Totalitarianism is a form of government and political system that seeks to assert total control over the lives of its citizens. It prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state, and exercises an extremely high, if not complete, degree of control over various aspects of social life, including the economy, education, arts, science, and the private lives and morals of citizens. Totalitarian states typically pursue a special goal to the exclusion of all others, with all resources directed toward its attainment, regardless of the cost. This form of government does not permit individual freedom and discourages traditional social institutions and organizations, making people more willing to be merged into a single unified movement.
Totalitarianism is often characterized by strong central rule that attempts to control and direct all aspects of individual life through coercion and repression. It is distinguished from dictatorship, despotism, or tyranny by its supplanting of all political institutions with new ones and its sweeping away of all legal, social, and political traditions. Totalitarianism is best understood as any system of political ideas that is both thoroughly dictatorial and utopian, and it is an ideal type of governing notion that cannot be realized perfectly. Totalitarianism has been associated with historical examples such as the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong, and North Korea under the Kim dynasty.
