II. Ideological party state and “its” society

The establishment of each totalitarian order in history follows a similar pattern. On the one hand, the new rulers rely on the massive use of terror, hence making the submission of society to the state possible in the first place. The usually peaceful post-totalitarian transformation of the system had thus been preceded by a violent totalitarian transformation a few decades earlier. On the other hand, all totalitarian systems are products of crisis situations, offering totalitarian political groupings the chance to seize power and subsequently implement their ideology.

Initially such a development could be observed in Russia. The Bolsheviks, a sectarian party of almost no social significance, profited from the crisis of the tsarist empire during the First World War. In 1917, Lenin’s party was the only one in Russia determined to seize power by all means available, taking advantage of the chaos that had broken out in the country. After the Bolsheviks had taken power, Russian society was cut off from its history.

Social groups and strata that clung to the values and traditions of pre-socialist society (not only of the old regime) – the aristocracy, the free peasantry, the weak bourgeoisie, most of the priesthood, and the parts of the Intelligentsia who were faithful to its ethos – were eliminated. The traditional culture was consistently destroyed or forcibly adapted to the new times. In the early 1930s this transformation was completed, and Soviet society was thoroughly subordinated to the state.

Prior to the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in 1941, Stalin had managed just in time to destroy the apparatus of the Communist Party, including the officer corps of the Red Army, hence getting rid of potential competitors in the power struggle. In the GULAG, which had already been established under Lenin, about atenth of the population worked themselves to death.

all totalitarian systems are products of crisis situations

“disruption of history”

the totalitarian states

Such a deliberate destruction of traditional society implies a historical break resulting in the acknowledgement of a “disruption of history” in all those places where totalitarian systems had been established. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the origins of Bolshevism were at least partially Russian. The known facts do not change this assessment, namely that: Marxism was imported from Germany to Russia; the Bolsheviks would hardly have come to power if Lenin had not been supported by Imperial Germany; and the most important Bolsheviks were dominated by non-Russians: Jews, Latvians, Germans, even Georgians and Poles sometimes played a crucial or at least important role.

Nonetheless, neither the crisis of the old regime and society, nor the establishment of a totalitarian order in Russia was due to the actions of external powers. The social and political crisis was homemade which is why the prominent Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdiajev had argued from exile in 1931 that the bourgeois Christians of Imperial Russia were mostly responsible for Bolshevism.16 Nor did the establishment of the totalitarian order meet with sufficient resistance on behalf of the elites and the Russian population in general. Moreover, it cannot be denied that the seemingly federal structure of the Soviet Union favoured the Russian people while encouraging the Russification of other nations in the Soviet Union. It is no coincidence that the first line of the Soviet anthem begins with the phrase: “The Great Rus’ brought together the indestructible union of free republics for centuries.”

The establishment of the totalitarian system in China, Vietnam, and Cuba followed the same pattern. Although the totalitarian ideology was imported to these countries from continental Europe, particularly from Germany and France, the crisis of the old order created opportunities for communist sectarians to take power and to build a totalitarian state in China, Vietnam, and Cuba as well. As in Russia, this profound crisis was rooted in social and cultural problems, the tradition of totalitarian reasoning was widespread among intellectuals, while the forces that could have resisted the communist takeover were weak. All these aforementioned facts suggest describing the totalitarian states in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba as endogenous (or of “internal origin”).

16 Nikolas Berdyaev, The Russian Revolution, University of Michigan Press 1961, pp. 89f.

The establishment of the remaining totalitarian systems was different – for example in the Caucasus and Mongolia in the 1920s, in eastern Poland and the Baltic states after the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and in Central, North- and South-Eastern Europe after the Second World War. In these cases, the communist systems were established as a result of Soviet military interventions. Only the Communist parties in Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Yugoslavia enjoyed a broad social base, comparable to those found in France and Italy, where the Communists participated in coalition governments in the first post-war years.

Those totalitarian states that owed their emergence to the totalitarian world power – the Soviet Union – can be described as exogenous totalitarian systems (or of “external origins”).

