European Totalitarianism During World War I

Stalin’s policy priorities were not building a ‘worker’s paradise’ or a classless society, but protecting Russia from war and invasion. In 1928, Stalin launched the first of two ambitious five-year plans to modernize and industrialize the Soviet economy. These programs brought rapid progress – but also significant death and suffering. Stalin’s decision to nationalize agricultural production dispossessed millions of peasants, forcing them from their land to labor on gigantic state-run collective farms. Grain was sold abroad to finance Soviet industrial projects, leading to food shortages and disastrous famines in the mid-1930s. Soviet Russia was dragged into the 20th century, transforming from a backward agrarian empire into a modern industrial superpower – but this came at extraordinary human cost.

The next step in Stalin’s plan was to attack the independent land owners, known as Kulaks. In 1928, he created a program called agricultural collectivization. This scheme forced farmers to give up their livestock and land and join “collective farms,” which run like factories. These farms not only fed city workers but also provide grain to be sold to other countries. Stalin used the money he made from these farms to finance his Communist agenda. In 1929, Stalin wiped out any independent Ukrainian farmers who rebelled against collective farms. In 1930, they were stripped of their houses, packed into trains, and shipped to Siberia. Approximately one million Ukrainian peasants were left without shelter, food, and water. Many of them froze to death from the icy tundras of Siberia (Babij).

Communism not only had a large impact in Russia and the United States, it interrupted the lifestyles of many other countries, such as Europe. During this time frame, Europe was still very weak from the effects of World War II. The Soviet Union saw this as an opportunity to take control of Europe. “The Soviet Union wanted to

The Common Factors that Led to the Establishment of Totalitarian Regimes in Italy and Germany in the Inter-War Period

Do unto others what one would want done unto him or herself. In World War II with Nazi control in much of Europe, even if individuals had problems with how certain people were being treated, not many actually took action. A particular person who decided to counter the flow of what was accepted, was Pastor André Trocmé. That particular pastor was a member of a small French village, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. There, many Jewish people were housed and protected as much as the small community could provide from their Nazi persecutors; who otherwise would have put into concentration camps or in some cases death camps. The entirety of the village needed to work together in order to achieve the pursuits they hoped to accomplish. The level of their

Totalitarianism is a form of government that theoretically permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of the individual’s life to the authority of the government. By the beginning of World War II, “totalitarian” had become equal with absolute and oppressive single-party government. In the years quickly after the WWI, a promising new time of vote based system appeared to be developing. The dictatorial administrations in Russia, Germany and Austria, were all overthrown and replaced by republics. The seven recently made states in Europe all received the republican type of government. Popular government appeared to be triumphant in the post-war world. Yet inside of two decades, numerous law based nations in Europe

World War I, also known as the Great War, represented an international conflict that embroiled most European nations in addition to Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The experience of the Western democracies in this war was disheartening and disillusioning. So-called “civilized” countries declared war on each other for uncertain reasons, had fought to a stalemate in brutal trench warfare conditions, and had then negotiated a peace settlement that neither settled the underlying causes of tension nor truly brought peace. By the end of the war, the sense of nationalism that had encouraged many to enlist in the war effort had been killed along with the 18 million soldiers and civilians over the span of 4 years.

After World War I, many different things occurred in Europe. The relationships between the different European powers changed. The economies and governments of each country changed. Even the people changed in different forms due to their country 's successes of failures. However, two things that changed in which most people neglect is thought and culture. After the world wars, the thoughts of the enlightenment were over and the thought of existentialism started to take over. Even the art started to change to the point where Dada (a.k.a. nothing) starts to become the major art form. After the World War, culture and thought started to drastically change.

