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The Origins of Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is thrown around a lot after Hannah Arendt's work on this concept. Can you explain how totalitarianism comes to be associated with Stalinism? Sure, so before the Cold War, totalitarianism is kind of a term that's up in the air and up for grabs. It's actually initially used by anti-fascist and Italy to describe Mussolini who actually takes it up and says you know what, I'm totalitarian, it's a good thing. Some Marxist like Trotsky uses it in Revolution of Trade, Victor Serge, other critical ones,. Franz Newman, the Frankfurt School theorist who used it to describe Nazi Germany but it's really not codified.