What are three advantages and disadvantages of totalitarianism?

Totalitarianism is a highly centralized form of dictatorship in which the government tries to control every aspect of a person's life, down to his or her thoughts; even people's private thinking must conform completely to the ruling ideology. The perceived need for revolutionary change in society from top to bottom is used as a rationale for this kind of control. For example, the Soviet Union was fearful that bourgeois ideas would subvert the revolution, so they felt a need to root out and eradicate any thoughts that brought individuals into conflict with the state. Likewise, the Nazis hoped to create a new, better "man"; he was to be hard, not decadent, and completely at peace with the aims of the government.

Three advantages of this form of government are the ability to implement rapid change, the ability to force radical change, and group solidarity. There is no doubt that both Stalin and Hitler, for example, rapidly remade their societies. With no meaningful opposition, Stalin could in a few years build huge factories and force collectivization of farmland, while Hitler could in a short time rebuild the German army and construct a massive highway system. The Soviets could impose radical equalitarianism and atheism on what had been a hierarchical and religious society, while the Nazis subordinated women, destroyed Jewish culture, and very quickly imposed a backward, puritanical social order to replace Weimar freedom and "decadence." Both governments could appeal to individual sacrifice in service of a larger cause, fostering solidarity.

Three downsides include loss of freedom, loss of creativity, and the need for a huge police, prison, and spy apparatus. Humans not allowed to think for themselves or pursue their own interests tend to become unhappy and secretly undermine the state. Further, in a society that forces complete conformity, creativity must be suppressed as a threat, which dampens innovation. Finally, a society that wants to control people's every thought needs to expend massive resources (which could be used more productively) on spying on its citizens and savagely punishing deviation.