The German and Italian nations faced great challenges after the war, and the governments of said nations were unable to handle the problems with any efficacy. This precipitated a weakening of faith in German and Italian governments which led to the rise of Totalitarianism in

Subsequently, the Bolsheviks utilized the peasants’ discontentment with their lives in Russia to take control of the state and started on an attempt to improve the state. The extent of which the Russian revolution benefitted the peasants’ lives will be discussed via positive and negative factors that impacted the peasants, including: the Decree on Land, War Communism and Stalin’s collectivization. At the Second All-Russian Congress when the Bolsheviks took control, they quickly decided to publish the “Decree on Land”. Notably, this document illuminates the purpose of clauses that were written — such as private ownership being abolished, which indicates the land reforms that peasants coveted, eventually permitting the Bolsheviks to attain support. Evidently, the second clause was contrived to facilitate the peasants’ aspiration of distributing lands as they pleased: "The landed estates, as also all crown, monastery, and church lands, with all their livestock, implements, buildings and everything pertaining thereto, shall be placed at the disposal of the volost land committees and the uyezd

Fascism became very prevalent following the first World War. This is a system in which the state was totalitarian and heavily revolved around nationalism, militarism, racial superiority, and imperialism. Fascist states showed immense pride in their countries and built up strong, powerful militaries. Additionally, this caused fascist states to believe their race was more superior than others and, consequently, did many things in the attempt to purify the race. To increase the living space for the so-called “superior race,” the governments relied on imperialism. Fascist leaders believed the sole purpose of the government was the preservation and advancement of a society of a single uniform race.

Adding to the deplorable oppression borne by the proletariat during the Five Year Plans, Stalin introduced a collectivisation campaign which not only sparked a persecution of kulaks, but also induced a widespread famine. The Stalin government’s compulsory agricultural policy was largely a failure with regard to its goals. Beginning in 1929, all farms were to be collectivised, with the aim of improving agricultural output and hence, industrialisation. The USSR’s initial system of farming was inefficient, but the introduction of fertilisation and tractors modernised agricultural techniques, increasing the nation’s capacity for production, supporting Historian Jamieson’s statement. However, the policy was catastrophic due to the mass movement of peasant resistance that saw farmers defiantly burning crops and slaughtering livestock, regarding the campaign as a violation of their freedom. By 1933, agricultural production fell dramatically; grain by 17 million tonnes and cows and pigs by a total of 23 million, to below what it was in 1913 (Downey, 1989, p. 19). This

The Rise of Fascism in Nazi Germany After the end of World War 1 (WW1), Germany was in charge of taking full responsibility for the money lost, the mass destruction, and the lives that were killed. This greatly hindered the German economy, which brought the whole country down. German soldiers returning home from the war could not get the supplies they needed to survive and turned to fascism. Not too long after WW1, the whole world went into a great depression, which also did not help the German economy recover from their great loss of money.

After World War I the economy in the USSR was failing, they were producing very little and were hit hard economically. Stalin developed many economic policies for three main reasons. The first was that he wanted to turn the USSR into a modern world power; he wanted it to be self-sufficient and to have a strong military. Secondly, he wanted to show the eminence of communism over capitalism by proving that a modernized USSR can overtake the capitalist countries. Lastly, he wanted to improve the livelihood of all the Soviet citizens. In order to do this, his main goal in order to do that, he made sure the agriculture section of the economy was productive. The first policy that Stalin created was collectivization. By 1928, the grain produced was insufficient to feed the people. Stalin addressed this issue and took action by joining small farms and making a collective group called Kolkhoz. This policy was unsuccessful. The one good side was that farmers received a wage from

Communism is a theoretical system that creates a society where property is shared by everyone with equity. In order to make this society reality, Stalin had to advance Russia’s industrialization and create an efficient agriculture for economic support. To launch this system, he had to eliminate any pretext the peasantry had of independence and a culture of their own. For the success of his five- year plan, the peasants would have to cooperate and collectivize. The peasants did not want to share their land; they did not want to collectivize because that would take away their independence and their way of life (each group of people having their own culture). Consequently, the only way Stalin and the Politburo commenced the five-year plan was