Totalitarianism : Proceedings of a Conference Held at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, March 1953

This collaborative volume explores the challenge of totalitarianism, and more especially the issue of freedom and totalitarianism, in the world today. It is the outgrowth of a conference on totalitarianism held by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1953. The participants, who represent many fields and interests, successively consider ideological and psychological aspects of the problem, and then totalitarianism in its relation to intellectual life and to social and economic organization. In conclusion they look at totalitarianism and the future.The contributors to the volume are: George F. Kennan, Jerzy G. Gliksman, N. E. Timasheff, Carl J. Friedrich, Alex Inkeles, Franklin H. Littell, Waldemar Gurian, Raymond Bauer, Erik H. Erikson, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Marie Jahoda, Stuart W. Cook, H. J. Muller, Georgede Santillana, Bertram D. Wolfe, Albert Lauterbach, J. P. Nettl, Karl W. Deutsch, Paul Kecskemeti, Harold D. Lasswell, Andrew Gyorgy. PARTICIPANTS IN THE CONFERENCE Preface Contents The Problem of Totalitarianism — An Introduction PART ONE Totalitarianism and Freedom 1. Totalitarianism in the Modern World PART TWO The Nature of Totalitarianism 2. Totalitarianism, Despotism, Dictatorship 3. The Unique Character of Totalitarian Society 4. Social Prophylaxis as a Form of Soviet Terror PART THREE Totalitarianism and Ideology 5. The Totalitarian Mystique: Some Impressions of the Dynamics of Totalitarian Society 6. The Protestant Churches and Totalitarianism (Germany 1933-1945) 7. Totalitarianism as Political Religion PART FOUR Psychological Aspects of Totalitarianism 8. The Bolshevik Attitude Toward Science 9. Wholeness and Totality — A Psychiatric Contribution 10. Environmental Controls and the Impoverishment of Thought 11. Ideological Compliance as a Social-Psychological Process PART FIVE Totalitarianism and Intellectual Life 12. Science under Soviet Totalitarianism 13. Phases of the Conflict Between Totalitarianism and Science 14. Totalitarianism and History PART SIX Totalitarian Social and Economic Organization 15. Totalitarian Appeal and Economic Reform 16. The Economy of the Soviet Zone of Germany 17. Cracks in the Monolith: Possibilities and Patterns of Disintegration in Totalitarian Systems PART SEVEN TOTALITARIANISM AND THE FUTURE 18. Totalitarianism and the Future 19. The World Revolutionary Situation Comments session of the first day of the conference, seemed admirably suited to open this volume and is hence put first. These papers were submitted to all participants some weeks prior to the conference, and only brief summaries were presented at the meetings, so that a large part of the available time could be devoted to discussion. The discussions were taken down by a team of younger scholars, including T.