They, likewise, emerged under conditions of crisis. This fatal crisis, however, was not of a homemade nature. In Central, North- and South-Eastern Europe it was the result of actions initiated by external powers. These powers included Germany, which was primarily responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War, i.e. also for the Soviet Union’s ability to advance into the new regions of Europe. Neither should the victorious Western powers be forgotten, which short-sightedly and selfishly pursued a decidedly pro-Soviet policy during the war. This refers first and foremost to the USA and Great Britain, which even betrayed their Central European war allies, Poland and Czechoslovakia, in order to reach an agreement with the Soviets on the hegemonic zones of influence in Europe.

The populations of most exogenous totalitarian states developed an occupation syndrome, regarding the communist system as foreign. The feeling and conviction of living under an imposed system made any dissatisfaction with the political and social conditions appear as a national problem, which was the source of an ongoing latent crisis of legitimacy of the totalitarian empire. Consequently, totalitarian states, which owed their existence to external interference, had to fear the threat to their stability or even their very existence more frequently than totalitarianisms of internal origin.

Mixed cases of endogenous and exogenous states occurred when the population of the totalitarian system of external origins did not develop an occupation syndrome. The Slavic Soviet Republics of Belarus and – largely – Ukraine were among them. Of

exogenous totalitarian systems

occupation syndrome

the fifteen union republics in the Soviet Union only these two had their representatives at the United Nations, thus possessing the features of sovereign states. Communism was introduced in eastern Ukraine and eastern Belarus post-First World War. However, due to the outcome of the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, the western parts of these countries became part of the Second Polish Republic, which had been established in 1919. The national consciousness of Ukrainians, and in particular Belarusians, was generally weak, resulting in their failure to achieve state independence.

After the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact and following the Second World War, Poland lost its eastern territories (“kresy”). These territories were annexed to the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet Republics. Since within both countries the communists did not gain power through their own efforts, but benefited from wars and Soviet support, the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet Republics are considered to be of external origins. However, only the population in western Ukraine developed the occupation syndrome. The influences of western culture were strongly pronounced there: they dated back to the Noble Republic of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which had declined at the end of the 18th century and – in Galicia – to the later influence of the Habsburg monarchy. In western Ukraine, for instance, despite the communist ban, the Greek-Catholic (“uniate”) Church continued to exist, which was Greek-Orthodox in rite, but de facto subordinate to the Pope. This church had been founded in the Commonwealth in 1596 for the purpose of integrating Orthodox Christians into the state affairs.

The occupation syndrome was weak in Belarus and communist Ukraine because those peoples had not grown into mature nations at the time of the establishment of the communist systems. Since the majority of the population did not long for their own nation state, they accepted forming union republics of the formally-federal Soviet Union.

Another country that did not show any occupation syndrome despite an exogenous totalitarian system was Bulgaria. The traditionally pro-Russian sentiments were so strong there that the Bulgarian party leader Todor Shivkov actually intended for his country to merge with the Soviet Union at the end of the 1970s. However, the Soviet leadership rejected his idea, because they did not want to take responsibility for all the problems of their satellite, nor give the impression that the development of the so-called

community of socialist states was evolving towards the incorporation of formally sovereign people’s democracies into the Soviet Union.

Similar to Bulgaria, Romania would probably have remained amonarchy if not for the Second World War and Soviet interference, thus socialist Romania also counts to the totalitarian states of external origins. However, unlike in Bulgaria, Belarus, and Ukraine, the absence of a strong occupation syndrome was due to the “nationalisation” of the communist leadership. Consistently since the late 1950s, the Romanian party top circle distanced themselves from the Soviet Union in matters of foreign policy and maintained particularly close relations with the People’s Republic of China. Subsequently the Romanian population could receive the impression that Romania had developed into a sovereign state governed by a national-communist leadership. All these instances and examples allow the conclusion that nationalism has to be considered in the analysis of totalitarian systems.

The party leadership of the centre of the totalitarian empire – the Soviet Union – was involved in the most important decisions of the exogenous totalitarian states. Moscow, for example, was granted the unwritten right to confirm the new party leader in a satellite state. Moreover, the Kremlin decided on the most important military affairs of its colonies and interfered in domestic incidents during systemic crises. The Kremlin openly claimed the right to intervene militarily whenever it felt the foundations of the totalitarian order in the colonies of the communist empire were under threat.

