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Hello, this is Margarita Zavadskaia, a political researcher at the Alexandrov Institute at Helsinki University. With me is Alexei Gilev, an associate professor of political science and international relations at HSE University.
For more than 10 years I have been studying dictatorships and public opinion, while Alexey focuses on elections and the distribution of state goods in Russia. In addition, we both study public support for the Russian government and contemporary undemocratic regimes.
Russia is one of the most vivid examples of modern dictatorship. During the pandemic, the political regime in the country has become even more severe, not only towards the opposition, but also towards any displays of dissent from loyal citizens. Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been living under a state of military alert and under conditions of total censorship.
More and more often in the news, we read about informants, arrests of peaceful protesters, and Z-flashmobs, which even involve children. And more and more often, the opinion is expressed that informants, repression, and state control over upbringing are signs of a totalitarian state.
Does it mean that we already live under totalitarianism? Our letter is an attempt to answer this question without unnecessary emotions, from a scientific point of view.
During the pre-war years, a stable consensus emerged in political science: the political regime in Russia was considered not just authoritarian, but hybrid.
This term refers to the form of government that combines the features of both democracy and authoritarianism. In the country, elections take place, there is multi-party system and parliamentarism – but all of this is more of a decoration, hiding authoritarianism behind it.
Therefore, for simplicity in public discourse, the Russian political regime has been called authoritarian – meaning that the people who govern the state are not elected in free competitive elections and are not accountable to society.
However, in today’s Russia, problems with election fraud do not seem as relevant as they did in 2011. Citizens have more serious problems. Dozens of Russians have been declared “foreign agents” and tens of thousands have been detained at anti-war rallies. Criminal cases have been opened for reposts and price tag changes in stores, and new evidence of torture in prisons keeps emerging.
Times have changed – and to define the current state of the regime, a tougher term seems necessary. At first glance, “totalitarianism” seems like an appropriate word, and it is already being used to describe what is happening in Russia during wartime.
It seems logical: the state’s control over citizens’ lives has significantly increased, repression has become massive – that is totalitarianism. In reality, it’s not that simple. To explain what’s wrong with such talks, we need to start with the history.
Chapter One, in which we explain what totalitarianism is.
(and also compare totalitarian and authoritarian regimes)
Scientists first started talking about totalitarianism relatively recently, in the 1950s. At that time, the German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt described the logic of the emergence of a totalitarian state in her book “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” To do this, she carefully analyzed two main totalitarian regimes of the first half of the 20th century – the Nazi and the Stalinist.
Several years later, German-American political scientist Carl Friedrich and Polish-American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski identified features of totalitarianism – they ended up with a total of 14.
These features:
Comprehensive ideology. One-party rule. Ubiquitous government apparatus penetrating almost all spheres of society. Absence of media pluralism. Strict censorship. Massive state propaganda. The regime’s ambition to build a “new society”, which results in the prevalence of public over private interests. Mass repressions and terror. Destruction of individual civil rights and freedoms. Centralized economic planning. Control of the ruling party over the army. The state’s ambition to maximize its political and cultural influence on the country’s life. Absence of rule of law (i.e. not everyone is equal before the law). The authorities’ ambition to blur the boundaries between the state, society, and the individual.
If we apply these criteria to all regimes that have ever existed on the planet, we will find that there are only two classical examples of totalitarianism. These are, of course, the regime of Nazi Germany and the USSR during the reign of Joseph Stalin. Some researchers also attribute Benito Mussolini’s regime in Italy and Pol Pot’s in Cambodia to totalitarian regimes, but this is debatable. The Italian regime was significantly less repressive than the Nazi or Stalinist regimes, and the Cambodian terror was still a consequence of the civil war in the country.
The aforementioned 14 criteria are not the only attempt to dissect totalitarianism and describe it. Over time, the perceptions of a totalitarian state have changed – just as the states themselves have changed.
In the 1970s, American political scientist of Spanish origin Juan Linz studied dictatorships in the second half of the 20th century. He noticed that, for example, the regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile from 1973-1990, or Francisco Franco in Spain from 1939-1975, were not at all like Stalin’s USSR or Hitler’s Germany. And yet, these regimes were also repressive – how can we differentiate and classify them?
