The Age of Dictators (Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler)

Stalin's Road to Power

• abused as a child

• charismatic, manipulative

• General Secretary in the Communist Party (gained support of important members in party)

• rapidly increased Communist Party's numbers with special Communist only grocery stores

• promised to focus on Russia: saying that is was possible to have a socialist revolution in Russian-dominated Soviet Union (while Trotsky talked about a worldwide socialist revolution)

• allied with Trotsky's enemies to get rid of him → then crushed anyone who may challenge him, including former allies

• Party Congress of December 1927: established that no deviation from his general party line was allowed → ready to launch a revolution that radically changed lives of millions

Stalin's impact on Government & Military

• one-party state
• purges in Communist Party (to get rid of Old Bolsheviks) & more
• politburo decreed UNIFORM policy (everyone follows it), even ethnic regions had to
• secret police: KGB

Stalin's Great Purges

• late 1934: blamed murder of top Soviet official on "Fascist agents" in Communist Party → used it to purge Communist Party of supposed traitors & solidified his rule
• had publicized show trials with fabricated evidence & forced confessions to incriminate party administrators & Red Army leaders
• August 1936: 16 "Old Bolsheviks" confessed to plots against Stalin & ALL executed
• 1937: secret police arrested lesser party officials & new members, used torture to get confessions
• many others arrested & accused: army officers, union officials, intellectuals, managers, average citizens
• at least 6 million arrested, 1-2 million executed or put in prison/forced labor camps and DIDN'T return

Lenin's NEP (1921)

• failures of war communism & civil war led Russia to be on verge of economic collapse
• this enforced small capitalistic elements in economy
• allowed peasants to sell surplus in open market
• allowed private ownership of shops/businesses
• BUT heavy industry, railroads & banks remained nationalized
• created kulaks

Stalin's impact on Economy

• Five Year Plans: plans aimed at modernizing the Soviet Union & creating new Communist society,
• took AWAY Lenin's NEP
• ordered collectivization of agriculture: forced consolidation of individual peasant farms into large state-controlled enterprises, took peasant's tools, livestock & produce → many peasants protested by burning crops & killing livestock
• stripped kulaks of land & livestock (liquidation), not allowed to work on collectives → starved, deported or sent to forced labor camps for "re-education"
• Blat (black market) existed
• long bread lines existed (but Communists got special grocery stores)

Stalin's impact on Society, Culture & Intellectual Life

• purges killed 700,000 from 1937-1938 in the "Great Terror"
• propaganda glorified Communism & Stalin
• Soviet Realism: glorified Soviet lifestyle, emphasized the "right ideas" of Communist Party, in reality not really realistic
• women had rights BUT social pressure prevented them from acting on them → keep traditional family & boost population numbers
• Pravda (Truth) was the official central Communist Party newspaper which displayed propaganda, glorified Stalin & enforced party line
• propaganda & education made Stalin seem like the great leaders from history (Peter the Great)

What title did Mussolini hold?

Il Duce (the Leader)

Mussolini's Road to Power

• fought in WWI and began organizing bitter veterans into a band of Fascists
• at first was a mix of nationalist & socialist demands → but switched to opposing Socialism because it got him support of conservatives & middle class
• Black Shirts (private militia) grew violent: attacked Socialist newspapers, union halls & local headquarters; managed to push Socialists out of governments in north Italy
• 1922: the Black Shirts marched on Rome demanding that King make Mussolini Prime Minister → King asked Mussolini to create a whole new government

Mussolini's impact on Government & Military

• one-part state
• very militaristic
• desire to get revenge on Ethiopia & create Italian Empire → Addis Ababa Massacre: Italian army invades Ethiopia & Ethiopian Emperor goes to League of Nations for help BUT they refuse because they have no army
• targeted political opponents
• Acerbo Law (1923): ended coalition government, party with largest amount of votes got 2/3 seats in Parliament
• Matteotti (Socialist opponent of Mussolini) murdered → government asks Mussolini get rid of armed squads & all violence banned → ignored & murder acknowledged as okay
• Mare Nostrum (Our Sea): Italy controls the Mediterranean
• ruled by decree
• organized fixed elections
• disbanded all independent labor unions

Mussolini's impact on Economy

• Autarky: being self-sufficient
• Corporate State: government directs businesses to make things more efficient

Mussolini's impact on Society, Culture & Intellectual Life

• no freedom of press
• Fascists in charge of Italy's schools
• Fascist Youth & Women's groups created
• staged mass rallies & sporting events
• new social welfare benefits
• newspapers, film & radio promoted "cult of the Duce"
• opposed to feminism & promoted traditional gender roles
• manipulated popular pride in history of ancient Roman Empire
• Battle of Birth: wants women to have 14 kids, increase population for war
• Battle of Fat: women should get more food to produce more babies
• Lateran Accord (1929): an agreement with the Pope, made the Vatican an independent state & Mussolini would give Church financial support for pope's support

What title did Hitler hold?

