Case Study: The Museum of Totalitarianism
Totalitarian states are one-party dictatorships that regulate every aspect of citizens’ lives; everything is subordinated totally to the state. The term is similar to (but not the same as) dictatorship, authoritarianism, autocracy, and absolutism. The basic distinction between totalitarianism and these other terms is degree of control. Totalitarian leaders exercised more total control than did leaders of absolutist states. For that reason, totalitarianism is reserved for only those states that truly meet the definition. Scholars even debate if Mussolini’s regime should be deemed “totalitarian,” for he was forced to compromise with conservative elites, such as the Catholic Church.
The first totalitarian states emerged in the 20th century, so the term does not apply to regimes prior to that era. And totalitarian leaders utilized 20th c. technology, namely film and radio, to spread propaganda whose purpose it was to win not just obedience from the country’s citizens, but their devotion as well. Totalitarian leaders sought to win hearts and minds, and to create a cult of the leader. This was something altogether new. |
List of Totalitarianism Characteristics:
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Guiding Question:
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Topics for Discussion:
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Reading:
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For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 28 Nazi Germany and the USSR & The Democracies Weak Response (Pgs. 883 - 896) and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
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Sources:
Source 1: The following text is excerpted from a list of more than 1,000 names.
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Secret List of persons, all of whose works are designated for removal by the orders of the Plenipotentiary Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR and the Plenipotentiary Council of Ministers of the USSR for preservation of military and state secrets in the press for the period 1938-1948.
“A” ABRAMOV, Arkadii Mikhailovich - 681 (party subjects) AVERBAKH, Leopol'd Leonidovich - 266 (literary criticism) AVILOV, Nikolai Pavlovich (Glebov-Avilov, N.) (trade union movement) AVINOVITSKII, Iakov Lazarevich - 266 (military-chemical) AGIENKO, Aleksandr Fedorovich - 683 (anti-religious) ... AZARKH, Raisa Moiseevna - 73 (fiction) AITAKOV, Nadyrbai - 957 (party subjects) AIKHENVAL'D, Aleksandr Iul'evich - 241 (economics) ALAZAN, Vagram Martynovich - 266 (artistic subjects) ALEKSANDROVICH, Andrei Ivanovich - 372 (poetry) ALKSNIS, Iakov Ivanovich (Alksnis-Astrov) - 171 (military) […] |
Source 2: Paintings in the style of Socialist Realism
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Source 3: Excerpt of a letter written by Gulag prisoners and addressed to the Communist Party, regarding conditions in the labor camps.
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We are prisoners who are returning from the Solovetsky concentration camp because of poor health. We went there full of energy and good health, and now we are returning as invalids, broken and crippled emotionally and physically. We are asking you to draw your attention to the arbitrary use of power and the violence that reign at the Solovetsky concentration camp in Kemi and in all sections of the concentration camp. It is difficult for a human being even to imagine such terror, tyranny, violence, and lawlessness. When we went there, we could not conceive of such a horror, and now we, crippled ourselves, together with several thousands who are still there, appeal to the ruling center of the Soviet state to curb the terror that reigns there. As though it weren’t enough that the Unified State Political Directorate [OGPU] without oversight and due process sends workers and peasants there who are by and large innocent (we are not talking about criminals who deserve to be punished), the former tsarist penal servitude system in comparison to Solovky had 99% more humanity, fairness, and legality.…
People die like flies, i.e., they die a slow and painful death; we repeat that all this torment and suffering is placed only on the shoulders of the proletariat without money, i.e. on workers who, we repeat, were unfortunate to find themselves in the period of hunger and destruction accompanying the events of the October Revolution, and who committed crimes only to save themselves and their families from death by starvation; they have already borne the punishment for these crimes, and the vast majority of them subsequently chose the path of honest labor.… If you complain or write anything (“Heaven forbid”), they will frame you for an attempted escape or for something else, and they will shoot you like a dog. They line us up naked and barefoot at 22 degrees below zero and keep us outside for up to an hour.… To this we subscribe: G. Zheleznov, Vinogradov, F. Belinskii. Dec. 14, 1926 |
Source 4: Russian Propaganda Posters
Help Build the Giant Factories (1929) Cultivate Vegetables (1930) International Working Women’s Day is the day of judging of socialist competition,” 1930 |
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Source 5: An excerpt from Benito Mussolini’s “What is Fascism” (1932), which served as an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism.
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Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death....
