I’ve asked a couple of history nerds, and I stand corrected: my impression that totalitarianism was a form of autocracy was wrong (rather both are a form of dictatorship). They’ve mentioned that under Stalin it could’ve been considered one, tho, but given he was the 2nd gensec, it’s not exactly relevant to undissolving.
I don’t really know what you’re trying to get at with totalitarianism or autocracy, neither is a particularly useful descriptor for the USSR. The perhaps mundane fact is that the USSR was neither heaven nor hell, it was merely real, and history’s first Socialist state. Trying to analyze it from a moralistic point of view with baked-in desires for it to either have been a success or a failure just obscure the historical reality of it.
I’ve asked a couple of history nerds, and I stand corrected: my impression that totalitarianism was a form of autocracy was wrong (rather both are a form of dictatorship). They’ve mentioned that under Stalin it could’ve been considered one, tho, but given he was the 2nd gensec, it’s not exactly relevant to undissolving.
I don’t really know what you’re trying to get at with totalitarianism or autocracy, neither is a particularly useful descriptor for the USSR. The perhaps mundane fact is that the USSR was neither heaven nor hell, it was merely real, and history’s first Socialist state. Trying to analyze it from a moralistic point of view with baked-in desires for it to either have been a success or a failure just obscure the historical reality of it.