There is a difference between totalitarianism and autocracy.
Before the 20th century, there were few if any totalitarian states.
There were lots and lots of autocrats, and if you got on the wrong side of the autocrat you were utterly screwed. But the vast majority of the people who lived under the autocrats were not directly impacted by their rule for the simple reason that the mechanisms to enforce that rule down to the neighborhood, family and individual level had not yet been invented.
Caligula, Henry VIII, Suleiman the Magnificent or Ivan the Terrible might, possibly, have wanted to stomp all over their people in the way Stalin and Mao did. But they didn’t have a Gestapo, KGB or Stasi to do it for them. So for 99% of the people they ruled the crimes of the ruler were a spectator sport directly affecting only the court and nobility.
Totalitarianism is absolute power plus mechanisms adequate to impose that power effectively on all the people all the time.
“But they didn’t have a Gestapo, KGB or Stasi to do it for them.”
The Tsars had a large secret police force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana