Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler Essay

Three madmen that ruled during the World War II era were Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler. All three used power to do terrible things. They tortured, falsely imprisoned, and even killed people that disagreed with their policies and citizens that they didn't like. They were also power hungry and tried to take over more lands. Many of these attempts led up to the war.

Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union in the early twentieth century. Stalin received a job as the government secretary in the Communist Party. He aggressively worked his way up to the head of the Communist Party. After receiving the high job, he forced his competitor Leon Trotsky and all of his followers to leave the Soviet Union. This made people fear him. People accepted him because they knew that they would be arrested and even killed if they didn't. He had people worship him as if he was a god. Schoolchildren were taught that he was a great leader. He had a full cult of personality, or strong religious following.

Stalin also had made plans to help the country's sluggish economy grow up to 250 percent. He set goals for production of steel, coal, oil, and hydroelectric power. Saving money meant poor wages for workers, bad living conditions, and food shortages. When this failed, a collectivization policy was started. This policy stated that all citizens in the farmland area of the country would have to give even more livestock and crops to the country. Farmers were forced to join together and make bigger farms. The farmers turned on each other and fights weren't uncommon.

Also, Stalin silenced all people that did not approve of the way he was leading the country. Anyone who was a potential threat to his rule was immediately arrested. Then they would be tortured until they would confess to crimes that they did not commit. They were sentenced to death for these crimes. The period between 1935 and 1939 is known as the Great Purge. He then changed the Soviet Union from a communist state into a Totalitarian state, or a system where the government controls and monitors the lives of it's citizens.

Joseph Stalin has gone done in history as being a tyrant and a terrible leader. The only way he could get the respect of his citizens was to make them fear him.

Benito Mussolini was another madman in this era. Once a socialist, he would join the fascist party. He later became head of the Italian government.

Mussolini was a schoolteacher a controversial journalist in northern Italy. In 1911, he was arrested for his opposition to Italy's war in Libya. He would spend two years in jail. When he was released, he became the editor of Avanti!, the Socialist Party newspaper in Milan. He had made a controversial statement in the newspaper about World War I and was removed from the socialist party. He then started his own newspaper in Milan titled called Il Popolo d'Italia, or The People of Italy. This newspaper later became a big part of the Fascist movement.

After World War I, Mussolini and other veterans started a movement that attracted frustrated lower class citizens. The movement was very anti-liberal and anti-socialist. It was called the fascist movement. Fascism won support after the black shirt militia attacked peasant leagues and socialist groups. Fascism later won support from the army and the king. The Fascists held a march in Rome for Mussolini to become Italy's leader. By 1926, he had transformed Italy into a single-party, totalitarian country. He started a new corporate system with different groups in the economy. He also joined with the Vatican for a lasting friendship with the Church. He was such a good speaker that people would always believe and easily follow what he was saying.

Mussolini then started an aggressive foreign policy. He started it by taking over Ethiopia. However, people disliked him for his aggressive war tactics. He joined World War II in June 1940. His army was not very good and they were being defeated in the war. He was released from his duties and arrested by King Victor Emanuel in 1943. However, the Germans rescued him from prison. After his release, he tried to escape and was shot by Italian partisans.

He also was a tyrant and silenced his critics. But unlike Stalin, he did do some productive things for his country. He was a smart leader who came up with policies such as his new corporate system, an alliance with the Catholic Church, his use of propaganda, and his great public speaking.

Another Tyrant was Adolf Hitler. He was a German political leader, military leader, and very successful dictator. He also led the Nazi Party.

He made Germany into a world power and played a key part in the launch to World War II.

Hitler was a rejected artist from Vienna who had his mind set on being a high-placed political figure. In World War I, He was a good speaker to his soldiers in the war even after being temporarily blinded by gas.

After the war, he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party, otherwise known as the Nazi Party. This party focused on violent racial nationalism and anti-Semitism. He quickly became the spokesman for the party. He gave powerful and convincing speeches that attracted many people to join the Nazi Party.

Only one month after his initiation, Hitler became the leader of the entire Nazi Party. In 1923, Hitler and 600 armed members of the Nazi forces marched on a Munich beer hall while officials were having a public meeting. 16 men were killed by the State police. He also was arrested. While he was in jail, he came up with plans on making a Nazi revolution. While in jail, he wrote a book called Mein Kampf, or "My Struggle".

In 1932, Nazism became the main practice in Germany and Hitler became the chancellor. He made Nazis' high government officials. He also banned all political parties except Nazism. Thousands of anti-Nazis were sent to concentration camps. Soon later, most of German's citizens supported Hitler.

Hitler also hated Jews. He passed many laws that took rights away from them. In 1938, many Jews were killed and businesses were destroyed during the Kristallnacht, or " the Night of Broken Glass".

Hitler started wars with Czechoslovakia, Austria, Britain, France, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Germany prepared for war with the United States in 1935. Finally, in 1939, France and Britain declared the beginning of World War II by battling with Germany. The United States joined the war after Hitler convinced Japan to drop a bomb on Pearl Harbor.

Hitler killed Jews because he thought that they weren't as good as people of Aryan descent. So during the war, the Holocaust took place. In the end, 200,000 Jews, mentally handicapped, and other people that Hitler saw as "inferior" were murdered. He also had a goal to kill every Jew in the entire world.

At the end of the war in 1944, Germany was badly beaten. He resigned from the head of the Nazi Party and married Eva Braun. He committed suicide in Berlin on April 30, 1945.

He was a terrible ruler that started a worldwide war that killed over 60 million people. The end result of terrible reign was destruction of the world that took the lives of millions of people.

Hitler was similar to Stalin and Mussolini because he killed people that he didn't like. However, Hitler was the only leader whose goal was to eliminate an entire group of people.