Totalitarianism Movements and Political Religions – Serie

9/11 and its aftermath demonstrate the urgent need for political scientists and historians to unravel the tangled relationship of secular ideologies and organized religions to political fanaticism.This major new volume uses a series of case studies by world experts to further our understanding of these complex issues. They examine the connections between fascism, political religion and totalitarianism by exploring two inter-war fascist regimes, two abortive European movements, and two post-war American extreme right-wing movements with contrasting religious components.A highlight of this collection is a fresh article from Emilio Gentile, recently awarded an international prize for his contributions to our appreciation of the central role played by political religion in the modern age. This is preceded by an editorial essay by Roger Griffin, one of fascist studies' most original thinkers.Alongside these contributions the reader is presented with a wealth of work that redefines the complex concept of 'totalitarian movement' and our understanding of generic Fascism. Taken as a whole, it comprehensively analyses the links between particular totalitarian movements and regimes and the concrete historical phenomena produced in the light of current, radical theories of fascism, totalitarianism and political religion.This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international relations, politics and contemporary history. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

Stalinism surveys the efforts made in recent years by professional historians, in Russia and the West, to better understand what really went on in the USSR between 1929 and 1953, when the country's affairs were shrouded in secrecy. The opening of the Soviet archives in 1991 has led to a profusion of historical studies, whose strengths and weaknesses are assessed here impartially though not uncritically. While Joseph Stalin now emerges as a less omnipotent figure than he seemed to be at the time, most serious writers accept that the system over which he ruled was despotic and totalitarian. Some nostalgic nationalists in Russia, along with some Western post-modernists, disagree. Their arguments are carefully dissected here. Stalinism was of course much more than state sponsored terror, and so due attention is paid to a wide range of socio-economic and cultural problems. Keep and Litvin applaud the efforts of Soviet citizens to express dissenting views.

Stalinism surveys the efforts made in recent years by professional historians, in Russia and the West, to better understand what really went on in the USSR between 1929 and 1953, when the country's affairs were shrouded in secrecy. The opening of the Soviet archives in 1991 has led to a profusion of historical studies, whose strengths and weaknesses are assessed here impartially though not uncritically. While Joseph Stalin now emerges as a less omnipotent figure than he seemed to be at the time, most serious writers accept that the system over which he ruled was despotic and totalitarian. Some nostalgic nationalists in Russia, along with some Western post-modernists, disagree. Their arguments are carefully dissected here. Stalinism was of course much more than state sponsored terror, and so due attention is paid to a wide range of socio-economic and cultural problems. Keep and Litvin applaud the efforts of Soviet citizens to express dissenting views.

9/11 and its aftermath demonstrate the urgent need for political scientists and historians to unravel the tangled relationship of secular ideologies and organized religions to political fanaticism.This major new volume uses a series of case studies by world experts to further our understanding of these complex issues. They examine the connections between fascism, political religion and totalitarianism by exploring two inter-war fascist regimes, two abortive European movements, and two post-war American extreme right-wing movements with contrasting religious components.A highlight of this collection is a fresh article from Emilio Gentile, recently awarded an international prize for his contributions to our appreciation of the central role played by political religion in the modern age. This is preceded by an editorial essay by Roger Griffin, one of fascist studies' most original thinkers.Alongside these contributions the reader is presented with a wealth of work that redefines the complex concept of 'totalitarian movement' and our understanding of generic Fascism. Taken as a whole, it comprehensively analyses the links between particular totalitarian movements and regimes and the concrete historical phenomena produced in the light of current, radical theories of fascism, totalitarianism and political religion.This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international relations, politics and contemporary history. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

