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Totalitarian Leaders Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin (redirected from Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin as Totalitarian Leaders)

Page history last edited by Robert W. Maloy 1 week, 2 days ago

 

Image result for mussolini stalin hitler and lenin

 

Topics on the Page

 

Common Characteristics of Fascism

 

Benito Mussolini

  • Timeline  
  • Economics 

 

Adolf Hitler

  • German Nazism and Italian Fascism 
  • Timeline of Hitler's and Nazis rise to power
  • Intentionalism vs Structural Functionalism 
  • Nazi Strategies for Power
  • Theories of Nazism 
  • Mein Kampf 
  • Minorities Policies 

 

Vladimir Lenin

  • Timeline
  • Bolshevism
  • Economy 

 

Joseph Stalin

 

 

Focus Question: What were the policies and ideas of Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin and Stalin

and how did they maintain power and control?

 

Slideshow about Totalitarian Leaders (Gianna Bruzzese, March 2024)

 

 

Common Characteristics of Fascism

 

  • Absolute Power of the State (strong central government; individuals give up private rights to serve the state)

 

  • Rule by a Dictator (single leader who uses charisma and personality to gain support)

 

  • Corporatism (state controls the economy; unions, strikes, and labor rights are illegal)

 

  • Extreme Nationalism (emphasis on national glory and resistance of outside threats)

 

  • Superiority of the Nation's People (a country's people are seen as superior to others; persecution of minorities)

 

  • Militarism and Imperialism (conquering and ruling weaker nations; military superiority is proven through war)

 

Taken from Constitutional Rights Foundation, "Mussolini and the Rise of Fascism," Bill of Rights in Action, 25(4), p. 5.

 

 

 

Benito Mussolini 

 

From the beginning, Mussolini aimed to be the ruler of a one-party totalitarian state.

 

 

Timeline

Image result for mussolini

 

  • March 1919- Mussolini formed the Fascist Party. Unemployed war veterans were organized into armed squads called Black Shirts.

 

  • 1921- Fascist Party invited to join coalition government

 

  • October 1922-  Italy was in political chaos. Black Shirts marched on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel invited Mussolini to form a government. 

 

  • 1925- Mussolini made himself dictator (Il Duce) and dismantled institutions of a democratic government.  

 

  • 1929 to 1939- Mussolini completed the building-up of the totalitarian state

 

  • 1938- The Fascist Grand Council abolished the Parliament, and set up in its place an Assembly of Corporations which consisted of representatives from twenty-two industrial and professional corporations.  

 

  • July 1943- Mussolini was imprisoned by his former colleagues in the Fascist government. At this point, the Allies landed in Sicily. 

 

  • April 1945- Mussolini captured and shot by Italian partisans after fleeing to Switzerland as the Allies advanced through Italy.  

 


Economics

 

  • There was much state regulation to control the economic and social activities of the Italians. 

 

  • Besides the system of corporations, Mussolini helped the industries with financial subsidies. The state would buy the national products even though their prices were higher than the foreign products. There were also the improvement of transport and the development of hydro-electricity in the North so as to help the industrial progress of Italy. 

 

  • In agriculture, the most famous reform was the 'Battle of Wheat' : — this was an attempt to make Italy self-sufficient in food. There was also the big land reclamation project in the Pontine Marshes near Rome to provide more farm-land for the peasants.

 

 


Mussolini on Fascism (What is Fascism? 1932)

 

Mussolini biography: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/mussolini_benito.shtml

 

Mussolini Summary Video YouTube video that provides a great overview of Benito Mussolini's rule.


Mussolini Documentary

 

The Doctrine of Fascism, Benito Mussolini (1932)

 

Mussolini's Economic leadership: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/economic-leadership-secrets-benito-mussolini

 

 

 

 

Adolf Hitler 

 

German Nazism and Italian Fascism 

German Nazism to a large extent resembled Italian Fascism. Both were evolved by ambitious leaders of strong national outlook in the difficult years of the post-war period. Once these ambitious leaders gained power they quickly extended government control over the political, economic, and social systems of their country until it became a totalitarian state. In foreign affairs, both the Fascists and Nazis advocated an expansionist policy. The main difference was that Nazism was based on racism. Nazis believed that they existed to dominate the world and cleanse the world from corrupted races. Hitler himself hated all Jews, and this led directly to the Holocaust.


