A political system in which all individual activities and social relationships are subject to surveillance and control by the state. The idea originated in the 1930s and 1940s, with Nazism under Hitler, Fascism under Mussolini, and communism under Stalin: one‐party government headed by a single powerful individual; promotion of an official ideology; and extensive use of terror tactics by the secret police. A totalitarian regime is a specifically modern form of authoritarian state, requiring as it does an advanced technology of social control. Some observers, most notably the German‐born US philospher Hannah Arendt (1906–75), have explained the emergence of such regimes with reference to the growth of mass society: where the bonds of community break down, atomized individuals can be mobilized by the propaganda of political leaders. Features of totalitarianism are to be found in a number of developing countries governed by authoritarian regimes.