Social and psychological determinants of the formation of totalitarianism

Abstract

Relevance. The threat of the formation of totalitarian regimes remains quite real for today's reality, and therefore the demand for research into the reasons that enable the emergence of such phenomena is growing. Moreover, among the complex of such reasons, it is not the specific social preconditions that contributed to the emergence of certain totalitarian regimes deserve the greatest attention, but the general determinants that underlie the formation of totalitarianism as a political and historical phenomenon.

The purpose: to determine the socio-psychological determinants of the formation of totalitarianism as a political and historical phenomenon.

Methodology and scientific approaches. In the work, totalitarianism is considered as one of the forms of reaction (historical rollback), which naturally arises after revolutionary liberal-democratic transformations. On the basis of theoretical analysis, it is proved that the determinants of these transformations, as well as the determinants that underlie the mentioned rollbacks and determine the form they take, have a socio-psychological nature.

Results. In the complex of determinants that cause the formation of totalitarianism, three aspects can be distinguished. The first of them is represented by the determinants that lead to the reformation of traditional society, the departure from the old form of government and the construction of new democratic regimes. This is the development of rationality, which, in turn, becomes a catalyst for the development of social subjectivity and human-centered principles of humanism. The second aspect is represented by the determinants that cause failures in the development of democratic relations and subsequent reactions. This is a lack of political competence, as well as an uneven distribution of social subjectness and orientation to liberal-democratic values ​​among the population. The third aspect is related to the development of ideologies, in particular those belonging to the ultra-right and ultra-left sides of the political spectrum. The determinant for these processes is the development of rationality, which made it possible to develop various models of social organization and ways of achieving them.

The practical significance of the results lies primarily in the identification of socio-psychological characteristics of society, which act as a preventer for the formation of totalitarianism.