The latter right is usually known as the so-called Breshnev-Doctrine. According to this axiom, the “community of socialist states” were granted the right to intervene militarily in each “brother country” if the danger of an anti-socialist “counterrevolution” existed. Like many other phrases that are used in the media of the free world, the term “Breshnev-Doctrine” is wrong. Since this axiom had already been implemented by Khrushchev in Hungary in 1956. Moreover, the uprising in the GDR was crushed in 1953, and it could not have had occurred to any contemporary at that time to speak of the “Breshnev-Doctrine.” It was only in 1968, after the military intervention in Czechoslovakia, that this phrase was introduced. Incidentally, it was not Breshnev who formulated this “doctrine” at the time, but Władysław Gomułka, who

totalitarian empire

state terror in 1968 feared that the Prague Spring could spill over to Poland and lead Czechoslovakia into the arms of “capitalist Germany.”

Hence, the influence of the Soviet party leadership did not end with the installation of the totalitarian satellite states. Even after the establishment of these states, the “mother party” – the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – remained their highest informal decision-making body.

It is not surprising that the notion of the “total” or totalitarian state, popular in the West in the 1920s, had already found its way into academic analysis before the Second World War. The ideologisation and violence of public life in particular frightened and at the same time fascinated contemporaries in the West, who feared that the conditions in the Soviet Union could foreshadow their society’s future. Therefore, and because of the significance of communism in the international system, the search for the “nature” (“essence”) of totalitarian rule became the central concern of the decades-long discourse about totalitarianism. In the course of this, classic conceptions of totalitarianism were not only influenced by “Stalinism” and National Socialism, but they could not help but also include considerations of state mass terror as the crucial, and even, as in Hannah Arendt’s case, the defining characteristic of totalitarianism.17

Following the “de-Stalinisation” after 1956 at the latest, it became apparent that the intensity of state terror can certainly decrease without the totalitarian system mutating into authoritarianism or democracy. It is known that mass terror emanating from the state does not represent a specifically totalitarian phenomenon, although, in this respect, totalitarianism undoubtedly set new standards. Since the earliest recordings of human history, persecutions and massacres have been organised and carried out by states or state-like entities. The originality of totalitarian crimes “merely” consists in the fact that it would not have been possible without modern technology and state bureaucracy as well as the support of scientists.

Although there are valid reasons for not declaring mass terror the “essence” of totalitarian rule, its potential omnipresence in totalitarianism must not be overlooked. For the totalitarian state must constantly be capable of employing its apparatus of violence against society. Although after 1956 mass terror in most

17 Hannah Arendt, op. cit.

communist states subsided, it continued to play a key role in stabilising the system, especially in times of crisis. This is clearly demonstrated by the events in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, in Poland in 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, and in the 1980s. Admittedly, totalitarianism showed that ideas and technical possibilities coupled with bureaucratic efficiency of the modern age lead to the murder of millions when deprived of traditional morals. Even for totalitarianism, state terror was never an end in itself, which some analysts have alleged in relation to the “Stalinism” of the 1930s. Mass terror at that time was “solely” the instrument for perfecting the totalitarian rule, similar, for example, to the repressiveness of the People’s Republic of Poland under communist party leader Wojciech Jaruzelski, although the extent of violence and its results were different in each case.

In contrast to the literary utopias of totalitarianism (such as those penned by George Orwell or Arthur Koestler), the real totalitarian systems always left much to be desired. This even applied to the terrorist rule of Stalin.

It is observable from the numerous lives of people under communist rule that individuals, if courageous and lucky, have managed to escape the pressure and guarding of the seemingly omnipresent state. These individuals could even “defeat” the supposedly omnipotent state. Even if the reality of the communist states occasionally came close to George Orwell’s utopian vision, Soviet communism did not represent a perfect totalitarian rule in the sense of literary utopias. Nevertheless, the comparative theory of political systems requires both the ideal type of totalitarian rule and the term of totalitarianism. No one would consider abandoning the notion of democracy just because it is recognised that there are no perfect democracies. Nor would it make sense to reject the concept of the per se imperfect system of authoritarianism, because there can be no such thing as a perfect imperfection.

