Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 18 – More than a half a century ago, I was privileged to take the last course Hans J. Morgenthau taught at the University of Chicago. Among the many wise things he said that have remained with me in the years since was his relating of an anecdote about the difference between democracy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
Morgenthau said that there were of course many differences but he insisted that the key one was this: in a democratic political system, everything not prohibited is permitted; in an authoritarian regime, everything that not permitted is prohibited; and in a totalitarian one, everything permitted is compulsory.
His words have come to mind on reading a new comment by Ilya Grashchenkov about Putin’s Russia in which he asks whether “everything that isn’t permitted is going to be prohibited” (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-18/ilya-graschenkov-teper-v-rossii-vse-chto-ne-razresheno-zaprescheno-5225612).
That is the classic definition of authoritarianism, the head of the Center for the Development of Regional Policy says, and a good description of a political system where the vice speaker of the Duma, Anna Kuznetsova, has declared that it is time to ban not just this or that activity but “destructive information as a whole.”
Of course, under the terms of Morgenthau’s anecdote, that would simply mean that Russia would be a full-blown authoritarian state. But because Kuznetsova doesn’t propose to specify everything that she thinks is “destructive,” the next step will be to pass a law telling Russians what they must do in all cases, the very definition of totalitarianism.
Putin has opened the way to this outcome because he routinely talks about things that he either wants to ban or doesn’t define; and so Russians can expect that the Kremlin leader will move on from measures like the one Kuznetsova is now urging to catalogue not of what is banned but of what is permitted and therefore in most cases at least compulsory.
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