HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ 1/HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/wwar2013.txt

Text File | 1996-04-27 | 10.5 KB | 155 lines

 History Essay.World War 2.
Comparing Hitler and Stalin in their rise to power.

     During the period leading up to World War II, there were two men who
were on opposing sides, the men were Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. These
men were each triumphant in their rise to power in their countries and they
were very comparable in the ways that they succeeded. Their success was
mostly attributed to their new ideas and their politics.

     Although Hitler and Stalin hated each other, the two leaders were
similar in many ways. Hitler and Stalin each rose to the highest position
attainable in their respective countries, and there were three main reasons
that they were able to do this.  Both men were skilled users of propaganda,
each was amoral, and they both had the ambition to make their countries
powerful in the world.  Since each was a skilled user of propaganda, they
could use their words to twist and manipulate the minds of people into
believing that what they were saying was the absolute truth.  Using this
power, they would get people to do anything for them, which proves their
amorality.  Since their countries were still trying to recover from World
War I, they desired to restore the power back in to their countries.  These
three reasons will prove that Hitler and Stalin were similar in many ways.

     The names Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin are synonymous with the word
propaganda.  In order to understand how Hitler and Stalin used propaganda,
an understanding of what the word means, is required. According to
Merriam-Webster, "propaganda is the spreading of ideas to further or damage
a cause; also the ideas or allegations spread for a purpose".   Hitler and
Stalin each used propaganda as their tool to further their ideas and help
them gain the backing of the people in their countries.  The form of
propaganda that Hitler used, and was successful in using, was his words.
Hitler made many speeches, but the one speech that was a famous one, was his
final speech at his trial for treason.  In this speech he gave his views and
opinions on the events preceding the trial.  This is an excerpt from his
speech: "...I aimed from the first to....become the destroyer of
Marxism....The army that we are building grows more from day to day, from
hour to hour.  Gentlemen, not you who will be the ones that deliver the
verdict over us, but that verdict will be given by the eternal judgement of
history, which will speak out against the accusation that has been made
against us....That court will judge us....as Germans (who) wanted only the
best for their people and their Fatherland, who fought and were willing to
die.  You might just as well find us guilty a thousand times, but the
goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear up the motions
of the states attorney and the judgement of this court: for she finds us not
guilty".   After Hitler gave this speech, the court was sympathetic towards
him, he was sentenced to only five years in prison for his crime. After nine
months of his sentence had been served, he received parole.  Being able to
gain Nazi party control and gain enough supporters, proves that he was an
efficient user of propaganda.  Hitler also had his own minister of
propaganda when he became leader of the country.  This proves that Hitler
was an user of propaganda, but Joseph Stalin was not as blatantly obvious
with his uses of propaganda. Stalin did however use propaganda in his speech
to the Fifteenth Congress in 1927. Stalin said in this speech: " Evidently,
the opposition prefers to be outside the party. Well, let it be outside the
party.  There is nothing terrible, or exceptional, or surprising in the fact
that they prefer to be outside the party, that they are cutting themselves
off from the party. If you study the history of our party, you will find
that always, at certain serious turns taken by our party, a certain section
of the old leaders fell out of the cart of the Bolshevik party and made room
for newer members. A turn is a serious thing, comrades.  A turn is dangerous
for those who do not sit firmly in the party cart. Not everybody can keep
his balance when a turn is made.  You turn the cart - and on looking back,
you find that someone has fallen out".    After Stalin said this, an
immediate applause was heard. Stalin was telling people what they wanted to
hear and he used this speech to further his cause.  This speech helped to
further his cause by gaining support from the people, and by justifying why
Trotsky was not the choice for leader.  Stalin was also demonstrating with
this speech that he was the "bandwagon" and that he was taking people in the
right direction.  Everyone who became a supporter of him, would be getting
into the right cart and would be heading in the right direction. At least,
what he believed to be the right direction.  Hitler and Stalin did not only
use spoken propaganda, they were masters of using propaganda, so they would
use many forms of it.  Another form of propaganda that they used was through
photographs.  These photographs promoted their "nice" personality.  In these
photos they would be depicted as being a hero, they would be helping the
poor families, or be holding a small child. It was these photos that these
men became appealing to the public.  These photos give you the idea that
they are caring, loving and just completely concerned for the well-being of
the people.  The use of propaganda was a big contributor to the success of
both men.