Although the perfect totalitarian rule fails to exist, some states do assert an unrestricted claim to power, which is formulated and justified by means of a special ideology. Hence, totalitarian states are to be regarded as ideological states. The terms “ideocracy” or “logocracy” or – in the case of Ernest Gellner – the “secular Umma”18 are used in this context. Whether one speaks

18 Ernest Gellner, Bedingungen der Freiheit. Die Zivilgesellschaft und ihre Rivalen, Stuttgart 1995, p. 35. unrestricted claim topower

of ideocracy or logocracy, of the secular Umma or of totalitarianism – in any case – this always refers to a system in which an ideology plays a determining role. Against the understanding of totalitarianism as an ideological system, a seemingly plausible objection repeatedly states that all states need ideological legitimation. However, this objection ignores the fact that not every ideology is suitable for legitimising totalitarianism.

Four characteristics make up the totalitarian ideology. Firstly, it must be all-encompassing, i.e. it must be able to express itself on all problems of man, nature and history. Secondly, it must make an absolute claim to truth by not only answering every question, but by also answering it correctly! As the only authentic doctrine, it must – thirdly – be dogmatic, i.e. contain a series of statements or premises that are undisputable because they form its unshakable core. In the case of Marxism (and Marxism-Leninism), this is the aforementioned deterministic principle, according to which the progress of all societies follows from universally valid laws. Fourthly, totalitarian ideology is chiliastic, i.e. it is directed towards an ideal final state of humanity, which in Marxism-Leninism is known to be (post-socialist) communism. The ideology thus declares the present existence to a provisional arrangement, which is a necessary preliminary stage of the much-conjured final state. The life of the present generations is sacrificed to the idyllic future or at least subjected to it.

Considering these four characteristics, it must be noted that there are numerous totalitarian ideologies and philosophical systems. All philosophers who claim with absolute certainty to have answered the most important ontological and social questions have at least tinkered with totalitarian ideologies. Moreover, a great number of individuals think at least partially in totalitarian categories. Incidentally, this does not just primarily include religious people, since they are now able to distinguish clearly between the dogmas of religious and non-religious thinking. In contrast, all individuals, who are convinced to know everything, or “at the very least” think to know what this world is like and what is important in this world, may be considered “potential totalitarians”. As long as their convictions do not become a state ideology these individuals need not be treated as too dangerous. However, when this occurs, the ideology gains a number of additional characteristics.

At first the ideology becomes interchangeable despite its dogmatism. A democratic politician may change or deny his opinion without having to question his principles. The situation is different with totalitarian rulers, who are forced to reconcile every statement and every political decision with the all-encompassing and dogmatised ideology. This cannot be achieved given the dynamics of social and political development. How, for instance, could the assassination of Lenin’s closest companions by Stalin be ideologically justified after these early Bolsheviks had been incorporated into the sacred doctrine of Marxism-Leninism? How could the Soviet Union, Hitler’sgreatest ally from 1938-41, condemn Hitler to the Devil on Earth after the German invasion in June 1941? How could Stalin, who had been praised to the skies in the Soviet Union for almost three decades, be mainly blamed for all the evils of the Communist world after his death?

The totalitarian state ideology is not only absurd, it is also omnipresent. Its contents are conveyed in all media, whereby the public and occasionally also the private sphere becomes the medium of the state: radio, television, print media, streets “decorated” with slogans and portraits of the leaders, factories, and sometimes even apartments. All the questions concerning man, society, history, science and nature are then interpreted in terms of an absurd ideology, subjecting the whole of society to indoctrination aimed at blurring the distinction between true and false. The respective subjects simply have to accept the current version of the ideology. George Orwell hardly exaggerated when formulating the totalitarian slogans as follows: “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”19

Without a specific ideology with its dogmatic theorems, the totalitarian state would not be considered totalitarian. However, it must also be institutionally structured in such a way that it can direct and control the whole of society. This principally requires a centre from which this guidance and control can be managed.

The two-part state party forms this centre. On the one hand, it consists of the so-called inner party (cadre), to which the decision-makers, i.e. the party functionaries (also called “apparatchiks”), belong. The other part is formed by the “outer party,” to which the broad membership masses belong. The “outer party” acts as a pool for the cadre, i.e. the “inner party.” The cadre enjoys

19 Georg Orwell, 1984, Zürich 1950, p. 27.

top party circle

apparatus of state power privileges that are not accessible for the ordinary party members, let alone to the rest of the population. For example, party officials are allowed to travel abroad, they have better housing, and they have the opportunity to buy goods that are inaccessible to ordinary mortals, etc.

