ond this, the crucial experience of World War One was Lenin, the Bolsheviks and theRussian Civil War. Lenin had shown how a dedicated minority -- the Bolsheviks -- couldmake a dedicated effort and achieve victory over a majority. This was as true of theRevolution as much as it was of the Civil War when the Bolsheviks overcame the WhiteArmy who were numerically superior. Lenin also clearly demonstrated how institutionsand human rights might be subordinated to the needs of a single party and a single leader.So, Lenin provided a model for a single party dictatorship, i.e. the Bolsheviks. It wasLenin, who provide the model for Stalin as well as Hitler and Mussolini. Totalitarian regimes -- thanks to technology and mass communications -- take overcontrol of every facet of the individual's life. Everything is subject to control -- theeconomy, politics, religion, culture, philosophy, science, history and sport. Thought itselfbecomes both a form of social control as well as a method of social control. Those of youfamiliar with Orwell's premonitionary novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, should have an easytime understanding this development. The totalitarian state was based on boundless dynamism. Totalitarian society was a fullymobilized society, a society constantly moving toward some goal. Which begs thequestion: Is democracy the means to an end or the end itself? Paradoxically, thetotalitarian state never reached its ultimate goal. However, it gave the illusion of doing so.As soon as one goal was reached, it was replaced by another. Such was the case in Stalin'sRussia. Stalin implemented a series of Five Year Plans in an effort to build up theindustrial might of the Soviet Union. Production quotas were constantly announced wellbefore they had been reached in order to supply the illusion that the Five Year Plan wasworking. But before the Five Year Plan had run its course, another Five Year Plan wasannounced. Hopefully, you can intuit the psychologica...
