian rule. Three years after Stalin’s death in 1953, Soviet leaders led by Nikita Khrushchev denounced the cult of Stalin.
2. May 27, 2020 A lot of ink has been spilled recently decrying the fast rise of authoritarianism in the East. Journalists and representatives of grassroots organizations have rushed to flag up alarm signals in the press, warning the West that the situation in Eastern Europe and Russia, not to mention authoritarian China, was quickly getting out of control.
3. Totalitarianism = suppressed on one hand, demonstrated mad chaos on the other Lenin created the apparatus of a totalitarian state that Stalin inherited - the nation was already on it's way to totalitarianism under Lenin. This is what I have so far. Please feel free to add or ask questions.

One of the best-selling books in America right now, Ibram Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist,” calls for some astonishingly autocratic policies. It would establish a federal Department of Anti-racism with veto power over any local, state, or federal policies considered racially inequitable by its bureaucrats. (No one in the agency would be appointed by or accountable to the president or Congress.) It would also “investigate private racist policies” and “monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas … empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.”

This proposal to tear up both the checks and balances on executive fiat in Washington and the protections for individual rights embedded in our Constitution is one indicator among many that woke activists have fallen headlong for authoritarianism.

Their very language of group conflict and oppression is of course taken directly from Marxism. And there is a harsh intemperance and lack of proportionality in the behavior of today’s social-justice warriors. They say white supremacism is universal in America, not an aberration. Their favored graffiti spray tag is “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards). They want to defund and shut down police departments, not fix them. They call for lawmakers to “abolish ICE” and fling our southern border wide open. There is a growing fanaticism in which gray arguments and toleration for opposing points of view disappear.

If politics is the methodical organization of resentments, identity politics runs on the methodical organization of rage. Rage is an awful fuel for the gradual give-and-take needed to produce social progress in a non-authoritarian democracy. Alas, the Americans under age 30 who are manning the barricades of identity socialism loathe messy give-and-take. They prefer, as columnist Bari Weiss has noted, to squash resisters. Revolution rather than reform is increasingly the goal.

There is a soaring tendency to personalize disagreements. Protesters now regularly descend on the homes of people they disagree with. They hound them in restaurants. They harass family members. They release phone numbers and personal information online (“doxing”). They get opponents disinvited from public events, and dismissed from public posts (“deplatforming”).

Character assassination and purges — also hallmarks of a totalitarian temptation — are on the rise. A University of Chicago economist was forced to resign as editor of the Journal of Political Economy after he argued, “We need more police, we need to pay them more, we need to train them better.” (The day he wrote that, June 8, was the most murderous ever recorded in his home city; Chicago’s homicide rate is currently up 51% from the previous year.) When he said poor people benefit from positive role models, Pete Buttigieg was denounced as racist. The art and museum world was swept by severe ideological purges this summer.

Intellectual standardization of the mass media is another hint of totalist currents. Lexis-Nexis searches show that woke jargon and orthodoxies have become a uniform language within the media in recent years. The press ideal for generations — objectivity — is now attacked not only by agitators but by progressive journalists themselves as “a pillar of white supremacy.” On stories touching upon race, transsexuality, immigration, and other identity topics, many reporters now profess that the goal should be “truth” rather than objective discussion. The longstanding ideal of making newspapers and magazines mixed marketplaces of contending ideas, and letting readers decide issues for themselves, is now being savagely rejected by much of the press.

A former Time editor recently called for new laws penalizing hate speech. A Vox reporter wants all publications to ban from their op-ed pages any argument that supports today’s elected administration. The current Washington Post media columnist has repeatedly said that trying “to ‘represent all points of view equally’ is absurd,” and that journalists should advocate rather than aim to be balanced.

When Weiss was driven from the New York Times in June, she described the “civil war” raging inside that paper, a pattern of browbeating and bullying of centrists by progressive colleagues that has become common across the major media. “A new consensus has emerged in the press,” she cautions, “that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”

Orwell described how totalitarian movements dictate what ideas and language will be deemed socially acceptable. He referred to this as groupthink. Ideological movements feel deeply threatened by mavericks who violate their groupthink, and so persecute them.

