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Totalitarianism and Rationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

The experience of modern totalitarian regimes suggests that they are not likely to perish through internal revolt unless that occurs at a time when the totalitarian regime is in mortal danger from an external challenge, as in the marginal Italian case, or these the totalitarian movement in power is about to undertake decisive measures to turn the country into a totalitarian system, as in the case of the counter-revolution against Peron in Argentina. Other than that, and even considering the succession crises, modern totalitarian regimes have shown themselves capable of maintaining their totalitarian character in spite of domestic and foreign opposition. More recently it has been argued (e.g., by I. Deutscher, Russia: What Next) that modern totalitarian regimes, if not overthrown by external forces, will nevertheless in the end be quietly and inevitably transformed into more democratic states by the subtler but irresistible influence of rationality inherent in the bureaucratic and managerial apparatus that no modern state can do without. This proposition will be developed more fully and given critical consideration in subsequent pages in order to test whether rationality, regarded in this context as a certain mode of thought and behavior induced by the requirements of modern industrialized and bureaucratized societies, is in fact incompatible with modern totalitarianism.

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Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 1956 , pp. 751 - 763
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1956

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References

1 Much was made of this in Talmon's, J. L.The Rise of Totalitarian Democracy (Boston, 1952)Google Scholar.

2 This is the political tragedy of such leaders as Chiang Kai-Shek or Naguib who came to power to effect a revolution but became dependent in their control of power on conservative elements.

3 One might also consider a supernatural restraint in the sense of a transcendent moral order to which many governments pay lip service. In fact, however, its political significance is probably covered fully by the three outlined above, and particularly by the first two.

4 Democracies do so, to a limited extent, in time of recognized danger; this is the concept of constitutional dictatorship. However, it always has some time limit.

5 Totalitarianism, p. 53. (Cambridge, 1954)Google Scholar. The author acknowledges his debt to C. J. Friedrich with whom he has collaborated in teaching a graduate seminar on dictatorship. A product of that collaboration is their forthcoming book on Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Harvard University Press).

6 For a fuller discussion, see the author's The Permanent Purge—Politics in Soviet Totalitarianism (Cambridge, 1956), esp. pp. 1–8, 168–175Google Scholar.

7 Fascist inability to cope decisively with the old officer corps, the monarchy and the Vatican probably also explains the relative swiftness of the collapse of Fascist power as compared to the Nazi capacity to control the situation until the final annihilation.

8 See The Permanent Purge (cited in note 6) particularly chapters 4 and 5.

9 (New York, 1953), p. 227. Deutscher's argument should not be confused with B. Moore's reasoned analysis in Terror and Progress USSR. This weighs alternative patterns of development in terms of the possibility of continued totalitarian development, or a technical-rational pattern, or the emergence of a traditionalist form.

10 Fainsod, Merlo, How Russia is Ruled (Cambridge, 1953), p. 500Google Scholar.

11 There is also the case of Japan, where industrialization advanced rapidly under a form of government which was increasingly marked by totalitarian tendencies. All indications prior to 1945 suggested that a “democratic evolution” was not to be expected.

12 For another example, consider the political implications of Kafka's Trial.

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