Lenin and the Total Critique of Society A Study in Ideological Activism

Modern Totalitarianism has often been grouped with various forms of authoritarianism in a genus characterized by excessive discipline. Is it not true, though, that the typical totalitarian motivation of our times can be described as revolutionary rather than authoritarian? Is it not a spirit that sees in revolution a vocation, an end in itself, a way of life? A faith in the creativeness of total destruction can be found in Bakunin, Goebbels, and Lenin. Their will to revolution stems not from an identification with the grievances of a suffering class, but from an ideological rejection of everything that exists

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