Download The Rise of Dictators

The Rise of Dictators
What factors make it likely for dictators to
arise?
Mussolini
Italy
Fascism
• Powerful, authoritarian government.
• The country must arm itself
• All media and Information must be government
controlled. Unions should be outlawed and businesses
serve the government’s goals.
• Some racial and religious groups are inferior and should
have no power in business and government.
• Mussolini style– aggressive nationalism
– anti-communist
– expand territory and military
• Nickname: Il Duce
• Goal: Restore Italy’s prestige and power,
form totalitarian state.
• "He made the trains run on time"
• Ended unemployment
• Allied with Hitler (Germany) and Franco
(Spain)
• Overthrown by a revolt within his own
government
• His military: the blackshirts
“He introduced strict censorship and altered
the methods of election so that in 1925–
1926 he was able to assume dictatorial
powers and dissolve all other political
parties. Skillfully using his secret but
absolute control over the press, he
gradually built up the legend of Il Duce, the
title he bestowed upon himself: a man who
never slept, was always right, and could
solve all the problems of politics and
economics. “
“The law codes were rewritten. All teachers in
schools and universities had to swear an oath to
defend the Fascist regime. Newspaper editors
were all personally chosen by Mussolini himself,
and no one who did not possess a certificate of
approval from the Fascist party could practice
journalism. These certificates were issued in
secret, so the public had no idea of this ever
occurring, thus skillfully creating the illusion of a
"free press".
Another change is that all schools, newspapers
etc. etc. had to not write the 13th of June 1933
but instead had to write the 13th of June of the
11th year of Mussolini's power.”
• In foreign policy, Mussolini favored
aggressive nationalism.
The invasion of Ethiopia was accomplished rapidly
and involved several atrocities such as the use of
chemical weapons (mustard gas) and the
indiscriminate slaughter of much of the local
population.
Death
• On April 27, 1945, Mussolini and his mistress Claretta
Petacci were caught by members of the Italian
communist party
• The next day the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress
were hung upside down in Milan, along with those of
other fascists, to show the population that the dictator
had been destroyed.
• The corpses became subject to ridicule and abuse by
many who felt oppressed by the former dictator's
policies.
Adolf Hitler
Germany
Hitler
• Nazi
– Centered around anger at Treaty of Versailles.
– Ethnic nationalism- Wanted to establish a German
Empire
– Racism
– Anti-Semitism: Thought Jews Infected Aryan race
– Eugenics- belief in the need to purify the German
race. Resulted in the killing of disabled people and
the sterilization of people with mental deficiencies or
illnesses perceived as hereditary.
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Tried to seize power in 1923- resulted in
5 years jail time.
Mein Kampf- “My Struggle”
Appointed chancellor- launching pad to
become president
• Holocaust: Killed approx. 11 million
people.
• Huge expansion of industry.
• Achieved near full employment
Adolf Hitler
On November 8, 1923, Hitler held a rally at a
Munich beer hall and proclaimed a revolution.
The following day, he led 2,000 armed "brownshirts" in an attempt to take over the
government. This attempt was resisted and put
down by the police, after more than a dozen
were killed in the fighting. Hitler suffered a
broken and dislocated arm, was arrested, and
was imprisoned. He received a five-year
sentence.
• Hitler served only nine months of his five-year
term. While in prison, he wrote the first volume
of Mein Kampf. It was partly an
autobiographical book (although filled with
inaccuracies, and half-truths) which also detailed
his views on the future of the German people.
He portrayed the Jews as responsible for all of
the problems and evils of the world, particularly
democracy, Communism, and Germany's defeat
in the War. Jews were the German nation's true
enemy, he wrote.
Germany could stop the Jews from
conquering the world only by eliminating
them. By doing so, Germany could also
find “Lebensraum”, living space, without
which the superior German culture would
decay.
Once released from prison, Hitler decided to seize
power constitutionally rather than by force of
arms. He spoke to scores of mass audiences,
calling for the German people to create a new
empire which would rule the world for 1,000
years. In 1932, Hitler ran for President and won
30% of the vote.
A political deal was made to make Hitler chancellor
in exchange for his political support. He was
appointed to that office in January 1933.
Several attempts were made on Hitler's life
during the war, but none was successful.
As the war appeared to be inevitably lost,
he killed himself on April 30, 1945. By that
time, one of his chief objectives was
achieved with the annihilation of two-thirds
of European Jews.
• Fuhrer - A leader, especially one
exercising the absolute power of a tyrant.
Hitler's title as leader of the Nazi party,
and Chief of the German state.
• Nazism - The abbreviation for National
Socialist German Worker's Party.
• Third Reich - The Third Empire. It refers
to Hitler's name for his German Empire as
a successor to the 1st Empire of the
Roman Emperors (First Reich) and the
Empire of Bismarck in 19th century
Germany (Second Reich).
Fransisco Franco
Spain
• Generalissimo of the Fascist army
• Rose to power during a civil war in Spain.
• His army was supported by troops from
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy
Spain under Franco
• Spain was bitterly divided and
economically ruined as a result of the civil
war.
• After the war a very harsh repression
began, with hundreds of thousands of
executions, an unknown number of
political prisoners and thousands of people
in exile.
In September 1939, World War II broke out in Europe, and
although Adolf Hitler met Franco in France to discuss
Spanish entry on the side of the Axis, Franco's demands
(food, military equipment, French North Africa, etc.)
proved too much and no agreement was reached.
Some historians argue that Franco made demands that he
knew Hitler would not accede to in order to stay out of
the war.
After the fall of France in June 1940, Spain offered support
to the Axis powers until 1943 when the tide of the war
turned against Germany.
Joseph Stalin
Russia
Communist
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Goal: government controlled economy
Need for industrialization.
Collectivization of agriculture
Citizen wages fell
Prison labor (free) was used.
Achieved significant economic growth
Increased social services (healthcare,
education, transportation…)
• Killed between 3 and 60 million
• In the 1930s Stalin initiated the Great
Purge, a period of police terror that
reached its peak in 1937.
• Those targeted by the purge were
banished to the Gulag labor camps to
execution.
Russian Labor Camps
• These camps were notorious for their
extremely rough conditions; new prisoner
death rate was as high as 80% at some
camps. During and after the Great Purges,
the Gulag camps housed millions of
prisoners. Stalin used them both as a
source of cheap labor, and as indirect
extermination camps.
• The flimsiest pretexts were often enough
to brand someone an "Enemy of the
People," starting the cycle of public
persecution and abuse, often proceeding
to interrogation, torture and deportation, if
not death.
Deportations
• Over 1.5 million people were deported.
Resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with
the invading Germans were cited as the official
reasons for the deportations.
• The following ethnic groups were deported
completely or partially: Ukrainians, Poles,
Koreans, Volga Germans, Chechens, Balkars,,
Finns, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Latvians,
Lithuanians, Estonians, Jews.
Militarists
Japan
• Militarists thought the only way for Japan
to get resources was to seize territory.
• Militarists invaded Manchuria
• Controlled people through the Emperor.