Power of European Dictators Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini in WWII - Term Paper Example

and Number of the Teacher’s European History EUROPEAN DICTATORS HITLER, MUSSOLINI AND STALIN: HOW THEY ACQUIREDAND MAINTAINED POWER IN WORLD WAR II Introduction World War II which took place between 1939 and 1945, involved several countries, the offensive being launched by the Axis Forces made up of Germany, Italy and Japan, led by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Tojo Hideki respectively. The opposing side was made up of the Allies composed of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, whose leaders were: Chiang Kai-shek, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Franklin Roosevelt respectively. The Allies defeated the belligerent Axis Forces in World War II1. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to determine the role of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin in World War II, and to investigate the ways in which they took advantage of political and social turmoil in their countries, preyed on weak governments, and used propaganda to achieve their ends. Discussion Totalitarian dictatorships existed in Germany, Italy and Russia partly because of long-term authoritarian traditions that already prevailed in all the three countries, and partly because of their political and economic crises. The circumstances in which the three totalitarian parties came to power varied extensively: the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany. In each case, the totalitarian party was in a minority when it attained power, but its ascent was unhampered because of the divisions within the opposition. The impact that the totalitarian dictators had on the world is notable, considering their humble beginnings. In early more stable times, the dictators would not have been able to achieve the prominence that they gained. It is ironic that they were all beneficiaries of the democratic characteristic of post-World War I Europe, when monarchs and diplomats were in disgrace, “and the recently enfranchised masses were eager to accept the leadership of one of their own”2. The totalitarian parties did not make a distinction between propaganda, culture and education. Culture and education were used for propaganda through more subtle forms. All the three concepts were to help in buttressing the state and popularizing its policies; and were used by the dictators to . Contrary to popular belief, propaganda does not necessarily consist of lies or even distortions. At its most it is selective or or half truths or statements about the future that cannot be proved or disproved. Nothing is more harmful to propagandist methods than to be caught in a total lie. The totalitarian propagandists united people through negative statements since positive ones served to divide them. Propaganda is simply a form of advertising, which reinforces old ideas and builds upon already existing values and mentality. It does not work when it completely contradicts the experiences or observations of its intended audience. There were no free elections, no public opinion surveys, and “totalitarian states exercised a far greater control over mass media and cultural outlets than did the democracies” 3. Contrary to popular myth, people in the totalitarian states were were well aware of the monopolistic control of the mass media. This awareness made them suspicious of anything they were told by the government, even if it were true. But, their real gullibility was towards rumours, since they were not allowed to express their views openly4. The belligerent Axis alliance: Germany, Italy and Japan recognized German hegemony or domination over most of continental Europe, Italian hegemony over the Mediterranean Sea, and Japanese dominance over East Asia and the Pacific5. Unlike the Allies who developed institutions to coordinate foreign or military policy, the Axis partners did not do so. Interests common to Hitler and Mussolini, as with Hideki were: territorial expansion and foundation of empires based on military conquest, overthrow of the post-World War I international order; and the elimination of Soviet Communism6. Hitler When Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) became chancellor of Germany in 1933, at the age of forty-three, he had held no previous position in government. Without much exposure to travel, extensive reading or foreign languages, he had a definite set of ideas on major issues of foreign policy, and these ideas he integrated with his concepts of domestic affairs. Hitler was able to impress his ideas on events rather than allow his ideas to be moulded by events. This forms the basis for Hitler’s impact on Germany and Germany’s impact on the world. Hitler was believed to be an opportunist, a manipulator of power, with a fanatic will and without guideposts. Hitler devoted his entire time to political agitation, and had some very definite fixed ideas on foreign policy before he came to power, which was expressed through his speech and writings7. The struggle for existence in which the races of the world engaged, was according to Hitler, in connection with the growing of food in agriculturally usable land, in support of the population living on it. “Racial vitality and spacial expansion were directly related”8. There had to be a proper relationship between a population and the space on which it lived. According to Hitler, the population had to adjust to the given space or the space had to be adjusted to the population. The former would lead to eventual racial decay as the decimation by emigration, birth control, abortion and suicide would occur with increasing frequency among the racially superior elements of the population. This course would involve dependence on others such as the need to import food, which would be undertaken by a weak people, who would become weaker in the process9. The alternative course that Hitler consistently advocated through his political speeches and writings was Mein Kampf: the adustment of space to population by the conquest of additional land areas, whose native population would be expelled or exterminated, but not assimilated. The availability of such land areas would encourage good, healthy Nordic couples settled on them to raise large families that would compensate for the casualties incurred in the conquest of the territory, and at the same time ascertain the availability of sufficient manpower for wars that would need to be waged. The implications of this last point are that even though wars cause casualties, they should not be avoided, since they would be the only way to gain the land required for racial survival. Further, the amount of land