Western_Civ

Western Civilazation Totalitarian rule, more commonly referred to as totalitarianism, refers to the leadership scenario where the state holds complete control over its populace and seeks to control all aspects of public as well as private life in a bid to ensure that it remains in control. There have been various leaders who have utilized totalitarian rule to keep themselves in power and their people under control. Benito Mussolini was one such leader. He effectively installed fascism in the Italian administration in 1920. While in power, he exercised totalitarian control over his people through his Fascist Party of Italy. He stifled any form of resistance or dissidence against him, exemplified when his supporters stormed the Milan newspaper Avanti’s offices and destroyed their presses for speaking out against his administration. Adolf Hitler also exhibited total control of his own people. When he was made the German Chancellor in 1933, he had the German parliament burned and blamed the communists for it, effectively removing them from his way. He then forced the most important people to join the Nazi party, bringing them under total control of the state. Showing any type of dissent against the Nazi Party or its ideals was enough to land people in jail for a long time. Joseph Stalin also used totalitarianism as a tool for controlling the masses. He used his post as Secretary General of the Communist party in the Soviet Union to promote people whom he believed were allied to him and demote those who spoke out against him. He was also notorious for using murder and torture to ensure that he got his was, as well as arbitrary arrests and imprisonments to keep his opponents away from the people. In Mussolini’s Italy, propaganda first served as a way to uphold the people then turned into a tool for controlling them. He used propaganda to push his policies and agendas to the people, such as to convince them that his projects to transform the marshes into agricultural land would help the nation. He was a very eloquent speaker who could charm the masses with his charisma. While most of his projects failed or experienced only marginal success, his propaganda led the people to believe that they were massively successful. Later on, he started using mass psychology, leading to children being taught of his ideals in school from a very young age such that they grew up to only believe in him. Hitler also used this form of mass psychology, forcing children to be indoctrinated in the Nazi ideals at school. His propaganda machine, coupled with his charismatic ability to charm the masses into believing him as well as his power of speech, led the German people to actually believe that the troubles of the country were caused solely by the Jewish people. Stalin did not use charm and charisma to garner the support of the people, instead relying on fear. He used propaganda to deceive the people of the Soviet Union that his policy for collective farming was indeed benefiting the farmers, while in truth they were starving because all their food had been forcibly taken from them without compensation to feed the Red Army. In World War 2, the Allies had significant advantages, such as the industrial capacity of the Americans, the large labor forces of the Soviets and the Chinese as well as the code-breaking skills of the British. They were able to defeat Hitler primarily due to his poor battlefield decisions as well as his inability to disregard the military advice of his officers. He ordered his forces to advance to Stalingrad, where his army faced stiff opposition from the Soviets as they had already heard of Hitler’s advance. The Soviets were able to drive the Germans back because the latter were exhausted from their previous action, a factor Hitler refused to listen to when advised by his officers. The Allied forces then embarked on the D-Day landing that saw enter and take Normandy. From here they drove on to the heart of Germany, with the Soviets also doing the same from their end. Hitler committed suicide and the Nazis surrendered. After this surrender, the Allies severed Germany into four military occupation zones, with the French, British, Americans and Soviets each taking one of the portions.