Destructive Socialization as a Means of Ensuring the Stability of the Totalitarian Regime

Among the historical events of the last century, an important place is given to the collapse of totalitarian political regimes in Italy, Germany, and the USSR. At first glance, the demise of the Soviet totalitarian system largely outdates totalitarian issues in Ukraine. At the same time, the undemocratic course of development of individual states is evidence of the prematurity of such a conclusion. There are many countries in the world where a totalitarian political model of government has been established. Particular attention is also drawn to new manifestations of totalitarianism in the territories of states that seem to have overcome it.

Totalitarianism as a socio-cultural phenomenon in the time of formation of the information society and total globalization, through the introduction of new forms, has a high degree of transformation and adaptation. At the same time, destructive socialization with its mechanisms has been and remains the basis for ensuring the viability of a totalitarian state. Any society needs a coordinated life of the people who shape it, so it is natural that in the process of changing the state regime, the mechanisms of general and legal socialization are transformed.

The totalitarian personality and the state can be sufficiently studied within the post-classical methodology, through modern types of scientific rationality, which allow accumulating knowledge about changes in society and the human psyche in terms of their dynamic unity, represented primarily by the development of modern personality.

The priority role of the state in a totalitarian society is to ensure the unity of the individual, the party and the state in order to achieve a higher, national idea. Any form of totalitarian rule is based on irrationalism. A person brought up by a totalitarian state does not trust him/herself, refuses to take responsibility for his/her own actions, is afraid to make decisions and needs to be governed. Anxiety, lack of independence and the habit of subordination –are the main features characteristic of a totalitarian personality.

Analyzing the properties of the totalitarian personality, we point out the rigidity of her thinking. Destructive socialization aims to form a person who is not capable of rebuilding his/her own life. Such a person is intimidated, sluggish, uninitiated and inert, whose activities are easy to predict and regulate. We call dogmatism or secrecy of thinking the central construct of a totalitarian personality, because legal socialization in totalitarian states gradually develops in a person selective intolerance towards other, dissimilar subjects.