Abstract

This dissertation studies the development of the concept of totalitarianism among American leftists during the 1930s and 1940s. It argues that an analysis of their understanding of totalitarianism is essential for grasping later interpretations of the concept. It demonstrates that their theory of totalitarianism was derived from dualistic methodologies of political analysis. These dualisms, grounded in nineteenth century philosophy, operated in leftist political interpretation as canons of veridicality and valuation. Such canons, which made radical distinctions between self and object, individual and society, and autonomy and tyranny, predetermined the construction of a new theory of society, one which offered a stark contrast between free nations and totalitarian states. Intellectual biographies of Sidney Hook, Max Eastman, James Burnham, Lewis Corey, V. F. Calverton, Philip Rahv, Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor Adorno, demonstrate the construction of totalitarian theory from dualistic premises embedded in orthodox Marxism. ;The dissertation also argues that the construction of the theory of totalitarianism is a case study of an historical event that cannot be reconstructed using traditional dualistic historiography. The non-dualistic epistemological and political presuppositions of totalitarianism make it fundamentally resistant to dualistic interpretation. An analysis of traditional histories of the theory of totalitarianism, written from the 1950s to the present, demonstrates the limitations of a dualistic approach. The dissertation concludes by framing a non-dualistic method of intellectual history, developed through a reconstruction and fusion of the philosophy and social theory of John Dewey and Jurgen Habermas. ftn*All degree requirements completed in 1992, but degree will be granted in 1993.