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World Studies 2

Unit 5 - Between the Wars

6.2 - Rise of Totalitarian Dictators

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The Rise of Dictators

  • Totalitarian state is a government that aims to control the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural lives of its citizens.
  • Power of the central state
  • Wanted passive obedience
  • Conquer the hearts and minds of their subjects

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Commonalities in New Dictatorial Regimes

  • Mass propaganda and modern communication
  • Single leader and a single party
  • Rejected limited government power and individual freedoms
  • “collective will of the masses”
  • Policy determined by the leader (dictator)
  • Active involvement of the masses

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Fascism Begins in Italy

  • Early 1920’s, Benito Mussolini became the fascist ruler of Italy.
  • Fascism – government doctrine that relies on dictatorial rule and a totalitarian regime, in which the military maintains rigid control of the people by force and censorship. (Extreme Nationalism)
  • People are controlled by the government & any opposition is suppressed

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Benito Mussolini – Dictator of Italy

  • Peasant upbringing
  • Journalist and politician
  • Early 1900’s was a socialist
  • 1919 created the Fascio di Combattimento or League of Combat – Fascist Party of Italy
  • The word fascist comes from Fascio
  • Through the popularity of his political party he will rise to power and eventually be Prime Minister of Italy from 1922-1943.
  • Italian people kill him and hang his body in Milan for display.

Benito Mussoli

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Rise of Fascism in Italy

  • Italy encountered severe economic issues caused by the Great Depression
  • High Inflation
  • Industrial & agricultural workers strike
  • Fear of Communism & Socialism
  • Black-Shirts, armed Fascists attacked socialist offices & newspapers
  • Used violence to break up strikes

Mussolini and the Black Shirts

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Rise of Fascism in Italy (Cont.)

  • Industrialist & large landowners supported Mussolini’s Fascist movement (fear of nationalizing factories and farms)
  • Mussolini demanded more land for Italy (later attempts at colonizing parts of Africa)
  • Mussolini threatened to march on Rome (with Black Shirts), if not given more power
  • 1922 King Emmanuel III makes Mussolini Prime Minister after the March on Rome (coup)
  • As P.M. Mussolini created new laws, suspended publications, increased police powers

Who is this guy?

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Rise of Fascism in Italy (Cont.)

  • By 1926, the Fascists had outlawed all other political parties
  • Mussolini now known as “Il Duce” (eel DOO*chay), “The Leader”
  • As Prime Minister he had taken complete control of Italy and the King was a figurehead
  • Created a secret police, OVRA to watch citizens (not as savage as Hitler’s Gestapo)
  • Control over most media to spread propaganda
  • Used simple slogans in the media “Mussolini is Always Right”
  • Youth groups were used to promote ideals (they did not question new policies)

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The Fascist State - Italy

  • Although the Fascists tried to make Italian citizens disciplined, and war-loving, they still kept their traditional values
    • Ex. Women were the pillars of the state, but as homemakers and mothers.
  • Roman Catholic Church centered in Rome
  • Mussolini never achieved the status that Hitler did with his Germany.
    • Ex. Victor Emmanuel III still kept his kingship.

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Europe 1930’s – Authoritarian States

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A New Era in the Soviet Union

  • Lenin followed a policy of war communism after the revolution
  • Peasants began to sabotage the communist programs
  • Drought caused a great famine between 1920 and 1922, 5 million lives were lost
  • Industrial output decreased to 1913 levels (impact of depression)

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Lenin’s New Economic Policy

  • NEP saved the Soviet Union from complete economic disaster, but threatened the goals of the communism
  • Peasants allowed to sell their produce, retail stores & small industries could be privately owned & operated
  • Heavy industry, banking & mines remained in the hands of the government
  • 1922, a new Communist state called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR or Soviet Union was created.
  • Lenin abandoned war communism in favor of his New Economic Policy (NEP), a modified version of the old capitalist system.

