This page features your "assessment"
By the end of the quarter, you will be asked to write an analysis that explains the general connections between these following documents.
You have a choice of essay questions you can respond to for this assignment. They are:
1. Is Hannah Arendt correct in her assessment of the similarity of totalitarian regimes? Analyze Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for your answer.
2. What best explains the origin and nature of totalitarian regimes? How do they arise and sustain themselves
3. What are the experiences of living in a totalitarian society? What are the effects on people? Include material from our fiction as well as history studies.
Choose 1 and respond to it in a two-to-three page essay. Your requirements for this essay are the following:
You must refer to 6 documents at minimum. You can refer to the specific document in the sentence itself, you may use parenthetical citation, or footnotes to name the document.
It must contain a thesis, and the structure of the essay must explain the thesis, using evidence and analysis. In other words, do not write a list of document explanations, document by document.
The thesis must respond directly to the question.
You must follow the schedule of tasks for this essay.
But first, we are going to take some time exploring them, and we will start by filling in steps 1 and 2 from a graph called a "KeWL" -
Step 1: what we know we know already
Step 2: what we need to know
(we will eventually fill in Step 3, but will prepare for that by writing weekly summaries, in the form of a weekly blog, on what you have learned from each week's activities. Step 3 will help you write this 2 page essay response)
Your documents:
Refer to them as (going clockwise from the one at the upper left:
Doc A, Doc B, Doc C, Doc D, Doc E, and ending at the document on the lower left, Doc F
Doc A, Doc B, Doc C, Doc D, Doc E, and ending at the document on the lower left, Doc F
Excerpt from 1984, by George Orwell
Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem -- delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your … estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing. On occasion he had even been entrusted with the rectification of The Times leading articles, which were written entirely in Newspeak. He unrolled the message that he had set aside earlier. It ran: …
The reporting of Big Brother's Order for the Day in The Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent persons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing.
Winston read through the offending article ... A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class.
…One could assume that Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no report of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen. That was to be expected, since it was unusual for political offenders to be put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some cases they might not even be dead. Perhaps thirty people personally known to Winston, not counting his parents, had disappeared at one time or another.
Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps -- what was likeliest of all -- the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government. The only real clue lay in the words 'refs unpersons', which indicated that Withers was already dead. You could not invariably assume this to be the case when people were arrested. Sometimes they were released and allowed to remain at liberty for as much as a year or two years before being executed. Very occasionally some person whom you had believed dead long since would make a ghostly reappearance at some public trial where he would implicate hundreds of others by his testimony before vanishing, this time for ever. Withers, however, was already an unperson. He did not exist: he had never existed.
The reporting of Big Brother's Order for the Day in The Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent persons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing.
Winston read through the offending article ... A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class.
…One could assume that Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no report of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen. That was to be expected, since it was unusual for political offenders to be put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some cases they might not even be dead. Perhaps thirty people personally known to Winston, not counting his parents, had disappeared at one time or another.
Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps -- what was likeliest of all -- the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government. The only real clue lay in the words 'refs unpersons', which indicated that Withers was already dead. You could not invariably assume this to be the case when people were arrested. Sometimes they were released and allowed to remain at liberty for as much as a year or two years before being executed. Very occasionally some person whom you had believed dead long since would make a ghostly reappearance at some public trial where he would implicate hundreds of others by his testimony before vanishing, this time for ever. Withers, however, was already an unperson. He did not exist: he had never existed.
Biology for the Middle School For 5th Grade Girls, Germany, 1942 (excerpt)
...Bees and ants are not only the sum of individuals; each individual shares a united drive in service of the entire group. They do not have an individual will any longer, but rather their actions have only the goal of serving the welfare of the whole, the welfare of the community. The state-building drive in insects has created a higher order from the drives of the individuals. Their species has become a higher order, one will in many parts. The individual member of a beehive does a single task: One may be a worker that carries nectar, another cleans the hive, the third builds on to it, a fourth feeds the larva, a fifth watches the hive's entrance. Each individual activity serves the whole. It is the same with ants. Certain ant species even have a warrior caste that fights in the front lines for the rest; the battle against the enemies of the state here, too, involves the whole group.
The instinctual state of the ants corresponds to the leadership state among mankind. We earlier noted the following truths about ants:
1. The work of the individual has only one purpose: to serve the whole group.
2. Major accomplishments are possible only by the division of labor.
3. Each bee risks its life without hesitation for the whole.
4. Individuals who are not useful or are harmful to the whole are eliminated.
5. The species is maintained by producing a large number of offspring.
It is not difficult for us to see the application of these principles to mankind: We also can accomplish great things only by a division of labor. Our whole economy demonstrates this principle. The ethnic state must demand of each individual citizen that he does everything for the good of the whole, each in his place and with his abilities...
The instinctual state of the ants corresponds to the leadership state among mankind. We earlier noted the following truths about ants:
1. The work of the individual has only one purpose: to serve the whole group.
2. Major accomplishments are possible only by the division of labor.
3. Each bee risks its life without hesitation for the whole.
4. Individuals who are not useful or are harmful to the whole are eliminated.
5. The species is maintained by producing a large number of offspring.
It is not difficult for us to see the application of these principles to mankind: We also can accomplish great things only by a division of labor. Our whole economy demonstrates this principle. The ethnic state must demand of each individual citizen that he does everything for the good of the whole, each in his place and with his abilities...
