cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29028246
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Its a meaningless term created by someone who said africans should be enslaved because they are of a lower caste in defence of an actual nazi in a war crimes trial.
You should learn the context of the words you speak.
No need to be so cold.
I have a context of the word totalitarianism, I’m sorry it doesn’t include the person who you think came up with it. If you understand etymology you should understand that the word was, yes invented, but involves the word “totalità” and was purely meant to convey the idea of total control by the state over all aspects of life, political, social, and private. It was in fact used to describe the fascist regime by Benito Mussolini. (Link me any evidence of the contrary in case I’m wrong)
I’m saying generally, as a leftist, I wouldn’t want a state that tells me what to do and what to think (and I wouldn’t want that for you either my friend, but who am I to say that).
Edit: To loop it back to my OG comment, in most cases, and history proves this, a totalitarian state kills.
you're not a leftist
also, you spent most of your words defending your right to defend your political stance and didn't actually argue back much against the criticisms the other guy brought up, such as
You’re not a leftist either. You’re a capitalist pig who wants to disrupt any civil discourse between socialists.
you're still not addressing any of the criticisms
Well thats mainly because it’s absolutely baffling to take any term and say “yea no, it’s pointless, don't use that term”. When a term like totalitarianism exists there is obviously a definition behind. When you hear it, you know what it refers to. For the millionth time:
A state. That controls. Every aspect. Of life.
Thats it! I didn’t criticise a specific state. You’re mind obviously went to USSR. I know that for a fact and ask me how. You think when I use this word I immediately bash any sort of socialist progress in history. That’s a huge problem. We all want progress.
If you’re interested, I’d like to further this conversation. Perhaps in DMs? I want to know why exactly you see my statement as a threat to your political stance. Insult me all you want, I want to see your POV truly.
i'm not going to extend this discussion further (nothing personal), but i want to say this:
you say the definition of totalitarianism is straightforward and unambiguous, but definitions don't exist in a vacuum. even the most seemingly self-evident definitions have a reasoning behind them. and my problem with totalitarianism (and likely the other guy's problem as well) is that it is an inherently anti-communist definition. we already have a term for oppressive regimes that control the roles and behavior of their citizens tightly with a rigid hierarchy: fascism. but fascism is fundamentally right-wing, so liberals can't use this to vilify socialist regimes (and trying to make up bullshit like "left fascism" would make them look like idiots). totalitarianism, as a concept, solves this problem for them: it conveniently abstracts two policitally opposite kinds of regimes into a single category. then liberals can use it to defend capitalist "democracy" from its left-wing enemy, socialism, and its pretend enemy, fascism.
my mind immediately went to the ussr because that's exactly what the idea of totalitarianism was made for. i'll say it again: it creates a false equivalence between the fascist regimes that terrorized europe in the 20th century and the socialist regimes (the ussr, china, cuba, vietnam, etc) that represented a massive threat to capitalism. it's an attempt to extend the fear of fascism to successful socialist regimes
i checked your profile and it looks like you're an anarchist. i'm not gonna argue for or against that, but it's pretty well stablished among communists that totalitarianism is an anti-communist concept, so it shouldn't surprise you that we wouldn't receive it well. it makes you sound like a liberal from the usa, to be completely honest, which is why i immediately replied that you're not a leftist. regardless of how you feel about socialist regimes, maybe consider not using liberal concepts crafted specifically to attack socialism or at least understand why we don't like them
peace
No
Pretty sure no such state exists or ever has existed. To borrow the phrasing of George Carlin, it's "spooky language." It conjures up an image of a society in which you can't do anything without worrying about someone or something being over your shoulder, ready to report you at a moment's notice. Probably the closest thing to this in practice is extremely repressive transitory "states" like Occupied Korea under Syngman Rhee. It's not something you'd be able to formalize, practically speaking, without also undermining the concept of having a society in the first place.
And part of the problem with this kind of framing is that it trivializes what real mundane brutality can look like. Take the US, for example. Does the state have total control over everything? No. When a cop guns down a black person over basically nothing, does this mean all black people in the US are being actively hunted and exterminated? No. But it is nevertheless a shadow cast over them, that they are not really free or safe; that whatever "liberties" they do share with "white" people, are much more conditional than the ones white people usually at least get a trial over.
