By Jacob Barnard.
Originally submitted as an assessment for Totalitarianism: Authoritarian Politics in Theory and History.
Describing totalitarianism as a ‘political religion’ has traditionally been debated among historians as to how useful it is in the causes of totalitarian states. However, Gregor’s Totalitarianism and Political Religion: An Intellectual History forms an insightful overview of the issue. Writing chronologically, the book begins by discussing Hegel, the founder of absolute realism in historical contexts. Gregor then progresses through the 19th century and 20th century, discussing the rise of Marxism, Leninism, Fascism and National Socialism. He also explores the less renowned philosophers, who are highlighted as central to the formation of political religion and its use in totalitarian regimes. Gregor outlines a wide variety of informative arguments, however he can be biographical at times, and unfortunately the text fails to provide a coherent critical argument about the limitations of the use of a political religion. Despite this, the book remains a compelling account of 20th-century anti-liberalism.
The book follows a chronological explanation of 20th-century totalitarian political religion. It begins by outlining the philosophical arguments surrounding the idea of a ‘secular religion’ or ‘pseudo-religion’, including Hegel’s absolute realism, Fuerbach’s materialistic world view, Marx’s social and economic science, Hess’s ‘collective creature’ theory and Gentiles’ philosophy of fascism. The book then follows on by discussing these theories in practice, with Lenin’s revolutionary Russia, Hitler’s National Socialism and Mussolini’s fascism. This format provides a clear picture of how anti-liberal ideas were carved out in the 19th century and put into practice, without touching too much on the actions of the regimes themselves.
The concepts and arguments are clear and insightful to any scholar wishing to learn aspects of secular philosophical thought. However, he is inconsistent when it comes to persuading a reader how ‘political religions’ influenced totalitarian regimes. Hegelian concepts lay the foundations for Gregor’s further discussion. Gregor argues that the moral impetus of a political religion is found in the understanding of human realities, being that of true consciousness. He argues that this realisation provided a moral justification for totalitarianism states that are ruled by a ‘collective consciousness’. In this way, the book clearly illustrates how the concepts underpinning totalitarianism were conceptualised. However, it is difficult to truly argue these ideas as ‘political religion’, instead they were ideologies that had grounding in the ideas of Hegel and Marx. The various political manifestations of Marxism throughout this period clearly illustrate the limitations of Gregor’s argument. He systematically discusses these ideas to create a sense of teleology. National Socialism, Leninism and Mussolini’s Fascism are all dialectically opposed, but all have Marxism embedded within their ideology. Yet Gregor fails to truly grasp this contradiction, or at least chooses to ignore this for the purposes of his argument.
Gregor’s writing does however find utility in other ways. He touches on the despotism of previous centuries. Although not consistent, using this, Gregor does allude to the fact that totalitarianism is not necessarily specific to the 20th century. His brief mention of Pol Pot and pre-Maoist China is useful in this too, as it provides comparison of regimes in the later 20th century too. Like religion, total states were built on moral obedience of the soul. In addition to this, scholars of this period, including Lenin, discussed the key idea of ‘new men’. These ‘new men’ in principle wanted to ‘liberate’ the proletariat into a collective consciousness. His explanation of this is arguably Gregor’s greatest achievement in writing this book. This enables a complex understanding of how these rulers perceived themselves and the world. By believing in dialectal materialism, these ‘new men’ believed that they were chosen to continue the progression of mankind’s consciousness and liberation. Gregor’s in-depth approach to this subject creates a thorough understanding of the secular thinking that delved politics into more than just the governance of a nation, but into the consciousness of the state. Gregor’s point is made clearer as chapters progress. By the conclusion, the reader understands that 20th-century politics was now ‘intellectually independent’ from religion, which led to the necessity of an ideological justification for their cause. However, he does admit that Marx did not make the role of the ‘new men’ clear and fails to acknowledge this as contradictory to his overall thesis that ‘political religion’ was the driving force of totalitarianism.
The key weakness of Gregor’s argument on political religion is that he fails to consider the limitations of the concept itself. It is, as previously mentioned, biographical at times and lacks any critical approach to the concept of political religion during this period. Gregor fails to note other justifications for the success of totalitarianism, such as the question of race, class and nationality being a principle ideology in many of these totalitarian regimes. Gregor also fails to contextualise this historical period. Their success as regimes were far more complex than what Gregor may have the reader believe. Totalitarianism in Italy, Germany and Russia were all able to succeed with social and economic crises as their backdrop. Alongside this, race and class were intrinsically key in Nazi Germany and Lenin’s Russia, and Mussolini sought after an Italian national identity. Gregor fails to consider these factors within his argument. Gregor’s theory of totalitarianism is quite ‘mythological’ in its outlook, failing to consider Quentin Skinner’s ideas that extra-historical understanding of what the ideas should have been, leads to misinterpretation of what the author did mean[1]. It is also a somewhat status quo opinion to argue that Hegel and Marx provided the sole impetus for these ideas, showing Gregor’s lack of critical approach. Despite, the philosophy of the 19th and 20th century certainly creating a moral justification for totalitarianism, Gregor’s writing lacks a solid coherent argument and fails to consider the limitations of the political religion.
Gregor’s Totalitarianism and Political Religion: An Intellectual History fails to argue convincingly that totalitarian regimes were driven by political religious thought. Similar to many historical theories, it leaves more open questions than answers to the original. The detailed approach of Gregor’s book is complimentary indeed and no time would be wasted in reading this scholarly resource. However, if a scholar wishes to have an answer to the question of whether totalitarianism succeeded with political religions at the forefront, it will not be found here.
[1] J.G.A Pocock, Quentin Skinner The History of Politics and the Politics of History (Duke University Press 2004), P.537
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