4 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Erich Fromm's 1941 study of the psychological conditions that made fascism possible — arguing that modern industrial society has dissolved traditional bonds of community and left individuals with a freedom they experience as isolation and anxiety, which they seek to escape through authoritarian submission.
President of Russia (2000–2008, 2012–present) — former KGB intelligence officer — who rebuilt Russian state power after the chaos of the 1990s, invaded Ukraine (2022), suppressed political opposition, and made Russia the central geopolitical challenge to the Western order.
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (2012–) and President of the People's Republic of China (2013–) — who ended term limits, consolidated personal power beyond Deng Xiaoping's collective leadership model, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and undertook the most aggressive Chinese territorial expansion since Mao.
The Führerprinzip crystallized the Nazi regime’s demand that all authority flow from a single, infallible leader, providing a doctrinal justification for absolute obedience during the Third Reich.