This is a list of totalitarian regimes. There are regimes that have been commonly referred to as "totalitarian", or the concept of totalitarianism has been applied to them, for which there is wide consensus among scholars to be called as such. Totalitarian regimes are usually distinguished from authoritarian regimes in the sense that totalitarianism represents an extreme version of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under governmental control.[1]
Note: Because of differing opinions about the definition of totalitarianism, and the variable nature of each regime, this article first states in prose the various opinions given by sources, even when those opinions might conflict or be at angles to each other. It is followed by a convenience table of basic facts, but the table is limited by its binary nature and can not always accurately reflect the complex and nuanced nature of the sources, which are more fully described in the prose section.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the early Soviet Union was a "modern example" of a totalitarian state.[2] Britannica says it was "the first examples of decentralized or popular totalitarianism, in which the state achieved overwhelming popular support for its leadership". This contrasted with earlier totalitarian states that were imposed on the people.[2] Totalitarianism in Russia began with the founding of the Soviet Union under Lenin, after the October Revolution of 1917.[3] According to Britannica, "every aspect of the Soviet Union's political, economic, cultural, and intellectual life came to be regulated by the Communist Party in a strict and regimented fashion that would tolerate no opposition".[4] According to Peter Rutland (1993), with the death of Stalin, "This was still an oppressive regime, but not a totalitarian one."[5] This view is echoed by Igor Krupnik (1995), "The era of 'social engineering' in the Soviet Union ended with the death of Stalin in 1953 or soon after; and that was the close of the totalitarian regime itself."[6] According to Klaus von Beyme (2014), "The Soviet Union after the death of Stalin moved from totalitarianism to authoritarian rule."[7]
^ ab"Leninism". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
^ abRutland, Peter (1993). The Politics of Economic Stagnation in the Soviet Union: The Role of Local Party Organs in Economic Management. Cambridge University Press. p. 9. ISBN978-0-521-39241-9. after 1953 ...This was still an oppressive regime, but not a totalitarian one.
^ abKrupnik, Igor (1995). "4. Soviet Cultural and Ethnic Policies Towards Jews: A Legacy Reassessed". In Ro'i, Yaacov (ed.). Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union. Routledge. ISBN978-0-7146-4619-0. The era of 'social engineering' in the Soviet Union ended with the death of Stalin in 1953 or soon after; and that was the close of the totalitarian regime itself.
^ abvon Beyme, Klaus (2014). On Political Culture, Cultural Policy, Art and Politics. Springer. p. 65. ISBN978-3-319-01559-0. The Soviet Union after the death of Stalin moved from totalitarianism to authoritarian rule.
^"Bulletin"(PDF). www.umk.ro. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
^Thompson, M. R. (1 June 2002). "Totalitarian and Post-Totalitarian Regimes in Transitions and Non-Transitions from Communism". Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions. 3 (1): 79–106. doi:10.1080/714005469. S2CID145789019.
^ abRummel, R.J. (1994). "Democide in totalitarian states: Mortacracies and megamurderers.". In Charney, Israel W. (ed.). Widening circle of genocide. Transaction Publishers. p. 5. There is much confusion about what is meant by totalitarian in the literature, including the denial that such systems even exist. I define a totalitarian state as one with a system of government that is unlimited constitutionally or by countervailing powers in society (such as by a church, rural gentry, labor unions, or regional powers); is not held responsible to the public by periodic secret and competitive elections; and employs its unlimited power to control all aspects of society, including the family, religion, education, business, private property, and social relationships. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was thus totalitarian, as was Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Hitler's Germany, and U Ne Win's Burma
^Wieland, Carsten (2018). "6: De-neutralizing Aid: All Roads Lead to Damascus". Syria and the Neutrality Trap: The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid Through Violent Regimes. London, UK: I.B. Tauris. p. 68. ISBN978-0-7556-4138-3.
^Keegan, John (1979). "Syria". World Armies. New York: Facts on File Inc. pp. 683–684. ISBN0-87196-407-4.
^C. Tucker, Spencer (2014). "Assad, Hafez al- (1930–2000)". Persian Gulf War Encyclopedia: A Political, Social, and Military History. Santa Barbara, California, USA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 40–41. ISBN978-1-61069-415-5.
