Talk:Totalitarianism

Why does this article say that the Nazis were right-wing?

Because that is the consensus of reliable sources, in this case historians and political scientists.

But the word "socialist" is right in their name!

Many political entities have names that can be misleading. Consider, for example, the Holy Roman Empire (a confederation of mainly German territories during the Middle Ages and the early modern period) and North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (a totalitarian dictatorship). In addition to this, the usage of the word "socialism" by the Nazis is different from the common usage of the term "socialism", which refers to an economic philosophy involving advocacy for social ownership of the means of production.
In the case of the Nazi party, the phrase "national socialist" was a nationalist response to the rise of socialism in Europe by offering a redefinition of "socialism" to refer to the promotion of the interests of the nation, as opposed to ideas of individual self-interest. But there was no policy of social ownership of the means of production. The Nazis did talk about capitalism being bad, but they defined it as a Jewish-originated economic philosophy based on individualism that promoted plutocracy in the interest of the Jews, at the expense of non-Jewish nations and races. This was put in contrast to the Nazis' conception of socialism, which was done in order to win over people attracted to anti-capitalist and socialist ideas to their cause. They rejected ideas of equality and working class solidarity, instead advocating for social hierarchy and national strength. This article sums it up well.

I made an offhand comment about it and somebody just came along and deleted it! What should I do?

Nothing. See this discussion where the community came to a consensus that we have entertained the numerous questions and claims about the Nazis being left-wing enough, and that continued engagement with people pushing this line of reasoning is not helpful to the article.

That doesn't seem very fair. Don't Wikipedia policies require editors to assume good faith? What if somebody posts that position here with a really good argument?

See the following links, all of which are to discussions about this very question over time. Any argument someone thinks is novel has already been made, been responded to, and failed to convince anyone. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]

But what if I find a large number of very reliable sources all claiming that Nazism is left-wing?

Then you will be more than welcome to show them to us, so that we can see that they are very reliable and that they assert that Nazism is a left-wing ideology. If they are, then we will change the article.

Benito Mussolini

I think that some of the wording around Mussolini should be changed. While Mussolini most certainly expressed totalitarian views, he is regarded by some to have failed to carry out those views in practice, notably in his allowance of several aspects of civil society, such as the Catholic Church. While I don't entirely object to his being called a totalitarian–given his ardently totalitarian views, noting that he wasn't totally totalitarian in practice may be a good idea (I'm going to add some of this stuff tomorrow, but I need to sleep now). In light of this, I also wish to discuss his inclusion in the introductory photo. Thoughts are appreciated. Good night (or whatever time of day it is for you). ¡Ayvind! (talk)

On second thought, there may not be sufficient mention of Mussolini to justify elaborating, though I would still like to discuss his inclusion in the photo. ¡Ayvind! (talk)

He didn't simply “express totalitarian views,” he explicitly proclaimed himself to be a totalitarian, after having popularized and arguably coined the term specifically to describe fascism. As you say, the degree to which he lived up to his statements and the internal consistency of those statements can be disputed, theoretically in much the same way one can debate the practical accuracy of Lenin's description of himself as a democrat, but one can not disagree that Mussolini was a — perhaps the preeminent — self-declared totalitarian. 2600:1700:DA90:2AB0:FD76:104:98B4:28D7 (talk) 11:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I share skepticism that Mussolini was totalitarian in the vein of the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. Besides the Catholic Church, king Victor Emmanuel III of Italy still reigned until 1946 as a figurehead. Mussolini was ousted in 1943 (by a vote of 19-8), led by Dino Grandi.

Also Mussolini is widely considered to be one of the first fascist dictators, the fact other political and religious institutions existed during his reign and had significant influence inclines me to be skeptical that Mussolini's regime was truly totalitarian. Mussolini's regime is comparable to other authoritarian, right-wing regimes in interwar Europe, like Horthy's Hungary and the Metaxas regime in Greece. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 03:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

References

March 2024: Content removal and modification

A number of edits by anon IP just occurred, with general edit summaries like "c/e encyclopedic style, correct terms, npov." This edit in particular saw a large amount of content removed with the edit summary "c/e encyclopedic style, correct terms, npov. Source, deleted off-topic text."

I will be restoring an older version of the page and have left a note on the editor's talk page. BCorr|Брайен 01:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Francoism and citation problems

"in the 1950s, where Francoist Spain changed from being openly totalitarian to an authoritarian dictatorship with a certain degree of economic freedom." This sentence cites "Payne, 2000", but this link is not attached to any book or any source. More to it, Stanley Payne openly refutes the definition of Francoism as a totalitarian regime even when speaking of its early phases. Such definition is not universally accepted, and Enrique Moradiellos Garcia says that today it is rare today to find such definition among scholars. Among English-language sources, the only of them which states so is "European Dictatorships" by Stephen Lee, although he notes that it was not totalitarian in ideological plain. It appears that there are more Spanish-language sources that call Francoism totalitarian, like this one and this one (though I'm not sure if it's reliable), but they need to be added, and the broken citation of Payne needs to be at least removed. 2.63.176.57 (talk) 18:21, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Prototypical Dictators

Can someone provide a source stating that Hitler and Stalin are the prototypical dictators? This is listed in an image box with both Hitler and Stalin, but there's no source and it's not mentioned anywhere in the page. I am curious to know where this is being stated. I've looked through some potential sources that mention similarities between Hitler and Stalin, but haven't found anything that specifically calls them prototypical dictators. For now, I will add citation needed most likely. 2600:100F:B113:B73F:96E1:BCD6:5A64:C0FB (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

pic in the lead

i added a lot of new content to the page, now i want to change the pic in the lead: there's a us propaganda poster "your lot in a totalitarian state" with both nazi and soviet flags, i'll upload it some time later

my objection to the one which is in the lead now is that they aren't equal there, cuz stalin takes more attention, first of all, because it shows only stalin in the previews, and secondly, cuz we read left to right and pay more attention to things we percieve first; in mobile version, stalin is above hitler

i think the poster is a good illustration cuz its both true and at the same time illustrates the origins of the concept which are also described in the article 2.63.182.29 (talk) 18:22, 9 February 2025 (UTC)