     Since Hitler and Stalin were able to manipulate people with their
propaganda, they could convince people of just about anything. This proves
them to be amoral.  Both would do whatever they thought was necessary to
further their cause, with no remorse about what they had done.  In 1922
Lenin, the leader of the communist party had a stroke.  Overtime his
condition got worse and he became less involved in the party's affairs.
When Lenin died in January 1924, it left two men in contention for the
party's leadership.  These two men were Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky.  The
men had opposing ideas on how the party should be run.  Stalin was a more
aggressive candidate, and therefore had one of his supporters kill Trotsky.
This happened after Trotsky was exiled, but while in exile he continued to
preach world revolution. Stalin sent one of his agents to kill Trotsky, who
was in exile in Mexico. Stalin felt that if he eliminated his only threat,
that it would mean less opposition to his ideas.  This assured Stalin full
control over the communist party.  Hitler was the other example of an amoral
person. He demonstrated this after he got into power with the holocaust, but
he did not foreshadow his amorality much before he got into power.  One
incidence of his amorality was when he killed all of his opposition. The
first major victim of the Nazis was the powerful German Trade Union
movement. It was a possible breeding ground for Socialism and Communism, and
therefore opposition to Hitler.  On May 2, 1933 many Trade Union leaders
were arrested and beaten up.  Their offices were looted and their funds and
property seized.  A Nazi-led "labour front" was established to control the
workers and ensure the peace in factories and workshops.  A week after the
destruction of the Trade Unions the Social Democratic Party suffered a
similar fate, soon to be followed by the Communists.  All of their property,
possessions and funds were seized and both parties were banned.  The Center
Party, which had supported Hitler in return for vague promises, collapsed in
July 1933, along with the few others still remaining.  After Hitler became
Chancellor Hitler passed a law that prohibited there being any other party
in Germany other than the Nazis.  By doing all of these things it was giving
us a glimpse of what he was going to be like when he got into power.  These
examples show that both Hitler and Stalin were amoral and would do what was
necessary to further themselves.

     With Hitler and Stalin being such amoral people and willing to do
anything, they would do what they could to benefit their countries.  Each of
their countries had suffered great losses in World War I and were still
trying to recover when they came into power.  Restoring the power back into
their countries was of great importance to both men.  After World War I,
Russia had 9,150,000 casualties and Germany had 7,142,558 casualties. These
losses were immense.  Stalin believed that if he forced industrialization
upon Russia, that it would help the country to rebuild.  Collective farms
was another one of Stalin's plans.  "Engel's general formula about the
destiny of the Socialist state in general cannot be extended to the partial
and specific case of the victory of socialism in one country only, a country
that is surrounded by a capitalist world, is subject to the menace of
foreign military attack, cannot therefore abstract itself from the
international situation, and must have at its disposal a well-trained army,
well-organized punitive organs, and a strong intelligence service.
Consequently, must have its own state, strong enough to defend the conquests
of Socialism from foreign attack".   This shows that Stalin's  aspiration
was to make his country strong, and that he had some ideas of how to go
about it.  Hitler's Germany also had a lot to recover from. "Hitler had
plans for Germanic unity and German living space. German unity meant the
gathering together of all Germans in Europe, one people into one empire,
ruled by one leader.  This involved people living in Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Memel and other isolated pockets.  Germany did not
have enough farmland to feed her population of enough raw materials to
supply her factories.  New lands to the east would then have to be taken
over.  Hitler intended to destroy the power of France forever.  He hoped to
take Great Britain into partnership after settling the question of the
former German colonies".    This demonstrates to us that Hitler aspired to
make Germany strong and feared. He wanted to reunite the German people.
Hitler and Stalin both succeeded in making their countries strong once
again, at least for a while.

     In conclusion, Hitler and Stalin were similar in many way in their rise
to power, however three reasons stand out the most. They were gifted in the
ability to use propaganda and brainwash people, which in turn proves that
they were both unethical, and they desired to make their countries better
and stronger. Both of these men succeeded in doing all of these things.