Fascism remains a topic that fascinates both academic and general audiences. This is the first book to look systematically at the leaders of fascism and related movements in the inter-war era. It shows how fascist leaders came to personify their movements and why the Führeprinzip was applied in all fascist organizations. It also explains how fascist leadership was of a very particular kind: It was almost unlimited in political discipline and required complete subordination. The legitimacy was based on a very vague notion of 'the organic unity of the state and the people', giving the leaders competence to rule without accountability to a party organization or state bodies. Thus, we can observe in all fascist parties/movements a practical form of leadership where policies of 'split and rule' were common in absence of principles of representation and opposition feedbacks. The fascist führer was the leader, the party, the ideology - and when in power: the state itself.This book was previously published as a special issue of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

Fascism remains a topic that fascinates both academic and general audiences. This is the first book to look systematically at the leaders of fascism and related movements in the inter-war era. It shows how fascist leaders came to personify their movements and why the Führeprinzip was applied in all fascist organizations. It also explains how fascist leadership was of a very particular kind: It was almost unlimited in political discipline and required complete subordination. The legitimacy was based on a very vague notion of 'the organic unity of the state and the people', giving the leaders competence to rule without accountability to a party organization or state bodies. Thus, we can observe in all fascist parties/movements a practical form of leadership where policies of 'split and rule' were common in absence of principles of representation and opposition feedbacks. The fascist führer was the leader, the party, the ideology - and when in power: the state itself.This book was previously published as a special issue of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

This special issue provides important new scholarship from a variety of perspectives on the structure, ideology and political history of the central fascist group in interwar and Second World War Yugoslavia, the Croatian Ustasha. It is the first volume in English to closely explore the Ustasha’s Independent State of Croatia between 1941 and 1945, a period when it was an active collaborator with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and largely responsible for Yugoslavia suffering the highest proportion of national casualties in the Second World War. By using the top scholars in the field to explore the nature of the NDH, The Independent State of Croatia 1941-45 contributes to scholarly understandings of Croatian nationalism, Balkan politics, European fascism, and genocide in the Second World War.

Available for the first time in English language translation, this is the long-awaited second volume of the three part set on Totalitarianism and Political Religions, edited by the eminent Professor Hans Maier. This represents a major study, with contributions from leading scholars of political extremism, sociology and modern history, the book shows how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. We are used to distinguishing the despotic regimes of the twentieth century - Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism - very precisely according to place and time, origins and influences. But what should we call that which they have in common? On this question, there has been, and still is, a passionate debate. Indeed, the question seemed for a long time not even to be admissible. Clearly this state of affairs is unsatisfactory. The debate has been renewed in the past few years. After the collapse of the communist systems in Central, East and Southern Europe, a (scarcely surveyable) mass of archival material has become available. Following the lead of Fascism and National Socialism, communist and socialist regimes throughout the world now belong to the historical past as well. This leads to the resumption of old questions: what place do modern despotisms assume in the history of the twentieth century? What is their relation to one another? Should they be captured using traditional concepts – autocracy, tyranny, despotism, dictatorship – or are new concepts required? Here, the most important concepts - totalitarianism and political religions - are discussed and tested in terms of their usefulness. This set of volumes is as topical and relevant to current world events in the twenty first century.

Available for the first time in English language translation, the third volume of Totalitarianism and Political Religions completes the set. It provides a comprehensive overview of key theories and theorists of totalitarianism and of political religions, from Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron to Leo Strauss and Simone Weill. Edited by the eminent Professor Hans Maier, it represents a major study, examining how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. Where volumes one and two were concerned with questioning the common elements between twentieth century despotic regimes - Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism – this volume draws a general balance. It brings together the findings of research undertaken during the decade 1992-2002 with the cooperation of leading philosophers, historians and social scientists for the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Munich.Following the demise of Italian Fascism (1943-45), German National Socialism (1945) and Soviet Communism (1989-91), a comparative approach to the three regimes is possible. A broad field of interpretation of the entire phenomenon of totalitarian and political religions opens up. This comprehensive study examines a vast topic which affects the political and historical landscape over the whole of the last century. Moreover, dictatorships and their motivations are still present in current affairs, today in the twenty-first century. The three volumes of Totalitarianism and Political Religions are a vital resource for scholars of fascism, Nazism, communism, totalitarianism, comparative politics and political theory.

