Knowledge And Decisions

Change is one of the great promises of totalitarian movements — whether Hitler’s “New Order,” Mussolini’s “new departure in history,”³³ or a variety of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist variations on the same theme. Initially profound changes in political power are indeed characteristic of totalitarianism. But whatever the intentional forces at work among the original insurgents, the systemic effects have been centered on retaining the totalitarian power, at whatever cost in terms of violating the original program or ideology. This has typically necessitated, at some point, a purge of those attracted by the original insurgent program that is now being discarded when in power. Hitler’s 1934 purge of his storm trooper leaders from insurgent days³⁴ and Stalin’s purge of Trotsky (and many others) were part of a pattern that has been characteristic of totalitarian governments around the world. While national dangers have been used to justify such actions, they have in fact typically occurred after a consolidation of power, when there was considerable evidence (including statements within the regime) that the dangers to the government had lessened.³⁵ Perhaps these events mark the transition from a totalitarian movement’s seeking of power for a purpose to a situation in which power has itself become the purpose. For at least some unfortunate segments of totalitarian movements, it is clear that they could not predict the ramifications of the forces they set in motion as insurgents.

CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY

As noted in Chapter 5, a government whose source of power is democratic may promote either freedom or tyranny. The rise of popularly elected government in the American South toward the end of the nineteenth century marked the spread of Jim Crow laws and an unprecedented terror against the black population, both inside and outside the law. By contrast, most of the personal rights which are loosely referred to as “democratic” rights were pioneered in England under governments that were democratically elected only within the past century — the popular franchise being a consequence rather than the cause of these developments, which go back to Magna Carta. In short, despite a general, historical association of freedom and democracy, they can be independent of each other in theory, and have at times been so in practice. Indeed, Hitler came to power through democratic and constitutional processes.

Freedom cannot be made definitionally a part of democracy. The democratic process is a mode of political decision making. Freedom may occur under this or other modes. The more autocratic the government, however, the more freedom depends on the benevolence, indifference, or inefficiency of the authorities. Such freedom can readily be suspended or revoked when it threatens the existing authorities or the existing form of government. By contrast, democratic freedom typically means recognition as a practical matter — and/or as an ethical principle — that freedom is difficult to maintain for most when it is not maintained for all. Thus democratic freedoms include the freedom to denounce freedom and to advocate and even carry out its destruction, as in the rise of Hitler in the Weimar Republic. In short, the movement from freedom to totalitarianism tends institutionally to be a one-way movement, since despotism recognizes no popular right to move back toward freedom. Historically, the movement from despotism to freedom has taken place after despotism’s self-destruction (Hitler being the clearest example) through either internal or external force, aroused by the excesses of despotism itself. The immediate incremental costs of moving in the totalitarian direction are, however, asymmetrical. It is easy to give up freedom and hard to get it back. Only a general horror of loss of freedom acts to convey these future costs into present-day decision-making processes.

In the perspective of world history, constitutional democracy is a very late arrival. Autocratic, aristocratic, and dynastic governments all go back for thousands of years, but the first time in history when a national government voluntarily relinquished power to an alternative set of political leaders as a result of a popular vote was 1800, when the Federalists turned power over to Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans. Constitutional democracy is a new — and indeed, fragile — form of government. Yet its appeal is so widespread that even some totalitarian governments create its outward appearances to win supporters (or at least, neutralize critics) at home and abroad.³⁶