The Rise Of Totalitarianism

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The Rise of Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is any political system in which a citizen is totally subject to a governing authority in all aspects of day-to-day life. It goes well beyond dictatorship or typical police state measurers. Totalitarianism involves constant indoctrination achieved by propaganda to erase any potential for dissent, by anyone, including most especially the agents of government.
Historically, totalitarian regimes have surpassed authoritarian ones in size and in power. State control of all television, radio, and every other mass media makes it easy for totalitarian regimes to make their presence felt, often through campaigns of propaganda or the creation of a personality cult.
Some nations, such as Britain and France, continued to use a modified form of democracy to attempt to solve their social and economic issues. Germany's attempt at democracy eventually transformed itself into Hitler's autocratic regime, and in Soviet Russia, Stalin was in power as the Russian dictator by 1924. While many blame state-backed terror for the rise of totalitarianism, it is difficult to deny that the regimes of Hitler and Stalin were totally unpopular among their respective masses. We must not forget that both Hitler and Stalin gained power through the plebiscite. We can make the argument that totalitarianism rose as an alternative method of government, economic, and social recovery to compliment that of democracy. We can say within a certain degree that the inherent instability of the nation-state following World War I inevitable led to the rise of totalitarianism.
We can easily draw parallels between the rise of 20th century autocracy and absolute power (totalitarianism) and the absolute power that was observed after the initial birth and early acceptance of the nation-state concept in the 17th and 18th centuries. It can looked at that It totalitarianism is unique among all other forms of autocracy and nationalism i...