To do this, Lintz proposed to distinguish between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. And for this, he formulated their key differences.
Of these four criteria, it is perhaps worth paying closer attention to political mobilization. Do not confuse it with military mobilization – political mobilization refers to active involvement of citizens in approving the actions of the authorities. Moreover, this approval should be active, not passive. That is, members of the mobilized society regularly participate in voting and pro-government demonstrations, wear patriotic symbolism en masse, and advocate for the regime.
According to Linz’s conclusions, totalitarian regimes rely on this kind of mobilization, in contrast to authoritarian regimes where society is passive and apolitical. To achieve the mobilization of citizens, the state constantly involves them in organizations that it itself controls: in workers’ associations, children’s, school, youth and leisure associations.
Thus, Lintz showed that most of the non-democratic regimes of the second half of the 20th century were authoritarian rather than totalitarian. In all these states, there was no coherent ideology and some degree of pluralism persisted, albeit limited. Societies under these regimes were not truly mobilized – meaning that support for the authorities was more passive.
Does this mean that authoritarian regimes are somehow incomplete and simply fall short of totalitarian regimes? Not at all, believed Lintz. Authoritarian regimes can even rule conveniently without active mobilization. After all, it requires great effort and costs – both material and human (just imagine that you regularly need to conduct large-scale actions to support yourself).
One example of an authoritarian regime is post-war Spain under Francisco Franco, where the head of state at some point loosened control over the economy and the private lives of people. Another example is the military junta in Brazil, which from 1964 to 1985 managed without mass repression. Even the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, Linz did not belong to totalitarian regimes.
Today, a totalitarian approach to governance using Linz’s classification can be found only in North Korea and Eritrea. Other non-democratic regimes prefer to govern in an authoritarian manner – without comprehensive intervention in private life and mass mobilization. An example of a successful authoritarian regime is modern China. Yes, the authorities in the PRC “put out” street political activity even when people are protesting against the actions of other countries. But Chinese censors allow criticism of the authorities on the internet – as long as it does not become active enough to threaten popular unrest.
It is unlikely that the government in Eritrea is stronger and more stable than in China. On the contrary, experts call the Chinese Communist regime almost invulnerable. So, the point is not that a totalitarian regime is inherently stronger than an authoritarian one, but rather that these are different approaches to governing a state in principle.
And apparently, the totalitarian model is gradually dying out. The regimes of North Korea and Eritrea look not only cruel but also absurd relics of the past. The authoritarian model, on the contrary, has proven its effectiveness over time, in part because it is more flexible and able to find less confrontational ways to deal with dissent than state terror or constant mobilization of citizens.
Totalitarianism is becoming a thing of the past to such an extent that many political scientists have stopped distinguishing it as a separate category of regimes and even using the concept in principle. For example, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, Milan Svolik, talks about authoritarian governance methods using examples from Stalinist USSR – although that regime was undoubtedly much harsher than the regime of modern Russia, which is also called authoritarian.
Chapter two, in which we prove that Russia is not a totalitarian country.
(and we demonstrate with examples)
The Putin regime cannot be classified as totalitarian according to any of the described classifications. For some, this may sound paradoxical – after all, most of the 14 characteristics of totalitarianism identified by Friedrich and Brzezinski can easily be found in the country. Moreover, these characteristics are becoming more noticeable: propaganda is spreading, censorship is tightening, and repression is increasing every day.
And yet the country does not meet all 14 criteria. And if we add here the Linz classification, which is later and more modern – even more so.
Let’s focus on this classification and examine each of its features in detail in relation to Russia. In this way, we will touch on most of the criteria of Friedrich and Brzezinski to some extent – and get a complete picture.
Dissent
Essence: Totalitarian regimes do strive to shape citizens’ specific political views and establish strict rules that cannot be violated under any circumstances. In such a state, everyone knows how to act in a particular situation, what to say and even what to think. At the same time, in authoritarian regimes, rules are somewhat vague – and it is not always clear what action will result in punishment.
