University of Maryland

Department of Government and Politics

GVPT 888 D

Spring 2008

Professor Vladimir Tismaneanu

Comparative Perspectives on Communism and Fascism

(Graduate Seminar)

This course will examine the main similarities and distinctions between communist and fascist ideologies, movements, and political systems. The course will highlight the centrality of ideology in totalitarian experiments and the relationship between ideology and terror as underpinnings of the ideocratic despotisms. Class discussions will focus on the main theories regarding the rise, structure, and functioning of the the Stalinist and Nazi dictatorships. We will explore the contemporary meanings of Hannah Arendt’s classical study of totalitarianism. Other seminal texts to be discussed are related to the impact of German radical nationalism and romantic anti-capitalism on the rise of National Socialism; the relationship between the Russian revolutionary tradition and the Bolshevik political culture; the interpretation of communisma and fascism as political religions (secular messianisms). Class discussions will explore the relationship between totalitarianism and evil.

Students are expected to choose a topic related to the readings and the syllabus and present it for class discussion. The paper will draw from both bot required and recommended readings, as well as other sources.  This paper will be the basis for the final exam research paper.

Readings

Required:

1, Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

2. Richard Gellately, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler:The Age of Social Catastrophe

3. Richard Malia, The Soviet Tragedy

4. Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin, Stalinism and Nazsism

5 George Mosse, The Fascist Revolution

6. Jacob L. Talmon, Myth of the Nation and Vision of the Revolution.

Recommended:

1. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem

2. Francois Furet, The Passing of an Illusion.

3. Peter Viereck, Metapolitics

4 Richard Crossman, ed., The God that Failed

5. Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia

6. Emilio Gentile, Politics as Religion

7. Vassily Grossman, Forever Flowing

Major Themes:

A: The communist experiment: The Bolshevik worldview and its implementation. Leni’s Manichean political philosophy (the binary logic: kto-kogo, who-whom). Lenin’s communist dicatorship (revolutionary ideology, revolutionary praxis). The vanguard party and the mystique of the organization. Stalin’s rise to power: the Bolshevik police state and the reshaping of society. Gellately and Martin Malia on Stalinism and its relationship to Leninism. Bolshevism and the intellectuals. The emergence of the Gulag and the „logic” of permanent purge. Bolshevism, internationalism, the Comintern, and the rise of National Socialism.

Readings:

Malia The Soviet Tragedy.

Gellately Parts 1-3

Furet

B: Totalitarianism: Class discussions on Hannah Arendt’s  The Origins of Totalitarianism. Anti-semitism and the crisis of modern society. imperialism and racism. The nature of totalitarianism—A novel form of government?  Totalitarianism—a Weltanschuungstaat (a state based on a worldview).  Hitler and National Socialism: the origins of the Nazi ideology (anti-Semitism, irrationalism, anti-liberalism, racism, integral nationalism, imperialism, anti-Marxism, anti-communism, anti-Christian).

Arendt, The Origins

Gellately Parts 4-8

Talmon Parts 3-4

Suggested

Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy (Harvard UP, 2006)

John Lukacs, The Hitler of History (Knopf, 1997)

C: The appeals of communism: Political religions and earthly salvation. Intellectuals and the revolutionary illusions. Communism, fascism, and the cult of violence. The appeals of fascism as a revolutionary movement. Party, ideology, and propaganda in Fascist and Communist experiments.

Furet

Mosse

Crossman

Gentile

D: Radical nationalism and communist internationalism. Ideological polarization in the 20th century. Georges Sorel and the birth of fascism. Discussion on Mussolini.

Readings:

Jacob Talmon, Parts 6-9

E: Comparing utopian-exterminist dictatorships. The ideological ingredient and the search for the perfect society. The racial versus the social „perfect” community.

Readings

Malia

Grossman

Overy

Gellately

Suggested:

Eric Weitz, Genocide: Utopias of Race and State (Princeton UP, 2003)

F: The role of the leader: comparing Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. The role of the party: comparing the Bolshevik and the Nazi parties. The role of ideology: comparing Leninism and National Socialism.  The role of the secret police.  Totalitarian states and the economy: major distinctions between Stalinism and Nazism. Communism as heir to Enlightement, Fascism as heir to counter-enlightment. Radical evil versus the „banality of evil”. Hitler’s „willing executioners”, Stalin’s hangmen, and the mechanisms of complicity.

Readings

Gellately

Overy

Viereck

Karshaw and Lewin

Suggested

Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

G. How do totalitarian regimes survive and how do they end? Arendt’s theory revisited. De-Stalinization and the Soviet political culture. The corrosive role of Marxist revisionism.  Marxism, Communism and the legacies of European humanism.  Ur-Fascism (Umberto Eco). Bolshevism as a moral problem.

Readings

Arendt, introduction and conclusions

Koestler in Crossman, God that Failed

Film presentations and discussions to be announced. Suggested films: Mephisto (1981) by Istvan Szabo); The Circus (1936, Grigori Alexandrov); Triumph of the Will (1934, Leni Riefenstahl); Downfall...; The 41st (1956, Grigori Chukhrai) or The Cranes Are Flying (1957, Mikhail Kalatozov); Repentance (Tenghiz Abuladze, 1987)