Hannah Arendt and Marxist Theories of Totalitarianism

Nicholas Devlin

doi:10.1017/s1479244321000603

Abstract

This article offers a new reading of the place of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism in the history of totalitarianism theory. Building on a novel genealogy of Marxist theories of totalitarianism, the article traces this inheritance into Arendt's early work on the subject, demonstrating that her “languages” (in the Pocockian sense) were basically continuous with those of interwar Marxism. The article proceeds in three stages. First, it reconstructs two core languages of interwar Marxism (imperialism and Bonapartism). Second, it shows how these languages underpinned a central controversy in Marxist theories of totalitarianism during World War II, a debate conducted in the languages of imperialism and Bonapartism and turning on the relationship between the political and the economic. Third, it shows that Arendt wrote in these languages and contributed to the same debate. In conclusion, this striking affinity with Marxism in Arendt's early work is contrasted with the emergence of classical totalitarianism theory—a project with which Arendt was soon eager to associate herself and which makes a unified and consistent reading of The Origins of Totalitarianism so difficult.

Highlights

Totalitarianism theory was a central conceptual innovation of the twentieth century, animating Cold War intellectual life and informing foreign-policy decisions across the Western world
The article proceeds in three stages. It reconstructs two core languages of interwar Marxism. It shows how these languages underpinned a central controversy in Marxist theories of totalitarianism during World War II, a debate conducted in the languages of imperialism and Bonapartism and turning on the relationship between the political and the economic
The second section shows that these arguments, precisely because they were written in Marxist terms, excited a strong reaction from less heterodox figures, such as Franz Neumann, who engaged them on this terrain in the debate about “the primacy of the political,” or the relationship between the political and economic spheres more broadly

Summary

Introduction

Totalitarianism theory was a central conceptual innovation of the twentieth century, animating Cold War intellectual life and informing foreign-policy decisions across the Western world.

Results

Conclusion