<P> Syngman Rhee, who would later become the first President of South Korea, used the term "totalitarianism" in his book Japan Inside Out (1941) to categorize the Japanese rule over many Asian nations against the democratic world, where individuals are of greater importance than the society itself . The description would also be seen as ironic by many in South Korea, considering the nation was plagued by instability and riots against its own dictatorial and totalitarian governments starting with Rhee's rule . Isabel Paterson, in The God of the Machine (1943), used the term in connection with the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany . </P> <P> In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt argued that Nazi and State communist regimes were new forms of government, and not merely updated versions of the old tyrannies . According to Arendt, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes is their ideology, which provides a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future . For Nazism, all history is the history of race struggle; and, for Marxism, all history is the history of class struggle . Once that premise is accepted, all actions of the state can be justified by appeal to Nature or the Law of History, justifying their establishment of authoritarian state apparatus . Arendt also argued that what distinguishes totalitarian states from other types of government, such as fascism, was that totalitarian states used state terror against even those citizens who did not act in opposition to the state . </P> <P> In addition to Arendt, many scholars from a variety of academic backgrounds and ideological positions have closely examined totalitarianism . Among the most noted commentators on totalitarianism are Raymond Aron, Lawrence Aronsen, Franz Borkenau, Karl Dietrich Bracher, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Conquest, Carl Joachim Friedrich, Eckhard Jesse, Leopold Labedz, Walter Laqueur, Claude Lefort, Juan Linz, Richard Löwenthal, Karl Popper, Richard Pipes, Leonard Schapiro, and Adam Ulam . Each one of these describes totalitarianism in slightly different ways . They all agree, however, that totalitarianism seeks to mobilize entire populations in support of an official state ideology, and is intolerant of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, entailing repression or state control of business, labour unions, churches or political parties . </P> <P> The term "authoritarian regime" denotes a state in which the single power holder--an individual "dictator", a committee or a junta or an otherwise small group of political elite--monopolizes political power . "(The) authoritarian state...is only concerned with political power and as long as that is not contested it gives society a certain degree of liberty ." Authoritarianism "does not attempt to change the world and human nature ." </P>

Compare and contrast authoritarian regimes with totalitarian regimes