What is happening in Russia: After the start of the war, active dissent in any form – whether it be anti-war posts on social networks, street protests or political activism – was banned in the country.
It is obvious that the main sphere for ideological control by the state now is the war in Ukraine. All repressive measures of recent months are directly related to it: massive media censorship, laws against “fake news” and “discrediting” the army. Since the war has been occupying all of the information space in recent months, there is a sense that the country’s life is literally permeated with repression and new restrictive measures.
The scale of these repressions cannot be called modest in any way, but they cannot be called massive either. For example, we know for sure that participating in any street protest is now an extremely risky business, but Russians are not yet becoming defendants in criminal cases en masse for anti-war statements on social media (perhaps the Russian judiciary could not cope with such a flow). At the same time, punishment is selectively and chaotically imposed.
At the same time, there is a limited range of topics where pluralism is still possible. Yes, these are relatively “safe” topics that are not directly related to the war as such – for example, ecology and economics (although it is impossible to talk about economics now without touching on “anti-war” Western sanctions). And yet, these topics are relevant to the state – and the authorities turn a blind eye to manifestations of dissent in these areas, not interfering too much in the discussion if it suddenly arises.
Conclusion: Pluralism in Russia is strictly limited to a circle of “safe” topics, and mass repressions have not yet turned into massive ones. The state consistently punishes for active resistance, but is still willing to tolerate semi-active or passive dissent – punishing only selectively or turning a blind eye to such displays of opposition.
Ideology
Essence: The presence of an all-pervasive state ideology is the basis of a totalitarian regime. However, an authoritarian regime can exist quite successfully without it, or with something that only remotely resembles an ideology. Moreover, the absence of a clear ideology is even beneficial for authoritarianism. This allows for ambiguity on a wider range of issues – and not to increase the number of active opponents of the regime.
This situation is dangerous for society because ambiguity creates a wide space for repression. Under an authoritarian regime, those in power in local areas can decide themselves what to punish and what not to punish. This applies not only to regional officials but also to, for example, teachers. Their motives for showing initiative can be very different: fear or self-preservation, a desire to demonstrate loyalty or advance up the career ladder.
In Russia: In fact, the country lacks a unified ideology. And everything that is occasionally presented as such, a cohesive ideology, is not really one. “Traditional values” or the “Russian world,” often cited, are just abstract and vague concepts, incomprehensible to Russian citizens. Moreover, the authorities probably intentionally make them abstract so that everyone can see in them what they want. Creating a new type of person or transforming one’s nature is also not a task that the state sets for itself. And yet, this is one of the key goals of a totalitarian ideology.
The ideological vagueness of the Russian regime leads to the fact that among its active supporters, one can find people with very different beliefs: Stalinists and monarchists, nationalists and those who fear the strengthening of nationalist sentiments, supporters of the market economic system and advocates of planned economy. A similar picture can also be seen within the ruling apparatus: many officials are oriented towards their own ideas of what needs to be done. Hence all these absurd stories, like including rapper Morgenshtern in the list of “foreign agents”.
Therefore, citizens’ loyalty to the authorities is based not on emotional support for ideology, but on silent obedience and passive agreement. As political scientists Sam Greene and Graham Robertson found in their study of modern-day Russia’s regime, Putin’s electorate is mainly composed of “quiet” Russians who passively agree with the majority. These are people who avoid conflicts and prefer not to argue with the group they are in – they are not passionate supporters of the idea of the “Russian world”.
Conclusion: Russia does not have a well-developed and pervasive state ideology. Perhaps if it did, a well-defined and clear one, the state would even lose some of its support. After all, having a clear ideology obliges it to put it into practice. This requires not only the activity of the state, but also of society itself, that is, a transition to a fundamentally different state (in the case of totalitarianism – a state of mobilization).
Mobilization
Essence: Mass political mobilization is characteristic of all totalitarian regimes without exception. However, mobilization often hinders authoritarianism. Many authoritarian regimes are directly interested in citizens not being interested in politics — by default considering it a complex and unrewarding matter, delegating any political actions to the regime itself.