A.O. Avidenko: Hymn to Stalin
The men of all ages will call on thy name, which is strong, beautiful, wise and marvelous. Thy name is engraven on every factory, every machine, every place on the earth, and in the hearts of all men.
Every time I have found myself in his presence I have been subjugated by his strength, his charm, his grandeur. I have experienced a great desire to sing, to cry out, to shout with joy and happiness. And now see me--me!--on the same platform where the Great Stalin stood a year ago. In what country, in what part of the world could such a thing happen.
I write books. I am an author. All thanks to thee, O great educator, Stalin. I love a young woman with a renewed love and shall perpetuate myself in my children--all thanks to thee, great educator, Stalin. I shall be eternally happy and joyous, all thanks to thee, great educator, Stalin. Everything belongs to thee, chief of our great country. And when the woman I love presents me with a child the first word it shall utter will be : Stalin.
O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth.
Thou who fructifies the earth,
Thou who restorest to centuries,
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords...
Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou,
Sun reflected by millions of hearts....
Every time I have found myself in his presence I have been subjugated by his strength, his charm, his grandeur. I have experienced a great desire to sing, to cry out, to shout with joy and happiness. And now see me--me!--on the same platform where the Great Stalin stood a year ago. In what country, in what part of the world could such a thing happen.
I write books. I am an author. All thanks to thee, O great educator, Stalin. I love a young woman with a renewed love and shall perpetuate myself in my children--all thanks to thee, great educator, Stalin. I shall be eternally happy and joyous, all thanks to thee, great educator, Stalin. Everything belongs to thee, chief of our great country. And when the woman I love presents me with a child the first word it shall utter will be : Stalin.
O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth.
Thou who fructifies the earth,
Thou who restorest to centuries,
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords...
Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou,
Sun reflected by millions of hearts....
Excerpt from Feed
click to enlarge
Vladimir Illyich Lenin: What is to be Done, 1902 (excerpt)
No movement can last without a stable organization of leaders to maintain continuity;
The more widely the masses are drawn into the struggle and form the basis of the movement and participate in it, the more necessary is it to have such an organization, and the more stable must it be (for it is much easier for demagogues to sidetrack the more backward sections of the masses);
The organization must consist chiefly of persons engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession;
In a country with an autocratic government, the more we restrict the membership of this organization to persons who are engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession and who have been professionally trained in the art of combating the political police, the more difficult will it be to catch the organization, and the wider will be the circle of men and women of the working class or of other classes of society able to join the movement and perform active work in it....
The active and widespread participation of the masses…will benefit by the fact that a "dozen" experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the police, will centralize all the secret side of the work-prepare leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and to each educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views...). We must have as large a number as possible of public organizations having the widest possible variety of functions; for example, trade unions, workers' circles for self-education and the reading of illegal literature, and socialist and also democratic circles for all other sections of the population. It is absurd and dangerous to confuse these with organizations of revolutionaries, to erase the difference between them…
The more widely the masses are drawn into the struggle and form the basis of the movement and participate in it, the more necessary is it to have such an organization, and the more stable must it be (for it is much easier for demagogues to sidetrack the more backward sections of the masses);
The organization must consist chiefly of persons engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession;
In a country with an autocratic government, the more we restrict the membership of this organization to persons who are engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession and who have been professionally trained in the art of combating the political police, the more difficult will it be to catch the organization, and the wider will be the circle of men and women of the working class or of other classes of society able to join the movement and perform active work in it....
The active and widespread participation of the masses…will benefit by the fact that a "dozen" experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the police, will centralize all the secret side of the work-prepare leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and to each educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views...). We must have as large a number as possible of public organizations having the widest possible variety of functions; for example, trade unions, workers' circles for self-education and the reading of illegal literature, and socialist and also democratic circles for all other sections of the population. It is absurd and dangerous to confuse these with organizations of revolutionaries, to erase the difference between them…
From an analysis of Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
...What emerges is a portrait of an entity that seeks to establish total control within the state, absolute control not only of the government but also of every aspect of the lives of those who reside within it. Whatever the political philosophy—and political philosophies differed greatly between Nazism and Communism—no deviance in thought or action was permitted. In fact, to a totalitarian regime, ideology is secondary. What is of prime importance is the state itself. The state is above the individual, and both the individual and the party exist for the state. The state itself is the cause, the cause to which all belong and in which all submerge their individual identities and become one.
Every agency of the totalitarian state has but one function: to enforce uniformity, to stamp out deviance. The forms of enforcement or enculturation may differ from regime to regime, as they in fact did in Adolf Hitler’s Germany or Joseph Stalin’s Russia, but the ultimate purpose remains the same...
Every agency of the totalitarian state has but one function: to enforce uniformity, to stamp out deviance. The forms of enforcement or enculturation may differ from regime to regime, as they in fact did in Adolf Hitler’s Germany or Joseph Stalin’s Russia, but the ultimate purpose remains the same...