Problem of totalitarianism in the information society: grounds for reviewing classical approaches

The article raises the issue of the theoretical legitimacy of using the classical concept of totalitarianism to analyze anti-democratic tendencies in the political sphere of modern information societies. We consider the key ideas of the classical theory, one of its central provisions is the assertion of the interdependence between the processes of development and functioning of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century and structural features of the industrial society. This allows classifying the classical theory as the concept of " industrial totalitarianism". The ontological, methodological, conceptual contradictions that arise when studying modern political realities through the ideological prism of "industrial totalitarianism" are explicated. We substantiate the thesis about the need to revise the classical approaches, since their multi-level inconsistency indicates the ineffectiveness of traditional markers of totalitarianism in the conditions of the post-industrial era. The article presents the general vectors for updating classical approaches, the implementation of which will create an adequate theoretical basis for the study of anti-democratic processes in the 21st century.