Totalitarian attribution of all subordinates’ acts to the leader enables scapegoating anyone.

Evidence

Through the creation of conditions under which conscience ceases to be adequate and to do good becomes utterly impossible, the consciously organized complicity of all men in the crimes of totalitarian regimes is extended to the victims and thus made really total. The SS implicated concentration-camp inmates—criminals, politicals, Jews—in their crimes by making them responsible for a large part of the administration, thus confronting them with the hopeless dilemma whether to send their friends to their death, or to help murder other men who happened to be strangers, and forcing them, in any event, to behave like murderers. The point is not only that hatred is diverted from those who are guilty (the capos were more hated than the SS), but that the distinguishing line between persecutor and persecuted, between the murderer and his victim, is constantly blurred. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1015 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Purges weaponize guilt by association to sever all social and family bonds; Totalitarian leaders absorb total responsibility for all subordinates’ acts; Totalitarian leaders liquidate erroneous subordinates instead of blaming them (+4 more)

Related

• Totalitarian leaders absorb total responsibility for all subordinates’ acts (similarity 0.86)
• Totalitarian complicity is made total by implicating victims in the crimes (similarity 0.84)
• Totalitarian leaders can project their own crimes onto any subordinate (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarian leaders liquidate erroneous subordinates instead of blaming them #contradicts (0.90)
• Totalitarian complicity is made total by implicating victims in the crimes #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1015
• Accusations of extreme wrongdoing can dehumanize scapegoats. #exemplifies (0.75) — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 82