ABSTRACT
In a recent article Graf Ballestrem (1992) has rightly stressed that after the
fall of most communist regimes we can see that the much criticized theory of totalitarianism has been, on the whole, more successful in explaining
events than the alternatives offered by many of its critics. He shows that we
can even demonstrate this by discussing five characteristics used by
Friedrich and Brzezinski (1956) to define totalitarianism: a dominant totali-
tarian ideology, a monopoly party, a secret police applying terror, a monopoly
of information and a centrally planned economy. Still, in spite of the merits of
this analysis it cannot be denied that there are severe weaknesses in the theories
developed, for example, by Friedrich and Brzezinski or by Hannah Arendt (1951), as is rightly stressed by such authors as Schlangen (1970) and Linz
(1975), to mention only two of many important contributions. These theories
are too static to account for the causes of the rise of totalitarian regimes, their
development and their breakdown or change into different political systems.