Führer (Leader)

Background Information on Hitler

• Austrian
• abused as a child
• dropped out of High School
• exposed to a lot of Social Darwinism in Vienna
• hated the Treaty of Versailles & blamed Jews
• arrogant & narcissistic
• applied to art school in Vienna but was rejected because he couldn't draw people
• after serving in WWI (loved it), he went to Munich where he join & then led the National Socialist German Workers Party

Goals of National Socialist German Worker's Party in 1920

• self-determination: union of Germans in Grossdeutschland
• end to Treaty of Versailles
• no one but Germans could be citizens (no Jews) → Nuremberg Laws
• citizens have rights & obligations
• state provides for citizens livelihoods
• maintenance of middle class
• German national law
• national education program
• state work to promote health (especially in mothers & infants) → no smoking
• freedom of religion for Christians, to religions that do not "oppose the moral feelings of" Germans
• national army

Hitler's Road to Power

• 1923: Beer Hall Putsch failed → got attention from trial, jailed & wrote Mein Kampf; revised his strategy: gain power legally & prove leader can create stability
• Great Depression increased number of Nazis who promised national rebirth → Nazis became biggest part in Reichstag
• uses mass politics (rallies, radio) to gain votes
• November 1932 election designed to crush Nazis, lots of Communist votes
• fearing civil war, President von Hindenburg created a coalition cabinet with Hitler as Chancellor (January 30, 1933) → to make Hitler less radical, racist, & violent; conservatives thought they could control him
• February 1933: Reichstag caught on fire & Hitler blames Communists → got article 48 revoked, Nazis got 44% of vote & Nationalist's 52% of votes for an overwhelming majority
• March 1933: Enabling Act pushed through the Reichstag, granting Hitler dictatorial power for 4 years with only President von Hindenburg to check him → von Hindenburg dies and Hitler declares office empty, absorbing President powers as Führer (combination of President & Chancellor)

Hitler's impact on Government & Military

• Grossdeutschland: "Greater Germany," anyone who is German belongs in the German state, others absorbed
• Lebensraum: "living space," territorial expansion
• one-party state
• propaganda minister Goebbels controlled art & news
• party purges
• Night of Long Knives (1934): goes after SA (independent army of 400K)
• secret police: Gestapo, took people to concentration camps
• law enforced the Nazi agenda

Hitler's impact on Economy

• big construction projects (Autobahn) created lots of jobs → necessary during the Great Depression
• Germans took over persecuted Jews' businesses
• got rid of independent labor unions & created a national labor union
• used 30% of Jewish assets for war effort

Hitler's impact on Society, Culture & Intellectual Life

• Nuremberg Laws (1935): Jewish person defined as having 3 Jewish grandparents, no marriage/sexual relations between Jews & Germans, no citizenship rights to Jews
• used eugenics (relies on racial classification) to identify Jews
• women's work should be in the kitchen, with kids & Church
• outlawed abortion and encouraged women away from work & higher education (BUT when 1930s labor shortages hit, encouraged it)
• undermined specialists in science UNLESS it helped them
• had a degenerate art museum & approved one
• 1933: boycott Jewish stores
• banned Jews from government jobs; in 1934: Jewish doctors, lawyers, professors, civil servants (now just Nazi elites), musicians fired from jobs
• wanted to create a pure German community of people (volk)
• no free press
• art & literature controlled by state, banned books burned
• education controlled by state
• used pageantry, tradition & tech in rallies
• Hitler Youth was compulsory and fusion of Führer worship & Boy/Girl Scout
• Church effectively silenced → Concordant with Roman Catholic Church: no political comment on Nazis
• "Triumph of the Will" stressed values of glory, unity & sacrifice

Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938-November 10, 1938)

• state-sanctioned pogroms of violence (disguised as spontaneous but happened in a lot of places)
• Jewish businesses broken into & robbed
• Jewish homes destroyed
• 30,000 Jews sent to concentration camps
• charged Jewish people remaining 1 billion in damages of the night