Hitler believed in German nationalism and hated democracy, Marxism, and Jews. His ultimate interest was with political power, for Hitler believed that economics would take care of itself. He also applied his views to creating a new kind of state based on race and would include all Germans living outside the Reich's frontiers. This new nation would establish an absolute dictatorship under a leader, Hitler. Mein Kampf (My Struggle) outlines the future German state, the means by which it would be achieved, and a new view of life.Image result for hitler

 

 

Timeline of Hitler's and Nazi's rise to power

 

  • 1924- Hitler is tried and jailed for the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923
  • January 1933- Hitler is appointed Chancellor by President Hindeburg
  • 1933- The Coordination (Gleichschaltung) policy closed non- Nazi political organization. They were replaced by government officials within the Nazi Party.  
  • February 1933- The Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People decree suspended democratic aspects of the Weimar Republic and declared a state of emergency. This gave the Nazis a legal basis for the persecution and oppression of any opponents who were framed as traitors.
  • March 1933- The Enabling Act gave Hitler the right to rule by decree. This decree was passed by two- thirds vote in the Reichstag.  

 

 

Intentionalism vs. Structural-Functionalism  

 

  • Intentionalists argue that the policies of the Nazi State were primarily a result of Hitler. Intentionalism was also a Hitler- centric point of view. The Holocaust was a direct product of Nazi anti-Semitism and Hitler's obsessive hatred for Jewish people. They believe that Hitler had planned the Holocaust long before it happened and knew that he would someday annihilate millions of Jews.  Basically, Intentionalists believe that there would be no Holocaust without Hitler, and that he was the source of all Nazi anti-Semitic actions.  

 

  • Structural-Functionalists argue that the policies of the Nazi State were primarily the result of the Nazi officials, not Hitler. Hitler provided the day to day ideology but not the day to day leadership. Structural-Functionalists believe that the Nazi Party was a competitive polyarchy in which leaders tried to prove themselves by committing horrible actions.Essentially, there was a complex of legal and extra legal institutions with overlapping jurisdiction. They also believe that there was no master plan for the Holocaust from the beginning, and the mass genocide of Jews really began with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, after the Germans failed to win the Battle of Britain. 

 

 

Nazis Strategies for Power 

 

  • Putschist Strategy= 1919- 1924
    • A sudden attempt by a group to overthrow a government. 
    • Failed because of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Hitler and his associates had concocted a plot to seize power of the Bavarian state government. Police blocked the march on Munich, shots were fired, and the Putsch was suppressed resulting in Hitler being tried for treason.  

 

  • Legal Strategy= 1924- 1928
    • Meetings and rallies, targeted propaganda
    • emphasis on youthful image
    • Student, doctor, worker, women, lawyer, youth, and other subsidiary Nazi organizations

 

  • Middle Class Strategy= 1928- 1933
    • ignored working class voters
    • capitalized on fear of Communism during the economic crisis
    • mobilized SA (a place for unemployed men)
    • Destroy democracy, persecute Social Democrats/ Communists/ Jews/ liberal dissidents
    • Revise Versailles Treaty and recover economically  

 

 

Theories of Nazism

 

  • Volksgemeinschaft (racial community)

    • Divisions of race replace ones of class

 

  • Fuhrerprinzip (leader principle)

    • No democracy, only loyalty to Hitler

    • Became legal concept (like in court) 

    • Hitler couldn’t be questioned  

 

  • Lebensraum (living space)

    • Land needed for Germans in East (Poland, Ukraine, Russia, etc) 

      • Germany was too crowded

      • Didn’t have enough agricultural land

 

 

Mein Kampf 

 

Mein Kampf is the autobiography of Adolf Hitler that describes how and why he became so anti-Semitic, and it serves as an outline for the Nazi Party.  It was written by Hitler while he was in prison serving time for political crimes that he committed in 1923, and it was published in 1925.  In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his reasons for becoming anti-Semitic while spending time in Vienna, how serving in the German military during World War I changed him, and about his motivation for Lebensraum (or living space).  Hitler basically defined all Slavic people as being Jewish because most of the world's Jews lived in the Soviet Union and other Slavic nations.  Hitler wanted to take Slavic land from the Jews, Communists, and others he had an obsessive hate for, and give it to people he described as "Aryan" (or pure racial Germans).  Some people suggest Mein Kampf was a direct outline of the Nazi Party and Holocaust, while others believe it was a book for Hitler to rant about his opinions.

