The Boom of Persuasive Totalitarianism in Europe's Damaged Nations

Once eliminating Trotsky, Stalin’s idea of, “socialism in our country,” inevitably meant that Russia needed strength. The productions in the USSR had almost reached pre-war levels by the mid-1920s, but the population of Russia had also increased by 20 million people. No matter, Stalin assured that maximum efforts and resources would be given to the expansion and strengthening of Russia herself rather than an effort to start a revolution elsewhere. This is explained in his famous 1931 speech, gaining power for himself. The people had nowhere else to turn to and needed a leader. Stalin was there and knew what to do to make the people interested in his ideas, thus acquired their trust and control. From these ideas, he created his first

Hitler’s rise to power was the result of many factors, but Hitler’s ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership and economical and political conditions was the most significant factor. His ability to manipulate the media and the German public whilst taking advantage of Germany’s poor leadership resulted in both the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the nazi party. During the early 1920s, Germany was struggling with economic instability and political uncertainty. Germany, after being defeated in the Great War, was forced to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was held responsible for. This brought forward feelings of fear, anger and

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th 1919 by the Germans in order to obtain world peace. However, this agreement seemed to only provoke the nation. According to the clauses of the document, Germany would have to pay for all damages caused by the war and they even had to claim full responsibility for initiating the war, often referred to as the War Guilt Clause. The German population also felt resentment with the government for giving away so much land to the various countries that had won the war. Around the time of the treaty, Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was getting much attention because of his promising ideas to reduce unemployment which was a crisis that was caused by the depression of

World War I led to the fall of four great imperial dynasties: Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey.This resulted in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. In the end Germany got blamed for all that occurred during the war.The Treaty of Versailles, was the peace document signed at the end of World War I by the Allies and Germany. It reassigned German’s boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. The German government

By the late 1930s, Central and Eastern Europe were under the influence of several dictatorships, the major ones being Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy, and Joseph Stalin in Communist Soviet Union. All three dictators implemented their own respective forms of government, nationalism, fascism, and communism, to gain power and maintain strict control over the people they governed. These three systems of government were not only significant to the rise of dictatorship in Europe but also to World War II in general because Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin all used their respective systems of government to justify their leadership; the similarities and differences between the three systems led to Rome-Berlin Axis and the rivalry between Germany and the Soviet Union; and a fear of the dictatorships of nationalism, fascism, and communism and the duty to defend

Joseph Stalin is a character that is very important in the world’s past. Stalin states that “Undoubtedly, our path is not of the easiest; but, just as undoubtedly, we arenot to be frightened by difficulties. Paraphrasing from the well—known words of Luther, Russia might say: ‘Here I stand on the frontier between the old, capitalist word and the new, socialist world. Here on this frontier I unite the efforts of the proletarians of the west and of the peasantry of the East in order to shatter the old world. May the god of history be my aid!”This basically says that Stalin wants to create a socialist world.

In result of unstable conditions created by the WWI and the Great Depression, Italy, Japan, and Germany were forced to change their government. These countries were willing to do anything to gain control of the failing economy, famine, and unemployment that plagued the Post-WWI countries. Global trade declined due to the collapse of the American government. The citizens of these countries turned to totalitarian leaders, a dictator who controls all aspects of the subjects’ lives through fear and propaganda, to recover the struggling country. Germany turned to Hitler, Japan turned to a traditional Japanese militaristic government, and Italy turned to Mussolini. Totalitarian leaders were able to control and unite

Before World-War 2, the Allies tried to create peace, with the Treaty of Versailles, which began to punish the opposing nations, causing them to fall into economic depression. The intention of the Treaty of Versailles was to be an adhesive for the numerous fragmented countries affected by World-War I. Therefore, they looked for other ways to cope, creating all new systems of government. Totalitarian leaders: Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler valued the government over the people, which in turn clashed with democratic ideals.

     Both The Fascists and the Communists targeted countries in which conditions were poor. Both groups targeted the peasants and middle class for support. The fascist and communist movements also represented attempts to create revolutionary new modern states. Even though they tried to bring about revolutionary change, they emphased the revival of a national past and a glorified country. After the Bolshevik’s, Stalin became a ruler much like Mussolini. Both held a strong Totalitarian government and did not tolerate and protest against them. Propaganda was an important tactic for both parties. It was used in all aspects of the media and also included the emphasis on fear.

Post World War I Italy and Germany fell on hard times economically as did everyone else. The problems that arose within their governments helped Fascist gain power. The idea of everyone coming together under one ruler, one party, and as one nation appealed most to people because of its sense of nationalism.

The international political climate of these years is also a very important factor for the ‘failure of democracy’. Many crucial events took place in the years between 1918 and 1939 that helped the development of undemocratic regimes. First of all, there were the Russian revolutions of February and October 1917. The Russian Empire was replaced by a republic, governed by the Russian parliament (Duma). In 1922 it became the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), bringing out a completely new type of government. The creation of USSR made the communist threat to the world much bigger than it used to be, with Lenin’s modification of Marx and Engels’ theories aiming to fit his own ambitions for a world ruled by the Communist party and the International. The Western world felt threatened by the powerful Bolsheviks and from this fear sprang up a new political ideology – Mussolini’s fascism, which involved the creation of a single-party state, with a strong leader who impersonated power and stability. In terms of ideology fascism rejects both liberalism and Marxism for being class-dependent models and offers an economically trans-class movement which is to put an end to class disputes. Their economical model opposes both the ideas of capitalism and of socialism, presenting a mixture of both as the working combination.

After World War I and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the Italian and German economies plunged into turmoil. Germany inherited all war-responsibility in the form of severe monetary reparation, while Italy found itself left out of consideration for war reparation payments. For these reasons the Treaty of Versailles had a severe weakening effect on the German and Italian States after World War I, which created the need for change in those countries. As Arthur Koestler, a former member of the communist party during the 1930s wrote, they were "Ripe for it [Change]". (Backman, 217) Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler used this to their advantage and were able to overthrow the existing governments with the backing of the common

In 1914, the start point of World War I, the countries had divided into three major groups, Communism, Fascism, and liberalism. When these groups came into play, that is when countries started to show their true political beliefs and also how they wanted to treat one another. Some had different views, along with some with a complete different beliefs on how to organize their ideas, whereas some were completely against one another. For these major ideologies many philosophers and important people came into play in bringing the right idea forward, where as some took off in a complete different path. Which already made them go through WW1 and then based on how things were going took them two decades to go through WW2.

World War I and its aftermath contributed to the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920’s through economic crisis, nationalism and citizens seeking a strong leader. Most countries had no experience with democracy as they had been monarchies. Benito Mussolini in Italy promised to make Italy a respected country. The people were looking for a strong leader and Mussolini was that. He created a private army and punished or killed anyone who opposed him. In Germany it was Hitler who rose to power. Germany suffered the most economically. The country was forced to give up weapons, land holdings, and pay for the damages done to other countries by the war. A Nationalist Socialist Workers’ Party rose to power and Hitler became the leader of it He too said

Stalins socialist ideals focused heavily on the government controlling the working class’s mass industry production, in hope to revive the economy. While this is a clear difference the process of