The essay compares two types of mass dictatorships and eventually explores how both regimes interact with modernism. First, the author describes totalitarian mass dictatorship. Totalitarianism's goal is ultimately to reshape the whole society into something completely new. To achieve this goal, totalitarianism works with the masses and for the masses and often employs forms of propaganda, terror, or social engineering.
Authoritarian mass dictatorships, however, stand over the masses. Its goal is not to reshape society but to display authority, disempower, subjugate, and create fear in the mass.
Modernist factors such as societal fragmentaion or loss of conservatism drive both dictatory regimes. While totalitarianism is an extreme form of it, as it want to revolutionize human societies as a whole, authoritarian dictatorships are an extreme reaction to modernism, trying to uphold repressive forms of conservatism.