Rise of Totalitarian Dictators

1. Rise of Totalitarian Dictators

2. Benito Mussolini • Italy after WWI • Disappointed w/ Versailles settlement • Severe Economic crisis • War drove up expenses • Cost of living shot up 500% • Unemployment was rising • Widespread social unrest • Upper and middle classes feared unrest might lead to Communism

3. Mussolini Seizes Power • Mussolini organized war veterans • Known as Black Shirts • Roamed the streets beating up Communists • Fascists won support from the middle class, aristocracy and the industrialists • By 1922, Mussolini was named Prime Minister • Effectively taking power from King Victor Emmanuel III • By 1924, he is known as Il Duce

4. Italy under Il Duce • Democracy was removed • All political parties were abolished • Press was censored • Secret police clamped down on all opposition • Mussolini believed business owners and workers must be forced to cooperate • Set up 22 state corp. to run all parts of Italy’s economy • Strikes were against the law • Both Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany would borrow ideas from Mussolini

5. Stalin’s Rise to Power • Born in Georgia • Southern border of the Russian empire • Changed his name to Stalin, means “man of steel” • Cold, hard, and impersonal • Beaten by his father • Low self-esteem because of his looks

6. Became leader of Russia in 1928 • He believed that foreign enemies would attack the Soviet Union (since 1922) • Felt Russia needed to modernize or be taken over

7. Industrial Revolution • Five-Year Plan for development of USSR • Desired growth in all parts of the country • Set specific goals for each industry • Goals were high • Economists thought them to be impossible • Government took control of production • Decided who worked, where they worked, how long • Secret police imprisoned or executed those who didn’t contribute • 1st and 2nd Five-Year Plans produced great results • USSR was becoming an industrial power

8. Five-Year Plan Propaganda

9. Agricultural Revolution • 1928, privately owned farms were abolished • There were 25 million small farms in 1928 • Replaced with collective farms • Worked by hundreds of families • Equipped w/ modern machinery • Eventually produce more food w/ fewer people

10. Agricultural Revolution • Peasants resisted change • 5-10 million peasants died • Millions were shipped to Siberia • Farmers horded and destroyed their crops and livestock • 1931 and 1932, one of the greatest famines in the countries history • 1938, 90% of all peasants lived on collective farms • Produced about as much wheat as it had in 1928 • Before collectivization

11. Stalin turns against his own Party • 1936-1938, tried and executed millions of people • Old Bolsheviks from Lenin’s Era • Others were tried as well • People who had friends in foreign counties • Factory and farm managers • Second in command and most loyal advisor

12. Germany and Adolf Hitler • No country suffered more after WWI than Germany • Factories stopped production • Banks closed • 1932, 40% unemployment • Upper & middle classes turned to Fascism known as Nazism

13. Nazism • Blamed the Treaty of Versailles for Germany’s troubles • Condemned democracy as a foreign system • Forced on them by Allied Powers • Declared economic problems stem from • Losing it’s European territories and colonies • The burden of reparations to France and GB • Believed that Germany must regain its military power

14. Hitler’s Rise to Power • Born in a small town in Austria in 1889 • Dropped out of High School • Moved to Vienna tostudy art & architecture • Lived an aimless life • Lived in hotels and did odd jobs

15. Hitler’s Rise to Power • WWI broke out • Volunteered for the German army • Fought well and twice won the Iron Cross • WWI ended and Hitler went to Munich • Joined National Socialist German Workers’ Party • called Nazis for short • Adopted the swastika in 1920 • Set up private army called the Storm Troopers or SA

16. Hitler becomes Fuhrer of the Nazi’s • Public speaking • less polished than Mussolini • filled with hatred • He would began his speech in a normal voice, get louder and louder as anger swelled up. Finally, he would seem to lose all self-control. His face would puff with rage, his voice would rise to a screech, and his hands would flail around in the air. Then he would suddenly stop, smooth his hair, and calm again.

17. Hitler takes control of Germany • Nazis became the largest party in Germany during the Depression of the 1930’s • 1933 Germany’s president named Hitler chancellor • Hitler’s first act as chancellor was to call for new Reichstag (parliament) elections • someone set fire to the Reichstag building just days before the elections • the Nazis blamed the Communists

18. Nazis won a majority of the seats • Due to “Communist sabotage” • Nazi storm troopers at voting centers

19. The Revolution begins • Nazis excluded Communists from Reichstag • Passed the Enabling Act • gave Hitler the right to make laws for the next 4 years without the approval of the Reichstag • gave Hitler his dictatorship • Banned competing political parties • Ruled through his secret police, the Gestapo • By mid 1930’s, concentration camps had been set up to jail anyone who had opposing political ideas • Later “Final Solution”