NANO-ck
Mise-à-jour le 25 March 2024,
8 minutes de lecture
Stalin vs Hitler
Similarities :
- Through persuation, propaganda, and persecution
- Try to achieve control and survival
- Economy
- Central control (despite the fact Germany has capitalist economy, soviet economy with central planning)
Vision profoundly different
- Germany is a developed industrialised society
- women education
- big middle class
- well developped western society
- Soviet Union
Stalin’s economic policy
Aim
- Stalin’s overall aim is industrialisation
- He thinks it’s the only way communist society can survive
- The soviet union is under-developped
One aim : Modernization of the USSR
Stalin’s Collectivization
What
If substituted State ownership of land for individual peasant-ownership
How
It consisted in setting up kolkhozy
(collective farms) and sovkhozy
(state farms)
Why
To serve the needs of industrialization
Aims
- Making soviet agriculture more modern & effective to increase production
- Supply food for sale abroad to finance industrialization
- Raise capital to invest in factories
- Decrease in the number of rural workers & increase number of factory workers
Impact
- Stalin claimed it was “voluntary”, in reality enforced on very reluctant peasants
- Class enemy : the “Kulaks” = rich peasants (Stalinist myth) deported & executed
- He creates a fictional ennemy to explain why they need to use force and violence against their own people
- Those who resist, they kill their own livestock, destroy their plots…because they didn’t want to give it to the state
- Millions resisted, ate seeds & slaughtered livestock = food production declined
- Consequences : land collectivized but Famine killed millions by 1932
- Propaganda to persuade and convince people to collectivize
Propaganda
Based on war image, used to force people to work hard
- Industrialisation necessart part of a war economy against
- Inefficiencies of Russia’s past
- Class enemies within
- Preparation for war vs capitalist nations
Need more heavy industry
- Steel, coal, oil, electricity
Stalin’s Industrialization
The Five Year Plans (FYP)
- Industrialisation absed on five separate plans = set of targets of production to be reached
- No real planning
- Emphasis : Heavy industry (iron, steel, oil)
Results
- Statistics : difficult to know, targets constantly reassessed upwards
- First Five Year Plan very successful : achieved extraordinary results
- 1928-1932 : Most successful one
– |
First Plan |
Optimal |
Amended |
Actual |
COAL |
35m tons |
75m |
95-105 |
64 |
Nazi Economy
- Nazy Party : no specific economic policy
BUT
- Mixture of three economic approaches :
- Autarky : Economic self-sufficiency
- JM KEYNES : Theory of Deficit Financing
- WEHRWIRTSCHAFT : Defence Economy
Early years
- Nazi economic policy under H. SCHACHT
- 1933-1936 : Keynes’ Economic approach adopted
- Government money provided for employment schemes :
- Motorway construction
- Afforestation
- Public buildings
- Result : Impressive achievement as unemployment down to 1.7 in 1935
- Hitler’s Autobahn
Göring’s Four-Year Plan 1936
Stalin doesn't want war, he is scared of war as it could destroy him. Hitler wants a war economy.
Comparing economic policies
Similarities
- Dictatorial power over the economy
- Government control over trade and currency
- Governement set priorities to …
USSR |
Nazi Germany |
Communist economy |
Market economy |
centrally planned |
mixed economy |
Aim : industrialization |
Aim : Preparing for war |
Nazi Social Policies : Anti-Semitism
Hitler's obsessive hatred of Jews = consistent theme of his political career
Translation of his ideas into policy meant :
- Economic Boycotts (April 1933)
- Racial Laws (Nuremberg Race Laws 1935)
- Government inspired violence & Pogroms
- Other points
Hitler : The Product, not the creator of German anti-semitism
Hitler’s anti-semitism
OTHER POINTS
Nazi Social Policy : Religion
- Nazism based on anti-Christian philosophy
- Hitler’s half-hearted repression : anti-religious measures implemented vs both Churches
- Thousands of priests and pastors arrested
Nazism glorified |
Christianity taught |
Strength |
Love |
Violence |
Forgiveness |
War |
Neighbourly respect |
Policies on religion compared
Similarities
Nazi Germany |
USSR |
Religion seen as a challenge |
Religion seen as a challenge |
Persecution of unruly priests & pastors |
Closure of places of worship & priests arrested |
Half-hearted approach between conciliation & persecution |
OTHER POINTS |
Nazi Education & Youth
Aim
- Education = a propaganda tool for long-term …
A. Traditional structure of education altered
Teachers : under control of Teacher’s league
B. Nazi Youth Movements set up
- DJ (German Young People) : boys 10-14
- HJ Hitler Youth : Boys 14-18
Stalin knows that the best way to endocrinate people is to start with the youth
Stalin’s Youth Policy : KOMSOMOL
- Useful instrument to spread Stalin’s Propaganda
What did they do ?
- Enthousiastic supporters of the Five-Year Plans
- Thousands helped to build new …
Youth Policies Compared
Similarities
Nazi Germany |
USSR |
Tool to ensure blind obedience to Hitler and long-term survival of Nazism |
Tool to ensure blind obedience to Salin and long-term survival of Communism |
Ideological comitment to Nazi “ideals” |
Ideological commitment to Communist ideals |
Differences
TO COPY FROM SLIDE
Nazi Germany : Women & the Family
Historical Background : Female education & emancipation
Nazi Ideology profoundly anti-feminist
- Women Naturally “different”
- The 3K : Children, Kitchen, Church
- Women = Mothers = Expansion of population
Pro-natalist policies
- 25% reduction on house taxes per child
Nazi Policy towards women meant that :
- Women no longer in Medicine, Law, Civil Service
- Numbers of female teachers & Uni students reduced
- Pressure on employers NOT to employ women
Result : Female employment (initially) fell
Lenin has encourage Marxist rejection of Marriage as a “bourgois institution” and promoted women’s emancipation
Result
Soviet divorce rate highest in Europe & millions of abandoned children on the streets of Russian cities
Stalin’s Social Policy : Women & the family
Stalin’s “Great Retreat” of 1936 :
Stalin’s Social Policy : Women & the family
- However, industrializati=
Social policies on Women compared
Similarities
Nazi Germany |
USSR |
TO COPY |
FROM SLIDE |
- A revolutionary social vision : transforming human kind : Master Race / Homo Sovieticus
- The Individual does not matter, only the collective does : Volk / Proletariat
- The individual is reduced to her social function : soldier/mother or
factory worker
and is entirely devoted to the nation/party
- Blind dediction to charismatic leader : Führer / Vodj
- Method : Persecution and Propaganda
Who belongs ?
Nazi Germany |
USSR |
National & Racial identity |
Socio-economic identity |
Aryans |
Factory workers |
Who doesn’t ? Who is the enemy ?
Nazi Germany |
USSR |
Racially inferior people |
— |