What is written about the apolitical nature of Russians and the virtual politics in the country can be found in dozens, if not hundreds, of texts. The safest strategy for civil behavior for many years now has been to not be interested in politics at all, only participating in activities that are organized by the government itself. For example, attending pro-government rallies and supporting the “right” candidates in elections.
For this purpose, citizens are periodically mobilized, but this mobilization is quite modest. As a rule, it applies to employees of the public sector, sometimes to state-owned corporations. These people play the role of the regime’s workforce: they wave flags, put ticks in ballot papers. During the war, they are also driven to the so-called Z-flash mobs, which, of course, also belong to mobilization measures. In this sense, they are not a new phenomenon, and the mechanism of gathering people to form the letter Z is little different from organizing another rally in support of Vladimir Putin.
The top priority for the authorities here is to mobilize a small part of society to demobilize the entire society. And also to maintain the support of the “quiet” loyalists. In general, to make both the agreeable and disagreeable ones believe that the agreeable ones are the majority.
Conclusion: The Russian regime uses society mobilization selectively and as needed, preferring to keep society mostly apolitical and non-initiative. This ensures the status quo for both: the “top” holds on to power with the silent support of the majority, while the “bottom” does not have to delve into the nuances of the country’s political life – it is sufficient to deal with private life, responding to government requests only as needed.
Power
Essence: In a democratic state, the key role in limiting political power is played by the system of checks and balances – that is, the separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The goal of this approach is to control different branches of power and protect citizens from arbitrariness.
Under totalitarianism, even the elites are not protected from arbitrariness – the regime can punish individual representatives (for example, to intimidate the rest). As for authoritarian regimes, the elites try to cooperate, creating different tools to ensure their own security. Sometimes, the elites manage to protect themselves with the help of democratic institutions – such as parliaments, parties, and courts. But not always, because in personalistic authoritarian regimes leaders consciously dismantle political institutions or reduce them to pure formality. For example, dependent or loyal to the ruler people are appointed to the positions of judges or government officials.
What is in Russia: The power of the president in the country is really practically unlimited. Over the past two decades, all institutions that restrained the president – courts, parliament, government – have been maximally weakened.
Under Vladimir Putin, the State Duma became openly referred to as “not a place for discussions”. The regime consistently amended the electoral and party legislation, making it increasingly difficult for potential presidential competitors to come to power each year. Talking about the autonomy of governors or the independence of regions is also not necessary – self-government was eliminated as a result of the constitutional reform of 2020. At that time, restrictions on the permissible number of presidential terms were also abolished.
Today, no political institution in Russia is capable of acting as a full-fledged counterbalance to the president – as was the case, for example, in 1998, when the State Duma exerted pressure on the government and the president’s administration, resulting in the appointment of Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister. The video recording of the Security Council meeting on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine vividly demonstrated how unexpected the decisions of the head of state can be even for his inner circle.
And yet Russia is a typical example of personalist authoritarianism, not totalitarianism. Unlimited power is not only power without checks and balances, but also the most effective mechanisms of state control. This is ensured by a party that is ideologized and well-organized. In Russia, however, key decisions are concentrated in the hands of one person who is simply unable to effectively control all spheres of state life alone – as is the case in China, for example. In other words, totalitarianism works in a coordinated manner, while personalist authoritarianism is managed arbitrarily, it is ill-conceived and chaotic.
Conclusion: Russia is a typical personalized authoritarianism where the decisions of the president are not limited in any way. This leads to hasty and arbitrary decisions by the head of state, and has a negative impact not only on the rights and freedoms of citizens, but also on the quality of governance.
Political party
Essence: To the four key criteria of Lintz, another important distinguishing feature of totalitarianism should be added – the presence of a powerful ruling party (since we spoke about it in the previous section). In totalitarian regimes, it is the party that suppresses oppositional views, spreads ideology to all areas of human life, and mobilizes the population politically.
As a rule, in a totalitarian state, there is only one party – the ruling one, and its competitors are legally prohibited. The career prospects of a citizen in a totalitarian regime depend on his involvement in party activities and his ideological knowledge. In authoritarian regimes, the role of the party is not so significant.
