ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that European totalitarianism was uniquely characteristic of the two decades between the world wars. Other factors entered the story of European totalitarianism apart from the dislocations of incomplete modernity, the lure of leadership, and the treason of intellectuals. Totalitarianism, wrote Leonard Schapiro "is a new form of dictatorship which grew up in the conditions of mass democracy after the First World War." The article, entitled "Dictatorships and Double Standards," was in fact a preemptive strike in a war of deputies. Totalitarianism is pure destruction. This is why the temptation is great to look at it in terms of psychopathology. Totalitarian leaders take their nations to collective suicide, having murdered many others on the way. It is important to note the element of masochism, of self-destruction in the temptation that combines extravagant hope with total submission.
