Totalitarianism and Rationality

Zbigniew Brzezinski

American Political Science Review, 1956, vol. 50, issue 3, 751-763

Abstract: The experience of modern totalitarian regimes suggests that they are not likely to perish through internal revolt unless that occurs at a time when the totalitarian regime is in mortal danger from an external challenge, as in the marginal Italian case, or these the totalitarian movement in power is about to undertake decisive measures to turn the country into a totalitarian system, as in the case of the counter-revolution against Peron in Argentina. Other than that, and even considering the succession crises, modern totalitarian regimes have shown themselves capable of maintaining their totalitarian character in spite of domestic and foreign opposition. More recently it has been argued (e.g., by I. Deutscher, Russia: What Next) that modern totalitarian regimes, if not overthrown by external forces, will nevertheless in the end be quietly and inevitably transformed into more democratic states by the subtler but irresistible influence of rationality inherent in the bureaucratic and managerial apparatus that no modern state can do without. This proposition will be developed more fully and given critical consideration in subsequent pages in order to test whether rationality, regarded in this context as a certain mode of thought and behavior induced by the requirements of modern industrialized and bureaucratized societies, is in fact incompatible with modern totalitarianism.

Date: 1956
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