"Although the term owed its origins to Italian fascism, the first truly totalitarian regime had been in existence for more than a decade when the Depression struck. By crippling the American colossus for a decade and laying waste to its trading partners and debtors, the economic crisis seemed to vindicate the Soviet model. For, if Marxism-Leninism stood for anything, it was the prediction that capitalism would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Now it seemed to be doing precisely that. Understandably, the more the American dream turned to nightmare, the more people were attracted to the Russian alternative of a planned economy - insulated from the vagaries of the market, yet capable of feats of construction every bit as awesome as the skyscrapers of New York or the mass-produced cars of Henry Ford. All the totalitarian state asked in return was complete control of every aspect of life. Only in your dreams were you free from its intrusion, and even there the omnipresent demigod figure of the Leader was liable to intrude. The justification for this abolition of individual freedom was equality: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, as the slogan put it. The aim was not just rapid industrialization; it was the 'liquidation' of the bourgeoisie and other property-owning classes. Yet, as George Orwell would later observe, on the Soviet 'Animal Farm' some animals turned out to be more equal than others. It did not take long for a 'new class' (as the dissident Yugoslav Milovan Djilas later called it) to spring up, composed of the elite functionaries of the totalitarian state. Their control over every aspect of economic life and their freedom from any kind of independent scrutiny or popular accountability made it easy to justify and pay for a whole range of Party privileges; the nomenklatura were also in position to enrich themselves unofficially through peculation and corruption."