I.

Introduction

Totalitarianism, in political science, system of government and ideology in which all social, political, economic, intellectual, cultural, and spiritual activities are subordinated to the purposes of the rulers and ruling ideology of a state. Several important features distinguish totalitarianism, a form of autocracy peculiar to the 20th century, from such older forms as despotism, absolutism, and tyranny. In the older forms of autocracy people could live and work in comparative independence, provided they refrained from politics. In modern totalitarianism, however, people are made utterly dependent on the wishes and whims of a political party and its leaders, usually because of their espousal of a pervasive ideology. The older autocracies were ruled by a monarch or other titled aristocrat who governed by a principle such as the divine right of kings, whereas the modern totalitarian state is ruled by a political party, which embodies an ideology claiming universal authority and allowing no rival claim of loyalty or conscience.