The Origins of Totalitarianism (
German Elemente und Ursprünge totaler
Herrschaft, i.e. Elements and origins of totalitarian rule) is
a book by
Hannah Arendt which classed
Nazism and
Stalinism
as
totalitarian movements. Its original
title was to be 'The Burden of Our Times', and the move away from
this may have helped to obscure the main thrust of the book, which
is far from being a straightforward study of the Nazi and Stalinist
totalitarianism it might appear.It was recognized upon its
1951 publication as the
comprehensive account of its subject, and was later hailed as a
classic by the
Times Literary
Supplement.
This
book continues to be one of the definitive
philosophical analyses of
totalitarianism, at least in its 20th
century form.Arendt dedicated the book to her husband
Heinrich Blücher.
The book begins with the rise of
Anti-Semitism in
Central and
Western
Europe in the early and mid 19th century and continues with an
examination of the
New Imperialism
period from
1884 to the outbreak of
World War I. Although
Arthur de Gobineau's
An Essay on the
Inequality of the Human Races (1853-55) constitutes the
first elaboration of "
biological
racism", as opposed to
Boulainvilliers' anti-
patriotic and anti-
nationalist racism, Hannah Arendt traces the
emergence of modern
racism as an
ideology in the
Boers'
population, starting in particular during the
Great Trek in the first half of the 19th century,
and qualifies it as an "ideological weapon for imperialism".
Along with
bureaucracy, which was experimented
according to her in Egypt
by Lord Cromer, racism was
the main trait of colonialist imperialism, itself characterized by its
unlimited expansion (as illustrated by
Cecil
Rhodes
). This unlimited expansion necessarily
opposed itself to the
nation-state,
which by definition was territorially limited. Arendt traces the
roots of modern imperialism to the accumulation of excess capital
in European nation-states during the 19th century. This capital had
to be invested outside of Europe to be productive, which in turn
required an expansion of political control overseas in order to
protect the investments. In the last part of the section on
imperialism, Arendt then examines "continental imperialism"
(
pangermanism and
panslavism) and the emergence of "movements"
substituting themselves to the
political
parties. These movements were all
antiparliamentarist and began to
instrumentalize antisemitism. Besides, they all tended to be
against the
state, submitting the
state to the mythified conception of "Race". Thus, Hannah Arendt
reached the unexpected conclusion that Italian
fascism remained a
nationalist authoritarian movement, which glorified the
state, while she considered
nazism to be
closer to
stalinism as both were
totalitarian movements which aimed at destroying the state.
Finally, she pointed to the explosion of the problem of ethnic
minorities and of
refugees following the first war.
The final section discusses the
institutions and operations of
totalitarian movements, focusing on what Arendt
argues were the two genuine examples of totalitarian government in
the first half of the twentieth century:
Nazi Germany and
Stalinist Russia. Here, Arendt discusses the
transformation of
classes into masses,
the role of
propaganda in dealing with
the non-totalitarian world, and the use of terror, essential to
this form of
government. Arendt argues
that totalitarian movements are fundamentally different from
autocratic regimes, insofar as autocratic regimes seek only to gain
absolute political power and to outlaw opposition, whereas
totalitarian regimes seek to dominate totally every aspect of
everyone's life, as a prelude to world domination. Arendt discusses
the use of front organizations, fake governmental agencies, and
esoteric doctrines as a means of concealing the radical nature of
totalitarian aims from the non-totalitarian world. In the
concluding chapter, added in the second edition of the book in
1958, Arendt analyzes the nature of individual
isolation and loneliness as preconditions
for total
domination.
National Review ranked the
book #15 in its 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the 20th Century list
. The
Intercollegiate
Studies Institute also listed it among the 50 best non-fiction
books of the 20th century .
See also
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