Totalitarianism: An Empty Category with Roots in Western Marxism
Carlos L. Garrido
Abstract
This article provides a Marxist-Leninist critique of the concept of “totalitarianism,” arguing that the term is an empty ideological category developed within Western Marxism to equate the socialist and anti-colonial movements of the 20th century with fascism. Carlos L. Garrido traces the genealogy of the concept from Trotskyism and the Frankfurt School to Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, and Emmanuel Levinas, demonstrating how each iteration detached historical phenomena from their material contexts to serve Cold War anti-communism. Drawing on Domenico Losurdo’s scholarship, Garrido contends that Western Marxism’s fixation on “totalitarianism” stems from a purity fetish and a Eurocentric worldview that privileges abstract moralism over dialectical analysis. He contrasts this with the Marxist-Leninist understanding of socialist governance as the dictatorship of the proletariat — a concrete form of democracy rooted in sovereignty and class struggle rather than bourgeois proceduralism. The article concludes that “totalitarianism” operates as a tool of ideological warfare, erasing the qualitative distinction between socialist and fascist states while concealing the genocidal and colonial character of Western liberal capitalism. By exposing this distortion, Garrido reclaims Marxism’s dialectical materialist method as essential for distinguishing revolutionary state power from reactionary domination.
Keywords
totalitarianism, Western Marxism, Cold War, dialectical materialism, anti-communism, Losurdo, Trotskyism, Frankfurt School, fascism