This edited volume arose from an international workshop convened in 2006 by Feldman and Turda with Tudor Georgescu, supported by Routledge, and the universities of Oxford, Brookes, Northampton and CEU (Budapest). As the field of fascist studies continues to integrate more fully into pan-European studies of the twentieth century, and given the increasing importance of secular ‘political religion’ as a taxonomic tool for understanding such revolutionary movements, this collection of essays considers the intersection between institutional Christian faiths, theology and congregations on the one hand, and fascist ideology on the other.In light of recent debates concerning the intersecting secularisation of religion and (usually Christian-based) the sacralisation of politics, "Clerical Fascism" in Interwar Europe approaches such conundrums from an alternative perspective: How, in Europe between the wars, did Christian clergy, laity and institutions respond to the rise of national fascist movements? In doing so, this volume provides case studies from the vast majority of European countries with analyses that are both original in intent and comprehensive in scope. In dealing with the relationship of various interwar fascist movements and their respective national religious institutions, this edited collection promises to significantly contribute to relevant academic historiographies; and as such, will appeal to a wide readership.This book was previously published as a special issue of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

These studies examine the ways in which succeeding democratic regimes have dealt with, or have ignored (and in several cases sugar-coated) an authoritarian or totalitarian past from 1943 to the present. They treat the relationship with democratization and the different ways in which collective memory is formed and dealt with, or ignored and suppressed. Previous books have examined only restricted sets of countries, such as western or eastern Europe, or Latin America. The present volume treats a broader range of cases than any preceding account, and also a much broader time-span, investigating diverse historical and cultural contexts, and the role of national identity and nationalism, studying the aftermath of both fascist and communist regimes in both Europe and Asia in an interdisciplinary framework, while the conclusion provides a more complete comparative perspective than will be found in any other work.The book will be of interest to historians and political scientists, and to those interested in fascism, communism, legacies of war, democratization, collective memory and transitional justice. This book was previously published as a special issue of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

Available for the first time in English language translation, this is the long-awaited second volume of the three part set on Totalitarianism and Political Religions, edited by the eminent Professor Hans Maier. This represents a major study, with contributions from leading scholars of political extremism, sociology and modern history, the book shows how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. We are used to distinguishing the despotic regimes of the twentieth century - Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism - very precisely according to place and time, origins and influences. But what should we call that which they have in common? On this question, there has been, and still is, a passionate debate. Indeed, the question seemed for a long time not even to be admissible. Clearly this state of affairs is unsatisfactory. The debate has been renewed in the past few years. After the collapse of the communist systems in Central, East and Southern Europe, a (scarcely surveyable) mass of archival material has become available. Following the lead of Fascism and National Socialism, communist and socialist regimes throughout the world now belong to the historical past as well. This leads to the resumption of old questions: what place do modern despotisms assume in the history of the twentieth century? What is their relation to one another? Should they be captured using traditional concepts – autocracy, tyranny, despotism, dictatorship – or are new concepts required? Here, the most important concepts - totalitarianism and political religions - are discussed and tested in terms of their usefulness. This set of volumes is as topical and relevant to current world events in the twenty first century.

Available for the first time in English language translation, the third volume of Totalitarianism and Political Religions completes the set. It provides a comprehensive overview of key theories and theorists of totalitarianism and of political religions, from Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron to Leo Strauss and Simone Weill. Edited by the eminent Professor Hans Maier, it represents a major study, examining how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. Where volumes one and two were concerned with questioning the common elements between twentieth century despotic regimes - Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism – this volume draws a general balance. It brings together the findings of research undertaken during the decade 1992-2002 with the cooperation of leading philosophers, historians and social scientists for the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Munich.Following the demise of Italian Fascism (1943-45), German National Socialism (1945) and Soviet Communism (1989-91), a comparative approach to the three regimes is possible. A broad field of interpretation of the entire phenomenon of totalitarian and political religions opens up. This comprehensive study examines a vast topic which affects the political and historical landscape over the whole of the last century. Moreover, dictatorships and their motivations are still present in current affairs, today in the twenty-first century. The three volumes of Totalitarianism and Political Religions are a vital resource for scholars of fascism, Nazism, communism, totalitarianism, comparative politics and political theory.

