Dedication; Acknowledgements; Notes on Contributors; Contents; Introduction; List of Figures; Part I: Projects; chapter 1: Introduction: Mass Dictatorship as Modernizing Project: Some Preliminary Reflections; References; chapter 2: History of Future. Imagining the Communist Future: The Soviet and Chinese Cases Compared; The Russian Revolution; The Chinese Revolution; Conclusion; References; chapter 3: Sociopolitical Engineering; Social Engineering: The Term and the Concept; The Radical Phase of Social Engineering (1917-1955); Italian National Fascism and Turkish Nationalism. Bolshevism and National SocialismThe Communist Bloc; Social Engineering during the Cold War (1955-1975); Social Engineering: The Western Version; The Socialist Bottleneck, 1975-1985; Post-Communism: Reverse Social Engineering?; Conclusions: The Long-Term Implications of Social Engineering; Notes; References; chapter 4: Colonialism and Mass Dictatorship: The Imperial Axis and the Home Front in Japan, Italy and Germany; Empires of the Imagination: The Birth of Postcolonial Imperialism in the Interwar Period; Brutal Implementations: The Formation of the Imperial Axis. Loose Ends: The Legacies of the Imperial Axis in a Postcolonial WorldNotes; References; chapter 5: Nation-Building and Development as Ideology and Practice; European Origins; Colonial Trajectories; Development as Ideology; Development as Identity; Development as Practice; Conclusion; References; chapter 6: Political Religion; Political Religion: The History and Use of a Concept; Totalitarianism and Political Religion; North Korea, Religion and Political Religion; Political Religion, Liberalism and Democracy; Notes; References. Chapter 7: Science and Technology: National Identity, Self-reliance, Technocracy and BiopoliticsIntroduction; Search for National Identity; Quest for Self-reliance; The Basis for Technocratic Governance; Instruments of Biopolitics; Conclusion; References; Part II: Domination; chapter 8: Introduction: Repression and Cooptation in Mass Dictatorship; References; chapter 9: Violence, Repression and Terror in Mass Dictatorships: A View from the European Margins; Repression and Terror: Two Faces of the Same Authoritarian Species?; International Change, Repression and Political Adaptation. Concluding RemarksReferences; chapter 10: Policing and Surveillance; Introduction; Policing Tasks and Methods; Structures; Personnel; Conclusion: The Legacy of Dictatorial Policing; References; chapter 11: Inclusion and Exclusion as Instruments of Domination; References; chapter 12: The Archive as Blueprint: Information in Mass Dictatorships; Information as an Entity: A Matter of Organization?; Truth and Facts: Discursive Fields; The Scope of Information Gathering; Knowledge and Repression; Data Between Techniques and Politics: The Art and Science of Management.