ABSTRACT

Originally, the concept of the totalitarian dictatorship was gauged by the Stalinist system in the phase of the purges, with isolated preparatory stages in the description of the Fascist system in Italy. The later application to National Socialism lent the theory a specific touch, in that an equation of Bolshevistic and National Socialist dictatorships was now undertaken. With that, it was clear that such comparison drew primarily from the form of unlimited exercise of power, not from ideological justifications of the ruling systems compared-justifications that are most extremely different.