Totalitarian twins
Encyclopedia
The term "Totalitarian Twins" was used by François Furet
François Furet
-Biography:Born in Paris on 27 March 1927, into a wealthy family, François Furet was a brilliant student who graduated from the Sorbonne with the highest honors and soon decided on a life of research, teaching and writing. He received his education at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and at the faculty...

 to link Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...

 
and Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

.

Fascism and totalitarianism

Gary M. Grobman wrote:
  • Totalitarian regimes, in contrast to a dictatorship
    Dictatorship
    A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...

    , establish complete political, social, and cultural control over their subjects, and are usually headed by a charismatic leader. Fascism is a form of totalitarianism which emphasizes the subordination of the individual to advance the interests of the state. http://www.remember.org/guide/Facts.root.nazi.html


Michael Parenti
Michael Parenti
Michael Parenti is an award-winning, internationally known American political scientist, historian, and culture critic who has been writing on a wide range of both scholarly and popular subjects for over forty years. He has taught at several universities and colleges and has been a frequent guest...

 both acknowledged and criticized the linkage:
  • Both the Italian fascists and the Nazis consciously tried to imitate the left: youth organizations, mass mobilizations, rallies, parades, banners, symbols, slogans, uniforms. And I think for this reason, too, many mainstream writers treat fascism and communism as totalitarian twins. But most workers and peasants could tell the difference. Industrialists and bankers could tell the difference. And certainly the communists and the fascists could tell the difference. http://sonic.net/~doretk/ArchiveARCHIVE/M%20P/Parenti%20on%20Fascism.html


Daniel Singer
Daniel Singer
Daniel Singer was a socialist writer and journalist. He was best known for his articles for The Nation in the United States and for The Economist in Britain, serving for decades as a European correspondent for each magazine.Gore Vidal described Singer as "one of the best, and certainly the sanest,...

 wrote:
  • Central to Furet's argument is the belief that in a Europe shaken by World War I, Communism and Fascism were propping each other up. ... The Nazi-Soviet pact is for him perfect proof of complicity between the two systems.
  • While the totalitarian nature of Stalin's Russia is undeniable, I find the thesis of "totalitarian twins" both wrong and unproductive. ("Exploiting a Tragedy, or Le Rouge en Noir")
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