The Origins of Totalitarianism

“Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups may not be a very pleasant spectacle, but it does not spring from human meanness alone. What makes men obey or tolerate real power and, on the other hand, hate people who have wealth without power, is the rational instinct that power has a certain function and is of some general use.”

Arendt points to the decline of Europe and the loss of power and influence of the Jewish people as one of the major causes of modern antisemitism. She asserts that people are less accepting of wealth when it is not tied to the function of power.

“A fundamental difference between modern dictatorships and all other tyrannies of the past is that terror is no longer used as a means to exterminate and frighten opponents, but as an instrument to rule masses of people who are perfectly obedient.”

Arendt exposes how terror is a tool used by dictators to control. Terror has a specific function that makes it useful beyond merely inciting fear; it mobilizes and focuses groups of people toward a common goal and against a perceived common enemy.

“In order to establish a totalitarian regime, terror must be presented as an instrument for carrying out a specific ideology; and that ideology must have won the adherence of many, and even a majority, before terror can be stabilized.”

This quotation precedes an exploration of the origins of modern antisemitism. Many complex issues led to the focus of antisemitism by totalitarian regimes, but its prevalence made it an effective tool. Arendt suggests that many people viewed the Nazi antisemitic agenda as a new concept, failing to how antisemitism had been developing for centuries.

“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”

Arendt warns against viewing ideologies as history or accepting versions of history which neatly summarize and place everything under a single umbrella of thought. History, she says, is more complicated than that, as evidenced by her thorough and detailed look at multiple components which contribute to the rise of totalitarianism.

“The old manipulators of logic were the concern of the philosopher, whereas the modern manipulators of facts stand in the way of the historian. For history itself is destroyed, and its comprehensibility--based upon the fact that is enacted by men and therefore can be understood by men--is in danger, whenever facts are no longer held to be part and parcel of the past and present world and are misused to prove this or that opinion.”

Totalitarian movements deal in lies. In later chapters, Arendt explores how totalitarian rulers must give a sense of continual movement and advancement while establishing consistency through fiction. Arendt cautions against systems which deny history and either refute facts or use facts to prove opinions.

“The simultaneous decline of the European nation-state and growth of antisemitic movements, the coincident downfall of nationally organized Europe and the extermination of Jews, which was prepared for by the victory of antisemitism over all competing isms in the preceding struggle for persuasion of public opinion, have to be taken as a serious indication of the source of antisemitism.”

Arendt refutes four fallacies which attempt to explain the origin of antisemitism. Here, she provides a thesis for her book and outlines the role antisemitism plays in the eventual totalitarianism movements which sought to eradicate the Jewish people.

“In all these cases, the aristocracy, in a desperate last struggle, tried to ally itself with the conservative forces of the churches—the Catholic Church in Austria and France, and the Protestant Church in Germany—under the pretext of fighting liberalism with the weapons of Christianity. The mob was only a means to strengthen their position, to give their voices a greater resonance. Obviously, they neither could nor wanted to organize the mob, and would dismiss it once their aim was achieved. But they discovered that antisemitic slogans were highly effective in mobilizing large strata of the population.”

Arendt points out how the weaponization of religious ideology is in congruence with racist ideologies. The wealthy used these ideologies to influence the mob who then acted them out for the advancement of the movement.

“Whenever equality becomes a mundane fact in itself, without any gauge by which it may be measured or explained, then there is one chance in a hundred that it will be recognized simply as a working principle of a political organization in which otherwise unequal people have equal rights; there are ninety-nine chances that it will be mistaken for an innate quality of every individual, who is ‘normal’ if he is like everybody else and ‘abnormal’ if he happens to be different.”

Arendt discusses how equality can be problematized, especially if that equality means the homogenizing of a group of people. As Jews were made socially equal according to the law, their differences became more highlighted to the people around them. A misunderstood notion of equality emphasized sameness over diversity, and resentment and antisemitism followed.

“Assimilation, whether carried to the extreme of conversion or not, never was a real menace to the survival of Jews. Whether they were welcomed or rejected, it was because they were Jews, and they were well aware of it.”

Arendt describes the paradox in which Jews lived in the 19th century. As equality became the goal, Jews were forced to assimilate. This assimilation meant the rejection of their customs and traditions. However, they were also expected to remain somewhat separate. They were, therefore, hated by some and seen as an exotic commodity by others; in both instances, their perceived identity was tied to the fact that they were Jewish.

“The mob is primarily a group in which the residue of all classes are represented. This makes it so easy to mistake the mob for the people, which also comprises all strata of society. While the people in all great revolutions fight for true representation, the mob always will shout for the “strong man,” the “great leader.” For the mob hates society from which it is excluded, as well as Parliament where it is not represented.”

Arendt separates the mob from the identity of the people. She examines the mob within the context of the Dreyfus affair, which she views a forewarning of Nazi antisemitism and the ascendence of Hitler.

“The conscience of the nation, represented by Parliament and a free press, functioned, and was resented by colonial administrators, in all European countries with colonial possessions—whether England, Frances, Belgium, Germany, or Holland.”

Imperialism provided a system by which the bourgeoisie could operate outside of the laws and checks and balances of their nations. For Arendt, Parliament and a free press are safeguards to lawlessness and violence. The bourgeoisie used outward expansion through bureaucracy to escape the purview of these institutions.

“The bourgeoisie’s empty desire to have money beget money as men beget men had remained an ugly dream so long as money had to go the long way of investment in production; not money had begotten money, but men had made things and money. The secret of the new happy fulfillment was precisely that economic laws no longer stood in the way of the greed of the owning classes. Money could finally beget money because power, with complete disregard for all laws—economic as well as ethical—could appropriate wealth.”

