Part I. The Rise of Totalitarianism

Themes of Totalitarianism

• Dictatorship/Cult of Personality • Rejection of Individual Liberties• Expansionism • Provided a sense of security to their people

– The poverty of the Great Depression

– The Age of Anxiety

• Promised to Restore Honor – Done partly through the use of scapegoats

• Reliance on Nationalism

WWI Paved the Way for Totalitarianism

• People are used to taking orders from a government– Rationing– Military control, etc.

1a) the Soviet Union –

• Fall of the Tsar and the Rise of Communism– Collapsed out of WWI – Civil War Lenin and Communism

• World’s first Communist nation

– Communism is a rejection of ‘government hands-off economics’, aka Capitalism

– Instead- violent revolution to overthrow the haves– End of private property no more class structure or

oppression– Must happen everywhere to work (according to Marx)

Stalin Takes Power and Sets Up a Totalitarian State

• Lenin dies• Stalin, not Lenin’s

chosen successor, takes power by force

• His Policies – Collective Farming– Farmers must merge their

farms into collectives to provide food for the state

– Five Year Plans– Soviet Industry Was Put

on Steroids

Was Stalin successful?

• THE GROWTH OF HEAVY INDUSTRY IN THE USSR• INDUSTRY UNIT 1932 1938• Coal millions of tons 64 132• Oil millions of tons 22 32• Pig Iron millions of tons 6 14• Steel millions of tons 6 18• Automobiles thousands 23 211• Tractors thousand 50 176• Machinery billions of rubles 18 33• Chemicals billions of rubles 2 6

But at what cost? Totalitarian Methods…

• Starvation in the Ukraine

• Elimination of wealthy farmers

• Gulags

• Purges

• Propaganda and Censorship

1b) Fascism in Italy• Italy’s Anger at the end of WWI

– Had fought for allies, but didn’t feel that they’d been rewarded properly

– Felt overlooked in Europe• Few colonies• Poor and unindustrialized

• Mussolini was a journalist who discovered the power of propaganda– If he put good stories about himself in the

media, however untrue, they bolstered his image

– He promised a bold, bright future • A renewed Roman Empire

• Was Willing to Use Violence– Assassination of his chief political rival– Secret police

Mussolini’s Secret Police

(cont.)

• Mussolini Promised to Protect Italy from Communism (which at the time was attractive to many poor or radical Western Europeans)

• Why did Communism provoke such fear in the ruling classes? – Think of the stories filtering out of Russia at this

time– Ukraine Starvation, forced collectivization

1c) Germany –German Anger…

The Weimar Republic in Germany was Weak

• Black mark as gov’t that signed the Treaty of Versailles

• Started its life with crushing reparation debts

• Had no significant military, which allowed small extremist groups to play a role in German politics

Occupation of the Ruhr Valley (1923-1924)

I just can’t pay…

The German MarkThe German Mark

The German MarkThe German Mark

Results: Occupation of the Ruhr Valley (1923-1924)

• Hyperinflation

• International sympathy for Germany

• May have convinced the French that military options against Germany were of little value…

• Dawes Plan…U.S. loans to Germany to get them back on their feet…

• Why was the Dawes Plan Ridiculous?

• Dawes Plan did quiet German Radicalism for a while

The Great Depression, However, Smashed Apart the German Recovery (and made the Western Democracies

Less Likely to support military action)

Great Depression (1929)

• A worldwide phenomenon

• Destroys brief Dawes Plan stability

Hitler

• Radicalism Surged in Germany During the Ruhr Valley Invasion

• Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch

• Trial Makes Him a Household Name – Slap on the wrist

• Mein Kampf

Hitler Promises to Solve Germany’s Problems

• Put Germans to Work!

• Fight Communism!

• Perhaps most importantly: Regain German Honor by Renouncing Treaty of Versailles!

Hitler’s Methods- True to His Idol Mussolini

• Propaganda– Use of mass technology

• Radio and even television– ‘Contact’ Sci-Fi story

• Secret Police – Gestapo

• Violence– Assassination of rivals and

even powerful (and thus rival) supporters

• Charisma

Hitler was Elected

• Hitler had cleverly affected a more moderate platform after his prison stint

• After his election, he quickly Cemented His Hold On Power– Oath of Loyalty to the Military– Reichstag Fire

• Eliminates All Parties Except the Nazis

– Rejects Treaty of Versailles • Begins to remilitarize

– Nuremburg Laws– Women’s role

• Baby machine’s. Why?

• …stab in the back theory

• scapegoats

Germany was not invaded fully invaded at the end of WWI…

1d) Japan’s Turn Away From the West

• Leader in Asian Westernization/Industrialization– Defeat of Russia in 1905

• Joined allies in WWI • Angered at racism during Treaty of Versailles

– Literal, in your face, racism• Clemenceau- (paraphrase) - “I can’t believe we have to stay cooped up in

here with these ugly bastards (Japanese diplomats) while there are blond women in the world.”

– No racial equality clause in the Treaty of Versailles

• U.S. Pushed the British to renounce their alliance with Japan– U.S. sees Asian Pacific as its economic backyard

• Japan began to feel that its aspirations of being a world class power would be forever frustrated by the white powers– Island has limited resources- need for an empire! – The rise of militarism

• World at War Film

1e) Reactions to Totalitarianism

• America’s Reaction– Isolationism

France’s Reaction

• The U.S., Britain, and the League are doing squat to protect us… and who is Hitler going to come for first? – France!

• Maginot Line – Kinda like the best trench

system ever built– Makes a lot of sense after WWI

Fort Eben

Britain’s Reaction

• The British Reaction- appeasement- will start off our next unit and lead to the war itself