Talmon J. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy

London: Mercury Books, 1961. — 377 p.This study is an attempt to show that concurrently with the liberal type of democracy there emerged from the same premises in the eighteenth century a trend towards what we propose to call the totalitarian type of democracy. These two currents have existed side by side ever since the eighteenth century. The tension between them has constituted an important chapter in modern history, and has now become the most vital issue of our time. It would of course be an exaggeration to suggest that the whole of the period can be summed up in terms of this conflict. Nevertheless it was always present, although usually confused and obscured by other issues, which may have seemed clearer to contemporaries, but viewed from the standpoint of the present day seem incidental and even trivial. Indeed, from the vantage point of the mid-twentieth century the history of the last hundred and fifty years looks like a systematic preparation for the headlong collision between empirical and liberal democracy on the one hand, and totalitarian Messianic democracy on the other, in which the world crisis of to-day consists.The two types of democracy, liberal and totalitarian
The eighteenth-century origins of political Messianism ; die schism
Totalitarianism of die Right and Totalitarianism of die Left
Secular and religious Messianism
Questions of methodThe eighteenth-century origins of political messianismNatural Order : the Postulate
The Social Pattern and Freedom (Helvetius and Holbach)
Totalitarian Democracy (Rousseau)
Property (Morelly and Mably)The Jacobin improvisationThe Revolution of 1789 — Sieyes
Volonte Une
Ultimate Scheme
The Social ProblemThe babouvist crystallizationThe Lessons op the Revolution and op Therkodor
The Babouvist Social Doctrine
The Story of the Plot of Babeuf
Democracy and Dictatorship
The Structure op the Conspiracy
The Ultimate Scheme