That's because life under Czar Nicholas was not anywhere near totalitarian, nor under Chiang Kai Shek. History's great rewriters have revised the actual conditions the poor and oppressed people live under.

The Czar in 1905 had already created the Duma, a legislative body similar to Congress and subject to Czarist veto. The farmers had land rights and the poor were not killed pell-nell like after 1917.

Chiang Kai Shek's China was one that purged and saw the evil of communism, since he had reformed and was infinitely far more enlightened than the land of Mao to come.

Sure, one can call them repressive dictatorships but they don't pass the litmus test for totalitarianism in my book. Totalitarianism is almost exclusively tied to socialism.

Why?

Okay, let me use folks far more steeped in history than myself and whom I will defer to here:

Will & Ariel Durant in The Lessons of History copyright 1968 MJF Books:

"Freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave free men free and their inequalities will multiply almost geometrically...To check the growth of inequality liberty must be sacrificed...Utopias of equality are biologically doomed..."

I couldn't have said it better myself and if anyone here still hasn't read this book (I found my two copies at two different library book sales ;-) it is a MUST read. If your local library hasn't one... donate a copy. You couldn't do them a better favor if you bequeathed them a million dollars.

The book is a short one for those who don't like long reads. But your worldview will receive a lifetime's worth of wisdom and insight in a single read.

Yes, socialist and "equality" based systems in the marxist mold are the only pure totalitarian governments in my book. The others still show way too many signs of life and freedom for far too many folks.

;-)

SDAI-Tech1