> Hannah Arendt is perhaps the pioneer. It's been 40 years since I read > it, but she did identify naziism & communism as a unique species > called "totalitarian." One of her claims, if I remember correctly, was > that totalitarian terror did not begin until after it was technically no > longer needed because all resistance had already been crushed. > It's a long book so there's a lot in it I don't remember at all. I can't > even remember the exact title, but it included either "totalitarian" > or "totalitarianism." Published in the 1950s. It was I think her first > book??? > Carrol Arendt's book was _The Origins of Totalitarianism_, first published in 1951 (I think). Others writing at that time (or a bit later) who wrote, in different ways, about totalitarianism were Rolf Dahrendorf, J. T. Talmon, Bernard Crick, Karl Popper, and Raymond Aron. This diverse group was in general agreement about 'closed societies' (fascist & communist) as distinct from 'open societies' (liberal democracy). Thus, the concept of totalitarianism was linked to Cold War attitudes and such analysis concealed signifcant differences between collective Soviet economy with system of central planning and capitalist economy with big business working closely with political state that continued throughout Nazi period. It also ignored changes in Soviet Union in post-war period. Plus, fascism and communism are ideologically divergent. Of course, Frankfurters used the term totalitarian prior to 1950s. Marcuse, who acknowledged that the term was too abstract and vague, nevertheless, used it in relation to control and domination of Nazis, Soviets *and* 'advanced' capitalist societies (pre-figuring analyses in _Soviet Marxism_ and _One Dimensional Man_). Talmon coined phrase 'totalitarian democracy' to identify collectivist ideas that ostensibly denied liberty, tracing them to Rousseau. Michael Hoover
