ABSTRACT
Comparative communist, including Soviet, studies were riven from the 1960s onwards by the debate about the concept of totalitarianism. Simplifying enormously, one school of thought followed Leonard Schapiro’s argument that the essence of communism was that its blend of Marxist-Leninist ideology and communist party practice produced an unending quest for total control over all walks of life.1 The varieties of different types of fully established communism in 16 different countries following Tito’s defiance of Stalin in 1948 and significant changes within individual systems over time convinced many specialists that the concept was being stretched far too much. Could totalitarianism be relative or comparative within the framework of Hannah Arendt’s ideal type, as reformulated by Schapiro?
