What ideology did Stalinist totalitarianism develop out of ?
Karl Popper , in " The Open Society and Its Enemies " ( 1945 ) and " The Poverty of Historicism " ( 1961 ) , articulated an influential critique of totalitarianism : in both works , he contrasted the " open society " of liberal democracy with totalitarianism , and argued that the latter is grounded in the belief that history moves toward an immutable future in accordance with knowable laws .