Conception of totalitarianism Lefort was part of the political theorists who put forward the relevance of a notion of totalitarianism which was relevant to Stalinism as well as
fascism, and considered totalitarianism as different in its essence from the big categories used in the Western world since ancient Greece, like the notions of
dictatorship or
tyranny. However, contrary to the authors like
Hannah Arendt who limited the notion to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1953, Lefort applied it to the regimes of Eastern Europe in the second half of the century, that is, to an era when terror, a central element of totalitarianism for the other authors, had lost its most extreme dimensions. It is in the study of these regimes, and the reading of
The Gulag Archipelago (1973) by
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, where he developed his analysis of totalitarianism.
The double fence society Lefort characterizes the totalitarian system by a "double fence (
double clôture). Totalitarianism abolishes the separation between state and society and the political power permeates society, and all preexisting human relations (class solidarity, professional or religious cooperations) tend to be replaced with a one-dimensional hierarchy between those who order and those who obey. This is made possible especially through the association between the state and the party hierarchy which is always very close, so that the party hierarchy becomes the effective power. Lefort, like other theorists, thus identifies the destruction of public space and its fusion with political power as a key element of totalitarianism. Moreover, totalitarianism denies what Lefort calls "the principle of internal divisions of society", and its conception of society is marked by "the affirmation of the totality". Every organization, association or profession is thus subordinated to the planning of the state. The differences of opinion, one of the values of
democracy, are abolished so that the entire social body is directed towards the same goal; even personal tastes become politicized and must be standardized. The aim of totalitarianism is to create a united and closed society, in which the components are not individuals and which is defined completely by the same goals, the same opinions and the same practices. Stalinism thus knew the "identification of the people to the proletariat, of the proletariat to the party, of the party to the management, of the management to the 'Égocrate'". Lefort demonstrates the central difference between totalitarianism and dictatorship: a dictatorship can admit competing transcendental principles, like religion; the ideology of the totalitarian party is religion. A dictatorship does not aim for the destruction and absorption of society, and a dictatorial power is a power of the state against society, that presupposes the distinction of the two; the plan of a totalitarian party is to merge state with society in a closed, united and uniform system, subordinated under the fulfilment of a plan—"socialism" in the case of the USSR. Lefort calls this system "people-one": "The process of identification of power and society, the process of homogenization of the social space, the process of the closing up of society and the authority to enchain it in order to constitute the totalitarian system."
The organicist vision of society The totalitarian system, unified and organized, presents itself like a body, the "social body": "dictatorship, bureaucracy and apparatus need a new system of bodies". Lefort returns to the theories of
Ernst Kantorowicz on the "two bodies of the king", in which the person of the totalitarian leader, besides his physical and mortal body, is a political body representing the one-people. In order to ensure its proper functioning and to maintain its unity, the totalitarian system requires an Other, "the evil other", a representation of the exterior, the enemy, against which the party combats, "the representative of the forces of the old society (kulaks, bourgeois), [...] the emissary of the stranger, of the imperialistic world". The division between the interior and the exterior, between the One-people and the Other, is the only division that totalitarianism tolerates, since it is founded upon this division. Lefort insists on the fact that "the constitution of the One-people necessitates the incessant production of enemies" The situation of the totalitarian leader within this system is paradoxical and uncertain, for he is at the same time a part of the system (its head, who commands the rest) and the representation of the system (everything). He is therefore the incarnation of the "one-power", i.e., the power executed in all parts of the "one-people".
The fragility of the system Lefort didn't consider totalitarianism as a situation of an ideal type, which could potentially be realized through terror and extermination. He rather sees in it a set of processes which have endings that cannot be known, thus their success cannot be determined. If the will of the totalitarian party to realize the perfect unity of the social body controls the magnitude of its actions, this also implies that the goal is impossible to achieve because its development necessarily leads to contradictions and oppositions. "Totalitarianism is a regime with a prevailing sense of being gnawed away by the absurdity of its own ambition (total control by the party) and the active or passive resistance of those subjected to it," summarized the political scientist Dominique Colas.
Conception of democracy Claude Lefort formulates his conception of democracy by mirroring his conception of totalitarianism, developing it in the same way by analyzing Eastern European regimes and the USSR. For Lefort democracy is the form of society characterized by the
institutionalization of conflict within society, the division of social body; it recognizes and even considers legitimate the existence of divergent interests, conflicting opinions, and visions of the world that are opposed and even incompatible. Lefort's vision makes the disappearance of the leader as a political body—the putting to death of the king, as Kantorowicz calls it—the founding moment of democracy because it makes the seat of power, hitherto occupied by an eternal substance transcending the mere physical existence of monarchs, into an "empty space" where groups with shared interests and opinions can succeed each other, but only for a time and at the will of elections. Power is no longer tied to any specific programme, goal, or proposal; it is nothing but a collection of instruments put temporarily at the disposal of those who win a majority. "In Lefort's invented and inventive democracy," writes Dominique Colas, "power comes from the people and belongs to no one." Democracy is thus a regime marked by its vagueness, its incompleteness, against which totalitarianism establishes itself. This leads Lefort to regard as democratic every form of opposition and protest against totalitarianism. Opposition and protest, in a way, create a democratic space within the totalitarian system. Democracy is innovation, the start of new
social and
political movements, the designation of new issues in the struggle against
oppression, it is a "creative power capable of weakening, even slaying the totalitarian Leviathan". A
Leviathan whose paradoxical frailty Lefort emphasizes. Lefort does not reject
representative democracy, but does not limit democracy to it. For instance, he includes the social movements in the sphere of legitimate political debate. ==Publications==