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.

• 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 "brown-shirts" 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

• 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.

• 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.

Deportations

Militarists

Japan

• Militarists thought the only way for Japan to get resources was to seize territory.

• Militarists invaded Manchuria

• Controlled people through the Emperor.