TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENTS: CHARACTERISTICS AND EXAMPLES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The totalitarian governments are governments that exercise control in a country in an authoritarian manner, imposing on the legality and generally undemocratic one - party system where freedoms are subject to the interests of the dictatorship.

Historically, totalitarian governments have been around since the beginning of humanity. However, they have been classified as such since the concept of democracy began to spread throughout the globe, which has served as an antonym for totalitarianism.

Nazism was a totalitarian government

The single party in totalitarian regimes is usually the undisputed authority in the country. The leadership of the same tends to be the same as the government, which prohibits any freedom and curtails the rights of citizens.

In totalitarian countries, the enforcement arm of justice depends directly on the government and acts according to its directives and guidelines. For totalitarian governments to be able to exercise almost absolute control over the population, they in turn need to wield all military power, which must conform to the guidelines of the ruling ideology.

Totalitarianisms do not have a unique ideology assigned, although they are usually located at the ends of the political spectrum such as communism or fascism, while others disguise their thinking in moderate ideologies

Characteristics and examples of totalitarian countries

The understanding of totalitarianism arises from its comparison with democratic models. Examples of totalitarian governments can be found at any latitude on planet Earth.

Joseph Stalin - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Founded by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, it had as one of its successors Joseph Stalin, who ruled the country with an iron hand for thirty years, until his death in 1953.

Stalin fought any attempt at internal opposition within the system, such as the one led by Trotsky, managed to defeat Hitler and systematically attacked the human rights of its citizens.

His legacy was execrated by his successors, beginning a process of de-Stalinization.

Adolf Hitler - Nazi Germany

Adolf Hitler, Phot-colorization, via Wikimedia Commons

Before the Second World War, the German National Socialist Party managed to come to power, subsequently annihilating all the powers constituted by the Weimar Republic.

The leader of the Nazi Party was Adolf Hitler, who after establishing totalitarianism and proclaiming the Third Reich that would last a thousand years, faced the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and later the United States in World War II.

Hitler would end up committing suicide and with him the totalitarian Nazi state, which would now be divided into two: the west, a western democracy and the east, a socialist state.

Chinese Communist Party - China

After the victory of the ROC in World War II, the political regime led by Chiang-Kai Shek began to crumble.

Led by Mao Zedong, a Revolution arose in China that in several years dominated the entire country and ended up proclaiming the People's Republic of China, relegating the Republic of China to the island of Taiwan.

Since then and although it has opened widely to commercial capitalism, China remains a totalitarian country governed by a one-party system.

Benito Mussolini - Italy

Benito Mussolini, promoter of Italian state corporatism.

Benito Mussolini founded the National Fascist Party and began organizing an armed group of soldiers to fight communism, called the Black Shirts.

The pressure of this armed group was such that despite being a minority in Congress, King Victor Emmanuel II appointed Mussolini president of the Council of Ministers, and made a triumphal entry into Rome.

Thus began a dictatorship of more than 20 years, which faced communism and from which Nazi Germany was inspired, which was its later ally in World War II.

Mussolini was committed to the creation of an Italian Colonial Empire, which failed with the end of the war and its subsequent popular execution.

Fidel and Raúl Castro - Cuba

On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro, accompanied by the July 26 Movement, seizes power and puts an end to the Cuban Revolution.

Although at first it was proposed as a redemocratizing movement that would return the freedoms withdrawn by the United States-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, Castro quickly gave it a Marxist tinge and made Cuba a socialist republic, with a single party.

Although the country has education and health rates above the Latin American average, in Cuba the freedoms of its citizens have been systematically violated, forcing many groups into exile, such as homosexuals and opponents.

Robert Mugabe - Zimbabwe

Rhodesia was part of the British Colonial Empire and the desire for independence had already begun to spread in the African country.

In Rhodesia there was an apartheid imposed by the white settlers, which after an armed insurrection in which Mugabe participated and which ended up granting them independence, with equal conditions with their citizens regarding race.

Mugabe was first prime minister, where he established cordial relations with the white minority and unleashed a civil war against certain black tribes.

Already in the presidency, he abandoned his claims to establish a Marxist state, but in any case he ended the internal opposition. Currently he is more on the side of Russia and China, and Mugabe remains in power.

Augusto Pinochet - Chile

The Chilean Armed Forces on September 11, 1973 led a military coup, supported by the United States, against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.

Although the Allende government was facing a crisis of popularity and supply of basic products, its Army Commander Augusto Pinochet seized power and outlawed all political parties.

Using his own constitution drafted in 1980, Pinochet submitted to a plebiscite to ratify his tenure in office, which he lost.

Two years later, the Chilean dictatorship that brought persecution and disappearances would end, although Pinochet would continue as senator for life and Commander of the Army.

References

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