Sorin BOCANCEA, Daniel ȘANDRU (coord.),

Totalitarismul. De la origini la consecințe

[Totalitarianism. From origins to consequences],

Institutul European, Iași, 2011, 451 pp.

The 19^th and the 20^th centuries brought the fall of monarchies and hereditary descent. Therefore, the rule of dictators became one of the two most frequent forms of government next to constitutional democracy. From Latin America’s self - proclaimed leaders, born after the fall of central authority in the nations freed from the Spanish rule to the new states of Africa and Asia, where dictators quickly rose after World War II and the communist and fascist regimes from various technologically advanced countries, dictatorship took its toll on territories and populations all over the world.

Published in 2011, the present volume marks 120 years since the birth of the Romanian savant Petre Andrei who was among the first Romanian theoreticians to reject dictatorship publicly and in his writings. The papers published in this volume are grouped into four parts and the fifth one is dedicated to the national conference with the same title held by Petre Andrei University from Iași.

The first part of the book, entitled Hannah Arendt. The Critique of Totalitarianism reunites articles from authors who used Hannah Arendt’s writings as a starting point and offers new insights into her theories. In the first chapter of this part, entitled Totalitarianism, Public Sphere and the Essence of the Political, George Bondor, for example, circulates the idea that dictatorship leads to people becoming isolated, therefore destroying the existing relations between them and their relationship with reality. By doing this, totalitarianism becomes the worst disease of the public sphere.

Caius Dobrescu uses Hannah Arendt’s volume, Men in Dark Times, as a departure point and correlates it with the ideas of sociologists Alfred Schultz and Peter Berger. Dobrescu takes a special interest in his material, the portrait of Hermann Broch, from Arendt’s Men in Dark Times.

In the third chapter of the first part, Florin Mitrea, leans over the more profound analysis of the roots of totalitarianism done by Hannah Arendt. Starting with the roots of the phenomenon (nihilism, the worship of history, truth and lie in politics), the author concludes with the solution given by Arendt to the evil of dictatorship: a revival of the truthful politics resulted from a public life based on solidarity, truth and liberty.

The last chapter of this part, written by Cristiana Arghire, contains a comparative study on Hannah Arendt's and Michel Foucault’s perspectives on the roots of totalitarianism with an emphasis on political historicism. The common denominator of the two thinkers' views, as highlighted by Cristiana Arghire, is represented by their common attitude towards the process of exclusion by which certain groups are pushed towards a social border, thus becoming nothing more than masses.

The second part, Theoretical Perspectives, gathers five contributions that analyse totalitarianism from the following perspectives: philosophical, political, legal and that of political marketing. In the first chapter Human Fallibility and the Totalitarian Phenomenon, Anton Carpinschi, strongly relates the aforementioned concept with the human condition, with our fascination with creating an infallible power and viewing it as the only efficient and universal political solution.

Using the concept of political crisis, in the next chapter, Vasile Boari considers that the totalitarian phenomenon is the expression of this crisis which manifests itself through a wide range of symptoms like: a decrease of trust in the public institutions, the weakening of political parties, the rupture between the civil society and the political class, corruption, etc. Trying to determine what must be done Boari thinks that the most viable solution is the birth of a new ethical and political paradigm, adapted to the present – day changes.

Constantin Ilaș deals with the relationship between Nietzsche’s philosophy and Nazism in his chapter entitled From the Great Politics to Nazism. The Ideological Exploitation of Nietzsche’s Philosophy. In his chapter, Cristian Bocancea underlines that like all societies, the totalitarian one has a set of laws too, based on exploiting the judicial theme of the people’s sovereignty, but obsessively insisting on a so called law of Nature and History, the only one capable of giving legitimacy to justice.

In the last chapter of this part, Georgeta Condur presents the product that dictatorships brought to their societies, the so - called new man and its female partner, the new woman. But in the end, as the author concludes, this product is nothing but a failure, but the evil that its creation brought can still be seen in the behaviour and mentalities of the societies in which it “lived” even though they are free of totalitarianism now.

The third part of the volume, Totalitarianism and Religion, underlines the strong relationship between dictatorship and religious beliefs. Sabin Drăgulin, for example, analyses the relationship between dictatorship and Christianity and its role in the birth of the totalitarian regimes from 20^th century Europe. The second chapter, written by Natalia Vlas, focuses on the totalitarian dimensions of a Neo - Calvinist form of Christian theology called the dominion theology best represented by a movement called Christian Reconstructionism, the most extreme component of the Christian Right from the United States, also connected to The Republican Party in the last few decades.

The fourth part of the book entitled Romania of Totalitarianisms. Case Studies reunites articles that show how this concept evolved in this particular space. Tudor Pitulac analyses, from a sociological point of view, the way in which totalitarian regimes managed to develop and implement their programs. In the next chapter, Sorin Bocancea writes about the conditions that made possible the submission of the Romanian Orthodox Church in just two years after the war. The methodological starting point of the author is represented not only by the classical conditions (political, economic or geostrategic) but also by the human factor. Being a state institution it was clear that the political views of its leaders would affect the political orientation of the whole Orthodox Church.

Lavinia Betea, tries to understand the mechanisms of the communist regime by resorting to interviews with exponential political figures of the regime in her chapter. The next chapter of this part is a film chronic of Ceaușescu’s Autobiography directed by Andrei Ujică. The author, Ovidiu Șimonca, suggestively adds the phrase the degradation of a leader, the dissolution of a world to the film title.

Mark Bucuci takes on the subject of cruelty, as it is institutionalized by the totalitarian regimes in the chapter entitled Totalitarianism and the Mechanisms of Cruelty: a Rortian interpretation.

The next chapter, written by Doru Tompea, is dedicated to the memory of the Romanian savant Petre Andrei who openly opposed fascism during a time in which this ideology was increasing in popularity, position that later cost him his life. In his chapter, Antonio Patraș honours the philosophy of another victim of a totalitarian regime, the Romanian writer Ion D. Sârbu. This time it was the communist regime, although Ion D. Sârbu was a supporter of the left. The third victim is Maria Așembrener and her case is presented by Daniel Șandru. By describing her case the author states that, in a totalitarian regime, the instauration of terror inside the social space takes place at all the levels, from the public discourse to family life.

By directly participating in the search of the victims of communism, Marius Oprea tells the story of The Lost People, the story of the martyrs of communist violence, of bodies buried in graves, at the margins of cemeteries, but especially stories buried deep inside the memories of those who chose not to speak of what they had endured. The question of what is left of Romania after the fall of communist regimes is answered by Carmen Mușat in the final chapter: Redefining Politics: Evil and Fear in the Contemporary World.

What makes this book so interesting also makes it hard to read due to the gravity of the ideas it underlines. The whole analysis of the totalitarian phenomenon, culminating with the presentation of case studies that bring back unpleasant memories from Romania’s past, a legacy that, in the end, its people have to accept, can be a frightening image of the peril that the human being can be to itself.