Political Memes

Someone's confused about words. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian, communist dictatorship, where totalitarianism is the most extreme authoritarianism.

Totalitarianism is a label used by various political scientists to characterize the most tyrannical strain of authoritarian systems; in which the ruling elite, often subservient to a dictator, exert near-total control of the social, political, economic, cultural and religious aspects of society in the territories under its governance.

That places it on the authoritarian edge & far left of the ideological map.

It's not on the left edge, because the hierarchy between political elites & the governed features some economic inequality & tremendous inequality in political power/authority.

The degree of control in totalitarianism differs from that in ordinary authoritarian regimes. An authoritarian régime is primarily concerned with political power rather than changing the world & human nature: they will grant society a certain degree of liberty as long as that power is uncontested. In contrast, a totalitarian government is more concerned with changing the world & human nature to fulfill an ideology: it seeks to completely control the thoughts & actions of its citizens through such tactics as

• Political repression: according to their ideology, rights aren't inherent or fundamental, the state is the source of human rights. Rights (eg, freedom of speech, assembly, & movement) are suppressed. Dissent is punished. Unauthorized political activities aren't tolerated.
• State terrorism: secret police, purges, mass executions & surveillance, persecution of dissidents, labor camps.
• Control of information: full control over mass communication media & the education system to promote the ideology.
• Economic control.

Liberal democracies with market economies lie somewhere on the libertarian side of the ideological map. They may be a number of things, however, authoritarian they are not, and definitely not that extreme variety of it.

So yes, many of us who think human rights are fundamental would much rather deal with some economic inequality in a liberal democracy than the extreme political inequality & authoritarian repression in a totalitarian state. The latter at best trades one kind of inequality for another far worse inequality.