# What was the first totalitarian regime? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 20, 2010, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345 "2010-07-20T14:38:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/21 "2010-07-24T02:26:22Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I don’t agree. The “Spartiates” had a reasonably complex oligarchy, nothing near so simple as ‘do as you are told or you will be punished’. > > Sparta is more accurately described as a “democratic aristocracy”. They (the aristocrats) most certainly could “meaningfully choose” their leaders. > > Read about the famous Spartian constitution: > > [Spartan constitution - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Constitution) yeah, so? If you can vote whether Hitler or Himmler should be the fuehrer of the year, does that make you a free man while living under the Nazi regime? All the more so given that you don’t get to vote for the SOB of an officer who is your immediate superior. Does being a member of “aristocracy” under the Nazis prevent you from living under a totalitarian regime? You have more privileges than the helots and the concentration camp inmates, but it’s still not a free country in any sense. > [@](#): > > Heh? This is not an accurate representation of Athens. Athens most assuredly had a hierarchy, same as Sparta - citizens on top, then metics, then slaves, all bound in a complex governmkental system. As for “free speech” - that could get you in serious trouble in Athens: just ask Socrates! 😃 > > Again, Huh? > > As noted, Socrates was _killed_ for exercising ‘free speech’. That doesn’t make Athens “totalitarian”. there are no human societies without some form of “hierarchy”. It’s one thing to have a hierarchy of social classes like in Athens, it’s another to have a hierarchy of military officers telling you what to do, what to eat and when you can go visit your wife. Feel the difference? In Athens the slave owner could do that to his (not another man’s!) slaves. In Sparta the officers of the State could do that to their fellow citizens on a regular basis. As far as Socrates goes, like they say, shit happens. People survive in Auschwitz and people get killed by lightning in Iowa. Exceptions do not prove the rule. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/22 "2010-07-26T14:04:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Sparta did have the [Krypteia,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypteia) which might be regarded as a secret-police force, though interpretations differ. The important thing to note about the Krypteia was that it allegedly operated against the _Helots_. It was, in short, a tool of the Spartiate class, used in effect to cull the helots. One can certainly argue that any slave-owning or helot-based society is, in part, totalitarian - from the slave’s perspective. I think that it is reasonable to make a distinction between such societies and ‘totalitarianism’. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2010, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/23 "2010-07-26T14:06:17Z")
The Garden of Eden. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/24 "2010-07-26T15:06:35Z")
Mauryan Empire. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/25 "2010-07-26T15:08:48Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Mauryan Empire. The Mauryans are neither particularly old nor particularly totalitarian. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/26 "2010-07-26T15:09:03Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > The Garden of Eden. Nice! 😃 I don’t think it counts, though - it’s totalitarian in the same sense that a family is totalitarian (parents demand the love and obedience of their spawn), but it isn’t a _state_. It’s in the nature of families to be totalitarian (though usually in a benign fashion) - it’s unusual for states. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/27 "2010-07-27T21:59:45Z")
Time to drag out one of my favorite chestnuts from the Reagan era: Question: How do you tell the difference between a totalitarian and an authoritarian regime? Answer: In a totalitarian regime, the state organizes fraudulent elections and tortures and kills its political opponents. In an authoritarian regime, these services are performed by the private sector. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/28 "2010-07-28T03:25:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > In the [Inca Empire,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire) state officials collected and distributed all the people’s produce, and even visited every village periodically and arranged marriages for anyone who was of age and still unmarried. And minority ethnic groups concentrated in localities were sometimes broken up and resettled all over the empire, Assyrian-style, to encourage cultural assimilation. Also there was a state religion, but that was the norm for premodern empires of any kind. If the Inca qualifies, presumably Sumer and Akkad and Egypt do as well? > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Here’s one defining characteristic: In most modern societies there is such thing as [civil society,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society) “the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state’s political system) and commercial institutions of the market.” Must the structures of the state be force-backed, per se, to be totalitarian? What if there is not much need of force because social roles are so well-defined, and obedience so habitual? As in the ancient priest-king civilizations. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/29 "2010-07-28T05:20:09Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > > In the [Inca Empire,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire) state officials collected and distributed all the people’s produce, and even visited every village periodically and arranged marriages for anyone who was of age and still unmarried. And minority ethnic groups concentrated in localities were sometimes broken up and resettled all over the empire, Assyrian-style, to encourage cultural assimilation. Also there was a state religion, but that was the norm for premodern empires of any kind. > > If the Inca qualifies, presumably Sumer and Akkad and Egypt do as well? Egyptian government was pretty heavy, and the pharaoh was a god and technically owned all the land, but I don’t think it micromanaged the economy or the people’s lives quite as thoroughly as the Inca Empire did. As for Sumer or Akkad, I don’t think their governments were nearly well-organized enough to be totalitarian, even to the Egyptian standard; and the Sumerian civilization was at most periods a group of independent city-states, like Greece in the age of Pericles. ---
**Author:** ![willthekittensurvive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@willthekittensurvive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/willthekittensurvive)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/30 "2010-07-29T09:06:34Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > The Qin State in China is generally credited as being the first Chinese totalitarian regime. Here is Wiki’s overview of the Qin (I haven’t read it though): [Qin dynasty - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty) > [@](#): > > An attempt to purge all traces of the old dynasties led to the infamous burning of books and \*\*burying of scholars \*\*incident :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345/31 "2010-07-29T18:07:15Z")
> [@willthekittensurvive](#): > > > [@China\_Guy](#): > > > > The Qin State in China is generally credited as being the first Chinese totalitarian regime. Here is Wiki’s overview of the Qin (I haven’t read it though): [Qin dynasty - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty) > > > [@](#): > > > > An attempt to purge all traces of the old dynasties led to the infamous burning of books and \*\*burying of scholars \*\*incident > > :eek: Don’t worry - no kittens were harmed. Right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-totalitarian-regime/547345.md?page=1)