Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

attempted to reassess the analytical validity of the totalitarian approach
and to document the Stalinist terror in the light of novel
archival evidence previously inaccessible to researchers. On the
other hand, after decades of political interdictions, scholars in East-
Central Europe and the former Soviet Union are actively engaging
with the vast literature on totalitarianism, trying to adapt existing
theoretical offers to the study of their own societies. Departing critically
from “classical” theoretical models of totalitarianism put forward
during the Cold War, and informed by recent theoretical and
methodological perspectives, numerous scholars have reiterated
the heuristic advantages of the concept of totalitarianism, proposing
new interdisciplinary approaches to the comparative study of
fascism and communism. Instead of simply focusing on the allegedly
static nature of totalitarian regimes, new studies focused
on totalitarian political movements, their integral view on politics,
their attempt to exercise a “totalizing” form of power, and their evolution
into political regimes. In order to account for the functioning
of totalitarian regimes, new studies have redirected the academic
focus from issues of coercion, repression and resistance to new
technologies of rule and practices of legitimization and consensusbuilding
employed by fascist movements and regimes.
Is the comparison between fascist and communist ideologies,
movements and regimes a valid historiographical enterprise? To be
sure, from an analytical perspective, most forms and units of comparison
could be successfully justified. That is because comparison
is a fundamental method of research in social sciences; 43 it has always
been an integral part of the scientific inquiry, as a core operation
of reasoning. Indeed, as Guy Swandon pertinently remarked,
“Thinking without comparison is unthinkable.” 44 Seen from this
perspective, the comparison between Nazi Germany and Soviet
Union can be a useful intellectual exercise, since it can assist researchers
in better understanding the main features of the phenomena
under investigation. Yet one has to be very clear in pointing
out that comparison per se does not presuppose sameness; as
43 Arend Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” American
Political Science Review, 65 (1971) 3, 682-693, here 682, 683.
44 Quoted in Charles C. Ragin, The comparative method: Moving beyond qualitative
and quantitative strategies (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1987), 1.
143 Constantin Iordachi