How useful is Friedrich and Brzezinski’s ‘totalitarian model’ for understanding the Soviet system both during and after the Stalin period?

Résumé du document

In 1918, Lenin affirmed that the « Soviet power is a new type of state, in which there is no bureaucracy, no police, no standing army, and in which bourgeois democracy is replaced by a new democracy - a democracy which brings to the forefront the vanguard of the toiling masses, turning them into legislators, executives and a military guard, and which creates an apparatus capable of re-educating the masses ». Later, Stalin refused to qualify the Soviet system as a totalitarian one. The idea of a « new democracy » created obviously a sharp contrast with the studies -all along the XXth century- categorizing USSR in the dictatorial regimes.
Professors Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a main piece of work in 1956 - Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy - supporting that USSR did belong to the authoritarian state. Their definition of totalitarianism was the following: « a system of revolution which seeks to destroy the existing political order so that it can subsequently be revolutionized economically, socially and culturally ». Yet the definition of a totalitarian regime is the exact contrary of the democracy: in the first, the political ruler isn't subordinate to the rule he creates.
The purpose of Friedrich and Brzezinski's work was to provide « a descriptive theory of a novel form of government ». Indeed, they ask in their introduction: « What is a totalitarian dictatorship and how does it fit into the general framework of our knowledge of government and politics? »

Extraits

[...] Friedrich and Brzezinski's model is a relevant theorization of the Stalinist period A. A political monopoly The totalitarian model is above all a model where the political power lays in the hands of the state bureaucracy -and at its top- of its dictator. In what extent did Stalin create a political monopoly of the State during his administration? At first sight, USSR was a constitutional state, that is to say a state organized by a Constitution. Indeed, the Soviet Constitution of December 5th was the work of Stalin himself. [...]

[...] How useful is Friedrich and Brzezinski's ‘totalitarian model' for understanding the Soviet system both during and after the Stalin period? In 1918, Lenin affirmed that the Soviet power is a new type of state, in which there is no bureaucracy, no police, no standing army, and in which bourgeois democracy is replaced by a new democracy - a democracy which brings to the forefront the vanguard of the toiling masses, turning them into legislators, executives and a military guard, and which creates an apparatus capable of re-educating the masses Later, Stalin refused to qualify the Soviet system as a totalitarian one. [...]

[...] Tangible signs of liberalization appeared, such as the liberation of several political prisoners from the labour camps and a general climate of freedoms. Even more, Khrushchev opposed to Stalin's strategies: in the economic field, he criticized collectivization and promoted responsibilities for peasants. The expectations of the people were also taken into account during Brezhnev's years, since social welfare's improvements were made and consummation goods more affordable. He innovated by adopting a collective way of ruling, far from the cult of personality of Stalin. [...]

[...] Obviously, Friedrich and Brzezinski weren't the only scholars who analyzed the theory of totalitarian states. And as any ideal type, their model wasn't depicting the reality of the Soviet totalitarian system, especially -as we have seen- after Stalin's death. Criticisms raised against it, first because the two authors described in their common work, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, both Nazi Germany and USSR under Stalin. In other words, they draw parallels between a right-wing totalitarian regime and a Communist one But the main argument against this model is that it didn't foresee the collapse of USSR in the early 1990s. [...]

[...] According to Friedrich and Brzezinski, the peculiarity of modern totalitarian regime was their ability to use modern technologies in order to broadcast terror. This viewpoint clearly confirms the role of technologies in Stalin's USSR: censorship was reinforced, press and radio were owned by the government. The reading of newspapers like Pravda or Izvestiya became compulsory in the CPSU while clandestine publications were rising (such as Samizdat). As the centralization of the economy, press was also published centrally. By controlling these mass communications' tools, Stalin could be certain of exerting a total control on the society and of maintaining his own power thanks to the large scale propaganda permitted by the use of technologies. [...]