Abstract
One of Carl J. Friedrich’s major contributions to the study of politics1 has been to systematize the concept of totalitarianism. His work in this field has been both pioneering and rigorous. It has helped to give the term “totalitarianism” a degree of precision previously lacking, thereby making it a meaningful category of political analysis and not merely a term of political opprobrium.
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References
Carl J. Friedrich, (ed.), Totalitarianism, Cambridge, Mass., 1954.
Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, Cambridge, Mass., 1956.
Robert Tucker, “Towards a Comparative Politics of Movement-Regimes,” American Political Science Review, Vol. LV, No. 2, June 1961; Alfred G. Meyer, The Soviet Political System, New York, 1966.
Benjamin R. Barber, “Conceptual Foundations of Totalitarianism,” in Carl J. Friedrich, Michael Curtis and Benjamin R. Barber, Totalitarianism in Perspective, New York, 1969, pp. 37–38.1 do not deal with the trivial objection that the concept of totalitarianism was a Cold War invention; if that is the case, then objection to the concept can be similarly represented as ideologically and politically motivated. Neither the former nor the latter has much to do with the analytical usefulness of the concept.
For a discussion of the difference between the instrumental and ideological (revolutionary) political systems, see Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel P. Huntington, Political Power: USA/USSR, New York, 1964. chapter 2.
This is the theme of a remarkable document submitted to the top Soviet leadership by three distinguished Soviet scientists. Academician A. D. Sakharov, Professor V. F. Turchin and Professor R. A. Medvedev, on March 19, 1970, and published in the New York Times, April 3, 1970, p. 3.
Note, for example, Brezhnev’s unpublished speech to the Party’s Central Committee on December 15, 1969 as well as a Pravda editorial published in January 1970 on economic shortcomings (“Responsibility and Discipline”, Pravda, January 10, 1970); see also an earlier Central Committee “Resolution to Spur Scientific Research and Development,” (Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XX, No. 43, November 13, 1968, pp. 3–6 ).
M. Rakowski, Nowe Drogi, No. 3, 1970, p. 22.
On the conservatism of the Soviet managerial elite, see Jeremy Azrael, Managerial Power and Soviet Politics, Cambridge, Mass., 1966.
In Quest of Justice, Problems of Communism, Part I, July-August 1968, Part II, September-October 1968, Vol. XVII, Nos. 4 and 5; also Abraham Brumberg, In Quest of Justice: Protest and Dissent in the Soviet Union Today, New York, 1970.
As of this writing, at least twelve issues of Khronika Tekushchikh Sobytii (Chronicle of Current Affairs) have appeared, with each issue containing a great deal of information on political opposition, underground publications, and repressive actions by the government. In addition, some remarkable manuscripts have been prepared, outstanding among them Professor Zhores A. Medvedev’s The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko, New York, 1969.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it: “Even in lawlessness, in crime, one must remember the line beyond which a man becomes a cannibal. It is short-sighted to think that you can live, constantly relying on force alone, constantly scorning the objections of conscience,” (as cited in The New York Times, June 17,1970).
Zbigniew Byrski, “The Communist ‘Middle Class’ in the USSR and Poland,” Survey, Autumn 1969, No. 3, pp. 80–92.
Yaroslav Bilinsky, “The Soviet Education Laws of 1958–59 and Soviet Nationality Policy,” Soviet Studies, Vol. XIV, October 1962, pp. 138–153.
On the discussion of needed balance between the two, see Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, Conn., 1968.
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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Brzezinski, Z. (1971). Dysfunctional Totalitarianism. In: Von Beyme, K. (eds) Theory and Politics/Theorie und Politik. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2750-2_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2750-2_20
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