ABSTRACT
In the range of interpretations of totalitarian phenomena, such classical
concepts as despotism, dictatorship or tyranny are scarcely used any longer. New ‘theories’ have been developed in order to understand the phenomenon
instead.1 One thinker who has analysed the classical concept of tyranny and
made it fruitful for understanding and interpreting totalitarian phenomena
in certain respects has been Leo Strauss.2