This volume is a study of Fascism in its country of origin, Italy. It describes the impact of a new type of political movement on Italian government and society. The Fascist seizure of power did not begin or end with Mussolini's famous March on Rome in 1922; it was achieved rather by gradual subversion of the liberal order, which involved not only the destruction of all political opposition but also the creation of new institutions designed to control economic and cultural life. A classic work of wide-ranging scholarship, this book is here republished with a new preface by the author and will be essential reading for all students of Fascism and international history.

These studies examine the ways in which succeeding democratic regimes have dealt with, or have ignored (and in several cases sugar-coated) an authoritarian or totalitarian past from 1943 to the present. They treat the relationship with democratization and the different ways in which collective memory is formed and dealt with, or ignored and suppressed. Previous books have examined only restricted sets of countries, such as western or eastern Europe, or Latin America. The present volume treats a broader range of cases than any preceding account, and also a much broader time-span, investigating diverse historical and cultural contexts, and the role of national identity and nationalism, studying the aftermath of both fascist and communist regimes in both Europe and Asia in an interdisciplinary framework, while the conclusion provides a more complete comparative perspective than will be found in any other work.The book will be of interest to historians and political scientists, and to those interested in fascism, communism, legacies of war, democratization, collective memory and transitional justice. This book was previously published as a special issue of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

This volume, first published in 1984, contains the principal papers from a distinguished colloquium held in 1982. Its avowed purpose is to investigate further the notion of "totalitarian democracy" and to look at its repercussions in the contemporary world.

In a perceptive analysis of diverse source material, the essays of the late Uriel Tal in this volume uncover the dynamics of the secularization of religion, and the sacralization of politics in the Nazi era. Through a process of inversion of meaning, concepts such as race, blood, soil, state, nation and Führer were brought into the realm of faith, mission, salvation, sacredness and myth, thereby acquiring absolute significance. Within this Nazi worldview, the Jew epitomised the arch enemy, both as a symbol and as the concrete embodiment of all that Nazism sought to negate: Western civilisation, monotheism, critical rationalism and humanism.

The essays that comprise this study of 20th-century fascism shift the focus away from the German and Italian models and towards the influence of fascist ideology within other countries.

Beginning with a review of the numerous studies that tend to emphasize the national, societal dimension of the Italian and French communist parties, Cyrille Guiat's book is a comparative study of the two parties from the early 1960s to the early 1980s.

This volume is a study of Fascism in its country of origin, Italy. It describes the impact of a new type of political movement on Italian government and society. The Fascist seizure of power did not begin or end with Mussolini's famous March on Rome in 1922; it was achieved rather by gradual subversion of the liberal order, which involved not only the destruction of all political opposition but also the creation of new institutions designed to control economic and cultural life. A classic work of wide-ranging scholarship, this book is here republished with a new preface by the author and will be essential reading for all students of Fascism and international history.

This book comprises 14 essays by scholars who disagree about the methods and purposes of comparing Nazism and Communism. The central idea is that if these two different memories of evil were to develop in isolation, their competition for significance would distort the real evils both movements propagated. Whilst many reject this comparison because they feel it could relativize the evil of one of these movements, the claim that a political movement is uniquely evil can only be made by comparing it to another movement.How do these issues affect postwar interrelations between memory and history? Are there tensions between the ways postwar societies remember these atrocities, and the ways in which intellectuals and scholars reconstruct what happened? Nazism and Communism have been constantly compared since the 1920s. A sense of the ways in which these comparisons have been used and abused by both Right and Left belongs to our common history.These twentieth century evils invite comparison, if only because of their traumatic effects. We have an obligation to understand what happened, and we also have an obligation to understand how we have dealt with it.