Furthermore, if you focus purely on "the state", you leave out the brutality inflicted in the name of "private ownership" of land, factories, etc. For example, when a worker dies of exhaustion on an Amazon warehouse floor, it isn't a state actor murdering them, but the lack of a working class state forcing Amazon to have humane and stable working conditions, coupled with the system of capitalism enforced by the state that puts people in a position where they desperately need the money even if it risks their life, is indirectly killing them. This is one way in which capitalism shirks responsibility for what it causes, but the consequences are nevertheless real.
I appreciate this reply, honestly dude. It’s one of the more grounded responses I’ve seen to the whole “totalitarianism” conversation.
You’re right that “totalitarian” is a word with a ton of rhetorical weight. It gets tossed around too easily, especially in Western discourse, and it often ends up flattening really complex situations into moral panic. I get that. And I agree that it’s not a super useful label if we’re only using it as a Cold War cudgel.
But I don’t think that means the concept is totally useless either. Even if no state has ever been purely totalitarian, there have been systems that came pretty damn close in practice. Where surveillance, control, and political violence permeated nearly every aspect of life. East Germany’s Stasi state comes to mind. So does North Korea. Or the Khmer Rouge. These weren’t spooky metaphors, they were fucking real man, and the people living under them weren’t dealing with just vague unease. They were being watched, repressed, disappeared. The fact that no state can perfectly formalize “total control” doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about when systems get closer and closer to that line.
You also make a strong point about how this kind of framing can sometimes obscure the more mundane, distributed violence of systems like capitalism. I don’t disagree. But I don’t think we have to pick one or the other. Talking about the violence of a centralized state doesn’t mean we’re ignoring the violence of Amazon warehouse floors, or the brutality of economic coercion. If anything, I’d argue that both state violence and capitalist exploitation feed into each other. They’re not separate systems, they’re interlocking. Anarchists (and some Marxists, too) have been making this point for a long time.
And lastly, yeah, I totally hear your critique that labeling a system “totalitarian” can risk overstating or misrepresenting the lives of people under it. That’s valid. But I’d push back gently and say: repression doesn’t need to be absolute to be real. Fear doesn’t need to be universal to shape a population. You don’t need someone literally watching your every move, just the credible threat that they could be. That’s enough to change behavior and maintain control.
So yeah. I’m not married to the term. But I also don’t think we should be afraid to critique deeply authoritarian systems just because the language has been abused. We can hold space for nuance and still call a boot a boot.
I'd think at that point, you could just say "repressive" then instead of unnecessarily all-encompassing words like "totalitarian", but even that is getting lost in being too vague. A state that represses the capitalist class is fundamentally not the same as a state that represses working class organization, for example. Also, you mentioned "North Korea", you may be confused about the history there due to endless western vilifying. The DPRK, aka: "North Korea" is not repressive toward regular people. It is a bulwark of attempted liberation and reunification from colonialism and imperialism, and it happens to be communist in ideology, which makes sense because communism and liberation typically go hand in hand. It is "South Korea", the part of Korea still occupied by the US to this day, that has a history of being brutally repressive and being an extension of US imperialism there.
To reiterate, the problem is not that something is a state, inherently (this is where I would differ with some who call themselves anarchists). The problem is in whose organized interests are behind the state. And although it's true that communists see an endpoint where the state is no longer necessary, there is still the question of how you actually get there. This is a defining point in the conversation, the question of transition, and where the concept of a socialist working class state comes from. And when we look at the historical gains in liberation, quality of life, and developing toward communism, nothing comes close to socialist state projects. Naturally, this is terrifying to the capitalists and so they would have you believing that these states are always incredibly scary places running on fear and desperation.
It is incredibly important, if you are sympathetic to communism, to be able to side with socialist state projects overall, even if you acknowledge that they don't always do right all of the time (no entity ever does and holding them to standards of perfection is a common tactic from the capitalists). If you don't side with them, you are effectively, whether you realize it or not, siding with the capitalists and imperialists of the world; with the narrative that is arguing better is not really possible, that gains can only be made on a small level by small groups "choosing" to be free. It is critical to understand this, or else "anarchism" becomes little more than a fear of authority, and you lose sight of who represents the best chance of liberating the people of the world. You don't have to personally love vast bureaucratic systems, in other words, to understand that the DPRK is the main thing that kept Korea from being a neoliberal puppet state across the board. Or to understand that China is currently facing down US imperial hegemony and is capable of standing up to it, without even pulling a trigger, while pushing for a multipolar world instead of another form of hegemony. That's a powerful force toward liberation. It's not the whole thing of it, it's not all said and done, but we can't lose sight of how pivotal this kind of organized force is in the broader context of the worldwide struggle for liberation.
