ABSTRACT
Ideology is the sinequanon of totalitarianism. For no matter how dictatorial, harsh, or depraved a regime might be, it cannot be totalitarian without the right kind of ideology to justify its actions. A characteristic feature of the pretotalitarian period prior to 1914 was the extraordinary comingling of ideological currents from both the far Left and far Right. The emergence of anti-Semitism as a major political ideology out of age-old and ordinary Judeophobia is a remarkable alchemical transmutation of the base metal of common ideas and emotions into the gold of a totalitarian cause. The chapter shows that anti-Semitism was a German ideology inextricably tied to German self-definition and cultural history; and Bolshevism was a Russian ideology that arose out of the specific conditions of Czarist Russia. Ideology is both more and less than a religion. It is more than a religion in that it seeks to direct and control the whole of life, both public and private.
