Scholarship on totalitarian regimes moved away from the victimology model. Subjects of
national socialist and communist dictatorships seem to have acted in dialogue with the powerful
state. Many more Germans than a handful of die-hard Nazis were responsible for World
War II genocide and the Holocaust; even more knew about mass murder and turned a blind
eye in part because they agreed with it. In the Soviet Union, party and state agencies were
supported by civilian informants seeking to redress grievances and denouncing enemies of
the people to exact revenge and profit. Traditional attitudes and bonds survived, lower-level
authorities defied directives from above. This paper will explore through case studies of the
experience of individuals the notion of participatory dictatorship in repressive regimes motivated
by totalitarian ideologies and argue that the balance between coercion and voluntary
“participation” may tilt toward the former.
