Comparing Hitler And Stalin In Their Rise To Power. Essay, Research Paper

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.