Editing Totalitarianism (section)

===Contemporary background===
[[File:Kim Il Sung Portrait.png|thumb|upright|[[Kim Il Sung]] was the founder and leader (from 1948 to 1994) of [[North Korea]], a state which was created and functioned with the assistance of the [[Soviet Union]] after [[World War II]] and by the early 1970s had become a totalitarian regime.<ref name="Suh 2012 p. 149">{{cite book | last=Suh | first=J.J. | title=Origins of North Korea's Juche: Colonialism, War, and Development | publisher=Lexington Books | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-7391-7659-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7dmysjj13QwC&pg=PA149 | access-date=2023-02-05 | page=149}}</ref>]]
Modern political science catalogues three régimes of government: (i) the democratic, (ii) the authoritarian, and (iii) the totalitarian.<ref name="LinzLinz2000">{{cite book | author1 = Linz, Juan José | date = 2000 | title = Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes | publisher =Lynne Rienner Publisher | pages = 143| isbn = 978-1-55587-890-0 | oclc = 1172052725 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8cYk_ABfMJIC&pg=PA143}}</ref><ref name="Michie2014">{{cite book | editor = Jonathan Michie | date = 3 February 2014 | title = Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences | publisher = Routledge | page = 95 | isbn = 978-1-135-93226-8 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ip_IAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA95}}</ref> Varying by political culture, the functional characteristics of the totalitarian régime of government are: [[political repression]] of all opposition (individual and collective); a [[cult of personality]] about The Leader; official [[economic interventionism]] (controlled wages and prices); official censorship of all mass communication media (the press, textbooks, cinema, television, radio, internet); official [[mass surveillance]]-policing of public places; and [[state terrorism]].<ref name="reflections2"/> In the essay "Democide in Totalitarian States" (1994) the American political scientist [[Rudolph Rummel]], while acknowledging that there is "much confusion about what is meant by ''totalitarian''" up to denial that totalitarian systems have ever existed, defined a totalitarian state as "one with a system of government that is unlimited, [either] [[Political constitution|constitutionally]] or by countervailing powers in society (such as by a Church, rural gentry, labor unions, or regional powers); is not held responsible to the public by periodic [[secret ballot|secret]] and competitive elections; and employs its unlimited power to control all aspects of society, including the family, religion, education, business, private property, and social relationships." According to Rummel, such governments act as "agencies of totalitarianism" itself, that is, "the ideology of absolute power", which installs "mortacracy" in states controlled by it. Rummel cited [[Marxism–Leninism]] and [[communism]] in the [[Soviet Union]] under [[Joseph Stalin]], [[History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)|China]] under [[Mao Zedong]] and in [[East Germany]], [[Nazism]] in [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] under [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[fascism]] in other states, [[state socialism]] ([[Burmese way to socialism]]) in [[History of Burma (1962–1988)|Burma]] under [[Ne Win|U Ne Win]] and [[Islamic fundamentalism]] ([[Islamism]]) in [[Iran]] as examples of totalitarianism.<ref name="Rummel 1994b">{{cite book|last=Rummel|first=Rudolph|year=1994|chapter=Democide in Totalitarian States: Mortacracies and Megamurderers |editor-last1=Charny|editor-first1=Israel W.|editor-last2=Horowitz|editor-first2=Irving Louis|title=The Widening Circle of Genocide|pages=3–40|edition=1st|publisher=[[Routledge]]|doi=10.4324/9781351294089-2|isbn=9781351294089}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tago|first1=Atsushi|last2=Wayman|first2=Frank|date=January 2010|title=Explaining the Onset of Mass Killing, 1949–87|journal=Journal of Peace Research|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|publisher=Sage Publications|volume=47|issue=1|pages=3–13|doi=10.1177/0022343309342944|issn=0022-3433|jstor=25654524|s2cid=145155872}}</ref> However, not all scholars believe these regimes and ideologies exemplify totalitarianism: some of those who support of the concept of totalitarianism exclude Burma,<ref>{{cite book|author1=William Ebenstein|quote=The second category includes one-party states in Asia and Africa such as Burma, Iraq, and Zaire - which are not totalitarian but allow only one political party.|page=182|isbn=9780060418618|title=American Democracy in World Perspective|date=1980 |publisher=[[Harper (publisher)|Harper & Row]]}}</ref> Iran<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gZMTDGajvu0C | title=Iran's Struggle for Economic Independence: Reform and Counter-Reform in the Post-Revolutionary Era | isbn=978-1-136-73557-8 | last1=Pesaran | first1=Evaleila | date=25 April 2011 | publisher=Taylor & Francis }}</ref> and even [[Fascist Italy]]<ref name="italy"/> from this category, while historians who state that the concept can not adequately describe [[Stalinism]] nor [[Nazism]] criticize the concept of totalitarianism in general (see below).

;Degree of control
In exercising the power of government upon society, the application of an official [[dominant ideology]] differentiates the [[worldview]] of the totalitarian régime from the worldview of the authoritarian régime, which is "only concerned with political power, and, as long as [government power] is not contested, [the authoritarian government] gives society a certain degree of liberty."<ref name="Cinpoes"/> Having no ideology to propagate, the politically secular authoritarian government "does not attempt to change the world and human nature",<ref name="Cinpoes"/> whereas the "totalitarian government seeks to completely control the thoughts and actions of its citizens",<ref name="regime"/> by way of an official "totalist ideology, a [political] party reinforced by a [[secret police]], and [[Monopoly|monopolistic control]] of industrial [[mass society]]."<ref name="Cinpoes"/>