Totalitarianism and the individual using the book Under a Cruel Star and two other readings - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... horrible living conditions and galling transportations can be used to describe the camp as trying to establish one’s life and a family was hardly possible due to starvation and violence. Another form of totalitarian form of governance was in Moscow where purge was conducted as authors were controlled over the content with which they are to publish. Those carrying out the purge are described as lacking sophistication and stupidity. Under controversial circumstances, books were withdrawn and example being Lenin’s book because they were listed under Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” with Riazanov’s forward, but in many other instances this explanation breaks down. The “Authoritative” and “Educated” bunch of people were forming purging committees and recommending the removal of controversial readings. Under “philosophy” the Leningrad instructions propose that “idealistic philosophy should be removed entirely from circulation and this would leave only Kant’s and Hegel’s works in circulation since their writing and ideologies went in line with the governing authorities. Questions were raised over the withdrawal of many writers especially those who by the humblest and most general assessment are on a higher level and less pernicious than the hundreds of junky kinds of belles-lettres that Gosizdat put out even at this time. The kind of leadership being experienced was resulting in a totalitarian form as the main instructions of Glavpolitprosvet are more restrained and balanced, TBTW. The recommendation was to remove all the prerevolutionary literature that was concerned with upbringing and education, all prerevolutionary mathematics textbooks, all anthologies of Russian literature, collections of pieces for recitation, oral public reading and narrations from the local public libraries to central and pedagogical libraries (Kova?ly 17). On the other hand, Adolf Hitler being an ardent militarist, during his rule rejected democracy terming it a bankruptcy and promoted an authoritarian form of politics based on the leadership principle. He was of the belief that war was a crucial test of a nation’s vigor and the defeat of Germany in 1918 was not the result of military failure but rather the product of the diseased condition of the German society in general, (Hitler 513). The corruption and weakness that was evident in the country was caused by the diabolical machinations of the Jewish people, whom Hitler had portrayed as a degenerate race engaged in an international conspiracy designed to destroy the national principle binding the German people together as a “master race” and Hitler then offered himself as the leader of the revitalized militantly nationalist Germany purged of all those who would weaken or diminish the racial purity of the German people. Hitler’s thoughts were centered along an obsessive preoccupation with racial “hygiene” which according to him was a basis of national strength. According to Hitler (517), the Jewish people with all their apparent intellectual qualities are nevertheless without any culture of their own and the sham culture which the Jew possess today is the property of other people and is mostly spoiled in their hands. He furthers the opinion that the state is a means to an end, and ...Download file to see next pagesRead More