Now they made apparent what no other organ of public opinion had ever been able to show, namely, that democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism. The second democratic illusion exploded by the totalitarian movements was that these politically indifferent masses did not matter, that they were truly neutral and constituted no more than the inarticulate backward setting for the political life of the nation. toward the climax in the atrocities of the concentration camps. On the contrary, the movements showed that the politically neutral and indifferent masses could easily be the majority in a democratically ruled country, that therefore a democracy could function according to rules which are actively recognized by only a minority. The Origins of Totalitarianism is an indispensable book for understanding the frightful barbarity of the twentieth century.
The first was that the people in its majority had taken an active part in government and that each individual was in sympathy with one’s own or somebody else’s party. Hannah Arendts chilling analysis of the conditions that led to the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes is a warning from history about the fragility of freedom, exploring how propaganda, scapegoats, terror and political isolation all aided the slide towards total domination. The origins of totalitarianism Quantity-available 1 Edition First Edition Binding Hardcover Publisher Harcourt, Brace Date Published January 1951.
“The success of totalitarian movements among the masses meant the end of two illusions of democratically ruled countries in general and of European nation-states and their party system in particular.
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