Essay, Research Paper: Comparing Hitler And Stalin In

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. propaganda is the
spreading of ideas to further or damage a cause; also the ideas or allegations
spread for a purpose" (Childers Thomas 76). 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" (Abel Theodore 147). 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" (Payne
Robert 65). 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 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. 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. 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" (Carlyle Thomas 126). 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.
List of Works Cited
Abel, Theodore, Why Hitler Came into Power, Cambridge, Mass. (1938) 1996.
Bullock, Alan, Hitler. A Study in Tyranny, rev. edn, Harmonsdworth, 1982.
Carlyle, Thomas, Hitler and Stalin. Parrallel Lives, London, 1994.
Childers, Thomas, The Nazi Voter. The social foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919-1933, Chaple Hill, London, 1983.
Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps. New York, Viking, 1978.
Khrushchev, Nikita S. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. New York, The New Leader, 1962.
Payne, Robert. The Life and Death of Stalin. New York, Harper & Row, 1995.