Arendt suggests that imperialism paved the way for totalitarianism. Imperialism was born out of the desire of the bourgeoisie to pursue unfettered wealth. The bourgeoisie found that the best way to do this was through power wielded outside the limitations of ethics or morality.

“This process of never-ending accumulation of power necessary for the protection of a never-ending accumulation of capital determined the “progressive” ideology of the late nineteenth century and foreshadows the rise of imperialism. Not the naïve delusion of a limitless growth of property, but the realization that power accumulation was the only guarantee for the stability of so-called economic laws, made progress irresistible.”

Arendt blames capitalism for creating the system within which imperialism, and, ultimately, totalitarianism, could thrive. When the limitations of the nation-state affected overall capital, the bourgeoisie felt justified in seeking that wealth elsewhere.

“For an ideology differs from a simple opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history, or the solution for all the “riddles of the universe,” or the intimate knowledge of the hidden universal laws which are supposed to rule nature and man. Few ideologies have won enough prominence to survive the hard competitive struggle of persuasion, and only two have come out on top and essentially defeated all others; the ideology which interprets history as an economic struggle of classes, and the other that interprets history as a natural fight of races. The appeal of both to large masses was so strong that they were able to enlist state support and establish themselves as official national doctrines.”

This quotation succinctly summarizes the totalitarian movements of Stalin and Hitler. Stalin’s movement was based on economic struggles and Hitler’s on an envisioned racial hierarchy. Arendt asserts that these ideologies were weaponized by Hitler and Stalin and contributed to the overall success of their totalitarian campaigns.

Racism as a ruling device was used in this society of whites and blacks before imperialism exploited it as a major political idea. Its basis, and its excuse, were still experience itself, a horrifying experience of something alien beyond imagination or comprehension: it was tempting indeed simply to declare that these were not human beings. Since, however, despite all ideological explanations the black men stubbornly insisted on retaining their human features, the ‘white men’ could not but reconsider their own humanity and decide that they themselves were more than human and obviously chosen by God to the be the gods of black men.”

Arendt suggests that when one race considers itself to be somehow superior, that inevitably places other races in the position of inferiority. This way of thinking is dangerous and leaves people vulnerable to violence and terror.

“Race, in other words, was an escape into an irresponsibility where nothing human could any longer exist, and bureaucracy was the result of a responsibility that no man can bear for his fellowman and no people for another people.”

Racism and imperialism allowed colonizers to pursue violence with a sense of justification; when they perceived themselves to be superior to those they ruled, they were able to commit inhumane acts without guilt or morality. Bureaucracy was their means by which to enact this rule outside the confines of the law.

“Nazism and Bolshevism owe more to Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism (respectively) than to any other ideology or political movement.”

Pan-nationalism sprung from imperialism and emphasized continental imperialism and domination. Pan-movements created unifying ideologies that crossed national boundaries and paved the way for similar ideologies in the totalitarian movements.

“Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by ‘a world of enemies,’ ‘one against all,’ that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.”

Pan-movements led to tribal nationalism, which capitalizes on the racist ideologies of superiority and provides a false sense of community through a unified movement.

“The hatred of racists against the Jews sprang from a superstitious apprehension that it actually might be the Jews, and not themselves, whom God had chosen, to whom success was granted by divine providence.”

Tribal nationalism emphasizes that a group is somehow superior or divine. Arendt says that tribal nationalists felt threatened by the Jews who also perpetuated a sense of being divinely chosen.

“In governments by bureaucracy decrees appear in their naked purity as though they were no longer issued by powerful men, but were the incarnation of power itself and the administrator on its accidental agent.”

Arendt suggests that bureaucracies can operate outside the realm of laws or morality because they remove the individual. In a bureaucracy, it is difficult to determine where or why a regulation is made, and, therefore, impossible to assign blame. This diffused and shadowy enactment of power closely resembles the tactics employed by totalitarian governments.

“Something much more fundamental than freedom and justice, which are rights of citizens, is at stake when belonging to the community into which one is born is no longer a matter of course and not belonging no longer a matter of choice, or when one is placed in a situation where, unless he commits a crime, his treatment by others does not depend on what he does or does not do. This extremity, and nothing else, is the situation of people deprived of human rights. They are deprived, not of the right to freedom, but of the right to action; not of the right to think whatever they please, but of the right to opinion.”

In one of her most quoted chapters, Arendt establishes several rights that are not featured in the Rights of Man. Chief among these, according to Arendt, is the right to community which creates a space in which man can hold an opinion and act on that opinion within an organized group.

“The truth is that the masses grew out of the fragments of a highly atomized society whose competitive structure and concomitant loneliness of the individual had been held in check only through membership in a class. The chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships.”

This quote hints at Arendt’s conclusion which indicates that the reason the masses succumb to the influence of totalitarian movements is because of their loneliness. She claims that the desire to be a part of a whole is a natural part of the human experience. When that experience of community is stripped away, one is left vulnerable to the alleged unifying messages of totalitarian movements,

“Thus the fear of concentration camps and the resulting insight into the nature of total domination might serve to invalidate all obsolete political differentiations from right to left and to introduce beside and above them the politically most important yardstick for judging events in our time, namely: whether they serve totalitarian domination or not.”

Arendt recommends that remembering the horror of the concentration camps is one of the few safeguards people have against succumbing to totalitarianism once more. The concentration camps serve as a marker for what totalitarian movements lead to and the terrible consequences they leave behind.