Totalitarian Encounters Analysis

When studying totalitarian rulers in both history and in books, the strategies they use in order to keep their citizens complacent and in check become apparent. To understand these tactics, it’s crucial to know how a totalitarian government functions. As the name suggests, a leader has total power over the government and manages its people by means of persuasion and influence. These leaders have strong senses of nationalism, wanting to make their countries the best and most powerful. Yet, they do all they can to oppress their constituents so they don’t rebel. Totalitarian rulers minimize the potential of an uprising through child indoctrination, scapegoating, and inflicting terror by use of unjustified punishments. The best way of creating

This tactic was commonly used by Hitler, who believed Jewish people were evil. He often had propaganda that subverted other groups to ultimately make Germans seem like the most elite. The poster titled “Behind the Enemy forces: the Jew,” has an image of a devious Jewish man being shaded by the American, United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ (USSR) flags (Propaganda Images). Jews here are being portrayed as evil conspirators, which illustrates the persuasion that is involved in scapegoating. Hitler was able to successfully blame Germany’s issues and weaknesses on other nations. This turned his people’s anger away from Germany and towards Jews, as opposed to towards the government, avoiding an uprising. Similarly, scapegoating in the form of propaganda is also observed in 1984, during an event the Party holds which is dedicated to the outrage against other hated nations and groups. In contrast to Germany, the enemy nation in the book at the time was Eurasia, while the group being targeted is the Brotherhood. The event has videos that depict horrors the Party has fought against, as well as their triumphs. It elicits exclamations of outrage towards enemies and intense praise for Big Brother. The videos played during the event resulted in chanting from the people that was described as “a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more

For instance, Joseph Stalin was known for sending people to labor camps as punishment for “crimes” committed in opposition to his rule. He rose to power after the death of Vladimir Lenin and became the totalitarian dictator of the USSR in 1924. These camps were called GULAGS (Chief Administration for Corrective Labor Camps, in English) and were in Siberia, which is an extremely cold region in Russia. People who were considered enemies of the Russian government were sent to the Gulags. At the expense of the well being of his people, Stalin was focused on increasing production rates for goods in Russia to keep up with the industrialization of other countries. A man was awarded for his great farmwork. When he was receiving the award, he said “‘Now if I could just get a sack of flour instead of this decoration.’ After the crowd erupted in laughter, the man and his six family members were sent to the gulag.” The man said one comment, jokingly, and yet still received horrible punishments. Not only that, but seemingly the only witnesses, his family, were also sent (Beck, et. al). This disproportionality in punishment in Stalin’s Russia benefits him and his government by oppressing his people, which made it harder for anyone who wanted to rebel. Similarly, the ruthless pigs in the book Animal Farm (also by George Orwell) were stand-ins for a government, their demonic dogs being the