...The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others -- those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after... ...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism .... above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society.... After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it …. it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind .... ...given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State.... The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State.... ...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone... . ...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; and renunciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of the nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage to undertake great experiments of social and political transformation; for never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction and order. If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time. For if a doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism has created a living faith; and that this faith is very powerful in the minds of men is demonstrated by those who have suffered and died for it. |
Source 7: German Political Cartoons
1. “The Decent Jew,” printed in Der Stürmer, July 1936 2. “The Wandering Jew,” part of a propaganda exhibit in 1937 |
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Source 8: Mein Kompf or My Struggle was the political manifesto written by the future dictator of Germany, Adolf Hitler while he was in prison in 1925.
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“Germany will either be a world power or it will not be at all.”
... “The external security of a people is largely determined by the size of its territory.” ... “What we have to fight for is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the creator.” ... “The political parties which currently exist cannot be expected to bring about the radical change that Germany needs. A political party will compromise with a political opponent. The Fascist worldview never does this. The Fascist worldview knows it is never wrong. ... The Fascist worldview is intolerant, and this intolerance is virtuous. It will never share its place with the current order. It will wage a destructive battle to abolish the current order. It is not necessary for every individual fighter in this battle to understand the ideas and plans of the Fascist worldview. The Fascist worldview can exist only if leaders of great intellectual ability are served by a large mass of men who are passionately devoted to the cause. We must inspire discipline and blind faith, for the side with the best disciplined and most blindly obedient troops always triumphs. In order to carry the ideas of the Fascist worldview to victory, a populist party had to be founded. The National Socialist German Labor Party (Nazi Party) is that party. The National Socialist German Labor Party will prepare the way for the destruction of the current order throughout the world. The forces currently in control of the world are Jews here and Jews there and Jews everywhere. The hardship we are now experiencing is because of them. If this continues, the Jews will one day devour the German nation and the world. We must wipe out the Jewish Empire which is now in control.” |
Source 9: Political Cartoons
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Source 10: Description of Hitler’s Campaign by Airplane, Otto Dietrich, 1932.
From an elementary school book, published shortly after the Nazis gained power. |
On April 8, 1932, a severe storm, beyond all imaging, raged over Germany. Hail rattled down from dark clouds. Flash floods devastated fields and gardens. Muddy foam washed over streets and railroad trucks, and the hurricane uprooted even the oldest and biggest trees.
We are driving to the Mannheim Airport. Today no one would dare expose an airplane to the fury of the elements. The German Lufthansa has suspended all air traffic. In the teeming rain stands the solid mass of the most undaunted of our followers. They want to be present, they want to see for themselves when the Fuhrer entrusts himself to an airplane in this raging storm. Without a moment’s hesitation the Fuhrer orders that we take off at once. We have an itinerary to keep, for in western Germany hundreds of thousands are waiting. … what a feeling of security is in us in the face of this fury of the elements! The Fuhrer’s absolute serenity transmits itself to all of us. In every hour of danger he is ruled by his granite-like faith in his world-historical mission, the unshakable certainty that Providence will keep him from danger for the accomplishment of his great task. |
Source 11: How did Hitler Rise to Power
TED ed - Alex Gendler and Anthony Hazard |
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Comparison:
Communism & Fascism |
The discontent fed by World War I and the Great Depression created a fertile atmosphere for the rise of philosophies that competed with the liberalism that had been widely favored by western Europeans during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Two such movements that gained followers during the 1930's were fascism and communism. Although they both challenged liberalism, they are very different philosophies, and they both still exist today.
Communism, in contrast to liberalism, generally values equality over freedom. Whereas liberal democracies value the ideal of equal opportunity, they usually tolerate a great deal of inequality, especially within the economy. Communism rejects the idea that personal freedom will ensure prosperity for the majority. Instead, it holds that an inevitable result of the competition for scarce resources is that a small group will eventually come to control both the government and the economy. For communists, liberal democracies are created by the rich to protect the rights and property of the rich. To eliminate the inequalities and exploration, communists advocate the takeover of all resources by the state that in turn will insure that true economic equality exists for the community as a whole. As a result, private property is abolished. Individual liberties must give way to the needs of society as a whole, creating what communists believe to b e a true democracy. Fascism is often confused with communism because they both devalue the idea of individual freedom. However, the similarity between the two ideologies ends there. Fascism also rejects the value of equality, and accepts the idea that people and groups exist in degrees of inferiority and superiority. Fascists believe that the state has the right and the responsibility to mold the society and economy and to eliminate obstacles (including people) that might weaken them. The powerful authoritarian state is the engine that makes superiority possible. The classic example is of course Nazi Germany. No strictly fascist regimes currently exist, but fascism still is an influential ideology in many parts of the world. |