Domination by a single, like-minded governing elite of all (or virtually all) organized political, economic, social and cultural activities in a country by means of a single-party monopoly of power, police repression not only of all forms of dissent and opposition but also of all forms of independent private organizations as such, rigorous censorship of the mass media, centralized state planning and administration of the economy, and pervasive propaganda to inculcate the principles of the obligatory official ideology. Totalitarian states differ from traditional dictatorships or despotisms primarily with respect to the broader ("total") scope of human behavior that the authorities seek to regulate in detail and with respect to their much more effective control mechanisms made possible by exploiting twentieth century breakthroughs in rapid communication and transportation, scientific psychology, pervasive mass media, surveillance technology, electronic information retrieval, and so on. The term is commonly applied both to fascist regimes and communist regimes, and occasionally by extension to other exotic cults, movements or regimes with ambitions for total control such as those led by various sorts of religious fanatics like the Rev. Jim Jones or the Ayatollah Khomeini.

[See also: fascism, communism, theocracy, ideology, propaganda, civil rights/civil liberties, state, tyranny]