Totalitarianism in the evaluation of the French historical and political thought: features discussions 90s of the twentieth century

The article deals with the discussion of French scientists on the problems of the study of totalitarianism in the 1990s and on the problems of transition from totalitarianism to democracy. The author notes that the criticism of the theory of totalitarianism in the French historical and political thought in this period reached the highest point. In the Soviet Union began the "Perestroika", the process of transition to democracy which revealed all the problems of society. In the pages of French newspapers and magazines plenty of "evidence of the totalitarian past" appeared. Under these conditions, the problem of the study of totalitarianism in the French historiography became even more important. Most of the discussion issues were related to the problems of transition from totalitarianism to democracy. The study and understanding of totalitarianism was carried out from different positions. In the scientific discussion researchers of different directions took part, for example, F. Lacoue-Labarthe and J.-L. Nancy who considered the origins and essence of totalitarian regimes from historical and philosophical positions and concluded that the emergence of totalitarian ideologies and movements was caused by the crisis of Western democracy of the early twentieth century. Bershtein and Milza insist on the fundamental novelty of the totalitarian phenomenon characteristic for the twentieth century. The totalitarianism is a form of modern dictatorship that uses all of the abundance of techniques and tools of modern communication. F. Furet in one of his last works, "The Past Is an Illusion", focuses on the intellectual and psychological history of communism in the twentieth century. He notes that the war of 1914 has played in relation to the history of the twentieth century the same role matrix as the French revolution in relation to the history of the XIX century. It caused events and movements that led to the emergence of three "tyrannies" E. Halevi spoke of. At this time, French scholars not only significantly enriched and deepened the concept of totalitarianism, but also proposed a new concept for the study of the phenomenon of the twentieth century. The focus of the present work is the positions of French historians in relation to the problems and ways of overcoming the totalitarian past. It is noted that French scientists believed that communism was as criminal as Nazism. Totalitarianism, in their opinion, is not gone. Despite the fact that the advantages of the democratic form were fully substantiated and proved both in theory and in practice, the danger of the revival of this phenomenon is high due to the lack of mechanisms to counter it.

Keywords

Authors

References