The front-organization structure recurs at every level inside the movement

Evidence

Even more striking than this relationship is the fact that it is repeated on different levels within the movement itself. As party members are related to and separated from the fellow-travelers, so are the elite formations of the movement related to and separated from the ordinary members. If the fellow-traveler still appears to be a normal inhabitant of the outside world who has adopted the totalitarian creed as one may adopt the program of an ordinary party, the ordinary member of the Nazi or Bolshevik movement still belongs, in many respects, to the surrounding world: his professional and social relationships are not yet absolutely determined by his party membership, although he may realize—as distinguished from the mere sympathizer—that in case of conflict between his party allegiance and his private life, the former is supposed to be decisive. The member of a militant group, on the other hand, is wholly identified with the movement; he has no profession and no private life independent of it. Just as the sympathizers constitute a protective wall around the members of the movement and represent the outside world to them, so the ordinary membership surrounds the militant groups and represents the normal outside world to them. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 856

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Establishes the recursive nested-hierarchy principle in totalitarian organization.

Related

• The movement’s onion-like layered structure is retained unchanged in the totalitarian state (similarity 0.82)
• Radicalization is enforced by inserting ever-new layers that demote wavering ranks. (similarity 0.81)
• Insulating members from the outside world makes them underestimate risks and aggression costs (similarity 0.81)
• Graduated militancy buffers members from the movement’s extreme world-dichotomy doctrine (similarity 0.80)
• Front organizations are two-way facades for the movement and the outside world (similarity 0.80)
• Hitler invented the two-tier structure of core members surrounded by sympathizers (similarity 0.80)
• Consistent lying is chief function of totalitarian organizational structure (similarity 0.79)
• Hierarchical structures resist totalitarian power and therefore do not constitute it. (similarity 0.78)
• The leader principle is totalitarian only through its organizational function. (similarity 0.78)