Comparison Of Hitler And Stalin 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.