NANO-ck

Mise-à-jour le 25 March 2024, 3 minutes de lecture

The rise and consolidation of Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany

How myth popularity…

*Stlin and Hilter rose because of the circumstance of supposed political “necessity” : they were ‘Men of the times’, ‘Saviours’

Context for Stalin:

A. Lenin’s decline/death and dictatorship of party he left B. Practical = industrialize/modernize fast, era = Fascism C. Ideological = “What next?” in the Socialist Revolution D. Longer term = centuries of autocratic Tsarism

Context for Hitler: A. Collapse of Weimar Democracy/opportunity B. Practical = recovery from Depression C. Ideological = Third Reich for a “master race”

**The “Who” of the Leader in Rise

Stalin :

• Was engaged with Bolsheviks from the beggining
• Was engaged in fund raising
  • Robbing banks for the party
  • Held positions as commissar in the russian government and in the party
  • Did some rallying by writing papers on nationalities, etc.
  • Had a reputation of being ambitious/ruthless, would outmanoeuver and get rid of political opponents

Hilter :

• WWI war hero and founder of NSDAP, title of “Fuehrer”
• Wrote Mein Kampf

Precipitating Atmosphere

• Economic Urgency
• anxiety (people asking questions, worrying)
• Ideological fervour among those who would support the nazi party

Russia :

• Post tenin, get rid of the bourgeoisie, build a socialist government
• utopia of a “worker state”

Germany :

• Anxiety, specially among the middle classes who would fear vulnerable, they lost everything in the 20s

Politics in Rise Dynamics

Soviet Russia :

• There is no popular voting, the government is not representative

Germany :

• Democracy
  • Paragraphs and clauses that speak to different emergency scenarios
  • There was voting involved in Hitler’s rise

Winning hearts and minds

Hitler :

• For him, every Nazi was a German but not every German was a Nazi
• Not very middle class german would want to hand swatikas in their house and talk about a master race but Hitler won the hearts of the army, conservatives, rural germany, industrialist, people in power => The masses followed

Cultivating Loyalty and Adoration

• Creating and inculcating new Soviet/Nazi culture was key
• Similar objective was to “massify” and “atomize”

Stalin :

• Komsomol youths and “League of Godless” extolled him and Communism
• Writers/poets “engineered” Communism into psyche and celebrated revolutionary accomplishments/erased bourgeois culture

Closing reflections

Historical comparison and study of Stalin/Hitler reveals :

• Common effort to end social divisions and build new unified and utopic State and Society
• “means” of Totalitarianism and Terror were justified on basis of CONTEXT/URGENCY/IDEOLOGY
• Stalin/Hitler crushed all means of opposition and cultivated all means of loyalty…only War would bring their systems down