History Final Study Guide (AUTHORS) - 2026

Joseph Stalin: “The Hard Line” (320)

He thought that Russia needed to modernize in order to keep up with the rest of the world. He thought that if people died, it was ok because it was for the sake of modernization and Communism. 

 A. O. Avdienko: “The Cult of Stalin” (325)

This was basically a hymn to Stalin. It showed how people were blindly following Stalin and how it became a sort of cult of worshipping him. They treated him like a god. 

“O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples . . . “

Yevgeny Yevtushenko: “Literature as Propaganda” (326)

“[Stalin’s] greatest crime was the corruption of the human spirit”.

He thought that the poets who had raised so many peoples’ hopes had all died. Yevtushenko also mentioned that Stalin knew how popular Lenin was, so he made sure that his history showed that he was very close to Lenin in order to become popular himself.

Benito Mussolini: “Fascist Doctrines” (331)

He attacked Marxism, saying that it was the complete opposite of Facism. 

“The Facist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, lived for oneself, but above all for other.

Friedrich Jünger: “Antidemocratic Thought in the Weimar Republic” (334)

Talked about why the Weimar Republic failed. “But the Weimar Regime was a body in which there flowed no blood…”
He mentioned blood a lot, which was weird

Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf (342)

He was a very charismatic speaker whose ideas would have appealed to the “heroic” Aryan descendants rather than those who would be considered “lesser races”. He blamed all of the world’s problems on Jewish people, which helped him to redirect blame and hatred.

The basis of his ideas was that he was the “Fuhrer” of Germany and the supreme leader. He reinforced those ideas by standing up front and not showing fatigue even though everyone in the crowd did. (353)

Chamberlain said that war might be prevented if the Western world tolerated Hitler’s facism. The world was just coming out of a war, so nobody was wanting to repeat it

Ernst Rudolf Huber: “The Authority of the Führer…” (349)

He was a legal scholar. He described Hitler’s rule. 

“The authority of the Fuhrer is complete and all-embracing; it unites itself all the means of political direction; it extends into all fields of national life; it embraces the entire people, which is bound to the Fuhrer in loyalty and obedience".

Fens Jicai: “China’s Cultural Revolution: Communist Fanaticism” (430)

He talked about how he was arrested and thrown in jail for over ten years, only because he had  a pistol-shaped keychain. He was a teacher. 

He talked about how people were shown propaganda in jail.

“We were all being taken to a big theater for public sentencing. When we got to the theater, I was ordered to stand at the head of the line. This was the position reserved for prisoners with the heaviest sentences, usually the death sentence. . . The court pronounced me guilty on three counts”. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for crimes he did not commit. → this shows how the government had total control over the citizens, and did not have their best interest in mind.

Friedrich von Bernhardi: Germany and the Next War (278)

He thought that imperialism and ruling other countries was necessary. “Vast territories inhabited by uncivilized masses are occupied by more highly civilized States, and made subject to their rule. Higher civilization and the corresponding greater power are the foundations of the right to annexation…” → SOCIAL DARWINISM

He also thought that the idea that “war depends on biological laws leads to the conclusion that every attempt to exclude it from international relations must be demonstrably untenable”.

“The Black Hand” (281)

The Black Hand was the secret society that conspired to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Its purpose was “to realize the national ideal: the union of all Serbs”. The Black Hand was very serious, and those who entered the organization could never leave it. If a member did something against the best interest of the society, their punishment would be that of death.

Stefan Zweig, Vienna: “The Rushing Feeling of Fraternity” (287)

He talks about how the people were excited about the idea of war. “And in spite of all my hatred and aversion for war, I should not like to have missed the memory of those first days. As never before hundreds of thousands felt . . . that they belonged together. A city of two million, a country of nearly fifty million, In that hour felt that they were participating in a moment which would never recur . . . all differences of class, rank, and language were flooded over at that moment by the rushing feeling of fraternity . . .” → shows how excitement and feeling of connection with one’s country might lead to willingness to sacrifice for one’s country → nationalism.

