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The Proto-Totalitarian State: Punishment and Control in Absolutist Regimes
Contemporary Review, Spring, 2008
The Proto-Totalitarian State: Punishment and Control in Absolutist Regimes. Dmitry Shlapentokh. Transaction Publishers. [pounds sterling]26.50. vi + 167 pages. ISBN 978-0-7658-0366-5. Prof. Shlapentokh's goal is 'to prove that in some cases brutal totalitarian regimes, or at least regimes with significant totalitarian attributes, have been the only way to maintain basic social order'.
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This realisation, he argues, has been misunderstood because in Anglo-American thought, people assume that there is a defining social group (the majority) and that 'asocial behaviours are the actions of a few marginalized individuals'. It is not ideologies, he argues, but social conditions that lead to totalitarian regimes. (True of 1930s Germany perhaps but of 1918-1919 Russia?) Most of his historical references are to French history of the late Middle Ages and early modern periods. 'Civil society', he would seem to argue, is sometimes the end result of periods of absolutist rule. Interesting. (M.F.)
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