should be vast enough to make it worth the casualties. The second aspect is the limitless expansionist program, which could end only in one of two ways: either utter defeat or total occupation of the globe Hitler believed that world peace could become a possibility only when the racially best power attains complete and uncontested supremacy10. In the years following World War I and its immense sacrifices, and their world crashing down around them, the people of Germany had been trained to think that it was neither possible nor desirable to painfully learn to govern themselves like the people of England and France11. The rule of the National Socialists under Hitler’s dictatorship had the main agenda of the decimation of Jews, who were considered as a racially inferior class, and were believed to generate contagious diseases mainly due to their being confined in crowded ghettos segregated from the rest of the population. During World War II, when Germany attacked Russia in 1941, concurrently the Holocaust or mass killings of Jews was also begun on a large scale12. For Nazi propagandists, the presence of radios was just one of the advantages they had over their counterparts in Italy and the Soviet Union. Almost 100% of the German population was literate. Political meetings were frequently held in huge beer halls; Germany’s highly efficient railroads whisked Nazi speakers from town to town, and “Hitler was the first politician in the world to make frequent use of airplanes in his electoral campaigns. Another first was Hitler’s appearance on close-circuit television screens before the end of the 1930s13. Historians regard the Nazi form of propaganda as the most original and successful aspect of the regime, the most unique feature being its sheer quantity. Public rallies, meetings and campaigns were carried out continuously. Another distinctive element about Nazi propaganda was its systematic and almost scientific organization. Nazi party meetings were orchestrated to make them emotionally appealing and entertaining. Nazi propaganda followed certain guidelines such as: it had to be simple and repetitive, so that even people of modest intellectual abilities could remember it, further, it had to be emotional, and whenever possible, the spoken word had to be used instead of the written word. As an orator Hitler was phenomenal, and highly successful14. Mussolini Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was born in Romagna, Italy in an impoverished area. In 1919 Mussolini started the Fascist movement in Italy, and within three months, became Prime Minister of Italy. As Fascists Mussolini and his followers believed that they had risen above the old politics with its divisive class loyalties. The Fascist program drew from both the Left and the Right of Italian politics. From the Left they adopted minimum wage, social insurance, eight-hour working day and taxation imposed on capital and seizure of excessive war profits from businessmen. From the Right they drew essential patriotic and nationalist rhetoric and its rejection of the Italian Socialist Party15. In the summer of 1938, Mussolini, pursuing the “Prussianization of Italy” relentlessly pushed an anti-Semitic campaign, based on the Nazi pattern. Until then, there had not been any oppostion to the Jews in Italy. There were nearly 50,000 Italian Jews, and their presence in large numbers had not been considered as a problem. Mussolini had in fact paid public tribute to the contributions of the Jews to the country. Contrastingly, the launching of a policy of racial discrimination was surprising not only for the Jews, but for the Vatican and the monarchy as well; both of whom supported religious freedom for all Italian citizens, both by Catholic doctrine and by the Constitution respectively16. The absence of a good reason raises the question whether the tragedy of the Italian Jews was due to no more than a whim of the Italian dictator Mussolini, to his wish to emulate his great friend Hitler, and consequent desire to Prussianize Italy. Mussolini himself did not attribute much importance to the anti-Semitic campaign, similar to other social reform measures of less significance. He tried to link racialism with the newly created empire, and emphasized the requirement for avoiding possible contamination of the pure Italian race with natives of Africa and Jews at home. Mussolini may have had personal anti-Semitic feelings nurtured through his readings which supported his vague apprehensions about the Jews17. Laws were passed against the Jews, resulting in hardships for the community. After the fall of Mussolini, when the Italian anti-Semitic campaign passed to Hitler’s control, Fascist racial legislation enabled the Nazis to persecute, deport and exterminate Italian Jews18. Propaganda was important in fascist Italy because Mussolini had begun his career as a journalist and was deeply interested in the media. In 1934, in imitation of the Nazi Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda created a year earlier, Mussolini set up an under-Secretaryship for press and propaganda, headed by his son-in-law. Conditions that made the spread of propaganda more difficult in Italy than in Germany were that even in 1931, 21% of the Italian population were completely illiterate, and a much higher percentage was only semiliterate, effectively ruling out written propaganda as a tool with which to influence them. Illiterates were more influenced by the spoken word, but the relative poverty of the country meant that radios became available as a medium of propaganda at a much slower rate than in Germany. To carry radio speeches by Mussolini, loudspeakers were erected in the main squares19. Though Mussolini was not insane, he started showing signs of intellectual and physical decline. It was incredibly tragic that during the participation of Italy in World War II, the entire country was guided and dominated by a man ill in mind and body. His thinking was not based on reason, who shut out reality regarding the low state of military preparedness and national finance, and who believed only in action however unplanned it may be. His only concern was loss of Hitler’s esteem towards him. Mussolini changed his mind frequently, his decisions which affected nearly half the countries around the globe were based on trivial insecurities that he experienced in relation to Hitler. He was resignedly accepted by the Fascists, and no attempt was made to overthrow him20. The fascist dictator, betrayed by Germany, who caused immense tragedy for his countrymen by leading them into World War II, was executed by Italian partisans along with his party members and his mistress, in May, 