Imperial parties transcended ordinary party competition by claiming state unity

Evidence

The first real party that claimed to be more than a party, namely an “imperial party,” was the National-Liberal Party in Germany under the leadership of Ernst Bassermann (Frymann, op. cit.). In Russia, the Pan-Slavs needed only to pretend to be nothing more than popular support for the government, in order to be removed from all competition with parties; for the government as “the Supreme Power in action …cannot be understood as related to parties.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2452

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• DEFINE: The ‘imperial party’ concept — a party that claims to be above parties by embodying the nation/state, a key movement-totalitarianism bridge.

Related

• Movements aim to destroy the state, not merely seize its machine (similarity 0.80)