 

 

 

Minority Policies Created by Hitler and the Nazi Party

 

Jews

-The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed on April 7, 1933--> excluded Jews from civil service 

-The Nuremberg Laws were passed in September of 1935--> excluded Jews from Reich citizenship and racially defined who a Jew was

-Kristallnacht took place on November 9, 1938--> physical force used against Jews, book burnings, and destruction of Jewish shops

Gypsies 

-racial studies of Roma and Sinti people began in 1936--> they were medically studied by Nazi doctors 

-gypsies began subject of the Nuremberg Laws by 1936

-gypsies began to be shipped off to concentration camps by late 1936, early 1937

Homosexuals

-between 1933 and 1934, about 15,000 homosexuals were sent to concentration camps for violating Nazi homosexual laws

-May 6, 1933 students and Storm Troopers raise the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin and destroyed thousands of books 

-in 1935, the Ministry of Justice revised paragraph 175--> homosexuals could be legally persecuted now 

Handicapped 

-The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring was created in 1933 and implemented in 1934--> Nazis could legally sterilize people with mental of physical handicaps to prevent problems with the pure "Aryan" race

-Between 1940 and 1945, 200,000 handicapped people were murdered due to the T-4 program 

Africans

-Like the handicapped, Germans of African decent were sterilized as well--> began in 1937

-Africans were called "Rhineland bastards" because many Africans had served Germany during World War I and settled in the Rhineland after (and had mixed children with German women)

-mixed children were a problem to the pure "Aryan" race

 

 

 

 

Mein Kampf Review YouTube video that historically analyzes Mein Kampf and the story of Adolf Hitler.

 

Nazi Ideology YouTube video about the main principles of Nazi Ideology.

 

Hitler documentary. 

Click here for The Rise of Adolf Hitler, a short essay from the BBC.

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust from the University of South Florida offers an extensive collection of documents related to Nazi Germany.

 

For an overview of different views on Hitler, see the Portrayals of Hitler Project created by Harold Marcuse at the University of California Santa Barbara.


Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page from a web page maintained by a professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College in Michigan.

 

For background, see The Age of Dictatorship (Hitler), a lecture by Richard Evans, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge on the destruction of the Weimar Republic and Hitler's rise to power.

 

 Hitler biography: https://remember.org/guide/facts-root-hitler


Psychological approach to Hitler and his followers - the idea of "the banality of evil" by Hannah Arendt. Some interesting quotes to think about with students:
"The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions, but to destroy the capacity to form any" - Hannah Arendt
"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgement, this normality was much more terrifying that all the atrocities put together" - Hannah Arendt

 

 

 

 

Vladimir Lenin 

 

 

Timeline

 

  • March 1902- Lenin publishes "What is to be Done?"

 

  • July- August 1903-  Second Congress of the RSDLP is held. Party splits into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions.Image result for lenin

 

  • January 1912- Bolsheviks establish themselves as a de facto autonomous political party

 

  • April 1917- Lenin writes his "April Thesis" and calls for the overthrow of the provisional government and redefining Bolshevik tactics

 

  • November 1917- The Soviet government is formed, with Lenin as Chairman

 

  • January 1918- Lenin dissolves Constituent Assembly 

 

  • March 1921- New Economic Policy began 

 

  • January 1924- Lenin dies 

 


Lenin rose to a position of power in the Social Democratic party. In 1917, the revolution happened in Russia. In March, steelworkers in St. Petersburg went on strike, with thousands of people lining the streets. The Tsar's power collapsed and the Duma, led by Alexander Kerensky, took power. Vladimir Lenin came to power after a coup. Vladimir Lenin was named president of the Society of People's Commissars (Communist Party). Land was redistributed, some as collective farms, and factories, mines, banks and utilities were taken over by the state.
 In his two remaining years, Vladimir Lenin tried to ensure that Trotsky, not Stalin, succeeded him, but failed. Vladimir Lenin died of a cerebral hemorrhage on January 21, 1924.

 

 

Bolshevism

 

  • This political entity was led by Lenin. They seized control of the government in Russia in October 1917. 

 

  • Their opponents are the Mensheviks.

 

  • The Bolsheviks continued to insist on a highly centralized, disciplined, professional party.

 

  • They boycotted the elections to the First State Duma in 1906, and refused to cooperate with the government and other political parties. Their methods of obtaining revenue (including robbery) were disapproved by the Mensheviks and non- Russian Social Democrats. 

 

  • The Bolsheviks changed their name to Russian Communist Party in March 1918, to the All- Union Communist Party in December 1925, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in October 1952.  

 

 

Economics


In agriculture, the policy of confiscation of peasant produce was discontinued. The peasants could sell their produce in the market after they had paid a tax on their produce. They were given security of land tenure, permitted to sell or lease their own land, and even hire laborers to work on their own land. The main industries such as banking, mining, and transport were industrial and still controlled by the Soviets or Workers' Councils. They employed about 80% of the total industrial labor force in 1923 and accounted for 90-95% of the total production by value. Small industrial enterprises were allowed to be in private hands. The private manufacturers were allowed to introduce piece-work rates, preferential rations, and bonuses to stimulate the incentives of the workers.

 

 

 

An overview of Lenin's rise to power and political life can be found in a book review of historian Robert Service's well-known studyLenin: A Biography

 

Lenin Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHuJyTgGGSQ&t=390s

 

What Is To Be Done?(1902) is Lenin's statement that a strictly controlled party of dedicated revolutionaries as a basic necessity for a revolution.

 

Lenin Biography: https://www.history.com/topics/russia/vladimir-lenin

 

April Thesis: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm

 

Lenin's Materialism and Empirio- criticism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/ 

 

Lenin's New Economic Policy: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/17.htm

 

 

Joseph Stalin 

 

  

Joseph Stalin supported Socialist doctrines and studied Karl Marx. He became a leader of the secret Marxist band in the seminary. He turned to Bolshevism, and by 1903 Stalin gained recognition as a key component in the Communist movement. Stalin was repeatedly imprisoned for revolutionary activities while working with Lenin.Image result for stalin

With the success of Bolshevik revolution in 1917, Stalin resumed editorship of the Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda. Both Stalin and Trotsky were vying for power even while Lenin remained alive. With Lenin’s death, Trotsky was exiled (and later killed), and Stalin took over as leader of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. Stalin was extremely oppressive and paranoid and killed as many as 20 million of his own citizens. During WWII, Stalin led his people to victory over the Nazis. He died in 1953 of natural causes.

 


Stalin's plans

 
(a) By developing heavy industries, Russia hoped that she could first free herself from dependence on capitalist states for machinery and manufactured goods, and finally rival with the industrial production of the United States and Germany.


(b) If Russia was economically strong, she could have the financial resources to produce more powerful armaments that could defend Russia from any possible attacks by the capitalist powers.


(c) Industrialization put all of the national resources under the government and thus enabled the government to impose a stricter hold on the workers.


(d) Finally, Stalin wanted to prove that the socialist system, in comparison to the capitalist system, could be more successful in modernizing a nation.

Like other totalitarian leaders, Stalin imposed rule by keeping the Soviet populace in a constant state of fear. He sowed this fear, in large part, with the creation of large scale forced labor camps called Gulags. Any person who Stalin perceived to be a threat to his absolute power would be sent to the Gulags, which were often located in brutally cold regions of Siberia.

 

 

 

Stalin's Five Year Plan: https://spartacus-educational.com/RUSfive.htm


To view an online exhibit on Stalin's Gulags, complete with personal testimonies from Gulag survivors, visit Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives


Totalitarian PowerPoint

 

The Stalin Project is an interactive resource about Stalin and the Soviet people. This site includes text written by the top scholars in the field, a database of over 500 images, primary source documents, videos, lesson plans, and other materials.

 

Stalin biography: https://www.history.com/topics/russia/joseph-stalin

 

Stalin documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtExVcaSQwQ&t=41s

 

Stalin Economics: http://ssthumanities.weebly.com/stalins-economic-policy-and-impact.html

 

 

 

 

 

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