Totalitarianism in Europe.

Totalitarianism in Europe.
Totalitarianism loosely denotes a style of leadership adopted by the regimes in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union in the period preceding the Second World War, in the 1930s. The leadership manifested in various forms, as a communist regime reigning in Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union, a Fascist regime in Italy, and a Nationalist Socialist Regime in Germany. According to Marvin (1), totalitarianism referred to the regimes of fascists reigning in Italy, the system of communists in the Soviet Union and the regime of National Socialists in Germany. The overriding denominator of the three systems, viewed through the prism of totalitarianism majorly sought to bring individual life under control. Totalitarianism thus sought to dictate individual lives regarding their thoughts, the way of behavior, intellect as well as every other dynamic of the individual’s cultural, political and social way of life. A consideration of the regimes in power in Soviet Russia under Lenin and later Stalin, Fascist Italy under Mussolini and Nazi Germany under Hitler in the 1930s would no doubt bring to the fore different dynamics of totalitarianism.
In its attempts at entrenchment and the realization of its objectives of complete control and domination of the individual and state as well as institutions, totalitarianism employed various strategies such as mind control, mythologizing and a purge on perceived state enemies. According to Marvin (2), in efforts at effective mind control of the masses, the totalitarian leadership resort to efforts at social re-engineering by upholding and selling beliefs rooted in warped versions of history, usually advanced in ways that appeal to the emotions of the masses.

