How to Write Better Essays

Passage

Understanding Totalitarianism

In the 1930s writers and historians struggled to come to terms with

a system of government that seemed to have no precedent in history.

Unlike liberal democracies, totalitarianism appeared to have no fixed

characteristics, everything was in flux. The most one could say about

the regimes in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was that they

possessed certain ‘contours’,^1 to use Leonard Schapiro’s description.

Three of these are worth examining.

The most obvious one to observers in the 1930s was the leader,

who appeared to dominate everything. Although he was the leader

of a state composed of the usual institutions of government, he

successfully subjugated these to his own personal will. Aware that

those who wielded power through these institutions could pose a

real threat to his authority, he side-stepped them, setting up an alter-

native structure staffed by his own supporters who owed their posi-

tion to his patronage. With their future prospects in his pocket their

loyalty was beyond question.

The same strategy was used to influence the relationship between

the leader and his party. On the face of it the leader owed everything

to the party, after all it had brought him to power. But it also posed

a serious challenge to his authority. It was respected by its members

as the guardian of the ideology to which the leader was ultimately

accountable. Therefore, like the state, the party had to be subjugated

86 Research

more. Choose words or succinct phrases that you know will make the

connections to the information you want.

Keep in mind that the most important part of this exercise is to have

a clear, uncluttered model of the passage. You will not achieve this if you

allow yourself to be tempted into noting unnecessary detail. Your mind

will have self-organised in the interval between reading and noting, pro-

ducing a very clear structure of the passage in your subconscious, so you

must develop the skills to tap into this to get an accurate picture of it

clearly and simply on paper.

You won’t do this if you continually tell yourself that you must note

this and this and this, otherwise you’re bound to forget them. Don’t make

it difficult for your mind by doubting its capacity to remember details that

don’t need to be noted.

HTW12 7/26/01 9:04 PM Page 86