Totalitarianism: Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini And Adolf Hitler

Totalitarianism - Joseph Stalin Totalitarianism is a form of government where all power is centralized to one dictator and all citizens are completely loyal to the state. A dictator becomes totalitarian when they gain control over the eight key concepts that include, single party dictatorship, state control of economy, terrorism, secret police, propaganda, censorship, education of the youth, and absolute loyalty. During the time between world wars there were three main totalitarian dictators, they were; Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler. They were all successful totalitarian dictators who had immense control and influence over their countries. However the most successful totalitarian dictator was Joseph Stalin from the Union

Stalin used his terrorism to punish those who could not keep up with the goals that he wanted and who were not loyal to him. His methods of terrorism included public executions of workers who did not meet expectations, this caused other workers to work harder, he would send political opponents to the Gulag where they would cut down trees and break rocks as punishment and this would get everyone to side with him. The Great Purge was Stalin’s biggest use of terror during his reign as dictator, the Great purge was a purge of all opponents, enemies, and rivals of Stalin, these people would be immediately executed or sent to the Gulag where they were worked to death and these punishments would have been carried out by the CHEKA, Stalin’s secret police. Stalin’s large use of terrorism was used to catch the USSR to up to the other powerful countries of the time and to make sure that no one would take him over. The terror also caused the citizens of the USSR to be incredibly loyal to him, more loyal and obedient to him than any other totalitarian dictator’s citizens. Stalin’s terrorism was just the beginning of the concepts that he has accomplished to earn the title most effective totalitarian

Stalin censored everything that could be thought of from school books, to radios, to newspapers, however his best piece of censorship was his photoshop methods. What he did was use the already loved icon in Soviet history, V.I. Lenin, as a piece of evidence for the people to see that Stalin and him were a lot alike and were very close. Stalin portrayed this by editing himself into pictures standing next to Lenin displaying them as close friends, this convinced the citizens that the two were like minded and had the same ideas. Many other totalitarian leaders did not have a former icon to play off of like Stalin did and he had great success with this method. The Soviet people were convinced by Stalin’s censorship and terrified by his terrorism in such a way that they were so incredibly loyal to him that they created a cult of personality around him. The Soviet Citizens would praise him with songs wherever he went and they even created a group called the Apparatchiks who were a group of followers who got the best of the best because they were the most loyal to Stalin and the most dedicated to the Soviet