we know
Ah yes, sorry, "Don't tell me what to doooo no bed-time!!" isn't a real ideology. It's a reactionary bastardization of an ideologue dedicated to liberation into an individualistic mental self-jerk. Besides for the origins of words..."totalitarianism" sounds like a really lazy way of saying "muh authoritarianism is bad".
While you can self-jerk in your ivory tower about perfect ideologues; practical applications of communism require a certain level of "authoritarianism" to defend the revolution from threats and to actually seize and control the means of production for the workers. Average Chinese citizen eats more protein and is slowly reaching a higher PP than the average American. Average Cuban has a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate.
Seems like "authoritarianism" is a hell of a lot healthier and kills less people than the rugged, calvinist "individualism" that the Western hegemony breeds in it's own core and globally. By the way friend, communist states are told what to do and "what to think" by a party that is dedicated and made up by the workers of the state dedicated to servicing the working class. This is why most of China has state-owned industry directing resources to private institutions that fulfill consumer needs and a state-owned bank.
Also, damn, Sovet Union had a higher home owner-ship rate?? What about muh individualliiiiisssmmmm to form your ooowwn destinnyyy not decidddeed by the staaaate pbbbttt
Buddy we’re talking about a definition of a word. You need to control your emotions.
I made a clear statement. Totalitarianism kills. I stand by that firmly. I didn’t say you’re stupid. I didn’t challenge your political position. I purely, fucking, said totalitarianism kills. And if you take my stance on authoritarianism as a political challenge, then I’d honestly hope to god your hands never get anywhere close to power.
I don’t know how to say this without you thinking I’m trying to be condescending, but I wish you good health.
Buddy, your slippery-slimey weaseling isn't gonna work here. What is the context of totalitarianism being brought up here on a communist forum in a drive-by comment when the word is typically used by most as a "whistle" for anti-authoritarianism in a manner of anti-commmunist/anti-fascist "three arrows" bullshit?
It's obvious what your intent was, you just don't like it being deconstructed for the sake of what it is instead of whatever "moral principle" you're putting on as a front. Democracy and rugged Calvinist individualism kills far more and you're free to stand firmly by that statement while most of the western world has a higher death toll than any communist or "totalitarian" nation through just their economic actions via exploitation of the third world. Should we add military interventions as well?
I do indeed take it as a political challenge. Because it's politically illiterate. My health is fine, thank you. I got work but a lovely partner and family to talk to every day.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/hannah-arendt-white-supremacist-456007
'As a leftist' you should perhaps stop using terminology used by a white supremacist.
I ask for evidence that the term wasn’t used to describe a fascist state and you send me… a news article? A news article that just plainly says “yea, they were racist”. It’s a fucking term dude. We’re talking about the term not the person and it has a definition, and I’m saying I don’t want a future with totalitarianism.
What the hell are you on about? Are you denying that totalitarianism exists? Oh sorry, can’t use that term. Are you denying that states that controls its citizens exist? No more condescending comments. Tell me.
Every country has at some point been called "totalitarian" by its detractors, and no country self-identifies as such. It's so imprecise and vague it's useless for serious discussion, especially when there are actual ideologies (that various governments claim, and that have some sort of useful definition) you can talk about instead.
The only thing it is useful for -- as others here have pointed out -- is clumsily equating fascism and communism because both systems exercise state power.
The excersizing of state power by liberal societies, that actively kills millions of people world wide is never considered in these arguments because its a form of exceptionalism.
You gonna start telling us about the ubermench as well?
Come on lmao, the term means literally nothing, it can be applied to any state that holds a monopoly of violence and has only ever been historically used to try to paint socialist countries as being the same as the Nazi state (which itself is based off the American state)
All it does is flag you as a zionist sucker offer.
And I brought her up as the most famous example of the word being used was in defence of a Nazi that she was shagging.
I'm thinking it's a cucked left-libertarian that's about to bust out the word "statism".
The first hint was mentioning Stalin's purges. It's always the Stalin strawman.