5 features of “Post-totalitarian Regime” in “The Power of the Powerless”

The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class……

— Vaclav Havel (1979), The Power of the Powerless

What does Vaclav Havel, the first President of the Czech Republic, mean by a “post-totalitarian regime”?

In this article, I am going to explain what I have digested from his book “The Power of the Powerless”. According to Havel, there are five features of this “post-totalitarian regime”.

When we talk about something that is “post-”, we mean something that is beyond. Such as “post-modernism” is a school of thought that argues modernity has passed. Havel does not mean that Czechoslovakia was not a totalitarian regime that was ruled by Soviet Union. Instead, ‘Post-totalitarian’ regime in Havel’s sense, is the totalitarianism of a specific type that has what classical dictatorship does not have. It is worse than dictatorship, and also different from totalitarianism.

According to Havel, there are five features of this post-totalitarian regime:

1. It penetrates the whole society and is controlled by a superpower center
2. It has historical roots over sixty years old in Communist social movements
3. It possesses a Marxist ideology that is like a religion. The ideology offers answers to every question and one is expected to believe it totally and not question it. The Party always knows best. One’s job is to follow it and obey it.
4. The Communist Party’s strength is made effective by state ownership and control of the means of production
5. Though once inspired by genuine excitement and heroism (in its revolutionary phase) this regime is now banal — ordinary, consumerist, boring.

In the coming articles, I am going to break down more ideas conveyed in the “Power of the Powerless”. Interested reader should read his book directly.