1945. Stalin Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), born to a poor cobbler in the small country of Georgia bordered by the Russian federation to the north, became one of the most powerful and brutal tyrants in history. He rose to power, and remained in control of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) until his death. Like his predecessor and mentor Lenin, he was an institutional innovator within the Marxist ideological tradition. Stalin shaped global politics due to which Russian and other post-Soviet politicians now struggle for power, and had long term effects on Soviet society in general. Further, by forging a communist bloc from Asia to Europe, Stalin influenced international politics in the second half of the twentieth century21. Stalin was a convinced communist as well as a staunch supporter of Lenin’s ideas about party organization. He was able to gain unprecedented political power, rising to the highest position in the Leninist party based on his better institutional supports, organizational skills, ideological concepts, his implacable loyalty to the party as well as faith in its eventual triumph. Stalin did his best to enforce Leninist principles of “democratic centralism”, of strict party discipline and control over a hostile society in political and social turmoil22. The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to use propaganda to mobilize an entire nation. The tasks of the Soviet propaganda were similar to those of the fascist states. Prior to World War II the fascist goals of full employment and the establishment of German and Italian grandeur in the eyes of other nations was popular23. Stalin’s vision of socialism required a new revolutionary assault on Soviet society. He proposed to translate Marxist identity into concrete institutions that would form the framework of interests and incentives of millions of ordinary people, in both the economic and the political spheres, which would operate according to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Under Stalin, tens of millions of people were arrested as “class enemies” of the proletarian dictatorship, and they were put to work in the gulag system, under the most brutal conditions, for building various infrastructure facilities and monuments24. The gulag system helped Stalin to achieve his ambitious industrialization targets of the 1930s. However, the basic infrastructure of Soviet society began to crumble almost immediately. The reasons were that the plans were formulated only in terms of gross output, the system was poorly equipped to handle technological advances, and in the long term would cause environmental disaster, since there was little concern for people’s health or the preservation of nature. As a result, today, former Soviet factory-towns are some of the most polluted places on earth. Further, collective agriculture was highly inefficient and wasteful. Rampant corruption was prevalent in institutions, and the communist system which officially banned private property and markets resulted in the buying, selling and stealing of state resources in black markets25. Stalin was fully aware that the socio-economic socialism that he had envisioned and implemented was getting corroded from within due to the above factors. “But, having sacrificed decades of his life and millions of other people’s lives to establish such a system”26 he did not wish to rethink his policies. Between 1936 and 1940, he conducted a massive blood purge of millions of citizens, eliminating everyone whom he suspected of conspiring with the global bourgeoisie against socialism. Stalin’s coercive system continued only through the support of ambitious communist leaders like Krushchev, Brezhnev and others. Stalin’s role in initiating World War II is that, following the Munich Agreement in 1938 he believed that the British and the French were not for an alliance with Hitler. This led to Stalin concluding a non-aggression pact with Hitler that divided Poland between them, thus freeing Hitler to invade the country within a week. With Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939, World War II began in Europe27. Conclusion This paper has highlighted the role of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin in World War II, and has determined the ways in which they used the political and social turmoil in their countries prevailing as a result of the consequences of the first world war. How the dictators preyed on their weak governments and used propaganda to achieve their ends have been discussed. In the Munich crisis which marked the prelude to World War II, though all nations involved committed mistakes, the direct responsibility for the tragedy lies with Hitler, the German dictator and fanatic. Mussolini’s devastating part in the war, was the indirect effect of his past actions, general conduct in government, “the installation of the first twentieth century totalitarian regime in western Europe, and the example that he had set for Hitler, as well as his alliance with Hitler’s Germany and his strange loyalty to it”28. As leader of the Soviet socialist regime the policies that Stalin developed and implemented destroyed millions of people, and left an immense economic burden as a legacy for post-Soviet Russia. He could be denoted as the first person to have created an “international socialist revolution”. Thus World War II also known as the “Great Patriotic War” greatly crystallized the legitimacy of Stalin’s regime, and led many ordinary citizens to take up a Soviet identity for the first time29. It is concluded that the dictators not only acquired and maintained power in World War II, but were responsible in their own way for initiating the war. Works Cited Farmer, Alan. Hitler and the holocaust. History Review, 58 (2007): 4-12. Fermi, Laura. Mussolini. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1966. Knox, MacGregor. Mussolini unleashed: 1939-1941. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1986. Kopstein, Jeffrey & Lichbach, Mark I. Comparative politics: interests, identities and institutions in a changing global order. 2nd Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2005. Mansbach, Richard W. & Rafferty, Kirsten L. Introduction to global politics. New York: Routledge. 2008. Neville, Peter. Mussolini. The United States of America: Routledge. 2004. Pauley, Bruce F. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the twentieth century. Illinois: Harlan Davidson Publications. 2003. Weinberg, Gerhard L. Visions of victory: the hopes of eight World War II leaders. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2005. Zabecki, David T. World War II in Europe: an encyclopedia. The United States: Taylor and Francis. 1999. Read More