Decisions are not made in official party bodies and state organs, but within the informal structures of the “inner party,” which can be imagined as a number of concentric circles.

In the middle is the first and smallest circle – top party circle – which consists of the party leader, some members of the Politburo and secretaries of the Central Committee. The top circle is in turn surrounded by the party leadership, which includes the leaders of both the central and the important regional party bodies. The next, and largest circle is the central power apparatus, which is essentially composed of the functionaries of the party leadership living and working in the capital as well as the state’s central organs. This also includes the functionaries of the so-called social organisations together with the “allied parties” of the communist party, that is if they happened to exist in the respective totalitarian state.

The “nomenklatura,” which originally implied a list of posts and offices that could only be occupied by the party or in its name, is used for the staffing of the entire state apparatus. The “nomenklatura” also includes the class of functionaries. Although this class reaches well beyond the “inner party,” its decisive posts and offices are naturally reserved for the apparatchiks of the “inner party.” In contrast, the great mass of the members of the nomenklatura executes decisions, although they enjoy privileges of the rulers.

In totalitarianism, the central, middle (regional) and lower (local) executive organs represent the apparatus of state power. The hierarchical, bureaucratic and functionally structured state power apparatus consists of (1) party, (2) state, (3) economic, (4) police, and (5) military institutional units. Wolfgang Leonhard was perhaps the first to refer to the “pillars of power” in this context.20 The party pillar forms both the decision-making centre as well as the reservoir of the state cadre and is used for the staffing of state power apparatus. Institutions of state administration, the courts and the public prosecutor’s office as well as the

20 Wolfgang Leonhard, Kreml ohne Stalin, Köln 1959.

indoctrination and propaganda apparatus (including schools) are attributed to the state pillar. The economic pillar encompasses the attempt to fulfil the planned production target. Within the police pillar, the security apparatus – as the “protective shield of the party” – is the most relevant. Finally, the military forces of most communist states were fully integrated into the Kremlin-led structures of the Warsaw Pact.

The blending of party and state – together with the totalitarian ideology – constitutesthe totalitarian system. The prerogative to decide on the appointment of offices and posts converts the party into a component of the state. However, this also applies vice versa: the state degenerates into the performing organ of the party. Overall, the totalitarian state is to be considered an ideological party state.The totalitarian ideology legitimises the unrestricted claim to power of the state and the party. The party in turn – the decision-making pillar of the state power apparatus– acts, so to speak, on behalf of the ideology. In doing so, the party takes possession of the state, and in time merges with it.

If totalitarianism is regarded as a political system, its legitimacy and structures must be the focus of interest. However, the unrestricted claim to power expands these structures to such an extraordinary degree that society can degenerate into an instrument of the ideological party state. Such a transformation of society into a will-less component of the omnipotent political system results in a unique atomisation and depoliticisation of the subjects. While the atomisation originates from attempts to direct interpersonal relations into state channels, the depoliticisation results from state action against all autonomous social actors. Nonetheless, society may oppose these phenomena and thus put its mark on totalitarianism, as well as decide about its alteration and chances of survival. This is the reason why totalitarian societies differ considerably in terms of atomisation and depoliticisation. Concepts of totalitarianism that ignore societal aspects of power and exclusively reflect the legitimation and structures of totalitarian rule are not suitable for analysing the alteration and the different manifestations of communist systems.

The extension of state control to ever new areas of society, however, ensues not only in totalitarian systems. Authoritarianism frequently employs a massive use of force, in order to

an ideological party state

submission of society tothe state suffocate and paralyse social resistance against those measures to be enforced by the rulers. It may also occur that the population of an authoritarian state desires the omnipotence of the political system (as observed, for example, in the Third Reich). Finally, those authoritarianisms which respect the law can enforce an extraordinary expansion on a legitimate legal basis (e.g. the Kulturkampf under Otto von Bismarck). Only this last path is available for a democracy, although the purpose of such measures will remain disputed. The internment of Americans of Japanese origin during the Second World War, which was backed by the law, or the suspension of a number of civil rights in the fight against terrorism in the 1970s in the Federal Republic of Germany or in the United States of America after 9/11 may be taken as symptomatic examples.

