ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasizes the conditions under which actually existing totalitarian regimes might successfully negotiate this transformation and so resurrect, or adopt, a civil society. The standard conception of totalitarianism equates it with such phenomena as mass terror and a charismatic leader with a cult of personality. The institutional framework of Soviet totalitarianism was constructed by Lenin a fact which has been studiously ignored under glasnost. Lenin initiated not only totalitarian techniques of mass manipulation, but also most of the other distinctive institutions of totalitarianism such as the concentration camp and the extra-legal powers of the secret police. It is enmity to civil society, with its constitive institutions of private property and the rule of law, rather than opposition to liberal democracy, which is most nearly definitive of totalitarianism. Soviet totalitarianism has basically no more than the caricature echo of Western state and society, the best copy feasible under Russian conditions.