Readingstalinist Russia Totalitarianism On The Rise Among

In Maoist China and Stalinist Russia, the purging impulse eventually led to party members attacking other party members for being marginally less sanctified. We are now seeing similar phenomena within the identity politics movement. At left-wing Evergreen State College, Bernie Sanders enthusiast Bret Weinstein was hounded off the faculty for resisting a demand by black activists that all whites vacate the campus for a day. One of the nation’s largest public radio stations, WNYC, recently faced a revolt after it chose a progressive white woman instead of a person of color to head its newsroom. The purity standard rises higher and higher.

Readingstalinist Russia Totalitarianism On The Rise Since

Another indicator of the totalitarian temptations within today’s identity politics is the surging reality of violence. There is the psychic violence of vendettas pursued by Twitter hunting packs. There are the shout-downs, table-turnovers, and physical trashings that the non-woke now regularly face on campuses. Smashed buildings and statues, looting, and arson became commonplace in American cities this summer. And the paramilitary enforcers of identity politics increasingly carry out assaults like the recent beating of a Wisconsin state senator (a gay Democrat) for filming riots, and the killing of a Portland businessman for counter-protesting.

A generation ago, “Power and Purity” author Mark Mitchell has noted, many people “were wringing their hands over the ‘moral relativism’ of the young. Today, moral relativism is not the problem. ... If you listen to the rhetoric of the social-justice warriors, you hear not the easygoing platitudes of the relativist but the hard-edged assertions of the absolutist. When people march in the streets, picket their opponent’s house, and threaten their political enemies with violence, they are expressing not moral relativism but supreme moral confidence. The humility required to listen patiently and respond charitably has nearly vanished.”

Karl Zinsmeister is the former editor in chief of Philanthropy magazine and creator of The Almanac of American Philanthropy, both published by the Philanthropy Roundtable.

When we look at ourselves in Australia, it is easy to complain and compare the things we may or may not have. Our system of democracy allows free speech, fair elections and politicians, that if we do not like, are replaced for ones we prefer. Yet, for us to have got to this stage, we have been part of a democratic process that started with the Federation of Australia in 1901. This process has evolved as times change, but ultimately, the freedoms we enjoy have been with us for over a century. This was not the case though for the citizens of Russia. A country torn apart during the same period by civil war, world wars, famine, revolution, cold war sanctions and life under the rule of a man many declare the epitome of totalitarianism, Joseph Stalin. This essay will look at just how totalitarian Stalin’s Russia was. This will be done by researching the way Stalin used the tools available to him to reign over the population and leave a huge death toll in his wake. I will not be comparing Stalin’s regime to that of other totalitarian leaders, although they are some noted, but with a definition of what totalitarianism is.

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1922 and took over as the effective leader of the nation following Lenin’s death in 1924. He remained in control of the USSR until his death in 1953. His reign as leader was marked by the industrialisation of the nation, collectivisation of the agrarian sector and the purge of elements of society deemed a threat to the communist rule. These factors indicate that Stalin’s leadership was that of a totalitarian dictator. But how totalitarian was he? As a discourse, totalitarianism has been the subject of numerous books and articles . However, there are also differing definitions for the term. For this essay, I will be using the six traits of totalitarian dictatorship as outlined in Gleason and Pavlova to look at how totalitarian Stalin’s leadership , they are;
1. An official ideology
2. A single party led by one man
3. Terroristic police and the terror control as a method of control
4. Control of the mass media
5. Control of the armed forces
6. A centralised bureaucratic management of the economy