^Keegan, John (1979). "Syria". World Armies. New York: Facts on File Inc. p. 684. ISBN0-87196-407-4.
^Khamis, Sahar; Gold, Paul B.; Vaughn, Katherine (2013). "22. Propaganda in Egypt and Syria's "Cyberwars": Contexts, Actors, Tools, and Tactics". In Auerbach, Jonathan; Castronovo, Russ (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN978-0-19-976441-9.
^Ahmed, Saladdin (2019). Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura. State University of New York Press, Albany: Suny Press. pp. 144, 149. ISBN9781438472911.
Shively, W. Phillips; Schultz, David (2022). "7: Democracies and Authoritarian System". Power and Choice: An Introduction to Political Science. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 188. ISBN9781538151860.
Khamis, Sahar; Gold, Paul B.; Vaughn, Katherine (2013). "22. Propaganda in Egypt and Syria's "Cyberwars": Contexts, Actors, Tools, and Tactics". In Auerbach, Jonathan; Castronovo, Russ (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN978-0-19-976441-9.
^A. Faksh, Mahmud (2006). "Syrian Arab Republic". In Schlager, Neil; Weisblatt, Jayne (eds.). World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties (4th ed.). New York: Facts on File. p. 1300. ISBN0-8160-5953-5.
^B. Heller, Peter (1974). "The Permanent Syrian Constitution of March 13, 1973". Middle East Journal. 28 (1). Middle East Institute: 53–66. JSTOR4325185.
^O'Kane, Rosemary H. T. (1993). "Cambodia in the zero years: rudimentary totalitarianism". Third World Quarterly. 14 (4): 735–748. doi:10.1080/01436599308420354. JSTOR3992949.
^Whine, Michael (1 September 2001). "Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences". Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions. 2 (2): 54–72. doi:10.1080/714005450. S2CID146940668.
^"David Arnett"(PDF). turkishpolicy.com. 2008. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
^*Sakhi, Nilofar (December 2022). "The Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan and Security Paradox". Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs. 9 (3): 383–401. doi:10.1177/23477970221130882. S2CID253945821. Afghanistan is now controlled by a militant group that operates out of a totalitarian ideology.
Madadi, Sayed (6 September 2022). "Dysfunctional centralization and growing fragility under Taliban rule". Middle East Institute. Retrieved 28 November 2022. In other words, the centralized political and governance institutions of the former republic were unaccountable enough that they now comfortably accommodate the totalitarian objectives of the Taliban without giving the people any chance to resist peacefully.
Sadr, Omar (23 March 2022). "Afghanistan's Public Intellectuals Fail to Denounce the Taliban". Fair Observer. Retrieved 28 November 2022. The Taliban government currently installed in Afghanistan is not simply another dictatorship. By all standards, it is a totalitarian regime.
^Ramet, Sabrina (2020). The Independent State of Croatia 1941–45 (Totalitarianism Movements and Political Religions). Routledge. pp. 54–68. ISBN978-1-138-86811-3.
^Suppan, Arnold (2019). The 'Independent State of Croatia' Between the German Reich and Italy. Austrian Academy of Sciences. pp. 537–566. ISBN978-3-7001-8410-2.
^Ganapini, Luigi (2 July 2007). "The Dark Side of Italian History 1943–1945". Modern Italy. 12 (2): 205–223. doi:10.1080/13532940701362730. S2CID145668321. In 1943 Mussolini had called for 'socialization' as a means of fighting the anti-Fascist democratic forces. In this context, the ideology of National Syndicalism became the key feature of a project for the construction of a totalitarian state.
^Bihari, Mihály (2013). "Magyarországi pártrendszerek (Történeti és analitikus bemutatás)" [Party systems of Hungary (historical and analytical presentation)]. Politológia: a politika és a modern állam: pártok és ideológiák [Political Science: Politics and the Modern State: Parties and Ideologies] (in Hungarian). Budapest: Nemzedékek Tudása Tankönyvkiadó. p. 367. ISBN978-963-19-7628-1. OCLC1081799738. Az egypárti diktatúra első szakasza 1949 nyarától 1953 nyaráig (az első Nagy Imre-kormány kinevezéséig) tartott. Ennek az időszaknak azegypártrendszere olyan totalitárius egypártrendszer, amely összekapcsolódott Rákosi Mátyás despotikus személyi hatalmával. [The first phase of the one-party dictatorship lasted from the summer of 1949 to the summer of 1953 (until the appointment of the first Imre Nagy government). The one-party system of this period is a totalitarian one-party system connected with the despotic personal power of Mátyás Rákosi.]
