The Origins of Totalitarianism

Citation

Arendt, H. (1973). The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (Original work published 1951).

Chapter Summary

Context and Argument

Arendt's first major work appeared in 1951, in the aftermath of Nazism and in the early years of the Cold War. It studies the Nazi and Stalinist regimes and insists that they were something new: a "novel form of government" that differs in kind from despotism, tyranny and dictatorship, because it uses terror against whole populations and not only against opponents. She does not offer a causal explanation. The book traces the elements that, in her phrase, "crystallized" into totalitarianism. It is organised in three parts that were originally distinct essays: Antisemitism, Imperialism and Totalitarianism. This edition has thirteen chapters and includes the prefaces that Arendt wrote in 1967 for each of the three parts. An earlier, enlarged edition included a chapter on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which later editions dropped.

Part One: Antisemitism (Chapters 1–4)

Part One follows the position of European Jews from emancipation onward. Its chapters are:

• "Antisemitism as an Outrage to Common Sense" (the title in the Penguin Classics edition)
• "The Jews, the Nation-State, and the Birth of Antisemitism"
• "The Jews and Society"
• "The Dreyfus Affair"

Arendt argues that the Jews were closely tied to the nation-state, which they served and supported, but that they did not assimilate into class society. Modern antisemitism grew as traditional nationalism declined. The Dreyfus Affair is the central case study.

Part Two: Imperialism (Chapters 5–9)

Part Two turns to the age of imperial expansion from the 1880s to the First World War. Its chapters are:

• "The Political Emancipation of the Bourgeoisie"
• "Race-Thinking before Racism"
• "Race and Bureaucracy"
• "Continental Imperialism: The Pan-Movements"
• "The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man"

Arendt links imperialism to surplus capital seeking investment abroad and to the political control needed to protect it. She traces the growth of race-thinking into a political ideology. She also describes the Pan-German and Pan-Slav "movements," which replaced parties and were hostile to the state. She argues that imperialism provided preconditions and precedents for the totalitarian regimes.

Part Three: Totalitarianism (Chapters 10–13)

Part Three analyses the regimes themselves, mainly Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

• "A Classless Society" describes how classes dissolved into atomised masses and how the leaders came from the "mob."
• "The Totalitarian Movement" deals with propaganda, front organisations and the organisation of the movement.
• "Totalitarianism in Power" examines the deliberately shapeless structure of the state, the secret police, and the concentration and extermination camps. Arendt treats the camps as the central institution where the belief that everything is possible is tested.
• "Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government" sums up the argument. Ideology supplies a single explanation of history, and terror carries it out by destroying the spontaneity and plurality of human beings.

Key Concepts

Part One and Part Two

• Nation-state and its decline: the framework within which Jewish emancipation and antisemitism are explained. Its decline is the subject of the last chapter of Part Two.
• Race-thinking and bureaucracy: the ideological and administrative preparations for domination found in imperial rule.
• Pan-movements: movements that claimed to speak for a people across borders and displaced the party system.

Part Three

• Mob and masses: the declassed leaders and the isolated, uprooted followers on whom the movements relied.
• Ideology and terror: a one-idea explanation of history, and terror used as an end in itself rather than as a means.
• Loneliness and superfluousness: the condition of isolated people, and the aim of making human beings superfluous.
• Radical evil: Arendt's term for crimes that cannot be explained by self-interest or ordinary motives.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A framework for what was new. Arendt separates totalitarianism from older forms of oppression. Her analysis of terror, ideology and the camps still shapes discussion of the subject. In the two Fall 2025 courses described below, the required readings centre on the Part Three material: the novelty of totalitarianism, totalitarian power, and "Ideology and Terror."
• Long historical reach. By tracing antisemitism, imperialism and race-thinking before the regimes, the book explains how elements from different periods combined.
• Distinct concepts. The mob, the masses, loneliness and superfluousness give analysts terms that are widely used even where her wider argument is contested.

Limitations

• Contested history. Historians have questioned parts of the sources and argument. Bernard Wasserstein criticised her reliance on antisemitic and Nazi sources. Emmanuelle Saada doubts that scientific racism was central to colonial justification. John Lukacs called the book flawed and found its treatment of the Soviet Union superficial.
• Uneven parts. The three parts differ in subject and method. The connection between them is an argument about elements and preconditions, not a causal account. Both courses below assign portions of the work rather than the whole book.
• Scope. The analysis centres on Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union and Europe. For the wider range of non-democratic regimes, readers need comparative studies such as Linz's.

Where It Fits in the Course

Among the other books on this reading list, Arendt's is a work of political theory and history rather than a modern comparative study.

• Linz's Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes distinguishes totalitarian from authoritarian systems and develops a typology of authoritarian regimes.
• Frantz's Authoritarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know is a short primer on how authoritarian rule works today.
• Dahl's Polyarchy and the textbook Democratization approach regime change through conditions and measurement.
• Levitsky and Ziblatt's How Democracies Die studies how elected leaders erode democracy from within, which is a different process from the one Arendt describes.

Reading Arendt first gives the historical and conceptual background for all of these. Reading the comparative books first can help in judging how well her categories travel.

University courses also set Arendt beside literary and theoretical texts. These are paired readings, not replacements for her. In the UGA course below, she follows Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the Carleton seminar, she sits beside Carlton J. H. Hayes's essay on the novelty of totalitarianism and Arendt's own "Mankind and Terror."

How to Use This Book

The book is long and demanding, and it assumes some knowledge of modern European history. A good route for a first reading is:

1. The prefaces.
2. Part Three in full (Chapters 10–13).
3. For background: Part Two, Chapter 9, and Part One, Chapters 2 and 4.

Part Two, Chapters 6–8, can be read more quickly, or after Part Three, for the histories of race-thinking and imperial administration.

When reading, keep two lists: what Arendt says was new about the regimes, and what she says was inherited from earlier periods. Check each claim about Nazism or Stalinism against a modern history of the period. Use Linz or Frantz to see how later scholars have used or revised the term. Chapter 13, first published as a separate essay in 1953, can be read on its own as a summary of the argument.

Course examples

Two Fall 2025 syllabi show how the book is excerpted in practice.

• UGA, POLS 3000, Introduction to Political Theory. The required text is the separately issued Totalitarianism. Part Three of The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harvest), not the complete book. The schedule assigns:

  • "Totalitarianism in Power" (pp. 87–157) across two sessions, November 14–17.
  • "Ideology and Terror" (pp. 158–178) on November 19.

  The unit comes straight after Nineteen Eighty-Four, and a paper pairs Orwell and Arendt. This is a concentrated route: power first, then ideology and terror, with a literary comparison.

• Carleton University, Department of Political Science, PSCI 4316A/5915A, Contemporary Political Theory I. This seminar assigns excerpts from The Origins of Totalitarianism, supplied through the course site:

  • September 24, on the new concept of totalitarianism: Chapter 11, Section I, required, with Chapter 10, Section I, as optional background.
  • October 1: Chapter 13, "Ideology and Terror," required, with "Mankind and Terror" from Essays in Understanding.

  The wider course sequence approaches totalitarianism through political concepts, dreams, architecture and judgment. These are complementary perspectives, not substitutes for Arendt.

Neither syllabus states prerequisites.

Edition notes

The edition listed here is the 1973 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich edition of the complete work (ISBN 978-0156701532).

• UGA: The page numbers belong to its separately issued Harvest Part Three volume. They should not be assumed to match this edition.
• Carleton: The syllabus gives chapter and section references but no publisher, edition or pagination.

When following either course, locate passages by chapter title and section rather than by page number.