TOTALITARIAN DOCTRINES: IDEOLOGY AND CHARACTERISTICS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The totalitarian doctrines are the set of ideas and principles on which a form of political organization, where power is centered in its entirety within a single figure, who exercises repressive control of the free society is constituted.

This model differs from dictatorship and autocracy because it does not use violence in the first instance to achieve its rise to power, but rather works according to an ideology with which it achieves the support of the masses.

Stalinism was a totalitarian doctrine

The appearance of this political and social phenomenon appeared since the beginning of the 20th century in the European continent, after the First World War, spreading rapidly throughout the continent, establishing itself as a viable model in the international political context.

At present this type of totalitarian doctrines have allowed the development of populist governments throughout Latin America; directly affecting international relations as opposed to the globalization process.

The study of totalitarian regimes is of utmost importance in sociology, political science, philosophy and public law, to understand the social and political factors that give rise to them within the democratic model, their duration in time, and their consequences in the field. international.

What is a totalitarian state?

A totalitarian state is considered to be those political forms of government where all the powers and public institutions have merged under the tutelage of a single person or party, who authoritatively regulates the laws, public institutions and the private sector.

This coalition of all powers is carried out in an uncompromising manner, reaching high levels of centralization and autarky, (the state supplies itself with its own resources, avoiding imports as much as possible).

Within the totalitarian model, an attempt is made to relegate all the autonomy of all institutions and companies that are not controlled by the State, granting the latter the total domination of both civil and religious organizations.

It differs from the dictatorship in the mechanism by which it obtains power: it does not seek to subdue the masses but to make them support the regime, creating in its early phases an empathy towards the totalitarian doctrine before it absorbs the capacity resistance of people who do not agree with it.

However, due to their similarities in practical terms, many totalitarian governments lead to dictatorships, where the leader initially obtains power with popular support but later maintains it through the use of violence.

Ideology of totalitarian doctrines

The backbone of totalitarian doctrines is that they have an ideology that highlights the rise of their leader as the resource through which the solution of the economic and social problems that a State is going through will be achieved, it is born as a criticism of the current way of government.

This ideology does not need to be aligned with positions of the left or right, however it must be fascist and loaded with ultra-nationalism, where the State is the end that encompasses the entire process.

Ideology usually creates the figure of the anti-citizen: it is an essentially minority percentage of the population, which is responsible for economic and social problems (for Nazi Germany, the Jews, in Venezuelan Chavismo, the rich).

Within the political discourse of the leader, a language of hatred towards this self-proclaimed internal enemy is included and ways are specified on how to eliminate the anti-citizen to achieve popular support, in this way the ideology takes hold in the general population.

Characteristics of totalitarian doctrines

Among the various forms of political yoke in the contemporary era, totalitarian regimes present, according to political scientists and experts on the subject, the following characteristics:

- Actions are based on an official ideology or doctrine that covers all aspects of human existence, so that any member of society must follow it out of their own conviction and not through other means.

- Power resides in a single group, which is usually led by a charismatic leader, who acts in a dictatorial manner without openly proclaiming himself as such.

- The leader of this doctrine uses a speech of intolerance towards subjects or activities that do not pursue the objectives of the ideology.

- There is a terrorist surveillance system that uses the full power of modern science and psychology as a tool to create terror.

- The State has total control of the communication media, propaganda appears as a tool for indoctrination.

- The main sources of employment, food and other engines of the economic system are directed or controlled by the State.

- Absolute control is established over public institutions and the private sector in the political, social and cultural spheres.

- The leader's speech has an apparently ultra-nationalist message, elevating the concept of "sovereignty, nation, country, State" above that of the subjects.

- All aspects of the daily life of citizens are politicized.

- Political indoctrination is presented as part of the educational system.

Main totalitarian doctrines of history

Since the end of the First World War, great socio-political changes have taken place in Europe, among which totalitarian doctrines are born, the most relevant since the 20th century would be:

Fascism (Italy)

Benito Mussolini, promoter of Italian state corporatism.

The Benito Mussolini regime was the first contemporary case of a totalitarian doctrine, it ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943, being the first to use the term "Totalitarianism" which he summarized in the phrase "Everything in the state, everything for the State, nothing outside of the State and nothing against the State ”.

Stalinism (Soviet Union)

It refers to the government of Joseph Stalin from 1928 to 1953. It is used as a reference by other later totalitarian models, it was based on a centralized economy, with a single political party with an important cult of his figure.

Nazism (Germany)

The governments of Mussolini and Hitler were totalitarian. Source: Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije It is one of the most recognized cases of totalitarianism in contemporary world history, it includes the period of time from 1933 to 1945 under the administration of Adolf Hitler, who eliminated all political opposition and used racism and anti-Semitism as premises of their ideology.

Additionally, the cases of

• Francisco Franco (Spain): from 1936 to 1975
• Zedong Mao (China): from 1949 until his death in 1976
• Hugo Chávez (Venezuela): from 1999 until his death in 2013, however the regime remains in power to this day.

References

1. Maier, H. Totalitarianism and Political Religions, Volume 1: Concepts for the Comparison of Dictatorships. 2004. London & New York. Routledge Publishing: Available at: books.google.com
2. Linz, J. Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. London. 2000 Lyenne Rienner Publishers: Available at: books.google.com
3. Thomas, L. Encyclopedia of the developing World. 2013. London & New York. Routledge Publishing: Available at: books.google.com
4. Brzezinki, Z. Totalitarianism and Rationality. Cambridge University Press, 1956, Sept 50 (4): pp 751-763.
5. Bernholz, P. The Constitution of Totalitarianism. Journal of Institutes and Theretical Economics 1991. 147: pp 425-440.