In communist Germany and Soviet Russia for, example, the regimes banned liberal democracy by initiating a purge of all political parties as well as limiting individual human liberties. According to Cernak (13), totalitarianism is marked by an absence of democracy in which there are no individual or civil rights or liberties, as the state reigns supreme. In efforts at furthering mind control, the bureaucracy of the state and available technology was used to indoctrinate the masses into an agreeable ideology of the regime. To that extent, therefore, the mind of the individual was completely under control rendering the individual as a mere robot in full implementation of the commands of the state. The fusion of the political party in power and the state dictated what the masses could think and believe, their value system, with individual intellectual efforts, morality in judgment or an exercise of the conscience all regaled to the back burner.
Mythologizing denotes the use of myths to advance and justify totalitarianism was similarly a critical key feature of the regimes, as demonstrated by the totalitarian leaders advancing the idea that their governments were superior or higher and authentic representation of the will of the masses. According to Cernak (56), in seeking to entrench and protect the totalitarian leadership or government, most dictators resorts to carving up personality cults through the use of state propaganda and bureaucracy. Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany were remarkably apt at this, building up their rule in the name of the masses, thus the Soviet Proletariat and the German Volk, under Lenin and Hitler respectively. The totalitarian leaders similarly sold the myth of the leader as all invincible and always right, espousing the best intentions for the masses. Ideologies that seek to re-engineer the historical process and at times revise historical realities are equally features of mythologizing under totalitarianism.
The totalitarian leader usually offers the masses a glimpse of the past, boasting a superior knowledge of historical secrets, awareness of the present realities and what the distant future holds. The myths used twisted versions of history and offered the gullible masses a great hope for the future, in turn attracting droves who subscribe to the beliefs and historical narration, while attracted to the emotional and satisfying nature of realities as presented. Hitler’s advancement of the theory of the Aryan race as all superior and painting to them a picture of future global imperial ambitions and dominance effectively validates the same. A Purge on the enemies of the state marked another unique feature of totalitarianism in that those who were perceived to be opposed to the ideology of the regime were targeted.
The leadership of the totalitarian regimes was usually paranoid; the purge similarly dwelt on anyone perceived to be a threat to the totalitarian regime. According to Marvin (18), Hitler for instance embarked on a propaganda campaign against Jews who he depicted as evil and labeled enemies worth destruction, in turn inciting the rest of society against Jews. There was a massive crackdown, including by way of torture, imprisonment, and execution of capitalists and industrialists, peasants, thousands of political opponents in Soviet Russia under Lenin. In Nazi Germany, the totalitarian Hitler regime began a purge on Jews, derogative ly regarded as the evil that needed to be eliminated, consigning them to concentration camps where they were starved, tortured and killed. Mussolini’s Italy similarly experienced a purge on groups perceived as challenging or a threat to the regime, in that on assumption of power he began a purge of non-fascists from the government. The purge was extended to a crackdown on political parties in the opposition, the labor or trade union movement, independent newspapers and similarly set up a secret police against any perceived threat to the regime.
Mussolini’s rise to power came during the period after the First World War, in the period of 1919-1922. The rise to power of Benito Mussolini came in the backdrop of massive national restlessness, disillusionment, and disappointment with the outcome or results of the peace treaty or settlement that came to the end of world war one. According to Cernak (20), throughout most of Europe after the end of the First World War, the frustration and despair of the masses resulting from the turmoil of the war created the conditions for the emergence of fascism. There was massive national disaffection and outrage at the terms of the settlement, and the masses felt cheated in spite of having made great sacrifices for victory during the war. Italy did not acquire territories as the masses hoped and believed it should have, in colonial territories in Africa and the Middle East, Coast of Dalmatian and at Adriatic port of Fume.
Mussolini was thus seen as an antithesis to the liberal government that Italian nationalists blamed for the failure to stand up to right-wing opponents of Italy. Mussolini thus organized a political movement known as the Fascist party, attracting membership over time from an array of disillusioned, discontented and alienated citizens. Building on his credentials as a world war veteran, he exploited the fault lines and national restlessness to project himself as one who would return honor and dignity to Italy on the international stage. Citizens saw in him a nationalist who would recover the lost territories, and in time veterans, students, trade unions, industrialists, the elite and all sections of society joined him.
On ascension to power, after being appointed Prime Minister, Mussolini pursued a totalitarian and completely anti-democratic path, in time expelling non-fascist leaders from the cabinet level of government and curtailing the operations of opposition political parties. He similarly engaged in a crackdown of trade unions and the labor movement as well as independent newspapers, and in an effort at ultimately consolidating his grip on power, set up the secret police to stifle dissent.
Economic difficulties or rather depression that came with the great depression of the 1930s, beginning in America and spreading to Europe gradually ushered in Europe an atmosphere of disillusionment. There followed a period of disorientation, loss of dignity and pride among Europeans coupled with a loss of reference regarding image and history. The hallmarks of European civilization previously depicted by logic and reason, morals and individual norms and liberties no longer appealed or made sense. Out of the crisis of identity and the crisis that followed saw varied reactions by scholars, intellectuals, philosophers and the general elite. Some found peace in art or in other ideologies such as Fascism or the Communism as practiced in Soviet Russia.
Existentialism as a philosophy developed, arising from philosophers and intellectuals in Christianity not finding homage in either of the options available. Existentialism was thus a call to Europeans to return to Christianity, deemed a religion of their ancestors if they were meant to fill the emptiness that the turbulence of the ages of the depression had visited on them. According to Marvin (25), existentialism was a response to the identity crisis and vulnerability that the second world war had visited on the masses of Europe, offering some anchor through which they would rediscover themselves. The ravages of the Second World War reigning supreme in Europe, existentialism as a philosophical concept sought to help Christians and the rest of Europeans acquire authenticity amidst a universe bereft of common human values.
Literature and art were not hampered by the effects of the world wars or the great depression, and various artists continued to produce outstanding pieces of work. Whereas art held onto the path it had been before the wars, one of expressing artwork in an abstract manner, other styles and trends emerged on the scene. According to Marvin (26), two art movements emerged on the scene in Europe known as Dada and Surrealism; that sought to highlight the pessimism, despair, and sense of vanity that prevailed in Europe after the war; in effect retribution of the war and the ideologies that had precipitated it. Dada was, for example, an art movement, founded in Zurich, Switzerland and which sought, among other things to reflect on the trauma laden effects of the war and a loss in the values of Europe concerning the intellect and morals. Dada was, thus, a rejection of war and the ideological orientation or philosophies that had informed it, spreading to the rest of other European countries like France and Germany.
Beyond depicting the misery and state of despair arising from the war, Dadaist artists similarly drew attention to the absurdities of life, going on to even reject the concept of reason and God. Surrealism was similarly another art movement that emerged from the period after the Second World War, building on the foundations of Dada. Surrealism while rejecting reason; however, embodied fantasy and used various symbols, emblems, and insights to present a sense of unconsciousness to illuminating facts or realities initially beyond the reasoning capacity of humans. In a rejection of reason, they sought to break the sailing of rationality or logic to achieve a super reality or reality beyond the conventional, thus the name surreal and surrealists. Through artwork Surrealism, therefore, strived to depict a world or reality beyond the ordinary world bereft of reason or conventional outlooks. ,

Works Cited
Perry, Marvin. Western Civilization: A Brief History. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2016. Print.
Cernak, Linda. Totalitarianism. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. Co, 2011. Print.