The personality cult of the leader, or What are totalitarian political regimes

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

Totalitarian political regimes are a whole system of methods, techniques and ways of exercising two types of power - political and state. Their nature is never directly stated in the constitution of a state, but is reflected in their content in the most striking way.

The concept of a political regime in society

In general, this term appeared in scientific circles in the second half of the 20th century. It was used together with such concepts as "political system" and "relationship of power with civil society". There are several varieties of these modes:

• authoritarian,
• totalitarian,
• democratic.

Political regimes differ from each other based on many factors. Among them:

• the essence of the state and its form;
• legislative;
• powers vested in state bodies;
• economic factors;
• history of the people, their traditions;
• standards and living standards of the population.

General characteristics of the political regime

Any (including totalitarian) political regimes are determined by a peculiar form of government. They should be distinguished from state regimes, since they cannot do without methods of struggle and methods of exercising political power that come not only from the state, but also from one or another political party or public organization. In addition, any political regime is characterized by certain relationships between civil society and the state, as well as the scope of freedoms and rights of individuals with a real possibility of their implementation. More specifically, we are interested in totalitarianism. Consider some features of this regime.

Signs of a totalitarian political regime

1. This political regime is entirely based on the following methods of coercion of a person: ideological, mental, physical. In other words, for such a regime, a characteristic feature is the forcible coercion of the population of the state to one or another social order, the models of which are developed by a single political ideology.
2. Party and state bodies in most cases merge with each other, forming an integral system of human management.
3. Totalitarian political regimes on the basis of this or that law (nominally) establish various gradations of rightspeople.



4. There is no separation of power, and there are no local governments. In other words, under such a regime, there is a monopoly on the power of a certain political party headed by a leader, with its spiritual and ideological values that are reflected in the character of the whole state. The whole state is subordinated to one party, which, in turn, keeps the media and the press "in a tight grip"
5. The rights and freedoms of most citizens are virtually non-existent, everything is saturated with the cult of personality (remember the reign of Joseph Stalin).

In addition, totalitarian political regimes in society are characterized by the following distinctive features:

• constant and strict control of all spheres of society;
• the ruling elite is endowed with bottomless privileges, no one controls it;
• permanent mass repression;
• very heavy media censorship;
• management of the economy becomes centralized bureaucratic.