Classic totalitarian regimes share a number of common characteristics.  The rise of these regimes began with a cultural revolution, aimed at angering the citizens against the current system.  During that period domestic enemies are designated, and the people in the radical movement aiming at overthrowing the old system rally together against those common enemies, calling it a common struggle, as they adopt a new official ideology that stands significantly apart from the old one.  They seek to control every aspect of the lives of their people, enlisting everyone they can to participate in the struggle.  Even persons who may belong to enemy classes or groups join up, hoping to receive mercy when the new regime gains control.  In Stalin's Russia and Mao's China the enemies were anyone who reminded them of the old system, and anyone who could challenge them if left with enough power.  The state enemies were the capitalists, landlords, richer peasants and foreign agents of all kinds. Nazi Germany included those outside the national community, which included socialists (even though Nazism was a form of socialism) and communists, Jews, Christians, and any ethnic minorities that did not fit into the German model of a loyal elite specimen.

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