ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the definition of ideocracy and the formulation of the research question. It describes the definitions of political violence and of violent political systems and the typology of violent political measures. After discussing the essential differences between the National Socialist and Communist ideologies, repression under National Socialism is compared to oppression in Soviet socialism. The basic difference between the establishment of the National Socialist and the Bolshevist ideocracies, as already indicated, is that the latter embodied discontinuity, while many important policy goals of National Socialism were definitely consistent with those of the Weimar Republic. The specific ideology to which an ideocracy is committed can be quite important when it comes to the forms of political violence. Nevertheless, the racist ideocracy maintained, in contrast to the totalitarian Communism, a restrictive social pluralism.