^Mezey, Barna; Gosztonyi, Gergely, eds. (2003). "A szovjet típusú államberendezkedés Magyarországon (1949–1956)" [The Soviet-type state system in Hungary (1949–1956)]. Magyar alkotmánytörténet [Hungarian Constitutional History] (in Hungarian). Budapest: Osiris Kiadó. pp. 467–468. ISBN963-389-532-4. OCLC1014875954. ... a párt nemcsak megszervezni igyekezett a társadalmat, hanem megpróbálta saját képére és hasonlatosságára formálni, s ellenőrzése alá vonta a termelést és az elosztást. ... A magyar társadalom ellenállása csupán néhány évig biztosította a valóban totalitárius berendezkedést. [... the party not only sought to organize society, but also to shape it in its own image and likeness, bringing production and distribution under its control. ... The resistance of the Hungarian society ensured a truly totalitarian system for only a few years.]
^Körösényi, András; Tóth, Csaba; Török, Gábor (2007). "A kommunista korszak tradíciója" [The tradition of the communist era]. A magyar politikai rendszer [The Hungarian Political System] (in Hungarian). Budapest: Osiris Kiadó. p. 21. ISBN978-963-389-963-2. OCLC1088039656. A politikai hatalom totális jellegűvé vált ... A rendszer totalitárius jellege abban ragadható meg, hogy a pártállami kontroll a politikai szférán messze túlmenően minden létszférára – a gazdaságtól a kultúrán keresztül egészen az iskolai és ifjúsági szocializációig – kiterjedt. [Political power has become total in nature ... The totalitarian nature of the system can be grasped in the fact that party-state control extended far beyond the political sphere to all spheres of existence, from the economy through culture to school and youth socialization.]
^Romsics, Ignác (2010). "A rákosista diktatúra" [The Rákosist dictatorship]. Magyarország története a XX. században [History of Hungary in the 20th Century] (in Hungarian). Budapest: Osiris Kiadó. p. 337. ISBN978-963-276-179-4. OCLC1081699371. Nem kétséges, hogy az 1949 – re kialakult magyar rendszer ... kimeríti a totalitarianizmus fogalmát. [There is no doubt that the Hungarian system formed by 1949 ... exhausts the concept of totalitarianism.]
^Tucker, Ernest (2019). "21: Middle East at the End of the Cold War, 1979–1993". The Middle East in Modern World History (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 303. ISBN978-1-138-49190-8. LCCN2018043096. During their first few months in power, the Communists remade Afghanistan into a Soviet-style totalitarian state...
^Kirkpatrick, Jeane J (1981). "Afghanistan: Implications for Peace and Security". World Affairs. 144 (3): 243. JSTOR20671902. ...the Communists violently seized power in Kabul and, with the help of growing numbers of Soviet "advisers," began forcibly to impose upon the people of Afghanistan a foreign ideology and a totalitarian system
^Roy, Olivier (2018). "3: The Sovietization of Afghanistan". In Hauner, Milan; L. Canfield, Robert (eds.). Afghanistan and the Soviet Union: Collision and Transformation. New York: Routledge. p. 51. ISBN978-0-367-01216-8.
^ abS.Margolis, Eric (2001). "2: The Bravest Men on Earth". War at the top of the World: The struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet. New York: Routledge. p. 15. ISBN0-415-92712-9.
^Roy, Olivier (2018). "3: The Sovietization of Afghanistan". In Hauner, Milan; L. Canfield, Robert (eds.). Afghanistan and the Soviet Union: Collision and Transformation. New York: Routledge. p. 49. ISBN978-0-367-01216-8.
^Roy, Olivier (2018). "3: The Sovietization of Afghanistan". In Hauner, Milan; L. Canfield, Robert (eds.). Afghanistan and the Soviet Union: Collision and Transformation. New York: Routledge. pp. 48–57. ISBN978-0-367-01216-8.