極權主義

The concept of totalitarianism was at its outset controversial, and has been accused of being more of an ideological instrument than a descriptive tool. In the context of the Cold War, the identification between stalinism and nazism was obviously aimed against the Soviet Bloc, and has been therefore accused of being mainly used for anti-communism purposes. The first criticisms thus arose in the socialist movement. Hence, trotskyism called the Soviet Union a "degenerated workers' state", while Guy Debord would argue in the Society of the Spectacle (published in 1967, a year before May 1968 and the Prague Spring) that Western liberal democracies constituted a form of "soft spectacle" while the Soviet Bloc represented a "condensed form of the spectacle". Apart of criticism from the socialist movement, political scientists later argued that the "totalitarianism" concept didn't cover the real functioning of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, beside the question of when did stalinism end, this concept didn't account for the dissolution of the USSR in the 1990s.

The edition of The Black Book of Communism (1997), under Stéphane Courtois' direction, lit up again the controversy concerning stalinism and nazism alleged identification under the concept of totalitarianism. Besides, François Furet's earlier thesis about Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR being "totalitarian twins" was exposed to various criticisms. In The Nation, Daniel Singer, for instance, acknowledged the "totalitarian nature" of Stalin's Russia while finding "the thesis of "totalitarian twins" both wrong and unproductive. [1]. Others authors, among whom historian Eric Hobsbawm, reacted to Furet's continued identification in the 1990s of both regimes, as a sure sign of anti-communism. Indeed, the political context of the creation of this concept — the very beginning of the Cold War — would tend to accredit such a thesis. However, other authors have argued that despite this essential ideological differences and thus explicit goals shared by the rival ideologies (namely, nazism and communism, which is herein identified with stalinism despite the existence of other models), their functional working and the use of concentration camps in both Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR proved their essential similarity.

However, this technical similarity between both regimes itself as been contested. In the social sciences, the approach of Friedrich and Brzezinski came under criticism from scholars who argued that the Soviet system, both as a political and a social entity, was in fact better understood in terms of interest groups, competing elites, or even in class terms (using the concept of the nomenklatura as a vehicle for a new ruling class). These critics pointed to evidence of popular support for the regime and widespread dispersion of power, at least in the implementation of policy, among sectoral and regional authorities. For some followers of this 'pluralist' approach, this was evidence of the ability of the regime to adapt to include new demands. However, proponents of the totalitarian model claimed that the failure of the system to survive showed not only its inability to adapt but the mere formality of supposed popular participation. Its proponents do not agree on when the Soviet Union ceased to be describable as totalitarian.

The notion of "post-totalitarianism" was put forward by political scientist Juan Linz. For many commentators, such as Linz and Alfred Stepan, the Soviet Union entered a new phase after the abandonment of mass terror on Stalin's death. Discussion of "post-totalitarianism" featured prominently in debates about the reformability and durability of the Soviet system in comparative politics.

As the Soviet system disintegrated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, opponents of the concept claimed that the transformation of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, and later the total and sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, demonstrated that the totalitarian model had little explanatory value for researchers. Several decades earlier, for example, Bertram Wolfe in 1957 claimed that the Soviet Union faced no challenge or change possible from society at large. He called it a "solid and durable political system dominating a society that has been totally fragmented or atomized," one which will remain "barring explosion from within or battering down from without." Many classic theories of totalitarianism discounted the possibility of such change; however, later theorists not only acknowledged the possibility but in fact encouraged and welcomed it. Any suggestions of the indefinite stability of states labeled totalitarian among proponents of the term were largely discredited when the Soviet Union fell by the wayside.

In State of Exception - Homo Sacer (2003), philosopher Giorgio Agamben argued that the state of exception enforced during the Third Reich (beginning with the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended — instead of repealing — the Weimar Constitution) has now become "general" and "permanent". In a sense, Agamben questions not only the legitimity of the totalitarianism concept, but the legitimity of a political typology itself. Instead, he claims, on Foucault's steps, that we have passed from the "territorial state" to the "population state", with the instauration of biopolitics as dominant governmental technology [2]. The extension of internment camps to various categories of the population, including refugees and illegal aliens, is considered by Agamben a crucial sign of the generalization of the state of exception.

While the term fell into disuse during the 1970s among many Soviet specialists, other commentators found the typology not only useful for the purposes of classification but for guiding official policy. In her 1978 essay for Commentary, "Dictatorships and Double Standards" (later expanded upon), Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that a number of foreign policy implications can be drawn by distinguishing "totalitarian" regimes from "authoritarian" ones. According to Kirkpatrick, authoritarian regimes are primarily interested in their own survival, and as such have allowed for varying degrees of autonomy regarding elements of civil society, religious institutions, court, and the press. On the other hand, under totalitarianism, no individual or institution is autonomous from the state's all-encompassing ideology. Therefore, U.S. policy should distinguish between the two and even grant support, if temporary, to authoritarian governments in order to combat totalitarian movements and promote U.S. interests. Kirkpatrick's influence, particularly as foreign policy adviser and United Nations ambassador, was essential to the formation of the Reagan administration's foreign policy and her ideas came to be known as the "Kirkpatrick Doctrine."