Nonetheless, the phenomenon of the extension of state power familiar from many other systems must not lead to the blurring of the differences between totalitarianism on the one hand, and democracy and authoritarianism on the other. This danger exists in cases where totalitarianism is understood as a single political system among others. However, unlike democracy and authoritarianism, totalitarianism is not just a society’s subsystem in which binding decisions are made; since in totalitarianism the whole of society is in principle at the disposal of and – to a certain extent – a component of the political system, it goes beyond the usual ideas of a political system.

The unrestricted claim to guidance and control of the party and the state requires a prepared society. To this end, it is necessary to transform or destroy autonomous institutions and actors, essentially transforming them into the state’s henchmen, i.e. annihilate them. After society has been seized by the state structures or pressed into them, any autonomous action, let alone the attempt to establish an autonomous organization, must be regarded as suspicious and must be prevented. As a result of this submission of society to the state, the boundary between the political system and the social order disappears.

The totalitarian-prepared society is neither pluralistically constituted, nor is it to be regarded as a civil society. Depending on the country, communist rule produced a more or less homogeneous society, which was based on the destruction of “bourgeois

and private economic elements.”21 In this respect it was quite successful. Authors who thought they had discovered a “socialist civil society” in Poland since 1980 have overlooked the obvious fact that in that country – despite the existence of “Solidarność” – the state controlled and took possession of almost the entire economy. Without economically independent actors there can exist neither civil society nor social pluralism.

The concept of civil society reflects the particularities of Western societies, which, as is commonly acknowledged, are familiar with the constitutional state and the rule of law, and do not grant predominance to any ideology or religion. In contrast, the concept of pluralism (similar to that of the market) is universal, for, in many cultures, there is a diversity of actors pursuing their interests. Since totalitarianism is directed against all pluralism, and not just exclusively against Western civil society, pluralism should be considered the counter-model of the totalitarian order. Civil society plays an increasing role in the post-totalitarian transformation, since the construction of Western systems is the declared goal of this transformation.

It is beyond question that the totalitarian system required a specific political culture of its subjects. These subjects were supposed to be available and docile while not expressing any desire to participate. It is indisputable that socialisation in a society dominated by an omnipresent state could not remain without effecting its subjects. Thus, the assumption that the economic and political incapacitation had an effect on the dominant personality structure in society cannot be dismissed. It may be assumed that the self-declared goal of the totalitarian state to create the “new man” was at least partially realised – but in a different way than described by the literature of “socialist realism.”

The Russian writer Aleksandr Zinovjev has popularised the term “homo sovieticus” (“homosos”). Homosos is a product of socialist education and is characterised by serfdom, modesty, social envy, collectivist instinct, denunciation, and willingness to make sacrifices.22 Considering that empirical-sociological studies were rarely carried out under communist rule, Zinovjev’s theses

civil society

“homo sovieticus”

21 Andrew Arato, “‘Civil society’ gegen den Staat. Der Fall Polen 1980/81,” in: Reinhard Fenchel/ Anna-Jutta Pietsch (ed.), Polen 1980–82. Gesellschaft gegen den Staat,

Hannover 1982, p. 46–87. 22 Alexander Sinowjew, Homo sovieticus. Roman, Zürich 1984, p. 362–368.

could hardly be verified at that time. Nevertheless, the studies conducted at Harvard University in the 1950s showed that emigrants from the Soviet Union were strongly influenced by Communist indoctrination.23 However, to what extent the emigrants interviewed were representative of the “Soviet citizens” as such may only be speculated about.

Recommended literature

Arato, Andrew, “Civil society” gegen den Staat. Der Fall Polen 1980/81, in: Reinhard Fenchel/ Anna-Jutta Pietsch (ed.), Polen 1980–82. Gesellschaft gegen den Staat, Hannover 1982.

Gellner, Ernest, Bedingungen der Freiheit. Die Zivilgesellschaft und ihre Rivalen, Stuttgart 1995.

Inkeless, Alex/ Gleicher, David/ Rosow, Irving (ed.), The Soviet Citizen. Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, Cambridge (Mass.) 1961.

Orwell, Georg, 1984, Zürich 1950.

23 Alex Inkeless/ David Gleicher/ Irving Rosow (ed.), The Soviet Citizen. Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, Cambridge (Mass.) 1961.