The Totalitarian State Versus the Socialist State

Azpiazu was the only theorist who grasped the full implications of "totalitarianism." If taken literally, in terms of the complete and total control of all institutions--from cultural and social affairs to the economy--this would be more descriptive of the Soviet Union than of Fascist Italy, and would literally imply total control of the Church as well. Thus "totalitarian state" was being used primarily to refer to the total concentration of political power, which could intervene in other institutions, but not a system of total control of all society, culture, religion, and institutions. The ambiguities surrounding the meaning of totalitarianism--and the question of how "total" is "total"--have lingered to the present day.

--Stanley G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923-1977 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 286.