Word: totalitarian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...film, which Director Abuladze calls a "tragic phantasmagoria," uses allegory, fantasy and surrealism to evoke the terror of a totalitarian system. His central character is Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a provincial town. Varlam combines Stalin's close-cropped haircut, Hitler's mustache and Mussolini's black shirt to embody the image of a universal tyrant. Although the setting and time are undefined -- secret police appear alternately as medieval knights or spear-wielding Roman centurions -- there is no doubt that the real subject is Stalinism...
When Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier fled Haiti early last year, jubilant crowds danced in the streets and chants of "Liberty!" filled the air. Duvalier's departure ended 28 years of totalitarian rule and brought hope to Haitians that the military, which helped bring down the dictator, would cooperate in rebuilding their impoverished country. Today, however, despair and confusion once again grip Haiti. The three-man provisional government headed by Lieut. General Henri Namphy is worse than ineffectual; the elections scheduled for next month threaten to turn into a sham; and the forces of order, as in Duvalier's days...
...author of such acclaimed novels as The War of the End of the World and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, had torn himself away from the proofs of his new book to embroil himself in Peru's latest crisis. Addressing the crowd in Lima, Vargas Llosa warned, "A totalitarian threat is hovering over our country." The menace: a move by Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez to nationalize private banks...
Even to ask whether the cold war is over is a bit like asking, "Is God dead?" Given the brutal nature of the Soviets' aggression and their willingness to impose totalitarian systems around the world, the question can seem blasphemous -- and worse, naive. The cold war, after all, describes not just the interaction between two powerful nations but a holy struggle between two starkly opposed value systems. The phrase, first used in a speech by Bernard Baruch in 1947, implies that the relationship is, in essence, a war -- not just a rivalry between great powers but a struggle that would...
American analysts from Kennan onward have stressed their own view of the connection: the Kremlin's totalitarian domestic system, they argue, is a primary cause of its expansionist foreign policy. In order to consolidate and protect its power at home, the ruling elite finds it useful to create a hostile international environment. Richard Pipes, a history professor at Harvard University and hard-line Soviet expert who served in the Reagan Administration, is a noted proponent of this view. Says he: "Aggressiveness is embedded in a system where there is a dictatorial party that can justify its power only by pretending...