We are used to distinguishing the despotic regimes of the 20th century - communism, fascism, National Socialism, Maoism - very precisely according to place and time, origins and influences. But what should we call that which they have in common? On this question, there has been and is still a passionate debate.This book documents the first international conference on this theme, a conference that took place in September of 1994 at the University of Munich. The book shows how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. Here, the most important concepts - totalitarianism and political religions - are discussed and tested in terms of their usefulness.

In a perceptive analysis of diverse source material, the essays of the late Uriel Tal in this volume uncover the dynamics of the secularization of religion, and the sacralization of politics in the Nazi era. Through a process of inversion of meaning, concepts such as race, blood, soil, state, nation and Führer were brought into the realm of faith, mission, salvation, sacredness and myth, thereby acquiring absolute significance. Within this Nazi worldview, the Jew epitomised the arch enemy, both as a symbol and as the concrete embodiment of all that Nazism sought to negate: Western civilisation, monotheism, critical rationalism and humanism.

The essays that comprise this study of 20th-century fascism shift the focus away from the German and Italian models and towards the influence of fascist ideology within other countries.

This volume, first published in 1984, contains the principal papers from a distinguished colloquium held in 1982. Its avowed purpose is to investigate further the notion of "totalitarian democracy" and to look at its repercussions in the contemporary world.

Born in 1879 in Georgia, Stalin joined the Bolsheviks under Lenin in 1903 and became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. These edited papers reassess the deeds, policies and legacy of a man who was responsible for innumerable deaths and untold human misery.

This book comprises 14 essays by scholars who disagree about the methods and purposes of comparing Nazism and Communism. The central idea is that if these two different memories of evil were to develop in isolation, their competition for significance would distort the real evils both movements propagated. Whilst many reject this comparison because they feel it could relativize the evil of one of these movements, the claim that a political movement is uniquely evil can only be made by comparing it to another movement.How do these issues affect postwar interrelations between memory and history? Are there tensions between the ways postwar societies remember these atrocities, and the ways in which intellectuals and scholars reconstruct what happened? Nazism and Communism have been constantly compared since the 1920s. A sense of the ways in which these comparisons have been used and abused by both Right and Left belongs to our common history.These twentieth century evils invite comparison, if only because of their traumatic effects. We have an obligation to understand what happened, and we also have an obligation to understand how we have dealt with it.

We are used to distinguishing the despotic regimes of the 20th century - communism, fascism, National Socialism, Maoism - very precisely according to place and time, origins and influences. But what should we call that which they have in common? On this question, there has been and is still a passionate debate.This book documents the first international conference on this theme, a conference that took place in September of 1994 at the University of Munich. The book shows how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. Here, the most important concepts - totalitarianism and political religions - are discussed and tested in terms of their usefulness.

This edited volume arose from an international workshop convened in 2006 by Feldman and Turda with Tudor Georgescu, supported by Routledge, and the universities of Oxford, Brookes, Northampton and CEU (Budapest). As the field of fascist studies continues to integrate more fully into pan-European studies of the twentieth century, and given the increasing importance of secular ‘political religion’ as a taxonomic tool for understanding such revolutionary movements, this collection of essays considers the intersection between institutional Christian faiths, theology and congregations on the one hand, and fascist ideology on the other.In light of recent debates concerning the intersecting secularisation of religion and (usually Christian-based) the sacralisation of politics, "Clerical Fascism" in Interwar Europe approaches such conundrums from an alternative perspective: How, in Europe between the wars, did Christian clergy, laity and institutions respond to the rise of national fascist movements? In doing so, this volume provides case studies from the vast majority of European countries with analyses that are both original in intent and comprehensive in scope. In dealing with the relationship of various interwar fascist movements and their respective national religious institutions, this edited collection promises to significantly contribute to relevant academic historiographies; and as such, will appeal to a wide readership.This book was previously published as a special issue of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.