The Totalitarian Paradigm After the End of Communism: Towards a Theoretical Reassessment

329 Pages·1998·39.761 MB·English

by  Achim Siegel (ed.)

(ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY)
POZNAN STUDIES
IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES
65

THE TOTALITARIAN
PARADIGM AFTER
THE END OF
COMMUNISM
Towards a
Theoretical Reassessment
Edited by
Achim Siegel
a
THE TOTALITARIAN PARADIGM
AFTER THE END OF COMMUNISM
Adam Mickiewicz University
POZNAN STUDIES
IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES
VOLUME 65
EDITORS
Krzysztof Brzechczyn (assistant-editor) Krzysztof Lastowski
Jerzy Brzezinski Leszek Nowak (editor-in-chief)
Robert Egiert (assistant-editor) Katarzyna Paprzycka (Pittsburgh)
Andrzej Klawiter Marcin Paprzycki (Hattiesburg)
Piotr Kwiecihski (assistant-editor) Piotr Przybysz (assistant-editor)
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Joseph Agassi (Tel-Aviv) Wladyslaw Krajewski (Warszawa)
Etienne Balibar (Paris) Theo A.F. Kuipers (Groningen)
Wolfgang Balzer (Manchen) Witold Marciszewski (Warszawa)
Mario Bunge (Montreal) Ikka Niiniluoto (Helsinki)
Nancy Cartwright (London) Ginter Patzig (Gottingen)
Robert S. Cohen (Boston) Jerzy Perzanowskd (Torun)
Francesco Coniglione (Catania) Marian Preelecki (Warszawa)
Andrrej Falkiewicz (Wroctaw) Jan Such (Poznan)
Dagfinn Fellesdal (Oslo) Jerzy Topolsid (Poznan)
Bert Hamminga (Tilburg) Max Urchs (Torun/Konstanz)
Jaakko Hintikka (Boston) Jan Wolenski (Krakow)
Jacek J. Jadacki (Warszawa) Ryszard Wéjcicki (Warszawa)
Jerzy Kmita (Poznan) Georg H. von Wright (Helsinki)
This book series is partly sponsored by Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
The address: prof. L. Nowak, Cybulskiego 13, 60-247 Poznan, Poland.
Fax: [phone] or [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
THE TOTALITARIAN PARADIGM
AFTER THE END OF COMMUNISM
Towards a Theoretical Reassessment
Edited oy
Achim Siegel
a
AMSTERDAM - ATLANTA, GA 1998
€) The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISSN 0303-8157
ISBN: 90-420-0552-1 (bound)
C©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - Atlanta, GA 1998
Printed in The Netherlands
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Achim Siegel, Introduction: The Changing Fortunes of the Totalitarian
Pacaddigns inn Comzmntsliot Sten .assesisisssoseseesesssovevesstesonastiosnsessseriwesvenstiess
ON RECENT CONTROVERSIES OVER THE
CONCEPT OF TOTALITARIANISM
Klaus von Beyme, The Concept of Totalitarianism — A Reassessment after
tien Endl ck Cocmniernativint Riss scsssssiccssncsiviscscessnccccmeatnieasicenaisveassiasicaron
Klaus Mueller, East European Studies, Neo-Totalitarianism and Social
Leszek Nowak, A Conception that is Supposed to Correspond to the Tota-
litarian Approach to Realsocialism ............:::ssscssesseseesseeneseesteseeseneereeees
Ernst Nolte, The Three Versions of the Theory of Totalitarianism and the
Significance of the Historical-Genetic Version ..............::ssssesssseeeeseneeees 109
Eckhard Jesse, The Two Major Instances of Totalitarianism: Observations
on the Interconnection between Soviet Communism and National
129
CLASSIC CONCEPTS OF TOTALITARIANISM:
REASSESSMENT AND REINTERPRETATION
Johann P. Arnason, Totalitarianism and Modernity: Franz Borkenau's To-
talitarian Enemy as a Source of Sociological Theorizing on Totalitari-
Alfons Séllner, Sigmund Neumann's Permanent Revolution: A Forgotten
Classic of Comparative Research into Modern Dictatorships ................ 181
Friedrich Pohlmann, The “Seeds of Destruction” in Totalitarian Systems.
An Interpretation of the Unity in Hannah Arendt's Political Philoso-
PHY oon cc ccceseescecssenesetseessenssesetscessssscenesseseneesecseessssseessesceesenseees 205
Werner J. Patzelt, Reality Construction under Totalitarianism: An Ethno-
methodological Elaboration of Martin Draht's Concept of Totalitaria-
Achim Siegel, Carl Joachim Friedrich's Concept of Totalitarian Dictator-
ship: A Reinterpretation ...............:cccccsccssccssccessensseesesscseesessessasesnsecscesnees 273
Mark R. Thompson, Neither Totalitarian nor Authoritarian: Post-Totalita-
rianism in Eastern Europe ................c:cccsscesscccsscessseeseeesseeecceeseceeesaeteneees 303
PREFACE
This book was prepared when I| worked for the Hannah-Arendt-Institut fiir
Totalitarismusforschung at the Technical University of Dresden. I would like to
express my gratitude to all who helped to bring this book into being. First of all
I would like to thank Kathrin Meusinger and Walter Heidenreich (Dresden)
for their assistance in preparing the camera-ready copy of the manuscript. Fur-
thermore, I am indebted to Derek Paton (Prague) and Stephen Revell (Glas-
gow) for correcting the English of the non-native speakers and translating
some of the contributions to this volume into English.
A. S.

Poznan Studieisn the Philosophy
of the Scienacnde sth e Humanities
1998, Vol. 65, pp. 3-35
Achim Siegel
INTRODUCTION
THE CHANGING POPULARITY OF THE TOTALITARIAN PARADIGM
IN COMMUNIST STUDIES
1. The Paradigm's "Popularity Cycle" in Communist Studies: An Explorative
Analysis
The downfall of the communist one-party systems in Europe in 1989-91
marked an important turning point not only in world history, but also in the
history of the scholarly conceptions of these systems. This is most clearly
indicated by the enormously increased attractiveness of the concept of totali-
tarianism since 1989, evident from the renewed currency of the terms “tota-
litarian" and “totalitarianism” both in scientific discourse and in everyday
political discussion. A slightly rising trend in the attractiveness of the totali-
tarian approach to communism could however already be seen in the early
1980s, after this approach had considerably lost ground in Western academic
circles in the 1960s. Having been the most influential paradigm in communist
studies until the 1960s, it was soon subjected to heavy criticism, and was
rejected by more and more scholars in favour of other approaches. At the
beginning of the 1980s, however, scholars who used the totalitarian paradigm
in communist studies could refer to the changing perception of communist
systems within dissident circles in Eastern Europe. Contrary to the 1950s and
1960s, when revisionist Marxism was a vivid ideology among dissidents and
“socialism with a human face” was perceived both a desirable and feasible goal,
dissident groups began to re-orientate themselves from the beginning of the
1970s. Rather than aiming at a humanistic socialism, more and more dissi-
dents came to model themselves on universally proclaimed human and civil
rights. In the course of this, many dissident activists conceived their activity as
a struggle against a “totalitarian regime,” and the repressiveness of the regime
was perceived less as resulting from “subjective errors” or "mistakes" on the
part of individual leaders and rather from the very nature of communist one-