Totalitarianism evolved in the late 1930’s and 1940’s as a theory of explaining how dictatorships such as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin emerged . These leaders were enabled using technology that was emerging in the early twentieth century against enemies of democracy and who had expansionist idylls . Tucker (1965), describes how totalitarian regimes create mass movements and use propaganda to indoctrinate ideology . Arendt (1951) further differentiates between masses and classes, stating that these regimes need the weight of numbers to succeed . In Russia, totalitarianism was used as a way of rejecting the past and the stigma that the country had been backward and needed to move to rapid industrialisation . Although some of the transformation of Russia was started under Lenin’s rule and there are elements that appear to be from the totalitarian playbook, Lenin’s leadership and the Bolshevik movement are differentiated from Stalin. Lenin’s leadership is seen as being more of a revolutionary dictatorship . The use of terror, systematic terror, in totalitarian regimes is a key underlying factor that distinguishes them from other regime types . Looking at each of the six traits of totalitarianism as listed above, I will break these down and determine how totalitarian Stalin’s rule was.

• An Official Ideology
Stalin took over from Lenin in what was a society that had adopted a communist ideology following a revolution and a civil war. Leninism was a way of enabling the masses to turn against the former Tsarist leaders and refute imperialism as a method of government to one of proletariat rule. Stalinism, as an ideology, can be used to explain the way the Soviet state operated under Stalin . The Bolsheviks had promised the masses that they would be better of under communism. Cult like behaviour was at the heart of the Bolshevik ideology. The promise to deliver the population to the promise land was a common theme throughout the early writings of communist leaders . Stalin perpetuated this notion with his use of five-year plans to transform the country and the lives of the people. Still at the core of this behaviour was the communist’s ideology of Marx and Lenin and the belief that capitalism will succumb to proletarian revolution . This required indoctrination of all levels of society to ongoing education using public meetings, the arts, schooling and society at large . These even included the types of housing that were used as a way in assisting workers to be efficient whilst still being held to the ideology of the state . There is little doubt that an official ideology existed under Stalin. It is the depth at which it becomes all pervasive in the lives of the citizens that determines how totalitarian it is.

• A Single Party Led by One Man
This is a given. Stalin led the Communist Party for three decades. The question is how did he manage to do this? Stalin had already seen off opposition to his taking over the role of General Secretary in the final years of Lenin’s life . The years up until 1934 were marked with various levels of disputes at the highest levels of the Communist Party but it was the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December that started a series of show trials and the purging of the party, military and any others deemed enemies of the state . His leadership of the Communist Party allowed him to project his will on to all facets of life for the Soviet citizens. By eliminating the old Bolsheviks, Stalin was able to replace them with a new breed of communists, ones that hade grown up as part of the system . He also ordered the destruction of former opposition and any of their supporters. The NKVD operational order 00447, extended the purge to include those with criminal records, former well-off farmers (Kulaks) and others deemed harmful to the party . Tucker (1965) describes the “absolute and unsurpassed power in the hands of a single man” as a key to moving the state in to action The ‘Man of Steel’ was living up to his chosen name. His priorities were to strengthen his own power and develop a defence industry to further expand his ideology outwards from Russia.

A further element to Stalin’s control over the nation and how it was achieved, has included particular character traits. Tucker (1965) states that there is factual evidence to suggest Stalin suffered from paranoia and that this condition influenced his decision making . Edele (2011) goes further by calling Stalin a “callous leader with paranoid tendencies,” then add that he was treacherous, devious, vindictive and manipulative .

• Terroristic police and the terror control as a method of control
Terror was a critical tool for Stalin. The Soviet secret and regular police numbers grew from 87,000 in 1930 to 213,439 in 1940 . The secret police went through various name changes, Cheka, GPU, OGPU, MVD, NKVD and KGB during the Stalin years . The size of the police and the intelligence gathering they used resulted in the population being virtually powerless as so much of their lives were under scrutiny . Russia’s secret police would go on to become Stalin’s key to maintaining his power, this was particularly apparent during 1937-1938 . The purge and the resultant terror are part of a totalitarian system as it helps to prevent formation of any power being developed within the system by individuals or groups . An internal passport system was established in 1932 to keep citizens in their existing jobs and from moving around the country as means to dissuade the mobility of workers . All the above measures ensured that Stalin ruled over society based on his ideology and the use of terror as a way of controlling the country. Tucker (1965) argued that this use of permanent terror was the very essence of totalitarianism .
• Control of the mass media