In Russia: Despite all the efforts of the authorities, an effective ruling party institution has not been formed in Russia. “United Russia” is more of an umbrella organization for business groups, regional elites and managers. Its tasks are limited to maintaining a constitutional majority in the State Duma, absorbing potential opponents and maintaining factional discipline (so that deputies vote properly and adopt laws necessary for the federal center).
Even during periods of mobilization of the population – for example, for voting or participation in pro-government rallies – the decisive role in Russia is played not by the party, but by the local administrative vertical (governor, district and city administrations). And also budget and large private enterprises, whose management cooperates with regional administrations – they are the ones who provide the “masses”.
At the same time, the results of the “ruling party” in the elections – even taking into account the active involvement of budget employees – are not always high. Moreover, federal-backed candidates often distance themselves from “United Russia” and run in elections as “independent” self-nominees.
The moods of the elite here are also indicative. Representatives of the Russian ruling class often long for certain features of the Soviet past. But it doesn’t seem like anyone among them is nostalgic for the presence of a single party throughout the country.
Conclusion: The Russian leadership has failed to build a truly powerful political party – United Russia is far from being totalitarian. Therefore, the country’s elite has long been accustomed to electoral authoritarianism – when the authorities confront opposition candidates who are allowed to compete in elections.
Chapter Three, which shows – authoritarianism is no better than totalitarianism.
(Therefore, we have nothing to calm ourselves down.)
So despite the noticeable increase in repressions, militarization, and the strengthened state control over the private lives of its citizens, Russia has not become totalitarian.
This is still an authoritarian personalized dictatorship, and the repressions in it have a predominantly reactive, rather than preventative character. And they are applied selectively, rather than according to social, ethnic, or class criteria, as was the case in the USSR and Nazi Germany.
Does it mean that you can breathe out? No.
There is an opinion that authoritarianism is a “lighter” version of totalitarianism. Often in conversation, these two concepts are even used to assess the degree of the regime’s strictness. Authoritarianism is perceived as something relatively tolerable, and totalitarianism is seen as something unacceptable, an “absolutely evil state”.
However, in reality, authoritarianism is no better. Authoritarian states can also be extremely repressive and corrupt. And in them, selective unpredictable terror, censorship and interference in private life are also possible.
Authoritarian rulers, like totalitarian ones, often attach political significance to various aspects of people’s personal lives: religion, language, upbringing of children, intimate relationships. For example, as Russian activists well know, the country’s authorities recognize issues related to women’s rights and LGBTQ+ as “political” topics.
Another bad news is that under authoritarianism, leaders who believe in the effectiveness or ethical necessity of a totalitarian approach can be found at various levels of government. They will reproduce totalitarian practices even without direct instructions from above, relying on their own ideas about effective management and morality.
Such “local excesses” are no longer uncommon for Russia. An example of this is the recent incident with Yuri Lotman’s portrait in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, which was mistakenly identified as “hostile” Mark Twain (and led to the dismissal of the department head).
Moreover, there are many supporters of the “good Soviet Union” in the country’s leadership. They strengthen the authorities’ credibility with “proven” Soviet instruments – from the creation of the Great Encyclopedia to the revival of the Pioneer movement.
This means that the abundance and scale of repressions is not a criterion by which totalitarian regimes differ from authoritarian ones. Therefore, unfortunately, the fact that Russia cannot be called a totalitarian state does not actually change anything.
Many of us have learned at social studies classes the gradation “totalitarism”, “authoritarism”, “democracy” as a transition from very bad to very good.
However, comparing a totalitarian regime to an authoritarian one and a democratic one is not entirely accurate. Such a comparison portrays authoritarianism as something not very frightening, reconciling us with it and devaluing the sufferings of those living under it. And we already see how Russian society, even without becoming totalitarian, has gained experience in mass dehumanization.
State-sanctioned evil can be committed without the mobilization of the masses and without a coherent ideology – in the eyes of citizens who “do not care about politics”. And the fact that, according to scientific classification, the state has not yet become totalitarian does not diminish its wrongdoing.