Between WWI and WWII

Leader

Benito Mussolini

Francisco Franco

Joseph Stalin 

Adolf Hitler

Country 

Italy 

Spain

Soviet Union (Russia)

Germany 

Causes of Rise to Power 

• The Great Depression

• Fascism’s idea of glorifying the state above the individual 

• Not receiving land at the end of WWI 

• Influenced the king to name Mussolini as Prime Minister 

• Mussolini then declare himself dictator

• The Great Depression

• Spanish Civil War in 1936 against the democratic government 

• Italy & Germany provided aid (money, weapons, supplies) 

• Soviet Union sent in weapons and supplies as well 

• The Great Depression

• Russian Revolution & rise of Lenin 

• Failure of the NEP 

• Leon Trostky exiled and murdered 

• The Great Depression

• Rejected from art school 

• Anti-semitism 

• Extreme nationalism 

• NAZI party formed 

• Mein Kempf 

• Treaty of Versailles 

• Weimar Republic (weak government after WWI)

Effects of Power 

• Reclaimed land and industrialized/ modernized 

• Black shirts were armed authority 

• Secret police 

• All other political parties outlawed 

• Censorship 

• Official religion: Catholicism 

• Women could not work & focused on being mothers 

• Ruled for 40 years under a dictatorship 

• After the civil ar, thousands were executed or imprisoned 

• Outlawed unions

• Outlawed any other religion besides Catholicism 

• Secret Police 

• Censorship 

• Five Year Plan → industrialized, focused on  heavy machinery, oil and steel 

• Collectivization → state controls the agricultural supply 

• Holodomor → forced famine in Ukraine 

• Gulags → work camps 

• Great Purge → sent millions to camps or executed 

• Aryan Race 

• Secret Police (SS)

• Militarism 

• Expanding German Empire 

• Youth indoctrinations 

• Gender roles 

• Propaganda 

• Censorship 

• Concentration Camps 

• Holocaust