The use of the mass media to further augment the totalitarian regime is also a key trait. Newspapers were employed to highlight how society was becoming more cultured. Simple tasks such as personal hygiene was reported to demonstrate the population needed to move from their previous backwardness to one of industrious . Stalin controlled, through his bureaucracies, exactly what and how things could be written or portrayed. The term “speaking Bolshevik” relates to the approved language that all aspects of society were to adhere to . The arts and mass culture adopted an optimistic view of society within Russia. Socialist realism was declared the official style in 1934 and resulted in the representation of reality as what it was supposed to be, not as it was . Stalin’s statement, “life has become better, comrades; life has become more cheerful,” was used extensively in the 1930’s in the press, on placard and quoted in speeches .
• Control of the armed forces

Stalin was the supreme commander of the state and therefore controlled the armed forces. To demonstrate this, in June 1937 he had eight of the most senior officers arrested for espionage and treason . This signalled the beginning of the purge of the military that would ultimately result in 34,000 military officers being dismissed in the period 1937-1938 . Although some were reinstated in 1940, it is believed that the loss of experience within the senior ranks of the military compounded Russian losses during World War 2. Hitler reneged on his non-aggression pact with Stalin and launched operation Barbarossa and invaded Russia. Stalin’s actions left the army in a state of paralysis as the German Army rolled through the country . This total control of the military that Stalin exercised demonstrated that nobody was safe from the terror and purges that were going on throughout the country. His desire to establish a strong military through industrialisation as a way of way of demonstrating the new Soviet might to the world was damaged by his actions towards the officers that run it.
• A centralised bureaucratic management of the economy

Stalin inherited a bureaucratic juggernaut when he took over the leadership of Russia that was staffed by 2.4 million officials at the end of the Civil War . Compared the number of working class that was being governed, it was more than double . From 1922 to the 1930’s, Stalin continued to grow the numbers of police and other enforcers of the party rule and by 1934 they came under control of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) along with the border guards, foreign intelligence and the fire departments . The Great Terror was a way for Stalin to centralise more of the government functions and further adding to the nations bureaucracy. The stability of the bureaucracy in Russia allowed Stalin to control it at his will as he dominated the Politburo which ultimately controlled the bureaucrats . Stalin’s Five-Year Plans also required a vast amount of bureaucracy to make sure the development projects and workers required could be managed effectively to achieve his goals. Tucker (1965), discusses how a totalitarian state takes the process of bureaucratisation to the extreme and that a totalitarian state is no more than a bureaucratic monster .

Stalin’s rule was bookended by disparaging comments from both Lenin and Khrushchev. Lenin was concerned that Stalin had gained huge power and how he would use it. In one of his last letters to the Party, Lenin proposed that Stalin should be removed form his position as General Secretary . Khrushchev repudiated the ‘cult of personality’ that surrounded Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. He described Stalin as using the communist ideals as a way of cultivating his personality cult . Unfortunately for the citizens of the USSR, Stalin was allowed to rule for nearly three decades that resulted in a death toll that still has not been precisely ascertained. The large number of arrest’s, convictions, labour camp inmates and executions make a final figure of victims during the great purge as high as seven million . Add to this the possible number that died during the famines and the number jumps to a conservative fifteen million . The losses in military and civilian lives during the Second World War further increase the death toll by around twenty-three million .

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By examining the six traits that are present within a totalitarian regime, it has been possible to see how these were taken to extreme measures and demonstrate how totalitarian Stalin was. As has been shown, Stalin’s regime not only had all six traits and is therefore easy to classify as totalitarian, however, in all instances he took each trait to the most extreme level to suit his ambitions of total control. It is obvious that that he could not rule on his own and his manipulation of the state bureaucracies and military using fear and terror allowed him to stay in power. He consistently replaced those he felt were class enemies with new sycophantic young Soviets that worshipped his personality and status. This image of Stalin was replicated in the mass media and using propaganda. The final death toll because of Stalin’s policies may never be known, however, the sheer weight of numbers suggest just how totalitarian Stalin Russia was.

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