Woodrow Wilson: “The Idealistic View” (303)

He spoke about how to proceed after WWI. He talked about how wrongs must be made right before the nations could move on, and how the nations must work together to create peace, “And then the free peoples of the world must draw together in some common covenant, some genuine and practical co-operation  that will in effect combine their force to secure peace and justice in the dealings of nations with one another”

Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski: “The Warsaw Uprising, 1944” (402)

He talks about how the people of Poland and those who hated the Germans rose up and fought for their country. “Soldiers of the capital! I have today issued the order which you desire, for open warfare against Poland’s age-old enemy, the German invader. After nearly five years of ceaseless and determined struggle, carried on in secret, you stand today openly with arms in hand, to restore freedom to our country and to mete out fitting punishment to the German criminals for the terror and crimes committed by them on Polish soil” -Commander in chief, Home army. → Nationalism

He also talked about how people, especially the Jews, were escaping through underground tunnels. “In September, the tunnels became the route of withdrawal for units being evacuated from overrun positions. Even wounded were transported underground, a proof of the greatest self-sacrifice and devotion on the part of the soldiers who refused to allow their officers and comrades to be left to fall into enemy hands”.

Andor Heller: “The Hungarian Revolution” (436)

He describes the Hungarian Revolution. He talks about how people who had never known freedom from under Communist rule took up arms to fight. He saw a young girl of 14 blow up a Russian tank, and a grandmother walk up to Russian cannons in order to fight. He says “I watched a whole nation–old and young, men and women, artists and engineers and doctors, clerks and peasants and factory workers–become heroes overnight as they rose up in history’s first successful revolt against Communism”. People who hadn’t ever even known freedom were willing to fight and die for the future freedom of their country. This is a great example of nationalism

Patrice Lumumba: “Congo Independence Day” (446

Lumumba addressed the Congolese people about how they were going to recover from Imperial rule. “Together, my brothers, we are going to begin a new struggle, a sublime struggle which is going to lead our country to peace, prosperity, and grandeur.

Ho Chi Minh: “Declaration of Independence for the Republic of Vietnam” (448)

He talked about the oppression of the Vietnamese by the French and Japanese. “The whole population of Vietnam is united in common allegiance to the republican government and is linked by a common will, which is to annihilate the dark aims of the French Imperialists.

Lev Kopelev: “Terror in the Countryside” (322)

He is reflecting on his role in the war. He says, “With the rest of my generation, I firmly believed that the ends justified the means. Our great goal was the universal triumph of Communism”. 

Basically, he thought that the need for Communism to win the war was what was responsible.

Lev Razgon: “True Stories” (328)

Razgon talks about his conversation with a former prison guard. The guard talked about how he didn’t feel sorry for the people he killed, “Well,  I understand then you were under orders and you shot people. But when you learned that you had been killing men and women who were not guilty at all, didn’t your conscience begin to bother you?” “Conscience? No . . . it didn’t bother me. I never think about all that now, and when I do remember something, [it is} as if nothing had happened . . .” The guard was under orders, and he believed that orders justified the killing.

Joachim Wieder: Memories and Reassessments (389)

“In my soul arose again the whole abysmal disaster of the war itself. More clearly than ever before I appreciated the full measure of misery and wretchedness of the other countries in Europe to which German soldiers and German arms had brought boundless misfortune” 

He blamed the war and the politics that had come with it. He also recognized that the German soldiers had done awful things. 

Adolf Hitler: “Political Testament” (412)

In his final speech, he didn’t talk about the concentration camps, but rather talked about the millions of Aryan people that would die because of the Jews. This speech was a lot calmer than his original speech to the generals. He seemed as if he knew he was going to die, and he was preparing Germany for life without him

Justice Robert H. Jackson: “Closing Arguments for Convicting Nazi War Criminals” (424)

He talked about how the Nazi’s were responsible for all of the deaths. “No half-century ever witnessed slaughter on such a scale, such cruelties and inhumanities, such wholesale deportations of peoples into slavery, such annihilations of minorities. The Terror of the Spanish Inquisition pales before the Nazi Inquisition”.

Hannah Vogt: The Burden of Guilt (440)

should learn it in order to prevent it from happening again. “The past cannot be erased, but the future is free. It is not predetermined”. She thought that we should honor the people who had died, and how respect should extend for the victims of WWII. She talked about how Jews should be able to live with all of the people without facing abuse

Richard von Weizsäcker: We Seek Reconciliation” (441) 

Said that “people cannot profess guilt for crimes they didn’t commit”. He was basically saying (in my interpretation), that we have to move forward and acknowledge what happened, but stop dwelling on the past.

Ho Chi Minh: “Declaration of Independence for the Republic of Vietnam (448)

Talked about how the French and Japanese were so cruel to the people of Vietnam. “They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, our raw materials. They have monopolized the printing of banknotes, the import and export trade; they have invented numbers of unlawful taxes, reducing our people, especially our country folk, to a state of extreme poverty”. 

He talked about the double standard, and how it is stated in the Declaration of Man and the Citizen by the French, that “All men are created equal”. He talks about the hypocrisy of this, as the French were oppressing the Vietnamese so much.