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Joseph Stalin, Dictator, USSR

  • Born in Georgia, 1878
  • Ill childhood, barely survived smallpox
  • Studied religion (Eastern Orthodox) and literature in school, college educated
  • Recruited by Bolsheviks as a party organizer (strikes, robberies, propaganda)
  • Fought in revolution and in the Polish-Soviet War
  • Worked his way up through Bolshevik party as Party Commissar.
  • Served with Lenin and Trotsky on the Politburo

Stalin ruled the USSR from 1922-1952 as a dictator of Russia

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The Rise of Stalin

  • Lenin died in 1924, a struggle for power began
  • Leon Trotsky vs. Joseph Stalin
  • Politburo, a committee that had become the leading policy-making body of the Communist Party
  • Stalin used his post as General Secretary of the Politburo to gain complete control of the Communist Party

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The Rise of Stalin (cont.)

  • By 1929, Stalin had eliminated from the Politburo the Bolsheviks of the revolutionary era and established a dictatorship.
  • Trotsky was expelled in 1927
  • Murdered in 1940, probably on Stalin’s orders (in Mexico, KGB?)

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Five-Year Plans - Agriculture

  • 1928, Five-Year Plans, set of economic goals emphasized maximum production of capital goods (heavy machines) & armaments
  • 1928 to 1937 double & quadrupled production
  • Little provision for caring of labor force
  • Housing declined, pitiful living conditions, real wages declined, movement within the state are limited

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Five-Year Plans - Agriculture (Cont.)

  • Collectivization, private farmers were eliminated, government owned all of the land while the peasants worked it.
  • Strong resistance to plan, peasants hoarded crops & killed livestock
  • By 1934, 26 million farms had been collectivized

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Collectivization - USSR

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Costs of Stalin’s Programs

  • 10 million died in the famines of 1932 & 1933
  • Those who resisted were sent into forced labor camps in Siberia
  • Purges of the old Bolsheviks (loyal to Lenin and Trotsky)
  • Put on trial and condemned to death
  • Stalin is noted for killing nearly 25 million people during his rule

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Prisoners Laboring in Siberia

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Costs of Stalin’s Programs

  • Purged army officers, diplomats, union officials, party members, intellectuals, and numerous ordinary citizens
  • 8 million Russians were arrested
  • Millions sent to forced labor camps (Gulag) in Siberia, from which they never returned
  • Others were executed as enemies of the state.

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Stalin’s Programs – Women

  • Equal rights for women
  • Divorce process easier
  • Women encouraged to work outside the home
  • Family values, hard work, duty, discipline to their children
  • Divorced fathers who did not support their children were heavily fined

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Eastern Europe

  • New states of Eastern Europe had difficulty finding identities (issues from Treaty of Versailles)
  • Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary all adopted parliamentary systems, but soon replaced by authoritarian regimes

  • Parliamentary systems failed in E. Europe
    • Not used to it, a rural & agrarian society, illiteracy, ethnic problems

  • Landowners, the church, some middle class turned to authoritarian gov’ts to keep the old system.
  • Czechoslovakia only one to maintain political democracy.

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Authoritarian Governments

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Francisco Franco, Dictator, Spain

  • Ruled Spain as a dictator from 1939-1975
  • Military family
  • Served as an officer in Spanish Army
  • Eventually rises to general and takes command of all Spanish forces by 1936.
  • Founder of the Falange Party (Spanish Fascists)
  • Falange = Fascist

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Spanish Civil War

  • Francisco Franco, led a revolt against the democratic gov’t in 1936 and the Spanish Civil War began.
  • Nationalists (Franco) vs. Republicans (old regime)
  • Aided by foreign influence on both sides.
  • Ultimately becomes a civil war supported by Fascists and Communists

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Spanish Civil War (cont.)

  • Spanish Republican party aided by the Soviet Union with trucks, volunteers, tanks, and military advisers.
  • Nationalists were aided by Italy and Germany. They provided arms, money, and soldiers (advisors)
  • Germany used the war to test new weaponry they had developed in process of rearming (Stuka bombers)
  • Civil War came to an end with Franco capturing the city of Madrid in 1939 and set up a dictatorship.
  • Franco’s gov’t not totalitarian, but authoritarian because it still allowed traditional groups in people’s lives (ex. Roman Catholic Church)

Guernica, 1937 - Picasso

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Spanish Civil War - Map