Quotes About Totalitarianism

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exists. HANNAH ARENDT, The Origins of Totalitarianism

In the history of the twentieth century, the principal dramatis personae were National and International Socialisms, better known as Nazism and Communism. Their citizens evaded the duty of self-responsibility by claiming to be following orders. Following orders -attributed to or issued by God, the State, Science, Medicine-is always the easy way out. Refusing to do so requires self-reliance and resisting temptations and threats.

Nazi realm. Japan continued its brutal and genocidal war against the Chinese; and in Russia, Stalin was presiding over show trials, deporting thousands to Siberia, and summarily executing his rivals in the Communist party. The Spanish

It is dullness and not evil that begets totalitarianism.

triple evils of modernity: Nazism, Communism and 'Americanism'.

dÄ›jiny nacismu – a v?bec vÅ¡ech forem totalitarismu – nelze plnÄ› pochopit, pokud je omezíme na vyprávÄ›ní o zlých lidech, kteÃ…â"¢í se vÄ›domÄ› a zámÄ›rnÄ› dopouÅ¡tÄ›jí zlo?in? s cílem páchat zlo

had brought Stalin credibility and influence, in the counsels of governments and on the streets.

Like Alexis de Tocqueville, they feared unfettered democracy and believed totalitarianism was the natural consequence of mass democracy run amok. They

In his 1983 Templeton Prize address, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn offered this summary explanation for why all the horrors of Soviet communism came to pass: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."1

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

If moral relativism was legally absolutized in the name of tolerance, basic rights were also relativized and the door was open to totalitarianism.

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.

Orwell's '1984' convinced me, rightly or wrongly, that Marxism was only a quantum leap away from tyranny. By contrast, Huxley's 'Brave New World' suggested that the totalitarian systems of the future might be subservient and ingratiating.

I just became what I call an 'anti-fascist novelist.' There is no word that covers both the fascists and the Communists, which mean different things to people, but of course they're the same: they're tyranny states.

I think that Russia was like a lot of other countries, a lot of empires, in being a tyranny up until the early 20th century. Then Russia had something that no other country has had, which is the longest totalitarian experiment in history.

The ultimate end of any ideology is totalitarianism.

Germany lost the Second World War. Fascism won it. Believe me, my friend.

Asked if Stalin was an antisemite, Robert Conquest replied: Yes, but it hardly noticed. He was broadly and generously anti-human.

Book cover, 'Reefer Club' Totalitarianism is when people believe they can punish their way to perfection.

Our contemporary poverty is as transparent as glass and as invisible as the air. Our poverty is kilometer-long lines, the constant elbowing, spiteful officials, trains late without reason, the water cut off by some disaster (...), the monotony of living without any hope whatsoever, the decaying historic cities, the provinces emptying the rivers poisoned. Our poverty is the grace of the totalitarian state by whose grace we live.

Group dynamics and the decision to sacrifice the individual for the group are the first steps in a march down the road to Thought Crimes (euphemistically termed Hate Crimes) and totalitarianism in its purest form.

The post-totalitarian malady has taken its most acute form in Romania. And it has taken place for very specific reasons. The repression here has been more cruel, more brutal, than in other states caught in the inferno of a 'socialist paradise.'