ABSTRACT
Although Almond does not include this category in his typology of party-pressure group
relations, it seems worth discussing it, because of its importance in the history of the last few
decades and because it is frequently suggested that some of the developing countries might
follow this path. In reality, this latter point is rather dubious, for even the nations most
frequently mentioned in this context, Nkruhmah’s Ghana, Mali, etc., with their mass one-
party systems, have as yet shown no signs of elevating terror for its own sake to a principle
of government as was the case in Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia. One of the chief fea-
tures of totalitarian movements is their non-utilitarian philosophy stressing the triumph of their
millennial beliefs in the distant future, but the desire for rapid modernization in the
developing countries is, if nothing else, the epitome of utilitarianism, the dream of a vastly
improved material civilization. While the aim of leaders in these countries is modernization, it
is most unlikely that they will develop the full panoply of totalitarian rule. Their methods
may not be democratic and they may feel that a completely directed economy may be the
only means to their end, but it is more appropriate to describe the resulting type of
government in terms of degrees of authoritarianism rather than by the title totalitarian.
