Transforming classes into masses is the condition sine qua non of total domination

Evidence

Fainsod rightly points out that these documents clearly show not only “wide-spread mass discontent” but also the lack of any “sufficiently organized opposition” against the regime as a whole. What he fails to see, and what in my opinion is equally supported by the evidence, is that there existed an obvious alternative to Stalin’s seizure of power and transformation of the one-party dictatorship into total domination, and this was the pursuance of the NEP policy as it had been initiated by Lenin. Moreover, the measures taken by Stalin with the introduction of the First Five Year Plan in 1928, when his control of the party was almost complete, prove that transformation of classes into masses and the concomitant elimination of all group solidarity are the condition sine qua non of total domination. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 45

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core toolkit concept: total domination requires the dissolution of classes into undifferentiated masses and elimination of all group solidarity as its necessary precondition.
• XREF: This is the theoretical lynchpin connecting the earlier anti-Semitism and imperialism parts to the totalitarianism part — the mass/a-class distinction that the Islamophobia readings on the construction of the ‘Other’ will echo.