The Principle of Collectivism in the Totalitarian Educational Systems

Totalitarian societies, either fascist or communist, share a number of common characteristics that include their specific modality of considering the educational systems. These systems are completely politicized, ideologized and subordinated to the Party-State and have as a main goal the shaping of the new man that the totalitarian regimes require. Collectivism is one of the common elements to any totalitarian ideology. It has the role of a basic principle in the totalitarian educational systems. Education within and through the collective is considered fundamental. The collectivist vision has to direct the content of education. The formation of collectivist spirit is an educational ideal. The new man of totalitarian societies should have been imbued with the collectivist spirit not only in his/her vision on society, but also he/she should have manifested it in daily behaviours. The aim of this paper is to uncover a few similarities between fascism and communism in the ways they both organize their educational systems and the central place these systems assign to the principle of collectivism using the comparative method. This is another argument to support the idea that totalitarianisms are two regimes of the same nature, irrespective of their underlying and legitimizing ideologies.