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Comparison Of Hitler And Stalin 2 Essay, Research Paper
Comparison of Hitler and Stalin
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, were 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 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 industrialisation 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-organised 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.
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